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.
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 +
This guide is the ultimate go-to guide to building your [[colony]], for all stages of the game.
  
 
== Base Types ==
 
== Base Types ==
  
−
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.
+
There are different ways to build your base.
  
−
=== Superstructure base ===
+
{| class="wikitable"
 +
! 
 +
! Superstructure base
 +
! Town-like settlement
 +
! Mountain base
 +
|-
 +
! Description
 +
| Put everything in one 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 some space
 +
*More resistant against [[Events#Toxic Fallout|toxic fallout]]
 +
*Improved temperature control
 +
*Shortest walking paths
 +
||
 +
*Very flexible
 +
*Does not require large patches of continuous land
 +
*Best satisfies Outdoors need
 +
||
 +
*Best temperature control
 +
*Easy to defend
 +
*Immune to mortar strikes
 +
*Leaves more soil available for farming
 +
*Saves most building materials
 +
*Most resistant against [[Events#Toxic Fallout|toxic fallout]]
  
−
A superstructure base is a base where everything or almost everything is in one large building rather than smaller separate parts.
+
|-
 +
! 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 Outdoors need
 +
||
 +
*Requires most space and building materials overall
 +
*Requires more planning to defend
 +
*Worst temperature control
 +
*Longest walking paths
 +
||
 +
*'''Infestations can happen within base'''
 +
*Least flexible
 +
*It takes a '''lot''' of time to mine out separate rooms and clear stone chunks
 +
*Least able to satisfy Outdoors need
 +
|}
  
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This is the most common method to build bases.
+
== Base Structures ==
  
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'''Pros'''
+
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.
−
* Saves building materials and space.
 
−
* Easier to control temperature.
 
−
* Easier to defend against raids.
 
−
* More resistant against [[Events#Toxic_Fallout|toxic fallout]].
 
  
−
'''Cons'''
+
=== Storage ===
−
* Geothermal vents and patches of deep water can limit the design and patches of soft sand will require [[moisture pump]]s before building, marshy terrain 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.
 
  
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=== Separate structures base ===
+
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.
  
−
Build everything in separated buildings, just like building a small town.
+
Give special consideration toward explosive items such as [[chemfuel]] or [[mortar shell]]s as they may set 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 prevents [[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.
  
−
It is easier for starting off, but it is overall more vulnerable, so usually does not scale as well into late game.
+
In mid-game, you can add orbital trade beacons to sell your stuff to trade ships.
  
−
'''Pros'''
+
=== Barracks ===
−
* 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'''
+
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.
−
* 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 ===
+
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.
  
−
For mountainous maps where you have less space to build, you can opt to dig inside the mountains instead.
+
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.
  
−
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.
+
=== Bedrooms ===
−
 
+
{{see also|Space}}
−
'''Pros'''
+
[[File:Bedroom_example_midgame.png|300px|thumb|left|Mid-game bedrooms from Alpha 17. Each is carpeted, has beds, tables with chairs, flower pots for decoration and a vent connected to the corridors.]]
−
* Saves a lot of building materials.
 
−
* Easier to control temperature.
 
−
* Easier to defend against raids.
 
−
* More resistant against [[Events#Toxic_Fallout|toxic fallout]].
 
−
* Free, beautiful [[Smooth stone|floor]] and walls.
 
−
* Immune to sieges and raiders dropping on top.
 
−
 
 
−
'''Cons'''
 
−
* Infestations inside can be impossible to deal with.
 
−
* Cabin fever can be a real problem.
 
−
 
 
−
== Base Structures ==
 
−
 
 
−
Different structures suit the different needs of your colony. Most maps generate with ruins around, sometimes just walls and others are squares/rectangles just missing some filling sections. These if conveniently located can work perfectly at starting points reducing considerably the initial workload of characters with low level skills and reducing the beginning stage stress when you still have nothing.
 
