The Beginner's Frostpunk Guide

We could all use a bit of help and knowledge when it comes to surviving this frozen wasteland, and playing as someone who struggled big time when they first started out, and wishing for some guidance, I now provide a small but knowledgeable guide in how one can get started and learn a bit about this world~

Introduction

So you thought for a moment that you could enter this game without needing a guide, thought you could just walk through it and breeze, how hard and how cold can this game get?

Quite hard and quite cold.

So this little guide will help you, maybe, survive your first week and perhaps beyond.

I will first talk about the buildings, how you can use them, what their purpose is, and more~!

Let's get started~ : D

Resources - Your Building Blocks

This game has several resources, some obvious, some not, some important, others not so.

Of those resources, their importance can be noted in terms of a tier list, the most valuable to least valuable are as follows~

1) People - your population, without people to harvest resources you cannot survive

2) Steam Cores - These allow the production of advanced buildings and even automotons, more on these later

3) Coal - Without this you will never last a single night

4) Food Rations - People need to eat, this is your people's most important resource

5) Raw Food - These make food rations

6) Steel - Allows for construction of buildings

7) Wood - Allows for constructing all buildings 'and' roads

You need all of these resources or your city will not survive, let alone thrive.

Now onto the city, every city has a center, a 'thing' that keeps it beating and no matter what must have in order to functions. In your city's case, that thing is the Generator...

The Generator - The Demanding Child

"As long as the Furnace was lit, there was hope."

Your Generator is the center piece of your city, without it your city will not survive, it is both your only hope to survive and sole salvation from the cold. It is, in poetic words, a child that grows as you grow, becomes better and stronger and gives more the more it grows.

However its also very demanding, the more it grows the more it needs to be fed. Not only does the generator need to be fed it also needs to be fed 'constantly'.

In short the generator provides heat to the entire city. Directly it provides heat to a single row of buildings around it, the first ring you get is its first range of heating. When you first start out it only has heating level 1, which improves buildings heating by 1 around it.

At the workshop the Generator can be upgraded a further 3 levels of heating and range, providing a maximum of 4 heating levels for those buildigns around its immediate surroundings up to 4 rings.

Each ring is the exact width of a tent, so at max range if you line 4 tents into a row leading away from the generator, thats as far as the heating goes without additional buildings to help.

Now your generator is a demanding thing, it needs coal, lots of it to feed it. when you first start out its demands are small... at Generator Heat 1 and Range 1 it needs only 6 coal per hour to be fed, for a total of 144 coal per day.

However as you upgrade it to provide more heating and more range, it will need to be fed further and further.

With each power level the generator will need, with range 1 the following...

(Coal Per Hour = Cph)
(Coal Per Day = Cpd)

Heating 1 - 6 Cph
Heating 2 - 12 Cph
Heating 3 - 18 Cph
Heating 4 - 24 Cph

And while adding another heating range seems like a small thing, the coal it needs to extend the heat by an additional range, increases the coal useage exponentially. Each Generator Range upgrade will increase the coal requirement to feed the generator by a multiplier. The math with the range using level 1 heating is as follows...

Range 1 - Heating 1 = 6 Cph
Range 2 - Heating 1 = 12 Cph
Range 3 - Heating 1 = 18 Cph
Range 4 - Heating 1 = 24 Cph

And if you add each heating level with each range with the totals per day

Heating 1 - Range 1 = 6 Cph = 144 Cpd
Heating 2 - Range 2 = 24 Cph = 576 Cpd
Heating 3 - Range 3 = 54 Cph = 1296 Cpd
Heating 4 - Range 4 = 96 Cph = 2304 Cpd

The math gets complicated, but the basics is this, Base Coal Per Hour (cph) x heating level x range level = Cph x 24 hrs = cph per day.

As you can see, the generator grows, and as it does its demands are greater and greater with each upgrade. There are some upgrades in the workshop that will aid you, reducing how much coal it uses, but we wont go into the math with those in mind, this is just for those of you curious as to HOW MUCH COAL this thing needs!!!!

Heat - Four letters that mean everything!

We spoke about the Generator, and this is what the generator provides, heat, the image above shows various levels of heating, ranging from Comfortable (red) to Freezing (Purple).

