Frozen Forest Asteroid
| “ | The Frozen Forest Asteroid’s low temperatures will make finding water and establishing farms or ranches problematic. | „ |
The Frozen Forest Asteroid is a small starting asteroid with a cold Forest Biome start.
Map Layout
Strategy
The Frozen Forest Asteroid has a number of challenges at the start. The extreme cold being only the tip of the iceberg. The forest map is known for its severe lack of water, and the other possible Biomes such as the Rust and Jungle aren't any better. The lack of water makes the Electrolyzer difficult to use in the early game. There's also no Algae for Diffuser, no Polluted Dirt for Sublimation, and despite having abundant amounts of Rust for a Deoxidizer; there is no Salt to actually activate it. The Oxyfern might be fine to supplement the starting resources until you're able to setup around the guaranteed Slush Geyser or Chlorine Vent, exploring the map to find it might introduce extreme amount of cold into your starting area that will make farming impossible. This creates a series of 'catch 22s' doom scenarios for this map that can often lead to an early colony death.
As far as food is concerned, your options are limited to Nosh Sprout and Mealwood. Even meat is limited as Pips and a single Hatch are the only critter you can expect to find. This also means that you don't have a source of Reed Fibers native to the Asteroid, as there are no Dreckos in the cold variants of Jungle and Rust biomes. This map does have everything you need to grow Nosh Beans, you need to remember to insulate the Arbor Trees and Mealwood to keep them growing.
The direct solution to many of these problems is, of course, to do whatever you can to heat the map, but then you have to wonder what was the advantage of having a cold map if you merely waste it away. Potentially starting on a different map and coming to the Frozen Forest when your technology and preparations are more suited to take advantage of the extreme cold is just better at that point.
This makes the Frozen Forest Asteroid one of the most challenging starts possible in Oxygen Not Included. A good way to look at this map is that it has an excellent potential mid to late game. The guaranteed Slush Geyser and inherent cold will support a booming industry, especially if you stick to Ethanol based Power Generation. However, it achieves that potential by sacrificing its early game.
If you're seeking something different than an Ethanol based Mid/Late game, Desolands better supports a Petroleum based one, while Radioactive Ocean better supports a Radiation based one.
Biomes
Guaranteed Geysers
Possible Additional Geysers
- Salt Water Geyser
- Natural Gas Geyser
- Hydrogen Vent
- Sulfur Geyser
- Minor Volcano
- Chlorine Gas Vent
- Infectious Polluted Oxygen Vent
- Hot Polluted Oxygen Vent
- Carbon Dioxide Geyser
- Carbon Dioxide Vent