Building a city in Frostpunk 2 is hard enough when you start with limited resources, but beginning a challenge with no Steam Cores or hope for any in the immediate future is one of the toughest challenges you will face in this game’s Utopia Builder.
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You will have to travel near and far across the Frostlands as you battle the elements, searching for the lost vestiges of a core convoy to restore a forgotten and decrepit core factory. Your plan will have to include clever management of resources without core-founded buildings as your best scouts risk life and limb to ensure your future.
What Is The Depleted Cores Tale?
This tale is an optional subscenario you can select for any main scenario in Utopia Builder.
While you usually begin Utopia Builder with one Steam Core in your inventory, Depleted Cores will remove it and task you with rebuilding the IEC Factory.
To complete this subscenario, your tasks will include:
- Finding the IEC Factory center
- Exploring the Frostlands to uncover IEC Convoys
- Pulling apart IEC Convoys for parts
- Building pathways from the convoys to the IEC factory
- Rebuilding the IEC Factory itself
- Building the Beacon of Hope
While playing on this map, Steam Cores will no longer be found in the Frostlands as free, lootable objects.
How To Complete The Depleted Cores
With no steam cores to begin with, you’ll have to pull your city together without its aid while you attempt to find and rebuild the IEC Factory.
The factory’s location is always randomized in the Frostlands, but it is typically found somewhere close to your capital city’s location – requiring no more than one or two explorations in any direction.
On your way, you might find IEC Convoys as the Factory does not need to be found first for them to appear. If this happens, ignore them for now. Your resources are better spent first tracking down the factory.
When you find the IEC Factory, you’ll have to find the convoys. Thankfully, finding the IEC Factory and agreeing to rebuild it will mark convoy locations on your map with a black flag.
Additionally, areas that might have a convoy within it will be indicated by a map icon on “Possible Findings.”
Once you find a convoy, you’ll have to tear it apart in the hopes of finding resources. Doing so might require:
- Additional exploration time
- A chance of injuries or even fatalities
- A steady supply of Prefabs
The chance of finding suitable parts within a convoy is always percentage-based, and the likelihood of finding good parts will be displayed in the convoy’s description.
When you discover a convoy with a high danger risk, it is typically better to leave it for the time being. You can reduce the danger of exploring a convoy by reducing the threat level of exploration through research in your city, such as the Survivalist’s Headquarters.
Once you have successfully uncovered suitable parts from a convoy, you must link a trailway or a skyway to the main IEC Core Factory.
When three convoys have been linked to the factory, you will have successfully rebuilt the factory. However, the game can never be so straightforward.
Shortly after successfully taking apart one IEC convoy, a Whiteout alert will trigger for 80 weeks in the future.
As it is unlikely you will be able to find two more IEC parts before that time is up, you will have to survive the Whiteout without Steam Cores.
To do this, we highly recommend:
- Purposefully wrapping your city around itself for maximum heat potential.
- Investing in advanced housing insulation.
- Storing enough resources for the Whiteout to turn off all working districts during the storm.
Thankfully, the temperature of this Whiteout does not exceed -80C, and it is the shortest-lived of the Whiteout events in the Tales. However, triggering the Whiteout too early can be catastrophic. We recommend waiting until you have a dependable source of all your resources before beginning to attempt to search an IEC convoy.
Once the Whiteout has ended, you will be left to your own devices again to gather IEC parts. There will be no more Whiteouts or strange twists from this scenario.
Once all three pieces are gathered, inspect the IEC Factory to ensure it is Turned On.
With the IEC Factory on, you will receive a congratulations message for completing this Tale. Your rewards will be:
- The Prosperity Arch monument (to build in your city)
- 10 Steam Cores
- Unlimited Steam Core production for this city
- The Raiders of the Lost Cores achievement (first completion of the Tale only)
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