As your people live or work in these varying temperature settings, they have a chance of falling ill, or even gravely ill, and unlike in modern times when simply staying in bed with a warm blanket, warm bowl of chicken noodle soup, and taking medicine is enough for getting sick, your citizens will require more than that.

In Red and Yellow locations, people can be fine and not fall ill, but once they are in blue and eventually purple, expect them to become sick and even gravely ill. Your generator and other various upgrades or decisions will enable you to increase the heat level.

Now your people falling ill leads us too...

Medical Buildings - Healing Hands

These buildings are where you employ Engineers or build to help care for your people and help them to recover from illness, whether gravely or not.

Before we talk about each building first i'll mention that if a person is Ill, they can be treated at either a Medical Post or an Infirmary. If a person is Gravely Ill they will require the more specialized and powerful Infirmary, or an upgraded Medical Post to be treated.

Now let's start on the medical buildings...



The Medical Post is a makeshift facility, it has a base 1 heating level, and at max employs 5 engineers to fully staff and heal people, and carries up to 5 beds to heal patients.

It can be upgraded with various heating upgrades ranging from Heaters and Medical Facility Heating upgrades, as well as various laws that can improve its capabilities.

Medical Posts can be upgraded with laws that allow it to treat gravely ill or increase the number of patients it can allow, but at the risk of patients becoming amputees or great discontent.



The Infirmary is a more powerful and more efficient Medical Post, its larger with a base 2 heating and uses a Steam Core to power it and takes up to ten engineers to man it, as well as has up to 10 beds for patients.

It can be upgraded with the same upgrades as the medical post via the workshop and book of laws, but unlike the Medical Post, it can safely treat the Gravely Ill, and treats ill patients more quickly.



The Care House is a building that becomes available via a law, and once constructed comes with a base heating of 2 and doesnt need to be staffed.

The Care House is not a staffable medical post, but what it provides is a place where gravely ill and amputees can stay to either keep them alive or provide them with a place to remain. People who stay here will be given half rations. This building benefits from the same medical heating and other heating upgrades that the other medical buildings have.

Coal Production - The Generator's Food

People are important, but the second most important resource, not counting Steam Cores... is Coal.

As i said before, your generator is the heart and soul of your city, people are people, buildings are buildings, and everything around it is just a resource, but the Generator is your city's life blood. If it doesnt breathe, your city will die, if it does not burn your people will freeze. Without it, your city cannot survive, let alone thrive.

As i keep saying that you need to feed the generator, it's food source is Coal, and you have multiple options to find coal in order to feed it.

Some are more optimal but are expensive, others are more immediate but less effective, and others still once upgraded can provide your generator with its food.

We'll start with the most immediate one you can get without researching further down the workshop tech tree.



Coal Thumpers have a base heating of 1 and use water to pump coal from the ground up to the surface, a single coal thumper fully manned with 10 workers/engineers, can pump up to 560 coal per standard work day. Its enough coal for 2 Gathering Posts to efficiently mine from.

and while we're at it...



The Gathering post is extremely valuable in the early days, between days 2-6 it can be used to harvest the resources around the generator. It can harvest any resource within range, while only requiring 10 people to staff it. This makes it more efficient to harvest multiple piles of resources at the same time because 10 people can harvest up to 3 resources early on when it would take 45 to do the same job.

It also comes with a base heating of 1, making it safer for workers over harvesting the piles directly. It also can be upgraded with heating upgrades, and more efficient gathering upgrades. It is best paired with Coal Thumpers as after all the initial resources are used up, its usefulness ends.



The Steam Coal Thumper is the more advanced version of the Coal Thumper with a base heating of 2, and once Researched and either built (either planting a new one or upgrading a regular Coal Thumper to a steam version) it will produce 1120 coal per standard working day, enough for 4 Gathering Posts.

If upgraded, Steam Coal Thumpers and Coal Thumpers can produce 15% more coal per standard work day, enough for another Gathering Post each.



The Coal Mine is a building that requires a specific building location, and requires a Steam Core to build with a base heating of 1. With 10 people staffing it, a Coal Mine can produce 260 coal in a standard work day.

While at first it seems less efficient than the coal thumpers, the coal mine can be upgraded multiple times and using 1/3 of the workers, produces almost 1/2 of the coal a thumper provides without needing gathering posts to gather it.

