Frostpunk (PC)

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Gameplay Strategy Tips

It is not easy to survive the cold and ever-encroaching dread of freezing do death, but alas, all is not lost. With clever planning, beneficial use of scarce resources and some foresight you can get through all fine and dandy, no matter the circumstances. The game suffers a little bit from lack of proper information handling. There are some things that requite an informed red to understand or simple observation to make a conclusion. Below you will find a collection of hints and tips that made the game a breeze in its basic form - achievement hunting though requires different strategies and won't be covered here. Hopefully, these guidelines will help you win your first games. Here we go!

Build 2-3 Workshops
Yup. This one is the basic omittance of most new players. One workshop research rate is way, way too slow for you to get a handle of all them juicy technologies before the cold gets you. But every extra manned workshop speed it up significantly. (Bonus: If you can handle and man 4 Workshops, an achievement will be unlocked.)

Research additional Scout team and their Speed as soon as possible
Scout teams are crucial. They are pretty much your only way of getting new people and precious Steam Cores. They also often grant you lump sum of various resources and are important for various objective. Simply put, having two faster teams is a bare minimum.

Don't build only Tents / Bunkhouses in the first circle around the generator at the start of the game!

This one is often not a huge mistake but can be troublesome early on. Simply put, people will fall ill and your first medical post might be outside the ring of warmth, making it an issue to heal people up. Safe some place at the first ring of heat from your generator for the Medical Post. It will take some time to get enough coal for Steam Hubs / research extra heat range from Generator.

Understand Gathering Posts and Resource Depots
Gathering posts have a sphere of influence, and every resource pile within that sphere will be gathered at by workers put into the post. The benefits are multitude! First, you don't need to assign workers to a specific pile. Second, the building can (and should) be heated, cutting down time when workers walk in the cold, which makes them less prone to sickness. It also cuts down the workers travelling time between the piles and a resource drop-place. Resource Depots are a must as well. Sooner or later you will find your storages getting full, and any surplus production will be discarded. Resource Depots will take care of that - remember, that you don't have to keep it warm!

Thumpers need Gathering!
One of the most common mistake I see is lack of understanding how Coal Thumpers works. They are very beneficial, but workforce heavy. Their main benefits are cheap cost to produce (and no Steam Core needed!) and the fact, that they can be build anywhere (do not need a resource plot field). However, Thumpers do not produce coal straight to the storage, but instead create an ever-growing pile of coal in front of them (indicated by the 3 icons of coal on the building outline, when placing it). This pile need to be worked by workers or Automatons to gather the resource. The best way to doing so is by building Gathering Posts around the thumpers.

Micromanage - Disable and Dismantle
One of the key feature that is vastly underused is the ability to dismantle and disable buildings. A Sawmill run out of wood around its radius? Dismantle! You have stored rations for a week forward? Disable the Cookhouses and free these workers! Micromanagement allows you to maximize the productivity of your people and ensure the best usage of the precious ground around your Generator and Steam Hubs.

Automatons don't care about cold
So, you have your Coal mines, Wall Drills and Steelworks. They are also located near the wall, far, far away from your Generator. Sure, you can put Steam Hubs and put people to work, but why not use Automatons? They don't care for the cold and so you don't have to keep the workplaces warm at all.

Steam Hubs refuel Automatons
Alternatively, if your coal situation is good, building steam house need the major work nodes of your automatons will cut down their downtime, as they will walk to the nearest Steam Hub to refuel.

Build Outposts early... Or not at all
Outposts are very powerful and generate an easy, steady influx of resources, which is splendid. Unfortunately, in the main scenario they will not work during the incoming Storm - so either get them early to benefit from the stream of extra income, or just ignore them whatsoever.

No bad way to make coal but be dedicated to a way you pick
Coal Thumpers, Coal Mines, Kilns... All these methods work and are more than enough to provide you coal through thick and thin, but once you decide on your method, I'd advice to keep a focus on it and not experiment or shift to another one during the game. It might not be a mistake, and might even be a satisfactory progress, but usually the extra time needed to gather new resources to build new buildings, research way more Resource techs and provide extra Steam Cores for the advanced buildings to function... It is oft not worth it, unless your city has a massive population and require enormous resource banks.

Extended Shift > 24 Hours Emergency Shift
Pushing laws into Extended Shift is one of the great benefits you can get. When Emergency Shift can save you in a pinch, it produces amazing amount of discontent, have some nasty events plausible to trigger and is put on a cooldown after use. Extended Shift though expands workhours for any of your workshops by a hefty 4 hours. You have full control which building will get extended shift, it has no cooldown and discontent gained by pushing your workforce like that is not too straining. Putting Workshops on lengthy shifts, for example, can vastly speed up your research!

