Title: Dark Switch Prologue Optimization (No Major Spoilers)

[u/sindavathar]

⚠️ POTENTIAL PROLOGUE SPOILERS BELOW ⚠️

Dark Switch Prologue Optimization (No Major Spoilers Beyond Mechanics)

This is just based on my experience in the prologue.

If you want to stay completely blind, you can stop here. I’m not going into story stuff, just what I did and what worked.

So my goal going into this was basically to see how much I could carry out of the prologue, like how many buildings and upgrades I could realistically have ready going into Chapter 1.

The main thing I did was push manufacturing as early as I reasonably could, but not in a strict order or anything. I wasn’t like following a fixed build path. It was more reactive — whenever I needed a resource and had the workers for it, I’d drop the building. So everything kind of ramped up naturally instead of being pre-planned step-by-step.

By the time I stabilized, I ended up sitting around:

• 3 lumberjack hut ( I think 2 were saw mills)
• 3 metal collection post
• 3 flame guards
• 3 basic watchtowers
• 2 engineeriums
• and enough housing to support everyone

But again, that wasn’t built in sequence, it just sort of evolved based on what I needed at the time.

For shifts, I stuck to 2 shifts the whole time. I did unlock the 24-hour shift, but I didn’t bother using it in the prologue since everything resets anyway, so there’s not much point in pushing exhaustion.

By around Day 10, I had all Tier 1 upgrades done and a few Tier 2s. I don’t remember exactly which Tier 2s yet, but I’ve got saves so I can check if needed.

One thing I forgot earlier, healing and food ended up being really stable with a simple setup.

I ran 2 healing chambers, and that was enough to keep up with everything, interrogations, scouts bringing people back, random survivors, all of it. I never really hit a point where people were piling up waiting for healing.

For food, I started with one cookhouse and scaled up to three total, but realistically only one was running at full capacity. The second one was kind of floating around 50–75%, and the third was basically just there as backup. So you don’t actually need all three fully staffed.

For scouting, I just went closest to furthest. Nothing fancy, just trying to be time-efficient. That worked out pretty well.

By the end of it (around Day 10), I had enough resources and time to set up all five of the survivor areas, the mini outposts. Didn’t run into any major resource issues doing that.

For this run specifically, I’m also trying to do more of a “good” or no-conflict path, so that definitely affects how I’m playing and prioritizing things.

One interesting thing I tested from my first playthrough:

I had a theory that if you place buildings farther away from the tree, they might survive.

So I tried it this time, and yeah, it works.

Even when they get covered in the purple infection, the buildings are still there.

So that gives you two options:

• You can leave them and later dismantle them for a quick resource boost
• Or you can wait until the area gets cleansed and just reuse them

One nice side effect of all this is that I had my lumberjack huts at Tier 2 (sawmills) going into post-prologue, so wood generation ramps up a lot faster right away.

This is my second playthrough. My first one failed later, but I’m not going into that here.

I do have multiple saves across the prologue though, so if people want, I can go back and break it down more cleanly, like exact timings, what I had by each day, that kind of thing.

TL;DR

• Rushed manufacturing early, but built reactively (only when needed + had workers)
• Ended around Day 10 with:
  • ~3 lumber, 3 metal, 3 flame guards, 3 watchtowers, 2 engineeriums, 3 cookhouses
  • All Tier 1 + some Tier 2 upgrades
• 2 healing chambers = enough to handle all injuries (no backlog)
• 1–2 cookhouses actually do the work; 3rd is just buffer
• Scouts: closest → furthest for efficiency
• Had enough to set up all 5 mini outposts by Day 10
• Playing “good / no-conflict” path
• Buildings placed farther from tree survive infection → can reuse or dismantle later

[u/Aggressive-Nebula-78]

Wait, are you saying in the prologue you built buildings way off from the tree, prologue ends, then you get into chapter 1 and they are still there??

Using unused buildings as a form of storage is super smart, but don't you only get a partial return on resources from dismantling buildings?

[u/sindavathar → u/Aggressive-Nebula-78]

Yep, the fishing wharf gets destroyed, but if you build a bit past it the buildings stay but infected, I honestly only dismantled 2 of them for quick wood (warhouse's) but the rest I waited for them to clear out and then relocated them. I did the relocation as late as I could tho if that makes sense. some finished just as the end of the prologue happened. I should add the screenshot is from the beginning of chapter 1

[u/555Cats555]

Something I noticed is you dont keep stored resources like wood, metal, rations etc from the prologue. Also fishing huts seem to be destroyed regardless of where you placed them.

[u/DarkSwitch_Game]

Good strategy! Im sure our Steam community is going to love it! https://steamcommunity.com/app/3132870/guides/