Survival Mode

[SerWind]

Survival mode seems... impossible. I mean, I imagine it's not, but, I can't keep up. My biggest issue seems to be the cold? Even with resource gathering points and heaters, a little bit in I have around 20 people in palative care. Is sustain life just not possible? I also usually build the child shelter but I just don't have enough workers. Wat do.

[Amanoob105]

If you go sustain life you need to try and get an infirmary (you shouldn't need more than one) up before that first frost. Once you do all those people will be back to work.

For the shelters, get the next option along as soon as you can, as it now means they will be helping out. In the endless modes I found it's better to go for the medical help as you'll still be using that long after you run out of things to reserch. If not in endless, reserch everytime.

Other than that, try to get the proper resource buildings up as soon as you can and save the piles as extra for when you have some spare people to go after them. More resources I find can solve most problems in this game.

And remember to use the heat map option. If people are cold this lets you see why and by how much.

[snuggleform]

I really hate sustain life. The thing that convinces me never to use it ever again is that patients die while they are transferring from medical posts/care homes to infirmaries because of the walk time. It isn't even a choice to me anymore.

And yes survival mode is tough. You need to pick your tech path very carefully and avoid getting into a death loop.

Which scenario are you on?

Try doing chlid labor -> emergency shifts -> extended shifts -> radical treatment -> overcrowding as your law order. Your tech order should be something like beacon -> hunter gear -> saw mill. Remember to use overdrive during the night to cut down the sick just a little bit. You should almost never have an unscripted death with this order, and after overcrowding you can then get some sort of corpse disposal as deaths might happen due to bad pathing regardless of how good you are.

Knowing which scenario you are on can change those orders though.

If you really want to use sustain life, you have to think about how to compensate for the reduced healing throughput you have. You may have to invest in infirmaries, better medical posts, organic transplants, overcrowding or extra rations much earlier than normal to make up for it.

[PhoenixG]

child shelter is pretty much a no go. You need every working hand working. That means kids need to work. Sustain life is fine. Although you want healing house or infirmacy pretty quickly, unless you're sure to prevent people getting gravely ill.

[SerWind]

I've actually managed to, since posting this, survive up until around 20 or so days, with both childcare and sustain life, no deaths, and even no one in pallative (SP?) care somehow. The scenario is A New Home. Getting the beacon/balloon up as soon as possible is basically my go to, because scouts will bring back necessary manpower and some early food and wood that is crucial.

My issue now is that I have no idea how to survive past the drop to -60. I had a storehouse of about 700 coal, and 3 mines going, but people were getting frostbite even with level 2 heaters on in their work places. I guess the travel time is what's doing them in? The other issue is that even if that would keep them from getting sick, my coal ran out really quick.

Do hunters also get frostbite? I can't see it being possible to move away from food from hunting quick enough, but maybe I could try. I usually have about 5 or so cores around that time.

[snuggleform]

New Home is a really easy scenario compared to the others. There is no reason you should have people in palliative care for many many days considering the temperature doesn't go below -40 for quite some time.

Anyways, to your question about heating: don't worry about heating hunters huts. I think hunters do get sick but on a a more relaxed scale than usual workers.

Make sure you're heating people's homes properly is a big deal. Use steam hubs to spread the heat zone, upgrade to bunkhouses. Over drive a bit. It's expensive to stay at level 2 heat but if you've been teching properly and quickly then you should be able to maintain level 2 heat without that much trouble by the time 20 days is in.

For coal income, make sure to do the following:

a) research outpost team and send an outpost team to the coal location on the map. It's +800 coal a day, which is more than a level 3 coal mine, for no steam core cost

b) don't look only for coal based heating; reserach insulation, better housing

c) research coal efficiency stuff. High level coal mines are much more efficient getting coal per steam core cost.

d) add more people to the coal industry, use the coal thumper tech. If your other resources are fine you should be able to dedicate more workers to coal thumping and/or coal kilns. You're stuck with 3 coal mines and 1 coal outpost max but the only limit to thumpers/kilns is your workforce/wood.

[SerWind]

I don't really get the coal thumping thing. Isn't coal thumping only for the small nodes on the map you can harvest by hand? Or am I totally missing the point?

