Last autumn : prisoners.

[Kazmor]

Someone tryed to play with prisoners - do you think its valid?

[amordron]

People are spilt on which is better overall eng or builders.

I'm on the side of eng is the better way but takes more management so more annoying on survivor without pause.

Builders is just vary close in power thou.

As for being valid as valid is not "best" but only viable as as such "good". The answer is yes there most def valid.

[Bobywan]

It's not the moral choice obviously but it's doable.
Convicts are cheaper to get by telegraph (1 instead of 2 for a worker), they never strike but they need surveillance by engineers and yhey can revolt if there is not enough engineers watching.
I havent figured out how many engineers you need per convicts but it seems quite high: I had 9 towers (45 engineers) for 250 convicts and they revolted... 60 deaths.

If you need more than 1 engineers every 5 convicts, it's not worth it I think, because 5 convicts would cost 5 + 4 (for then engineer) and 5 workers cost 10.

[amordron]

Originally posted by Bobywan:

It's not the moral choice obviously but it's doable.
Convicts are cheaper to get by telegraph (1 instead of 2 for a worker), they never strike but they need surveillance by engineers and yhey can revolt if there is not enough engineers watching.
I havent figured out how many engineers you need per convicts but it seems quite high: I had 9 towers (45 engineers) for 250 convicts and they revolted... 60 deaths.

If you need more than 1 engineers every 5 convicts, it's not worth it I think, because 5 convicts would cost 5 + 4 (for then engineer) and 5 workers cost 10.

Donno the ratio but you would never order eng from that station you promote workers highly reducing the cost yes costs resources but the resource cost is not bad.

You can see if good or not on the security towers.

One of the main values of convicts is you don’t care if they die you get so many that them dieing you still get faster than you need them. On extreme I would run them 24 hours in the gen pits on !! Doing so I was getting so many people I opted to not grab the extra 50 workers on the map after stage 3 as already had everything staffed had all the steam cores I needed and as such deaths where not a issue at all. When there dieing it further reduces Engis you need as your convict amount grows slower keeping it in line with eng growth from promotion.

The bonus of 240 production as working 24 hours is a lot better than 30 percent builders get from motivation esp as you often need to use short shifts with them to keep them happy as they don’t like working in unsafe environment. Even using vents is easyer with convicts as more labor means coal production can happen 24 hours easy.

So ya 30 percent global production boost is good but convicts shear volume of labor force while not having to worry about them dieing is a greater value.

They are close to each other thou the trees are quite well balanced.


For a deathless run thou builders will be better for production as convicts are basicly made to die. But eng safety bonus and just not grabbing convicts alone might be worth it. You could also grab them and not let them die but at that point going for workers is prob better. Hard to say thou I find keeping discontent low on the builders side is more of a challenge so harder to run 24 hour shifts everywhere.

[Bobywan]

I had to order a few engineers even with the promotion. I was aiming for the all around the watchtower ending, only engineers and convicts left so a lot of worker to convert to convicts and a lot of overseers required. Maybe that's the reason.
I'll try again I think because it's quite original to play with convicts.

[Harris]

I did several playthroughs with Engineers and I generally favor them more and I agree with amordron is that convicts are "made to die" thing. Rationalized Healthcare law only stresses this points. In my very first successful playthough (perfectionist achievement) I had 434 convicts deaths. Now imagine none of them dying. There's simply no way to get enough Engineers to oversee this many, not enough jobs to provide for them and not enough food to sustain them.

So convicts are expendable resource you throw into generator much like wood or steel. Not too moral, but it's hard to be moral in Frostpunk if you want to accomplish anything.

[dreamerInSilico]

My first couple of playthroughs I sided with the workers, and I just did a forked engineering run - one deathless where I didn't so much as unlock Overseers, and one where I went for All Along The Watchtowers. Here's my take (normal difficulty):

Workers have a very good motivation cooldown available if you get the Council Square - it gives you a substantial motivation boost for 15 food rations and no drawbacks. The corresponding Engineer cooldown, which comes from the Overseers/Watchtowers, gives a bigger motivation boost but with a risk of strike increase. (This is not a drawback at all if you're going the convicts route, though.) You don't have to man the Council Square, whereas you do have to man the Overseers/Watchtowers (with engineers).

The tier one Engineer labor building, the Factory Inspectorate, requires employing ten engineers there, but that gives you a safety boost to your three most dangerous workplaces (so effectively all the ones that matter), and I found that I really liked that because I drastically favor minimizing sickness and injuries as a general rule. With three ventilation plants, this building lets you have your construction site Safe across the board even at high gas levels without popping safety cooldowns. (Or you can very easily just have two vents and that's almost as good, just got to make sure you time your construction crises for days when the gas isn't highest. xP)

I didn't like working with convicts when I did it because I didn't like having to divert so many engineers to guard duty - I realize it's probably mathematically better, as Harris and amordron mentioned, to just let them riot and die and die some more, but I personally dislike the added unpredictability if you accept riots as a possibility. Am I cool to get steam cores this next shipment, or am I going to be needing to replace fifty rioters who died? That sort of RNG is not my favorite thing to live with. YMMV!

