Survival mode

Fallout: FROST is intended to be played on Fallout 4's Survival difficulty level. This page provides an overview of some of the game mechanics of Surival difficulty, and the changes FROST introduces to them.

## Introduction

Fallout 4's Survival difficulty requires the player character to sleep, drink, and eat. In addition, illnesses are introduced, as well as changes to damage dealt and received, effects of healing items are changed, and many more. Not catering to the well-being of the player character induces penalties.

Here are a few hints:

* In FROST, the Survivor will get hungry and thirsty twice as fast
* While sleeping, the Survivor's metabolic rate is cut down, consuming about a quarter of food and drink compared to when being awake
* The consumables page has information on hunger, thirst and other effects of consumables
* Diseases have a set duration, and it is possible to "sleep them off"

## Sustenance

Fallout 4 uses a time scale of 20, translating into twenty seconds game time passed for every second real time passed. One minute real time thus translate into twenty minutes game time, one hour game time into three minutes real time, and so forth.

Sustenance counters are kept for each of the needs, with thresholds defined in game hours passed for progressing through different stages of need with increasing penalties applied.

FROST cuts these game hour thresholds in half, effectively doubling the speed at which the different stages are reached.

Note: Data in the following tables was verified by checking the Survival mode related scripts, functions and values in the Creation Kit with FROST Version 0.55 installed. And torturing a Survivor.

### Hunger

Not all eatable items affect hunger, and the game provides no way to identify these other than actually eating one and observing the effects.The consumables page provides this information, though.

Eating up from a worse stage to a better one gains the Survivor a bonus, and can delay reaching the worse stage again by several additional minutes real time. Starving Survivors will receive 10 damage to their health every 45 real time seconds, if their health is above 20.

As in the base game, the food value of items is equal to their base value in caps. Eating two arbitrary items with no or very low caps and thus no or very low food value can suffice to bring hunger up to a better stage, with a prominent example being Food Paste.

Parasites will cut the food value of items in half, requiring the Survivor to consume twice as much food.

### Thirst

Not all drinkable items affect thirst, and the game provides no way to identify these other than actually drinking one and observing the effects.The consumables page provides this information, though.

Drinking up from a worse stage to a better one gains the Survivor a bonus, and can delay reaching the worse stage again by several additional minutes real time. Severely dehydrated Survivors will receive 10 damage to their health every 45 real time seconds, if their health is above 20.

As in the base game, the hydration value of items is equal to their base value in caps. Drinking two arbitrary items with no or very low caps and thus no or very low hydration value can suffice to bring thirst up to a better stage.

### Trophology (not just) for FROST players

The game manages the sustenance counters for food, drink, and sleep as numerical values, with penalties applied if values fall below thresholds as follows:

These values are the direct equivalent of the total base caps value of food and drink items required to return the respective sustenance counter to a value of 0.

Notwithstanding other effects like illnesses, being asleep, or in combat, FROST decreases food and drink values by 4 per half game hour (90 seconds real time).

Theoretically, for each half-hour of game time, the Survivor must consume food and drink with a base caps value of 4 each to maintain their current levels of sustenance. Watching the scenery for 1 hour of game time would consequently cost the Survivor 16 caps (8 in food items and 8 in drink items) to get their levels back to what they were a game time hour ago.

Internally, however, the game automatically raises the value of any food and drink item consumed to a minimum value as follows, provided they actually have an impact on these values:

That is why savvy Survivors can sustain themselves on a diet of very low-value, comparably easy-to-find consumables.

### Other influences

* Entering combat will reduce the given game times by a further 15 minutes game time. Entering combat again within roughly 8 minutes of real time will not incur multiple reductions.
* While sleeping, the Survivor consumes about a quarter of food and drink compared with being awake.

## Diseases

Aside from being shot at, eaten or burned alive, irradiated or having their bones broken, Survivors also have to deal with contracting illnesses.

### Types of diseases

Once one of the following diseases is contracted, no other of these illness can be caught during the next 24 game time hours.

### Prevention and curing

It is possible to minimize the risk of disease by avoiding contact with dogs, ghouls, and other carriers, minimizing consumption of chems, not consuming raw food and untreated drinks, avoiding contact with contaminated water, and by taking other preventative measures. But getting ill can not be avoided entirely.

Prophylactic consumption of herbal inhibitors can purportedly help reduce the risk, but their weight and often almost impossible-to-find ingredients diminish their value.

Next to using antibiotics, simply sleeping off diseases works surprisingly well, especially since the Survivor's metabolic rate is cut down to a quarter of its regular rate during sleep.

Sleeping off an infection requires 72 hours of sleep, and if the Survivor sleeps for 24 hours three times in a row, the infection will typically be cured. If well-fed and hydrated before each of the sleep cycles, the Survivor will wake up thirsty and hungry, and require only few consumables to get back to a well-fed and hydrated state.