Difference between revisions of "Colony Building Guide"

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This guide is the ultimate go-to guide to building your base, for all stages of the game.
 
  
== Base Types ==
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This guide is the ultimate go-to guide to building your [[colony]], for all stages of the game.
  
There are different ways to build your base. In all different designs one can opt to either predefine each room role or make modular rooms which are easier to expand but also less efficient.
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== Have a plan, constantly ==
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One of the hardest things, especially for new players but even veterans can suffer this, is to know where you're going ''next''. It's ''very'' easy to let your colonists do "busy work" - hauling, cleaning, shuffling around - and never actually grow your base in any productive direction, or at least not very effectively. Have a plan, always move toward that plan, know what the ''next'' plan is after that, and move toward that as soon as possible.  
  
=== Superstructure base ===
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And then move on to the next plan, and so forth.
  
A superstructure base is a base where everything or almost everything is in one large building rather than smaller separate parts.
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; Take smaller bites
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Sometimes you'll have a "grand plan", a large combo dining room/rec room, or a hospital complex, or a vast kill box area, or maybe your entire colony pre-planned out - ''great'', but don't feel you have to do it all at once. Break it down into smaller chunks, maybe temporarily partition it with cheap wooden walls, and "remodel" once you're in a position to progress with the larger project properly.  
  
This is a common method to build bases, and is generally the recommended way to do so.
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A perfect example is your very first building. You want to get your pawns indoors, and similarly with perishable items, and you want a freezer. Plan your freezer room, build that, but use it as a combination barracks/storeroom until you have your bedrooms and dry storage areas built.  Maybe partition it for now for a smaller area for cool meat/perishables storage and another for comfortable-temperature barracks and workspace, done.  Later, once your pawns have proper bedrooms of their own and you have dedicated kitchen and crafting areas, tear out the partitions to get the full-size freezer you want, and you're back on track for your master plan.
  
'''Pros'''
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Expanding on that, if you plan for larger bedrooms, you can move to build a single 5x5 room, and divide that into four 2x2 bedrooms (using one as a prison cell or medical room), or six 1x2 coffin bedrooms, and tear out the walls as you later have the time/manpower to expand properly. And so on.
* Saves building materials and space.
 
* Easier to control temperature.
 
* Easier to defend against raids.
 
* More resistant against [[Events#Toxic_Fallout|toxic fallout]].
 
  
'''Cons'''
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Especially early on, when you feel you need "everything now!", you can make do with "just enough", leaving room to build on those starts later once you have your feet under you and don't feel like you're putting out quite so many fires at once.
* Patches of deep water can limit the design and patches of soft sand will require [[moisture pump]]s before building, but not marshy terrain since they can just be covered with [[bridge]]s.
 
* Some areas might need to be unroofed to prevent cabin fever.
 
* Some large hallways might be needed to help defend against raiders dropping on top.
 
  
=== Separate structures base ===
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== General colony design principles ==
  
Build everything in separated buildings, just like building a small town.
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An efficient base allows your colonists to ''get stuff done'' and ''stay happy''.  They must be able to reach their assigned jobs in time, and the base needs to be pleasing and comfortable to work and live in.  The base should also be ''secure'', but that is probably the easiest part.
  
It is easier for starting off, but it usually does not scale as well into late game.
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=== Getting stuff done: lowering foot traffic ===
 +
It is not possible to make all places easily accessible, so you need to decide what spots are more important, and lay out the base accordingly.
  
'''Pros'''
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The most important principle here is to '''not put the living quarters in the center of the base'''. Bedrooms should be at the edge of the colony: they are not needed during the day and will be an obstacle, and during the breacher raid it's better to lose beds instead of fabrication benches.
* Easier to avoid areas with building restrictions.
 
* Naturally gets rid of cabin fever.
 
* Naturally offer areas in between buildings to fight raiders that drop on top.
 
  
'''Cons'''
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Also, it is difficult to plan ahead how many beds you will need, unless you make a hard commitment to limit the head count of your colony (and to kill or sell everybody else...).  If your living quarters have other buildings surrounding them, it becomes impossible to add more beds without creating an entirely new housing zone. This quickly leads to a cluttered base layout that is difficult to defend.
* Requires more space and building materials overall.
 
* Harder to control temperature.
 
* Harder to defend against most raids.
 
* Vulnerable to [[Events#Toxic_Fallout|toxic fallout]].
 
  
=== Mountain base ===
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The recreation and dining area should also be off center, probably close to the sleeping area.  Recreation and eating happens mostly in the morning and evening (before and after night time).  Colonists visit this place only very sparingly during the day.
  
For mountainous maps where you have less space to build, you can opt to dig inside the mountains instead.
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This principle does, however, not apply to every room that happens to have beds in it – the hospital and prison can, and should, be more centrally placed.  Hospitals and prisons require frequent visits, to tend to and feed patients and "guests".  Prison breaks are more easily contained if the fugitive is in the middle of your base.
  
Also very easy to start off, used to be the most popular kind of base but now depending on how bad the [[Infestation]]s are it can be good or impossible late game.
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Make sure that related areas are close: kitchen, freezer, warehouse and factory floor.  Some rooms are ''very'' frequently accessed from the outside (the freezer is one example).  Provide short walkways to these places.
  
'''Pros'''
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=== Make it pretty ===
* Saves a lot of building materials.
 
* Easier to control temperature.
 
* Easier to defend against raids.
 
* More resistant against [[Events#Toxic_Fallout|toxic fallout]].
 
* [[Smooth stone|Free, beautiful flooring]].
 
* Immune to sieges and raiders dropping on top.
 
  
'''Cons'''
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Colonists do not like to exist in a cluttered and ugly environment. They do not want to walk through disgusting places all the time. For example, do not put a dumping stockpile next to a Geothermal generator next to the main walkway of the colony.
* Infestations inside can be impossible to deal with.
 
* Cabin fever can be a real problem.
 
* [[Events#Roof collapsed|Roof collapses]] underneath mountains are capable of instantly killing pawns.
 
**This won't usually happen on its own, instead as a consequence of improper planning or raider attacks.
 
  
== Base Structures ==
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Ugliness that is unavoidable can be countered with ''decor bombing''.  Make some really impressive sculptures, and put them right into the mess.  Spreading a few [[large sculpture]]s throughout your main stockpile will make it beauty-neutral or even "beautiful".  Like all furniture, sculptures do not have to be kept roofed or indoors, so they can be placed anywhere.  Smoothed floors and walls, as well as carpets, are an effective source of beauty (+2 beauty per tile), but somewhat work and resource intensive to make.
  
Different structures suit the different needs of your colony.
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Comfortable furniture is very important.  Keep a good carpenter (with high "construction" skill), and have them craft all the furniture in the base (especially the beds and chairs).  Put a [[Dining chair]] or [[Armchair]] in front of all workstations (they are both "beautiful" ''and'' "comfortable"); they will not make anyone work faster, but their [[comfort]] ensures that the user will receive a [[Thoughts#Comfort|mood bonus]] while using them and for a modest duration afterwards.
  
=== Dining room ===
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With regards to construction work, it is best to let your most capable constructors prioritize on the "artisan work", ie furniture with a quality rating that matters.  The second league of constructors can do things like lay carpets, smooth floors and build walls.  These structures do not have a quality rating – the construction skill only influences success chance and work speed.  Sadly it is difficult to impossible without the [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=725219116 requisite mods] to direct your colonists in the required way.
  
Dining rooms are rooms with table and chairs for colonists to eat in.
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=== Safety first ===
  
It's usually a good idea to have the main dining room near the food storage so your colonists will actually use the dining room, instead of eating on the floor.
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Securing the base is not difficult, as long as your floor plan is compact.  You can simply surround the entire complex with walls, keeping a deliberate weak spot that enemies will most probably attack from.  If you give enemies the opportunity to enter your base, they will take it, even if tactically unsound.  If there are long hallways, you can use the doorways as natural cover, by having one shooter stand in each doorway and shoot down the hall at incoming attackers. This is an effective maneuver that can contain even mid-size raids and does not require any purpose-built defenses.
It's also a good idea to have a minor dining room near the colonist's bedrooms or they might eat their breakfast on the floor since colonists tend to go to bed with food and eat as soon as they wake up.
 
  
In big bases, dining rooms can be partially unroofed to get rid of cabin fever since colonists do not mind eating in hot or cold rooms.
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On higher difficulties, advanced tactics like "killboxes" and turret spam might be in order.
  
Good dining rooms give good mood modifiers so they should have plenty of art, light, good flooring and high-quality furniture. It does not need to be temperature controlled. [[Nutrient paste dispenser]]s are very useful on dining rooms to ensure that nobody needs to eat raw food, they are usually placed half in the dining room and half in the freezer.
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In general you want the attackers come ''to you'', and not fight them outside of your base in the open.  Siege crews and lone pyromaniacs should be lured close to your base before engaging them.
  
Dining rooms can be combined with recreation rooms.
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== Base Types ==
  
=== Recreation rooms ===
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There are different ways to build your base.
  
[[File:dinningroom.png|400px|thumb|right|Example of a common room. The middle is unroofed to get rid of cabin fever and to accommodate a telescope.]]
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{| class="wikitable"
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! Superstructure base
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! Town-like settlement
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! Mountain base
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|-
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! Description
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| Put everything in one or two large building.
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|| Build everything in separated buildings, just like a small town.
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|| In mountainous maps, dig inside the mountains.
 +
|-
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! Pros
 +
|
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*Convenient
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*Saves building materials and takes less space
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*More resistant against [[Events#Toxic Fallout|toxic fallout]]
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*Convenient against large group of manhunter packs
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*Improved temperature control
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*Shortest walking paths
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||
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*Very flexible
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*Does not require large patches of continuous land
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*Best satisfies Outdoors need
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*Aesthetically pleasing to design
 +
||
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*Best temperature control
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*Easy to defend
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*Immune to mortar strikes and drop pod attacks
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*Leaves more soil available for farming
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*Uses fewer materials than superstructure base if you smooth floors and walls
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*Most resistant against [[Events#Toxic Fallout|toxic fallout]]
  
The recreation room is a room with sources of [[joy]].
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|-
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! Cons
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|
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*Fires can spread all over the base if flammable materials are used
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*Requires a large, continuous area of buildable land, making it not ideal for swamp [[biomes]]
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*Less flexible
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*Less able to satisfy Outdoor need
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*Most prone to mortar strikes
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||
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*Requires most space and building materials overall
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*Requires more planning to defend
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*Worst temperature control
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*Longest walking paths
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*Most vulnerable to [[Events#Toxic Fallout|toxic fallout]]
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||
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*'''Infestations can happen within base'''
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*Least flexible
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*It takes a '''lot''' of time to mine out separate rooms and clear stone chunks (relatively difficult to set up early in game)
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*Least able to satisfy Outdoor need
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*Negative Mood modifiers unless walls and floors smoothed or replaced with traditional walls and floors
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*Smoothing walls and floors takes a '''long''' time to complete
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*Main Power sources like geothermal, solar panels, windmills and watermills (unless you have a river running through the mountain) must be left outside your base
 +
|}
  
Colonists get bored of using the same joy source repeatedly, so you should have as many joy sources as possible in the recreation room.
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[[File:Example base layout.png|frame|left|Example floor plan for a "superstructure" base with an efficient layout of zones to keep walking distances short.  Arrows indicate where items are commonly transported.  Room sizes are not necessarily to scale, and many variations of this layout are reasonable.  The "killbox" is not mandatory; with a layout like this, enemies can also be lured into the long corridors and shot at from the doorways.  The "clean room" would include hospital beds and a kitchen.]]
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{{clear}}
  
In the early game, all you need is a [[horseshoes pin]] and a [[chess table]]. During mid-game you can add a [[poker table]], a [[billiards table]] and a [[tube television]], then upgrade it to a [[flatscreen television]]. Later, buy a [[megascreen television]] and a [[telescope]] from traders.
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== Base Structures ==
  
In big bases, recreation rooms can be partially unroofed to get rid of cabin fever since colonists do not mind playing in hot or cold rooms.
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Different structures suit the different needs of your colony. The maps generate with old structures around, sometimes just walls and others are squares/rectangles just missing some sections. If conveniently located, these can work perfectly as starting points, reducing considerably the initial workload of characters with low-level skills and reducing the beginning stresses when you still have nothing.
  
Good recreations rooms give good mood modifiers so they should have plenty of art, light, good flooring and high-quality furniture. It does not need to be temperature controlled.
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=== Storage ===
  
Recreation rooms can be combined with dining rooms.
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Currently, the first room we need to build is a storeroom, as items deteriorate if left outdoors or exposed.  Place a stockpile zone covering most of the room except for the tiles adjacent to the doors as sometimes pawns may accidentally drop an item in the doorway, leaving it open and insecure. You can have multiple smaller stockpile zones set to allow specific different items to better organize them.  Your storeroom should be built close to the workshop to minimize travel times for raw materials.
  
=== Common room ===
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Give special consideration toward explosive items such as [[chemfuel]] or [[mortar shell]]s as they may blow up and set ablaze your entire stock. Place them separate in a stone made compartment and far from the exterior of the base to prevent [[doomsday rocket launcher]]s from hitting the items as they can pierce through walls.  Place a [[firefoam popper]] here to protect against fires igniting your munitions.
  
Recreation rooms can be combined with dining rooms to form a common room. It is not an official [[room roles|room role]].
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In mid-game, you can add [[orbital trade beacon]]s to sell your stuff to trade ships.
 
 
These tend to be larger and more impressive than them separated, and they can serve the roles of both rooms, giving their respective mood modifiers.
 
  
 
=== Barracks ===
 
=== Barracks ===
  
The barracks is a room with multiple beds.
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The barracks is a room where multiple pawns share a single sleeping space. This is easy to host your colonists early in the game, but it proves inconvenient as walking pawns will disturb the sleep of other occupants, and non-lover pawns dislike sharing a room. Furniture such as bedrolls or beds improve their comfort.  The better the furniture, the faster they wake up and become more productive during their schedules. You should upgrade your colony to provide private bedrooms once the basics are covered, and you can convert the barracks into something else such as a hospital or prison barracks.
 
 
They are usually a good option early-game when resources are limited, or during late-game to deal with an overflow of people. Overall, it's better to have separate bedrooms since barracks give a lower mood modifier and cause a lot of 'Disturbed sleep' penalties.
 
  
Good barracks give good mood modifiers so they should have plenty of art, good flooring and high-quality furniture. It should be temperature controlled for better moods. [[Dresser]]s are a very good addition to barracks since they increase the comfort of many beds at once.
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You can upgrade a barracks with positive mood modifiers by placing sculptures, nice flooring, temperature control utilities and high-quality furniture like dressers and end tables which increase the comfort of many beds at once. A [[Room_stats#Levels_of_impressiveness|very impressive]] barrack can give positive mood buff to colonists sleeping inside, but they are still prone to get ''disturbed sleep' debuff.  
  
Colonists like to eat as soon as they wake up, but do not place table and chairs inside the barracks or colonists will use the tables at night and cause 'Disturbed sleep' penalties, instead barracks should be built close to dining rooms.
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Colonists like to eat as soon as they wake up. You may place a table and chairs inside at the beginning, but try to reinstall them elsewhere when you can as colonists entering to eat will disturb the sleep of others. Build the dining room close to the barracks once the sleeping quarters are done.
  
 
=== Bedrooms ===
 
=== Bedrooms ===
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{{see also|Space}}
  
[[File:bedrooms.png|400px|thumb|right|Example of bedrooms. Table and chairs should always be outside.]]
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[[File:Bedroom.png|thumb|right|General purpose bedroom, suitable for all phases of the game. Temperature is equalized with a hallway to the right. The room has enough space for a temporary production building.]]
  
{{see also|Bedroom Design Guide}}
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Bedrooms are private sleeping spaces which removes the "disturbed sleep" mood penalty caused by other pawns, and provides better mood bonuses than a barracks. Couples will want to sleep together and won't disturb the sleep of their partners.  However, they will need a double bed.
  
