In the icy world of Frostpunk, heat is an absolute necessity. Multiple buildings can only be constructed inside a heat zone, and without the appropriate heating level, the buildings will make your citizens sick, or not operate at all.
Out of all the buildings in Frostpunk, we take a look at those you should build inside the heat zone, and the reasons why the other buildings (resource deposits and Automaton-operated buildings) don't require a high level of heating.
An Overview Of Heating In Frostpunk
Heat is generated via the city's generator. There are different levels and ranges that can be upgraded over time, providing heat over a larger area, and providing an extra buffer against the weather.
The weather can and will turn in Frostpunk. From a relatively balmy winter of -20 degrees to dropping temperature levels over and over again, over time your citizens will get colder, sicker, and more fed up about it all.
Levels of building heat are placed on a scale ranging from Freezing to Comfortable. The top three ranges - Chilly, Livable, and Comfortable - are the optimal area you want to build for.
Important To Remember:
The chance of your citizens getting sick is calculated via the average of every temperature that citizen has spent the day in. Therefore, if your citizen spends only a short amount of time somewhere cold (like at a Fighting Arena, or walking from area to area) then it does not factor largely into the overall equation. It's a neat way of handling the temperature debuffs in Frostpunk, and one of the reasons why it's such a beloved simulation game.
Pretty much every building in Frostpunk needs to be in the heat zone, but there are buildings for which heating makes little difference. Even if a building doesn't require heating, sometimes it makes sense to have them within your Heat Zone anyway.
Here's a list of every building you should place around your Generator or a Steam Hub.
Needs Heating: Residences - Tents, Houses, Bunkhouses, and Child Shelters
Although your citizens will be working long and hard days, they will spend most of their time within their residences. These should be the number one priority for access to heat.
Every type of building has a base insulation level with the opportunity to upgrade at a later date. A Tent, for example, is far less insulated against the cold than Houses.
Even with the higher insulation levels of Houses and Bunkhouses, they too need to be located within a Heat Zone, because you might run the risk of dealing with a severe bout of bad weather.
During very bad weather, you can activate the generator's Overdrive function. This produces enough heat to raise the heat level by two in every building that is within the Heat Zone or on its periphery.
Needs Heating: Industrial Workplaces - Sawmill, Hothouse, Workshop, etc
Workplaces include any building where your citizens spend time during the day. Places like Gathering Posts in the early game and Steelworks much later on will require heating to prevent your citizens from getting sick from the chill.
Many of these buildings have ways to upgrade their insulation, usually through the Book of Law tech-tree. Striking a good balance between a warm home and a warm workplace is crucial to running a successful (and happy) city in Frostpunk.
A good way of looking at it is to think about it simply: if someone has to spend a long time in the building, it requires heating. Even these industrial buildings, which do generate some of their own heat and insulation, do require heating, especially if the weather gets cold.
Needs Heating: Medical Buildings And Other Public Buildings - Medical Tent and Public House
Although your citizens may only stay at the Medical Tent or Public House for a short part of their day, you do have citizens that work there all day. This means you do need to consider the heating of places like this in your city.
It's a good idea to build a small medical hub around a Steam Hub, for example, and save the prime real estate next to the Generator for homes. Public Houses can be placed around your houses within the Heat Zone for general convenience.
Though heating will keep the workers at a Medical Tent warmer, extra heat has no impact on the cure rate of sick citizens. The same can be said of the Public House - more heat doesn't mean extra benefits from the building.
Does Not Need Heating: The Fighting Arena, Temple, Cemetery, And Other Limited-Use Buildings
Buildings like the Fighting Arena and Cemetery come with no base insulation and do not require heat to operate. This means you can place them outside of your Heat Zone if you really have to.
However, even though citizens are unlikely to get sick from visiting these places, you should keep that idea of averages in the back of your mind. If your citizens are visiting a Fighting Arena but also spending time at a chilly workplace and an uncomfortable home, they are more likely to get sick.
This changes quite significantly once you start playing on a higher difficulty level. The cold makes a much larger difference in an Extreme playthrough, for example. Citizens can start dropping dead just from crossing freezing bridges or spending too much time outside. The difficulty of Frostpunk goes from enjoyable to filling a niche for the most dedicated of players.