The Last Autumn Analysis: Generator Tab

Welcome to a research and building tab that is found only in The Last Autumn and Endless Mode, and in the latter case only if you selecte the Builders setting at the start. These are of course centered on one thing: building the Generator.

Building the Generator itself is designed to be an extremely demanding task that takes multiple weeks to finish and huge amounts of resources. To accomplish this in a vaguely sane way, the game introduces several new concepts and mechanics to support it.

First of all, the six core Generator component objects are buildings, but they don't work like other buildings. Placing a component instantly puts it into a 'finished' state where it's now a worksite you can assign labor to, and once labor is on it, this slowly fills a progress meter. When that meter reaches 100%, at that point the component is truly finished and becomes impossible to interact with. This is broadly akin to the normal build rules with structures, but it obeys normal shift hours (All components use the default 8:00-18:00 shift) and you directly control it instead of labor assigning itself to the task.

Second, three new resource types are introduced that only matter to Generator construction: Structural Profiles, Steam Exchangers, and Steel Composites. These special resources are made at specific structures, expending regular resources to produce copies; this allows the game to give Generator components outrageous costs without requiring unwieldy nonsense where the player needs to build large numbers of Resource Depots. This is nice! Video games wanting singular massive, expensive projects all too often just put a big price tag on the thing directly, and there's basically always layers of jank introduced by doing so; Frostpunk not only breaking the Generator itself into multiple parts but also having special resources you build out of regular resources is a nice little solution to many of the problems usually faced by this type of concept.

Third, I should re-emphasize that Workplace Safety and Strike Risk are mechanics that are exclusive to Generator tab buildings, used by no other worksites. I should furthermore clarify that Strike Risk is exclusive to The Last Autumn: in Builders Mode Endless Mode, Workplace Safety still applies and this includes that Accidents and Deadly Accidents are possible, but Strikes will never occur, changing the exact calculus of things like how acceptable it is to sit at -3 Safety. Furthermore, in Builders Mode you just use the normal Adaptation and Purpose Law sets, so you lose access to options like Short Shift; as such, while in broad strokes Builders Mode uses the Generator tab with no direct changes, the actual experience is quite different.

Fourth, something I should mention is the consideration of a target schedule: construction of the Generator is split into four 'phases', and each phase both unlocks specific Generator components that you must finish building to unlock the components in the next phase (eg Phase 1's Shaft Structure being completed unlocks the Pressure Valves and the Tower Pumps), but each phase also has a deadline tracked in the lower-left of the screen. What this schedule is about exactly is never really clarified unless you miss a one of the deadlines: at that point, you'll get a little text popup telling you that you missed a deadline, and warning you that if you miss another deadline you'll get a game over.

As there are four phases, there are four deadlines: day 16 for phase 1, day 25 for phase 2, day 35 for phase three, and day 45 for phase four. In all four cases, the game for some reason marks the end of the phase at 15:00 of that day: if you finish the Shaft Structure on day 16 but at 17:00, more than an hour before the normal shift ends, you've still missed that deadline. (The game does thankfully tell you of this exact timing anytime you hover over the deadline meter) Notice that this means you have 10 days each for the last two phase, 9 days for the second phase, and of course 16 days for the first phase.

I should also explicitly say these deadlines do not respond to your progress. That is, I just covered that 'you have 10 days to get through phase four', but that's a pretty misleading formulation: if you complete phase three on day 25, the game doesn't move up your schedule and demand you complete phase four on day 35. No, you just have 10 extra days to work with. As such, getting ahead of the curve is always useful and the game will in fact inform you that you're 'x days ahead of schedule' if you're doing well. (I'm... not entirely sure how the game calculates this, mind)

