Playing in the Arctic (freezing all year round areas)

[alexrou]

I'm assuming not many people play in these kinds of areas cause if there were, the balance wouldn't be so bad. I'm playing in these areas exclusively for fun but the removal of the sun light (without research) has made it now seemingly impossible.

If you don't build a room and put up a fire place in the first few minutes everyone will die from hypothermia. If you're too slow and someone got hypothermia before its done, they still may die from a infection.
Since there are no trees around, you must build a sola/wind generator asap and then build heaters or you die from hypothermia.
You then cannot grow food as it is perma freezing so you have to make a room and use heaters and a grow light (which now you have to research for, so now you can't grow food for a long time and have a high chance of starving to death). It might have been better if there were anything to hunt but nope there is almost nothing to hunt 99% of the time. Also trying to go anywhere far from home or for a extended period of time is a suicide mission cause you don't have warm clothing and to get those you need to grow cotton or hunt the almost non-existent animals and then spend a long time to make it.

Now add to that fending raiders, eclipses, solar flares that shut down every single thing keeping you alive and kill all your plants (it gets easier late game where you can have a huge supply of food and warm clothing, but early game its brutal).

I'm not asking for it to be easy or even close to what having a colony in a normal area is like but at least make it more doable. I really do not see it being possible without the sun light or some way to get a constant supply of food early game. Though I will still try so we shall see.

[PotatoeTater]

That is the point of the ice sheets, to be really hard and unforgiving. Also just a tip, you can grow in gravel.

[alexrou]

I know how to make a arctic colony but it all depended on having the sun light at start. Making it a research item makes the task seemingly impossible now cause you would starve to death by the time you research it and then grow food.

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[PotatoeTater]

Not really impossible, just a little harder. You might have to actually eat people then. Also just saying I have been around long enough that it was a mod to play in the ice sheets, it was a challenge back then too.

[alexrou]

I tried, eating people just make them break and/or daze and then they die. Also doesn't help for the mode where you start with one guy. btw I'm a kickstarter backer, should tell you how long I've been playing

[Andy_Dandy]

You just have to research hydroponics asap. In the meantime use all your money on food when given a chance, and live of the food brought by raiders + human flesh if needed. You also should hunt all the animals on the map at game start, and kill your starting animal the second u start the game. Another important thing is to haul all your starting Food to a safe shelter, so not eaten by other animals, you need every ration.

This is how I've always played, and I've seldom gone for that early gravel farm anyways, but straight for hydroponics. Turrets can wait, make a trap defense system walled in in the meantime.

[Varnhagen]

If you don't want to eat people, you can use them as bait. Carnivores entering the map will path to your bait and you can kill them within the vicinity of your abode. Leaving a little bit of food outside for herbivores does the trick as well, but you need to micromanage like hell to prevent the little ones from actually eating your bait.

[Serenity]

Sunlamps requiring research has been fixed in 15c:

https://ludeon.com/blog/2016/08/alpha15c-in-testing-on-unstable-branch/

[alexrou]

Sunlamps requiring research has been fixed in 15c:

https://ludeon.com/blog/2016/08/alpha15c-in-testing-on-unstable-branch/

It says "Fix: Standing lamps and sun lamps are available without research."
It means that sunlamps were supposed to require research, before the patch it was available at start.

@Andy_Dandy

You now have to research the sunlamp and hydroponics, I don't think you would get very far that way ...

@Varnhagen

I see like one or two every few weeks/months, thats no where enough food and most of the time its a polarbear that kills/badly injures (+infection) someone.

