The Arks

"As the brightest minds of Oxford and Cambridge, we have been sent to save priceless seed and plant specimens from the eternal winter. Do we have what it takes to keep the Seedling Arks safe?"

The Arks is one of the scenarios in Frostpunk, unlocked after surviving 20 days of A New Home. This scenario revolves around keeping four Seedling Arks from freezing, and producing automatons to keep the city running.

The Seedling Arks
The scenario will begin with The Seedling Arks, where you are tasked to preserve seedlings.

New Manchester
As you build up your autonomous city, a citizen from another city will arrive. You will have to decide whether or not to assist this other city.

Find the Factory plans

 * Acquisition: From the beginning
 * Objectives:
 * Research and build the Beacon
 * Find the Factory plans

Factory

 * Acquisition: Acquired Factory tech from "Lost Dreadnought" location
 * Objectives:
 * Bring the Factory plans to the city
 * Build the Factory
 * Increase the number of automatons

Autonomous City

 * Acquisition: Completed prior quest "Factory"
 * Objectives:
 * Employ at least 2 automatons in the Coal industry
 * Employ at least 1 automatons in the Steel industry
 * Employ at least 1 automatons in the Wood industry
 * Employ at least 1 automatons in the Raw Food industry

The search for Steam Cores

 * Acquisition: Acquired if you run out of Steam Cores.
 * Note: This seems to trigger after a certain number of cores are spent. If this event fires too late, it will not be possible to retrieve some cores before the storm hits.
 * Objectives:
 * Reach the South Pass or Misty Valley

Prepare for the Storm

 * Objectives:
 * Build 5 Houses.
 * Disband All Expeditions and Outposts.
 * Gather 8000 Coal.
 * Gather 500 Food Rations.

Finding the way

 * Acquisition: Acquired when the scout from New Manchester arrives around day 15.
 * Objectives:
 * Scout the Frostland and find New Manchester before the storm

Shelter for New Manchester (1/3)

 * Objectives:
 * Send 600 Steel, 600 Wood and 1 Automaton.

Keep the autonomous systems working

 * Acquisition:
 * Objectives:
 * Have at least 6 Automatons working in the city

Food for New Manchester (2/3)

 * Objectives:
 * Send 2000 Food Rations and 2 Automatons.

Coal for New Manchester (3/3)

 * Objectives:
 * Send 6000 Coal and 4 Automatons.

Tips

 * You will not find any more people than those you start with, except for a single worker, so you should be very careful to avoid letting them die, and try to get automatons produced as quickly and as often as possible. A single automaton requires 100 steel, 100 wood, 50 coal, and one steam core. Since you'll be building at least four of them, and probably more, Streamlined Automatons can save a lot of resources, but the automatons themselves should take priority.
 * Exploring should be high priority, as the large resource spikes they deliver will allow you to get automatons quicker.
 * Other than researching the Beacon, ensuring that heaters and/or steam hubs are researched prior to the second temperature drop is important to prevent the seedlings in the Arks from freezing to death. The Hothouse is also a very high priority research item since you can't hunt with engineers.
 * To prevent gravely ill citizens and death, building a medical post early is very important as the player will not acquire additional citizens in the future. As such, passing a law for a cemetery or snow pit should not be a highly prioritized until the moment a citizen dies. Dead bodies are a major source of disease and will cause epidemics without a way to dispose of bodies.
 * 24-hour Emergency Shifts and Extended Shifts laws are extremely useful early on in this game mode. That said, be careful not to overuse these laws as it could cause citizens to die.
 * Triage and Duelling are not advised because citizens cannot be re-accumulated.
 * Send relief efforts late, you can use the automatons yourself.

Trivia

 * The automatons sent to aid New Manchester do not return.
 * Game ends before the storm hits, so players do not have to endure the storm.
 * If the Arks are not actively powered when the storm hits, the epilogue will state that they had perished regardless of whether they are actually intact or not.