One of the more difficult things to do in Frostpunk 2 is to survive the whiteouts that periodically happen. If you’re not properly equipped to deal with it, it can end your game. In general, you want to have enough Heat, Food, and Fuel to survive a whiteout, but doing this is easier said than done. Read on to find out what you need to do to survive a whiteout.

What is a Whiteout?¶

A whiteout is a weather anomaly with dangerous repercussions. Although each whiteout can differ, the majority of them can end your game in an instant if you’re not prepared. At the bare minimum, the temperature will drop 60°C, causing many deaths among the populace while also cutting you off from other settlements, meaning you won’t receive their resources while the whiteout is in effect.

If you’re not prepared, you’ll get unwanted side effects such as lost trust in the factions (due to the deaths), disease, deaths, raised tensions (can end the game), and much more. For you to survive a whiteout, you’ll need to take the necessary steps such as providing Heat, which requires lots of fuel, and keeping the populace fed, which requires stockpiling food, and enough materials to provide any maintenance that’s needed if things break down.

For the first few chapters of the main story, you’ll have to follow some objectives to make sure ready for the whiteouts. Later on, you’ll need to use the weather timeline in the top right of the screen to see when the next whiteout will arrive. As you can prepare in advance for the whiteout, you’ll want to make sure everything is in order so you can ride the storm.

Heat Supply¶

Your priority is to make sure you have enough Heat available for the upcoming whiteout. In the top-center of the screen, you can hover over to see how much Heat you’re providing. You want the bar at the top to be at least gray, meaning that you’re supplying the demand. If any of the bars is red, it means it’s unfulfilled, and you’ll need to rectify that. Ideally, the bar will be partly gold as that means you have a surplus, as you’ll need as much as you can get when the whiteout arrives.

You can do this by adding Heating Hubs and placing them in the middle of Housing Districts to provide additional Heat. Another good method to reduce the Heat demand is to research ideas in the Heating drawer of the Idea Tree, especially, Housing Insulation as well as Waste Heat Conversion in the Resources drawer. One final tip is to reduce the efficiency bar on the various districts to lower the total demand of Heat required, just make sure you do not leave yourself short on the other resources. This can be done by selecting a district and moving the efficiency bar to the left. Just above the bar will tell you how much the resource output is and what the total demand is for doing that.

Finally, as a last resort, you can turn Overdrive on by selecting the generator and clicking the slider on the right gauge. If you overuse this, you can cause serious problems to your generator, so this should be the last thing you do. However, you’ll normally be okay until it reaches 60%. Try using this when the whiteout first hits your city, and turn it off when it becomes unstable. Turning on the Overdrive can give you another 35% extra Heat while it’s running.

Stockpiling Fuel¶

This goes hand-in-hand with the Heat Supply. To keep the generator running, you’re going to need fuel, and for the whiteout, you’ll need excess fuel to keep the generator running at full power. This means you’ll want to stockpile fuel so you can ride out the storm. Before you can do this though, you’ll need to maximize your extraction of fuel by having numerous extraction districts on as many coal, oil, or other fuel sources as possible. Then research ideas that further enhance your output, such as the Coal Mines (and advanced version) or Pumpjacks (for Oil). The Carrion Coal Liquefactor is also a good idea to research for Oil too.

All of these can be found under the Heating drawer of the Idea Tree. In the resources drawer, you can find the Charcoal Regeneration Plant, which furthers your coal output. The other method of getting fuel resources is by finding them via an expedition and then setting them up to divert their resources to your city. You can do this by setting up Logistic Districts and sending your Frostland teams to the expeditions.

Once you have enough fuel coming in, and you’re meeting the demand, build Fuel Stockpile Hubs next to the Extraction Districts to begin stockpiling it. The more you have, the more you can stockpile.

Stockpiling Food¶

Similar to Fuel, you’ll want to stockpile food while the whiteout is in effect, so you have enough to last the storm. Once again, set up numerous Food Districts on as many Fertile Soil nodes you find (try to cover multiple nodes with one district). Once this is set up, look for food sources via expeditions, and you should have plenty of food coming in. A couple of months before the whiteout, start putting people on emergency shifts, and if you can, have them tighten their belts until the whiteout is over. Finally, once you have a surplus of food coming in, place Food Stockpiling Hubs around the Food Districts to stockpile it.

Stockpiling Materials¶

This is less serious than the above, but you’ll still want a good amount of materials before the whiteout hits as the production will slow to a crawl, or stop entirely, and if you have any urgent repairs, you could be in trouble. Similar to the above, you’ll want plenty of Extraction Districts over the material nodes, and if you can, enhance them with a building such as the Mechanize Sawmill for wood as this will significantly increase how much you acquire. Also, the same as the above, you can acquire materials from other settlements or expeditions. Finally, some Materials Stockpile Hubs should be placed around the districts to begin stockpiling it.

Final Tip - Hospital¶

Although this isn’t needed for you to survive the whiteout, building a Recovery Hospital found under the Society drawer in the Idea Tree will help you with the fallout after the whiteout, and may even save a few lives during it. The main reason you’ll want one of these built is to deal with the uprise in disease that occurs during and after the whiteout. Only worry about this after you have the other priorities sorted out.

That’s it for surviving a whiteout. In general, you want to reduce the Heat Demand required from the various districts and have stockpiled fuel, food, materials, and even goods, although this isn’t as important. Place numerous Heating Hubs around the Districts to increase the supply required for the demand. Final note, make sure you research the ideas from the Idea Tree that pertain to the above (fuel, food, heat, and materials), as these can give you buildings or passive skills that make surviving the whiteout a lot easier.