Steam cores are vital to your city’s survival in Frostpunk. They can greatly increase food production, improve health care, and increase the flow of resources. But how do you build them?
Frostpunk steam cores can not be built. You can discover steam cores by sending out Scout teams to look for them or by discovering Tesla City and constructing an Outpost. Tesla City will deliver around 1 steam core per day.
Discovering Frostpunk Steam Cores
Sending scouts out to survey the area and look for survivors is the only way to get more steam cores until Tesla City is discovered and an Outpost is set up. In order to send Scouts out to look for steam cores, resources, and survivors you need to research the Beacon technology and then build it. In one of my first games I did not have the resources to spare to research and build one until day 6.
Once the Beacon is built you must create a Scout team. You need 40 wood and 5 people to create the team and until my economy stabilized a little bit, I didn’t have the people to spare until day 7. That meant I had to pull people off important tasks like gathering coal but if you want more survivors to help out, more resources, and especially if you want more steam cores, creating and sending out at least one Scout Team is a necessity.
To send them out you zoom out, select one of the landmarks highlighted with a question mark (at first there will only be a few), and send the Scout team there. You do that by first selecting the Scout team and then click on the destination. Click on the green arrow to send the Scout Team to that location.
Depending on what you explore first and whether you escort survivors back to the city or just give them directions and continue exploring will determine how soon you discover your first steam core, for the game I am referring to it was day 9. Once your Scout team has a steam core it has to return to the city before it becomes available for use.
Other Frostpunk articles on this site:
How to make streets in Frostpunk
Which Frostpunk laws are better, Faith or Order?
How To Make An Outpost Team In Frostpunk
Before you can create an Outpost Team you need to research and build the Outpost Depot and then assemble a team there. This is a tier 2 research item that’s available after Drafting Machines have been researched. The cost to research an Outpost Depot is 30 wood and 20 steel and to build an Outpost Depot costs 25 wood and 45 steel.
Before you can start receiving resources from coal mines you may find or steam cores from Tesla City you must create an Outpost Team at the Outpost Depot. Creating one takes 40 wood, 20 steel and 10 people. After creating one send the Outpost Team to the area you want to build the Outpost in. If you know how to manage Scouts then you’ll have no trouble with an Outpost team since the mechanics are the same.
Once your team arrives at its destination you can build an Outpost and start sending badly needed resources to your city. An Outpost Depot can only support one Outpost so if you want more resources from another area you’ll need to build another Outpost Depot.
Outposts can be dismantled and the Outpost team sent to another resource site if needed.
Getting Steam Cores From Tesla City
Once you’ve found Tesla City you can send an Outpost Team there and establish an Outpost. Steam cores will be delivered almost each day, making this one of the more valuable resource points.
How To Make Automatons In Frostpunk
Automatons work 24 hours a day, and even at 66% efficiency they are often more effective than a fully staffed workplace.
The path to building Automatons in Frostpunk is the same as the one for building Prosthetics. Once Drafting Machines have been unlocked the Factory must be researched, which is a tier 2 item. After that build a Factory and start queuing up Automatons in the production line. Once again, the same as prosthetics, you can que up as many as you want but production won’t start until all the resources are available, and these are very expensive.
It takes specialized training to work in a Factory like this so it can only be staffed by Engineers. To build an Automaton it costs 100 Steel, 100 Wood, 50 Coal, and 1 Steam Core. About the only time an Automaton will become inoperative is if the Generator shuts down and it can’t refuel, although there are a few other special occurrences that can cause downtime.
Although it appears to take some time to move an Automaton from one location to the next, like from a Coal Mine to a Steelworks, the effects are instantaneous.
How To Make Homes Livable In Frostpunk
Sometimes you’ll get complaints from your citizens that their homes are too cold and if you decide to do something about it, you’ll have a set amount of time to do it in or Hope will take a hit and decrease.
You can make homes livable by putting the Generator into overdrive, increasing the steam level or increasing the range. The other option is to build better homes with better insulation.
The best method to locate cold and unlivable homes is the use the Generator’s Temperature overlay. When you change settings on the Generator you can see exactly how many homes and buildings the heat is increasing in.
Probably the best way to heat more home is by putting the Generator into Overdrive since it consumes no additional coal. The problem is that if you stress the Generator too long by leaving it in Overdrive, it can cause it to explode, meaning game over for your citizens and for you!
Putting the Generator into overdrive raises the heat level by 1 unless you’ve researched Overdrive Couplings, then heat level is increased by 2.
The generator itself has four steam levels but only the first level is available until more are researched. Each additional steam level increases the heat level by 1 at the cost of a lot more coal consumption.
The Generator range can also be expanded to include more homes, and same as the steam level, each additional range level costs more coal.
Steam hubs will help if homes are outside the range of the Generator and they put out the same level of heat as the Generator. Good if you’re getting the job done within the range of the Generator and just need to reach a few more. Usually, clustering homes together is a great idea since that will make a steam hub be able to heat more homes at once, meaning it’s more efficient.
One more solution is better homes with better insulation. After Drawing Boards have been researched you can build Bunkhouses which are 1 heat level warmer. The next housing improvement is a House which is available to be researched after Mechanical Calculators have been researched.
Don’t forget to visit my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcWU6qxVisK93h5guKRVtdg
A house doesn’t provide another heat level increase but it opens the path to House Insulation, which does give another 1 step increase to housing warmth.