−
 
 
−
=== Warehouse ===
 
−
 
 
−
The warehouse is a room with a stockpile. The first room we need to build due to the "outdoors" deterioration on items if left in the open. It is not an official [[room roles|room role]].
 
  
−
Later in the game the warehouse 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.
+
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.
  
−
The [[electric crematorium]] and [[electric smelter]] may be placed here, if you store corpses, tainted clothes, useless guns and steel slag chunks inside, to speed up burning/melting them. Also, if you making [[chemfuel]] with [[wood]] you may place the [[biofuel refinery]] here.
+
You can improve comfort and rest effectiveness by building beds of higher quality.  
  
−
It does not need to be impressive or temperature controlled and should be built close to the workshop to minimize travel times.
+
Colonists often carry a meal with them (gear tab) 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.
  
−
=== Bedrooms ===
+
{{clear}}
  
−
[[File:bedrooms.png|400px|thumb|right|Example of bedrooms. With table and chairs right outside.]]
+
=== Conjoined facilities ===
  
−
Bedrooms are rooms with only one bed.
+
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.
  
−
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. It is recommended to have [[double bed]]s in all rooms since they have better impressiveness, and couples can use them should they strike up love.
+
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.
  
−
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.
+
==== Freezer ====
  
−
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. Still, some people choose to build tables and chairs inside for aesthetic reasons.
+
[[File:Freezer coolers placement.png|right|300px]]
 +
The Freezer is a stockpile room to preserve [[raw food]], plant matter and fresh animal corpses.  In non-freezing biomes, this is accomplished with the addition of [[cooler]]s set to freezing temperatures. Freezers are vital for food preservation in hot biomes. Cold biomes, on the other hand, may be able to perform well without the need of air conditioning. Even though food freezes at {{Temperature|0}} you should have your freezer at least set at {{Temperature|-5}} since it will gain heat whenever a colonist comes in. 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.
  
−
=== Barracks ===
+
Unlike any other room, 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 just increase the size of it without needing to deconstruct other rooms. Because you will be storing your harvests here, it is wise to position this room in close proximity to your fields to shorten hauling jobs, with the doors also pointing towards your growing zones. 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.
  
−
The barracks is a room with multiple beds.
+
[[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.  
  
−
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 is better to have separate bedrooms since barracks give a lower mood modifier and cause a lot of 'Disturbed sleep' penalties.
+
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).
  
−
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.
+
[[Nutrient paste dispenser]]s act as walls.  They are usually placed with their hoppers in the freezer and activation spot in the dining room.
  
−
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.
+
==== Kitchen ====
  
−
=== Dining room ===
+
The kitchen is where your colonists turn raw food into [[meals]] to improve colony life by removing the [[Thoughts list#Eating|Ate raw food]] thought. The kitchen should be clean to avoid [[ailments#food poisoning|food poisoning]], which can be attained by the following means:
 +
* The [[butcher table]] should be placed in a different room as it creates a lot of filth just by being there, besides all the animal blood.
 +
* 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
  
−
[[File:dinningroom.png|400px|thumb|right|Example of combined recreation/dining room. The middle is unroofed to get rid of cabin fever and to accommodate a telescope.]]
+
You should build your kitchen right next to your Freezer.
  
−
Dining rooms are rooms with table and chairs for colonists to eat in.
+
[[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 the other to accept meals only the as these do not spoil in a matter of days, unlike meat which should always be in the freezer. Hauling colonists will do the transport work for your cooks instead, assuming you can actually spare the manpower and the cook is also useful for other tasks.
  
−
It is 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.
+
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 is also a good idea to have smaller dining rooms near colonists' 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.
+
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.
  
−
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 in 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.
+
==== Dining room ====
  
−
Dining rooms can be combined with recreation rooms.
+
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.
  
−
=== Recreation room ===
+
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.
  
−
The recreation room is a room with sources of [[joy]].
+
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.
  