Bedrooms are rooms with only one bed.
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As you expand, you would want to upgrade your bedrooms in this way:
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* To increase comfort, give the bed an [[end table]], and put a [[dresser]] in the room. Higher quality furniture provides better comfort, while higher quality beds increase the ''rest effectiveness''. Have your most capable builder furnish the bedrooms.
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** Around 25 tiles of floor space, this leaves enough room to put temporary production buildings in the bedroom, useful during base expansion. Any bigger is less efficient because it increases cost of flooring.
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** Beauty items, such as flower pot or sculpture; more is better, but do not go overboard.
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** High quality flooring, such as carpets. This increases beauty. If you can smooth the floors (and walls), usually in a mountain base, this is always preferable to carpet flooring: it gives the same beauty value, but is not flammable and much cheaper to build. You need a good constructor, because smoothing floors takes a lot of work.
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** Heating and/or cooling; it is far easier to heat or cool the hallways instead, and use [[vent]]s to equalize the temperature with the bedrooms.
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** (Standing lamp - optional - only for combined workspace bedrooms, as sleeping pawns do not suffer "in the dark" negative thoughts.)
  
Only couples like to share a room, and all sleeping colonists will get disturbed by non-lovers walking about in the same room while they sleep, so once you have the resources you should upgrade to individual bedrooms for each colonist or couple. For couples, it should have [[double bed]]s so they can sleep together. It is recommended to have [[double bed]]s in all rooms because couples are not smart enough to assign themselves to bedrooms with double beds, so if you have some bedrooms with normal beds and others with double beds you have to manually re-assign the couples every time they go out on a [[caravan]].
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Colonists often carry a meal with them, and without a table, they will resort to eating their breakfast on the floor and receive a mood debuff. Depending on your base overall layout, you may:
 +
* Build the Dining room close.
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* Build one set of table and chairs outdoors near many bedrooms.
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* Place tables and chairs inside. However, make sure to turn off the "Gathering Spot" option of tables, as others seeking [[recreation]] may enter someone else's bedroom and disturb their sleep.
  
Good bedrooms give good mood modifiers so they should have plenty of art, good flooring and high quality furniture. It should be temperature controlled for better moods. [[Dresser]]s and [[end table]]s are recommended in bedrooms to increase the comfort of the bed. [[Royal bed]]s are particularly good to have in bedrooms if you can afford it.
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==== Special cases ====
  
Colonists like to eat as soon as they wake up, but do not place table and chairs inside the bedrooms or colonists will use other colonists tables at night and cause 'Disturbed sleep' penalties, instead bedrooms should be built close to dining rooms.
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* "[[Ascetic]]" colonists want an unimpressive bedroom.  The best way to achieve this is to have no flooring or beauty items, and make the room smaller.  You should still provide end tables and dressers for them, because even ascetics like to sleep comfortably. A hardcore method could be to leave a desiccated animal corpse inside, dropping impressiveness by a huge amount.
  
=== Storage ===
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* "[[Greedy]]" colonists are initially harder to please, though as you expand and become richer providing impressive bedrooms should be no problem.
  
The storage is a room with a stockpile. It is not an official [[room roles|room role]].
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* "[[Jealous]]" colonists are the hardest to manage, especially if you have more than one. Using only standard bedrooms of equal quality is the best approach to eventually make everybody happy in this situation.
  
The storage is usually the biggest room in the base. It should be covered by [[orbital trade beacon]]s so you can sell your stuff to trade ships.
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{{clear}}
  
The [[electric crematorium]] and [[electric smelter]] may be placed here or in the workshop.
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=== Conjoined facilities ===
  
It does not need to be impressive or temperature controlled and should be built close to the workshop to minimize travel times.
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The Freezer, Kitchen, Dining Room and Recreation Room are often adjacent to one another. The kitchen should be isolated from the other rooms to reduce dirt caused by walking in. The dining room and kitchen should be attached to the freezer so it isn't necessary to have to pass through the kitchen to get a meal.
  
=== Freezer ===
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Parties and wedding ceremonies take place at Gathering Spots where chairs are detected, and since pawns don't eat during these times, their proximity to the freezer is convenient to go get a meal and come back to the tables.
  
[[File:freezer.png|400px|thumb|right|Example of a freezer. The colony keeps a large reserve of food for caravans and corpses of important dead colonists are frozen inside for future [[resurrector mech serum|resurrection]].]]
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==== Freezer ====
  
The freezer is room with a stockpile that is kept cold by [[cooler]]s. It is not a official [[room roles|room role]].
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[[File:Freezer coolers placement.png|thumb|right|400px|Simple freezer built along a mountain, with coolers inside.]]
  
This is usually the second biggest room in the base, it is where you put your perishables that would otherwise spoil in the storage like food and corpses. It should be covered by [[orbital trade beacon]]s so you can sell your food to trade ships.
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[[File:Special freezer.png|thumb|right|This freezing room has the coolers placed in the center instead of at the edges.  Only the center tile is unroofed.  The green area shows the roof, this is also the "cold" area of the freezer room.  The center, unroofed, tile is at outdoors temperature.]]
  
[[Butcher spot]]s, [[butcher table]]s and [[crafting spot]]s can be placed inside the freezer to butcher corpses, make [[kibble]] and make [[smokeleaf joint]]s- since the work to make those is so small and the ingredients are in the freezer your colonists might as well do it there. However, for mass production, it's better to have it close but outside the freezer due to the work speed penalty.  
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The Freezer is a stockpile room to preserve [[raw food]], plant matter and fresh animal corpses. Across all stages, the freezer is an indispensable facility, because meat and prepared meals spoil very quickly, and it is impossible to keep a fresh food stockpile without a controlled freezing area.
  
[[Nutrient paste dispenser]]s are usually placed half in the dining room and half in the freezer.
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In most places, this is accomplished with the addition of [[cooler]]s set to freezing temperatures. Even though food freezes at {{Temperature|0}} you should have your freezer at least set at around {{Temperature|-4}} or so since it will gain heat whenever a colonist comes in. In cold places, on the other hand, you may choose to save power by disabling the coolers, and instead let cold air inside through vents.  
  
Even though food freezes at {{Temperature|0}} you should have your freezer at least set at {{Temperature|-5}} since it will lose temperature whenever a colonist comes in. It is common to make airlocks in the entrance of the freezer to reduce that temperature exchange. It is also common to make the freezer with double walls to increase insulation. The freezer is vulnerable to [[Events#Solar Flare|solar flares]].
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It is viable for [[butcher spot]]s or [[butcher table]]s to be placed inside the freezer, as butchering is a short, intermittent activity for your cook, so the work speed penalty is not very impactful. Other workstations, such as [[crafting spot]]s should be placed right outside to avoid the work penalty while benefiting from the proximity of the ingredients.  
  
To save power it is a good idea to have the [[cooler]]s set to different temperatures. For example, if two [[cooler]]s are set to {{Temperature|-5}} then both will always consume power, but if a [[cooler]] is set to {{Temperature|-5}} and another is set to {{Temperature|-8}} then the first will only consume power during hotter times when the second is not able to keep the temperature bellow {{Temperature|-5}} alone.
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In any case, do '''not''' put your kitchen stove in this room. Besides the work speed penalty, the cooking stove needs to be in a clean environment which the freezer does not have, due to heavy foot traffic and blood stains from dead animal bodies.
  
It does not need to be impressive and should be built close to dining rooms and kitchens.
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Consider making an exclusive stockpile with high priority at the front of your freezer which only allows [[meal]]s, so that cooks will always store them closer to ease retrieval. The same planning can be applied for two more stockpiles at the front of your freezer for meat and veggies, to speed up ingredient pick-ups (colonists assigned to hauling and trained animals will move ingredients from the back of the freezer to the front).
  
=== Kitchen ===
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[[Nutrient paste dispenser]]s act as walls. They are usually placed with at least some of their hoppers in the freezer and the activation spot in the dining room.
  
The kitchen is a room with a stove or a [[butcher table]].
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[[File:Cooler break-in.jpg|thumb|Raiders break through a cooler and proceed to smash additional valuables.]] Cooler placement is of crucial importance, as these devices have a very low 100HP, making them the weakest point in a wall from where raiders can break in easily and most likely ignite your food supply. Because of this, one of the best ways to protect your coolers is to place them facing a mountain, if there is one nearby, or to build a wall around their hot side. In both cases, make sure to remove any roofs.  If your base is in a cold biome, another option is to direct their hot sides into your living space to help heat it. It is common to make the freezer with double walls to increase insulation. The freezer is vulnerable to [[Events#Solar Flare|solar flares]].  In freezing biomes, food still needs to be kept from spoilage to exposure.  In which case, wall it off and add [[vent]]s to the exterior to let in the cold air.
  
The kitchen is where your colonists turn raw food into meals. The room should be clean to avoid [[ailments#food poisoning|food poisoning]], so the [[butcher table]] should be placed nearby in a different room instead since it creates a lot of filth. Also, zone out colony animals.
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It is common to make airlocks (a door, a short space, and then another door leading to the freezer itself) in the entrance of the freezer to reduce temperature exchange. Since colonists and haulers will enter this room quite often, build [[autodoor]]s once available to both speed up entry/exit and minimize temperature change.
  
Besides stoves, the kitchen should include chairs, light and [[sterile tile]]s. You might want to add a little vegetable stockpile inside to save travel time, as plants take awhile to spoil.
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===== Positioning =====
  
Since the kitchen is placed near the freezer, some crafting stations which include plants ingredients may be also placed in there. The [[brewery]], [[drug lab]] and [[biofuel refinery]] are good choices and if you do place them there you should also add [[tool cabinet]]s and little stockpiles for [[hops]], [[psychoid leaves]] and [[neutroamine]].
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Because the freezer is a special kind of stockpile area, and relies on coolers, which are somewhat fixed installations, it is not easily moved in your base. This means you need to plan carefully where you put it.
  
It does not need to be impressive, but it is usually a good idea to add a little art since colonists tend to stay there for a long time. It should be temperature controlled for better working speed.
+
The freezer needs three main entrances:
 +
* One leading directly outdoors, or with a short outdoors connection.  Dead animal bodies and produce from your farm fields and pasture will be delivered this way.
 +
* One leading to the kitchen. It should probably be right next door.
 +
* One leading to the main warehouse.  This is to take leather from butchered animals into storage, as well as moving slow spoiling stuff such as corn, smokeleaf and healroot between the freezer and warehouse.
  
=== Workshop ===
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In addition, the freezer will need to be expanded as population increases, meaning that you should leave one of its sides unoccupied by other structures so that in the future you can increase the size of it without needing to deconstruct other rooms. The freezer should not be too large, because that will require more coolers, and also increase the walking distance to gather and redistribute supplies.
  
[[File:kitchenworkshop.png|500px|thumb|right|Example of a kitchen and workshop. Art keep people happy while working.]]
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This practically demands that the freezer is at the periphery of your base. If you place it there, you can also increase the floor space when your colony grows. Because you will be storing your harvests here, it is also wise to position this room in close proximity to your fields to shorten hauling jobs, with doors also pointing towards your growing zones.  
  
The workshop is a room with crafting stations.
+
Note that however, the freezer does not need direct access to the perimeter of your base! A single unroofed tile is enough to vent the exhaust from up to four coolers (it counts as an outdoors tile as far as the game is concerned, if the four tiles perpendicular to it are walls, or wall-like tiles).  Only in a mountain base you need to consider the exhaust spots of the freezer room more carefully.
  
The workshop is where your colonists turn raw materials into advanced products. Besides crafting stations, the workshop should include chairs, light and [[tool cabinet]]s. A lot of different little materials stockpiles may be placed inside to save travel time.
+
Be very careful when you dig or build in or around this room. Leaving even a single gap in a room wall will raise the temperature well above the freezing point, and this is easily missed because there is no direct visual indication of the room temperature. It can lead to massive amounts of food spoiling if undetected.
  
Early game crafting stations include the [[stonecutter's table]], [[sculptor's table]], [[hand-tailoring bench]] and [[fueled smithy]]. Mid game crafting stations include the [[machining table]], as well as the electric versions of [[hand-tailoring bench]] and [[fueled smithy]]. Late game crafting stations include the [[fabrication bench]].
+
It is tempting to dig into a mountain to create a freezing room, but keep in mind that [[infestation]]s can then spawn in this room.  This can actually be a good thing, because eradicating an infestation right inside the freezer room is tactically easy, and it will leave all the filth and dead insects in probably the best location in your base. Your food supply will, however, be temporarily disrupted in such a scenario.
  
The [[brewery]], [[drug lab]] and [[biofuel refinery]] may be placed here or in the kitchen.
+
==== Kitchen ====
  
The [[electric crematorium]] and [[electric smelter]] may be placed here or in the storage.
+
[[File:Kitchen area.png|thumb|right|Kitchen area with short walkways for the colonists and separate meal freezer.  Autodoors are used in chokepoints.  The meal freezer and dining room could, and probably would, be more distant in the base. This layout tries to minimize foot traffic in the kitchen, but it is difficult to avoid.]]
  
It does not need to be impressive, but it is usually a good idea to add a little art since colonists tend to stay there for a long time. It should be temperature controlled for better working speed.
+
The kitchen is where your colonists cook raw food into [[meals]] to improve colony life. The kitchen should be clean to avoid [[food poisoning]], which can be attained by the following means:
 +
* Zone out colony animals.
 +
* [[Sterile tile]]s for flooring.
 +
* Place your doors so that your dining room has a shorter path to the freezer than walking through the kitchen
  
It should be built close to storage.
+
You should build your kitchen right next to your Freezer.
  
=== Laboratory ===
+
It should be mentioned that although it is best practice to floor your kitchen with sterile tiles, it is not a necessity, especially early on when the cost and research time is excessive. Sterile tiles simply provides a larger buffer between when cleaning before food poisoning risks increase at -2 room cleanliness. If cleaning is done frequently it is acceptable to use a different floor or even leave it unfloored as dirt tile as the -1 cleanliness isn't enough to induce food poisoning by itself. See [[Ailments#Food_poisoning|Food Poisoning]] for specific details.
  
The laboratory is a room with a [[simple research bench]] or a [[hi-tech research bench]].
+
The [[butcher table]] is better placed elsewhere, due to its inherent uncleanliness added with the filth created by butchering. However, it should be placed near the freezer, preferably in a spot in the warehouse right next to it, as both ingredients (dead animals) and products (meats) need to be stored inside the freezer, having the butcher work there greatly reduces travel time. If you plan to make a lot of [[Kibble]], create an extra butcher table outside of the freezer for that task, to avoid the work speed penalty from the cold.
  
Research speed is affected by the cleanliness of the room which is why it might be worth making a separate room for itIt should be isolated to avoid other people walking in dirt.  Zone out colony animals.
+
[[Shelf|Shelves]] or small stockpiles can really improve cooking efficiency when placed right next to your stoves. Set one to accept berries and vegetables only, and another to accept meats which would usually be cooked before they spoil. Put those shelves on high priority, so they will be replenished by your haulers and saving time for the cook.  If you take this approach, set up the bills on the stove so that the products (meals) are ''dropped on the floor'' by the cook, and not delivered to a stockpile immediatelyPrepared meals will stack next to the stove and can then be delivered in bulk to the freezer or fridge, close to the dining hall.
  
Besides the research bench, the laboratory should include a chair, light and [[sterile tile]]s. After you get the [[hi-tech research bench]] you can also get a [[multi-analyzer]].
+
It is usually a good idea to add a little art since colonists tend to stay there for a long time. It should be temperature controlled for better working speed.
  
It does not need to be impressive, but it is usually a good idea to add a little art since colonists tend to stay there for a long time. It should be temperature controlled for better working speed.
+
Since the kitchen is placed near the freezer, some crafting stations which include plants ingredients may be also placed in here. The [[brewery]] and [[drug lab]] are good choices. Also, if you making [[chemfuel]] with food you may place the [[biofuel refinery]] here.
  
=== Hospital ===
+
==== Dining room ====
  
The hospital is a room with a medical bed. It is a place specialized in treating your colonists-if you do not have one, colonists will be treated in bedrooms. The room should be clean to avoid [[infection]]. Zone out colony animals.
+
Dining rooms, at their simplest, are simply rooms where you put tables and chairs for colonists to dine in. Still, tables are marked as Gather Spots by default.  Colonists will hang out here to relax and also hold their parties and weddings here. Expect your dining room to be pretty crowded during meal times, especially after a party or marriage ceremony, so have enough chairs for at least half your colony.
  
