Early Game Food

[dresoccer4]

First time player here. I have 2 bug farm set up, but they produce so little food I feel like I'm missing something. I have 200 people, and the bug farms only produce 1 food per cycle.

How is the math on this supposed to work out? I need 20 food to feed everyone, so I need 20 bug famrs? That seems excessive. looking for tips here

[Forblaze]

1 food per cycle, but people only eat every 5 cycles and 1 food feeds 10 people. So each insect farm supports 50 pops.

After you unlock the final ring of tech, you can get a meal hall upgrade that lets 1 food feed 2 people, so then 1 insect farm will support 100 people. There are also two upgrades to the insect farm's production speed, so each will support 130 people.

I never felt the need to switch off of insect farms until the end of chapter 3.

[dresoccer4]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

1 food per cycle, but people only eat every 5 cycles and 1 food feeds 10 people. So each insect farm supports 50 pops.

After you unlock the final ring of tech, you can get a meal hall upgrade that lets 1 food feed 2 people, so then 1 insect farm will support 100 people. There are also two upgrades to the insect farm's production speed, so each will support 130 people.

I never felt the need to switch off of insect farms until the end of chapter 3.

ok gotcha so I just need 4 farms starting out. thanks

[Amanoob105]

Another thing that can help is researching, and then building one of in each sector, is the DLS center.
One of the options within lets you use more food to feel less people at a cost of -1 to stability (the building itself adds a +1 to stability, that can be turned into a +2).

[dresoccer4]

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

Another thing that can help is researching, and then building one of in each sector, is the DLS center.
One of the options within lets you use more food to feel less people at a cost of -1 to stability (the building itself adds a +1 to stability, that can be turned into a +2).

thanks, i'm not far enough to have that yet but i'll keep an eye out for it

[Porygon]

Great questions OP!

Food is one of the two "truly necessary" resources in the game (the other being Alloy). If you can break even with these two resources (preferably store more than you use up) you are probably doing fine.

You're right, 2 insect farms won't feed your crew beyond the very earliest part of the game. Before you unlock advanced food production methods, which require Water, I typically build 5 to 6 Insect Farms per Sector. Also, one of the very first techs you should aim for is the first tech that increases Insect Farm food production (I'm sorry, I forget the name now).

Do you know that you need to research all the buildings in one "ring" of tech before unlocking the next ring? I believe the first Insect Farm tech will unlock after you get past the first ring, although it's been a minute since I played the game. Tech Items (mostly buildings, but also your Ships etc) will get additional upgrades made available as you unlock more rings of tech.

Anyway, when you get the first Insect Farm upgrade, you will notice that your Insect Farm buildings now produce 1.1 Food per cycle. This seems paltry, but if you run 5 Insect Farms, that's an additional Food every two cycles. That adds up quickly. It helps you to plan ahead and store more Food, which can carry you while you plan for more Food production.

[dresoccer4]

Originally posted by Porygon:

Great questions OP!

Food is one of the two "truly necessary" resources in the game (the other being Alloy). If you can break even with these two resources (preferably store more than you use up) you are probably doing fine.

You're right, 2 insect farms won't feed your crew beyond the very earliest part of the game. Before you unlock advanced food production methods, which require Water, I typically build 5 to 6 Insect Farms per Sector. Also, one of the very first techs you should aim for is the first tech that increases Insect Farm food production (I'm sorry, I forget the name now).

Do you know that you need to research all the buildings in one "ring" of tech before unlocking the next ring? I believe the first Insect Farm tech will unlock after you get past the first ring, although it's been a minute since I played the game. Tech Items (mostly buildings, but also your Ships etc) will get additional upgrades made available as you unlock more rings of tech.

Anyway, when you get the first Insect Farm upgrade, you will notice that your Insect Farm buildings now produce 1.1 Food per cycle. This seems paltry, but if you run 5 Insect Farms, that's an additional Food every two cycles. That adds up quickly. It helps you to plan ahead and store more Food, which can carry you while you plan for more Food production.

good info, thanks. i got pretty good at Frostpunk and I'm seeing a lot of similarities here. Planning ahead for unknown future being one of them. I'm stocking up my food as much as I can!

[Porygon]

As your population will just keep increasing throughout the game, you can't go wrong stocking up Food!

Other than that, except for the very last chapter of the game (you'll know when you see it, no spoilers from me!) you are generally under less time pressure than the game likes to tell you.

Iron and therefore Alloy is kind of the other limiting factor along with Ice (to make Water to make Food). Don't worry about Ice just yet until later in chapter 2, when you will unlock the Fusion Center.

As a general rule of thumb as long as you are scanning for, mining, collecting and refining *Iron* and *Ice*, you can keep stalling out the game and pushing back against time pressure. Because those two resources will allow you to respond to everything else - hunger, stability, producing other resources...

[dresoccer4]

Originally posted by Porygon:

As your population will just keep increasing throughout the game, you can't go wrong stocking up Food!

Other than that, except for the very last chapter of the game (you'll know when you see it, no spoilers from me!) you are generally under less time pressure than the game likes to tell you.

Iron and therefore Alloy is kind of the other limiting factor along with Ice (to make Water to make Food). Don't worry about Ice just yet until later in chapter 2, when you will unlock the Fusion Center.