−
Colonists get bored of using the same joy source repeatedly, so you should have as many joy sources as possible in the recreation room.
+
==== Rec room ====
  
−
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.
+
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 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.
+
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.
  
−
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.
+
Once you reach midgame, you can afford more recreation facilities such as chess tables or billiards tables, or [[Tube 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 offers more recreation than the craftable tube and flatscreen televisions.
  
−
Recreation rooms can be combined with dining rooms.
+
Similarly to the dining room, decorating it can improve the mood bonus from using the room.
  
 
=== Courtyard ===
 
=== Courtyard ===
Line 127: Line 149:
 
[[File:Courtyard.png|400px|thumb|right|Small courtyard that serves both as a dining room and recreation room.]]
 
[[File:Courtyard.png|400px|thumb|right|Small courtyard that serves both as a dining room and recreation room.]]
  
−
You may consider building an unroofed courtyard in the center of your base where colonists can get some fresh air. It is not an official [[room roles|room role]].
+
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 joy items and dining tables for colonists to use, making the courtyard behave exactly the same as an unroofed dining/recreation room. It may also be used as a place to put your [[mortar]]s as putting them in the middle helps negate their blind spots, or [[transport pod]]s. This is better if it is a separate unroofed area as they are not beautiful to look at.
+
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 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.
  
 
{{clr}}
 
{{clr}}
  
−
=== Freezer ===
+
=== Laboratory ===
−
 
 
−
[[File:freezer.png|400px|thumb|right|Example of a freezer with protected coolers. Corpses of important dead colonists are frozen inside for future [[resurrector mech serum|resurrection]].]]
 
−
 
 
−
The freezer is room with a stockpile that is kept cold by [[cooler]]s. It is not a official [[room roles|room role]].
 
−
 
 
−
The freezer is where you to keep your perishables that would otherwise spoil in the storage like food and corpses. Because you will be storing your harvests here, it is wise to position this room close to your plantations to reduce hauling jobs, with the doors pointing toward your growing zones. It should be covered by [[orbital trade beacon]]s so you can sell your food to trade ships.
 
−
 
 
−
This is usually the second biggest room in the base. [[Nutrient paste dispenser]]s are usually placed half in the dining room and half in the freezer.
 
−
 
 
−
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]].
 
−
 
 
−
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.
 
−
 
 
−
[[Cooler]]s placement is of crucial importance as these devices have a very low HP, making them the weakest point in a wall from where raiders would break in easily and most likely ignite your food supply. Because of this, one of the best ways to keep your freezer away from harm is to place the coolers in the inside unroofed, or of course, wall off the coolers too.
 
−
 
 
−
[[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 is better to have it close but outside the freezer due to the work speed penalty.
 
−
 
 
−
It does not need to be impressive and should be built close to dining rooms and kitchens.
 
−
 
 
−
=== Kitchen ===
 
−
 
 
−
The kitchen is a room with a stove or a [[butcher table]].
 
−
 
 
−
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]] may be placed nearby in a different room instead since it creates a lot of filth.
 
  
−
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.
+
You may want to have a room dedicated to research, with [[hi-tech research bench]]es, [[multi-analyzer]]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.
−
 
 
−
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 and if you do place them here you should also add [[tool cabinet]]s and little stockpiles for [[hops]], [[smokeleaf leaves]], [[psychoid leaves]] and [[neutroamine]]. Also, if you making [[chemfuel]] with food you may place the [[biofuel refinery]] here.
 
−
 
 
−
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.
 
−
 
 
−
Zone out colony animals.
 
  
 
=== Workshop ===
 
=== Workshop ===
  
−
[[File:kitchenworkshop.png|500px|thumb|right|Example of a kitchen and workshop. Art keep people happy while working.]]
+
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 workshop is a room with crafting stations.
+
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 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.
+
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.
  
−
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]].
+
=== Armory ===
−
 
 
−
The [[brewery]], [[drug lab]], [[biofuel refinery]], [[electric crematorium]] and [[electric smelter]] may also be placed here.
 