In Builders Mode, the deadline is done away with, or... reworked, perhaps more accurately. A standard part of Endless Mode is that you intermittently get 'superstorms'; in Builders Mode, the superstorms start out much less intense, only lasting 1 day and not dropping the temperature as harshly, but they have an additional effect of resetting progress to 0% on any active Generaror object build sites: this effectively takes over the role of the individual deadline checkpoints, as you need to complete a given component's construction within a stretch of days or else you'll lose the progress; you also get an option in Builders Mode to hasten construction, but at the cost that the component won't work fully correctly once the Generator is complete. Furthermore, I said the superstorms 'start out' much less intense: eventually they get longer and harsher, where you really do need the Generator finished to be able to get through those superstorms without a problem, with day 50 being the 'get the Generator finished before now' target. (So slightly more time to work with than in The Last Autumn... but this is because the superstorms cost you a day intermittently, eventually ramping up to more days even before the 50-day deadline)

I should also explicitly note that absolutely nothing about the Generator's construction is directly affected by difficulty. Your schedule is always the same, the special resource buildings always produce at the same speed at the same costs, and the number of hours needed to finish a Generator component never change. That said, I specified 'directly' for a reason: as climbing difficulties slows resource intake, slows research rate, reduces how much Logistical Capacity you gain per day, and makes it harder to keep Motivation high, in practice going up a difficulty actually does noticeably slow down your Generator construction. My blind first Medium run handily got the Generator fully completed in every way before temperatures had dropped far enough for temperature to be a concern at all: my first Hard run instead didn't quite finish the Generator before the big freeze. For Extreme, my first attempt outright missed the first deadline; between that and some dumb mistakes I made, I aborted that run to do better.

As an aside, I should note that while I simply list the quantity of Workers you can assign to these sites, in The Last Autumn you can potentially assign Convicts or Engineers. (Depending on whether you sided with the Engineers or Workers, respectively) Somewhat more unexpected is that in Endless Mode Generator tab worksites are still universally restricted exclusively to Workers; since you don't get access to The Last Autumn's Laws, you can't change this at all, creating an un unexpected Worker demand. Unlike in The Last Autumn, though, you can potentially just have Engineers, Children, or Automatons take up other jobs while the Workers are busy with Generator construction, so in some ways it's still less constrictive than in The Last Autumn. Just keep in mind that Hunters Huts and Hangars actually are hard-locked to Workers, so relying on hunting is made more difficult in Builders Mode.

On to specifics, starting with the phase-locked Generator components:

Shaft Structure
Costs 8 Structural Profiles.
Phase I
Workers: 50.
Hours: 24.
Base Safety: -3.

Alright, several things to explain before we start.

First of all, hours: this is the number of hours it will take for the Generator component to complete if it's working at 100% Efficiency the entire time. Do note that when the game predicts how far you are from completing a component, it's specifically talking the number of working hours. So in the Shaft Structure's case, starting 24 hours out doesn't mean you'll complete it on the next day: with a normal 10-hour shift, it in fact means you will finish the Shaft Structure 2.4 days after starting it.

Second, note that very low base Safety: once the poison gas kicks in, it requires a minimum of two boosts to Safety to remove the possibility of Accidents from the Shaft Structure. On Medium it's feasible to get the Shaft Structure most of the way to completion before the poison gas kicks in, but on higher difficulties you're just going to have to deal with it.

Speaking of Accidents, the Shaft Structures gives our first example of a frustrating, janky thing The Last Autumn does: forced Accidents! Three of the six types of Generator building will, at a specific point of progress, have an Accident occur even if the current Safety rating is Safe; I'm soooomewhat okay with the Shaft Structure's forced Accident, as it's actually the event that kicks off the choice between Engineers or Workers. But still, I don't like this whole thing for several reasons.

