Headscratchers / Frostpunk

• Okay, so the world has become so cold that civilization has collapsed. So why the heck has everyone decided to head north? Wouldn't going to the equator make more sense? Even if it is still cold there, it's surely more hospitable than going north during what appears to be a new ice age...
  • According to an older lore around the time of First 10 Days, people did go south but it soon became Savage South as the storms that would engulf the Northern Hemisphere began to wreck the new civilization there. Or if you go on an expedition to an observatory, it may be that the entire world has become frozen due to dimming sun.
  • Information provided during loading screens and expeditions reveals that the generators were placed in the Arctic 1) because of massive untapped coal reserves (in addition to lumber and steel), 2) to separate them sufficiently from the overcrowded southern regions so the populations could actually be sustainable, and 3) because the entire planet was going to reach sub-arctic temperatures anyway, so there was no real reason not to.
  • Another loading screen message says that the south was unprepared for the snow. It makes sense. Modern Florida shuts down for 2 inches of snow. How would 1886 Mediterranean countries deal with a seemingly endless snowstorm?
  • Animals and plants in the North are already capable of surviving in extreme cold, while those in the South are not so adapted to the climate.
    • If the entire world is getting significantly colder, even in the North, then arctic species may very well migrate south.
  • Also, the game says the generators were strategically built in places with heavy coal deposits, and built away from cities in order to protect them from rioters and looters during the fall of civilization. It could simply have been that places in the North were the most optimal locations based on those needs.
• When resources are scarce, why are prisoners locked up instead of being put to work?
  • It might be because there's really only one place for them to work, with the regular, law-abiding citizens who they can continue to influence and spread their dangerous ideologies to. Alternatively, the Captain might think it's simply best to show that even in the worst circumstances, they will still not let you out for betraying the values of the city.
  • Comes The Last Autumn' DLC, there is an option to do that.
• What exactly are those hunters hunting? What kind of animal could possibly still exist in sufficient numbers to feed a city when it's -70 degrees Celsius outside? And large enough to be detected from a zeppelin, no less!
  • Consider that hot springs with edible lichens can be found in discoveries, one of them being an event involving a hideout of refugees who ran away from Winterhome before its downfall, and fishes numerous enough to create sustainable food sources, the hunters are also gathering them in addition to hunting.
  • As for larger animals, reindeer, polar bears, walruses, muskoxen, and a variety of seals all survive in the real life Arctic, which averages -35 degrees Celsius in the winter. As for how they survive the much more freezing cold snaps in the game, it is possible that some of them find shelter in caves or near hot springs. The ultimate answer, though, is Acceptable Breaks from Reality.
• At -78.5 Celsius, carbon dioxide deposits into dry ice. How do these people breathe at -150 Celsius (during the final snowstorm in New Home scenario)?
  • That's the temperature outside the crater, which is indeed so cold that anyone outside when the cold hits dies instantly. Inside, the generator and insulation keep the temperature just barely livable.
  • Though carbon dioxide's freezing point at atmospheric pressure is -78.5 degrees Celsius, its partial pressure in the atmosphere is so low (a consequence of it comprising a small portion of atmospheric gases) that it doesn't actually start precipitating or depositing until significantly lower temperatures. Even in the coldest conditions of real-world Antarctica, at about -90 degrees, carbon dioxide remains gaseous. However, assuming a fraction of about 280 parts carbon dioxide per million (it was at this level during the Industrial Revolution, but in the real world it's higher now), based on carbon dioxide's vapor pressures, carbon dioxide would begin to precipitate or deposit at -137 degrees. Whether this would be an actual problem though is its own headscratcher.
  • A better question is, how would anyone KNOW? A Victorian-era thermometer would likely not be able to measure below -70 Celsius. The absolute limit for an ethanol-based thermometer is -114.9. You can get lower by using a mixture of ethanol, toluene and pentane, but that wouldn't have been available in the period shown.
• For whatever reason multiple heat zones do not stack, which makes placing steam hubs close to the generator pointless. One would think that multiple heaters next to the building should make it warmer, but no, only the fact that the building is in the range of any heat source counts.
  • The steam hubs and the generator aren't emitting radiant heat into the area. Steam is being pumped through the insulated pipes under the roads into buildings where old-school radiators are converting that steam into heat. As a result, having more than one smaller boiler reheating steam from the generator, allowing it to still be usable much further out, won't make a building any hotter because it's all going into the same pipes leading to the same radiators at the same temperature.
  • The heat system in this game doesn't really work like an actual radiator. Everything in the zone of the generator or the hub is warmed up to the maximum temperature that the generator can provide. Building multiple hubs doesn't help because that area is already receiving the most heat it possibly can under the current generator settings and outside temperatures.
• The ending of A New Home is just weird. In just a few hours, if not minutes, the temperature rises from -150 to -30 Celsius. Not only should this cause a thunderstorm, charring everyone in New London into husks not unlike ones that can be found in Tesla City in the very same scenario, people would die from sudden overheating. Try to pour a boiling water on your hand (DO NOT actually do that) - that's a quick rise from +20 to +100. They should feel the same, but with the whole body.
  • The game measures the temperature outside the city. The generator keeps the people safe by keeping the temperature in the city stable.
  • Air does not transmit heat efficiently. Put your oven at 200 degrees C and wait for it to heat up. Open it and stick your hand it. Uncomfortably warm? Yes. Enough to charbroil your hand? No. As long as you don't touch the sides, you'll be fine. Even sitting in a 90-100 degree sauna is fine, as long as you're sitting on something that insulates you.
• Why do your hunters only go out at night? Wouldn't the night time be the worst time for hunting?
  • It's when they go out and check their traps, since traps are more likely to be sprung in the daytime. One relic in Endless Mode actually discusses this from the perspective of The First Flying Hunter, who writes that the snow jams their guns and nothing much is visible from the ground anyway, forcing them to rely on traps instead of rifles. Hunters' Hangars however presumably swap to more 'conventional' hunting methods as the more stable aerial vehicle the author of the relic mentioned has been pieced together. By then hunting probably takes place at night solely to avoid the glare of the sun at such high latitudes on such reflective ground.
• Why does a cookhouse have a lower heat rating than a regular house? Wouldn't cookhouses be naturally hotter due to the nature of the work there?
  • Regular houses are meant to keep people warm throughout the night, and are insulated accordingly. A cookhouse only houses workers during daytime hours, making insulation less important. There is a cookhouse insulation upgrade in the tech tree, however.
  • Kitchens often have big extraction fans to keep everyone inside from suffocating on fumes from the gas ranges/grills, etc. This draws in air from outside, and in winter a kitchen can become very cold indeed.
    • Did kitchens have big extraction fans in the 1880s?
    • Coal gas for lighting and its offshoots for cooking have been used since the 1600s and would require ventilation so yes. Also Frostpunk is not particularly technologically accurate to begin. Consider the automatons.
• The Fall of Winterhome and On the Edge have a change in leadership. Why can't you unsign some of the laws the previous guy signed?
  • The Watsonian Answer goes as follows: appeal to status quo, greater priorities in the form of a literal world-ending winter, your people liking the path you took or perhaps a Vast Bureaucracy stops the Captain from doing so.
  • The Doylistic Answer goes as follows: the game developers wanted to drill in the idea that your decisions are permanent and that choosing any path is a slippery slope to absolute tyranny if you do not act quickly; being able to reverse those decisions would defeat that ideal.