In early-game all you need is [[floors]], [[bed]]s and a light source. During midgame you should replace your floor with [[sterile tile]]s and your beds with [[hospital bed]]s, and add [[vitals monitor]]s. All these will increase treatment quality.
+
Colonists, as well as visitors, will search in a 20 tile radius for a table to eat at. For this reason, a dining room should be built as close as possible to the freezer/food storage so that your colonists will actually use the dining room, instead of eating on the floor of the storage, giving them a -3 mood debuff. This is especially true for larger freezers, in which colonists retrieving food from the far end may simply give up searching for a table and eat on the floor.
  
Store medicine in or near your hospital so your doctors can quickly patch up your colonists.
+
Since colonists spend a lot of time here, increase their mood by decorating your dining room with [[sculptures]], [[plant pot]]s or quality furniture. Having an impressive dining room also provides a small mood bonus to colonists who eat there.
  
Good hospitals give good mood modifiers so they should have plenty of art and high-quality furniture. It should be temperature controlled for better moods and to prevent heatstroke or hypothermia from visitors. Since injured colonists will likely spend a lot of time in the hospital it is a good idea to add televisions which they can watch while in bed. If you do not have televisions, other colonists will go to the hospital to cheer them up to provide [[joy]].
+
==== Rec room ====
  
It should be built close to the base entrance for quicker rescue.
+
You should have a wide variety of [[recreation]] sources so your colonists don't get bored repeatedly throwing horseshoes at a pin, or wandering around aimlessly. Putting all of them in a room also provides a mood bonus after a colonist uses the facilities inside, depending on the impressiveness of the room.
  
[[File:hospital.png|400px|thumb|right|Energy efficient hospital.]]
+
In the early game, all you'll need is a horseshoes pin somewhere in the colony, and colonists will proceed to use it when they are bored.
[[File:Efficient hospital.png|440px|thumb|left|Spatially efficient hospital.]]
 
{{clr}}
 
  
=== Armory ===
+
Once you reach midgame, you can afford more recreation facilities such as chess tables, billiards tables or [[television]]s, which provide different kinds of recreation for additional variety. In addition, you can also obtain additional recreation sources from exotic goods traders, such as [[telescope]]s, or [[Megascreen television|megascreen]] televisions which offer faster recreation than the craftable tube and flatscreen televisions.
  
The armory is a room with a stockpile for weapons and armor. It is not an official [[room roles|room role]].
+
Similarly to the dining room, decorating it can improve the mood bonus from using the room.
  
Often your colonists need to change their guns and gear to better fight different kinds of raids. Having an armory helps to keep your gun and gear stock under control and puts them in a more accessible position for your colonists to grab them quickly.
+
==== Combined Dining and Rec Room ====
  
It does not need to be impressive. It does not need to be temperature controlled.
+
[[File:Example of an early game combined dining, recreation and throne room .png|250px|thumb|left|Example of an early game combined dining, recreation and throne room.]]
  
It should be built close to your defenses for quicker reaction to raids, and should also be far away from the prison.
+
Combining the dining and rec room is often more efficient than keeping them separate. Not only does the recreation furniture improve the Impressiveness of the dining room and vice versa, but as colonists still retain the two separate positive moodlets from a combined room, it effectively eliminates half of the sculptures, flooring and other bonuses necessary to maintain a given room quality. The number of sculptures necessary to make both a dining room and a rec room "Slightly Impressive" may be sufficient to make a combined room "Somewhat Impressive" or even "Very Impressive", improving both mood buffs for no extra cost.
  
=== Barn ===
+
In the [[Royalty DLC]] is enabled and [[noble]]s are present in the colony, combining their throne room into the dining/rec room also has significant advantages for the same reasons, though the fine flooring necessary at Baron rank and above can be a significant investment as combined rooms are generally fairly large. Additionally, it should be kept in mind that the furniture requirements for each rank must still be met.
  
[[File:tamingbarn.png|250px|thumb|right|Example of taming barn. Even [[Megaspider]]s may be tamed if they show up as an [[events#herd migration: (animal)|animal herd]] but you will need to beat them down and bring them in to have time to tame them and do it safely.]]
+
=== Courtyard ===
  
The barn is a walled area with [[animal sleeping spot]]s, [[animal sleeping box]]s or [[animal bed]]s.
+
[[File:Courtyard.png|400px|thumb|right|Small courtyard that serves both as a dining room and recreation room.]]
  
Barns help ensure that hauling animals will go back to your base at night for safety and that fragile animals will be isolated from predators. They are also used to ensure that animals products will drop near your base for quicker hauling.
+
Most colonists like getting outside once in a while. In superstructure bases, you may consider building an unroofed courtyard where colonists can get some fresh air.
  
They should include stockpiles of [[hay]] or [[kibble]] for the animals, if they are placed outside they should be in a [[shelf]] to avoid deteriorating. Since animals go back to their boxes or bed for healing it might be a good idea to store medicine near your barn for quicker patching up, again if placed outside they should be in a [[shelf]].
+
You can use it as a common area, putting recreation items and dining tables for colonists to use, making the courtyard behave exactly the same as an unroofed dining/recreation room. Alternatively, it may also be used as a place to put your [[mortar]]s as putting them in the middle helps reduce the impact of their minimum range blind spot. Also consider keeping [[transport pod]]s here, but place them in a separate unroofed area as they are not beautiful to look at.
  
Sometimes, it is good to have a second small separated barn to bring in wild animals that you want to tame. Wild animals might go away or die for many different reasons, but if you keep them in an isolated room with food they will stay there forever. A good example is an [[events#herd migration: (animal)|animal herd]] passing through the area. You will not have time to tame them, but you can beat them down and bring them to your base and have all the time you need to tame them. Also prevents them from causing damage if the taming fails.
+
{{clear}}
  
It does not need to be impressive, indeed it is better to not put down floors to avoid animal filth. It does not need to be indoors but you might want to at least partially roof it in case a [[Events#Toxic_Fallout|toxic fallout]] happens. It does not need to be temperature controlled unless if your animals cannot handle the local temperature.
+
=== Laboratory ===
  
It should be built close to freezer or stockpile.
+
You may want to have a room dedicated to research, with [[hi-tech research bench]]es, [[multi-analyzer]]s, and [[sterile tile]]s to increase research speed and unlock new research.  Room cleanliness affects research speed, so place sterile tiles to keep the room clean. For even better cleanliness, restrict the lab to your researchers and janitors only, reducing traffic and hence the amount of dirt in the room.  Also consider placing some art here and building a comfortable chair, as your researcher will be spending a lot of time here.
  
=== Prison ===
+
=== Workshop ===
  
[[File:Prison1.png|460px|thumb|right|An early game prison barracks (top) and a mid-game prison barracks (bottom). Both prisons are clean, pretty and cooled. Prisoners can feed themselves and doctors can treat prisoners with herbal medicine. Wardens can strip their valuable clothes and prisoners will wear cheap tribalwear. The outside is empty with a second wall.]]
+
Workshops are places where you put all your crafting stations and benches. You should put them near your warehouse so your colonists can spend less time hauling the needed resources to the workshop for crafting, while keeping them separate due to the beauty penalty of raw materials. Also remember to put chairs of any sort at the interaction spot so your colonists won't have to keep standing while crafting.
  
[[File:Prison_example_midgame.png|400px|thumb|right|Mid-game prison blocks from B18, with a filled cell and a warden. Each cell has a table, a chair, a bed and some decorations.]]
+
The [[tool cabinet]] is handy for increasing productivity of your craftsmen. The work speed bonus is quite valuable, and each bench may benefit from two tool cabinets.
  
The prisons is the place where you put your captives of war. Better prisons make it easier to recruit people. Still, they are not consistently used, so one should consider how much effort and resources should be invested in it. During mid-late game, prisoners without immediate use can be kept for free inside [[cryptosleep casket]]s instead.  
+
It is an excellent idea to '''put decorations such as sculptures inside the workshop''', as a beautiful environment gives up to +15 mood, improving colonists' productivity and even allowing for the occasional mental inspiration.
  
Basic features:
+
=== Armory ===
  
* Enclosed by walls, including objects that act as walls, such as the [[nutrient paste dispenser]].
+
You can choose to have a dedicated area to store your weapons and armor. If so, put it far away from your prison so that prisoners do not have ready access to dangerous weapons during prison breaks.  Place it near your entrance so that colonists can equip themselves on the way to defend your base.
* [[Bed]]s or [[sleeping spot]]s.
 
* Safe temperature.
 
  
Good mood features:
+
Ammunition, on the other hand, is best stored deeper in the base, preferably far from anywhere else in case of unexpected events such as fires.
  
* Light source.
+
=== Hospital ===
* [[Floors]].
+
[[File:Hospital_example_midgame.png|400px|thumb|right|Hospital with sterile tiles, hospital beds with vital monitors, decorations and megascreen TVs facing the beds.]]
* Table and chairs.
 
* Art.
 
* Comfortable temperature.
 
* [[Dresser]]s and [[end table]]s.
 
* [[Psychic emanator]].
 
  
Convenience features:
+
[[File:Compact hospital layout.png|thumb|right|An luxurious and efficient hospital layout.  Dresser and end tables provide maximum comfort.  Two vitals monitors cover all 8 beds.  Flatscreen TVs provide extra recreation for the patients. Medical supplies are close by, the room is well lit and accessible from all sides. The vents equalize room temperature with the hallway. Up to six more beds could be installed here rather easily: four in place of the end tables, and one each to the left and right of the vitals monitors; all beds will have dresser, TV and monitor coverage.]]
  
* Food stock.
+
Dedicated hospitals are more of a mid-game thing when you have enough resources to build the specialized equipment used in them. [[Hospital bed]]s provide a boost to treatment quality, immunity gain speed, and healing speed, meaning colonists will recover faster from illnesses and injuries, making them the choice for hospitals. The [[vitals monitor]] brings even better boosts to treatment and immunity gain, so when available it's recommended that you put them down near your hospital beds.
* Medicine stock.
 
* Uniform stock.
 
* [[Nutrient paste dispenser]].
 
  
Medical features:
+
Hospitals should be built somewhere where colonists can quickly bring their downed comrades to treat them. Keep doors open, or use [[autodoor]]s so they don't obstruct colonists' access. If you need to, you can build more elsewhere in the base.
  
* [[Sterile tile|Sterile floor]].
+
Hospitals should have [[sterile tile]]s as flooring as they provide a slight cleanliness buff that can increase surgery success chance and reduce wound infection chance. Keep in mind that wounded colonists will bleed out considerably, so you may want to assign another colonist to specifically clean the hospital to improve their treatment chances.
* [[Hospital bed]].
 
* [[Vitals monitor]].
 
  
Safety features:
+
For a "field hospital", one that sees a lot of action and can't be cleaned often, use [[straw matting]] as your flooring, perhaps with some [[steel tile]]s or (better) [[sterile tile]]s under objects that can't be walked on, like beds/shelves/vitals monitors/sculptures, so they will never get [[filth]]y and won't suffer from not being cleaned. This type of hospital will never be "sterile", but it won't ever be nearly as dirty as it otherwise would.
  
* Isolated from the rest of the base, but not close to the map edges.
+
Store your medicine in or near your hospital using [[shelf|shelves]] so your doctors can quickly grab them to patch up colonists before they bleed to death. Sometimes just that little distance can make the difference between life and death.
* Isolated from any potential weapons, even [[wood]] and [[beer]].
 
* Doors connected to an empty walled area, possibly guarded by [[Mini-turret|turrets]].
 
  
Prisons can have the following rooms:
+
[[Dresser]] and [[end table]]s ''do increase'' the comfort of the hospital bed.  The furniture does not affect medical treatment, but improves the mood of the colonists while they are recovering.  The downside is that each end table blocks a spot with vitals monitor coverage, but this is not a problem until one needs to squeeze the absolute maximum number of beds into the hospital.
  
==== Prison barracks ====
+
Decorating hospitals to make them beautiful can give colonists inside a great mood boost (max +15, plus impressive room stats). This is good, especially considering that some colonists will stay in the hospital for some time, such as the severely injured, incapacitated or sick.
 +
 
 +
To provide recreation, you may also install televisions into your hospitals. Patients lying in hospital beds within the viewing area will watch TV to entertain themselves when they are bored, and you won't need colonists coming to cheer them up as their only recreation source.
 +
 
 +
====Triage====
  
Barracks are rooms with multiple prisoner beds.
+
You should build a small room near your killbox, 6x5 per bed is the most effective to keep cleanliness high. Hospitals need not be up to a high standard so long as your triage is always clean and wounds are treated there.
  
They are cheaper than cells and allow for features that are unreasonable to have in every single cell. The barracks mood modifier is only 2 less than the cell modifier which is even less the +5 'Spacious interior' modifier so they arguably offer better mood than cells since prisoners do not get 'Disturbed sleep' penalties. However, if a [[Events#Prison break|prison break]] happens all prisoners in the same barracks will break out together.
+
==== Patient rooms ====
  
==== Prison cells ====
+
If you have even more resources and space, for example in lategame, you can build a separate room for each colonist. While they don't mind sleeping with others in a hospital, they do get disturbed by them walking around, and dirt can more easily affect cleanliness as well.
 
Cells are rooms with a single prisoner bed.
 
  
Cells offer only slightly better mood improvement than barracks and usually are much more limited in what they can have. The major advantage of cells is that if a [[Events#Prison break|prison break]] happens, not all prisoners in nearby cells will join. They also prevent fights.
+
==== Operating theater ====
  
If you are lacking space for prisoners, a colonist bedroom can be temporarily turned into a cell.
+
You can build a separate room to accommodate colonists who will undergo surgery, to make sure that colonists undergo medical operations in the cleanest of places.
  
==== Prison hospital ====
+
Your operating theater should be forbidden at all times except when someone is about to have surgery. This prevents colonists from tracking dirt or blood into it, staining it.
  
The prison hospital is a room with medical prisoner beds.
+
==== Vet area ====
  
Prisoners often first enter your prison injured, so having a proper prison hospital can help avoid unnecessary deaths and infections. They are like a regular hospital attached to the rest of your prison, however, you do not need to have televisions in it since prisoners are not affected by [[joy]].
+
Consider building animal sleeping spots with their own animal area near your medicine stockpile that you can restrict wounded animals to. That way, they can be treated as fast as possible.
  
==== Prison freezer ====
+
Medical treatment for animals benefits from cleanliness as well, but not proper hospital beds (and in turn, vitals monitors). Once you enter midgame, sterile flooring should be easy enough to get.
  
The prison freezer is a room with a stockpile kept cold by [[cooler]]s inside the prison. It is not an official [[room roles|room role]].
+
=== Prison ===
  
For storing stocks of food and [[herbal medicine]] to prevent spoilage. If you have a [[Nutrient paste dispenser]] you can place half of it and all the [[hopper]]s inside.
+
[[File:Prison_example_midgame.png|400px|thumb|right|Mid-late game prison blocks from A17, partially filled. Each cell has a table with a chair, a bed, decorations and a chess table with a chair (for decoration). Generosity like this is well-appreciated and rewarded with prisoners joining your colony. Note that the doors open towards the rest of the base (downwards).]]
  
=== Tomb ===
+
==== Prison barracks ====
  
The tomb is a room with [[sarcophagus|sarcophagi]].
+
In the early game you can simply convert any existing ruins into a makeshift prison barracks or build a simple prison hut which holds all the prisoners you capture. Try not to build it too far away from your main structures, otherwise it becomes harder to catch escaping prisoners.  Another option is to mark one of your colonist's bedrooms as a temporary prison while you build another bedroom or a proper prison.
  
Not the most important of the rooms, but colonists do go visit sarcophagi or graves filled with dead colonists for [[joy]] so you might want to give a nicer room for them to do that.
+
You should include tables and chairs for prisoners to use.  This will improve their mood, which by extension lowers their chances of mental breaks and improves their recruitment speed.
  
It does not need to be impressive or temperature controlled and can be built anywhere.
+
{| class="wikitable" align="right"
 +
|+ Test Samples (12 per type)
 +
! Type !! Escapees !! Trials (out of 12)
 +
|-
 +
| Barracks || 6/6 || '''11'''
 +
|-
 +
| Barracks || 5/6 || '''1'''
 +
|-
 +
| Cells || 6/6 || '''1'''
 +
|-
 +
| Cells || 5/6 || '''0'''
 +
|-
 +
| Cells || 4/6 || '''2'''
 +
|-
 +
| Cells || 3/6 || '''4'''
 +
|-
 +
| Cells || 2/6 || '''4'''
 +
|-
 +
| Cells || 1/6 || '''1'''
 +
|}
 +
==== Prison cells ====
  
== Production ==
+
Like colonists, [[prisoner]]s will also suffer from the mood penalties associated with being kept together in a prison barracks.
  
