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Survivor playthrough guide


dargondarkfire

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Back after the PS3 version of Bioshock was released, and after I beat the survivor difficulty, without using the glitch, I had written a small guide on the Game FAQS forums on how to beat it.

 

The original version is in this thread: How to ensure that I get the Survivor difficulty trophy.. - BioShock Message Board for PlayStation 3 - GameFAQs

 

I recommended fallowing little_moth's guide on GameFAQs, even though it's an Xbox 360 guide it mostly transitions well to the PS3 version. I mostly recommend it because he tells you were to find the Plasmids/Tonics that you can find around the game world that are not sold in the gatherers garden.

 

This guide should work if overlayed into other Guides or Road Maps. However, it's based towards having already played and beaten the game once before so you know the mechanics, events, and basic game strategy.

 

Things to remember:

 

  • Vita chambers must be turned off.
  • Difficulty must be set to survivor and never changed. Note: To make sure Vita Chambers is off and doesn't ruin your play through, make a new game, then once you are able to pause, do so. Then in the settings change the Chamber setting to off, then save and quit, then start a game on Survivor. Your settings from the other game will transfer to the new one.
  • Save extremely often, perhaps to the point of every other room.
  • Be paranoid: You may think what?! or laugh but things like to jump out at you or sneak up on you, especially in Fort Frolic.
  • Patience: You will need a lot of it as it will be slow.
  • Plasmids use more Eve when activated in survival mode, so keep an eye on your Eve gauge, and try to keep eve hypos on stock.
  • A previous playthrough to learn encounters helps a lot.
  • DO NOT HARVEST LITTLE SISTERS! You may get more Adam but you NEED Tenenbaum's gifts.
  • Don't kill Sander Cohen in Fort Frolic: You can't get a trophy later if you do or if you have it you miss out on supplies and such.
  • Remember that attacking undetected yields much more damage and thus less fighting, less damage taking, less use of your supplies.
  • Take pictures of everything, you need the Tonics and bonuses!
  • Get good at hacking, you can use freezing ammo/plasmids to slow them down but it's a waste of resources.
  • The Scrounger Tonic can be useful for turning a body with no loot into one with loot or poor loot into good loot, be careful as it can turn bad loot into worse or worse scenarios.
  • The Armored Shell Tonics will save your life but take up space.
  • Static discharge is a bad idea, it only stuns slicers for a split second and does little damage.
  • You can do a lot of damage with Electrobolt but you must do a Wrench/Gun shot right after the bolt hits.
  • Carry as many Automatic Hack Tools you as you can.
  • Have a controller in good condition, if your :ls: is worn out, it can cause you to slowly creep forward or in another directing witch will break your Camo.

Edited by Terminator
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The first 2 levels are hard and I never developed a perfect way to do this until the boss fight in Neptune's Bounty. You will have to learn to survive on your supplies until the boss, and you need to kill all the big daddies you come across, you will need to save the Little Sisters to obtain the Hypnotize Big Daddy Plasmid, once you have this expensive to use Plasmid you can lead one Big Daddy to another then get them to fight each other. This will be replaced with Security Bullseye once you find it.

 

This fight is very hard or very easy depending on how you tackle it. First, save before entering the room. Now try to memorize were everything is because the fog will roll in once you enter, you might want to run in once and find everything before you commit to the fight.

 

Now run in and I mean RUN! and hack the healing station, then run to the camera on the right side and hack it, then immediately run to the front end of the room (opposite the door entrance), and run up the stairs and run right and crouch and hide behind the metal plates, this will hide you. Note: there is a turret at the top of the stairs behind a sliding metal panel, don't try hacking this as you will get caught and likely die.

 

Stay in your hiding place and the slicers and slicer boss will enter the room, they wont find you and begin to wander and search, and will get spotted by the camera and drones will come in and kill them. The boss throws dynamite and the explosions, if close enough, can destroy the camera, if this happens reload. Once the boss is low on health it will run to the healing station to heal but since you hacked it, it will damage him instead, either killing him or badly hurting him (in which case he will smash it), the drones should finish him off, if not you can risk it and pop up and try killing him. Once he's dead, loot everything!

 

As for weapon upgrades, upgrade either the Pistol or Shotgun.

 

In the Submarine Bay your on your own here again, i recommend try shotgun head shots and run while looting as best you can.

