Are you supposed to use the heat generator from the start? Struggling early on.

[Professor Pigeon]

I'm struggling a bit, I seem to get a few sick people which snowballs into more sick people followed by death. I try to balance building houses and gathering posts but I still seem to struggle but I'm not using the generator much to save coal, am I meant to be using it at night/ Then after building tents roads and gathering posts I struggle on wood needed to build food then people start starving.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

If you don't build enough tents on day 1 you must have the generator running overnight. Early on there will be some struggles, you don't have enough people to go around so send out the scouts to get more ASAP (and pass the soup/sawdust law if food is an issue).

You can survive a while without the generator running, but it will become necessary fairly early.

[SympliKrazi]

Originally posted by Professor Pigeon:

I'm struggling a bit, I seem to get a few sick people which snowballs into more sick people followed by death. I try to balance building houses and gathering posts but I still seem to struggle but I'm not using the generator much to save coal, am I meant to be using it at night/ Then after building tents roads and gathering posts I struggle on wood needed to build food then people start starving.

I could be wrong on all counts, if you're playing survivor mode, I havent dared to try it yet. But this is a decent start for A New Home on any other dificulty
select a law from the opening, I prefer the 24hr shift and then extended shift.
make sure everyone has a job.
Day 1 is resource gathering
1 coal pile, 1 steel pile, and the rest are gathering wood

By the end of the day
I'm starting to build Workshop to get research going because it's a bottle neck (i prefer starting with beacon and get a exploration party going by day 2-3

Next you have the option to build gathering posts to keep you people warm during work hours and have more efficient gathering, or a medic post(because people are gonna get sick) or build a hot house so the raw food gets processed and people can eat on day two

That's the general idea for day 1-3.

Oops, I didnt answer the main question. Yes, I wait to start the generator till night time, some time before 20:00 on the first day, basically around the time the tutorial reminds you to turn on the generator. And I have toyed with turning it on during the night and turning it off during the day, but this isn't actually necessary. Just make sure your people are gathering coal and eventually researching and building a coal production buildings and grow from there.

[Professor Pigeon]

Thanks for replies, I was also gonna ask, should there be no deaths? It feels like as soon as one person dies its over lol. Or are deaths expected

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Originally posted by Professor Pigeon:

Thanks for replies, I was also gonna ask, should there be no deaths? It feels like as soon as one person dies its over lol. Or are deaths expected

Deaths may happen, but you can usually avoid them too. Not having any deaths is needed for a specific achievement for "a new home".

[SympliKrazi]

Originally posted by Professor Pigeon:

Thanks for replies, I was also gonna ask, should there be no deaths? It feels like as soon as one person dies its over lol. Or are deaths expected

Injuries and deaths can and do happen. One death is scripted, if you use 24hr shift ability, for example.
Soon as there is a death, you want to make sure your next law or 2nd to the next law is a pit or cemetery and build one somewhere far from a heat source or people will get sick and die from unburied bodies.

Having more people means more resources can can be stock piled, more buildings can be built, more research can be done. It's why getting beacon up and running early is crucial, imo. (And keeping people alive is too ofc)

If people start getting sick and dying en mass, unless the cemetery or pit isnt built still, gotta figure out the cause and make sure that need is filled. It's either hunger or cold living space or work space.

Thought of a couple more helpful tips:

One of the best techs to aim and research first if you're using hunters as a food source is Hunter Tactics in the 3rd tier research row. It cut's down the maximum hunters per a building by 5, while food gathering amount is the same(efficiency increases). This frees up a lot of man power for other jobs or to employ additional hunter buildings, depending on your needs.

There are several techs possible in obtaining coal, it's best to choose one type of tech, imo rather than try and research them all, because that's just gonna slow your research down in other aspects, like generator/heating and exploration. What's great about a coal thumper is it doesnt require steam cores, so you can build as many as you want, but it does require more man power because along with a thumper, it's best to build at least two gathering posts so people can be protected from the weather when assigned to gather from the coal piles the coal thumper produces.
A kilns can be a great source of coal, but it's made by charring wood, so if this is your choice, you're going to want to focus extra on wood production, and since the wall drill has unlimited supply of lumberk, those two techs can synergize.
(havent really tried coal mines yet)

one last thing, unless you're playing survivor mode, the pause button(space bar) is great for getting your bearings and planning what needs to be done next.