−
 
 
−
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.
 
−
 
 
−
It should be built close to storage.
 
−
 
 
−
=== Laboratory ===
 
−
 
 
−
The laboratory is a room with a [[simple research bench]] or a [[hi-tech research bench]].
 
−
 
 
−
Research speed is affected by the cleanliness of the room which is why it might be worth making a separate room for it.  It should be isolated to avoid other people walking in dirt.
 
  
−
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]].
+
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.
−
 
 
−
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.
 
−
 
 
−
Zone out colony animals.
 
  
 
=== Hospital ===
 
=== Hospital ===
 +
[[File:Hospital_example_midgame.png|400px|thumb|right|Hospital with sterile tiles, hospital beds with vital monitors, decorations and megascreen TVs facing the beds.]]
  
−
[[File:smallhospital.png|310px|thumb|right|Example of small hospital.]]
+
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.
  
−
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]].
+
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.
  
−
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.
+
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.
  
−
Store medicine in or near your hospital so your doctors can quickly patch up your colonists.
+
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.
  
−
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]].
+
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.
  
−
It should be built close to the base entrance for quicker rescue.
+
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.
  
−
Zone out colony animals.
+
==== Patient rooms ====
  
−
=== Armory ===
+
If you have even more resources 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.
  
−
The armory is a room with a stockpile for weapons and armor. It is not an official [[room roles|room role]].
+
==== Operating theater ====
  
−
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.
+
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.
  
−
It does not need to be impressive, nor does not need to be temperature controlled.
+
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.
  
−
It should be built close to your defenses for quicker reaction to raids, and should also be far away from the prison.
+
==== Vet area ====
  
−
=== Barn ===
+
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.
−
 
 
−
[[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.]]
 
−
 
 
−
The barn is a walled area with [[animal sleeping spot]]s, [[animal sleeping box]]s or [[animal bed]]s.
 
−
 
 
−
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.
 
−
 
 
−
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]].
 
−
 
 
−
Sometimes, it is good to have a 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.
 
−
 
 
−
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.
 
−
 
 
−
It can be combined with outdoors rooms, like your power supply area. It should be built close to freezer or warehouse.
 
  
 
=== Prison ===
 
=== Prison ===
  
−
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.
+
[[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).]]
−
 
 
−
Basic features:
 
−
 
 
−
* Enclosed by walls.
 
−
* [[Bed]]s or [[sleeping spot]]s.
 
−
* Safe temperature.
 
−
 
 
−
[[File:fullprison.png|400px|thumb|right|Example of prison. The hospital/barracks gives a better mood than the cells and have access to a [[nutrient paste dispenser]] but the prisoners in cells are less likely to try to escape.]]
 
−
 
 
−
Good mood features:
 
−
 
 
−
* Light source.
 
−
* [[Floors]].
 
−
* Table and chairs.
 
−
* Art.
 
−
* Comfortable temperature.
 
−
* [[Dresser]]s and [[end table]]s.
 
−
* [[Psychic emanator]].
 
−
 
 
−
Convenience features:
 
−
 
 
−
* Food stock.
 
−
* Medicine stock.
 
−
* Uniform stock.
 
−
* [[Nutrient paste dispenser]].
 
−
 
 
−
Medical features:
 
−
 
 
−
* [[Sterile tile|Sterile floor]].
 
−
* [[Hospital bed]].
 
−
* [[Vitals monitor]].
 
−
 
 
−
Safety features:
 
−
 
 
−
* Isolated from the rest of the base, but not close to the map edges.
 
−
* 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:
 
  
 
==== Prison barracks ====
 
==== Prison barracks ====
  
−
Barracks are rooms with multiple prisoner beds.
+
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.
  
−
They are cheaper than cells and allow for features that are unreasonable to have in every single cell. The barracks mood modifier is lower than the cell but the barracks usually provides the 'Spacious interior' modifier and better dining room 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.
+
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.
  
