The Arks on hard - anyone suceeded yet?

[Belegost]

Having completed all 3 scenarios on medium and New Home on hard I attempted to do the same with Arks, thinking with all the tomatons available it'll be a breeze.
Boy was I wrong.
So far my best run had me everyone freeze to death by day 18 after running out of coal.
The temperature drops constantly and it never rises, so you have no time to catch a break. First week or so is okay but things get more hectic the further is goes, I was constantly short on materials and wasn't able to produce them in enough quantities to simultanously research, get needed upgrades, have enough coal supply AND build tomatons to run the supply lines.

Scouts did not help much as I was forced to either have them upgraded, have generator upgraded, have material suppliers upgraded or have more tomatons (and have them upgraded).

In short: I was not able to achieve the necessary production/research balance to have stuff running even with hectic micro.

So, did anyone managed to make it through? If so, what was your build/research order?

[Lantantan]

Saved everyone and the arks on my 3rd atempt.
This map's bottleneck is resources. You can turn resources into everything else you need. So yeah, prioritise getting sawmills but in particular get steam steelworks early, since you cant scale those up any further. I didnt need the wood-mine since there's plenty of trees lying around.

Early recourses will allow you to keep making automatons so you can run 6+ research labs with your engineers, which you'll need for all the heat research. The sooner you have your automatons, the sooner you can start stockpiling food and coal. Dont forget you can scrap your food buildings once you've reached 3k-ish food. Also if you complete all resource/supply goals early, I think the map completes before the cold drops to the absolute worst level.

Don't make the horribly expensive steam scout, 2 early scouts should be enough to explore the whole map. try to time them so you always have steamcores in stock. I rushed one scout because so I could get steam cores and a needed steel boost.

I'm done editing now, how does all this sound?

[Belegost]

6+ reserach labs? I was barely able to afford 2 with all the frostbites putting my people out of comission.
Do you remember what was tech unlock order?

[Lantantan]

It sounds impossible because you're behind the curve and you're constantly putting out fires. Start with 2(3?) research posts and try to continually scale them up. Use long shifts to get the most of them, but dont work them to death with overtime too much.

Most important is the resources, make steelmills (2) and sawmills (up to 3 or 4) whenever a bot finishes and upgrade to steam-steel. Stall the hothouses in favor of more resourcing as long as you can, use soup to make most of starting and found supplies.

Techwise I think beacon was first, combined with overtime on resource piles so I could actually build scout it in time. I think gathering, sawmill, steelmill. It's hard to remember the specific order as you can imagine. Then heaters, not hubs. tech up, hothouse more scout? Research beyond here is kinda dictated by your incomming cold conditions. I never did any radius upgrades, you'll need 4 steamhubs so play your construction accordingly. I didnt need any advanced resource buildings but did get 3 once upgraded hothouse total.

You do need to go quite far down in tech to get enough heating power, so again, lots of sawmills. I used one coal thumper as my main coal source for quite a while because of its low resource and tech cost, do switch to mines when resourcing is up.

[(◣_◢)]

LOL! This map kicked me hard. First attempt I didn't bother continuing after 16 days since I was struggling with resources and seeing the 600 x 2 requirements I said screw it. 2nd time around I had things measured almost perfect and finally stockpiled. Fufilling that last order of 6,000 coal was killer. I was rushing last minute to go from 0 coal back up by rushing charcoal kiln.

I had EVERYTHING PERFECT! No! had to throw a 6k order and 4 auto's at me. I fulfilled it and screwed myself. I did have the moral accomplishment knowing the other city was going to survice. I thought the storm would of came and I would had time to keep going like in the first scenario. You have to have the quotas met. I felt like I won but then again I didn't. Game like this has hard decisions. Going for my 3rd run or more like 2 1/2 since first time I stopped halfway. These developers know the definition of "Surprise mofo".

Key points here are understanding the game mechanics, resource management and how to problem solve on the fly. I am enjoying this game since it really makes you think. For those that just rush this game miss out on the story and the experimenting with different builds and challenging yourself. Still kinda short but still a great experience.

I adjusted my stategy 2nd time around by rushing scouts. I explored the whole map so it helped with rez but ofc every action has a consequence. So keeping storage high enough before bringing my scouts in.

[Belegost]

Managed it, but oh man was it by the skin of my teeth, with less than one day left. Good advice with going for the upgraded steelmill, I managed just one steelmill, one sawmill and one scout party which I upgraded eventually, but too late to be of any actual help. Now that I look back at it might've not bothered with it at all.
Went with 2 workshops for most of the run and only got up to 4 once I had about 6 days left, to rush tomatons optimization and coal production.

I ignored New Manchester and let them freeze. There was no way I could've gather enough resources to pull it off. Also it seems the key to this scenario is to ignore the generator range, build steam hubs in key locations and only upgrade output and coal usage.

EDIT: Seems I didn't get the achievement for completing it on hard though.........................

[xfor]

Did it yesterday on first attempt, but it was really tough. Didn't think I could fetch all resources for New Manchester in time, but it worked out once everything was running in the last few days.

