A few years ago I was replaying on max difficulty as well, lost it twice. First time - first door on the floor, opened - got charged attack from the fat - instadeath. Second - that top mutant forgot its name, stealthed and one-shotted me in the back.
But survival-wise, management is indeed very easy. Since you're speedrunning and just grabbing the best stuff, you are full of this best stuff and don't need anything else.
And in case you'll need it - you can revisit the location after Purification filters set ON and get everything you've missed before.

So yeah. Chip locations in this guide, ironically, helped me, myself, on this run.
Hope it's still helping other people as well.

I'm replaying the game on max difficulty with permadeath (because I hate myself) and honestly the game is too easy otherwise. I'm actually surprised you can skip Biosphere and Mining 3, definitely makes things easier and faster. The game is also too lenient with foods, there is just too much food to scavenge and even early on its not really an issue even with the increased hunger and thirst. You could probably reach 80 or 100 days before you run out of non-contaminated foods. I can already craft the best decontamination pills but I still have like 8 of the weakest one despite getting infected on every trip, you really just need to take it before contamination reaches 40 and its more than enough to get rid of it.

This wasn't about avoiding contamination at all, but more about avoiding unnecessary exposure.
By all means if you have tons of resources and willing to use them - why not indeed.

Besides, on max difficulty big guys and pre-martians can one-shot you with full hp, so avoiding being hit is mandatory. And since the safe food is abundant there is little point in exposing yourself anyway.

ya but you get a ton of contamination when you take a hit.

Around year ago or something replayed and completed this game on max difficulty.
Still was enough food to avoid eating contaminated things and making pills for treatment.
Game gives you way too much food than needed.

And one more thing - DO NOT eat contaminated food. There are enough sealed food cans around to waste your precious (and costly) Decontamination Pills.
> once you power up Biosphere you`ll be able to craft as much pills as you need.

There is a small error regarding the lvl 2 research chip: The chip and the log are actually on different floors (though in similar looking rooms). Don't know if this was changed in a patch, but this might cause people confusion.

Well, as I stated above - it's just my opinion, not a definite truth :)
If you think that it's better and more optimal way to play, why actually not - it's a game, its supposed to be fun for you at the first place, good luck with that hardcore playthrough.

Going thru hardcore hardest difficulty, with permadeath, your guide, super helpful brother!
Just one thing, i have just obtained lvl 3 engineering chip blueprint and i was able to research it with research chips of only vll 2 installed, so my advice for the order of obtaining is to go for engeneering lvl3, it will let you get better gear and most importantly it will let you craft those sweet tier 3 oxy and thermal filters so you can actually suppress the infection, ofc next chip youll definately need bio lvl3 cause you will need to break the plants for resources to craft the filters

Basically you will be okay with even Lvl2 gear and ore from jewelry will be more than enough to get a couple of SMGs to clear even late-game enemies without much problems. After that its all a matter of some skill and patience, to get top-tier chips, gear and finish the game.