Anybody get the "Full Dreadnought" achievement?

[vram1974]

I found that once you finish stage 1 of the scenario you're really short on tech and resources so even if you beeline to advanced steelworks or flying hangars I don't really understand how you can raise 5,000 food rations or upgrade the Dreadnaught to max.

I think Cabins III was something like 2,500 steel. That's basically 3 days of emergency shifts on two Advanced Steelworks plants. I just didn't understand how people managed that.

I guess I could watch a YouTube video but that scenario is nuts. Especially since the generator goes down a lot near the end and you get rioting and huge death tolls.

[Bobywan]

You basically have to rush cleaning the ruins around the steel works and build them asap and also on the map get the steel outpost, there is an event with a bridge I think and if you dismantle it, you get locked out of the steel outpost.
I manage to do it in normal mode, maybe half of it on hard and don't even try on survivor.

[alexander.julian.erhard]

I think with a LOT of reloading I have managed a full Dreadnought on Hard once, but am not exactly sure how I did it anymore.
Winterhome also has a much less obvious path to follow than ANH for example.

One of the biggest tips I can give is that rather than having your outpost team stay at one place, you can shuffle around your outpost team continuously between the three places and get one delivery of EVERYTHING (food, coal and steel) every ~30 hours or something, or shuffle it between two places and get a delivery of 2 things every 24 hours.

Apart from that I can´t give too clear answers of what´s a good or the best strategy because I´m less sure myself.


-Automatons:
I personally think they are a trap here, although getting a factory (maybe including the steel cost upgrade) is mandatory given the amount of amputated at game start.
To my knowledge, they cause a bug with the children evacuation objective, meaning you can´t use automatons and the send all children objective together (the best choice there due to giving a +10% workforce efficiency, which I´d guess doesn´t apply to automatons either).
Secondly, I think they are barely better, maybe even worse than a 14h shift coupled with a shrine or agitator (which automatons can´t use), at least not without sinking some more research into the automaton efficiency upgrades, and because mostly the initial research choices matter rather than the mid-lategame research order, getting automatons for research is also useless.


-Research Path:
While I think rushing to the Hospital, then making your way to a second Scout team (to collect some engineers and open up the other 2 outpost spots) and T3 Steel is the best choice, I´m unsure what´s the best choice for food and coal, and if you should research something before getting 2nd Scout and T3 Steel.
Generally, if the game goes on long enough, Hunters and Mines are better, while short term, Hothouse and Thumpers are better.
With ~ 28 Days, but some techs already researched, Fall of Winterhome sits in the undecideable range for me.

Finally you also have to consider what researches you want and what not, because most of them also cost steel.
Because of the generator malfunctions (those happen at day 13, 16, 20, 23 and the unrepairable one at day 26), and two of them (I think 20 and 23?) also reducing your generator strength, I personally transition to mostly using heaters, and don´t research anything generator/steam hub related.
On hard and extreme where -70° is reached (I think easy and normal only go to -50 and -60, but I´m not sure), this means I need T3 heaters and Cookhouse insulation to keep everything running, but I can for example save myself the hothouse and healthcare insulation techs, and the generator/steam hub techs as mentioned before.
The downside however is that I also find it necessary to build ~20 houses or so, because bunkhouses with no heating at -70° are freezing.


-Law Path:
Beyond Radical Treatment or Sustain Life (that one is very risky on extreme though) being mandatory to save the starting gravely ill, and overcrowding probably the next most mandatory to be able to deal with the starting ill people, you´ve got to balance laws that help with hope to make the starting hope target, and laws like Extended Shifts to gain more resources, and particulary the 9000 steel target.
Also worth noting is the choice between Faith and Order.
Order has a harder time making the initial hope target, but the combination of Foreman and Agitators should eventually beat Faith in terms of steel production.
One final interesting law to consider is Food:
Both the discontent of soup and the sickness of sawdust are bad throughout most stages of the game, and signing either one also loses hope.
However, you are free to send the 5000 food in any form you wish, so that can help you with that target while your population eats (mostly) normal rations.

