Saltu is Easy-Peasy

[wcbarney]

I have a few hundred hours in this game; have played all the scenarios and environments, and have earned all the achievements. Thus, I think I have a little experience.

So, anyway, IMHO the Saltu environment is very easy compared to the other two environments -- this is due to the rather mild weather. Yeah, I know that the Xenoflora blight is a minor annoyance, but isn't that big a deal. What makes the jungle environment relatively easy is that you only need a few simple clothes -- straw hats, T-shirts, summer pants, and summer shoes, and these can be crafted by any semi-competent crafter. So you don't need Vivian there as a dedicated tailor. If you have a really severe heat wave (above 130 deg. Fahrenheit) then you might need simulated vests as well, but I've only had to use the synthetic vests once in about 9 years of in-game time in the jungle.

You don't even need an air-conditioned house, except for the happiness boost from the private bedrooms (and you don't need air conditioning for that).

My set-up in my current trade scenario, 5 years in:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3000986378#

[Ralesk]

Can't open that link.

And, don't you need better gear against the incoming enemies?

[Flin Fredstone]

Your link is set to private. (Default)

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by Ralesk:

Can't open that link.

And, don't you need better gear against the incoming enemies?

Darn! I had the link set to Private by mistake; have now made it Public. Hope that works?

About the gear against incoming enemies: About 80% of them were fried by the flame throwers, so I think my defenses were sufficient.

In this game, which I just finished (VH difficulty level), there were no bushes, so my survivors had to take turns chopping sticks after chopping down the plentiful trees. Also, my breakthrough techs didn't include the one for bugs-to-fuel, so I never had enough fuel even though the crafters were busy all the time with poop-to-fuel crafting.

[Terran337]

Overall, I would agree that Saltu is the easiest of the three environments due to the relatively mild weather. I try to keep all survivors head to toe in synthetic armor, each set lasting a bit more than a year. Having Vivian is nice, but even she can't keep up with the tailoring craft demands, so I end up running at least two tailoring benches full time and a third bench should the survivor count reach 8. Cloth and leather clothes items don't seem to last more than half a year. T-shirt production is non-stop.

Xenoflora blight can be a big minus, particularly when it wipes out all or most of the crops.
Vegetarian survivors can be a minus as they might starve depending on what fruits and vegetables are available to glean in the jungle or whether there are enough stocks left in freezers to make it through to another harvest.

A herd of wild Shogu nearby can be a big plus - they can decimate packs of aggressive bug spawn faster than a wall of turrets. A battle of 200 bugs versus 30 Shogu usually ends with 6 to 10 dead Shogu, 200 dead bugs, no base attack and plenty of free meat. Be cautious about hunting them too as they can kill your hunters just as quick. Update: I checked the wild Shogu out on INSANE difficulty - 12 of them versus 72 scarabs. All Shogu died, 37 angry scarabs left.

A lot of silicon goes into maintaining weapons and electronics. But I still end up with tons of it after raiding one Scissorhand nest. One nest has been usually plenty to last the entire game.

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by Terran337:

... A lot of silicon goes into maintaining weapons and electronics. But I still end up with tons of it after raiding one Scissorhand nest. One nest has been usually plenty to last the entire game.

I agree. Bust one nest and you are fixed for silicon the rest of the game. In my new game, just a couple of weeks into it so far, there is no silicon at all, and I have only one laser pistol among my survivors, so can't take out a nest yet. Keep hoping to find another weapon in one of the spaceship wrecks.

HA! Just solved this problem for sure; found 2 mech cores in one of the spaceship wrecks. I guess one light mech must be as good as an improved railgun sniper, huh?

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by Terran337:

... I try to keep all survivors head to toe in synthetic armor, each set lasting a bit more than a year. Having Vivian is nice, but even she can't keep up with the tailoring craft demands, so I end up running at least two tailoring benches full time and a third bench should the survivor count reach 8. Cloth and leather clothes items don't seem to last more than half a year. T-shirt production is non-stop.

You have totally missed my point about Saltu being super-easy because of the non-demanding clothing requirements -- or else you didn't believe me.

On Saltu, your main enemy is heat, not bugs. To combat the heat effectively you need the proper clothing, which is much more important than an air-conditioned house. The "proper" clothing items are those provide a Heat Tolerance Increase.