 
==== Prison cells ====
 
==== Prison cells ====
−
 
−
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 between prisoners.
+
Like colonists, [[prisoner]]s will also suffer from the mood penalties associated with being kept together in a prison barracks. In addition, prison breaks are more serious should they happen, for every prisoner locked up in the same room will simultaneously break out, while prisoners in different cells may choose not to join. Thus, you should keep them separated.
  
−
If you are lacking space for prisoners, a colonist bedroom can be temporarily turned into a cell.
+
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. They can't use any recreation items put in the cell, nor do they have a recreation need, so don't bother with recreational items other than for room impressiveness.
  
−
==== Prison hospital ====
+
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.
  
−
The prison hospital is a room with medical prisoner beds. It is not an official [[room roles|room role]].
+
==== Holding cell ====
  
−
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]].
+
A larger cell with more beds. It should be 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.
  
−
The prison hospital does not need to be a separated room only for healing. It can be the barracks but with medical features.
+
=== Multipurpose rooms ===
  
−
==== Prison freezer ====
+
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.
  
−
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]].
+
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.
  
−
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.
+
=== Backup ===
  
−
=== Tomb ===
+
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.
−
The tomb is a room with [[sarcophagus|sarcophagi]].
+
*'''[[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.
−
 
 
−
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.
 
−
 
 
−
It does not need to be impressive or temperature controlled and can be built anywhere.
 
  
 
== Production ==
 
== Production ==
  
−
You will need fields, buildings and animals to provide the raw materials that your colony needs.
+
You will also need various buildings to produce or manufacture the stuff that your colonists need.
  
−
=== Crop fields===
+
=== Crops ===
  
−
[[File:biggreenhouse.png|300px|thumb|right|Example of greenhouse. The top [[sun lamp]] has 24 [[hydroponics basin]]s which is the maximum possible. They are particularly important in cold [[biome]]s.]]
+
[[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.]]
  
−
''See also: [[Food production]]
+
{{See also|Food production}}
  
−
Crop fields are growing zones or [[hydroponics basin]]s, designated to the desired plant type.
+
==== Crop fields ====
  
−
Depending on the soil fertility different plants might generate the best productivity:
+
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.
−
*[[Potatoes]] and [[berries]] perform better in poor soil.
 
−
*[[Rice]] and [[corn]] perform better in rich soil.
 
  
−
Crop fields do 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; however, crop fields are not particularly important structures, so they need not be given priority in defense.
+
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 long growing time plants such as [[devilstrand]].
  
−
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]].
+
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".
  
−
Ideally, they should be made near your freezer.
+
==== Greenhouses ====
  
−
=== Greenhouses ===
+
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.
  
−
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.
+
=== Mining ===
  
−
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]].
+
In early-midgame you just need to select mineral outcrops and designate them, and miners will proceed to dig out the minerals.
  
−
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.
+
Once all visible mineral outcrops are mined, you can continue to mine resources in a couple ways.  
  
−
Ideally, they should be made near your freezer.
+
==== Strip mining ====
  
−
=== Mines ===
+
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.
  
−
Mines are areas your colonists go to mine.  
+
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.
  
−
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.
+
==== Deep drills ====
  
−
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.
+
After research you will unlock the [[deep drill]] and the [[ground-penetrating scanner]] for use.
  
−
=== Drilling rooms ===
+
It is not recommended to start deep drilling without an active scanner as you cannot see the locations of mineral locations.
  
−
[[Deep drill]]s are often 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 isolated miners.
+
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 to deal with infestations near or close to the drill.
  
 
=== Animals ===
 
=== Animals ===
  
−
{{main|Animals}}
+
[[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.
  
−
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:
+
==== Barn ====
  
−
* Produce raw food: eggs, milk or meat. [[Chicken]], [[Cow]], [[Dromedary]], [[Muffalo]], [[Pig]].
+
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.
−
* Produce textiles: leather or wool. [[Chinchilla]], [[Alpaca]], [[Dromedary]], [[Muffalo]], [[Megasloth]].
 