Constantly struggled on all ends: Slow research, slow resource acquisition, slow scouts and extremely fast temperature drops. :-)

I don't remember my exact build/research order, just some general tips:
- Use the extended shifts law as soon as possible and keep it enabled all the time in all buildings.
- Don't use emergency shifts, only in real emergencies, e.g. to finish a required heating upgrade before temperature drops. Otherwise it kills your few people with high propability. This is a desaster, especially in early game.
- Use two workshops in the beginning, make it four when you have the first automatons.
- Research/build a second scout after you have the factory.
- Closely monitor the temperature. Only research heating stuff that is absolute necessary to keep the arks chilly. Reduce coal consumption when the temperature rises again.
- Place 5 tents, a medical tent and 3 workshops inside the inner generator ring. Put the 5 tents next to each other, so that you can build a fighting arena that covers all tents later. I placed the tents in the south west, and the workshops in the north east, that fits exactly.
- Build a steam hub in range of each ark. Place it so that you have maximum space for your own buildings, i.e. the ark should at the end of the radius. Place all buildings where people work and the hot houses inside of the steam hub's radius.
- Don't research the generator range upgrade.
- Don't research heater level 2 and 3 before you maximized the generator level.
- Don't research the hot house too early. The scouts find enough food for the first days.
- Use one steam coal thumper with four gathering posts, no coal mines. It is cheaper to research and easier to scale. Build a second set in the late game.
- Build two steam steel works as soon as you can afford them, since that will be a bottleneck for research and automaton production.
- Two steam sawmills should be sufficient, maybe 3 once you have enough automatons.

[Pete]

I saved New Manchester but perished myself.

[Lantantan]

Originally posted by Azaghal of Belegost:

Managed it, but oh man was it by the skin of my teeth, with less than one day left. Good advice with going for the upgraded steelmill, I managed just one steelmill, one sawmill and one scout party which I upgraded eventually, but too late to be of any actual help. Now that I look back at it might've not bothered with it at all.
Went with 2 workshops for most of the run and only got up to 4 once I had about 6 days left, to rush tomatons optimization and coal production.

I ignored New Manchester and let them freeze. There was no way I could've gather enough resources to pull it off. Also it seems the key to this scenario is to ignore the generator range, build steam hubs in key locations and only upgrade output and coal usage.

EDIT: Seems I didn't get the achievement for completing it on hard though.........................

Well that's already a lot better right? :). For the secret achievement you also need to save new manchester. At least now you know which scout spots to rush (apart from the factory ofc). You really got to push your resourcing a harder though. If you dont have 2 steam-steelworks, you wont win.

[Belegost]

Originally posted by xfor:

Reduce coal consumption when the temperature rises again.

The temperature never rises on hard mode in this scenario. Are you sure you were playing with all sliders set on hard?

Originally posted by Lantantan:

For the secret achievement you also need to save new manchester. At least now you know which scout spots to rush (apart from the factory ofc). You really got to push your resourcing a harder though. If you dont have 2 steam-steelworks, you wont win.

I already got the achievement for NM on medium. Is there a seperate one for doing that on hard?
I have memory of goldfish. I don't remember which spots had what. Also I just couldn't afford building second steelmill, as it would've sit unused for most of the game (ran out of cores and could't find any for quite some time).

Well, there is room for improvement certainly.

[xfor]

Originally posted by Azaghal of Belegost:

The temperature never rises on hard mode in this scenario. Are you sure you were playing with all sliders set on hard?

I played it on normal, hard and easy mode (in that order) and got the hard mode achievement.

Afair temperature was -90 or -100 °C during the last days on hard mode. I think it did raise on some days in the beginning, but I'm not 100% sure.

[Belegost]

Originally posted by xfor:

Afair temperature was -90 or -100 °C during the last days on hard mode. I think it did raise on some days in the beginning, but I'm not 100% sure.

Yeah the lowest drop is -90. On hard it always go down, hence my initial fails at this attempt, as it doesn't give you any breathing room.

[Belegost]

Okay so this one is weird. I've completed the scenario on hard again, this time attempting to save New Manchester. I managed to send the first aid with wood and coal out but wasn't anywhere near the required food production to have it shipped and decided to just go for preparatins. I ran out of time with mere 600 coal left out of required 8000 when the storm hit. However instead of failing the game proceeded with ending cutscene and this time I got the achievement.

Seems it's required to attempt to save the city if you want to get the achivement.

[Azov]

OP, your post just motivated me to replay arks on hard and I just succeeded, kept refusing to help Manchester, but then I got what was probably the last event asking me to change my mind and I did on last 4-5 days before storm, just barely managed to save Manchester and reach resource quota (no achievement for that, though).

[Belegost]

You mean no seperate achi for saving NM on hard? Good, that means I can stop replaying it now ;)

[Sir Windchill]

I just finished Ark on hard sent all the stuff to Manchester 6 days before the storm, feels easy. I don't know what is the hard part. just get expedition speed earlier.