You will need fields, buildings and animals to provide the raw materials that your colony needs.
+
If a prison break occurs in a prison barracks, there is an extremely high chance that all prisoners in the room will attempt to escape. On rare occasions, some prisoners may decide not break out with the others. If a prison break is triggered by a prisoner in a prison cell, the number of prisoners that will attempt to break out appears to be on a bell curve towards 50% (refer to table).  
  
=== Crop fields===
+
Each prisoner has a prison break interval. Prisoners with genes have a reduced interval while prisoners with low movement speed have their interval increased. It only takes one prisoner with a decreased interval to trigger prison breaks more often. Normally prison barracks would be used when holding greater numbers of prisoners, however prison breaks are far more dangerous in this scenario. While the prison break interval would be the same with either prison type, the amount of prisoners escaping will always be lower when prisoners are held in prison cells.
  
[[File:SunlampHydroponics.png|thumb|300px|right|Sun lamp illuminating crops grown in hydroponics basins. With this configuration you can fit 24 basins under 1 sun lamp for a total of 96 plants grown.]]
+
Each cell should have a table with a chair, a bed, and a light source. This is the bare minimum you need for a prisoner to be decently kept. Decorating the cell and making them bigger also increases mood bonuses for easier recruitment.  
  
''See also: [[Food production]]
+
Prisons should have doors facing towards your base, so escaping prisoners will go towards your base instead of away, giving your wardens more time to deal with a break.  Multiple doors will slow down any tasks in that area, but will also slow down jailbreaks.
  
Crop fields are growing zones or [[hydroponics basin]]s, designated to the desired plant type.
+
==== Holding cell ====
  
Depending on the soil fertility different plants might generate the best productivity, for example:
+
A larger cell with more beds. It should only be used when your prison cells are overflowing. Put your less important prisoners inside them while assigning your more valuable prisoners into the cells. place some mini turret inside it to assist you when large scale prison break happens , although it will noticeably increase the possibility of death.
  
[[Potatoes]] and [[berries]] grows better in poor soil.
+
=== Multipurpose rooms ===
  
[[Rice]] and [[corn]] grows better in rich soil.
+
These are more of an early to early-midgame thing that you can use before you get dedicated structures erected, such as hospitals or bigger prisons. Yet, these can still prove useful sometimes, like when your freezers or warehouses overflow, or you need somewhere to house an influx of injured or sick colonists.
  
Crop fields need to be protected from raiders or they will burn them down, which can be hard on harsh [[biome]]s where the fertile soil might be far away from your base. They also need to be protected from animals, both wild and domestic. Crop fields are vulnerable to [[events#blight|blight]]s and [[Events#Toxic_Fallout|toxic fallout]]s.
+
This is rather simple; just make an empty room, along with suitable temperature control. You can add beds if you intend on someone living in it (be it colonists or prisoners), which you can uninstall and tuck away in a corner when unused.
  
Ideally, they should be made near your freezer.
+
=== Backup ===
  
=== Greenhouses ===
+
There are many types of ways you can set up buildings on your map to possibly save your colonists' lives in dire situations:
 +
*'''Shelters:''' Building small rooms with emergency supplies can save your colonists from enraged animals. Thick enough walls (at least 4 layers) can stop raiders from killing your colonists hiding inside.
 +
*'''[[Nutrient paste dispenser]]s''': When food is running low or you forecast that it will, a paste dispenser can significantly slow down food consumption by efficiently converting raw foods into nutrient paste.
 +
* Strategically placed stockpiles of wood can provide heating, for example during a solar flare or cold snap.  Mark these wood stacks "forbidden", so your colonists will not use them during regular operation.
  
[[File:greenhouse.png|350px|thumb|right|Example of greenhouse. They are particularly important in cold [[biome]]s.]]
+
== Production ==
  
Greenhouses are a protected version of crop fields. They are growing zones or [[hydroponics basin]]s in a temperature controlled environment. Since they are indoors, they also require [[sun lamp]]s.
+
You will also need various buildings to produce or manufacture the stuff that your colonists need.
  
They are much more expensive than fields but they allow crops to grow all year in cold environments. It is common to make airlocks in the entrance of the greenhouse to reduce temperature exchange and make it with double walls to increase insulation. They are vulnerable to [[events#blight|blight]]s and [[Events#Solar Flare|solar flares]].
+
=== Crops ===
  
To save power it is a good idea to have the [[heater]]s set to different temperatures. For example, if two [[heater]]s are set to {{Temperature|21}} then both will always consume power, but if a [[heater]] is set to {{Temperature|21}} and another is set to {{Temperature|24}} then the first will only consume power during colder times when the second is not able to keep the temperature above {{Temperature|21}} alone.
+
[[File:SunlampHydroponics.png|thumb|300px|right|Sun lamp illuminating crops grown in hydroponics basins. With this configuration you can fit 24 basins under 1 sun lamp for a total of 96 plants grown.]]
  
Ideally, they should be made near your freezer.
+
{{See also|Food production}}
  
=== Mines ===
+
==== Crop fields ====
  
Mines are areas your colonists go to mine.  
+
Crop fields are rather simple. Just set up a growing zone, designate the desired plant type and growers will automatically go and grow the plants.
  
If you are mining the stones in the outside layer of a mountain then you got nothing to worry about. However, if you decide to mine deep inside a mountain, then you need to build a proper mine as you mine out the stones to avoid rocks collapsing on top of your colonists. Wood is usually a good cheap material to use to make mines.
+
You need to carefully check the soil fertility before marking out your areas.
 +
*Stony soil looks quite similar to dirt at first glance, but has a greatly reduced fertility, reducing the growing speed of plants.
 +
*Rich soil on the other hand, is visibly darker and has improved fertility, making it suitable for slow growing plants such as [[devilstrand]].
  
Another thing to worry about when making mines is [[infestation]]s. You can build doors inside your mine to create choke points where you can fight the insects and help your colonists running away. Alternatively, you can fill up the whole mountain with wood so [[infestation]]s can not happen at all.
+
You will need to keep most animals from eating your crops. You can zone out the area from your tamed animals, but you will need to build walls to keep out wild animals. If you're not building a greenhouse, then watch out for your builders automatically roofing this "room".
  
=== Drilling rooms ===
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==== Greenhouses ====
  
[[Deep drill]]s are placed far away from your base and similar to mines that they can also cause [[infestation]]s. So you might want to enclose the area with walls and doors to create choke points where you can fight the insects and prevent predators from attacking your isolated colonist.
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Enclosed areas that grow crops with the aid of temperature control, [[sun lamp]]s and possibly [[hydroponics basin]]s. They allow you to continue growing crops regardless of soil or weather conditions.  Note that greenhouses are subject to power draining events like [[Events#Solar Flare|solar flares]], knocking out lamps, heaters and hydroponics. All plants in a basin without power will slowly take damage until they are destroyed. So beware, solar flares or damage to the power grid can destroy whole hydroponics crops.
  
=== Animals ===
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=== Mining ===
  
{{main|Animals}}
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In early-midgame you just need to select mineral outcrops and designate them, and miners will proceed to dig out the minerals.
  
Animals have a variety of uses, therefore herding some of them in your barn can be very helpful. Of course all animals can be used for different reasons, but it is worth mentioning some of them because they are either particularly useful or versatile:
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Once all visible mineral outcrops are mined, you can continue to mine resources in a couple ways.  
  
* Produce raw food: eggs, milk or meat. [[Chicken]], [[Cow]], [[Dromedary]], [[Muffalo]], [[Pig]].
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==== Strip mining ====
  
* Produce textiles: leather or wool. [[Chinchilla]], [[Alpaca]], [[Dromedary]], [[Muffalo]], [[Megasloth]].
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If you have more mountains or rocks which you can mine, you can strip mine them by mining out long tunnels with 2 tiles between each other. This allows you to see all tiles in the mountain. Hopefully, you will hit a mineral deposit.
  
* Produce fuel: chemfuel. [[Boomalope]].
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Covering up your mine to prevent infestations is a good idea, using cheap materials such as [[wood]] it is possible to completely seal up the mines at a low cost. Alternatively, set up defenses at the mine entrance and just farm the insects.
  
* Haul animals. [[Pig]], [[Wild boar]], [[Elephant]], [[Megasloth]].
+
==== Deep drills ====
  
* Pack animals. [[Alpaca]], [[Dromedary]], [[Muffalo]], [[Elephant]].
+
After research you will unlock the [[deep drill]] and the [[ground-penetrating scanner]] for use.
  
* Combat animals. [[Wild boar]], [[Elephant]], [[Megasloth]].
+
It is not recommended to start deep drilling without scanning first as you will only mine stone chunks, no matter where you mine.
  
[[Chicken]], [[Cow]], [[Chinchilla]], [[Alpaca]] and [[Boomalope]] are really profitable.
+
Some deposits will be directly underneath your base. You can deconstruct or relocate buildings to give access to your drills. Be careful when you mine in colonists' bedrooms as they can easily disturb sleep. Turn off the mineral scanner when you aren't placing new drills, and beware that bugs can be attracted by the drills. Be prepared for the added chance of [[infestation]]s that can arise near the drill.
  
[[Pig]], [[Wild boar]], [[Elephant]] and [[Megasloth]] are the only ones that can graze and haul.
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==== Tunneler mechanoid ====
 +
{{Biotech|section=1}}
 +
A [[mechanitor]] can gestate [[tunneler]] mechanoids at a [[{{Q|Tunneler|Production Facility 1}}]] after completing the [[Research#{{Q|Tunneler|Required Research}}|{{Q|Tunneler|Required Research}}]] research. Tunnelers can be set to mine resources but they can't work at a deep drill. Using tunneler mechanoids to mine resources far away from your main base or near map edges can be advantageous to avoid colonists falling prey to wild animals, facing harsh weather conditions in extreme biomes, or being attacked by any sudden raids.
  
[[Dromedary]], [[Muffalo]], [[Elephant]] and [[Megasloth]] are really versatile.
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=== Animals ===
  
One should notice that combat animals are much better at defending caravans than defending your base.
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[[Animals]] are an extremely useful asset to the colony. They provide a variety of products, from raw food materials (meat, eggs or milk), to wool, which is an excellent insulator against both heat and cold. Moreover, they can be used in combat or as pack animals in a [[caravan]]. In fact, some larger and more intelligent animals can be trained as haulers, such as dogs, freeing up colonists for other tasks.
  
== Power ==
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==== Barn ====
  
Your colony needs power, so you should provide generators and protect them from attacks. Therefore, it is better to place them inside your base walls. Your options for power generation include the following.
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Animals are happy to sleep anywhere as long as it's not too hot or cold. Otherwise, a temperature-controlled barn with animal sleeping spots is necessary to keep the animals comfy.
  
=== Solar power ===
+
Building [[animal sleeping box]]es or [[animal bed]]s can help animals rest faster, though this doesn't really do much and is not cost efficient.
  
[[Solar generator]]s provide power only during the day. It provides 1700W during peak hours near the equatorial line, but less near the poles. They are particularly good to power up [[sun lamp]]s since those only consume power during the day. They should be used together with [[battery|batteries]] so you may still have power during the night. They are vulnerable to [[events#Eclipse|eclipse]]s.
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==== Chemfuel farming ====
  
=== Wind power ===
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[[Boomalope]]s are unique in the fact that they can produce [[chemfuel]]. This can be used to power generators, used as [[transport pod]] fuel or made into [[mortar shell]]s.
  
[[Wind turbine]]s provide unstable power throughout the day. It can provide up to 3000W, but it usually gives less than that. They should be used together with batteries to make up for the instability.
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Due to their explosive nature, they won't be attacked by predators, so you can let them roam freely without much danger. Keeping them confined is dangerous as the death of one boomalope can injure others, and if you don't intervene the other boomalopes will die, exploding and causing a chain reaction.
  
It requires plenty of open space for maximum efficiency and any obstacles can easily reduce efficiency. To prevent trees from growing and obstructing the turbines, you may put down floors. Another more productive use of the space is to grow crops underneath the turbines or fill in the gaps with solar generators.
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== Power ==
 +
Your base will need power, for faster production, for defense, for happier colonists, for everything. As you plan any expansion, consider any additional power demands and expand your power production as part of your general growth.
  
 
=== Fueled generation ===
 
=== Fueled generation ===
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{{main|Wood-fired generator}}
 +
{{main|Chemfuel powered generator}}
  
You can get the [[wood-fired generator]] which runs on wood, or the [[chemfuel powered generator]] which runs on [[chemfuel]]. Both provide a constant 1000W of power, so it is a good idea to have some of these as a backup power source, or even as your main source in biomes that are loaded with trees. Since they are stable they do not require batteries.
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You can build wood-fired generators which runs on wood, and later, once you have [[chemfuel]]chemfuel powered generators, each constantly providing 1,000 W of power. It is a good idea to have some of these as a backup power source, or even as your main source in biomes that are loaded with forests that will replenish themselves, such as in the tropics or temperate forests.
  
Chemfuel is significantly more efficient than wood, so once you research the [[biofuel refinery]] it is better to refine wood into chemfuel before using it as fuel.
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If the biome provides enough wood, the ''wood-fired generator'' is an excellent choice for establishing a colony.  The wood from about two trees will power the generator for three days, giving the colony uninterrupted power to run all important early-game facilities (freezer, lamps and some work tables).
 +
 
 +
Chemfuel is significantly more efficient than wood, so once you research the [[refinery]] it becomes better to refine wood into chemfuel before usage as fuel.
 +
 
 +
Both fueled generators will burn fuel at the full rate, even if no power is consumed.  Catching the excess power with batteries, and/or disabling the generators while the batteries are charged, will make them more fuel-efficient.
  
 
==== Boomalope setup ====
 
==== Boomalope setup ====
  
[[Boomalope]]s generate enough chemfuel to run 2 generators. It is very easy to run an entire base on that setup since they easily generate more energy than you spend to grow food for them.
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Boomalopes generate enough chemfuel to run 1 generator.
  
==== Infinite chemreactor setup ====
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3 boomalopes give enough fuel to continuously power 4 generators for a total of 4000W. This is not taking into account any energy costs from growing food for use by the boomalopes.
  
[[Infinite chemreactor]]s generate enough chemfuel to run a generator, which in turn generates more than enough power to run the chemreactor.
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If the animals have to be fed with grown food for more than a few days during the year, it is more efficient to convert the food straight into chemfuel (in a refinery), instead of feeding it to boomalopes.  On the other hand, if the biome allows the boomalopes to graze for most of the year, this makes them a free source of energy (if you can keep them safe).
  
It is overall an amazing setup but [[infinite chemreactor]]s are hard to come by, so you should not expect to run your whole base on that.
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==== Greenhouse setup ====
  
=== Geothermal power ===
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A hydroponic greenhouse will produce far more chemfuel than necessary to power the greenhouse and the required refinery.  This translates into a very high surplus of power (if you build additional generators), or you can use the surplus to grow food or drugs for the colony.  Even a single greenhouse can easily cover the food and energy needs of a mid-sized colony, without having to rely on any other power source.
  
[[Geothermal generator]]s constantly gives 3600W of power after being built on a steam geyser.
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==== Infinite chemreactor setup ====
  
While powerful, it has one big issue; you can not choose where the steam geysers will be, so if you do not have one inside your base you need to cover them with walls to protect them. If you wall off your [[geothermal generator]] completely with double walls the raiders will ignore it most of the time. They will, however, sometimes randomly attack your walls, but it is really unlikely that they will destroy both walls and reach the generator.  As it can randomly break down, you should still add one door so colonists can enter, better to use stone doors because they are durable and raiders can not ignite it.
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[[Infinite chemreactor]]s generate enough chemfuel to run a generator, which in turn generates more than enough power to run the chemreactor.
  
Another problem is, raiders will likely destroy the conduits connecting the generator to your base, so build multiple conduit lines to reduce the likelihood of raiders completely severing the connection. Also, even though they do not need batteries, you should build some in case it gets disconnected during a raid.
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3 infinite chemreactors can generate enough fuel to power 5 generators, for a total surplus power of 4100W.
  