[Cari]

Thanks for the tips @alexander.julian.erhard
I am a new player and tried The Fall of Winterhome yesterday, and I lost twice in early game because of Hope: I forgot to put on lvl 2 the generator as the temperature drops on day 2 (or 3?). On my third attemp, i also forgot, but aftersome Order laws, I managed to built like 5 or 6 watchtowers to reach 15% Hope. I did the mistake to get the automatons, and considering that was useless, losing the steel outpost. big big mistake !!!
I had absolutely no problem to get enough food rations for the whole universe (got 10 or more flying hunter hangars), but was very short on steel, and could only complete the Cabin III after dismantling everything at the very end of my run. I had also too much Coal at the end I think.
The end was very confusing because I let some people (~77) on the dying city but i could not put them on my last trip to Winterhome with the shuttle. I don't understand exactly why.
The whole evacuation process was a bit confusing and did not understand why some times I could not evacuate people and some times I could. I did not understand if I could not evacuate people because they are "used" to run factories instead of being not "useless".
I don't understand if I had to wait for my last evacuation shuttle to reach Winterhome before hitting the button "launch the dreadnought" or if have to wait.
Anyway at the end some people died because the game prevent me to rescue them but I succeed the scenario.
(I had enough food, coal, steam cores, was just short on steel)

[Bobywan]

Even if you do everything perfectly, there is not enough space on the dreadnought, usually the last to go are the engineers...
Speaking of engineers, you can take the engineer from the meteo station (it will disable the forecast, but it's manageable if you anticipate and the engineer boost is really nice).
Automatons are indeed not really necessary ebcause you ahve lots of people already and it would require to upgrade them to 80% efficiency to really see the difference with the normal workers. Still, make sure all the steel workers are active (no sick, etc) at the start of the day.
That's the hardest scenario, so if you don't suceed the full dreadnought, you may want to practice on other scenarios with a harder difficulty maybe.

[Cari]

Sometimes i see a cross on a factory to tell you some workers are sick, but can you manage individually workers ? I mean, send them away or reallocate unemployed directly to a specific factory ? Some gameplay parts are still not well understood by me .... :( I am learning ... even if i still succeed in the first three scenarios

[Bobywan]

Originally posted by Cari:

Sometimes i see a cross on a factory to tell you some workers are sick, but can you manage individually workers ? I mean, send them away or reallocate unemployed directly to a specific factory ? Some gameplay parts are still not well understood by me .... :( I am learning ... even if i still succeed in the first three scenarios

You can kick them from the building but if you have no healthy worker to replace them and fill back the building, it will just retake the sick workers who will start workeing once they are healthy again. So you have to reduce workers from another building first if you don't have enough workers.

[Cari]

Do I need to let a group of engineers working on the generator as long as it is still working once the repair station is set ? because i need engineers to craft prosthetics or to run my only one infirmary. Or can I remove all the engineers from the repair station and put them back all once there is crisis situation ?

[Cari]

Originally posted by Bobywan:

You can kick them from the building but if you have no healthy worker to replace them and fill back the building, it will just retake the sick workers who will start workeing once they are healthy again. So you have to reduce workers from another building first if you don't have enough workers.

thx

[Bobywan]

Originally posted by Cari:

Do I need to let a group of engineers working on the generator as lon as is still working once the repair station is set ? because i need engineers to craft prosthetics or to run my only one infirmary. Or can I remove all the engineers from the repair station and put them back all once there is crisis situation ?

I would say you need 10 engineers in 2 workshops at all time, more if you can. Try to have half of the max engineers in the repair station but get the upgrades to reduce the required number of engineers (optimized shifts: -10 engineers required).
I personnaly don't research infirmaries on this scenario and rely on radical treatment + overcrowding.
You should not need prosthetics either if you take care of your people and dont let them work on cold/very cold/freezing temperatures.

[Shining Hector]

I've managed a full dreadnought Day 21 on Extreme before, even taking the 10% efficiency hit from telling the truth that you don't know where to go. It's all about Steel since you can just build out more Food and Coal production but are limited to 2 Steelworks and 1 Outpost for Steel.

Basically send scouts out immediately to collect the Weather Station Engineers, then straight to the Steel Outpost, leaving the Automaton on the bridge. Move the Outpost from Coal to Steel ASAP, and that's 200/day. 20 days of that is the 4000 you need for the last stage. Have 3 Coal Thumpers running by the time you move out of the Coal Outpost and you'll be fine. Move the Scouts from there to collect 20 more Engineers from the Storm Shelter.

Order is the way to go for Winterhome because of Foreman. Not only does it help maximize critical Food/Coal/Steel production, you can also use it on the Repair Station to hasten fixing the Generator. Once you have Advanced Steelworks and Foreman, hit both Emergency Shift and Foreman at the same time, and with Agitators, too, you're making tons of Steel.