First of all is that 'occurs at a specific completion threshold' point: in the Shaft Structure's case, it specifically kicks in at 70%. These forced Accidents always endanger exactly and specifically the people at the worksite, so for one thing you can do nonsense like reduce the crew heavily when it's close to the threshold to minimize how many people can be affected. There's also a weird artificial incentive to mess with Safety in targeted ways, as these forced Accidents are events that have you make a choice: in all three cases, if the relevant worksite has its Safety rating at exactly Safe at the moment the Accident kicks off, you will have an option to essentially ignore the Accident and carry on with no consequences. (Except in this particular case, where a Strike will occur regardless and you'll still pick to side wih Workers or Engineers)

This whole mess also gives a frustrating 'guide dang it' aspect to the whole thing, because the game doesn't do anything to communicate which Generator components will have a forced Accident and which ones are safe. For the Pressure Valves, Support Frame, and Thermal Hull, you can run at -2 Safety and just kind of shrug at the fact that people will fall Ill. For the Shaft Structure, Tower Pumps, and Che Core, it's artificially extra-rewarded in an opaque, weird way to keep their Safety value good at a specific point in their construction. Nnnnot ideal. There isn't even a simple rule of thumb you can memorize: while the paired components never have a forced Accident, the non-paired components does include the Pressure Valves as not having a forced Accident, so that rule of thumb is only partially correct.

Also not helping is that the game doesn't do anything to comvey that forced Accidents are different from regular Accidents. I'm sure there's players who got through the whole scenario believing the forced Accidents were happening because of their own decisions around Workplace Safety, unaware that these are different from other Accidents.

I should also explicitly point out that in Builders Mode Endless Mode, such forced accidents simply don't exist. So don't worry about it there. This unfortunately mildly exacerbates the learning curve aspect; I have a suspicion Endless Mode is mostly-ignored by players, mind, but for anyone who did The Last Autumn, then had fun with Builders Mode, then came back to The Last Autumn again... yeah, learning curve issues.

The Shaft Structure's forced accident has two possibilities: firstly, if the Shaft Structure is Safe, then you can either 'send the rescue team' (Resulting in a bunch of Ill people, but minimal consequences overall), or be dumb and let them die and suffer a big Motivation hit. If, however, it's at any level of Safety worse than that, instead your options are 'lose 40% progress on the Shaft Structure' (As in, knock it from 70% to 30%) or once again 'let them all die and suffer a Motivation loss'. Note that the wiki inexplicably says you only need to be at Unhealthy to get the better result, and furthermore claims the worse scenario only occurs if you're down at -3 Safety, while providing no explanation of what would happen if you were at -2 Safety exactly. Whatever the reason for it arriving at this set of claims, ignore it: it's wrong. Everything else it says about this Accident is correct, at least...

Anyway, since the poison gas kicks in before this Accident can trigger, note that it is very, very difficult to get the Safe result. That's -4 Safety you need to offset, when you can only get +2 Safety from the initial Labour Laws; you'll need two Ventilation Plants at minimum if you want to get the Safe result.

Narratively, the Shaft Structure is basically what you're building the Generator atop, filling in the giant hole that was somehow dug out ahead of time for you. How Steampunk Alternate History Britain bored such a perfect circle in the first place is beyond me, especially considering it apparently stayed smooth for however long it took the player's work crew to arrive. The whole thing looks like your usual Scifi 'orbital laser thing magically disintegrating a perfect circle of material', not like something a human crew made. I get that it's visually dramatic and clear, but still; weird stuff if you take it seriously.

I guess I should also briefly emphasize that while the Generator parts are narratively serving specific functions, within The Last Autumn you absolutely do not care about these supposed functions: even once the Generator is finished, it remains fully inoperative for you. Notably, the forced Accidents all have as one option 'save the people but compromise the functionality of the Generator component'; I assume this affects what the game says about your run at the end, but there's no mechanical reason to care about doing a shoddy job of building th Generator. (As far as I'm aware, at least)

Next!

Pressure Valves
Costs 10 Structural Profiles.
Phase II
Workers: 30
Hours: 24.
Base Safety: -2?

Note that since this requires Structural Profiles, this means it's possible to 'build ahead' and be working on additional Structural Profiles while you're building the Shaft Structure so you can potentially start the Pressure Valves immediately. Alternatively, Foraging can in fact find Generator materials (As can Scouting, in Builders Mode of Endless Mode), so that's another way you may be able to get started on the Pressure Valves right after the Shaft Structure finishes.