Note that they generate plenty of heat, so they should be unroofed or they will catch on fire.
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Because the ''infinite chemreactor'' is a rare quest reward, it is unlikely that you will be able to create a setup that produces enough power for the entire colony.
  
=== Watermill generator ===
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=== Solar power ===
  
[[File:watermills.png|500px|thumb|right|Example of watermills setup. It runs a big base without batteries.]]
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[[File:Solar wind setup.png|thumb|420px|right|Wind turbines with solar generators packed underneath the exclusion zones.]]
  
The [[watermill generator]] constantly provides 1100W of power but has to be placed next to rivers. So you must include the river inside your base design. However, that is usually quite simple since rivers tend to cross the whole map edge to edge. It does mean you will have to wall off a larger area, but it is well worth it since the watermill is quite reliable and lots of them can be placed on the same river.
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[[Solar generator]]s provide power only during the day except during eclipses. The upside of this is that daytime is when most of your colonists need power to get their work done. A solar generator provides a constant 1700W, quite a decent figure, but still shouldn't be fully relied on.
  
It is quite easy to run a base just on watermills but of course, rivers are not available in every map. Since they are stable they do not require [[battery|batteries]].
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Combining these with [[battery|batteries]] gives a reliable, steady supply of power.
  
=== Vanometric power cell ===
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=== Wind power ===
  
A [[vanometric power cell]] constantly provides 1000W of power and can be placed anywhere. Like the [[infinite chemreactor]], they are hard to come by, so you should not expect to run your whole base on that.
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[[Wind turbine]]s provide unstable power day and night. It can provide up to 3450W or nothing at all, and rarely hits its peak production. However, they are among the least expensive to build in terms of precious resources, and unlike solar will (usually!) provide power at night.
  
They are particularly good for starting off new bases, or sometimes powering isolated objects such as [[deep drill]]s.
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It requires plenty of open space for maximum efficiency, and any obstacles in its area reduce efficiency. To prevent trees from growing and obstructing the turbines, put down floors, grow crops underneath the turbines or fill in the gaps with solar generators.
  
=== Power storage ===
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=== Geothermal power ===
  
[[Battery|Batteries]] store surplus power. They're recommended for when you rely on power sources that are not constant, such as wind or solar power. They allow for power storage during times of excess to be used during times of demand. For instance, this makes them useful to store spare power generated during the night from fueled generators in order to supply [[sun lamp]]s during the day.
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[[Geothermal generator]]s constantly give 3600W of power after being built on a steam geyser, without requiring fuel. It is an important source of power from mid-game onward, as it is constant and high-powered, but unlike the above sources requires a massive separate research investment and so is not high on most priority lists. A basic mid-sized colony can be sustained using 5 such generators, around the usual number of geysers found on the map.  
  
Not having batteries is also beneficial, if you have reliable power sources, since it almost nullifies the [[events#zzztt...|short circuit]] event, igniting a little fire instead of causing a huge explosion.
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Research is required to unlock it. The generator itself is quite costly so it's best left to midgame. It is possible to rush the research for geothermal power, though you should be careful not to neglect other more important research projects. However, once researched and built you can have a constant power supply.
  
Batteries need to be placed under a roof to prevent short-circuits during rain and should be placed indoors to protect them from external threats. Connect them to the grid via switches and shut off part of them after they are filled to reduce the impact of short circuits and have back up batteries in case of emergency.
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Make sure your geothermal generators and their connecting conduits are well-protected as they often have to be placed far from base. Walling the generators helps protect them against raiders, but walling the conduits isn't recommended due to the cost and its hindrance on colonist field work.  
  
=== Power network ===
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Be aware of the heat that the geysers release. If you closely wall and roof in a geothermal generator, the temperature inside will be quite high, enough to set combustibles on fire (including the generator itself). It is thus necessary to remove the roofs on such buildings. However, if the vent is close to your base in a cold biome, consider attaching it to your own base to help heat it.
  
It's not a good idea to have just one conduit spanning the entirety of your base. While it saves materials, short circuits or other events can create breaks that can disconnect entire parts of your base from power. Instead, build a network with redundant pathways so that the grid will continue to function even if there is a break.
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=== Power storage ===
  
Also, it is better to split the power network of your base. If your base has more than one power network the [[events#zzztt...|short circuit]] event will not affect your whole base and all your power reserves.
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[[Battery|Batteries]] store electricity during times of excess and release it during times when demand exceeds supply. You will need batteries to store power if you're using unstable power supplies such as wind or solar power. Batteries must be kept under a roof to prevent short circuits. They should also be protected from external threats as losing batteries to raiders or mortars can cripple your power supply.
  
== Defenses ==
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=== Emergency power ===
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 +
Some events will cause you to lose power if you are unprepared. Some colonies rely on wind or solar power to power everything.  Eventually, every colony with electricity will suffer from a [[Events#Zzztt...|conduit explosion]]. Since you will be relying on batteries to store your power, this can cause a lot of disruption if the renewable energy isn't enough to power your base while your now empty batteries recharge. Raiders attacking and destroying power conduits connected to power generators can sever power from the colony, reducing the power available.  In all these circumstances, this can leave you without enough power for your freezers, production, hydroponics, temperature control or even your turrets.  However, it can be mitigated:
 +
*'''Backup batteries''': Always have spare power stores, such as separate battery systems with switches. Once charged, flick the switch to isolate them from the rest of the power grid. Only reconnect it when your main grid has run out or the reserves need charging.
 +
*'''Backup generators''': Have some fueled generators that you bring online only if there's not enough power in the colony. This can allow your backup batteries to discharge slower or even recharge. If they are turned off they will not consume fuel.
 +
 
 +
=== Vanometric power cell ===
  
[[File:Cover_fire_wall.png|400px|thumb|right|Cover using walls and sandbags.]]
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A [[vanometric power cell]] constantly provides 1000 W of power, out of thin air. It handles like a battery, and can be reinstalled at will. It is the best portable power source in the game, very useful on mining caravans, and if you want to take your entire colony on the long trip to the event spaceship.
[[File:Sandbag_advanced_cover.png|400px|thumb|right|Cover with sandbags covering sides.]]
 
  
{{main|Defense structures}}
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Unfortunately, the Vanometric Power Cell is a rare quest reward, and there is no guarantee to obtain one during the course of a game.
{{see also|Defense tactics}}
 
  
Unless you are playing on peaceful difficulty, you will eventually encounter major threats, so you will need to prepare your defenses for that.
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If the additional 1000 W from the VPC is not needed in your colony, it can be used as a risk-free way to keep up to 200 batteries at full charge, indefinitely.  Place the battery array directly adjacent to the VPC; this will keep it charged without the possibility of short-circuiting, since no power conduits are used.  Do not connect this installation to the rest of your power grid.
  
More defensive buildings can be seen on [[defense structures]]. Here, we show only the basics.
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=== Power network ===
  
=== Static cover ===
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It's not a good idea to have just 1 conduit spanning the entirety of your base.  While it saves materials, short circuits or other events can cripple your power supply to parts of your base.  Instead, build a network with redundant pathways so that the grid will continue to function even if there is a break somewhere in the network.  Consider using doors to cover up the beauty penalty for exposed conduit indoors.
  
At the very least you must have some sources of cover in your base. This includes sandbags and sometimes walls. Those will only be enough on early-mid game or on easier difficulties.
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Since geothermal generators must be built on top of existing geysers, they are often located far from your base. It is best to connect geothermal generators to other geothermal generators so that events such as wildfires and raider attacks won't easily disconnect them from your power network, causing severe power shortages.
  
In a static cover based defense, it is better to combine two different types of cover structure, one using walls and another with sandbags covering the sides. The walled cover should be used where the enemy will engage, as the walls restrict the attack angle, and there should not be anyone standing behind the sandbags- these should be for soaking fire from oblique angles only. The other kind should be used at the sides to allow for a more flexible attack area.
 
  
=== Killbox ===
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If you choose to avoid short circuits by not building any conduits, you'll need to plan ahead to build your base around the steam geysers, long before you have geothermal power researched. It requires careful arrangement to get every powered appliance close enough to a generator stack to auto-connect. You will likely end up with a few separate clusters of generators for the greenhouse, workshop, freezer, hospital etc. With this method, your appliances should not lose power unless the generator itself is destroyed.
  
A basic yet powerful defense setup is the [[defense structures#killboxes|killbox]]. It is a walled area full of [[deadfall trap|trap]]s and [[turret]]s where you fight your enemy, making sure they do not out-range you or have cover, while your colonists have plenty of cover. It only works if it is the only entrance to your base and your whole base is surrounded by double walls.
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== Defenses ==
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{{main|Defense structures}}
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{{see also|Defense tactics}}
  
Turrets should all be connected to your power grid by [[power switch]]es. Put them in front to distract enemies such that they go for them before your colonists. They should be switched off if a [[events#manhunter pack|manhunter pack]] shows up, as it is better to let them die by your traps and finish them off by melee blocking them.
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Unless you're playing on Peaceful difficulty, you will eventually encounter major threats, so you will need to prepare defenses for that.
  
If a full-melee raid with [[shield belt]]s or a [[scyther]]-only raid shows up, throw [[EMP grenades]] at them while they gather around your turrets as it will significantly weaken them. While they are occupied attacking the turrets, you can shoot them up, and if they manage to destroy all turrets, prepare to finish the survivors by melee blocking them.
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Preparation is a huge advantage that you have. You can fortify your defenses to make the most out of your defending colonists, and tilt the field towards your favor.
  
[[Centipede]]s with [[inferno cannon]]s are one of the major counters of killboxes, since the fire makes your colonists lose control and run out of cover. Having some [[firefoam popper]]s inside your box helps a lot with extinguishing fires and preventing future fires. [[EMP grenades]] also weaken them a lot if you can get close enough to throw them.
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*Cover is a major aspect in defense. While enemies are hiding behind rock chunks, you have [[sandbags]] and walls on your side, giving you a significant upper hand. You can even clear the rock chunks to force enemies behind trees which are less optimal a cover choice, widening the advantage.
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*You get to choose where the enemy attacks (unless they use sappers to tunnel in). It is a good idea to only have one or two entrances with lots of defenses and traps to repel attacks.  
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*You can choose to build [[turret]]s if you have unlocked them. They are essential if you don't have enough colonists to defend against raids, either the start of the Rich Explorer scenario or lategame when you have a lot of wealth that will attract an army of raiders.
  
Another counter of killboxes are raiders with [[triple rocket launcher]] and [[doomsday rocket launcher]], if they manage to shoot inside your box the damage can be massive, therefore always focus them down. One safety measure is to keep some [[psychic shock lance]]s or [[psychic insanity lance]]s nearby and use them if you see that they will not die fast enough.
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== Temperature control ==
  
Some enemies do not run into your box, but can be lured into it, such as raiders from sieges or mechanoids guarding crashed ships. Snipers can safely poke them from far until they aggro and bring them to the box.
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Room should have its temperature regulated by some method or another, so as to keep a comfortable temperature for colonists to live in, and protect them from extreme temperature conditions such as heat waves, cold snaps or simply the ambient temperature outdoors.
  
Killboxes do not protect against sappers and raiders dropping on top of you. For those, you will need another strategy.
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Large rooms such as your dining room or rec room should have their own [[heater]]s and [[cooler]]s. If they are interconnected you may want to open doors for faster colonist access and temperature exchange. If you choose to do so, remember to close doors if a fire breaks out in the room.
  
[[File:killboxmanhunting.png|500px|thumb|center|Example of colonists in a killbox fighting a manhunting pack. Turrets are deactivated and colonists wait inside while most animals die to traps. After a while, colonists gather together in the main entrance to fight the survivors. The front colonists are fully armored and all are equipped with close-combat shotguns. It does not works against melee raiders, as they will destroy the turrets even deactivated.]]
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Colonists will complain if sleeping in the extreme heat or cold. Bedrooms and other smaller rooms should be thermally connected to a larger central space via [[vent]]s. Your heaters and coolers should be all placed outside the bedrooms. This reduces the number of heaters and coolers you need to build while keeping your bedrooms at a comfortable temperature at the same time.
  
== Temperature control ==
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Keep in mind that you will also need to be prepared in case of a freak temperature event such as heat waves or cold snaps. Without enough temperature devices rooms can get uncomfortably cold or hot, and in severe cases begin to cause hypothermia or heatstroke.
  
Some rooms should have its temperature regulated by some method or another, so as to keep a comfortable temperature for colonists to work and sleep in and protect them from extreme temperature conditions such as [[events#heat wave|heat waves]], [[events#cold snap|cold snaps]] or simply the outdoor ambient temperature.
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=== Cooler gap prevention ===
  
Larger rooms such as your kitchen and workshop should have their own [[heater]]s and [[cooler]]s. If they are interconnected you may want to open doors for faster colonist access and temperature exchange.
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As coolers need to be built as part of a wall, the process of building a cooler involves tearing down the original wall, then putting the cooler in place. This short interval allows temperature to go freely through the gap, which isn't something you want.
  
Smaller rooms such as your bedrooms should be thermally connected to a larger central space through [[vent]]s. Your [[heater]]s and [[cooler]]s should be all placed outside the bedrooms. This reduces the number of [[heater]]s and [[cooler]]s you need to build while keeping your bedrooms at a comfy temperature at the same time.
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To fix this, you can plug the gap by building a cheap wooden wall in front of or behind the cooler blueprint, then starting work on the cooler. The wooden wall will prevent temperatures from equalizing easily. Remember to deconstruct the wall after the cooler is done.
  
Keep in mind, that you will also need to be prepared in case of unusual temperature events, such as [[events#heat wave|heat waves]] or [[events#cold snap|cold snaps]]. Which, in severe cases, will cause heatstroke or hypothermia. [[events#heat wave|Heat waves]] will also spoil your food and corpses.
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=== Protected coolers ===
  
[[File:coolers.png|250px|thumb|right|Wall coolers (top) and inside coolers (bottom). The wall coolers create a weak spot for raiders to break into your base.]]
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Coolers are very fragile and must be placed in a wall, so a single explosion or dedicated effort from melee attackers can easily break them down. Protecting the coolers helps fortify your base against enemy raids by eliminating the weak points in your walls.  This is done by walling the coolers off while giving it unroofed space in front of the hot end to vent away heat.
  
=== Protected coolers ===
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If your colony is in a cold but not quite freezing biome, consider venting the heat from the coolers for your freezer into your living spaces instead.
  
Coolers are very fragile, and raiders will see them as a weak point in your wall and will focus to destroy them. Protecting the coolers helps fortify your base against enemy raids by avoiding weak points. This is done by walling the coolers off while giving it unroofed space in front of the hot end to vent away heat. That unroofed area can be placed within an existing structure, such as inside the freezer. For maximum spatial efficiency the strips of unroofed area should be one tile wide, surrounded by coolers.
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==== Cooler column ====
  
If your colony is in a cold [[biome]], consider venting the heat from the coolers into your living spaces instead.
+
Place several coolers in line with the hot end facing an unroofed area where the heat vents out into the open. That unroofed area can be placed within an existing structure, such as inside the freezer. For maximum spatial efficiency, the strips of unroofed area should be 1 tile wide, surrounded by coolers.  This method is best used for freezers to keep cool as most cases don't call for many coolers.
  
 
=== Temporary temperature control ===
 
=== Temporary temperature control ===
  
If your regular [[heater]]s or [[cooler]]s are not enough or there is a temporary power outage or you are a tribe without the ability to harness electricity yet, you can use [[campfire]]s or [[passive cooler]]s to heat or cool down your base respectively. Both have the same effect as their electric variants, except that they need to be refueled and are limited in their available temperature range: campfires can not heat above 30°C while passive coolers can not cool below 15°C.  Also, their temperature effect is full and cannot be controlled. Depending on what gear your colonists are wearing, it is possible for them in a room heated with campfires to complain about it being too hot.
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If your regular heaters or coolers aren't doing the trick, there's a temporary power outage, or you're a tribe without the ability to harness electricity yet, you can use [[campfire]]s or [[passive cooler]]s to heat or cool down your base respectively. Campfires can't heat above 30°C while passive coolers can't cool below 15°C.  Also, their temperature effect is full and cannot be throttled. Depending on what gear your colonists are wearing, it's possible for them to be in a room being heated with campfires and complain about it being too hot.
  