It also can be upgraded 2 times to improve coal output, and has 2 building upgrades to further improve it.



The Steam Coal Mine is a more advanced version of the coal mine, requiring 2 steam cores with a base heating of 2. If a coal mine is already built you can upgrade it to a steam coal mine at less cost, namely 1 less steam core.

It still requires 10 workers to run, but unlike the coal mine produces 600 coal per standard work day. With further upgrades its production can be improved.



The final upgrade in terms of the Coal Mine line, the advanced coal mine requires a monstrous 3 steam cores (2 if upgrading from a coal mine, 1 if upgrading from steam coal mine) to run, but comes with a base heating of 3 and with 10 workers produces 900 coal per standard work day.

With upgrades its output can be further improved.



If one's needs are desperate or if they are looking for an alternate source of coal and one has the wood income to spare, one can use Charcoal Kilns to produce Coal. Once researched and built a Charcoal Kiln comes with a base heating of 2, requires 5 workers, and consumes 70 wood per standard work day.

However the 70 wood is not wasted, as said, the Charcoal Kiln produces 150 Coal per work day in exchange for being fed wood. With upgrades it can produce more coal and produce it faster.

This brings us to our next set of buildings... resource gathering buildings...

Resource Production - The City Building Blocks

The City cannot be built on hopes and dreams, and without the basic resources to build it, your city will not be one. To build your city you will need Wood and Steel, of varrying amounts for each building. Some Buildings require only wood, and others motly steel. No matter what you build though, it will need the wood or steel, sometimes both, to construct it.

As wood was what our Charcoal Kilns from the previous part needed, we will begin with Wood Production.



Once you run out of wood crates to harvest, Sawmills will need to be built to provide wood. They require the nearby resource of Frozen Trees in order to function, but once the sawmill is researched and built, it comes with a base heating of 1, and once fully staffed with 10 workers can produce up to 80 wood for your city to use per standard work day.

With upgrades its output can be further improved and can have an even greater range of how many trees it can reach.



The Steam Sawmill is a more advanced sawmill that comes with a base heating of 2 and once fully staffed produces 120 wood per standard work day. It is also the same as the sawmill in terms of how much wood it can produce and how far its reach is when upgraded.

It is noted that frozen trees are a scarce resource, though plentiful at first, once the trees are gone there is only one other way to gather wood, and its a very expensive process if one is short on Steam Cores.



The Wall Drill can only be built in a few locations, and it requires a steam core to run, but once researched and constructed, comes with a base heating of 1 and with 10 workers can produce 160 wood per standard work day.

It has no upgrades outside of heating, but its output of wood can be increased as the building itself is upgraded.



The Steam Wall Drill is the second level in the wall drill line, upgrading from the Wall Drill requires only a single steam core, but building a new one will require 2 steam cores. Though the steam core cost may be high at first, its base heating of 2 and wood output from drilling into the crater walls and extracting frozen trees providing you up to 200 wood per standard work day make it worth the expense.



The Final Upgrade to the Wall Drill line, the Advanced Wall Drill requires 3 steam cores to run (2 if upgrading from a wall drill and 1 from a steam wall drill),comes with a base heating of 3 and provides 240 wood per standard work day.



Much like the coal mine and wall drills, the Steelworks building requires a specific location to be built, but once researched and built, it has a base heating of 1, requires 10 workers, and produces 40 steel per standard work day.

Like the wall drill also, it has no direct upgrades you can research, outside of building upgrades and heater upgrades.



The Steam Steelworks is the 2nd level of the steelworks line. It comes with a base heating of 2 and within a standard work day can produce 70 steel for the city to use.



The Advanced Steelworks is the final level of the steelworks line, and with a base heating of 3 and a full staff, can produce 130 steel on its own per standard work day.

To keep track of all these resources and the next resource you'll get, your city starts with a stockpile...



The Stockpiles are simply put, a resource dump management building. It cannot be built nor deconstructed, and keeps track of your resource count and how many of a resource your making per day.



The Resource Depot is a building that allows you to expand the number of resources you have in a specific area. Once constructed it does not require any heating, and so can be safely constructed in the cold, and once built can be assigined a resource to hold.

