Schedule I: Beginner-to-Kingpin Guide

This guide covers Schedule I from the motel room to running Hyland Point. It explains the product chain, mixing, properties and employees, dealers, police heat, the Benzies cartel, and how to scale your income without getting busted.

Researched September 2026 — current as of the v0.4.6 controller update (July 8, 2026, early access). Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

• You start broke in a motel in Northtown. Uncle Nelson has been arrested, and his tutorial calls walk you through your first grow. Follow them. They teach the basic loop.
• The loop is grow or cook, package, and sell. Fill the customer text requests on your phone, meet them, and hand off product. Every sale raises your XP and rank.
• Rank unlocks everything. New items, seeds, stations, and regions unlock as you climb from Street Rat through Kingpin. Each rank has five tiers (I to V).
• Mixing multiplies value. Mixing product with cheap store ingredients adds effects that raise the sell price. This is the single biggest money lever in the game.
• Customers have preferences. Each customer likes certain effects and has a quality expectation. Matching them makes them more likely to buy and to recommend you to friends.
• Watch the curfew and police. Deals at night during curfew and carrying product near cops are risky. Keep your cash and product at home when you can.
• Recruit dealers early. Dealers sell for you while you produce. Benji is your first one in Northtown.
• Launder your cash. Dirty cash can't buy some things. Buy a front business (like the Laundromat) to convert it into bank money.
• Hire employees to automate. Botanists, Chemists, Handlers, and Cleaners let you scale beyond what one player can do by hand.
• Co-op makes everything faster. Up to four players can share a save. Split roles: one grows, one mixes, one runs deals.

The Product Chain

Product | How it's made | Unlocks | Notes

Weed (OG Kush) | Plant seed in soil, water, harvest, dry optional, package | Start | Cheap, easy, your first income

Sour Diesel | Seed | Street Rat IV | Better base effects than OG Kush

Green Crack | Seed | Hoodlum II | Energizing effect, good mixing base

Granddaddy Purple | Seed | Hoodlum IV | Sedating effect, good mixing base

Meth | Chemistry Station, then Lab Oven | Chemistry Station and Lab Oven at Peddler I | Needs Acid, Phosphorus, and Pseudo. Higher-quality Pseudo gives better meth

Cocaine | Grow Coca, process leaves with Gasoline in the Cauldron, finish in the Lab Oven | Cauldron at Enforcer I | Highest base price, most complex chain

Shrooms | Spawn and cultivation equipment | Added in v0.4.2 (December 2025) | A newer product line with its own setup

Rank unlocks are from community rank lists. They may shift slightly between updates, so check your phone's rank screen in-game.

Packaging

• Baggies hold 1 unit and Jars hold 5. Jars save time when you're selling bulk.
• The Packaging Station (and Mk II from Hoodlum V) packages faster. The Brick Press at Bagman V makes bricks for large orders.
• Customers pay per unit, so the packaging only affects speed and handling, not profit.

Mixing

Mixing is where the money is. You add one ingredient at a time at a Mixing Station (Hoodlum I). Each ingredient adds an effect and can transform existing effects into new ones. The sell price depends on the base product price multiplied by the value of the effects stacked on it.

Premium effects to aim for (highest multipliers in community databases):

Effect | Rough multiplier

Shrinking | 0.60

Zombifying | 0.58

Cyclopean | 0.56

Anti-Gravity | 0.54

Example from community testing: Cocaine with Shrinking, Cyclopean, Long-Faced, and Athletic sells for around $450 per unit.

Mixing tips:

• Ingredients come from Gas-Mart and similar shops: things like Cuke, Banana, Paracetamol, Donut, Energy Drink, Mouth Wash, Motor Oil, Mega Bean, Chili, Battery, Iodine, Addy, Horse Semen, Flu Medicine, and Gasoline.
• A product can hold up to 8 effects.
• Order matters. The same ingredients in a different order can give a completely different result.
• v0.4.5 added seeded mixing. Check the in-game tooltip and the Anniversary Update patch notes for exactly how it works in your version.
• Name and save your best mixes in the product manager so you can repeat them.
• Use a community mixing calculator while learning.

Properties and Businesses

Properties give you more space for production.

Property | Why it's useful

Motel room | Starting base, very small

Sweatshop | Cheap first upgrade in Northtown

Storage Unit | Small space for early grows

Bungalow | Mid-game grow house with room for stations

Barn | Large rural space for big grows

Docks Warehouse | Endgame, very large production space

Businesses are money-laundering fronts. Examples: Laundromat, Post Office, Car Wash, and Taco Ticklers. Each has a daily laundering limit. Buy the cheapest one first, then add more as your income grows.

Prices vary between patches. Check the property listings in-game.