There is no Heat Zone overlapping
So whenever you place a new steam Hub, make sure there is no overlap to cover the most land that was previously unheated.

Some powerful early laws include:
Child Labor (Gain 15 workers instantly at the start of the game. Shelter is great for later game, but this first kicstart is pretty massive). Sustain Life (It is troublesome at first, but it limits the number of Amputees and reduce the amount of people biting the dust - later in game you will gain technologies and buildings that will be able to heal the sick properly, retaining your workforce). Double Rations (With good Raw Food output it is rare to suffer from rations issues. Double Rations significantly reduce the time needed for ill people to get better, which is crucial in ensuring your workforce efficiency). Fighting Arena (Cheap, simple, quick and effortless way to reduce discontent). Faster Gathering (Cheap tech that can be useful entire game, if you rely on Thumpers for Coal).

Overdrive<->Steam Level juggle
In a tight spot when the coal is draining out and massive cold takes over, you need to learn a simple technique of Juggling the two settings of your Generator. With a proper tech (Overdrive Couplings) putting your Generator into Overdrive rise the temperature in its heat zone by 2 levels, nearly instantly. That means you can reduce your Generator Steam Level by two when the Overdrive is on. Then, when Generator Stress is getting dangerous, be sure to NOT turn it off yet, but first raise the Steam Level to the one you need and give it a bit of time before it heats up to that level. Than disable the Overdrive and let it cool. You can efficiently manage this two settings to significantly manage your coal burning.

Houses are powerful as heck
And last one for now. Houses. Gosh you want houses. Houses + House Insulation tech gives a huge passive Heat level for your living places, greatly reducing the requirements for your Generator heat output to keep them above the freezing level even at the most outrageous cold.

Keyboard Controls

Book Of Laws L
Camera Backward: S - Down arrow
Camera Centre: C
Camera Forward: W - Up Arrow
Construction Panel: B
Decrease Game Speed: 2
Economy Panel: V
Efficiency Trackers: Left ALT
Increase Game Speed: 3
Pan Left: A - Left arrow
Pan Right: D - Right arrow
Pause: Spacebar
Reset Game Speed: 1
Rotate Left: Q - Delete
Rotate Right: E - End
Technology Tree:T
Temperature Overlay: O
Toggle World Map: Home
Tutorial Summary: H
Zoom In: Page Up - Scroll wheel up
Zoom Out: Page Down - Scroll wheel down

Playthrough Strategy Tips

Tip 1: Learn to micro hunters/miners.
Tip 2: You don't need to power up the generator before day 4 temperature drop; on day 4 use the heaters in the workplaces don't bother with steam hub keep the steel for tech.
Tip 3: Always use emergency shift and foreman on all your workshops (All game).
Tip 4: One active hub should be all you need until late game; offline hub can still be used by the automaton to refuel.
Tip 5: Rush scouting for extra manpower and to unlock Telsa city (Steam Core outpost) as soon as you can; research the faster outpost tech just before you send scout to Telsa.
Tip 6: Disassemble the automaton you find at the steel bridge and use the steam core on coal mines.
Tip 7: Build tents only and rush the generator range upgrade to skip the bunkhouse, keep the wood and steel for tech and don't bother upgrading to houses before super late when you are
Tip 8: swimming in resources.
Tip 9: You should have 16 workshops (80 engineers for a while) working 6-20 (280%) to power you up in the tech tree. Build a new workshop as soon as new engineers are rescued.
Tip 10: Rush sawmill (x2), steelworks (x2), coal mines (x3), and upgrade them to steam asap they are more efficient and warmer so you don't need to use the heater or any steam hub.
Tip 11: Don't bother with automaton until your city grows stall at 20 days or so (Mid game) and you have every production building to the last level, then you can start pumping out automaton to replace the workers on the building listed above.
Tip 12: Foreman works with building with automaton but agitator do not.
Tip 13: You want engineers in infirmary, not an automaton; always use the extra ration for the ill.
Tip 14: You can use one extra steam core (or child) to repair the generator critical level during the storm.

Survive The Final Storm

Preparation: Just before storm comes stop gathering wood, steel and assign automates to hospitals. Build more hospitals for each automaton you have to spare.

Try to keep some cores to spare, so stack 2-3 of them or at least 1.

You can disassamble workshops if they finished crucial research plan for the storm. The same goes for mines and other things that give you precious resources like cores or is close to the generator and is not needed anymore. Build houses in their places instead.

Unassign all people from all labors and keep them in homes. Turn off heaters from all workplaces.