Depending on the resource it can hold a certain number, and can be upgraded to hold even more of a resource.

Food Production - People's Life Blood

Food production is vital to the city, as your people cannot survive alone on hope and words. Food must be had if they are to live, else they will starve to death.

You have two branches to choose from, and while both can be achieved it falls to you to decide which is more practical or useful given your situation.



Though Hunting is difficult in the frozen wasteland, there is still food to be found from animals that have adapted to survive the cold.

The Hunter's Hut is a building that can be built from the start, and does not need to be warmed. Up to 15 people can be stationed here, and every night they will travel outside the city to search for food. In the morning they return with up to 15 raw food.

With Upgrades the Hunter's Huts can provide up to 20 raw food, and can be upgraded to reduce the number of people working in the facility by 5.



The Hunter's Hanger is more effective and efficient at how much food it brings in, and once researched can be planted atop a hut, upgrading it, and improving how much food the workers stationed there will bring each morning.

Because they hunt from the air instead of the ground, the Hangers can provide up to 30 food per day.

Should they be further upgraded, hunter's hangers can provide additional food per day, from 30 to 45, using the same number of workers that a hunter's hut uses if the upgrade has been researched.



Though you will find zero green life left around you, the Hothouse is the beginnings of what could be once again. Requiring research and a precious steam core, the Hothouse produces 30 food per standard working day. It takes 10 people to fully staff it and comes with a base heating of 1.

Unlike the Hunter's Huts or Hunter's Hangers, the Hothouse MUST be kept at a working condition, namely Chilly or better to provide food, as the plantlife growing inside cannot survive the cold. Without heating upgrades or heat from the generator, it will not be able to function.

The Hothouse however, comes with upgrades that improve the heat level of the building, and research can further improve how much the Hothouse produces per standard workday.



The Industrial Hothouse, and my personal favorite way of producing food, is the largest and most efficient way to produce food for the city. A single Industrial Hothouse produces 60 raw food per standard work day. It requires 2 steam cores to function (1 if upgrading from a Hothouse), and also requires the same number of people staffing it but comes with a base heating of 2.

Just like the standard Hothouse, it requires the temperature to be Chilly or better to function, but unlike the Hothouse its better insulation allows for more green foods to be produced. Furtheremore with upgrades its heating can be further improved, and it can produce even more food.

Though the cost may be great in terms of space and steam cores, two Industrial Hothouses manned by 20 people can feed up to 240 people per day!

(Fun Fact, because of what the Industrial Hothouse represents, a hope that plantlife will one day thrive again on the world, the people of your city will consider working at the Industrial Hothouse one of the highest privaledges. Doesnt really affect gameplay but its an interesting bit of lore~)



The Cookhouse is a glorified soup kitchen, that takes the raw food that the Hunters/Hothouse workers provide, and turns them into Food Rations.

A single raw food is consumed to create 2 food rations.

Depending on how many people are staffed there, you can create up to 40 standard food rations per hour if it is fully staffed.

The Cookhouse can be upgraded to improve the warmth inside the cookhouse.

When you sign one of two laws, another recipe will be added to the cookhouse, and can have one of two effects with lingering problems.

If you sign soup, you can turn the Cookhouse into what it was originally... a Soup Kitchen. Soup will be produced and for every 2 raw food, 5 food rations will be created. However eating soup will cause discontent to rise.

If you sign the Food Additives law, you can add sawdust to the meals, producing 6 food rations per 2 raw food, however eating the sawdust meals will make people ill as sawdust, though more filling, is not healthy, so depending on your population, some or many will become ill as they eat the meals.

Tech Buildings - The Tech of the City

The City must survive, and the city must grow and research to become stronger and survive if it is to have a hope of thriving in the frozen wastelands.

We start with the foundation of research, the Workshop.



Workshops are constructed and are staffed by Engineers, once staffed and built, they can begin researching new buildings and upgrading existing buildings, including the most important building, the Generator.

Various upgrades have been mentioned in the guide and future upgrades will be mentioned as each building is mentioned.

The Workshop has a starting research speed of 100% fully staffed.

Additional Workshops provide the following bonuses.

A second Workshop provides a 30% research Bonus.

A third Workshop provides another 20% bonus, improving research speed to 150%

After 3, each additional workshop provides another 10% research bonus.



