Progress is not without cost, and this concept is always prevalent in Frostpunk 2. As the Steward, you have to appease and placate disparate factions, while also thinking of the best ways to move forward with scientific breakthroughs. Some of these will eventually turn into new options that allow you to enact laws, while others let you construct building improvements. Our guide discusses the best techs in Frostpunk 2 to help you plan your research endeavors.
Here, we’ll focus on the basic mechanics first, followed by our picks for each category or classification. These are Heating, Resources, Frostland, City, Society, and Hubs.
How to build the Research Institute
To start researching techs in Frostpunk 2, you need to build a Research Institute. Here’s what you need to know.
- Construct a Housing District, which requires six tiles.
- Then, expand the Housing District by clicking on the icon with four arrows in the lower-right corner of the panel. This requires you to pick three extra tiles.
- Expanding a Housing District unlocks an additional building slot where new improvements can be built.
- The Research Institute is one such improvement. It requires 100 heatstamps, 50 prefabs, and 400 workforce.
Tips when researching techs in Frostpunk 2
Several techs will be available early in your campaign. The rest, however, are unlocked as you progress. Here are some tips to remember.
- Tech research costs manpower, heatstamps, and prefabs. Building more Research Institutes also speeds up the research progress.
- Techs tend to be interconnected, so you need to research a prerequisite before higher-tier options become available. In some cases, moving toward a certain zeitgeist tenet, such as Merit or Equality, is necessary.
- If another option for a particular tech is available, you can also research it to replace the previous one.
- Factions may be in favor of a particular tech, and researching it improves your relations with them. In other instances, a tech might be required if you promise it as part of a negotiation deal.
- Certain techs are called Radical Ideas and, more often than not, it will be proposed by delegates of that faction so it can be enacted as a law.
Best Heating techs
- Melting Deep Deposits: Deep Melting Drill — This is one of the best techs in Frostpunk 2. It increases production efficiency while also giving you access to deep deposits. Since these deposits have virtually unlimited resources, such as food and materials, you no longer need to worry about scarcity or running out of nodes.
- Generator Upgrades — All three upgrades will, eventually, allow you to make full use of the generator’s overdrive function, as well as increase fuel throughput.
- Housing Insulation and Food Energy Efficiency — These options lower the heat demand for Housing and Food Districts, respectively.
- General: Fuel Sources — As you progress further into your run, you’ll unlock more options such as Geothermal Plants, Oil Extractors, and the like. Focus on a particular tech based on the resources that you have available in your settlement.
Best Resources techs
- Worker Shifts: Weather-Adjusted Shifts — This will need to be enacted as a law, but it has some nifty benefits. It lowers the heat demand of all other districts, save for Housing Districts, while also mitigating the spread of disease. It does impact production efficiency slightly.
- New Work Model: Apex Workers — This Radical Idea becomes available once you’ve made a number of decisions that lead you toward the Adaptation tenet. It significantly increases production efficiency, while also lowering the heat demand of all districts and buildings.
- Filtration Towers: Moss-Filtration Tower — This unlocks the Filtration Tower building for your Housing Districts. With it, you can use the district ability that significantly lowers squalor.
- General: Materials — You’re going to need a lot of materials. These can be turned into prefabs so you can construct more buildings, or goods that lower the crime rate if you have a surplus. An abundance of materials also means preventing squalor from building up, so be sure to have a few Foundries, Sawmills, or Composite Factories depending on the resources in your territories.
Best Frostland techs
- Scouts’ Headquarters: Survivalists’ Headquarters — This decreases exploration time and territory threat level. This is one of the best techs in Frostpunk 2 if you want to discover more of the harsh wilderness that surrounds your city.
- Scout Training: Pathfinder Scouts — This further decreases territory threat level.
- Skyways — Allows you to construct skyways instead of trails. These connections can carry more resources from your colonies and outposts.
- Outpost Operation: Extraction Strongholds or Frontier Footholds — The former improves production efficiency in your outposts. The latter, meanwhile, decreases the number of teams needed to maintain outposts.
Best City techs
- Work Compensation: Efficiency Bonuses — If you’ve moved a bit toward a Merit-based society, then this option increases production efficiency with no other downsides.
- Maintenance Duty: Unproductive Do Maintenance — This is another Merit-based option that can be proposed as a law. When active, production efficiency is slightly increased and materials demand is slightly increased.
Best Society techs
- Watchtowers: Patrol Watchtowers — This is the best option if you’ve picked Tradition choices often. It grants more Guard Squads and lowers crime, though it does raise tension a bit.
- Youth: Dutiful Youth — Another great pick for the Tradition path. This decreases the crime rate while also boosting the number of active workers. Likewise, it grants a city ability that bolsters the workforce, though it decreases trust levels, too.
- Hospitals: Recovery Hospital and Treatment: Experimental Treatment — The former is for those with enough points into Tradition, while the latter becomes available if you choose Reason. They still work hand-in-hand since they lower the spread of disease and cure citizens faster. These buildings do increase tension slightly, but it can be quickly offset, too.
Best Hubs techs
- Maintenance Hub — This is one of the best techs in Frostpunk 2, especially in the early game. This lets you place a small hub that lowers the materials demand of all nearby districts. Make sure you plop it down in the center of multiple districts to maximize its effect.
- Rail Hub — This increases the efficiency in neighboring Extraction, Industrial, and Food Districts.
- Fighting Hub — Tension will gradually rise the more Radical Ideas you implement later in the game, as well as due to certain events and decisions. This hub must be placed in the middle of several Housing Districts to decrease tension.
That does it for our guide on the best research techs in Frostpunk 2. We hope this article helps you plan your scientific breakthroughs for future runs.