The Pressure Valves are also the only non-paired Generator component that has no forced Accident, so they're a good idea to prioritize when poison gas is high, vs focusing on the Tower Pumps when poison gas is low to potentially mitigate its forced Accident. Alternatively, since the Pressure Valves only need 30 Workers while the Tower Pumps need 50, you might work on the Pressure Valves while Steam Exchangers are being built and then switch the full Worker load to the Tower Pumps.

I should also explicitly emphasize that the Pressure Valves and Tower Pumps can be built in either order and can in fact be placed simultaneously. It's only across phases that you're forced to commit to a specific order, not within a phase.

Next!

Tower Pumps
Costs 10 Steam Exchangers.
Phase II
Workers: 50
Hours: 30.
Base Safety: -3

Notice that while the Tower Pumps require 66% more Workers than the Pressure Valves, they only need 25% more hours to complete. (At 100% Efficiency) Tower Pumps' forced Accident has an odd wrinkle. At around 5% progress you'll be prompted to make 'safety equipment' at an instant expense of 5 Steam Exchangers: you can ask to be reminded later (Such as if you don't have 5 Steam Exchangers on hand), or blow it off entirely. If you don't build the safety equipment, at 45% progress the forced Accident will force you to choose between 'all Workers on the site die, Discontent spikes, and Strike Risk rises everywhere', vs 'construction stops for 6 hours, Workers live but many are Gravely Ill or Amputees, and also you get told the Generator's power output will be crippled'. If you instead do build the safety equipment, you have two options: one option stops work for 3 hours and results in Gravely Ill and Amputee employees, but is still less bad thann the other possibility. The second option can only be clicked if the Tower Pumps were Safe at the moment the forced Accident occurred: in that case, you still stop work for 3 hours, but otherwise you suffer no negative consequences at all.

The Core
Costs 25 Steel Composites.
Phase III
Workers: 50.
Hours: 42.
Base Safety: -3.
Like Tower Pumps, The Core's forced Accident has an additional wrinkle: this time, you'll be asked to spend 5 Steel Composites on fire suppression equipment instead, but other than the cost being a different resource it works basically the same. At about 60% progress, the Accident kicks in: if you never built the fire suppression equipment, your options are 'have a lot of employees get screwed up, lose all progress on the Generator, and be told the Generator will be prone to malfunctions once it's finished' vs 'kill most of the employees, Discontent spikes, Strike Risk spikes, but at least the Generator will work normally, right?' If you have built the fire suppression systems, you instead have your default option be 'lose some progress on The Core and have a bunch of Gravely Ill and Amputees result', whereas if The Core is Safe at the time the Accident occurs you get to have the only consequenve be some people falling Ill. A unique quality to The Core is that completing it actually shuts off the poison gas for the rest of the scenario. You thus should prefer to finish The Core before starting on the Support Frames so they don't have to deal with the poison gas making things harder. The implementation is itself a bit funky, as it fires an event after a small delay and the gas doesn't actually go away until you click on the event. I should also explicitly note that this aspect of The Core remains true even in Endless Mode, even though most scripted events to do with building the Generator never fire in Endless Mode.

Support Frame Costs 25 Structural Profiles each. (Requires 50 total) Phase III Workers: 30. Hours: 16. (Each) Base Safety: -2. no forced accident

Thermal Hull Costs 25 Steam Exchangers and 10 Steel Composites each. (Requires 50 and 20 total) Phase IV Workers: 50 Hours: 60. (Each) Base Safety: -2? fina lstep aside bonus researches no forced accident great time for Forced Labor or Selfless Sacrifice since gas is no longer worsening Safety

Profiles Manufacturer Costs 30 Wood 5/7/11/13 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 0 Requires: Nothing. Unlocks the Profiles Manufacturer. The building!