Remember your scouts and camps. Don't waste scouts and camps. Turn them back home and don't forget to disassemble this groups or they will die even when in town when the storm hits.

Managing the deaths. When cold start killing people turn of houses (by clicking on them and on top right corner there is turn off button) that are on outskirts of the city and they will automatically jump to houses that are closer to the core. Do this until you will see sign that there are homeless people then start to reassign homes that are nearest to the core. Do this with pause button or they will get sick.

Final word: This will be a genesis. You will be desperate. Regarding laws most likely you will not succeed here without fully developed religion or order path. You may not like the final law on each path - I get it. You can try to do it without it, but keep it in reserve and establish this law if there is no other hope.

Various Gameplay Tips

You can build roads to the starting piles to increase the speed that your people gather at, be wary that roads are not free and cost Wood. Buildings prefer having roads connecting them together for maximum efficiency due to workers not having to walk through snow. So a nice early "tip" would be to build a road around your first layer of buildings so that any buildings you connect to the second ring already have roads.

To conduct any sort of research in Frostpunk you need to construct a Workshop, getting one up as early as you can is extremely recommended since you can increase your peoples abilities at gathering, unlocking new buildings and upgrades to help you tackle the cold.

Gathering Post Is a small early game building that works in a radius, inside of the radius any piles of resources it finds it will start gathering, assuming there are people assigned to the building. Very handy to construct if you got 2-3 piles of resources nearby but do not have the manpower for all the piles.

Early research building that will provide a small heat zone once constructed, each Steam Hub consumes about half as much coal as the Generator so be careful to not over spam them.

Various Steam Achievements

Complete the indicated task to unlock the achievement.

AchievementHow to unlock
Advanced DesignsHave an Advanced Coal Mine, Advanced Wall Drill and Advanced Steelworks at the same time
Autonomous CityIn a city of at least 200, have automatons working in more than half of workplaces
Bad at PoliticsKeep every promise made during a playthrough
BanksyUnknown.
Better than LondonFinish a playthrough without building a single Tent
Bread and GamesIn a city of at least 200 people, ensure everyone has access to the Public House and a Fighting Arena
Built to ServeBuild an automaton
CarnivoreHaving a choice, finish a scenario using only Hunters
Central HeatingFinish a scenario without building a single Steam Hub
CharcoaledFinish a playthrough with Charcoal Kilns as the only buildings that provide Coal
City of ManHave more than 650 people in the city at the same time
City of SteamHave 15 automatons at the same time
CompassionateIn the New Home scenario, accept all groups of refugees
ConservationistSave all the Seedling Arks in The Arks scenario
Everybody Lived for OnceUnknown.
ExpatsSet up 2 Outposts in one playthrough
Golden PathUnknown.
HyperefficientHave a workplace with efficiency greater than ... [200%]
Iron Man (New Home)Finish the New Home scenario on Hard difficulty
Iron Man (Refugees)Finish the Refugees scenario on Hard difficulty
Iron Man (The Arks)Finish The Arks scenario on Hard difficulty
LeaderFinish the New Home scenario
Lost SoulsIn the New Home scenario, save every person in Frostland
My Turn to SpeakUnknown.
NegotiatorUnknown.
Once More unto the BreachProvide an amputee with a prosthesis
OxbridgeHave 4 Workshops doing research at the same time
Please, Sir, I Want Some MoreUnknown.
PoliticianStay in power after your people threatened to overthrow you
Power OverwhelmingHave a fully upgraded Generator (power, range and overdrive)
Promised LandHave maximum hope and no discontent
RefugeeFinish the Refugees scenario
SatellitesFinish a scenario never expanding the range of the Generator
Search and RescueRescue all of your people coming to the City
Shai Hulud SummonerHave 4 Coal Thumpers working at the same time
SprinterUnknown.
TechnocratFinish The Arks scenario
The Iron SaviourFinish the New Home scenario with no deaths from cold, hunger, sickness or overwork on Hard difficulty
The SaviourFinish the New Home scenario with no deaths from cold, hunger, sickness or overwork
The Scientific Method, vol. 1Unknown.
The Scientific Method, vol. 2Unknown.
The UnionUnknown.
Tis but a ScratchFinish a playthrough without an Infirmary or House of Healing
UnitedIn the New Home scenario, don't let anyone leave for London
Unknown ShipUnknown.
Unskilled LabourFinish any scenario without constructing Steam or Advanced buildings
Urban PlannerHave 300 people living in the heat zone of a single Steam Hub
VegetarianHaving a choice, finish a scenario using only Hothouses
Worse than LondonFinish a playthrough without building a single House or Bunkhouse