I think moving forward I'm going to stack Emissions Reduction with Not Great, Not Terrible on an engineer playthrough, for the coal-less safety buff.

[amordron]

Originally posted by dreamerInSilico:

My first couple of playthroughs I sided with the workers, and I just did a forked engineering run - one deathless where I didn't so much as unlock Overseers, and one where I went for All Along The Watchtowers. Here's my take (normal difficulty):

Workers have a very good motivation cooldown available if you get the Council Square - it gives you a substantial motivation boost for 15 food rations and no drawbacks. The corresponding Engineer cooldown, which comes from the Overseers/Watchtowers, gives a bigger motivation boost but with a risk of strike increase. (This is not a drawback at all if you're going the convicts route, though.) You don't have to man the Council Square, whereas you do have to man the Overseers/Watchtowers (with engineers).

The tier one Engineer labor building, the Factory Inspectorate, requires employing ten engineers there, but that gives you a safety boost to your three most dangerous workplaces (so effectively all the ones that matter), and I found that I really liked that because I drastically favor minimizing sickness and injuries as a general rule. With three ventilation plants, this building lets you have your construction site Safe across the board even at high gas levels without popping safety cooldowns. (Or you can very easily just have two vents and that's almost as good, just got to make sure you time your construction crises for days when the gas isn't highest. xP)

I didn't like working with convicts when I did it because I didn't like having to divert so many engineers to guard duty - I realize it's probably mathematically better, as Harris and amordron mentioned, to just let them riot and die and die some more, but I personally dislike the added unpredictability if you accept riots as a possibility. Am I cool to get steam cores this next shipment, or am I going to be needing to replace fifty rioters who died? That sort of RNG is not my favorite thing to live with. YMMV!

I think moving forward I'm going to stack Emissions Reduction with Not Great, Not Terrible on an engineer playthrough, for the coal-less safety buff.

Oh we don;t accept riots.

You dont kill them via riots you kill them via the gen.

Convicts lets you turn of the vents (or leave them on based on how pop level is) and run the covicts in the gen 24 hours not short shift. So if coal production lets one vent run 24 hours use that to keep around !!. The convicts will die doing so esp if you sign the law that keeps them out of healthcare so your workers have room.

As a note as diff goes higher the base safety level of the gen goes down making it harder to maintain "safe" on extreme its quite difficult.

They will die at ! at a steady rate without healthcare but not to fast of a rate. maintaining !! I found the rate of growth to be about equal with the rate of gaining eng from promotions. So the labor force always was getting bigger.

This removes the probailty of roits as never have to many convicts vs eng as your letting them die to not get ahead while constantly replacing them. If you start to get to many shut of a vent and a few extra will die. So long as you dont go down to dangerous you dont have mass deaths of 30+ only a steady 7-10 over a 24 hour period on extreme per workplace at ! without med care. I keep med care open to convicts and go down to !! thou, only letting the ones med care cant handle die. Which is many as I dont use eng to expand the healthcare but expand the convict line. than 30 or so come in from the ship every day and a half ish. Go to dangerous if above the eng ratio and you need to kill some of faster.

Working 24 hours is a massive boon. Esp when your able to do this everywhere. Workers is normal workplaces so dont need towers there and safer with convicts where deaths happen.

A riot is never an acceptable thing as it kills eng and workers we only allow convicts to die.

Yes deathless convicts are less good for thou. But even than quite good as you dont have to let them die just keep them in a safe spot which given the labor size is quite possible and have some eng sent to pair with promotions.

As for sending steam cores in extreme at least by time you get convicts you have all the steam cores you really need least I have found. So not really a toos up of what to pick. (higher diffs take longer to unlock the eng/builder tree).

[dreamerInSilico]

Originally posted by amordron:

Oh we don;t accept riots.

You dont kill them via riots you kill them via the gen....

Ahh, gotcha, all that makes sense! The reason it was bugging me so much was that I was specifically going for All Along The Watchtowers, so I was having to replace my entire resource infrastructure with convicts, which meant their population was steadily increasing relative to the engineers (unless I kept adding engineers in towers). If you're just using them in a generator meat-grinder while keeping your workers doing the sane jobs I can absolutely see why that's a solid strategy for higher difficulties.

[Bobywan]

I did an All along the watchtower run on normal. I let all my convicts but 25 die in the frost at the end. 2 towers with 10 engineers were not enough to remove the riot warning...

[Spice must flow]

By the way, do you guys bother with the reloading stations?

[Bobywan]

Originally posted by Spice must flow:

By the way, do you guys bother with the reloading stations?

Not really but I'm only playing normal it. I built some once I salvaged the generator part buildings for the cores.
I read it's only more efficient than GP at max level.
I will make some for the achievement (12 required!) But overall I dont use them