Bioshock - The Mathematics of Collecting ADAM

Bioshock.  One of the greatest games I have ever played.  In honor of its 8th anniversary, I have decided to write an article outside of our normal post date.  We will dive into the numbers of ADAM, everyone's favorite resource of the game.

What does ADAM do for the player?  ADAM is used as a currency to buy plasmids and tonics from Gatherer's Gardens throughout the game.  Having plasmids (active abilities) and tonics (passive upgrades) greatly improves the player character's attributes, allowing for more options and powers to be available to the character.  So more is better, right?  Well, Bioshock approaches this concept from a particular perspective.


WARNING: The following contains minor spoilers to Bioshock.  For those who have not yet played, I would highly suggest playing through the game before reading on.  I will avoid major plot topics as I discuss the math of collecting ADAM.

As you progress through the game, you are given a moral choice - to harvest or save the little sisters, the main source of ADAM in the game.  Harvesting yields more ADAM, but kills the little sister. Rescuing yields less, but every third little sister saved will result in a teddy bear gift containing ADAM and other goodies usuable to the player character.

Harvest or rescue?  Decisions, decisions...

Throughout the game, if you find all of them, there are a possible of 21 little sister encounters.  From that, it is possible to receive a total of 7 gifts, if all of the little sisters are rescued.  The most notable gifts:

• Gift 1 has the Hypnotize Big Daddy Plasmid
• Gift 2 has the Safecracker Tonic
• Gift 3 has the Hypnotize Big Daddy 2 Plasmid
• Gift 5 has the Armored Shell 2 Tonic
• Gift 6 has the Prolific Inventor Tonic

A teddy bear gift given for saving little sisters.

I have compiled data from my copious playthroughs of the game, and have collected the numbers in order to maximize the amount of ADAM received.  Harvesting yields 160 ADAM, and rescuing yields 80 ADAM.  In each gift, it has 200 ADAM and 2 other items and/or plasmids/tonics.  Note that these plasmids/tonics given are UNIQUE and cannot be found anywhere else in the game. Harvesting all little sisters will yield 3360 ADAM, but will result in the denial of the 7 gifts in the game.  The total amount of ADAM "lost" in rescuing the little sisters is 40 ADAM per every 3 little sisters encountered, which results in a total of 3080 ADAM received for rescuing all the little sisters. Looking at the trend data, in order to maximize the amount of ADAM collected, you should start harvesting little sisters immediately after receiving your desired gift.

It should be noted that you can also exploit scripted events in the game to cause more little sisters to appear.  A total of 4 extra little sisters can be spawned, one each in the following locations:

• Neptune's Bounty
• Arcadia
• Farmer's Market
• Fort Frolic

If you want more information on the glitch, the Bioshock wiki provides plenty of info on it.

After a combination of harvesting and saving the extra little sisters, I found that saving them did not yield an 8th gift.  Rescuing them simply allowed for earlier collection of the 7 gifts.  So if you want the most ADAM while collecting the gifts, and are not concerned about attaining the "good" ending, harvesting the little sisters after getting the 7th gift will net you 3720 ADAM, compared to the 4000 ADAM of a full harvest and the 3400 ADAM of a full rescue.

I hope this number-crunching experience will help you in your future Bisohock playthroughs in order to plan out which plasmids and tonics you end up buying.  If you haven't played the game, ignored my spoiler warning and read through anyway, you should still play this amazing game.  I avoided most of the important plot points so a (not-so-blind) playthrough will still be very enjoyable.

As always, thanks for reading!  Leave a comment or discuss below and share with your friends.