“The Arks” Survivor mode cookbook for half-baked goods.
 
 

Recipy

Opener:
 
– Press “L” and pick ‘Emergency shift’
 
– Set 15 workers on coal and Iron and 5 on wood
 
– Automaton on wood
 
– Dismantle streets around arks until you have enough wood for a workshop
 
– After workshop finishes a*sign engineers to it and research “Beacon”
 
– Assign spare workers (5) to wood
 
@17:00 toggle ’emergency shift’ in workshop, turn on the generator and queue Medical Post
 
 
As things unfold (it’s kind of a 2nd day, but whatever)
 
@02:00 pick ‘Extended shift’ (from now on, toggle extended shift on every single workplace you have)
 
Build Beacon and send the scout following the markers ASAP.
 
Next research – Sawmill
 
@06:00 worker distribution – 10 wood, 10 steel, 5 coal
 
 
The following day (2) check-list”
 
After Automaton mines out wooden crate – rea*sign him to coal (same pile engineers were mining from)
 
Pick soup law
 
Build:
 
-2nd workshop
 
-Cookhouse (full staff(5) to free up engineers as soon as you cook all the raw food)
 
-2 sawmills
 
3rd Tech – ‘Heaters’ or ‘Steelworks’
 
Spare wood into housing.
 
 
3rd day
 
The temperature drops, so your workers should forget that wood crates, steel wreckage or coal pile exist. Wooden crates are allegedly worthless now (steel and coal piles reserved for automatons only).
 
Gathering post and related technologies are a trap at this point (It’s possible to do Arks survivor opening with ‘Faster Gathering’ as well though), so never build it.
 
Last evening to secure full housing if it’s not already done.
 
3rd workshop.
 
 
Tech & Law summary
 
Tech:
 
Beacon -> Sawmill -> Heaters/Steelworks
 
Law:
 
Emergency Shift -> Extended shift -> Soup -> Sustain Life -> Extra Rations -> Fighting Arena -> Care House -> Prosthetics
 
 
General direction afterwards
 
‘Lil’ disclaimer:
 
Randomness of different events (frankly, there are only two that have major impact – the one that disables a random automaton for (24h) due to engineer research and the other one that disables either building or automaton for 12h) so there are too much divergences for a step by step instructions in later days.
 
In this scenario, generally, everything that helps the player to acquire automatons faster without dying in the process is a right direction to take, so following should be taken more as an advice and not as a hard truth, yet if you followed the instructions before, it should give enough leeway even in the face of some major mistakes and mishaps.
 
Research priorities: Hothouse, after – Extra scout.
 
As a safety measure – coal mines after aforementioned (can be delayed for quite some time though).
 
Scouting priorities – North, as it’s the only place that can freeze over (I usually go for 3 scouts (achievable with a low tier research in this scenario) as it enables the player to get more steam cores (more and faster) and thus – more automatons).
 
Mid-game priorities – ‘Engineering Automatons’ followed by ‘Steam Coal Mine’.
 
 
Heating
 
It’s up to preferences, but sticking to heaters upgrades only, initially, can free up valuable research time for some other, more pressing, matters. This scenario can be easily finished without ever upgrading Generator and Steam Hub range.
 
Arks don’t freeze right away, so if you have some extra APM to spare, you can save some coal out of it by micromanaging them.
 
 
New Manchester
 
Doable, but why would you bother on Survivor? Just ignore it.
 
In case you can’t let the good people of New Manchester freeze to death just like that, squeeze Coal Thumpers (or Charcoal Kiln) with upgrades somewhere in late mid-game so that you can save up some coal that you can send them (Two steam coal mines only is a tad too short for a success of both cities (if someone managed to, tell me how)).
 
 
General events
 
Ignore or deny them all. In case discontent triggers overthrow event – it should quite easy to resolve those with a generator overdrive toggle.
 
 
 

Afterword

The trick to an easy “The Arks” scenario ‘survivor’ run is getting both the factory tech and that free automaton from exploration ASAP, and you can’t get it faster any other way than by rushing ‘Beacon’ tech. The timings even align so well it seems it way intended that way from the get-to-go.
 
 

 
 
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