These are best used to keep colonists comfortable during [[events#heat wave|heat waves]] or [[events#cold snap|cold snaps]]. If you always encounter uncomfortable temperatures during summer or winter then it is time to get more [[heater]]s or [[cooler]]s.
+
These are best used to keep colonists comfortable during heat waves or cold snaps. If you always encounter uncomfortable temperatures during summer or winter, then it's time to upgrade your heaters or cooler system.
  
 
== Miscellaneous ==
 
== Miscellaneous ==
  
[[File:crops.png|300px|thumb|right|Before a beach (left) and later a crop field (right). Extreme desert with coast, turned a patch of shallow ocean water into a huge crop field using [[moisture pump]]s.]]
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=== Dirt floors ===
 +
 
 +
Until you have enough manpower to spare for cleaning jobs, use the terrain directly instead of building any floors. Dirt trailed on constructed floors makes for a much worse beauty and cleanliness penalty than using dirt floors, so this can actually make your rooms look better and be 'cleaner'.
  
=== Do not rush flooring ===
+
For places like hospitals however, it's better to use sterile tiles and manually clean them instead.
  
Until you have enough manpower to spare for cleaning jobs, instead of building any floors, you can use the terrain as floors. Terrain does not generate animal and human filth and filth trailed on constructed floors makes for a much worse beauty penalty than using dirt floors, so this can actually make your rooms look better.
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=== Flooring outside ===
  
However, for places like hospitals, it is always better to use sterile tiles and manually clean them instead.
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To reduce the amount of dirt inside your colony buildings, put any kind of flooring covering places where colonists and animals frequently walk. This reduces the amount of dirt formed as well as causes dirt to be left outside where it does not look as bad.  
  
=== Flooring outside ===
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This should obviously be done only if you have enough janitors, otherwise it's better to just not build any floors (see above).
  
To reduce the amount of dirt inside your colony buildings, put any kind of flooring covering places where colonists and animals frequently walk. This reduces the amount of dirt brought inside your base.
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=== Bridges ===
  
This should obviously be done only if you have enough janitors.
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[[Bridge]]s allow for fast movement and some building on shallow sections of rivers and marshy terrain types.  They're great for allowing colonies to span rivers, as well as making building in swampy biomes a bit easier.  Note that some objects cannot be built or placed on bridges.
  
 
=== Moisture pumps ===
 
=== Moisture pumps ===
  
[[Moisture pump]]s clear out moisture from the ground around them, creating dry land suitable for construction and agriculture.  They are excellent in swamp biomes for clearing out shallow water, marshy soil and mud in order to build structures.  Their effect is permanent, so they can safely be deconstructed once the land you want to use is dry.  Note that shallow water will be converted to stony soil, which only has 70% fertility.  Still, this can be the only way to farm in the ground in [[biome]]s like Extreme Desert and Ice Sheet. Can not be used for farming in Sea Ice since it creates ice ground.
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[[Moisture pump]]s clear out moisture from the ground around them, making solid land that is suitable for construction and in most cases, agriculture.  They are excellent in swamp biomes for clearing out shallow water, marshy soil and mud in order to build structures.  Their effect is permanent, so they can safely be deconstructed once the land you want to use is dry.
  
 
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[[Category:Gameplay]]
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[[Category:Guides]]

Latest revision as of 12:53, 11 August 2024

This guide is the ultimate go-to guide to building your colony, for all stages of the game.

Have a plan, constantly[edit]

One of the hardest things, especially for new players but even veterans can suffer this, is to know where you're going next. It's very easy to let your colonists do "busy work" - hauling, cleaning, shuffling around - and never actually grow your base in any productive direction, or at least not very effectively. Have a plan, always move toward that plan, know what the next plan is after that, and move toward that as soon as possible.

And then move on to the next plan, and so forth.

Take smaller bites

Sometimes you'll have a "grand plan", a large combo dining room/rec room, or a hospital complex, or a vast kill box area, or maybe your entire colony pre-planned out - great, but don't feel you have to do it all at once. Break it down into smaller chunks, maybe temporarily partition it with cheap wooden walls, and "remodel" once you're in a position to progress with the larger project properly.

A perfect example is your very first building. You want to get your pawns indoors, and similarly with perishable items, and you want a freezer. Plan your freezer room, build that, but use it as a combination barracks/storeroom until you have your bedrooms and dry storage areas built. Maybe partition it for now for a smaller area for cool meat/perishables storage and another for comfortable-temperature barracks and workspace, done. Later, once your pawns have proper bedrooms of their own and you have dedicated kitchen and crafting areas, tear out the partitions to get the full-size freezer you want, and you're back on track for your master plan.

Expanding on that, if you plan for larger bedrooms, you can move to build a single 5x5 room, and divide that into four 2x2 bedrooms (using one as a prison cell or medical room), or six 1x2 coffin bedrooms, and tear out the walls as you later have the time/manpower to expand properly. And so on.

Especially early on, when you feel you need "everything now!", you can make do with "just enough", leaving room to build on those starts later once you have your feet under you and don't feel like you're putting out quite so many fires at once.

General colony design principles[edit]

An efficient base allows your colonists to get stuff done and stay happy. They must be able to reach their assigned jobs in time, and the base needs to be pleasing and comfortable to work and live in. The base should also be secure, but that is probably the easiest part.

Getting stuff done: lowering foot traffic[edit]

It is not possible to make all places easily accessible, so you need to decide what spots are more important, and lay out the base accordingly.

The most important principle here is to not put the living quarters in the center of the base. Bedrooms should be at the edge of the colony: they are not needed during the day and will be an obstacle, and during the breacher raid it's better to lose beds instead of fabrication benches.

Also, it is difficult to plan ahead how many beds you will need, unless you make a hard commitment to limit the head count of your colony (and to kill or sell everybody else...). If your living quarters have other buildings surrounding them, it becomes impossible to add more beds without creating an entirely new housing zone. This quickly leads to a cluttered base layout that is difficult to defend.

The recreation and dining area should also be off center, probably close to the sleeping area. Recreation and eating happens mostly in the morning and evening (before and after night time). Colonists visit this place only very sparingly during the day.

This principle does, however, not apply to every room that happens to have beds in it – the hospital and prison can, and should, be more centrally placed. Hospitals and prisons require frequent visits, to tend to and feed patients and "guests". Prison breaks are more easily contained if the fugitive is in the middle of your base.

Make sure that related areas are close: kitchen, freezer, warehouse and factory floor. Some rooms are very frequently accessed from the outside (the freezer is one example). Provide short walkways to these places.

Make it pretty[edit]

Colonists do not like to exist in a cluttered and ugly environment. They do not want to walk through disgusting places all the time. For example, do not put a dumping stockpile next to a Geothermal generator next to the main walkway of the colony.

Ugliness that is unavoidable can be countered with decor bombing. Make some really impressive sculptures, and put them right into the mess. Spreading a few large sculptures throughout your main stockpile will make it beauty-neutral or even "beautiful". Like all furniture, sculptures do not have to be kept roofed or indoors, so they can be placed anywhere. Smoothed floors and walls, as well as carpets, are an effective source of beauty (+2 beauty per tile), but somewhat work and resource intensive to make.

Comfortable furniture is very important. Keep a good carpenter (with high "construction" skill), and have them craft all the furniture in the base (especially the beds and chairs). Put a Dining chair or Armchair in front of all workstations (they are both "beautiful" and "comfortable"); they will not make anyone work faster, but their comfort ensures that the user will receive a mood bonus while using them and for a modest duration afterwards.

With regards to construction work, it is best to let your most capable constructors prioritize on the "artisan work", ie furniture with a quality rating that matters. The second league of constructors can do things like lay carpets, smooth floors and build walls. These structures do not have a quality rating – the construction skill only influences success chance and work speed. Sadly it is difficult to impossible without the requisite mods to direct your colonists in the required way.

Safety first[edit]

Securing the base is not difficult, as long as your floor plan is compact. You can simply surround the entire complex with walls, keeping a deliberate weak spot that enemies will most probably attack from. If you give enemies the opportunity to enter your base, they will take it, even if tactically unsound. If there are long hallways, you can use the doorways as natural cover, by having one shooter stand in each doorway and shoot down the hall at incoming attackers. This is an effective maneuver that can contain even mid-size raids and does not require any purpose-built defenses.

On higher difficulties, advanced tactics like "killboxes" and turret spam might be in order.

In general you want the attackers come to you, and not fight them outside of your base in the open. Siege crews and lone pyromaniacs should be lured close to your base before engaging them.

Base Types[edit]

There are different ways to build your base.

Superstructure base Town-like settlement Mountain base
Description Put everything in one or two large building. Build everything in separated buildings, just like a small town. In mountainous maps, dig inside the mountains.
Pros
  • Convenient
  • Saves building materials and takes less space
  • More resistant against toxic fallout
  • Convenient against large group of manhunter packs
  • Improved temperature control
  • Shortest walking paths
  • Very flexible
  • Does not require large patches of continuous land
  • Best satisfies Outdoors need
  • Aesthetically pleasing to design
  • Best temperature control
  • Easy to defend
  • Immune to mortar strikes and drop pod attacks
  • Leaves more soil available for farming
  • Uses fewer materials than superstructure base if you smooth floors and walls
  • Most resistant against toxic fallout
Cons
  • Fires can spread all over the base if flammable materials are used
  • Requires a large, continuous area of buildable land, making it not ideal for swamp biomes
  • Less flexible
  • Less able to satisfy Outdoor need
  • Most prone to mortar strikes
  • Requires most space and building materials overall
  • Requires more planning to defend
  • Worst temperature control
  • Longest walking paths
  • Most vulnerable to toxic fallout
  • Infestations can happen within base
  • Least flexible
  • It takes a lot of time to mine out separate rooms and clear stone chunks (relatively difficult to set up early in game)
  • Least able to satisfy Outdoor need
  • Negative Mood modifiers unless walls and floors smoothed or replaced with traditional walls and floors
  • Smoothing walls and floors takes a long time to complete
  • Main Power sources like geothermal, solar panels, windmills and watermills (unless you have a river running through the mountain) must be left outside your base
Example floor plan for a "superstructure" base with an efficient layout of zones to keep walking distances short. Arrows indicate where items are commonly transported. Room sizes are not necessarily to scale, and many variations of this layout are reasonable. The "killbox" is not mandatory; with a layout like this, enemies can also be lured into the long corridors and shot at from the doorways. The "clean room" would include hospital beds and a kitchen.

Base Structures[edit]

Different structures suit the different needs of your colony. The maps generate with old structures around, sometimes just walls and others are squares/rectangles just missing some sections. If conveniently located, these can work perfectly as starting points, reducing considerably the initial workload of characters with low-level skills and reducing the beginning stresses when you still have nothing.

Storage[edit]

Currently, the first room we need to build is a storeroom, as items deteriorate if left outdoors or exposed. Place a stockpile zone covering most of the room except for the tiles adjacent to the doors as sometimes pawns may accidentally drop an item in the doorway, leaving it open and insecure. You can have multiple smaller stockpile zones set to allow specific different items to better organize them. Your storeroom should be built close to the workshop to minimize travel times for raw materials.

Give special consideration toward explosive items such as chemfuel or mortar shells as they may blow up and set ablaze your entire stock. Place them separate in a stone made compartment and far from the exterior of the base to prevent doomsday rocket launchers from hitting the items as they can pierce through walls. Place a firefoam popper here to protect against fires igniting your munitions.

In mid-game, you can add orbital trade beacons to sell your stuff to trade ships.

Barracks[edit]

The barracks is a room where multiple pawns share a single sleeping space. This is easy to host your colonists early in the game, but it proves inconvenient as walking pawns will disturb the sleep of other occupants, and non-lover pawns dislike sharing a room. Furniture such as bedrolls or beds improve their comfort. The better the furniture, the faster they wake up and become more productive during their schedules. You should upgrade your colony to provide private bedrooms once the basics are covered, and you can convert the barracks into something else such as a hospital or prison barracks.

You can upgrade a barracks with positive mood modifiers by placing sculptures, nice flooring, temperature control utilities and high-quality furniture like dressers and end tables which increase the comfort of many beds at once. A very impressive barrack can give positive mood buff to colonists sleeping inside, but they are still prone to get disturbed sleep' debuff.

Colonists like to eat as soon as they wake up. You may place a table and chairs inside at the beginning, but try to reinstall them elsewhere when you can as colonists entering to eat will disturb the sleep of others. Build the dining room close to the barracks once the sleeping quarters are done.

Bedrooms[edit]

General purpose bedroom, suitable for all phases of the game. Temperature is equalized with a hallway to the right. The room has enough space for a temporary production building.

Bedrooms are private sleeping spaces which removes the "disturbed sleep" mood penalty caused by other pawns, and provides better mood bonuses than a barracks. Couples will want to sleep together and won't disturb the sleep of their partners. However, they will need a double bed.

As you expand, you would want to upgrade your bedrooms in this way:

  • To increase comfort, give the bed an end table, and put a dresser in the room. Higher quality furniture provides better comfort, while higher quality beds increase the rest effectiveness. Have your most capable builder furnish the bedrooms.
    • Around 25 tiles of floor space, this leaves enough room to put temporary production buildings in the bedroom, useful during base expansion. Any bigger is less efficient because it increases cost of flooring.
    • Beauty items, such as flower pot or sculpture; more is better, but do not go overboard.
    • High quality flooring, such as carpets. This increases beauty. If you can smooth the floors (and walls), usually in a mountain base, this is always preferable to carpet flooring: it gives the same beauty value, but is not flammable and much cheaper to build. You need a good constructor, because smoothing floors takes a lot of work.
    • Heating and/or cooling; it is far easier to heat or cool the hallways instead, and use vents to equalize the temperature with the bedrooms.
    • (Standing lamp - optional - only for combined workspace bedrooms, as sleeping pawns do not suffer "in the dark" negative thoughts.)

Colonists often carry a meal with them, and without a table, they will resort to eating their breakfast on the floor and receive a mood debuff. Depending on your base overall layout, you may:

  • Build the Dining room close.
  • Build one set of table and chairs outdoors near many bedrooms.
  • Place tables and chairs inside. However, make sure to turn off the "Gathering Spot" option of tables, as others seeking recreation may enter someone else's bedroom and disturb their sleep.

Special cases[edit]

  • "Ascetic" colonists want an unimpressive bedroom. The best way to achieve this is to have no flooring or beauty items, and make the room smaller. You should still provide end tables and dressers for them, because even ascetics like to sleep comfortably. A hardcore method could be to leave a desiccated animal corpse inside, dropping impressiveness by a huge amount.
  • "Greedy" colonists are initially harder to please, though as you expand and become richer providing impressive bedrooms should be no problem.
  • "Jealous" colonists are the hardest to manage, especially if you have more than one. Using only standard bedrooms of equal quality is the best approach to eventually make everybody happy in this situation.


Conjoined facilities[edit]

The Freezer, Kitchen, Dining Room and Recreation Room are often adjacent to one another. The kitchen should be isolated from the other rooms to reduce dirt caused by walking in. The dining room and kitchen should be attached to the freezer so it isn't necessary to have to pass through the kitchen to get a meal.

Parties and wedding ceremonies take place at Gathering Spots where chairs are detected, and since pawns don't eat during these times, their proximity to the freezer is convenient to go get a meal and come back to the tables.

Freezer[edit]

Simple freezer built along a mountain, with coolers inside.
This freezing room has the coolers placed in the center instead of at the edges. Only the center tile is unroofed. The green area shows the roof, this is also the "cold" area of the freezer room. The center, unroofed, tile is at outdoors temperature.

The Freezer is a stockpile room to preserve raw food, plant matter and fresh animal corpses. Across all stages, the freezer is an indispensable facility, because meat and prepared meals spoil very quickly, and it is impossible to keep a fresh food stockpile without a controlled freezing area.

In most places, this is accomplished with the addition of coolers set to freezing temperatures. Even though food freezes at 0 °C (32 °F) you should have your freezer at least set at around -4 °C (24.8 °F) or so since it will gain heat whenever a colonist comes in. In cold places, on the other hand, you may choose to save power by disabling the coolers, and instead let cold air inside through vents.

It is viable for butcher spots or butcher tables to be placed inside the freezer, as butchering is a short, intermittent activity for your cook, so the work speed penalty is not very impactful. Other workstations, such as crafting spots should be placed right outside to avoid the work penalty while benefiting from the proximity of the ingredients.

