Getting started

This is a good start for the first five days of "A New Home".

General Tips

- You don't need the generator on until the first temperature drop. Your people will be just fine as long as they have tents on night 1.

- An easy way to find the max generator range is to pause the game, build 4 tents going outwards, and undo them. The clear areas are the max range of the generator.

- Don't waste time, work hours, and resources building during the day, unless you have extra people available to do it and you have the resources to continue researching. Your people will build during their off time. The best practice is to pause the game right after shifts end and place buildings all at once.

- Get new laws as soon as they are available. The same goes with research; as soon as one research project is done, start another.

- Don't be afraid to pause the game and assess what is going on, or to make sure your timing is spot-on.

- Your generator overdrive is a fantastic ability. It raises the heating level by 1 at no additional cost (+2 with research) and will keep you from needing to raise your steam heating level. Your steam hubs share the heating level of your generator, so this affects the hubs as well. Just don't let it explode.

- Illness:
Don't panic if people get sick, even if you get more sick people than your medical post can handle. It can happen no matter how careful you are. As long as the patients waiting for treatment can start treatment within 24 hours or so, they will not become gravely ill.

- Scouting:
Don't feel like you need to go back to your city after every exploratory visit. Go from one site to the next, stockpiling supplies until you find something you want (or need), then head back.
This is kind of cheating for some people, but you can save the game before dangerous scouting events (such as the bear cave or Tesla City). If your scouts die, you can load your save and try it again. These events are random, and you can re-load your game until your scouts live through it.

- Steam hubs:
They burn coal, but early on they can be more efficient than heaters if used properly (3 coal per hour at steam level 1, whereas heaters use 1 coal per hour per building), so make sure you are getting everything out of them you can.
Build strategically, getting as much in their radius as you can. Turn them off when they are not in use. Set their schedules accordingly.
Steam hubs and the generator share their heating level and do not stack: anything that the steam hub is heating is wasted coal if it is being heated by the generator or another steam hub. When you get the steam hub range upgrade, you will want to re-asses your steam hub placements (i.e., dismantling and rebuilding them)

Tech/Law research order

Tech order:
-Faster gathering
-Hunter's gear
-Steam hub
-Saw mill
-Beacon
-Steelworks
-Heaters
-Coal Thumpers
-Drawing board
-Wall Drill

Laws:
** Make sure you get laws as soon as they become available. You can get a new law every 18 hours.

-Emergency Shift
- Extended shift
- Radica Treatment/Sustain life
- This comes down to personal preference. Once you build an infirmary, this is almost a non-issue. Radical treatment will try to cure gravely ill but may cause amputations. Sustain life will keep them in medical posts untreated. As long as you keep your people out of -40F for extended periods you should have no gravely ill before you get an infirmary and this should have no impact.

-Overcrowding (This is probably the most OP law in the game. It doubles your medical capacity at the cost of slight discontent)
-Child shelters
- Medic/Engineer Apprentices
- Again, this comes down to preference. Whatever profession you choose will be more efficient. I personally choose medics. You can always get more workshops to speed up research.

Day 1 - Day 5

Day 1
- Pause, get emergency shift as soon as scenario starts
- 30 on the western wood piles, 15 on western steel, 15 and 5 on the southern wood piles
-After the shifts end, pull all workers. Build 8 tents, 1 medic post in inner circle, 2 workshops and a gathering post near the northern double coal pile (outside of the max generator range), and a Hunter's hut in an isolated area in the southwest. The hunter's hut and beacon do not need heat, so this is where you will put the buildings that do not require heat.
- Get extended shift as next law, set the workshops and all resource piles to extended shift
- 5 Engineers in both workshops and medic post. Max out workers on the western resources, whoever is left send to the south resources. Prioritize maxing out the worker count on one pile at a time.



Day 2
- As the western wood and steel piles deplete, max out the southern piles, wood first. Extended shift for all piles.
-After the shift ends, build a a cookhouse near the workshops, and assign 15 to the hunter's hut.
- Workers: 15 hunting, 14 on the wood piles, 15 on steel, 5 in the gathering post, 1 in the cookhouse. Again, prioritize maxing out the worker count on one pile at a time.

Day 3
- The resources at the south must be done by the time the day is over. Use emergency shift on the last pile to finish it if necessary, as these must be done before the first temperature drop comes. Research for steam hub and sawmill will be done by the end of the day, as will beacon if you researched everything without any gaps.
- When shifts end, build a second hunter's hut, a beacon, sawmill, and steam hub as shown. The sawmill doesn't need to be in the range of a lot of wood, it is just a stopgap until we get a wall drill. Make sure the steam hub can touch every building you built up north.
- Create a scout and send them to the lost expedition.

- Workers: 30 hunting, 3 in the sawmill, 10 in the gathering post, 2 in the cookhouse, 5 scouting.


Day 4
- At about 5 AM, start the generator. Yes, it has been off this entire time. When the shifts end and people go home, overdrive the generator to keep people from getting sick.

Day 5
-When the scouts return with the survivors, build a steam hub and some tents for them. Build a steelworks (use their heater, not another steam hub). Employ the new workers at the sawmill and steelworks. Build a second medical post in the inner circle if you like (you will have more engineers with the survivors the scouts bring back).



Beyond Day 5
- When the coal pile near the workshops depletes, build a third workshop so the rest of the engineers are not going to waste. You can use the unemployed people to speed up that process by gathering directly from the pile, as you should have steam hub coverage for the entire area.
- Plan on building another gathering post near the other double coal pile area before the first piles deplete. This will eventually turn into coal thumper central.

The rest is up to you, but this should give you a good jumping off point.

[Blanch Warren]

You can send out an expedition team on day one, and I see no reason not to.

[PuddleJumper]

@Strix By the 8th day or so, I have another gathering post at the other coal piles. When those start to get low, start getting coal thumpers.

[Strix]

@PuddleJumper I always lack coal when I hit the 10th to 15th day. The game gets hard for me when I hit the 10th to 15th days.

[PuddleJumper]

@Strix I'll look into that, but I'm not much of a creator. Actually, I'm not a creator at all :D.

[Strix]

This is a great guide. I wonder if you have a YouTube video or videos that shows this guide in actual gameplay?

[PuddleJumper]

@jbhtrue On day 2, you start assigning people to a gathering post. They will be gathering coal.

[jbhtrue]

I don't see any workers assigned to coal in this guide. The game tells you that's the first thing you need to do. Where are they? Are they assumed?

[patcheney]

thank you but really the game should provide some kind of basic introduction at the very beginning of the game so that at least people new to the game could have some sort of idea about what to do and how to get started

[ToxicCalamari]

Good guide, only complaint is the timing on what you say is /extremely/ tight lmao

[all good]

Great guide!