The Beacon is one of the most important buildings that can be researched, as it will allow the city to send out scouts to scout around the frostland and both search for people and even find additional resources, with the most valuable aside from people being Steam Cores.

It will also act as a giant light beacon to people traveling to the city 'and' to the scouts so that they can find their way back to it quickly.

Upgrades to the scouts can improve the number of scouts that can be sent out and how fast they can move.



The Outpost is a special Tech building, in that you can only produce a certain number and they can only be built at specific locations in the crater. Once built they can send out an outpost team to specific locations to construct an outpost, a permanent location that the team will stay at and send daily shipments of supplies.

These supplies can range from wood to steel, Coal, Raw Food and even steam cores.

Upgrades can improve the speed at which outpost teams can send resources, increasing the overall number of resources recieved.



The Steam Hub is the only way to extend the heating range of the generator, as the generator's limited heat range of '4' means that only the area surrounding it will be heated. For buildings outside of the heat range of the generator, in particular production buildings near the crater's edge, you will require a Steam Hub.

A Steam Hub is connected to the generator via roads and produces a small circle of heat around it, using the generator's heat power as a template. Whatever the Generator's Heat level is, so will the steam hub provide.

The Steam Hub will require coal to run, each steam hub using half of what the Generator requires, so at each generator heat level, the steam hub will use 3, 6, 9, and 12 respectfully per working hour.

During standard working hours it will consume 30, 60, 90 and 120 coal.
During extended working hours it will consume 42, 84, 126, and 168 coal.
If used 24 hours, it will require 72, 144, 216, and 288 coal per day.

Upgrades can include one of two, an upgrade to extend the range of the heat zone of each Steam Hub at the cost of 'double' the coal useage while running at that range, or reduce the coal useage by 33%.

It should also be noted that overlapping heat zones do not increase the heat a building has, the steam hub merely extends and creates a heat zone using the generator's heat level as a template, whatever the generator's power is at so will the steam hub be.



The Factory is the most advanced building your city can build, after being researched and constructed it comes with a base heating of 2 and can be staffed by 5 engineers and requires a steam core to be constructed.

There are many upgrades that can be found in conjunction with the Factory, namely all being related to the Automotons and Prosthetics, and their improvements.



Automotons are buildable from the start while Prosthetics need a law to be signed to make them.

Once constructed an Automoton will work at 60% of a building's efficiency. While it seems very inefficient at first, this is because unlike people who work in shifts, Automotons can work at a facility 24 hours a day without rest, only requiring short breaks to recharge at either a steam hub or the generator.

Another benefit of using the automoton is that they replace an entire work crew, working alone to harvest the same resources of an entire staff, allowing you to allocate those people to other places. They also do not require heating as they do not feel the cold, and thus you can save coal you would have used to heat the place for people.

The cost to produce them is heavy, both in terms of resources and steam cores, for a single automoton requires a single steam core to function, yet the benefits outweigh this cost. With upgrades automotons can be improved in terms of efficiency, and where it can be employed, enabling it to work in workshops allowing you to research 24/7, or even at medical facilities if you are low on staff.

It should be noted however that using automotons while benefitial, is dangerous to people, as Automotons aren't necessarily the brightest. Their sheer size and how they walk makes them likely to accidentally step on people, causing devastating injuries that will leave the victim an Amputee. It will be up to you to decide if efficiency is more important or not.

People Buildings - Homes and Other Buildings

Your people are not machines (well they are just not machines your thinking of), they need places to stay, places to live in, places where they can be people and make them feel like they are 'home' instead of just stuck in a frozen crater surrounded by ice. Homes are the first things you'll build, and while at first they will be simple tents with little insulation, they can be improved further to become true houses. Other buildings include child shelters if you signed that law, and public places and even places of rest for the dead.



Tents are basic housing places for your people, and can house up to 10 people. Tents only have a basic heating of 1, and while effective during the first few days, will eventually become unsuitable later on. It is the most basic also in terms of construction materials, only needing wood.



The Bunkhouse is the second level of housing, with better heating at 2, is more effective at keeping the cold out. It is however more expensive than building tents, requiring steel and wood to produce.