As a general rule of thumb as long as you are scanning for, mining, collecting and refining *Iron* and *Ice*, you can keep stalling out the game and pushing back against time pressure. Because those two resources will allow you to respond to everything else - hunger, stability, producing other resources...

good stuff

[Leaf™]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

1 food per cycle, but people only eat every 5 cycles and 1 food feeds 10 people. So each insect farm supports 50 pops.

After you unlock the final ring of tech, you can get a meal hall upgrade that lets 1 food feed 2 people, so then 1 insect farm will support 100 people. There are also two upgrades to the insect farm's production speed, so each will support 130 people.

I never felt the need to switch off of insect farms until the end of chapter 3.

Really? Swapping to crop farms as soon as I got them was a game changer, a lot more efficient on pops than having like 15 insect farms.

[Porygon]

I found it helpful to keep at least a few Insect Farms around almost to the very end of the game - all the other Food production methods are absolutely necessary and very powerful, but require tons of Water or Waste to run. Insect Farms require no inputs other than Power and workers - a slow trickle of "free" food really helps.

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by Leaf™:

Really? Swapping to crop farms as soon as I got them was a game changer, a lot more efficient on pops than having like 15 insect farms.

Yeah, I've been replaying the game on hard and an early switch to crops is actually definitely the way to go. I didn't mind the extra pops needed to work the insect farms but the waste crops produce is pretty significant.

[Amanoob105]

Originally posted by Leaf™:

Really? Swapping to crop farms as soon as I got them was a game changer, a lot more efficient on pops than having like 15 insect farms.

Originally posted by Porygon:

I found it helpful to keep at least a few Insect Farms around almost to the very end of the game - all the other Food production methods are absolutely necessary and very powerful, but require tons of Water or Waste to run. Insect Farms require no inputs other than Power and workers - a slow trickle of "free" food really helps.

I find I agree with both of these.
Crop farms are a game changer when up and running, but insect farms don't outright loose their place. Crop farms are the where the main supply comes from, while insect farms just help to keep the levels topped off until the next bulk harvest.

However in my case I'll also have mushroom farms located on the other half of the station, in the recycling sector.
Partly to help even out the supply to the whole station and take some of the load off of the farming sector and partly because the tier 2 recycling specialisation is one of the best in the game. Which in turn is both easier/cheaper to get with mushroom walls and it's a bit of a waste to not take advantage of that part of the bonus.

Back to crop farms I'm a greater fan of the crop farm itself over the algae farm. While I know the algae farm does produce more food for the water used, the crop farm also makes more waste. Which an upgrade to be able to make even more.
Which can then be used for anything else I need or, like I said above, just even more food.

[dresoccer4]

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

Originally posted by Leaf™:

Really? Swapping to crop farms as soon as I got them was a game changer, a lot more efficient on pops than having like 15 insect farms.

Originally posted by Porygon:

I found it helpful to keep at least a few Insect Farms around almost to the very end of the game - all the other Food production methods are absolutely necessary and very powerful, but require tons of Water or Waste to run. Insect Farms require no inputs other than Power and workers - a slow trickle of "free" food really helps.

I find I agree with both of these.
Crop farms are a game changer when up and running, but insect farms don't outright loose their place. Crop farms are the where the main supply comes from, while insect farms just help to keep the levels topped off until the next bulk harvest.

However in my case I'll also have mushroom farms located on the other half of the station, in the recycling sector.
Partly to help even out the supply to the whole station and take some of the load off of the farming sector and partly because the tier 2 recycling specialisation is one of the best in the game. Which in turn is both easier/cheaper to get with mushroom walls and it's a bit of a waste to not take advantage of that part of the bonus.

Back to crop farms I'm a greater fan of the crop farm itself over the algae farm. While I know the algae farm does produce more food for the water used, the crop farm also makes more waste. Which an upgrade to be able to make even more.
Which can then be used for anything else I need or, like I said above, just even more food.

i'm only on chapter 1 with 2 sectors opened so don't know what 90% of what you're talking about haha. this game sounds insanely complex

[GLDragon54]

Tip: take you cursor over to the food bar on the top of the screen and a little popup will appear. This will show three very important bars.
1st shows how much food is being eaten per 5 cycles.
2nd will show how much food is being made per cycle.
3rd shows the amount of food being is being made overall in a percentage format, showing the over net positive or negative. This updates as you add, take away, or shut down food production facilities.

You have 4 insect farms that feed 200 people? It will show you have 100% food production, that you are making as much as it is being eaten. Add another insect farm for 5 farms and it will update to show your new 125% food production. Turn the power off one and it goes back down to 100% production. This is an immensely helpful tool when figuring out how much food is being made vs. how much your population is eating.

Anything below 100% will be when you are running a deficit in food production and you need to build new farms. Anything greater than a 100% means you are making a surplus of food that can be stock piled for later use. See about keeping your food production at a minimal of 125%-130% through the rest of the game as it will help as your population grows.

Surplus food production and storage will also help in the event of production facilities breaking down or population explosions.

Placing your cursor over other resource icons will also show how much is being made/consumed in the sector you are currently viewing and across the station over all.