Employees

Employee | Job

Botanist | Plants, waters, and harvests grow tents or pots

Chemist | Runs Chemistry Stations, Lab Ovens, and Cauldrons

Handler | Moves product between stations and packages it

Cleaner | Empties trash so the property doesn't fill with junk

• Employees need a bed at the property and a daily wage. Pay them from the briefcase.
• Assign stations to each employee with the management clipboard. v0.4.6 shows the assigned employee's name on management pop-ups, which makes setups easier to check.
• Sprinklers (including the Big Sprinkler from v0.4.5, now in Oscar's store) reduce watering work for Botanists.

Selling, Dealers, and Customers

• Customers text you with requests. You can counter offer the price. Pushing too hard lowers the chance they accept.
• Addiction and quality raise demand. Happier customers recommend your product to their contacts, which unlocks new customers.
• Dealers each have a set number of customers in a region. Give them product and they sell it over time. You collect their cut plus your cash from their stash.
• Keep each dealer stocked with the product their customers prefer.
• Suppliers (seed, pseudo, and coca suppliers) unlock as you meet the right contacts and rank up. They deliver to dead drops.
• v0.4.5 added a reorder delivery button, which saves time on repeated supply orders.

Regions

Regions unlock as you rank up and as you push back the cartel:

Region | Unlocked around

Northtown | Start

Westville | Hoodlum I

Downtown | Hustler I

Docks | Enforcer I

Suburbia | Block Boss I

Uptown | Baron I

Since the cartel update, rank alone isn't enough. The Benzies have influence in Downtown, the Docks, Suburbia, and Uptown. You also need to reduce their influence in a region (community guides give a rough threshold; watch the region's influence meter) to unlock it.

The Benzies Cartel

• Thomas Benzies will eventually offer you a truce: you supply them with regular product quotas, and they leave you alone.
• Refusing or breaking the truce means war. Expect ambushes, attacks on your dealers, and graffiti in contested areas.
• You reduce cartel influence by selling in their regions, clearing their graffiti, and beating their gangs and ambushes.
• The endgame finishes with pushing the Benzies out of Hyland Point, including a final mission at their compound.

Police and Heat

• Police patrol more during the curfew (usually late at night). Being out during curfew is suspicious.
• Being caught carrying product can get you arrested, which costs you your product and some money.
• Your wanted level goes up if you run, fight, or get caught. Break line of sight and hide to lose it.
• Weapons: the Revolver (Hustler III) and M1911 (Enforcer I) help against cartel ambushes. v0.4.5 added a Golden M1911 and a headshot multiplier.
• Weather (v0.4.4) matters. Rainy deals give a cash bonus, and police AI changed with the weather update.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Selling plain product for too long. Even one or two mixing ingredients can greatly increase your per-unit price.
• Over-counter-offering. Customers who reject you lose happiness and may stop buying.
• Forgetting employee wages and beds. Unpaid or bedless employees don't work.
• Carrying all your cash and product on you. An arrest or death costs you a lot. Leave extras at home.
• Letting your dealers run dry. A dealer with no product earns nothing.
• Ignoring the cartel. In later regions, cartel influence blocks your progress even if your rank is high enough.

Advanced Tips

• Pick one "signature" mix per product and automate it end-to-end with a Handler and a Chemist or Botanist.
• Stack dealers across regions so you're always selling while you're producing.
• Build a Docks Warehouse endgame setup. Once you have Cocaine and good mixes, the Docks Warehouse can handle a full production line.
• Deal in the rain for the bonus.
• Keep the laundering pipeline full. Your businesses have daily limits, so buy enough of them to launder your daily income.
• Try controller support. v0.4.6 added full controller support with Xbox and PlayStation prompts.

FAQ

Is Schedule I finished? No. It's in early access. Updates are free, and there is no paid DLC so far. MDMA, Heroin, drivers, fishing, and map expansions are on the roadmap but not scheduled as of v0.4.6.

How many players can play co-op? Up to 4 players can share a save.

How do I unlock Westville? Reach Hoodlum I.

What's the best product for money? Cocaine has the highest base price, and it scales best with premium effects. Meth is a strong mid-game option.

How do I launder money? Buy a front business (for example, the Laundromat), then deposit dirty cash into it. Each business has a daily limit.

How do I beat the Benzies? Push their influence down in each region, survive their ambushes, and complete the endgame mission. Or take the truce and supply them if you'd rather avoid fighting for a while.

Sources

• Schedule I Update Guide 2026 (Switchblade Gaming)
• Schedule I (Wikipedia)
• All Schedule 1 ranks and unlocks in order (Shacknews)
• Schedule 1 Anniversary Update Patch Notes (The Game Haus)
• Schedule I Patches and Updates (SteamDB)
• Schedule 1: How To Unlock Westville (Deltia's Gaming)
• Best Schedule 1 Mixing Recipes by District (XGamingServer)