In any case, do not put your kitchen stove in this room. Besides the work speed penalty, the cooking stove needs to be in a clean environment which the freezer does not have, due to heavy foot traffic and blood stains from dead animal bodies.

Consider making an exclusive stockpile with high priority at the front of your freezer which only allows meals, so that cooks will always store them closer to ease retrieval. The same planning can be applied for two more stockpiles at the front of your freezer for meat and veggies, to speed up ingredient pick-ups (colonists assigned to hauling and trained animals will move ingredients from the back of the freezer to the front).

Nutrient paste dispensers act as walls. They are usually placed with at least some of their hoppers in the freezer and the activation spot in the dining room.

Raiders break through a cooler and proceed to smash additional valuables.

Cooler placement is of crucial importance, as these devices have a very low 100HP, making them the weakest point in a wall from where raiders can break in easily and most likely ignite your food supply. Because of this, one of the best ways to protect your coolers is to place them facing a mountain, if there is one nearby, or to build a wall around their hot side. In both cases, make sure to remove any roofs. If your base is in a cold biome, another option is to direct their hot sides into your living space to help heat it. It is common to make the freezer with double walls to increase insulation. The freezer is vulnerable to solar flares. In freezing biomes, food still needs to be kept from spoilage to exposure. In which case, wall it off and add vents to the exterior to let in the cold air.

It is common to make airlocks (a door, a short space, and then another door leading to the freezer itself) in the entrance of the freezer to reduce temperature exchange. Since colonists and haulers will enter this room quite often, build autodoors once available to both speed up entry/exit and minimize temperature change.

Positioning[edit]

Because the freezer is a special kind of stockpile area, and relies on coolers, which are somewhat fixed installations, it is not easily moved in your base. This means you need to plan carefully where you put it.

The freezer needs three main entrances:

  • One leading directly outdoors, or with a short outdoors connection. Dead animal bodies and produce from your farm fields and pasture will be delivered this way.
  • One leading to the kitchen. It should probably be right next door.
  • One leading to the main warehouse. This is to take leather from butchered animals into storage, as well as moving slow spoiling stuff such as corn, smokeleaf and healroot between the freezer and warehouse.

In addition, the freezer will need to be expanded as population increases, meaning that you should leave one of its sides unoccupied by other structures so that in the future you can increase the size of it without needing to deconstruct other rooms. The freezer should not be too large, because that will require more coolers, and also increase the walking distance to gather and redistribute supplies.

This practically demands that the freezer is at the periphery of your base. If you place it there, you can also increase the floor space when your colony grows. Because you will be storing your harvests here, it is also wise to position this room in close proximity to your fields to shorten hauling jobs, with doors also pointing towards your growing zones.

Note that however, the freezer does not need direct access to the perimeter of your base! A single unroofed tile is enough to vent the exhaust from up to four coolers (it counts as an outdoors tile as far as the game is concerned, if the four tiles perpendicular to it are walls, or wall-like tiles). Only in a mountain base you need to consider the exhaust spots of the freezer room more carefully.

Be very careful when you dig or build in or around this room. Leaving even a single gap in a room wall will raise the temperature well above the freezing point, and this is easily missed because there is no direct visual indication of the room temperature. It can lead to massive amounts of food spoiling if undetected.

It is tempting to dig into a mountain to create a freezing room, but keep in mind that infestations can then spawn in this room. This can actually be a good thing, because eradicating an infestation right inside the freezer room is tactically easy, and it will leave all the filth and dead insects in probably the best location in your base. Your food supply will, however, be temporarily disrupted in such a scenario.

Kitchen[edit]

Kitchen area with short walkways for the colonists and separate meal freezer. Autodoors are used in chokepoints. The meal freezer and dining room could, and probably would, be more distant in the base. This layout tries to minimize foot traffic in the kitchen, but it is difficult to avoid.

The kitchen is where your colonists cook raw food into meals to improve colony life. The kitchen should be clean to avoid food poisoning, which can be attained by the following means:

  • Zone out colony animals.
  • Sterile tiles for flooring.
  • Place your doors so that your dining room has a shorter path to the freezer than walking through the kitchen

You should build your kitchen right next to your Freezer.

It should be mentioned that although it is best practice to floor your kitchen with sterile tiles, it is not a necessity, especially early on when the cost and research time is excessive. Sterile tiles simply provides a larger buffer between when cleaning before food poisoning risks increase at -2 room cleanliness. If cleaning is done frequently it is acceptable to use a different floor or even leave it unfloored as dirt tile as the -1 cleanliness isn't enough to induce food poisoning by itself. See Food Poisoning for specific details.

The butcher table is better placed elsewhere, due to its inherent uncleanliness added with the filth created by butchering. However, it should be placed near the freezer, preferably in a spot in the warehouse right next to it, as both ingredients (dead animals) and products (meats) need to be stored inside the freezer, having the butcher work there greatly reduces travel time. If you plan to make a lot of Kibble, create an extra butcher table outside of the freezer for that task, to avoid the work speed penalty from the cold.

Shelves or small stockpiles can really improve cooking efficiency when placed right next to your stoves. Set one to accept berries and vegetables only, and another to accept meats which would usually be cooked before they spoil. Put those shelves on high priority, so they will be replenished by your haulers and saving time for the cook. If you take this approach, set up the bills on the stove so that the products (meals) are dropped on the floor by the cook, and not delivered to a stockpile immediately. Prepared meals will stack next to the stove and can then be delivered in bulk to the freezer or fridge, close to the dining hall.

It is usually a good idea to add a little art since colonists tend to stay there for a long time. It should be temperature controlled for better working speed.

Since the kitchen is placed near the freezer, some crafting stations which include plants ingredients may be also placed in here. The brewery and drug lab are good choices. Also, if you making chemfuel with food you may place the biofuel refinery here.

Dining room[edit]

Dining rooms, at their simplest, are simply rooms where you put tables and chairs for colonists to dine in. Still, tables are marked as Gather Spots by default. Colonists will hang out here to relax and also hold their parties and weddings here. Expect your dining room to be pretty crowded during meal times, especially after a party or marriage ceremony, so have enough chairs for at least half your colony.

Colonists, as well as visitors, will search in a 20 tile radius for a table to eat at. For this reason, a dining room should be built as close as possible to the freezer/food storage so that your colonists will actually use the dining room, instead of eating on the floor of the storage, giving them a -3 mood debuff. This is especially true for larger freezers, in which colonists retrieving food from the far end may simply give up searching for a table and eat on the floor.

Since colonists spend a lot of time here, increase their mood by decorating your dining room with sculptures, plant pots or quality furniture. Having an impressive dining room also provides a small mood bonus to colonists who eat there.

Rec room[edit]

You should have a wide variety of recreation sources so your colonists don't get bored repeatedly throwing horseshoes at a pin, or wandering around aimlessly. Putting all of them in a room also provides a mood bonus after a colonist uses the facilities inside, depending on the impressiveness of the room.

In the early game, all you'll need is a horseshoes pin somewhere in the colony, and colonists will proceed to use it when they are bored.

Once you reach midgame, you can afford more recreation facilities such as chess tables, billiards tables or televisions, which provide different kinds of recreation for additional variety. In addition, you can also obtain additional recreation sources from exotic goods traders, such as telescopes, or megascreen televisions which offer faster recreation than the craftable tube and flatscreen televisions.

Similarly to the dining room, decorating it can improve the mood bonus from using the room.

Combined Dining and Rec Room[edit]

Example of an early game combined dining, recreation and throne room.

Combining the dining and rec room is often more efficient than keeping them separate. Not only does the recreation furniture improve the Impressiveness of the dining room and vice versa, but as colonists still retain the two separate positive moodlets from a combined room, it effectively eliminates half of the sculptures, flooring and other bonuses necessary to maintain a given room quality. The number of sculptures necessary to make both a dining room and a rec room "Slightly Impressive" may be sufficient to make a combined room "Somewhat Impressive" or even "Very Impressive", improving both mood buffs for no extra cost.

In the Royalty DLC is enabled and nobles are present in the colony, combining their throne room into the dining/rec room also has significant advantages for the same reasons, though the fine flooring necessary at Baron rank and above can be a significant investment as combined rooms are generally fairly large. Additionally, it should be kept in mind that the furniture requirements for each rank must still be met.

Courtyard[edit]

Small courtyard that serves both as a dining room and recreation room.

Most colonists like getting outside once in a while. In superstructure bases, you may consider building an unroofed courtyard where colonists can get some fresh air.

You can use it as a common area, putting recreation items and dining tables for colonists to use, making the courtyard behave exactly the same as an unroofed dining/recreation room. Alternatively, it may also be used as a place to put your mortars as putting them in the middle helps reduce the impact of their minimum range blind spot. Also consider keeping transport pods here, but place them in a separate unroofed area as they are not beautiful to look at.


Laboratory[edit]

You may want to have a room dedicated to research, with hi-tech research benches, multi-analyzers, and sterile tiles to increase research speed and unlock new research. Room cleanliness affects research speed, so place sterile tiles to keep the room clean. For even better cleanliness, restrict the lab to your researchers and janitors only, reducing traffic and hence the amount of dirt in the room. Also consider placing some art here and building a comfortable chair, as your researcher will be spending a lot of time here.

Workshop[edit]

Workshops are places where you put all your crafting stations and benches. You should put them near your warehouse so your colonists can spend less time hauling the needed resources to the workshop for crafting, while keeping them separate due to the beauty penalty of raw materials. Also remember to put chairs of any sort at the interaction spot so your colonists won't have to keep standing while crafting.

The tool cabinet is handy for increasing productivity of your craftsmen. The work speed bonus is quite valuable, and each bench may benefit from two tool cabinets.

It is an excellent idea to put decorations such as sculptures inside the workshop, as a beautiful environment gives up to +15 mood, improving colonists' productivity and even allowing for the occasional mental inspiration.

Armory[edit]

You can choose to have a dedicated area to store your weapons and armor. If so, put it far away from your prison so that prisoners do not have ready access to dangerous weapons during prison breaks. Place it near your entrance so that colonists can equip themselves on the way to defend your base.

Ammunition, on the other hand, is best stored deeper in the base, preferably far from anywhere else in case of unexpected events such as fires.

Hospital[edit]

Hospital with sterile tiles, hospital beds with vital monitors, decorations and megascreen TVs facing the beds.
An luxurious and efficient hospital layout. Dresser and end tables provide maximum comfort. Two vitals monitors cover all 8 beds. Flatscreen TVs provide extra recreation for the patients. Medical supplies are close by, the room is well lit and accessible from all sides. The vents equalize room temperature with the hallway. Up to six more beds could be installed here rather easily: four in place of the end tables, and one each to the left and right of the vitals monitors; all beds will have dresser, TV and monitor coverage.

Dedicated hospitals are more of a mid-game thing when you have enough resources to build the specialized equipment used in them. Hospital beds provide a boost to treatment quality, immunity gain speed, and healing speed, meaning colonists will recover faster from illnesses and injuries, making them the choice for hospitals. The vitals monitor brings even better boosts to treatment and immunity gain, so when available it's recommended that you put them down near your hospital beds.

Hospitals should be built somewhere where colonists can quickly bring their downed comrades to treat them. Keep doors open, or use autodoors so they don't obstruct colonists' access. If you need to, you can build more elsewhere in the base.

Hospitals should have sterile tiles as flooring as they provide a slight cleanliness buff that can increase surgery success chance and reduce wound infection chance. Keep in mind that wounded colonists will bleed out considerably, so you may want to assign another colonist to specifically clean the hospital to improve their treatment chances.

For a "field hospital", one that sees a lot of action and can't be cleaned often, use straw matting as your flooring, perhaps with some steel tiles or (better) sterile tiles under objects that can't be walked on, like beds/shelves/vitals monitors/sculptures, so they will never get filthy and won't suffer from not being cleaned. This type of hospital will never be "sterile", but it won't ever be nearly as dirty as it otherwise would.

Store your medicine in or near your hospital using shelves so your doctors can quickly grab them to patch up colonists before they bleed to death. Sometimes just that little distance can make the difference between life and death.

Dresser and end tables do increase the comfort of the hospital bed. The furniture does not affect medical treatment, but improves the mood of the colonists while they are recovering. The downside is that each end table blocks a spot with vitals monitor coverage, but this is not a problem until one needs to squeeze the absolute maximum number of beds into the hospital.

Decorating hospitals to make them beautiful can give colonists inside a great mood boost (max +15, plus impressive room stats). This is good, especially considering that some colonists will stay in the hospital for some time, such as the severely injured, incapacitated or sick.

To provide recreation, you may also install televisions into your hospitals. Patients lying in hospital beds within the viewing area will watch TV to entertain themselves when they are bored, and you won't need colonists coming to cheer them up as their only recreation source.

Triage[edit]

You should build a small room near your killbox, 6x5 per bed is the most effective to keep cleanliness high. Hospitals need not be up to a high standard so long as your triage is always clean and wounds are treated there.

Patient rooms[edit]

If you have even more resources and space, for example in lategame, you can build a separate room for each colonist. While they don't mind sleeping with others in a hospital, they do get disturbed by them walking around, and dirt can more easily affect cleanliness as well.

Operating theater[edit]

You can build a separate room to accommodate colonists who will undergo surgery, to make sure that colonists undergo medical operations in the cleanest of places.

Your operating theater should be forbidden at all times except when someone is about to have surgery. This prevents colonists from tracking dirt or blood into it, staining it.

Vet area[edit]

Consider building animal sleeping spots with their own animal area near your medicine stockpile that you can restrict wounded animals to. That way, they can be treated as fast as possible.

Medical treatment for animals benefits from cleanliness as well, but not proper hospital beds (and in turn, vitals monitors). Once you enter midgame, sterile flooring should be easy enough to get.

Prison[edit]

Mid-late game prison blocks from A17, partially filled. Each cell has a table with a chair, a bed, decorations and a chess table with a chair (for decoration). Generosity like this is well-appreciated and rewarded with prisoners joining your colony. Note that the doors open towards the rest of the base (downwards).

Prison barracks[edit]

In the early game you can simply convert any existing ruins into a makeshift prison barracks or build a simple prison hut which holds all the prisoners you capture. Try not to build it too far away from your main structures, otherwise it becomes harder to catch escaping prisoners. Another option is to mark one of your colonist's bedrooms as a temporary prison while you build another bedroom or a proper prison.

You should include tables and chairs for prisoners to use. This will improve their mood, which by extension lowers their chances of mental breaks and improves their recruitment speed.

Test Samples (12 per type)
Type Escapees Trials (out of 12)
Barracks 6/6 11
Barracks 5/6 1
Cells 6/6 1
Cells 5/6 0
Cells 4/6 2
Cells 3/6 4
Cells 2/6 4
Cells 1/6 1

Prison cells[edit]

Like colonists, prisoners will also suffer from the mood penalties associated with being kept together in a prison barracks.

If a prison break occurs in a prison barracks, there is an extremely high chance that all prisoners in the room will attempt to escape. On rare occasions, some prisoners may decide not break out with the others. If a prison break is triggered by a prisoner in a prison cell, the number of prisoners that will attempt to break out appears to be on a bell curve towards 50% (refer to table).

Each prisoner has a prison break interval. Prisoners with genes have a reduced interval while prisoners with low movement speed have their interval increased. It only takes one prisoner with a decreased interval to trigger prison breaks more often. Normally prison barracks would be used when holding greater numbers of prisoners, however prison breaks are far more dangerous in this scenario. While the prison break interval would be the same with either prison type, the amount of prisoners escaping will always be lower when prisoners are held in prison cells.

Each cell should have a table with a chair, a bed, and a light source. This is the bare minimum you need for a prisoner to be decently kept. Decorating the cell and making them bigger also increases mood bonuses for easier recruitment.

Prisons should have doors facing towards your base, so escaping prisoners will go towards your base instead of away, giving your wardens more time to deal with a break. Multiple doors will slow down any tasks in that area, but will also slow down jailbreaks.

Holding cell[edit]

A larger cell with more beds. It should only be used when your prison cells are overflowing. Put your less important prisoners inside them while assigning your more valuable prisoners into the cells. place some mini turret inside it to assist you when large scale prison break happens , although it will noticeably increase the possibility of death.

Multipurpose rooms[edit]

These are more of an early to early-midgame thing that you can use before you get dedicated structures erected, such as hospitals or bigger prisons. Yet, these can still prove useful sometimes, like when your freezers or warehouses overflow, or you need somewhere to house an influx of injured or sick colonists.