The House is the highest upgrade level and has the highest level of heating at 3 and the highest cost to produce in terms of materials, it can be improved however to make it cheaper 'and' provide better heating, improving the base heating of the house to 4 from 3.



The Child Shelter is available once the child shelter law is signed, while sending children to work seems better in the short term, the long term benefits of putting children in school is better as they can be sent to assist to work as Engineer Apprentaces in Workshops, or Doctor Apprentaces in Medical Posts.

Sending them to work in either will improve the Efficiency for each child that is in a Child Shelter.



The Fighting Arena seems barbaric at first, but nothing helps calm people down like seeing a good fist fight between two people. If built it reduces discontent for those living around it.



While a Pub may seem like a useless if not pointless thing with the freezing cold ever pressing down, the Public House is a reminder of home and a gathering place for people. Once built patrons can enjoy some time after work with a drink and socialize, reducing discontent.

You can also sign a law to 'upgrade' it, and allow you to employ ladies as prostitutes to further reduce discontent, though doing so may have bad interactions with those who are religious.



The Cemetary is where the dead can rest in peace, and building it will raise the hopes of those without, knowing that the dead will be given proper respects.

Signing a new law will allow you to hold special funeral services to further reduce hope loss from the dead.



While not as nice, the Snow Pit is the same thing as the Cemetary, a place where the dead rest, but unlike the cemetary the snow pit is built in the cold to 'preserve' bodies for later use. While it will cause further loss of hope, it will enable you to sign laws that can benefit the city at the expense of those lost.

You can sign a law that improve the efficiency of medical posts and infirmaries by using the organs of the dead in surgery.

You can sign a law that improve the food output of Hothouses and Industrial Hothouses by using corpses as fertalizer.

If your needs are desperate, you can sign a law that uses corpses to produce 'food'. However, if people find out there will be a massive loss of hope as they discover what it is they are eating, it will also cause discontent.

And whle we're talking about hope...

Hope and Discontent - The Driving Forces of Change

Your people will not like you if you sign laws that impact their lives in negative ways, contrary they will like laws that make their days more bearable or better. These two factors based on your decisions are called Discontent and Hope.

Discontent is caused when things aren't bearable for them, these can include poor food, cold living conditions, long working hours.

Hope is raised or lowered depending on what laws you sign, what buildings you make and what decisions you perform. These can be affected by signing either the snow pit law or the cemetary law for example.

When hope gets too low you will have to raise it or else you will be ousted by your people. If Discontent gets too high, you must lower it or you will face banishment or even execution.

You will have two branches to choose from to raise hope, and it will be up to you to decide which road to take.

Neither is wrong, but they both work differently from the other...

Faith - Religion To Bring Peace of Mind

Have Faith before you have Fear

The Path of Faith opens up the Faith Branch, which will allow you to sign laws and build Faith buildings that can raise hope and lower discontent.

What seperates the Faith branch from the Order branch in terms of 'Purpose', is that Faith has far more effective ways of improving hope and can easily gain hope over time without too much effort. Should you find it necessary though, words and prayers may not be all you need to keep hope high or maintain people's beliefs, and you may need to take on more 'extreme' methods.

We'll discuss the buildings as they'll be what you'll focus on.



The House of Prayer is available once you sign the House of Prayer Law. It raises the hopes of those around it and can use an ability to raise hope further.

Another Law that can be signed is the Evening Prayer Law, which allows you to hold evening prayers at the House of Prayer at the cost of 20 food rations. Doing so raises hope greatly and reduces discontent.



The Shrines are passive buildings that improve the efficiency of work places, at the same time raising the hope slightly for those working there. Each Day people will pray at the shrines before working, and after working and will raise hope ever so slightly for each person. While slow at first, over time the Shrine will make hope loss a minor issue.

They raise the efficiency of workplaces nearby for each person, up to a maximum of 20%, however only for 'human' crews, so Automotons will not be affected whatsoever as Automotons do not have spiritual beliefs.



The Temple is the ultimate means of raising hope for your people, once constructed it provides a passive boost to raising hope overtime. A Ceremonial Service can be performed at the Temple at the cost of 20 food to raise hope and lower discontent. The Temple can also perform the same actions as the House of Prayer.

It should be noted that the Houses of Prayer and Temple do not require heating, and do not require staff to perform their functions.



