What happens if I fail a contract?
Verify in-game for your build — footage suggests lost time and the opportunity cost of tied-up goods rather than a cash penalty. Renegotiate with smaller jobs if your line cannot keep pace.
Ore Factory Squad Contracts Guide
Ore Factory Squad contracts guide: negotiation basics, delivery timing, loading bays, contracts vs stock sales, and early money routes. Verified July 2026.
Accepting contracts, tracking capacity, and delivering on time.
Ore Factory Squad contracts guide
Ore Factory Squad contracts pay you to deliver a specific list of processed goods by a deadline — usually the fastest early money compared to selling loose stock at the standard rate. Contracts are also the mechanic that ties everything else together: what you dig, what your machines process it into, and how fast your automation line can produce it.
This guide walks through accepting and tracking a contract, delivering it correctly with a loading bay or vehicle, and deciding when contracts beat plain stock sales for your squad's current goal — buying a license, a new property, or just staying solvent.
Accepting and negotiating contracts
Each contract lists a fixed goods requirement, a quantity, a payout, and a deadline — there is no haggling over price in the footage we reviewed. The real "negotiation" is deciding which contracts to accept: pick jobs that match what your current line can already produce, not the biggest payout on the board.
Overpromising is the single most common mistake new squads make. Accepting three contracts your factory cannot realistically finish blocks the cash you need for licenses and property, because unfinished contracts tie up goods without paying out.
Contract capacity and upgrades
How many contracts you can hold at once is itself an unlockable upgrade, alongside backpack size, detector range, and trading ability. Early on you may only be able to run one or two contracts at a time — check your upgrade menu before assuming the game is hiding jobs from you.
Progression is gated by an in-game level tied to total earnings and completed deliveries. Some contracts, properties, and upgrades stay locked until you cross a level threshold, so a single very large contract can matter more for unlocking the next tier than for the cash alone.
| Upgrade type | What it unlocks | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Contract capacity | Hold more accepted contracts at once | High — unlocks parallel income |
| Backpack / trading ability | Carry more goods per trip, better sell rates | Medium — quality of life early on |
| Detector / pickaxe | Find and extract ore faster to keep supply matching demand | High — feeds every contract |
Read the requirement before you dig
Switching ore or material mid-contract wastes belts and squad hours you cannot easily get back. If a contract wants cement and cement comes from limestone blocks, confirm your line is already set up for limestone — not stone or clay — before your squad spends the trip digging the wrong pit.
Delivery and loading
Once you have the requested goods, stack them onto the delivery pallet tied to that contract — it is visually marked so you do not confuse it with a regular stock pallet — and move it to the drop-off point with a forklift or truck. See vehicles for pallet and forklift basics if you are still hand-carrying.
Confirm the delivery from the contracts menu once everything is aboard; simply parking the pallet near the gate is not enough in the builds we reviewed. Forgetting this step is an easy way to waste a full supply run.
- Do01Match the requested material exactly — do not substitute a similar-looking resource
- Do02Load the flagged delivery pallet, not a general stock pallet
- Do03Move it with a forklift or truck rather than hand-carrying for large orders
- Do04Confirm delivery from the contracts menu after loading
- Do05Deliver the same day when possible — same-day completion has paid a fast-delivery bonus on top of the base payout in gameplay footage
Keep a buffer ahead of the deadline
Hold a small buffer of finished goods — a spare chest or a half-full warehouse pallet — one contract ahead of what you currently need. Squads that produce exactly to the requirement and no more end up stalling every negotiation cycle waiting on empty belts.
Contracts vs stock sales
Contracts: higher-value cash per unit, a hard deadline, and a clear build target — good when you know exactly what your line produces. Stock sales: flexible and always available, but priced lower per unit, so they are slower capital for anything beyond routine bills.
Early game favors accepting contracts for your first pickaxe, conveyor segments, and capacity upgrades — the deadline pressure is manageable when the required quantity is small. Late game mixes both: contracts for the big-ticket purchases like properties and licenses, stock sales to keep cash flowing between deliveries.
| Situation | Better choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Just started, small factory | Small contracts | Deadline pressure is low; payout beats stock rate |
| Line produces more than any single contract needs | Stock sales for the surplus | No point holding extra goods waiting for a matching job |
| Saving for a property or license | Contracts | Higher payout per unit reaches the threshold faster |
| Between deliveries, need quick cash | Stock sales | Always available, no deadline risk |
Level gates and why one big contract matters
Certain properties and upgrades stay locked until your squad's level crosses a threshold — in the demo, progress caps at level three and unlocks further in the full release. A single high-value contract can push you across that line faster than the equivalent amount from stock sales, because level appears tied to cumulative earnings and completed deliveries rather than raw cash on hand.
Verified July 19, 2026. Exact payout multipliers and level thresholds are needs-check until we can confirm them against a patched build.
Contracts FAQ
In multiplayer, who can accept or deliver a contract?
Any player in the squad can interact with the contracts menu — agree in voice chat before accepting so two people do not commit to conflicting jobs.
Can I hold multiple contracts at once?
Yes, up to a capacity limit that is itself an unlockable upgrade — check your upgrade menu if the board looks emptier than you expect.
Do contracts pay more than stock sales?
Generally yes per unit, especially with a same-day fast-delivery bonus, but stock sales are faster to convert when you already have surplus goods sitting in the warehouse.
Do I need a specific vehicle to deliver?
A forklift or truck speeds up bulk delivery, but the requirement is the flagged delivery pallet reaching the drop-off and being confirmed — see the vehicles hub for logistics options.
Related pages
Matched by build plan, shared topics, and guide progression — not random related links.