Crimson Desert Facility Tier: How to Reach Premium

To increase the Facility Tier in Crimson Desert, you place more and better installables (workstations, storage, waiting tables and furniture) inside a leased business and staff it with skilled Greymane comrades, because the tier is calculated from the skill points of your installables plus your workers' skill bonus. Climbing it matters because the Level 4 Popularity goal for each business asks you to reach the Premium Facility Tier, and a higher tier makes customers accept goods they would otherwise dislike. Everything below applies to the management system that arrived with the Charting the Unknown DLC and patch 2.04.00, as of November 2026.

We checked this against Pearl Abyss's 2.04.00 and 2.01.00 patch notes, the Charting the Unknown store page on Steam, GameRant's facilities guide, a full Renewed Vitality walkthrough and the gaming.tools management database in November 2026.

What the Facility Tier Actually Measures

Facilities are the business side of Charting the Unknown. Pearl Abyss's 2.04.00 notes describe renting a liberated stronghold to run a restaurant, sawmill, smithy or tailor's shop, with a new Facilities tab on the world map and businesses that keep operating while you are away. Because the feature is part of the paid expansion, it only appears once the DLC is installed alongside the free base game update.

Inside each business there are two separate progress tracks, and players mix them up constantly. Popularity is the level you see on the management screen, and it rises when customers buy goods they react to positively. Facility Tier is a quality rating for the shop itself. According to the Renewed Vitality walkthrough, the skill points carried by your placed installables and the skill bonus from the comrades you employ add up to decide the tier, and a higher tier improves customer satisfaction. GameRant describes the practical effect the same way: as the tier rises, goods that would normally draw a negative customer response are received more favorably, which lets you charge more without losing reputation.

The gaming.tools database, which reads its data from game version 2.04.00, lists four tier thresholds for the Timberham Sawmill and the Tashkalp restaurant: 8, 40, 100 and 220 points. The in-game objective text only names one of those tiers outright, Premium, as the target for Popularity Level 4. We could not find a source that reliably names every tier, so treat the thresholds as the useful number and watch the meter on the management screen rather than chasing labels.

Unlocking Your First Facility

Every guide we checked starts in the same place: the Timberham Sawmill west of Hernand Town. GameRant says the first facility opens through the Stilled Saw quest after you finish Chapter 3, when you pick up the sawmill notice from the bounty board in Hernand. The walkthrough lists it under Faction Quests, Greymanes, Charting the Unknown, as the opening of the Renewed Vitality questline, followed by The Saw Turns Again.

1. Take the Timberham Sawmill lease poster from the Hernand notice board to finish The Stilled Saw.
2. Open the map, switch to the Facilities tab and select Timberham Sawmill.
3. Lease it with the Triangle, Y or left mouse prompt and confirm.
4. Walk to the site to open the management menu: Open Shop, Manage Goods, Manage Staff, Place Installables, Change Name and Guides.

The lease price is one of the places sources disagree. GameRant quotes the quest's own option to lease the sawmill for 15,000 Camp Funds, while the gaming.tools entry lists an opening cost of 20,000 Camp Funds. Budget for the higher figure so you are not caught short. Pearl Abyss's October 20 feature overview adds that other businesses, such as a restaurant in Vellua or a smithy at Zargan Tankworks, become available once you have liberated the relevant region through its faction quest and finished setting up the Greymane camp.

Raising the Tier With Installables and Skilled Staff

Installables are the main lever. They are placed from the Place Installables option, and the walkthrough notes two catches: each piece costs Camp Provisions to place, and you must learn its recipe before it shows up. At the sawmill that means Timber Storage, wooden racks and boxes, a workstation and, later, plank workbenches and plank boxes. The plank pieces come from a book called Building with Planks, which is the reward for Popularity Level 2.

GameRant warns that some installables do not count toward the tier meter at all, so check the meter after each placement rather than filling the floor blindly. The database also shows that most station types come in more than one grade, for example a Crude Workstation and a Sturdy Workstation, or a Crude Plank Workbench and a Precision Plank Workbench. Swapping a crude piece for its better version is the cleanest way to add points without running out of floor space.

Staff are the second lever. The sawmill employs Carpenters, who use the Crafting skill, and Sawyers, who use Logging. The database lists four Carpenter slots and two Sawyer slots at full size, with a hire cost of 1,000 Camp Funds plus 10 for every skill point the comrade has. GameRant adds that comrades with higher Crafting and Logging skills work more efficiently but cost more in daily wages, and suggests keeping at least one worker at skill level 3 in each category. A strong worker therefore pushes the tier up in two ways at once: through the comrade skill bonus and by finishing goods faster.

