Frostpunk – How to Survive the Storm

The main goal in Frostpunk is to keep your city’s Hope and Discontent in check, all while providing your people with food, a way forward, plenty of coal to keep their heaters running and protecting against the huge storm. It’s a delicate balance to keep, and it provides quite a challenge. After a certain point in the Frostpunk, your city learns of a massive storm headed your way. This is the biggest storm you’ll face in the game, and temperatures are going to plummet. Here’s what you need to know to survive the storm in Frostpunk.

How to Prepare for the Storm

Preparing for the storm is crucial, and once you learn about the storm’s impending arrival, you’ll have a few tasks to complete to prepare for the storm. While these are a good place to start there is something that you’ll want to pay attention to as well.

The temperature is going to plummet during the storm and making sure you don’t run out of resources is going to be key. First, you’ll want to make sure you save up some Steam Cores for this final moment—or set up an outpost at Tesla’s city, that way you have an influx of Steam Cores coming in up until you need to recall your Outpost Teams. Otherwise you’ll have to put your people at risk, which means you’ll risk losing people in the storm.

Once you’re stocked up on steam cores, work on getting Automatons going for all of your coal mines, as well as your wall drills (or whatever type of system you chose to use to gather wood). Using Automatons will mean less people at risk during the extreme temperatures of the storm, which means you’ll continue to get more resources each and every hour. This is important, as you’re going to burn through a ton of coal while the storm rages on.

You’ll also want to make sure you have plenty of Resource Depots stocked up with Coal. When we went through the storm, we had roughly 5,000 coal, and ran out halfway through the last day. This is something you’ll want to avoid, as it means you’re going to look at losing quite a few of your citizens, which isn’t something you should be okay with.

You may also want to work on repositioning some things in your city to make sure that all of your houses are as close to the generator as possible. The generator is your best source of heat and having the most important items close to it is important. You will want to make sure you have room for your Infirmaries as well and try to get rid of any old medical centers you have and replace then with Infirmaries. The upgraded medical areas heal people faster, which means less chance of people dying to the storm’s bitter cold.

Once your coal mines and wall drills are stocked with Automatons, it’s time to really bunker down and prepare for the storms. We suggest turning off any nonmajor buildings, as you’ll want to keep people inside as much as possible. You’ll also want to make sure you get all of your scouts and outpost members back to the city before the storm hits, as their casualties will count against you.

On top of resources, make sure you have all of the various heater and generator upgrades unlocked, as well as the Overdrive upgrades.

How to Survive the Storm

Now that you’re prepared for the storm, batten down the hatches and prepare for the most grueling time your city has ever seen. Expect to see some citizens perish, but hopefully the preparations that you’ve done will keep most—if not all—of them alive. While you can fast forward through the storm, we suggest letting it play out, as this will give you more direct control over your resources. Ideally, you’ll want to have a good 6,000 to 7,000 coal saved up, as well as around 3,000 to 4,000 food rations, depending on the size of your city.

Throughout the storm you’ll also want to pay careful attention to the temperature and the generator’s power level. Remember to juggle between the main steam level and the Overdrive system to burn less coal but still keep everything warm and toasty for your citizens. Your goal here isn’t to keep everything liveable. Instead, just shoot to keep things at least chilly or above. Chilly leaves them a bit susceptible to the cold, but not nearly enough to guarantee that they will get sick. From here, all that’s left to do is wait things out and hope that everything you’ve done to this point is enough—it should be if you followed our preparation instructions.

If you followed our instructions, then your city should come out of the storm on top, with only a few casualties—if any. Remember that harder difficulties mean that the temperatures will drop further, which mean you’ll need to gather more resources for your city in order to survive the storm.