[snuggleform]

Coal thumpers generate coal piles out of thin air (like those piles of coal lying around at the start of the game, except they generate them inside the coal thumper building), which you then gather with gathering posts.

Build 1 thumper and 2 gathering posts close to it and fill them with ppl.

If you're having trouble finding enough manpower, consider child labor.

[Aturchomicz]

Originally posted by HoldFast:

I don't really get the coal thumping thing. Isn't coal thumping only for the small nodes on the map you can harvest by hand? Or am I totally missing the point?

They produce coal everywhere on the map, dont know what you mean by that

[Vulkandrache]

Once you have successfully played the first three missions on Extreme there shouldnt be any problems with doing them on Survivor either.
The only thing no-pause does is make the first 2-3 days less efficient because of more wasted minuntes on the clock.
Winterhome Suvivor, well thats a different story. There is so much finicky micro which the UI of this game is not build to accomodate that you are playing against the controls more than against the cold.


Im going take a wild guess and say that you only have 1 Workshop for research.
Or you arent building steamhubs. Or no automatons.
Day 20 on NewHome is right in the middle of the Londoners.
At that point, even with the lenghty research times, the city itself is basically done
and you are just fleshing out the second half of the techtree to make things easier for everyone.
Depending on how exactly you play youd be upgrading all tents to houses at this point,
the coal supply is being handled exclusively by automatons working in upgraded coalmines,
food is in plentyful supply and Tech is going at 250+% with some 20 workshops, maybe even some staffed with Automatons already.

If you dont know where every single building goes in your "endgame" build city then dont play Survivor. If you still need to plan out things on the fly stick to Extreme for now.

Sustain Life is totaly doable, even on Survivor, assuming the tech progression is clear, gathering posts are used and overdrive at night for the homes to be slightly less cold.
Ive had games like that where 5 medposts full of overcrowded sick were waiting for the Infirmary to be researched. Not an ideal situation but the end of a run.

Oh and if you only have 5 cores on day 20 on NewHome you are doing something very wrong.
5 Cores is what you have on like day 7 after the first few scouted places.

[SerWind]

The reason I thought that about the thumpers is I had been using them and then suddenly my coal income stopped entirely. Now I realize it must be because I got rid of the gathering posts. So not only do you have to have the thumper active but also the gathering post. And one thumper is good for two gathering spots? Interesting, this should change things for me.

I appreciate all the replies. Also Vulka, I'm a glutton for punishment, so I'll probably stick with Survivor for now until I crack or it just want to relax and knock the difficulty down. I don't mind restarting.

[B5R]

Originally posted by HoldFast:

So not only do you have to have the thumper active but also the gathering post. And one thumper is good for two gathering spots? Interesting, this should change things for me. .

Each thumpers requre 2 gathering post. Steam thumper - 4.
If you had enough resourses - coal mine outpost can helpa lot. You get 800 coal per day for free and with cost of 10 workers and some steel/wood. Seems fine to me.

[snuggleform]

Make sure the gathering post are close to the thumper of course. Just give it a shot and see how it works. When staffed, the thumper makes a pile of coal next to the "arms" of the thumper at which point it functions like a coal node like you see at the beginning of the mission. And there is no special placement restriction.

The thing about coal thumpers is they can be deceiving when you look at the income tab; yes each regular coal thumper can supply 2 gathering posts so make sure you have gathering posts within range, but also keep in mind that sometimes your income will LOOK like you're not pulling in coal because sometimes the gathering posts pick up all the coal pile and they're listed as +0 income for a a short while. To get a better feel for coal income you sometimes have to wait a little bit for a new pile of coal to be produced, then the gathering posts will the proper +230-240'ish coal when fully staffed.

And yeah steam coal thumpers supply up to 4 gathering posts.

Coal thumpers are really good for coal generation provided you have the manpower; a regular coal mine only gives like what 150-200 coal a day while a thumper + 2 posts generates about 450 coal a day? That being said, you'll probably want to use both because coal mines are more efficient per manpower spent, and don't forget the outpost depot like I mentioned before...

Another thing about coal thumping gathering; the +% gathering speed does in fact pull in coal faster for you. Just be aware that your gathering posts can outstrip the speed at which thumpers produce coal until you get the level 5 tech thumper injectors. But anyways just stick to 2 posts per thumper, 4 posts per steam thumper and you'll be good to go.