 

Once your get to Arcadia, search around and once you enter the garden supplies room save, go right and past the staircase, and walk up to the table, once the lights flicker immediately turn around and start taking pictures fast, you want to get 2 research levels on this Houdini splicer, this will get you the Natural Camo tonic. Equip it and until you get to nearly the end of the game never take it off. This tonic will keep you alive and safe. (I stress you must get this tonic, if you don't get it, reload!)

 

After this, gather your Invent supplies, always hack U-Invent stations to make stuff cheaper and make Anti-Personnel rounds for the Pistol. With Natural Camo, when you hold still you turn invisible, as long as something is not actively on alert hunting you or knowing you're there (other then turrets, cameras and drones. Using this method align your sights, with Anti-Personnel rounds in the Pistol, and aim for the heads, since you're not visible to them you get the sneak attack bonus yes this sounds D&Dish but when they are stunned or not aware of you, you deal extra damage, and the damage to the head will make nearly all splicers drop in 1 shot. At this point in the game Electrobolt is almost useless, it stuns for a split second and does very little damage, even when used on a pool of water. Its Eve price is very high and it will take like 5 shocks to a pool of water to kill a splicer. Don't upgrade it until no3 is available, this will keep your Adam around for Health/Eve/Slot Upgrades.

Edited by Terminator
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This will be your starting method to easy kills at this time you should upgrade you shotgun fully first using the PTTP machines, then get the damage immunity bonus to your Grenade Launcher, unless you accidentally make a big daddy mad at you and come after you you shouldn't need the damage upgrade yet.

 

Hack every camera and turret you can, buy the Security Bullseye and use it to kill the big daddies while cloaked. Its allot safer then attacking them. You will need to watch were they patrol, find a security camera were they pass threw it's line of sight and it will summon sentries on the big daddies.

 

In the Winery, as you go down the stairwell there are Trap Bolts in the path. Disable these Trap Bolts because a Big Daddy will patrol down these stairs once you have gone through, and if he takes damage from them he will get enraged and come after you.

 

In the shed were you get the tonic in the Winery don't move as you pick it up so you are invisible, several Trap Bolts will launch out of the walls behind you, these are a trap that was set for you, however you will use this trap instead. Two splicers spawn outside the shed, at first they are hostile but since you are invisible they will go normal then enter the shed to search for you, however they are not very bright and will walk into the bolts and you wont have to worry about them.

 

During the lab invasion run to the entrance and lock the front door then run back, you should have hacked the turrets and the camera inside. You now have 2 choices, if you have been saving little sisters you can try using the big daddy as a bodyguard using the mind control Big Daddy Plasmid but its a big drain on Eve, and he will only attack them if they attack you, you attack them or they attack him and if you accidentally hit him your likely as good as ground beef, since it wakes him up and he agros on you.

 

The other method that I recommend standing at the top of the stares were the currently sealed door to the mist control chamber is and fighting them as they come, also every time Atlas says something and the progress says how far the Chemical Spray is, save in case you mess up and die.

 

Next once your at Fort Frolic you will find your Pistol/Anti-Personnel and Shotgun head shots are not very effective any more but don't worry, once you get the Crossbow from Cohen, use the first PTTP machine to upgrade the breakage chance of the bolts, then the second for damage, this will be your main head shotting weapon from Natural Camo from now on, continue to use the security when possible on Big Daddies.

 

Remember to research everything, even the Little Sisters for extra Eve and health. If you can make trap bolts and your research on Big Daddies give your the ++ damage or better yet the +++ damage, set up a line of ten trap bolts and then shoot him in the head from long range with a fire bolt he will walk, run to you or ram at you and mash threw your bolts. It should either nearly kill him or kill him and then the little sister is easily saved, however they may be hard to invent at this time so make your choice of security or Trap Bolts if your able to. At this time you shouldn't be able to handle one 1 on 1 still even with the damage reducer tonic.

 

The reason you're going to stick with the Crossbow is this:

 

1. The Crossbow deals way more damage then even the upgraded Pistol

 

2. The up damage upgraded Crossbow, will kill nearly all splicers with an aware head shot at this time and the damage upgrade will pretty much work for you till the end of the game.

 

3. The Crossbow Bolts are recoverable but break easy, the first upgrade for it should be the breakage chance reducer upgrade. recovering your bolts will save you a lot of money, however when you recover them from a target be sure to actually loot each one individually and not select the corpse and choose recover the bolts, because you will only get 1 back if you had to use more then 1 on a splicer.