This is rather simple; just make an empty room, along with suitable temperature control. You can add beds if you intend on someone living in it (be it colonists or prisoners), which you can uninstall and tuck away in a corner when unused.

Backup[edit]

There are many types of ways you can set up buildings on your map to possibly save your colonists' lives in dire situations:

  • Shelters: Building small rooms with emergency supplies can save your colonists from enraged animals. Thick enough walls (at least 4 layers) can stop raiders from killing your colonists hiding inside.
  • Nutrient paste dispensers: When food is running low or you forecast that it will, a paste dispenser can significantly slow down food consumption by efficiently converting raw foods into nutrient paste.
  • Strategically placed stockpiles of wood can provide heating, for example during a solar flare or cold snap. Mark these wood stacks "forbidden", so your colonists will not use them during regular operation.

Production[edit]

You will also need various buildings to produce or manufacture the stuff that your colonists need.

Crops[edit]

Sun lamp illuminating crops grown in hydroponics basins. With this configuration you can fit 24 basins under 1 sun lamp for a total of 96 plants grown.

Crop fields[edit]

Crop fields are rather simple. Just set up a growing zone, designate the desired plant type and growers will automatically go and grow the plants.

You need to carefully check the soil fertility before marking out your areas.

  • Stony soil looks quite similar to dirt at first glance, but has a greatly reduced fertility, reducing the growing speed of plants.
  • Rich soil on the other hand, is visibly darker and has improved fertility, making it suitable for slow growing plants such as devilstrand.

You will need to keep most animals from eating your crops. You can zone out the area from your tamed animals, but you will need to build walls to keep out wild animals. If you're not building a greenhouse, then watch out for your builders automatically roofing this "room".

Greenhouses[edit]

Enclosed areas that grow crops with the aid of temperature control, sun lamps and possibly hydroponics basins. They allow you to continue growing crops regardless of soil or weather conditions. Note that greenhouses are subject to power draining events like solar flares, knocking out lamps, heaters and hydroponics. All plants in a basin without power will slowly take damage until they are destroyed. So beware, solar flares or damage to the power grid can destroy whole hydroponics crops.

Mining[edit]

In early-midgame you just need to select mineral outcrops and designate them, and miners will proceed to dig out the minerals.

Once all visible mineral outcrops are mined, you can continue to mine resources in a couple ways.

Strip mining[edit]

If you have more mountains or rocks which you can mine, you can strip mine them by mining out long tunnels with 2 tiles between each other. This allows you to see all tiles in the mountain. Hopefully, you will hit a mineral deposit.

Covering up your mine to prevent infestations is a good idea, using cheap materials such as wood it is possible to completely seal up the mines at a low cost. Alternatively, set up defenses at the mine entrance and just farm the insects.

Deep drills[edit]

After research you will unlock the deep drill and the ground-penetrating scanner for use.

It is not recommended to start deep drilling without scanning first as you will only mine stone chunks, no matter where you mine.

Some deposits will be directly underneath your base. You can deconstruct or relocate buildings to give access to your drills. Be careful when you mine in colonists' bedrooms as they can easily disturb sleep. Turn off the mineral scanner when you aren't placing new drills, and beware that bugs can be attracted by the drills. Be prepared for the added chance of infestations that can arise near the drill.

Tunneler mechanoid[edit]

A mechanitor can gestate tunneler mechanoids at a Large mech gestator after completing the Standard mechtech research. Tunnelers can be set to mine resources but they can't work at a deep drill. Using tunneler mechanoids to mine resources far away from your main base or near map edges can be advantageous to avoid colonists falling prey to wild animals, facing harsh weather conditions in extreme biomes, or being attacked by any sudden raids.

Animals[edit]

Animals are an extremely useful asset to the colony. They provide a variety of products, from raw food materials (meat, eggs or milk), to wool, which is an excellent insulator against both heat and cold. Moreover, they can be used in combat or as pack animals in a caravan. In fact, some larger and more intelligent animals can be trained as haulers, such as dogs, freeing up colonists for other tasks.

Barn[edit]

Animals are happy to sleep anywhere as long as it's not too hot or cold. Otherwise, a temperature-controlled barn with animal sleeping spots is necessary to keep the animals comfy.

Building animal sleeping boxes or animal beds can help animals rest faster, though this doesn't really do much and is not cost efficient.

Chemfuel farming[edit]

Boomalopes are unique in the fact that they can produce chemfuel. This can be used to power generators, used as transport pod fuel or made into mortar shells.

Due to their explosive nature, they won't be attacked by predators, so you can let them roam freely without much danger. Keeping them confined is dangerous as the death of one boomalope can injure others, and if you don't intervene the other boomalopes will die, exploding and causing a chain reaction.

Power[edit]

Your base will need power, for faster production, for defense, for happier colonists, for everything. As you plan any expansion, consider any additional power demands and expand your power production as part of your general growth.

Fueled generation[edit]

You can build wood-fired generators which runs on wood, and later, once you have chemfuel, chemfuel powered generators, each constantly providing 1,000 W of power. It is a good idea to have some of these as a backup power source, or even as your main source in biomes that are loaded with forests that will replenish themselves, such as in the tropics or temperate forests.

If the biome provides enough wood, the wood-fired generator is an excellent choice for establishing a colony. The wood from about two trees will power the generator for three days, giving the colony uninterrupted power to run all important early-game facilities (freezer, lamps and some work tables).

Chemfuel is significantly more efficient than wood, so once you research the refinery it becomes better to refine wood into chemfuel before usage as fuel.

Both fueled generators will burn fuel at the full rate, even if no power is consumed. Catching the excess power with batteries, and/or disabling the generators while the batteries are charged, will make them more fuel-efficient.

Boomalope setup[edit]

Boomalopes generate enough chemfuel to run 1 generator.

3 boomalopes give enough fuel to continuously power 4 generators for a total of 4000W. This is not taking into account any energy costs from growing food for use by the boomalopes.

If the animals have to be fed with grown food for more than a few days during the year, it is more efficient to convert the food straight into chemfuel (in a refinery), instead of feeding it to boomalopes. On the other hand, if the biome allows the boomalopes to graze for most of the year, this makes them a free source of energy (if you can keep them safe).

Greenhouse setup[edit]

A hydroponic greenhouse will produce far more chemfuel than necessary to power the greenhouse and the required refinery. This translates into a very high surplus of power (if you build additional generators), or you can use the surplus to grow food or drugs for the colony. Even a single greenhouse can easily cover the food and energy needs of a mid-sized colony, without having to rely on any other power source.

Infinite chemreactor setup[edit]

Infinite chemreactors generate enough chemfuel to run a generator, which in turn generates more than enough power to run the chemreactor.

3 infinite chemreactors can generate enough fuel to power 5 generators, for a total surplus power of 4100W.

Because the infinite chemreactor is a rare quest reward, it is unlikely that you will be able to create a setup that produces enough power for the entire colony.

Solar power[edit]

Wind turbines with solar generators packed underneath the exclusion zones.

Solar generators provide power only during the day except during eclipses. The upside of this is that daytime is when most of your colonists need power to get their work done. A solar generator provides a constant 1700W, quite a decent figure, but still shouldn't be fully relied on.

Combining these with batteries gives a reliable, steady supply of power.

Wind power[edit]

Wind turbines provide unstable power day and night. It can provide up to 3450W or nothing at all, and rarely hits its peak production. However, they are among the least expensive to build in terms of precious resources, and unlike solar will (usually!) provide power at night.

It requires plenty of open space for maximum efficiency, and any obstacles in its area reduce efficiency. To prevent trees from growing and obstructing the turbines, put down floors, grow crops underneath the turbines or fill in the gaps with solar generators.

Geothermal power[edit]

Geothermal generators constantly give 3600W of power after being built on a steam geyser, without requiring fuel. It is an important source of power from mid-game onward, as it is constant and high-powered, but unlike the above sources requires a massive separate research investment and so is not high on most priority lists. A basic mid-sized colony can be sustained using 5 such generators, around the usual number of geysers found on the map.

Research is required to unlock it. The generator itself is quite costly so it's best left to midgame. It is possible to rush the research for geothermal power, though you should be careful not to neglect other more important research projects. However, once researched and built you can have a constant power supply.

Make sure your geothermal generators and their connecting conduits are well-protected as they often have to be placed far from base. Walling the generators helps protect them against raiders, but walling the conduits isn't recommended due to the cost and its hindrance on colonist field work.

Be aware of the heat that the geysers release. If you closely wall and roof in a geothermal generator, the temperature inside will be quite high, enough to set combustibles on fire (including the generator itself). It is thus necessary to remove the roofs on such buildings. However, if the vent is close to your base in a cold biome, consider attaching it to your own base to help heat it.

Power storage[edit]

Batteries store electricity during times of excess and release it during times when demand exceeds supply. You will need batteries to store power if you're using unstable power supplies such as wind or solar power. Batteries must be kept under a roof to prevent short circuits. They should also be protected from external threats as losing batteries to raiders or mortars can cripple your power supply.

Emergency power[edit]

Some events will cause you to lose power if you are unprepared. Some colonies rely on wind or solar power to power everything. Eventually, every colony with electricity will suffer from a conduit explosion. Since you will be relying on batteries to store your power, this can cause a lot of disruption if the renewable energy isn't enough to power your base while your now empty batteries recharge. Raiders attacking and destroying power conduits connected to power generators can sever power from the colony, reducing the power available. In all these circumstances, this can leave you without enough power for your freezers, production, hydroponics, temperature control or even your turrets. However, it can be mitigated:

  • Backup batteries: Always have spare power stores, such as separate battery systems with switches. Once charged, flick the switch to isolate them from the rest of the power grid. Only reconnect it when your main grid has run out or the reserves need charging.
  • Backup generators: Have some fueled generators that you bring online only if there's not enough power in the colony. This can allow your backup batteries to discharge slower or even recharge. If they are turned off they will not consume fuel.

Vanometric power cell[edit]

A vanometric power cell constantly provides 1000 W of power, out of thin air. It handles like a battery, and can be reinstalled at will. It is the best portable power source in the game, very useful on mining caravans, and if you want to take your entire colony on the long trip to the event spaceship.

Unfortunately, the Vanometric Power Cell is a rare quest reward, and there is no guarantee to obtain one during the course of a game.

If the additional 1000 W from the VPC is not needed in your colony, it can be used as a risk-free way to keep up to 200 batteries at full charge, indefinitely. Place the battery array directly adjacent to the VPC; this will keep it charged without the possibility of short-circuiting, since no power conduits are used. Do not connect this installation to the rest of your power grid.

Power network[edit]

It's not a good idea to have just 1 conduit spanning the entirety of your base. While it saves materials, short circuits or other events can cripple your power supply to parts of your base. Instead, build a network with redundant pathways so that the grid will continue to function even if there is a break somewhere in the network. Consider using doors to cover up the beauty penalty for exposed conduit indoors.

Since geothermal generators must be built on top of existing geysers, they are often located far from your base. It is best to connect geothermal generators to other geothermal generators so that events such as wildfires and raider attacks won't easily disconnect them from your power network, causing severe power shortages.


If you choose to avoid short circuits by not building any conduits, you'll need to plan ahead to build your base around the steam geysers, long before you have geothermal power researched. It requires careful arrangement to get every powered appliance close enough to a generator stack to auto-connect. You will likely end up with a few separate clusters of generators for the greenhouse, workshop, freezer, hospital etc. With this method, your appliances should not lose power unless the generator itself is destroyed.

Defenses[edit]

Unless you're playing on Peaceful difficulty, you will eventually encounter major threats, so you will need to prepare defenses for that.

Preparation is a huge advantage that you have. You can fortify your defenses to make the most out of your defending colonists, and tilt the field towards your favor.

  • Cover is a major aspect in defense. While enemies are hiding behind rock chunks, you have sandbags and walls on your side, giving you a significant upper hand. You can even clear the rock chunks to force enemies behind trees which are less optimal a cover choice, widening the advantage.
  • You get to choose where the enemy attacks (unless they use sappers to tunnel in). It is a good idea to only have one or two entrances with lots of defenses and traps to repel attacks.
  • You can choose to build turrets if you have unlocked them. They are essential if you don't have enough colonists to defend against raids, either the start of the Rich Explorer scenario or lategame when you have a lot of wealth that will attract an army of raiders.

Temperature control[edit]

Room should have its temperature regulated by some method or another, so as to keep a comfortable temperature for colonists to live in, and protect them from extreme temperature conditions such as heat waves, cold snaps or simply the ambient temperature outdoors.

Large rooms such as your dining room or rec room should have their own heaters and coolers. If they are interconnected you may want to open doors for faster colonist access and temperature exchange. If you choose to do so, remember to close doors if a fire breaks out in the room.

Colonists will complain if sleeping in the extreme heat or cold. Bedrooms and other smaller rooms should be thermally connected to a larger central space via vents. Your heaters and coolers should be all placed outside the bedrooms. This reduces the number of heaters and coolers you need to build while keeping your bedrooms at a comfortable temperature at the same time.

Keep in mind that you will also need to be prepared in case of a freak temperature event such as heat waves or cold snaps. Without enough temperature devices rooms can get uncomfortably cold or hot, and in severe cases begin to cause hypothermia or heatstroke.

Cooler gap prevention[edit]

As coolers need to be built as part of a wall, the process of building a cooler involves tearing down the original wall, then putting the cooler in place. This short interval allows temperature to go freely through the gap, which isn't something you want.

To fix this, you can plug the gap by building a cheap wooden wall in front of or behind the cooler blueprint, then starting work on the cooler. The wooden wall will prevent temperatures from equalizing easily. Remember to deconstruct the wall after the cooler is done.

Protected coolers[edit]

Coolers are very fragile and must be placed in a wall, so a single explosion or dedicated effort from melee attackers can easily break them down. Protecting the coolers helps fortify your base against enemy raids by eliminating the weak points in your walls. This is done by walling the coolers off while giving it unroofed space in front of the hot end to vent away heat.

If your colony is in a cold but not quite freezing biome, consider venting the heat from the coolers for your freezer into your living spaces instead.

Cooler column[edit]

Place several coolers in line with the hot end facing an unroofed area where the heat vents out into the open. That unroofed area can be placed within an existing structure, such as inside the freezer. For maximum spatial efficiency, the strips of unroofed area should be 1 tile wide, surrounded by coolers. This method is best used for freezers to keep cool as most cases don't call for many coolers.

Temporary temperature control[edit]

If your regular heaters or coolers aren't doing the trick, there's a temporary power outage, or you're a tribe without the ability to harness electricity yet, you can use campfires or passive coolers to heat or cool down your base respectively. Campfires can't heat above 30°C while passive coolers can't cool below 15°C. Also, their temperature effect is full and cannot be throttled. Depending on what gear your colonists are wearing, it's possible for them to be in a room being heated with campfires and complain about it being too hot.

These are best used to keep colonists comfortable during heat waves or cold snaps. If you always encounter uncomfortable temperatures during summer or winter, then it's time to upgrade your heaters or cooler system.

Miscellaneous[edit]

Dirt floors[edit]

Until you have enough manpower to spare for cleaning jobs, use the terrain directly instead of building any floors. Dirt trailed on constructed floors makes for a much worse beauty and cleanliness penalty than using dirt floors, so this can actually make your rooms look better and be 'cleaner'.

For places like hospitals however, it's better to use sterile tiles and manually clean them instead.

Flooring outside[edit]

To reduce the amount of dirt inside your colony buildings, put any kind of flooring covering places where colonists and animals frequently walk. This reduces the amount of dirt formed as well as causes dirt to be left outside where it does not look as bad.

This should obviously be done only if you have enough janitors, otherwise it's better to just not build any floors (see above).

Bridges[edit]

Bridges allow for fast movement and some building on shallow sections of rivers and marshy terrain types. They're great for allowing colonies to span rivers, as well as making building in swampy biomes a bit easier. Note that some objects cannot be built or placed on bridges.

Moisture pumps[edit]

Moisture pumps clear out moisture from the ground around them, making solid land that is suitable for construction and in most cases, agriculture. They are excellent in swamp biomes for clearing out shallow water, marshy soil and mud in order to build structures. Their effect is permanent, so they can safely be deconstructed once the land you want to use is dry.