12-15 fully upgraded Hunter's Hangars should get you enough food. You have excess workers anyway, so put them to work there. 2 fully upgraded Industrial Hothouses run by Automatons and Foreman also produce upwards of 500 Raw Food a day on Extreme, more on lower difficulty. The type of Rations don't matter, so Food Additives can help you make the 5000 ration goal but isn't necessary.

Automatons are completely worth it. Have 2 running your Advanced Steelworks on the nights Emergency Shift is on cooldown. It's only 10 hours every 48 hours, but every bit helps, and you can put them in Workshops, Industrial Hothouses, or Steam Coal Thumpers/Gathering Posts the rest of the time, depending on your needs. You also get 100% of their Steel refunded when you dismantle them, which you'll be doing to reclaim their Cores for the dreadnought in the end.

[Shining Hector]

Originally posted by Cari:

Do I need to let a group of engineers working on the generator as long as it is still working once the repair station is set ? because i need engineers to craft prosthetics or to run my only one infirmary. Or can I remove all the engineers from the repair station and put them back all once there is crisis situation ?

It's actually scripted that the Generator always breaks at 0100 on set days, so you actually only need to staff it at night, and really only the nights it breaks. You always have 3-4 days between breakdowns. There's zero benefit to staffing it otherwise. All Engineers should be researching, healing, Automatons/Prosthetics, Propaganda, etc. during the day for sure. If you want to give all your starting Amputees prosthetics, it's also good to make 5-8 extra Medical Posts, since only one Amputee can get a prosthetic from a medical facility at a time, which will take forever if you only have 1-2 facilities running.

[Cari]

I finally did it. I saved 500 people with a complete Dreadnought.
Thanks guys for your tips.
I almost failed at the very end to reach 9000 steel.
I did not know the Foreman law was so powerful (+40% eifficiency for 24h) to increase the production of steel, and I had only activated this law after propapanga center and agitator. I should have used the Foreman long before.

[Cari]

Originally posted by Bobywan:

I personnaly don't research infirmaries on this scenario and rely on radical treatment + overcrowding.
You should not need prosthetics either if you take care of your people and dont let them work on cold/very cold/freezing temperatures.

You start the scenario with over 30 amputees so for me it was mandatory to craft prosthetics in order to get them available for work.
About infirmaries, yes your were right, i tried not using it in order to save steam cores for two automatons working on steelworks, and I succeed to get a full dreadnought.
I deleted almost everything (tent, bunkhouse, fighting arena, pub, medical center) at the beginning and rebuilt around the generator (saw this strat on reddit).

[Shining Hector]

Congratulations on the full dreadnought, probably the toughest objective in the game.

I like Infirmaries on Winterhome. With upgrades and Overcrowding it's 5 Engineers to heal 20 in less than 12 hours, or over 40 a day, which is plenty with adequate heating. You only need to send 1 Core to the dreadnought before the last shipment, so there's enough to go around. Generally you want to have a basic Wall Drill, Factory, 1 Infirmary, possibly 2 Industrial Hothouses, and the rest Automatons. Once you have prosthetics for everyone and all the Cores, you can temporarily dismantle the Wall Drill for its core, build an Automaton, tear down the factory, then rebuild the Wall Drill, and even with sending the Core out and 2 Industrial Hothouses, you have 4 Automatons to play with.

[Cari]

Thx @Shining Hector.

I was only on normal but it was quite a challenge.
I did not know the efficiency of the Infirmary.

My first core is for the Wall Drill, then a Coal mine (even if I had 4 coal thumper, 2 were steamed), then a Factory to build 2 automatons to run Steelworks (upgrading it top one priority).
Late in the game you don't need anymore woods, so wall drill dismantled, as long as factory once ~40 prosthetics crafted.
I even build a charcoal kin to be sure i will not be short on coal.
Little by little I start to dismantle almost everything except my advanced steelworks.

I tried one Hothouse but dismantled it shortly after since the dreadnought requires more steam cores.
I personnaly prefer fully upgrade flying hunter hangars over hothouse.
I had enough people for only needing 2 automatons
Remember that i played on normal, so i have more choices.

I completed every stage of the dreadnought gradually, giving the cores required.
I did not know that you can keep almost all them before the last shuttle.
I still don't understand quite well how the evacuation process work.
I realized that you have to make your people unemployed to be able to put them in the shuttle for the Dreadnought ( I do no like this mechanic of gameplay, because for my first try on this scenario, I did not figure out why i couldn't send people to the dreadnought ).