Frostpunk 2 | Best Ideas to Research

Frostpunk 2 presents an added layer of challenge with its unique tech tree. Labeled as the ‘Idea tree,’ it effectively serves as a progression system where you advance through different ideas and issues and assign one of your communities/factions to find a solution. This lets you specialize through your idea tree, and with 6 different categories, you will be left with lots to research. Ideas can be researched after you build the Research Institute.

Research Institute

A research institute costs 400 workforce, 100 heatstamps, and 50 prefabs to be built. Additionally, it needs 400 workforces and 20 heat to keep it functional. You can only build them in the central district or the housing districts. If you find yourself building in the housing districts, you will have to expand them beforehand. Building additional research districts will speed up your research.

Research Time & Cost

Each idea requires 50 to 100 heatstamps. Certain ideas require much more than that, while others require fewer or none. Research time is mainly dependent on the game difficulty but can be augmented by a few laws or building research institutes.

Heating Ideas

Arguably, the most important research category is the one concerning heating. Here, you can reduce most of your worries regarding finding fuel sources and streamline things, usually at the cost of squalor, disease, or some other drawback.

Coal Mines

The first best idea to research is the coal mine; you have the option between a dust coal mine and a blasting coal mine. The dust coal mine generates less coal at the cost of a higher workforce but lower materials, while the blasting coal mine generates slightly more coal at the cost of a lower workforce but higher materials. The mines either cause disease or squalor, both of which can be counteracted. 

Generally, you would want to choose based on your access to materials. If you possess many material deposits, get a blasting coal mine. In the early game, however, it is far more likely that materials are a rare commodity for you, so a dust coal mine is more reliable. You should also look for advanced coal mines as soon as you can. 

Heat Dispatcher

The Heat Dispatcher boosts district heating by utilizing engineering teams to improve output. There are two options: the regular heat dispatcher, which provides 20 heat demand at the cost of 400 workforce, and the actuated heat dispatcher, which provides 40 heat demand at the cost of 200 workforce but also produces squalor.

The actuated heat dispatcher is something that will help you in the long run, but it will also generate ever-annoying squalor. So, sometimes, you should go the safer route if squalor is an issue. On the other hand, it is relatively easy to deal with squalor in certain buildings.

Housing Insulation

A very cheap and effective way to decrease heat requirements. Housing Insulation essentially immediately and passively causes all housing districts to go from requiring 40 heat to 20 heat. When you add the bonuses from adjacent districts or natural protection, the heat required may be as low as 0. This goes a long way in conserving fuel.

Resources Ideas

The resources category mostly affects your production but also helps you deal with the negative effects of production.

Filtration Towers

The main method of controlling squalor, especially during the early game. Filtration towers are buildings that can be placed in expanded housing districts. They come in two options; the moss-filtration towers and ventilation towers. Ventilation towers are essentially cheaper and worse but require more heat. Moss-filtration towers require 100 more workforces but need less heat and dramatically reduce squalor. 

The choice here is obvious: Moss-filtration towers are better in every way, and other buildings can fix any potential drawbacks.

Sawmills

As your city expands, you will eventually face the crisis of depleting material deposits. To counteract this, you can research the sawmills. They are buildings that can be placed in extraction districts. The two sawmill options are mechanized and untreated sawmills. The mechanized one is infinitely better, but it produces squalor. Thanks to our previous idea, squalor shouldn’t be too big of a problem.

Frostlands Ideas

The frostlands category is really only relevant once you unlock the exploration of the frostlands. The ideas here will help you in your exploration and will give you more resources.

Scouts Headquarters

The Scouts Headquarters upgrade your logistics districts and essentially reduce the threat level of territories. The Survivalist’s Scouts Headquarters decreases exploration time by a lot. In contrast, the regular Scouts Headquarters will decrease it by a little. Both of them require 400 workforce and decrease the threat levels by the same amount. The drawback to the Survivalist’s idea is that it will put you on bad terms with some of the factions, as they really dislike the idea.

Society Ideas

Hospitals

A very useful idea that essentially helps you send back sick absentees into the workforce. It also helps you decrease disease. There are two types of Hospitals, the teaching hospital and the recovery hospital. The teaching hospital slightly increases research speed, costing 300 workforce and 20 heat. In contrast, the recovery hospital slightly boosts population growth, costing 200 workforce and 40 heat. 

The choice here is surprisingly simple. While the teaching hospital might seem enticing, remember that specialization is very important in this game.

Since Hospitals really focus on boosting the population and fighting disease, it makes sense for them to also help with population growth. Of course, you should be prepared for the high heat demand and ready to provide shelter for all the new people coming in.

Factories

As with many other resources, you will eventually run out of the natural spawns for them. While you can rely on the frostlands for more, having a reliable production base is better. To that end, the factories create goods and prefabs. The choice is between the salvaging and mechanical factory, with the differences being that the salvaging factory costs more workforce and produces disease, and the mechanical factory costs more materials and produces squalor. 

The goods being produced are also a good source of eventual heatstamps. All in all, the factories have multi-faceted bonuses that provide as the primary bottleneck you will face in the game is through prefabs or heatstamps.

There are potentially more useful ideas that may be the way to go in certain situations, but these are the ones you will constantly be looking towards, regardless of the state of the playthrough.

Note that most, if not all, ideas have some sort of effect in relation to certain factions. So, you should keep that in mind. Sometimes, you’ll have to choose the inferior idea just to appease a faction. Other times, you have to implement bad ideas for the sake of another faction.

Check out our Frostpunk 2 Review and other guides:
- Frostpunk 2 Review | NoobFeed
- Frostpunk 2 Beginner's Guide | Top 10 Gameplay Tips
- Frostpunk 2 | All Problems, Trust & Tension and How To Solve Them