−
* Produce fuel: chemfuel. [[Boomalope]].
 
−
* Haul animals. [[Pig]], [[Wild boar]], [[Elephant]], [[Megasloth]].
 
−
* Pack animals. [[Alpaca]], [[Dromedary]], [[Muffalo]], [[Elephant]].
 
−
* Combat animals. [[Wild boar]], [[Elephant]], [[Megasloth]].
 
  
−
[[Chicken]], [[Cow]], [[Chinchilla]], [[Alpaca]] and [[Boomalope]] are quite profitable.
+
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.
  
−
[[Pig]], [[Wild boar]], [[Elephant]] and [[Megasloth]] are the only ones that can graze and haul.
+
==== Chemfuel farming ====
  
−
[[Dromedary]], [[Muffalo]], [[Elephant]] and [[Megasloth]] are really versatile.
+
[[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.
  
−
One should notice that combat animals are much better at defending caravans than defending your base.
+
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 ==
 
== Power ==
  
−
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.
+
=== Solar power ===
  
−
=== Solar power ===
+
[[File:Solar wind setup.png|thumb|420px|right|Wind turbines with solar generators packed underneath the exclusion zones.]]
  
−
[[Solar generator]]s provide power only during the day. It provides 1700W during summer peak hours near the equatorial line, but nothing at all in winter 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.
+
[[Solar generator]]s provide power only during the day except during eclipses. It provides a constant 1700W, quite a decent figure, but still shouldn't be fully relied on.
  
 
=== Wind power ===
 
=== Wind power ===
  
−
[[File:windsolar.png|450px|thumb|right|Example of solar-wind setup. It is more efficient to place the wind turbines facing each other with their exclusion zones overlapping.]]
+
[[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.
  
−
[[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.
+
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.
−
 
 
−
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 grow crops underneath the turbines or fill in the gaps with solar generators.
 
  
 
=== Fueled generation ===
 
=== Fueled generation ===
  
−
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.
+
You can build the [[wood-fired generator]] which runs on wood, or the [[chemfuel powered generator]] which runs on [[chemfuel]], constantly providing 1000W 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.
+
Chemfuel is significantly more efficient than wood, so once you research the [[refinery]] it's a better idea to refine wood into chemfuel before usage as fuel.
  
−
They are useful complementing [[solar generator]]s during winter in cold biomes, since [[solar generator]]s does not work in winter near the pole.
+
==== Boomalope setup ====
  
−
==== Boomalope setup ====
+
Boomalopes generate enough chemfuel to run 1 generator.
  
−
3 [[Boomalope]]s generate enough chemfuel to run 4 generators. It is easy to run an entire base on that setup since they generate more energy than you spend to grow food for them, specially if your colony is somewhere they can graze.
+
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 setup ====
 
==== Infinite chemreactor setup ====
  
−
[[Infinite chemreactor]]s generate enough chemfuel to run a generator, which in turn generates more than enough power to run the chemreactor.
+
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.
  
−
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.
+
Infinite chemreactors are only available as a reward for quests.
  
 
=== Geothermal power ===
 
=== Geothermal power ===
  
−
[[Geothermal generator]]s constantly gives 3600W of power after being built on a steam geyser.  
+
[[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. A basic mid-sized colony can be sustained using 5 generators, around the usual number of geysers found on the map.  
  
−
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 doors so colonists can enter, better to use stone doors because they are durable and raiders can not ignite it.
+
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.
  
−
Another problem is that 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.
+
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.  
  
−
Note that they generate plenty of heat, so they should be unroofed or they will catch on fire.
+
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.
  
−
=== Watermill generator ===
+
=== Power storage ===
  
−
[[File:watermills.png|500px|thumb|right|Example of watermills setup. It runs a big base without batteries.]]
+
[[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.
  