The Field Kitchen is a small building that can be staffed by 5 people, and uses food to provide heating level bonuses to nearby workplaces. This is a more effective way of heating buildings if coal production isn't high enough to better heat these places, or if the research isn't ready yet.



The Faith Keepers are the 'police' force of the Faithful, enabling you to reduce discontent. They also enable you to take actions that you would not have been able to, and allow you to hold nighttime processions to reduce discontent greatly.



The House of Healing is a medical facility that is on par with the Infirmary in terms of its heating bonus and what it does, with a base heating of 2 and requiring 10 people to staff it. However, people who are patients there are treated at a slower rate than the infirmary. However the House of Healing offers 3 benefits at this cost that the Infirmary doesn't offer.

The first benefit is that the House of Healing doesn't require a Steam Core, making it litteraly the 'poor mans' Infirmary, but comes with the heating and healing benefits of the medical facility upgrades you research.

The Second Benfit is that patients who stay there will recieve hope bonuses as they are in the care of their 'brothers and sisters', and have their spiritual beliefs reinforced.

The third benefit is that unlike infirmaries, the House of Healing can be staffed by both workers and engineers, whereas the infirmary requires engineers.

There are laws that enable you to further raise hope or lower discontent, such as the Public Penance, the Righteous Denunciation Law, and Protector of the Truth. These laws enable you to further reduce it, but as an absolute last resort, you can make Hope no longer an issue by signing the New Faith law.

Signing the New Faith Law will create an execution platform and establish a new faith for the city to follow. Establishing the New Faith will put the player in the highest of positions as the leader of the new faith, effectively making him the Pope and messenger of God. The execution platform will allow you to execute people to greatly reduce discontent, at the cost of lives. However, signing this law will cause people to die as people will fight against it.

Order - Organization to prevent Civil Strife

Bring Order to fight Chaos

Order is the polar opposite of Faith, not using people's faith to bring hope but instead relying on organization and mainting order to keep people's spirits up. What makes Order viable is that unlike Faith, Order raises efficiency of buildings more effectively. What makes it different from Faith is that it doesnt has as many effective ways of raising hope until later on.

As with faith we will talk about the buildings as they'll be what you'll use.



The Watch Tower is what you can first build, it offers a hope bonus to those living nearby but requires you to staff the tower. The tower will also require heating as there are people there, so whatever heating upgrades you get will be applied to it.



The Guard Station is built upon signing the Guard Law, signing the law and building the station will give a hope boost and lower discontent of those living nearby. You can upgrade watch towers to Guard Stations without having to make a new building.

Guard Stations can also be given the ability Patrol by signing the law, which reduces discontent and raises hope slightly with each use.



The Prison is a place where wrongdoers go to make amends for past deeds. With the Roundup Ability wrongdoers will be rounded up and put in prison for up to 3 days in which they will eat half rations and sleep in the prison. After 3 days they return to society and can be assigned work.

Doing so will cause discontent to lower.



The Propaganda Center is the strongest way Order has of raising Hope. At the cost of 10 wood it can use the ability to spread propaganda, raising hope and over time raises hope of the entire city.



The Agitator is the 'efficiency' boosting building of Order. Once constructed they spew out messages and other words to improve work efficiency of nearby places by 20%

Automotons are not affected by Agitators as they do not have ears and cannot hear what the Agitators are screaming~

In terms of other laws, the Order path can sign laws such as Morning Gatherings so that every morning hope raises as people gather together to get organized. Additional laws such as the Foreman will improve work efficiency of locations by 40% for 24 hours, it should be noted that even though Automotons aren't affected by Agitators, they are affected by the Foreman.

More laws such as the Forceful Persuasion and Pledge of Loyalty will enable the player to recover supplies stolen and reduce the time people spend in prison, at the cost of discontent rising and people getting hurt or even killed.

As a last resort, Order offers the law New Order. Signing the New Order Law will establish a new dictorial Government with the player as the Dictator. An execution stand will be established at the generator and people can be executed to reduce discontent. After signing hope will never be a problem again as everyone will be Obediant to the new order.

However signing it will cause people to fight back, and people will 'die' because of it, but hope will never be a problem again.

