Oxygen tips: A beginner's guide to surviving your first few wind days

Looking for some Oxygen tips and tricks? Surviving in Oxygen is not easy. The harsh weather, toxic air, and earth cracks can all make survival very challenging. And this is precisely where the fun of this newly released city builder game lies - leading the survivors to establish a home in such an environment.

It can be thrilling to experience your first toxic wind in Oxygen. Seeing the energy rapidly decrease can certainly cause a sense of panic. It can at times be overwhelming to balance the limited workforce with the need to construct multiple buildings, operate them, and gather numerous resources. Don’t panic. Here are some Oxygen tips to help you emerge through your first wind and expand your city.

1. Easy mode is a good place to start

Most players have an intuition that normal mode is a balanced choice. But if you're finding it to be a bit much for you, consider switching to easy mode - at least at first. Easy mode still provides challenges, but without being too overwhelming. You will still encounter storms which can potentially deplete your energy, but they last fewer days than on higher difficulty levels, which makes it easier to employ the right strategy adjustments to help you survive. Also, your base will be surrounded by a decent amount of ruins which provide materials, and the tasks are a bit milder in difficulty.

2. Use the Profession panel to manage your population

Population control is at the heart of Oxygen. The Profession panel is your control hub for managing your people. It shows an overview of your entire population. Rather than clicking on each building to assign the workforce, it’s more convenient to do that on the panel. You can also click on the panel's icon to jump directly to the building.

However, be cautious with buildings that have many units, as the system will divide the population equally between them. For example, if you have 3 research centers and 6 people are allocated to do research, then the system will assign 2 people to each research center. If you need to shut down a building during a storm to save energy, you'll need to operate each one individually.

3. Build research centers as soon as possible

Researching requires a lot of patience as the progress can be painfully slow. However, building research centers as soon as possible or even adding a few more can help alleviate the pressure of constant tasks.

Allocating mobile labor to research is a good way to manage workforce. In Oxygen, it’s necessary to leave some people for emergency tasks, such as building construction, urgent need for specific materials, and patient care in medical posts. As a savvy capitalist, you certainly don't want to leave them idle if there is nothing in emergency. Allowing them to research can make workforce management easier for you and provide better returns for your base.

4. Ruins are the best source of resources at the beginning

Gathering resources from surrounding ruins is quicker than building multiple resource-producing buildings. Although there's no single panel to manage labor and resources for each ruin, the ruin panel can help you locate specific kinds of resources. Move your mouse over a ruin, and you will see the type and quantity of resources available.

5. If an oxygen generator cannot be turned off, build it next to a tree

If the vitality of a tree is 100%, the tree dome will provide nontoxic oxygen without using any energy. Therefore, building Container Houses or Medical Posts next to a tree is a good option since their generators cannot be turned off. You can also choose to build high-energy-consuming buildings next to a tree.

Trees are unique in Oxygen. Their quantity is limited, and each tree requires a unit of workforce to take care of constantly, as well as consuming a lot of water. But it’s worth nurturing a tree in the early stages of the game as it can cover the energy cost of most of the residential area. However, I wouldn't recommend nurturing two trees because it may cause a shortage in water and labor.

6. Building a gas extractor on every crack is not necessary

The flame icon which appears on cracks looks quite intimidating, which can pressure you to deal with the problem and collect energy at every opportunity. Gas extractors on cracks are a great source of energy at the beginning of the game, but this energy can only be stored in batteries, which have an upper limit. Therefore, building too many of them will waste gear and plastic. It’s important to closely monitor the fluctuating energy. If the battery energy is close to its upper limit, you don’t need to worry about the crack.

In addition, pay attention to the progress bar on the Cracks. When the progress bar reaches the end, the Crack will explode. If the construction is not completed at this time, people will be killed by the explosion.

If you follow these tips in Oxygen, surviving the first few days won’t be too hard. Hopefully, you've already begun to enjoy the fun of surviving. If you want to see our opinion on this game, you can check out our Oxygen review.