[mrofa]

Its possible and yehh human meat is your best food, for longer part of establishing stable colony. After 8 tries im on a good way to be stable, with good ammount of corpses to eat.
Anyways guys i got a challange for you
-No early game mods, not including UI mods
-No edb for colonist creation(yes mashochistic randome clicking)
-Lone Explorer Scenario
-Randy, i do this on extreme/permadeath but bit lower difficulity level without permadeath shouldnt really change much(randy for not so steady supplies of corpses)
-Map 400x300 with "planetologist" seed
-Colony map size(advenced button) 325x325
-Colony location at coords 41.60E , 71.47N. Big white thingy on the north parth on the map, there are three locations with winter -80 and below any of them is decent thrugh the coords i did post have good open space with good defensive position near mountain(usuall spawn point).
-Goal get colony to be able to sustain 10 colonists and have atleast 3 canibals

[alexrou]

Its possible and yehh human meat is your best food, for longer part of establishing stable colony. After 8 tries im on a good way to be stable, with good ammount of corpses to eat.
Anyways guys i got a challange for you
-No early game mods, not including UI mods
-No edb for colonist creation(yes mashochistic randome clicking)
-Lone Explorer Scenario
-Randy, i do this on extreme/permadeath but bit lower difficulity level without permadeath shouldnt really change much(randy for not so steady supplies of corpses)
-Map 400x300 with "planetologist" seed
-Colony map size(advenced button) 325x325
-Colony location at coords 41.60E , 71.47N. Big white thingy on the north parth on the map, there are three locations with winter -80 and below any of them is decent thrugh the coords i did post have good open space with good defensive position near mountain(usuall spawn point).
-Goal get colony to be able to sustain 10 colonists and have atleast 3 canibals

I don't use mods, I always click random and play lone survivor. And I always regenerate the map until I can find a ice sheet cold enough that is always in the negative.

[hoochy]

I think there are certainly missing factors here.

If you were on an ice sheet and you were going to die, good chance you may feel OK with eating Steve who was annoying anyhow. Many people choose themselves over others, especially when they don't have a close connection to someone.

I feel like humans in "bad circumstances" often do things they wouldn't do otherwise, and they live with it because they know they can't survive without doing them. So having a mental break that makes them kill another survivor seems unlikely in such circumstances. If you decide to eat Steve you are ok with it, if you aren't, you wouldn't do it in the first place and would just die instead.

Mental breaks are an interesting story telling aspect of the game but there are certainly many aspects in which it could be improved. There are more interesting stories that could be told and the game would be more interesting if it were a bit less "predictable" in regards to people "Losing it" over the same thing.

[alexrou]

I think there are certainly missing factors here.

If you were on an ice sheet and you were going to die, good chance you may feel OK with eating Steve who was annoying anyhow. Many people choose themselves over others, especially when they don't have a close connection to someone.

I feel like humans in "bad circumstances" often do things they wouldn't do otherwise, and they live with it because they know they can't survive without doing them. So having a mental break that makes them kill another survivor seems unlikely in such circumstances. If you decide to eat Steve you are ok with it, if you aren't, you wouldn't do it in the first place and would just die instead.

Mental breaks are an interesting story telling aspect of the game but there are certainly many aspects in which it could be improved. There are more interesting stories that could be told and the game would be more interesting if it were a bit less "predictable" in regards to people "Losing it" over the same thing.

Sounds like you have something against a Steve. What did he do?

[eadras]

Keeping spare charged batteries can save your ass during a prolonged eclipse.  This is true in any colony, but especially in an extreme biome such as an ice sheet.  Solar flares are another story... there is hardly any way to cope with them.  I guess you buy wood from traders and stockpile it, then make campfires when the inevitable happens, and hope it lasts.

I haven't made a serious ice sheet attempt yet, but I think you've convinced me to give it a go 

[alexrou]

Keeping spare charged batteries can save your ass during a prolonged eclipse.  This is true in any colony, but especially in an extreme biome such as an ice sheet.  Solar flares are another story... there is hardly any way to cope with them.  I guess you buy wood from traders and stockpile it, then make campfires when the inevitable happens, and hope it lasts.

I haven't made a serious ice sheet attempt yet, but I think you've convinced me to give it a go 

I just put up 2 sola to get the first heater going and then its all wind before finally geothermal.