 

4. If a Steel Bolt won't instant headshot a splicer later in the game, keep that type in mind and use the Fire Bolts instead.

 

Note: If an opponent has a Fire attribute they take reduced damage from fire bolts but I think few are fire resistant except the final boss in his fire form.

 

On another note: Once you get Scavenger from the splicer researching, use it. If a corpse/box/container/object has really bad loot/no loot/or you're maxed out on a particular item, hit the prompt it gives you to re-search the object and you can often change the loot to stuff you really need.

 

Ok for the rest of the game using security when you can to kill Big Daddies or if forced use Trap Bolts. I know I'm repeating myself but you need to avoid going insane Action Man on Survivor mode.

Edited by Terminator
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Once you reach Point Prometheus, you will be tasked in to finding a big daddy suit and getting their voice. if you can get the boots last as they make noise but once you gain the suit you will get a 25% damage resistance combine this with Armored Shell Tonic +10% and Armored Shell 2 + 15% (I think these Tonic %s are correct.)

 

Once you equip these you become a tank literally, plus splicers will ignore you unless attacked, so you can remove Natural Camo if you want but being an invisible Big Daddy is great.

 

The only thing different will be your escort the little sister mission, I recommend shot gun with Explosive Ammo, Machine gun with Anti-Personnel, Grenade with Proximity Mines, Wrench possibly with freezing, the Chemical Thrower is good as well, on Survivor Electric Gel is a joke to a Big Daddy but to a splicer it's an Electric death. Also Napalm is good and it kills faster, so chose your poison. On that note Napalm has a large stock and it's easier to find.

 

As a challenge keep your starting Little Sister alive all the way to the end! I did it on survivor mode! She had a sliver of health left but I kept her alive, and Tenenbaum was very pleased..... not really she just thanks you (Why not give us a gift with some extra Adam for doing that grr! Any ways try and keep the starting one alive I dare you!

 

For the final boss fight you should take off scavenger and Natural Camo. Actually you should have taken them off before the escort Little Sister part. You can equip the Fire defence/booster tonic but I don't recommend if you should unload with the heavy stuff on the bosses first form the fire form to kill him fast as its pretty much his second fastest and most deadly form. Make sure both defense and the no2 Ice and Electric tonics are on. Your other Tonics and Plasmids can be your choice but I recommend Electrobolt 3 to stun and hack the drones that will spawn. The Athletic Tonics will also help you evade. Use what you like and can fit.

 

During this fight make sure you don't use Fire weapons or Plasmids on him in Fire, Ice on Ice and Electric on Electric.

 

His first form is Fire: Unload with your heat seekers, even though all 3 Grenade types will deal some fire damage it doesn't affect his fire defense so unload, if he doesn't die from a max of heat seekers then use proximity or grenades or Anti-Personnel Machine Gun or Pistol if he's low on health. This form is the second fastest and the most damaging (I think anyway).

 

In Ice form: He's slower in this form but is about the same in damage. Unload with fire bolts and any explosives you might have left. Napalm also works really well on him here. You can also use anti personnel pistol. He has drones spawn during this form, grab them quickly and this form will go down way fast.

 

Electric form: This is fast and it can be hard to dodge his charge even with both Athlete tonics on.

Don't use any Electric stuff, if you had static discharge on you will just hurt yourself. this form can be the toughest to take down, not only is he insanely fast here but he calls in splicers now. Plus his electric blast will short your drones. If you can keep them up thou the battle goes much faster. If you fully researched all the splicers, these guys will make you laugh, it will be like Easy mode with a single mid range Shotgun blast (normal ammo) will usually kill, or mostly kill them unless its a Nitro splicer, but half the time unless your unlucky they will hit the boss with a Molotov and he will slap them and kill them, (Be thankful with the suit and the damage reducing Tonics your getting like a 65% damage reduction and a bit more with the electric defense. Pound on this form until he teleports try to stay near the stairs thou so it's easy to run up, once he goes up and you needle him enjoy your show.

 

On this note, oddly enough his Electric form doesn't affect the Electric Gel damage and it stuns him. However the damage is so poor I wouldn't bother.

Edited by Terminator
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  • 1 month later...

Ok, so I've just beaten the game on hard and am attempting a Survivor playthrough next. The only collectibles I've missed the first time around and have to go after now are the Audio Diaries which brings me to following question: Now that I don't need to purchase every single Tonic at Gatherers Garden (except from those I want) can I now use the Adam to purchase Health and Eve upgrades?

