EG: General Store, Love nest.... well anything which isnt of the basic amenities.

Looked though various guides and walkthroughs and still can't find a solution.

Any ideas?


Thanks.

Are you sure you are referring to Hard Plan and not Technology crates?

Hard plan are these blue crate that contain a single blueprint of a room, once used, it's gone, if you want to build more rooms of that kind, you've got to buy more hard plans from a trader.

While Technology crates, which are green in color, once opened, gives you the ability to build the room (or manufacture it in your factory in case of skuzzer and goods technologies) as often as you want, at a cost. To build rooms acquired through Technology crates, simply right click on the ground and a menu will appear, listing the various rooms you can build.

They can only be opened on the deck where they can be built. General Store and Love Nest are only openeable on the mid-deck.

[EDIT 11 Feb:] Ummm, today I opened a statue crate on the mid-deck then placed the statue on the bio-deck, even though the crate can't be opened there...

I'm getting much the same issue. The game simply won't allow me to open hardplans of any sort of recreational or commercial building (love nests, shops, bars etc.). Nor does opening technology crates for these rooms actually unlock them.
I've tried opening the hardplans from every location I can think of and still no luck, which makes keeping visitors happy nearly impossible.

You have to move the crate up there (by clicking it then clicking the ground on the second or third floor) or sometimes having it in a cargo bay, the blueprint needs to be on the floor you're using it, even if you go in the right click menu and select the option saying hardpoints or something (the option that instead of finding the boxes means you can just use them.

Okay - it's an old thread but I just wanted to add another method: You may leave crates whereever they are and just go to the place you want them to be build. Then click the right mouse button and start the placing process by choosing the building through to item menue.
The item menue grows with every available object either hardplan or technology crate. This helps especially later on when your crates get carried to the rack thing on the first floor (sorry - played the german version, don't know the real name)

This is a *very* old thread, but I want to add that in mission 2, the merchant can sell you 2nd floor items from the beginning of the mission, but you will be absolutely unable to do anything with them until VAL suggests building some entertainment items and then quietly places some crates somewhere on the deck, and you find and open those crates- only then will the 2nd floor be accessible.