Frostpunk 2: How to complete Chapter 1 Scraping the Barrel? Frostpunk 2 guide, tips

Chapter 1 in Frostpunk 2 is a period of expansion of New London and an introduction to new key game mechanics. On this page of the guide we described how to survive the first months of the game and find a new source of energy.

Last update: 25 October 2024

Chapter 1 in Frostpunk 2 serves as a thorough introduction to the game's most important mechanics. It starts automatically after the prologue. Its completion requires, among other things: managing resources, promulgating laws, conducting research, making tough decisions, and sending scouts outside the city limits. On this page of our guide you will learn how to build New London, survive the first months of the game and find a new energy source.

• Chapter 1 tips
• A new beginning for New London
• Politics and exploration
• Building colonies and extracting oil

Chapter 1 tips

1. Always be doing something - you never want to waste time. Whenever you have the opportunity, break the ice, build new districts, announce new laws, and start new research - many of them give you small bonuses that will make your survival much easier. Building more research institutes will accelerate the pace of research.
2. You will need to rely on coal throughout the entire chapter, so make sure to exhaust the limited available deposits quickly. As a mandatory objective, you will have to research one of the available coal mines - if you cannot keep up with coal production, build more mines in expanded extraction districts.
3. After building the Logistics District, search the safe regions first. If a region's description mentions possible coal deposits, explore it first - you'll find manpower to recruit there, and two outpost locations that will provide you with a huge amount of coal and food. To gain access to this food, however, you must first accept the people who have settled there into your city.
4. Apartment blocks are one of the most important early studies. Unlocking Housing Blocks and building them in expanded Housing and Food Districts will greatly increase the amount of available housing.
5. In your free time, build industrial districts (preferably next to extraction districts to reduce the demand for heat) and research the factories that can be built in such expanded districts. They will enable you to produce prefabricated products and consumer goods (meeting the demand for Goods increases your weekly increase in Heatstamps).
6. Workforce is one of the most important resources in this chapter. If you run out of it, you can temporarily delegate workers from other districts (slider in the district window). Building dedicated hubs between districts, on the other hand, increases the maximum capacity of your warehouses and, more importantly for now, reduces the amount of manpower required to service those districts.
7. Listen to faction proposals during events - they will direct you to the highest priority issues you need to investigate or vote on. Completing these will also increase your faction support, enabling you to collect Heatstamps from them in case you need to build something immediately and don't have time to wait.
8. After founding a new colony, break the ice to the available resources as quickly as possible and deplete them - you must deal with each colony manually. Acquiring the two oil deposits should enable you to start shipping enough fuel to New London and thus end the chapter.

A new beginning for New London

Your first task is to get the generator going and provide shelter for the settlers. Break the ice in the southeastern gorge to reach the coal deposits and build an extraction district there. We recommend building housing districts in the second gorge - this will reduce their heat demand. Building housing districts next to each other will have the same effect. Try not to build them right next to industrial and extraction districts - it has a negative impact on settlers. Once the coal deposit has been secured, turn on the generator.

Then you need to build a research institute, thanks to which you will be able to research new technologies. Build it in a housing district (if you don't have this option, expand the district first). Start researching one of the available coal mines, according to your preferences - one requires more materials but less labor, the other vice versa. While research is ongoing, tend to the city's other needs, and when it is complete, build a mine of your choice in the expanded extraction district from which you mine coal.

Politics and exploration

The next step is to build a town hall next to the generator. There will be a vote on whether to keep you in power - losing the vote means immediate game over.

You must negotiate with one of the two larger factions - in exchange for support, promise them to implement or research one of the three laws and technologies of their choice. This promise should be enough to win the vote - choose the promise that you think will be useful to you. From now on, call council meetings whenever possible to create new laws.

Now, you need to build a logistics district and start sending expeditions outside the city limits. Break the ice to the nearest old staging point on the border of your territory and build a logistics district there.

You can now start sending expeditions to other regions - your goal is to find oil. But first, send your scouts to two nearby safe regions - in our case, the hills and the frozen bay. In both we found places to set up outposts, which provided us with large amounts of coal and food, as well as new settlers.

Building colonies and extracting oil

Then, research the safe region adjacent to the frozen bay (if you run out of scouts, build a second logistics district or research a building that upgrades them). In the new area you will find an old dreadnought - a place to establish a colony from where you can extract oil. Connect New London and the old dreadnought by road or cable car, then send colonists to settle there.

After finding the dreadnought, you will have to make a choice - you will find several oil deposits, but one of them contains the remains of the people who once lived near the dreadnought. You must decide whether you will leave this grave alone or dispose of the bodies to get to the oil. If you refuse to do the latter, you will only have two deposits available instead of three. If you destroy the grave you will have three deposits available, however the oil from the grave may start spreading diseases. The choice is ultimately yours.

Once the settlers have established a colony, move there and begin the process of icebreaking to reach all available resources - also break the ice in the gorge under the dreadnought, as it is a good place for a housing district. Colonies function as small settlements that you must manage manually. First build an extraction district on a prefab deposit so you don't run out, then build more of them on oil deposits. Once you have acquired the two deposits, you will have enough oil to meet New London's needs.

Click the old dreadnought icon in the upper right corner of the screen and then select the resource transfer option. Using the bars in the middle, set a constant export of the required amount of oil to New London. This will end the chapter, starting chapter two.