Profiles Manufacturer Costs 30 Wood and 10 Steel. Size 6x4 Manned by up to 20 Workers. +1 Heat, -1 base Safety, by default works from 8:00 to 18:00. Builds Structural Profiles for 25 Wood apiece at a top speed of about 1 every 40 minutes at 100% Efficiency, manually queued up by the player. Can only be placed within the Generator Build Zone. wood stockpiling nonsense

Optimized Materials Costs 40 Wood and 25 Steel. 7/9/13/15 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 2 Requires: Profiles Manufacturer. Reduces the Wood cost of Structural Profiles from 25 to 20, and halves their build time. As the Generator requires a total of 68 Structural Profiles, not performing this upgrade will result in spending 1700 Wood on the project. If Optimized Materials is researched before you ever build a Structural Profile, you will instead spend 1360 Wood, saving 340 Wood. (Or, well, 300 Wood since you spend 40 on the research) Ideally you do in fact complete this research, preferably before building any Structural Profiles, especially if you intend to use them for Protective Structures. adds a 10% Efficiency boost to all these manufacturing buildings?

Safety Improvements (Profiles Manufacturer) Costs 40 Wood and 25 Steel. 8/10/14/16 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 3 Requires: Optimized Materials. Improves Workplace Safety by 1 at Profiles Manufacturer, taking it from a base of -1 to a base of -0.

Protective Structures Costs 20 Wood and 10 Steel. 6/8/12/14 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 1 Requires: Profiles Manufacturer. Unlocks the Protective Structures ability at all buildings that use Workplace Safety. This ability has a 36-hour cooldon, spends 6 Structural Profiles, and improves Workplace Safety by 1 at that building for 24 hours.

Optimised Protection Costs 40 Wood and 25 Steel. 8/10/14/16 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 3 Requires: Protective Structures. Reduces the cost of the Protective Structures ability from 6 Structural Profiles to 4. Since Stuctural Profiles cost 20 Wood apiece once their cost is reduced, Optimised Protection covers its on Wood cost if you use Protective Structures even once.

Foundry Costs 40 Wood and 25 Steel. 7/9/13/15 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 2 Requires: Nothing. Unlocks the Foundry.

Foundry Costs 60 Wood, 40 Steel, and 1 Steam Core. Size 6x4 Manned by up to 20 Workers. +1 Heat, -1 base Safety, by default works from 8:00 to 18:00. Builds Steel Composites for 25 Steel and 50 Coal apiece at a top speed of about 1 every 2 hours at 100% Efficiency, manually queued up by the player. Can only be placed within the Generator Build Zone.

Innovative Process Costs 40 Wood and 25 Steel. 8/10/14/16 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 3 Requires: Foundry. Reduces the Steel cost of Steel Composites from 25 to 20, reduces the Coal cost from 50 to 40, and halves their build time. You nee 45 Steel Composites to build the Generator. You also need 5 more if you want to spend them on an event when building the Core, and 25 more if you want to do all the bonus researches. Note that in Endless Mode, those researches don't exist and the event oesn't occur, so you only need 45 Steel Composites in Endless Mode. In The Last Autumn, though, you need up to 75 Steel Composites.

Safety Improvements (Foundry) Costs 50 Wood and 30 Steel. 9/11/15/17 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 4 Requires: Foundry. Improves Workplace Safety by 1 at Foundry, taking it from a base of -1 to a base of -0.

Machine Shop Costs 20 Wood and 10 Steel. 6/8/12/14 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 1 Requires: Nothing. Unlocks Machine Shop.

Machine Shop Costs 30 Wood, 60 Steel, and 1 Steam Core. Size 6x4 Manned by up to 20 Workers. +2 Heat, -1 base Safety, by default works from 8:00 to 18:00. Builds Steam Exchangers for 25 Steel apiece at a top speed of about 1 every 90 minutes at 100% Efficiency, manually queued up by the player. Can only be placed within the Generator Build Zone.

Safety Improvements (Machine Shop) Costs 40 Wood and 25 Steel. 8/10/14/16 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 3 Requires: Machine Shop. Improves Workplace Safety by 1 at Machine Shop, taking it from a base of -1 to a base of -0. why do all safety improvements have the same resource cost, but everything else is allowed to be different?