• Do not overbuild stations. GameRant's advice is to keep workstation count at or below the number of staff who can actually use them.
• Match stations to goods. Plank items need plank workstations, so a sawmill without them cannot sell its better furniture.
• Upgrade before you expand. A higher grade station adds tier points in the same footprint.

The Popularity Ladder and Where Premium Appears

The gaming.tools data lays out each level's conditions, and the Renewed Vitality walkthrough confirms the early ones in play. At the Timberham Sawmill the path looks like this:

1. Level 2: activate the wood synergy, place a standing (waiting) table and satisfy customers three times. Reward: Building with Planks.
2. Level 3: read the plank book, place a plank workbench and a plank box, then sell plank goods 10 times. This completes The Saw Turns Again.
3. Level 4: reach the Premium Facility Tier, satisfy customers 30 times and sell furniture 50 times. Rewards include a Wooden Gerbera Hanging Planter blueprint and A Carpenter's Guide to Sawmill Expansion.
4. Level 5: place three workstations, activate the furniture synergy at level 3, satisfy customers 50 times and welcome a special guest once. Reward: the Woodworking Artisan's Seal.

The Tashkalp restaurant follows the same template with food in place of furniture: its Level 4 goal is also the Premium Facility Tier plus 30 satisfied customers, but the sales target is 50 meat goods. So whichever business you lease, the tier requirement lands at the same point, right after the questline that teaches you the basics. If you stall there, the fix is almost always more or better installables rather than more sales.

Pricing, Synergies and Customer Response

A higher tier only pays off if your prices take advantage of it. Each good carries tags, and selling several goods with the same tag stacks a bonus. At the sawmill, the database lists the Plank tag raising selling prices by 10, 20, 30 and 40 percent at two, three, four and six goods sold, the Furniture and Cabinet tags raising satisfaction rate by up to 70 percent, and the Premium tag adding up to 30 percent more customers. Practical goods add Popularity directly, and Classic goods raise the chance of a special guest, which you need for Level 5.

GameRant's author found that customers will buy almost anything, so the profitable pattern is to stack at least two strong synergies, keep three goods priced to earn a positive or favorable response, and run one deliberately overpriced item. The Popularity lost on that item is recovered by the others. That approach works much better once your Facility Tier is high, because the tier softens how customers react to expensive goods in the first place. Keep an eye on the patience bar too: customers who wait too long simply leave, which is why the Weapons tag's patience bonus and a waiting table matter early on.

Funding the Climb

Facility upgrades eat two camp currencies. Camp Funds pay for the lease and for hiring staff, while Camp Provisions pay for every installable you place. GameRant reports earning 199,101 Camp Funds over 47 in-game hours from a Popularity 3 sawmill, so a running business does refund its own costs once it is established. Be aware that patch 2.04.02 fixed earnings from management facilities that could increase abnormally, so very high income figures posted in the first days after launch may not be repeatable now.

The other route into Camp Funds is Silver. Patch 2.01.00 increased the Camp Funds you receive from donating Silver to the camp by ten times, which turned donations into a practical way to bankroll a lease, a round of skilled hires or a new ship. If you are weighing where those Camp Funds go next, our guide to getting a ship in Crimson Desert covers the purchase prices, and the guide to building your own house with Free Construction explains how Camp Provisions are spent on home modules too. Gold Bars are the other long-term store of value, and our Gold Bar locations guide covers where to find them and how the bank treats them.

Facilities also tie into the social side of the expansion. Camp festivals bring visiting NPCs, and some of them can be hired as Honorary Greymanes, which is another source of staff for dispatches. Our romance and marriage guide explains how those festival visits speed up Trust as well.

Topping Up Silver for Camp Funds

If the Silver side of this is what slows you down, the store's Crimson Desert Silver listing offers set pack sizes from 1,000 up to a 999,999 max stack, chosen from a dropdown on the page. After checkout the team emails you to arrange a short delivery window, with a typical turnaround of about 5 to 30 minutes once they begin. The listing also points out that Silver can be converted into Gold Bars at the bank whenever you choose, and it does not name specific platforms, so confirm your setup before ordering.

You can see the Crimson Desert Silver packs here, or browse every other service for the game on the Crimson Desert services hub.

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