Clothing which provides a Heat Tolerance Increase, in degrees Fahrenheit:
Straw Hat = 42
T Shirt = 37
Summer Pants = 35
Summer Shoes = 39
Synthetic Vest = 41

Clothing which does not provide a Heat Tolerance Increase
Synthetic Helm
Synthetic Leggings
Synthetic Boots

[Flin Fredstone]

Thanks wcbarney, that's helpful.

[msor]

Another thing that makes Saltu very easy - a lot of free food.
You can have Meat fruits, Coconuts and Sweet syrup just by harvesting wild plants. All of these are keep growing after harvest which gives a constant source of free food. If you keep them separated from your main crops - they will be unaffected by blight as well.

Antibiotics can be received very early from cureplants. Which completely negates new diseases.

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by msor:

Another thing that makes Saltu very easy - a lot of free food.
You can have Meat fruits, Coconuts and Sweet syrup just by harvesting wild plants. All of these are keep growing after harvest which gives a constant source of free food. If you keep them separated from your main crops - they will be unaffected by blight as well.

Antibiotics can be received very early from cureplants. Which completely negates new diseases.

Yeah, lots of food in the jungle. You are wrong, however, in your assumption that the blight will not affect the wild plants -- it does. If you find cureplants, then that's a good thing -- especially if they are close enough to harvest without planting your own field. By the time your cureplant field is ready to be harvested, then you should already be making antibiotics from grain in fermentation barrels. Meanwhile, your First Aid Kits can be used to cure diseases -- even without being disassembled, but it's probably better to disassemble them so that you can use the antibiotics and bandages separately.

[Ralesk]

Originally posted by wcbarney:

Originally posted by Terran337:

... I try to keep all survivors head to toe in synthetic armor, each set lasting a bit more than a year. Having Vivian is nice, but even she can't keep up with the tailoring craft demands, so I end up running at least two tailoring benches full time and a third bench should the survivor count reach 8. Cloth and leather clothes items don't seem to last more than half a year. T-shirt production is non-stop.

You have totally missed my point about Saltu being super-easy because of the non-demanding clothing requirements -- or else you didn't believe me.

On Saltu, your main enemy is heat, not bugs. To combat the heat effectively you need the proper clothing, which is much more important than an air-conditioned house. The "proper" clothing items are those provide a Heat Tolerance Increase.

Clothing which provides a Heat Tolerance Increase, in degrees Fahrenheit:
Straw Hat = 42
T Shirt = 37
Summer Pants = 35
Summer Shoes = 39
Synthetic Vest = 41

Clothing which does not provide a Heat Tolerance Increase
Synthetic Helm
Synthetic Leggings
Synthetic Boots

I love how it came up recently in another thread that the temperature deltas are broken in Fahrenheit,

So yeah, the actual values are 10, 5, 3, 7 and 9 degrees F tolerance increase.

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by Ralesk:

... I love how it came up recently in another thread that the temperature deltas are broken in Fahrenheit,

So yeah, the actual values are 10, 5, 3, 7 and 9 degrees F tolerance increase.

Yeah, I knew that the numbers in the clothing descriptions did not equate to degrees Fahrenheit; I thought they might be percentages or perhaps some kind of index, but never took the trouble to figure it out. Now I see, from your post, that if you subtract 32 (freezing point temperature) from the numbers given then you arrive at the correct amount that each article of clothing affects the wearer. Thanks for sharing this!

[Ralesk]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1324130/discussions/1/3803901984151207029/ it was this thread, for those curious — in °C it does what it should (2, 5 degrees more, etc.), but unfortunately they used the same formula for absolute temperatures (where the 32 shift is necessary) and for relative temperatures (where only the scaling factor of 9/5 is needed), and apparently nobody noticed since at least the Taming release, if ever :D

[Jaggid Edje]

Just getting back to the game to try out Saltu myself, a little disappointed to read that it's easier than all the other maps. Still, nice to have a new map to play on.

I did have a rough start on my current (first) playthrough though, I made the mistake of forgetting to disable my slower research mods, which delayed getting lighting rods researched. The lightning storm on the first evening destroyed half of my storage so I lost a good chunk of the resources it had started me with. Fortunately no persons were hit.

[Ralesk]

Dunno, I got kinda salty (hah) about Saltu just tonight: had skarabei attacks on Normal difficulty like every two nights and my survivors had no time to advance with things for like 10 days... Lightning destroyed both my glitter caps and my clothblossoms when they were ready for harvest... So yeah, having a bit of a rough time.

[Eyeless Pilot]

Wcbarney, do the flamethrowers attack enemies at ground level if you build them on top of raised platforms?