Redesigned Templates Costs 40 Wood and 25 Steel. 9/11/15/17 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 4 Requires: Safety Improvements (Machine Shop). Reduces the Steel cost of Steam Exchangers from 25 to 20, and halves their build time. You need 30 Steam Exchangers to build the Generator, and another 45 if you want to complete the bonus researches, so this is particularly important if you intend to do those. If you intend to leverage the Supercharge function, it gets even more important.

Supercharge Costs 30 Wood and 20 Steel. 7/9/13/15 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 2 Requires: Machine Shop. Unlocks the Supercharge ability at Generator components. This ability spensd 5 Steam Exchangrs to instantly increment current progress by 10%. 48 hour cooldown between uses at a given location. To be clear, that's '10%' as in 'of the total bar'. You could theoretically build the Generator by just spamming Supercharges instead of using labor.... aside the exasperating qualifier that the worksite must be currently active to use the ability, and so at least one person has to be assigned during actual working hours.

Advanced Supercharge Costs 50 Wood and 30 Steel. 9/11/15/17 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 4 Requires: Supercharge Supercharge now increments progress by 20% per use. If you're going to use the Supercharge function at all, ideally you get Advanced Supercharge first so it's twice as effective.

Ventilation Plant Costs 20 Wood and 10 Steel. 6/8/12/14 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 1 Requires: Nothing. Unlocks Ventilation Plant. The building:

Ventilation Plant Costs 25 Wood, 50 Steel, and 1 Steam Core. Size 6x4 +2 Heat. (Not that this matters) By default runs from 8:00 to 18:00, spending 25 Coal per hour to improve Workplace Safety by 1 at all locations, but Short Shift, Extended Shift, and Two Shifts unlock appropriate hours for the Ventilation Plant as well. Only one can exist by default, and can only be placed in the Generator Build Zone. This is your biggest Coal expenditure for most of The Last Autumn. 25 Coal per hour is more than the Generator uses at max Heat! or a 10-hour shift, that's 250 Coal!

Ventilation Plant Coupling Costs 40 Wood and 25 Steel. 8/10/14/16 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 3 Requires: Ventilation Plant. Raises the Ventilation Plant limit by 1, bringing it to 2.

Ventilation Plant Integration Costs 120 Wood and 80 Steel. 10/12/16/18 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 5 Requires: Ventilation Plant Coupling Raises the Ventilation Plant limit by 1, bringing it to 3.

Efficient Fans Costs 40 Wood and 30 Steel. 8/10/14/16 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 3 Requires: Ventilation Plant. Ventilation Plants now spend 15% less Coal. (ie reducing their hourly usage from 25 to 21.25)

High Flow Filters Costs 120 Wood and 80 Steel. 10/12/16/18 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 5 Requires: Efficient Fans Ventilation Plants now spend 15% less Coal, for a total of 30% less. (ie reducing their hourly usage from 25 to 17.5)

Generator Upgrade: Riser System Costs 10 Steel Composites. 16 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 3 Requires: Completing the Generator's core construction. Gives you a feeling of accomplishment. Narratively, this is unlocking range improvements, I think.

Generator Upgrade: Overdrive Costs 25 Steam Exchangers. 22 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 4 Requires: Completing the Generator's core construction. Gives you a feeling of accomplishment. Narratively, you're installing the Overdrive function. This is in fact the most glaring example of these three researchs not existing in Builders Mode: it would've been logical and cool for Overdrive to be something you had to separately install. That said, these all being mechanic-ed as researches rather than build projects means it wouldn't be very interactive.

Generator Upgrade: Heat Vents Costs 15 Steel Composites an 20 Steam Exchangers. 30 hours needed with 1 Workshop at 100%. Tier: 5 Requires: Completing the Generator's core construction. Gives you a feeling of accomplishment. Narratively, this is increasing maximum warmth from the Generator. -------------------------------------- Next time, we cover Health and Food in The Last Autumn. See you then.