Tips and Tricks - Early Development for your City

Depending on your difficutly settings, you will research and gather at different speeds. However some good tips for getting you started and getting your foot on the right positioning can lead to a more developed and better off city.

Days 1-4

Days 1 through 4 are the most critical, as your intial group of people will need all the help they can get.

Tip 1) Proper Allocation of Gatherers.

One way to get going is to have 'everyone' gather wood from day one onward, on day 2 finish gathering wood and then gather the steel.

From day 2 onward you should be using gathering posts to gather multiple resources at once using 10 people wherever possible and having the rest finish up whatever lone resources are there.

After that you can build however your playstyle suits you.

Tip 2) Research Tree

What your research will become is what your colony will be. So your first pieces of rsearch should be what you 'need'.

Coal gathering, Food Production, and wood and steel production.

Tip 3) Efficient Production over Immediate Production

What this can be described as is in two ways to produce food, Hothouses and Hunter's Huts. While Hothouses are more expensive, using precious steam cores to build it, while Hunter's Huts are cheaper and available instantly. However, while hunter's huts research is more immediate, with some more time 'and' investment the hothouses produce far more food at less manpower requirement.

Hunters Huts produce 15 food (20 with upgrade) using 15 people.

Hothouses produce 30 food using 10 people

You'll need '2' hunter's huts to either equal or outpace a single hothouse, and at the cost of more people working, (20 with upgrades, 30 without) wheras the Hothouse only requires '10' and with more investment can produce even more food.

Think about what your long term plans will be and choose accordingly, but also keep in mind your resources, food is infinite steam cores are precious and few.

Tip 4) Heating Problems

One problem you will constantly face is how to heat locations, namely your houses, people will get sick if forced to sleep in cold environments. You can either improve the homes or heat them better via the generator, but the generator's heating will require you to gather more coal to feed it.

Tip 5) Upgrade Buildings

Many buildings can be upgraded, such as Hunter's Huts to Hunter's Hangers. If you upgrade from a lower building to a higher building the cost will be cheaper. It is also far more efficient to upgrade buildings as their outputs are often more effective than their base counterparts and come with better heating levels too.

Tip 6) Choose your Laws carefully

Your book of laws provide bonuses, and they provide more options based on what you sign, but they also come at the cost of what 'could' have been.

One example of this is Child Labor vs Child Shelters. While at first putting the children in schools just to get them out of the way is pointless whereas putting them to work makes them more useful, it is only so for 'immediate' benefits.

However signing child shelters will enable you to boost the efficiency of medical posts and infirmaries or workshops depending on what apprentaship you wish to put them for.

One is long term and the other short term, so choose wisely what you want as there is no wrong way to go, just which you want.

Conclusions~

If you read this far then i hope you learned a thing or two, we talked about all the buildings, their upgrade potentials, their benefits and cons...

If anyone would like to help improve this or has opinions and ideas to help improve it, comment below and i may add them in a special section...

Now get back to work!

[ZVLOSKI]

Wow, thank you so much for this! It’s incredibly helpful—everything is laid out so clearly, and it’s easy to reference when needed. I really appreciate it! 😊

[Frenne Dilley]

A map of ideal districts/wings for potential efficient/win set ups would be great, i mean like where and how large the residential district/wing in view of contentment building space and measuring squares for adequate coverage, eg, and for other slices of the pie what building to gather together particularly for building size and space efficiency.

That'd be handy. I'm in sandbox mode for fun mode, just to do it without challenge but other modes with other challenges would have different needs like stages of building, though reconstruction would upset people that's necessary evil sometimes.

[Lok Vahdin]

This helps a lot, great guide!

[Ardhous]

Good guide. Congrats!

[KINGPIN]

Do steam hubs stack?

[AwaKeN - AKA PU]

Nice guide but how do you increase the text size way too small for me? Anyone know? Thanks

[ปลาทู]

nice one man thank you

[Stupid Sexy Jes]

Top Tip. Set your cook house to Demolish then pause it.
When you need food cooking cancel and staff. then repeat.
Why? well, if the cookhouse is staffed people will take breaks for food. if its closed they only get food when they hit starving. Squeezing out extra productivity

[dogwalker1]

About to start the game - this explains the basics without giving spoilers, just what a game manual ought to be - thank you!

[John Sparta]

Thank you! This is very helpful.