 

Judging from my Hard playthrough I would say yes, but since I don't know if Survival is somehow critically different (in a sense that Tonics that I never used on Hard might be really helpful on Survivor) I'd rather appreciate to hear some feedback from you guys who've already beaten Survivor. So what would you recommend on that subject?

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You say that in arcadia you should take pictures of that first houdini splicer until you get Natural Camo, but no matter how I do it I can't get the 2 research levels off that only splicer, how did you do it?

Edited by hewstone
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Difficulty must be set to survivor and never changed. Note: To make sure Vita Chambers is off and doesn't ruin your play through, make a new game, then once you are able to pause, do so. Then in the settings change the Chamber setting to off, then save and quit, then start a game on Survivor. Your settings from the other game will transfer to the new one.

 

You don't need to go through that much trouble to ensure you get the "I Chose the Impossible" trophy. I do recommends turning the Vita-Chambers off. However, as long as you don't actually use a Vita-Chamber, you'll still get the trophy. Disable the Vita-Chambers as soon as you can and keep on going. :thumbsup:

 

 

Ok, so I've just beaten the game on hard and am attempting a Survivor playthrough next. The only collectibles I've missed the first time around and have to go after now are the Audio Diaries which brings me to following question: Now that I don't need to purchase every single Tonic at Gatherers Garden (except from those I want) can I now use the Adam to purchase Health and Eve upgrades?

 

Judging from my Hard playthrough I would say yes, but since I don't know if Survival is somehow critically different (in a sense that Tonics that I never used on Hard might be really helpful on Survivor) I'd rather appreciate to hear some feedback from you guys who've already beaten Survivor. So what would you recommend on that subject?

 

I thought I was able to get all the tonics, eve and health upgrades in one go. It's been over a year since I played Bioshock's main campaign so in could be mistaken. I say go for all the eve and health upgrades as soon as they're available. The only tonics that really stand out to me were the ones that made the wrench stronger and the others that had to do with health and eve.

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You don't need to go through that much trouble to ensure you get the "I Chose the Impossible" trophy. I do recommends turning the Vita-Chambers off. However, as long as you don't actually use a Vita-Chamber, you'll still get the trophy. Disable the Vita-Chambers as soon as you can and keep on going. :thumbsup:

 

From what I've heard the Vita Chambers don't only serve as spawn point but also as checkpoint. Meaning if you pass a Vita Chamber the game will load this one as a Checkpoint for respawns even if you don't die and thus respawn. So even if you do not use them actively they will still work passively and thus mess up your game file, which is why they should be turned off as soon as you can pause the game (which would be before you come close to a VC). Can't vouch for that myself, it's just what I've heard several times.

 

I thought I was able to get all the tonics, eve and health upgrades in one go. It's been over a year since I played Bioshock's main campaign so in could be mistaken. I say go for all the eve and health upgrades as soon as they're available. The only tonics that really stand out to me were the ones that made the wrench stronger and the others that had to do with health and eve.

 

Yep, that's actually what I was planning to do. There's so many tonics I didn't even bother to use (most of them I've just bought at the end for the tonic trophy). Thanks for the info.

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From what I've heard the Vita Chambers don't only serve as spawn point but also as checkpoint. Meaning if you pass a Vita Chamber the game will load this one as a Checkpoint for respawns even if you don't die and thus respawn. So even if you do not use them actively they will still work passively and thus mess up your game file, which is why they should be turned off as soon as you can pause the game (which would be before you come close to a VC). Can't vouch for that myself, it's just what I've heard several times.

 

I turned them off shortly after the plane crash sequence. No restarting to actually begin with VC's off.

 

However, I have read where some people forgot to disable VC's or waited to later stages of the game to disable and still got the "I Chose the Impossible" trophy.

 

About Using No Vita Chambers On Survivor. - BioShock Message Board for PlayStation 3 - GameFAQs

no vita chambers question - BioShock Message Board for PlayStation 3 - GameFAQs

Am I still good for "I Chose the Impossible"? - BioShock Message Board for PlayStation 3 - GameFAQs

"I Chose the Impossible" Trophy - BioShock Message Board for PlayStation 3 - GameFAQs

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I turned them off shortly after the plane crash sequence. No restarting to actually begin with VC's off.

 

However, I have read where some people forgot to disable VC's or waited to later stages of the game to disable and still got the "I Chose the Impossible" trophy.

