Ardheim

The "Ardheim Industries" Factory #103 is a new base that is unlocked once you reach the "Iron ridge" zone. It essentially serves as a secondary base to your main base -- it has its own set of buildings, resources, and even tasks and rewards. The building at Ardheim operates independently from your main base, so you can build something in both places at the same time. At first, the main purpose of Ardheim is to use the turret factory to produce turrets, but (much) later you will be able to unlock additional buildings which will enable you to explore various occult powers.

Resources work slightly differently in Ardheim than your main base. In addition to the regular resources that your main base produces, Ardheim features a whopping 12 additional supplies that you'll need to build and upgrade buildings. These are not produced from production buildings, however. Rather, there is a pool of enemy squads hanging around your base, and you have to fight them to get the necessary supplies. Unlike the enemy squads that appear around your main base, these can not be permanently defeated; rather, when you defeat a squad, it will be unavailable for a certain period of time and then reappear.

The 12 supplies that you can get from the enemy squads are as follows. They seem to have different levels of rarity, although that might just be an effect of what is available earlier.

* More common: industrial paint, nails, insulating tape, high voltage wires, wooden beam, wrench
* More rare: stator, generator, technical plate, block of cylinders, transmission, radiator

Apaxuc has done some more detailed research and found that the drop rates break down approximately as follows:

* industrial paint, wooden beam: 44%
* nails, insulating tape, wrench: 28%
* technical plate, high voltage wires: 17%
* stator, block of cylinders, radiator: 7%
* transmission, generator: 4%

In addition, Ardheim resources can also be obtained through Vendor shipments in the Grotto. Each has a given rarity, as listed in the table below. A Grotto chest of a given rarity level will give a resource of either the same rarity or one level lower (i.e., a Special chest will contain either a Special or a Rare resource). In addition, an Elite Grotto chest also has a chance of containing a generator instead of a Special or Elite resource.

 Legendary | generator

All of these supplies are stored in your production warehouse, which works similarly to your regular warehouse but stores these 12 supplies instead. When you defeat an enemy squad, you have a certain amount of time to claim the supplies that it drops (in case you need to and can free some space in your warehouse); if you don't take the supplies within that time, they disappear.

Because of the large number of supplies, it's often very difficult to get what you need purely from fighting the enemy squads. However, if you follow the storyline missions that are given to you in Ardheim, the rewards generally provide you with the supplies you need to take the next step, at least when you're starting out.

The buildings you can build in Ardheim are:

* Control center -- the main building of Ardheim
* Production warehouse -- holds supplies needed for Ardheim constructions
* Turret Factory -- builds turrets
* Heavy Equipment Factory -- allows you to upgrade certain support units
* Research center -- produces technicians and "Mongoose" walkers and technicians
* Barracks of the Wasteland residents -- produces nomads and Mutants of the Wasteland
* Hall of Call -- produces Crimson Blades

The last three require resources that can only be obtained through special events -- specifically, rough hinges from Technology Triumph, low quality mutagen from Battle for Mutagen, and small occult scrolls from Ancient Secrets, respectively.

Like your main base, Ardheim can be expanded (although not as extensively) by spending city plans to unlock new areas. This costs as follows:

\*The large crater with 7 stages blocks both of the top two locations, so it needs to be cleared before either of them is accessible.

Note that you don't have to face enemy squads after unlocking the zone, but the clearing costs are quite substantial. For the abandoned warehouses, the bottom spot is the cheapest overall, followed by the top. The left is significantly more expensive, and then the right is by far the most expensive, requiring a total of more than 20k steel and fuel. For the destroyed warehouses, the pattern is similar -- the bottom is the cheapest, and the top (despite the expensive 7-stage clearance) is the second cheapest, followed by the left and the right.

The six squads floating around your base are not all of equal difficulty -- two are somewhat easier, two of medium difficulty, and two relatively tougher. The rewards that they drop don't seem to be substantially different, though.