Read the shortfall off the resource bar at the top of the screen, type it into the matching box, and pick the district setup you plan to build. The table and the chain diagram under it update as you type. Leave a box at 0 if that resource is fine.
How the calculator works
For 
Food, 
Goods and 
Coal the sum is simple: districts = shortfall ÷ output per district, rounded up. Output per district is the base or expanded district output plus whatever the chosen building adds. A base Food District makes 60 Food. Expanded, it makes 80. Put a Drum Hothouse in it and you get another 60.
Materials is the part people miss. Food, Industrial and Extraction districts each take 50 Materials of upkeep, and their buildings can take more. A Blasting Coal Mine adds 60 and a Calibrated Goods Factory adds 70. So the calculator first adds up the Materials your new districts will eat, adds any extra Materials you asked for, and then works out how many Materials districts cover that total. A Materials district also pays its own 50 upkeep, so it is sized on its net output: 150 − 50 = 100 for a base district, 190 − 50 = 140 expanded.
Workforce is the district's 600 plus the building's own Workforce, because buildings reserve Workforce on top of the district they sit in. Costs are shown as Heatstamps / Prefabs, plus Cores for advanced buildings. Every district costs 40 Heatstamps to found, and expanding adds 50 Heatstamps and 50 Prefabs per district.
Worked examples
120 Food, base districts, no buildings. 120 ÷ 60 = 2 Food Districts. They eat 2 × 50 = 100 Materials, and one base Materials district nets exactly 100. Total: 3 districts, 1,800 Workforce, 120 Heatstamps and 550 Prefabs (2 × 200 + 150).
40 Goods, expanded, Refurbishing Goods Factory. One expanded Industrial District with the factory makes 30 + 60 = 90 Goods, so 1 district covers it with 50 to spare. It eats 50 + 30 = 80 Materials, which one base Materials district (net 100) covers. Workforce: 600 + 400 for the Industrial District, 600 for the Materials district, 1,600 in all.
If you want to check the numbers yourself, the buildings table lists every building's output, Workforce and upkeep, and the production chains guide explains why Materials always comes first.
Reading the result
- Surplus is what you have left over after rounding up. A big surplus on Goods usually means a smaller setup (base instead of expanded) would do.
- Workforce is the number to compare with the free Workforce shown in your city. If it is higher than what you have, build Housing first or pick buildings that need fewer workers. The Calibrated Goods Factory, for example, makes as many Goods as the Refurbishing one with 100 fewer workers, but it uses more Materials.
- Expansion raises output without raising Workforce or Materials upkeep. When the calculator says you need two base districts, check whether one expanded district plus a building gets you there. That is usually cheaper to run.
- The chain under the table shows your plan as a flow: each group of districts, what it makes, and the Materials upkeep flowing back into it. If the Materials node has many arrows out of it, that is where your plan is fragile.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a district cost in Frostpunk 2?
40 Heatstamps for every district type, plus Prefabs: 100 for Industrial, 150 for Extraction, 200 for Food, Housing and Logistics. Some wiki pages show 100 or 120 Heatstamps, but those numbers were entered from a pre-release build in April 2024.
Why does the calculator add Materials districts I did not ask for?
Because the districts you asked for cannot run without them. Each one takes 50 Materials of upkeep, and some buildings take more. Leaving that out is the most common reason a new Food District makes things worse.
Can I put two buildings in one district?
Only in an expanded district, which has two building slots. Pick "x2 (expanded only)" in the How many box once the district is set to Expanded.
Does the calculator include Housing?
No. It tells you how much Workforce the plan needs. If that is more than your free Workforce, you need more people working, through Housing, labour laws or fewer Workforce-hungry buildings.
Limits
The calculator uses the stats recorded on the wiki pages listed below. Area traits, laws such as food additives, faction buildings and difficulty all change real output, and deposits run out. Building stats were recorded at version 1.0 to 1.1. Treat the result as a build order, then confirm it in the district panel.