 

About Using No Vita Chambers On Survivor. - BioShock Message Board for PlayStation 3 - GameFAQs

no vita chambers question - BioShock Message Board for PlayStation 3 - GameFAQs

Am I still good for "I Chose the Impossible"? - BioShock Message Board for PlayStation 3 - GameFAQs

"I Chose the Impossible" Trophy - BioShock Message Board for PlayStation 3 - GameFAQs

 

The key is if/when you die, you have to exit to the Main Menu and load your save from there so you're back to a point before you died. It's just easier and safer to turn off the Vita Chambers before you start.

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The key is if/when you die, you have to exit to the Main Menu and load your save from there so you're back to a point before you died. It's just easier and safer to turn off the Vita Chambers before you start.

 

I finished my first playthrough with the VC's being deactivated. Can I now just start the Survivor playthrough right away OR do I need to start it, deactivate again and then start one more time?

 

That said, I have dozen's of save files. Should I delete them all when I start?

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I finally started my Survivor playthrough after taking a break from the game. Now I have yet another question. I've often read to focus on the Big Daddies later once you're more powerful. But when exactly should I start doing that?

 

Right now I've beaten the boss at Neptune's Bounty and I really feel handicapped with just having two Plasmid Slots. I'd really like to get at least one more slot so I've started to do test battles with the BD's (both here and in the Medical Pavillion). Both with the same result that I got owned badly. So right now I'm wondering if I started fighting them too early or not and I just have to improve on my battle plan. Any suggestions here?

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Thanks for the info. I've upgraded the Shotgun (increased damage) but the Granade Launcher would have to wait until Arcadia (since there won't be a second upgrade station before).

 

That said, this would mean that I would have to proceed with just two Plasmid slots. Which two would be the best? I figured that Electro Bolt is mandatory because it stuns machines that you can then hack to later help you. But aside from that I'm undecided wether I should take Incinerate, Telekinesis or Bull's Eye. The later is mandatory for the Arcadia but it's kinda useless in the Smugglers Hideout while both Telekinesis AND Incinirate can be of good usage here. So I don't know which to pic.

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You say that in arcadia you should take pictures of that first houdini splicer until you get Natural Camo, but no matter how I do it I can't get the 2 research levels off that only splicer, how did you do it?

 

i'm late on this reply but here we go.

 

at the time you this happens, you wont likely have access to research bonus tonics. that is why you have to save before you approach the spot. or if your fast, save right as you get to the spot. and then turn around and take pictures like mad, even as hes vanishing. i think i had to reload 4 times before i got it.

 

You may as well delete all your saves as there's no point in keeping them unless you're going to start New Game Plus. Since you've finished your first playthrough I'd start your Survivor playthrough now, just make sure you leave the Vita Chambers off :).

 

i know a few people who had to redo their survivor mode because they didn't turn off vita chambers until they had passed by the first couple of chambers. thou this was also before any of the game patches were done.

 

since you played in another run with the vitas turned off they will still be off, game settings carry over between the files. but its always a good thing to check as ive had some games reset the settings on me for some unknown reason.

 

just don't use new game plus as it disables trophies.

 

if your after collectables, someone not to far back submitted a collectables/character build guide to gamefaqs.

 

i personally took down the first couple big daddies by hand.. and many reloading save files, until i got the plasmid to control big daddies, then id grab one, lead it to another let them duke it out then kill the winner.

until i got

Security Bullseye, then its all cloak, throw the SB and watch the security system wittle the daddies down.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Question..

 

I saved all little sisters in my easy playthrough and now gonna try survivour mode...

 

should I just harvest the sisters to initally get a lot of adam and by plasmids on my survivor playthru?

 

I hope survivor is not as hard as it seems. Sounds insanely difficult.

 

if your harvest any little sisters you will very likely not get armored shell2, since its a gift in the much later levels for saving little sisters. you really shouldn't buy as much as possible, that's for a normal or easy run, were you can experiment, this should technically be done first. remember that plasmids deal less damage, have a shorter effect and eat much more eve on survival. adam should be spent on health/eve upgrades and for the most part tonics and tonic slot upgrades. unlike bs2 in sb 1 you can go straight to a higher tier plasmid, were in 2 you have to get rank 1 then 2 before you can get 3.

 

the only plasmids you should focus on is security bullseye, buy it as soon as you can as it makes hunting big daddies far easier. once you have this and natural camo you can easily farm big daddies for money.

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