Frostpunk 2: How To Reduce Squalor

Frostpunk 2 has a lot of aspects that you will need to track and manage. This consists of things like heat demand, disease, and the total amount of crime. One aspect that you will need to manage is squalor, which can be confusing to understand at first, especially if you are brand-new to the game.

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In this guide, we are going to take a look at what exactly squalor is, as well as how you can reduce it in your cities. This will cover how to handle an already-high squalor, as well as any potential squalor increases in the future.

What Is Squalor?

Squalor is the overall filth that is within your city. This squalor can come from buildings that cause pollution, as well as material scarcity. In general, squalor isn't ideal, because it means that your population is living in a dirty city.

You can check your city's squalor right under the heat meter in the top center of the screen. Squalor is marked by a diamond shape that appears to be crumbling. By hovering over this, you can see how much squalor is present, as well as if it's growing or not. Here, you will also be able to see what is causing the squalor.

What Does High Squalor Do?

When squalor gets high enough, your population will be affected. This will cause disease and tension to be high, as well as a decrease in population growth. Essentially, your people are mad, dirty, and not wanting to live in the city.

When squalor is high enough, it can damage districts and cause wear. Enough wear can even make the district 'turn off' until you repair it, which costs Prefabs. Overall, it's safe to say that squalor isn't good, and you should try to prevent it from getting too impactful.

How To Reduce High Squalor

There are a few ways to reduce squalor, which can be found below. These methods can help prevent future squalor, as well as lower it in the moment (especially if you are struggling with immediate high squalor).

It's important to remember that some squalor is natural. For example, in the main campaign of Frostpunk 2, you'll need to upgrade your generator, which increases squalor. This is unavoidable, but it's best to not add even more things to your city to make squalor become uncontrollable.

Increase Material Production

As mentioned earlier, squalor can happen if there is a material shortage. As such, increasing your materials can help reduce squalor. To do this, you can create material extraction districts, research material-producing nodes on the Idea Tree, or savage for materials in the Frostland.

Idea Tree Research

On the Idea Tree, you can find the Filtration Towers node on the Resources screen. Here, you'll be able to check out the Moss-Filtration Tower and the Ventilation Tower. These are two buildings that you can place in Housing Districts, with both of them reducing squalor.

Ultimately, the choice is up to you, but below, you can find a breakdown of each tower in relation to how squalor is affected.

Moss-Filtration Tower

Ventilation Tower

Squalor significantly decreased

Squalor is decreased (not significantly)

Unlocks Rapid Filtration which deceased squalor (and results in injuries)

Unlocks Rapid Filtration which deceased squalor (and results in injuries)

20 Heat Demand

40 Heat Demand

400 Workforce needed

300 Workforce needed

Rapid Filtration can be activated when squalor is present. This will immediately reduce squalor, but the total amount can still increase afterward.

This is one of the best ways to reduce squalor, as it's long-lasting. After unlocking this node, you'll also have access to the Waste Management Facilities Research node, which reduces squalor even further.

Remove Deep Melting Drills

There's no reducing the amount of squalor produced from the Deep Melting Drill, but you could always completely remove it. These drills are used to gather near-infinite resources (marked with an infinity sign), but you may not always need this many resources.

If you are secure in all of your resources but deal with high squalor, consider turning off or removing a Deep Melting Drill. This may help you get a handle on your squalor and find other preventative methods before reinstalling the drill.

Change Your Laws

Lastly, you can change your city's laws in order to reduce squalor. This isn't the easiest to do out of the blue, as the council will need to be in session and vote for the law you pass. If the odds are in your favor and you previously passed Machine-Centric Shifts (in the Efficiency section of the Survival tab), you may want to re-propose the 'Unregulated Worker Shifts'.

While undoing previous votes may seem strange, Machine-Centric Shifts is a law that increases squalor. If you have enough workers to maintain a steady workflow, consider changing this law.

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