Hazards in Frostpunk Frostpunk Guide
How to deal with cold, starvation and diseases in Frostpunk? If you're looking for help, check our guide with many tips for Frostpunk.
Last update: 24 April 2018
In Frostpunk, your town will have to face numerous hazards. The most obvious one is cold but there are other, more problematic dangers, such as diseases. In this chapter you can learn about the biggest threats that you can come across in the game and how to deal with them.
Cold
This is the most basic hazard in the game. Your town is almost entirely covered in ice which means that keeping a certain temperature is very important.
The Generator, located in the middle of your town, is the main source of heat. Initially, its heat area is small. Buildings that are affected by low temperature should be placed close to it, e.g. Cookhouse or Medical Post.
A Generator has a few upgrades that increase its reach and temperature that it can create. All these upgrades can be found in "Heating" part of the technology tree. Each unlocked upgrade is activated instantly. However, you can make changes to a Generator whenever you want. Simply click on a Generator to open its panel. There, you can set its range [2] and steam level [1].
Each change affects coal consumption and because of that you should manage your Generator wisely. Keep a maximum range at all cost so its heat can reach as many buildings as possible. However, you should control how much steam it generates. There is no point in keeping the highest steam level when the temperature is around -30°C. You can set the second level - this won't affect your citizens' morale but you will be able to save a lot of coal.
Heaters and Steam Hub are additional technologies that allow you to create heat in your town. The first method gives industrial buildings their own sources of heat that can be activated whenever you want. This will increase temperature inside of a building (this depends on a level of this technology).
The second technology lets you place small heat sources above roads to raise temperature in nearby buildings. This is a great way of increasing temperature in places that are far away from the town's center, e.g. Coal Mines. What is more, a Steam Hub can be set to work in periodical operating mode. Thanks to that it won't work during nights when nearby buildings are inactive. Just like a Generator, a Steam Hub has a few operating modes that can be freely changed in the building's management screen.
Each method of providing heat requires a certain amount of coal. Your coal balance can be viewed in the Economy screen. Check out "Coal" chapter to learn how to extract coal efficiently.
Starvation
Food is absolutely necessary if you want your city to survive. Your people can start starving if food production is stopped. This is a very dangerous situation to overcome and it can get out of control pretty fast. Quickly identify a source of problem when you notice that number of starving citizens is increasing rapidly. The "Economy" screen allows you to check out your current amount of food.
If that problem is caused by an inactive Cookhouse then you have good chances in solving this situation. Simply find a problem that causes this building to be inactive. You can do that by assigning new workers or by increasing temperature in it. After that the building will work again. Also, if you have a lot of free workers, you can decide to build another Cookhouse to speed up the process of turning raw food into an edible form.
Problems with buildings that produce raw food are much worse. You may run into a problem where you don't have enough raw food. This can be caused by several reasons - not enough workers or buildings not working efficiently enough. The process of getting food takes a lot of time so solve this problem as fast as you can. Add more workers to every single building that provides food. You should also place another building that gathers food, preferably Flying Hunters because they have the best efficiency. Upgrade them fast if you haven't already - the upgrade that increases their efficiency is one of the most important ones. Thanks to that you will get more raw food.
You will have to wait additional 24 hours for your first bigger shipment of raw food to arrive. Because of that the number of starving people will increase. Sign "Soup" or "Food Additives" laws if you haven't done that already and order all your Cookhouses to work in a new mode. By doing that you will be able to get more edible food from the same amount of raw food.
Diseases
The frozen world of Frostpunk also has a huge impact on your citizens' health. Your city can be infested by a disease if your citizens are kept in houses with low temperature or when you don't solve the problem of "utilizing" corpses. Also, your citizens can have various accidents during work that will have a negative impact on their health.
Having an adequate medical care is very important. Medical Post is the most basic building for that. Every ill person will be treated there. However, this type of a building is small which means that you will need a few of them. You should also quickly decide what you want to do with terminally ill citizens - try to heal them or to let them die in peace.
The first option is recommended when you are focusing on efficiency. "Prosthetics" law allows you to construct prosthetics in Factories which are later given to terminally ill citizens. Thanks to that they can go back to work.
The second option increases citizens' content. However, it isn't great when you are looking from a practical point of view because terminally ill people are kept in Medical Posts. This means that you will have problems with making room for other patients. Sign "Care House" law as fast as you can. It gives you a new building where all terminally ill citizens are moved into.
Regardless of your choice, you should invest in upgrades that increase efficiency of the healing process. Also, if there are a lot of ill and you already chose your "Purpose" then you should sign "House of Healing" law. It unlocks a new medical building where even the regular workers can work. This affects efficiency of healing and helps medicine to become independent (you have a limited number of engineers).