−
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.
+
=== Emergency power ===
−
 
+
−
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]].
+
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 ===
 
=== Vanometric power cell ===
  
−
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.
+
A [[vanometric power cell]] constantly provides 1000W of power regardless of any condition and can be placed nearly anywhere. Obtaining it can be quite hard due to its rarity, even in the mid-late game, yet a constant, uninterrupted source of power is always valuable to any colony.  It can be used as a good starting power source when you are branching off to start a new colony.
  
−
They are particularly good for starting off new bases, or sometimes powering isolated objects such as [[deep drill]]s.
+
If not currently being used, batteries will slowly self-discharge. A vanometric power cell can be placed next to your reserve batteries to keep them topped off (connecting them using conduits makes them vulnerable to short circuits) if you have a large number of batteries, though most of the time it would be better to connect the cell to the main grid instead.
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−
=== Power storage ===
 
−
 
 
−
[[Battery|Batteries]] store surplus power.  They are 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.
 
−
 
 
−
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.
 
−
 
 
−
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.
 
  
 
=== Power network ===
 
=== Power network ===
  
−
It is 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.
+
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.
  
−
Also, it is better to split the power network of your base. Having more than one power network makes power management harder but the [[events#zzztt...|short circuit]] event will be much smaller since it will not affect your whole base and all your power reserves.
+
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.
  
 
== Defenses ==
 
== Defenses ==
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{{main|Defense structures}}
 
{{main|Defense structures}}
 
{{see also|Defense tactics}}
 
{{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.
+
Unless you're playing on Peaceful difficulty, you will eventually encounter major threats, so you will need to prepare defenses for that.
  
−
More defensive buildings can be seen on [[defense structures]]. Here, we show only the basics.
+
The greatest advantage on your side is cover. 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.
  
−
=== Static cover ===
+
You also 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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[[File:cover.png|300px|thumb|right|Example of different ways to setup static cover. In this example the white colonists can only shoot 90 degrees in front of them while the brown colonists can shoot 180 degrees in front of them.]]
+
You can also choose to build [[turret]]s if you have unlocked them. They are essential if you don't have enough colonists to defend against raids, most typically the start of the Rich Explorer scenario.
  
−
At the very least you must have some sources of cover in your base. This includes [[sandbag]]s and sometimes walls. They are enough on early-mid game or on easier difficulties.
+
== Temperature control ==
−
 
 
−
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.
 
−
 
 
−
The major problem of basic static cover is enemies with long-ranged weapons. They will have a lot of time to shoot at you while you are busy with the rest of the raid party. Raiders with [[triple rocket launcher]] and [[doomsday rocket launcher]] are particually dangerous if you rely on static cover since they are really long-ranged and only need one shoot to explode your defenses. For those reasons you might want to enclose your combat area into a killbox.
 
−
 
 
−
=== Killbox ===
 
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−
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.
 
  
−
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.
+
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.
  
−
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 the turrets, prepare to finish the survivors by melee blocking them.
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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.
  
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[[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. They are the main reason why you should have walls and not only [[sandbag]]s in your defense. Their [[inferno cannon]]s can shoot over [[sandbag]]s but it can not shoot over walls, so a colonist behind a wall is less likely to catch on fire than a colonist behind a [[sandbag]]. 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.
+
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 comfy temperature at the same time.
  
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Raiders with [[triple rocket launcher]] and [[doomsday rocket launcher]] are still a problem. If they manage to shoot inside your box the damage can be massive, but here they are in range of your colonists guns so you can focus them down before they do anything.
+
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 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.
+
=== Cooler gap prevention ===
  
−
Killboxes do not protect against sappers and raiders dropping on top of you. For those, you will need another strategy.
+
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.
  
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[[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. It does not works against melee raiders, as they will destroy the turrets even deactivated.]]
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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.
  
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== Temperature control ==
+
=== Protected coolers ===
  
−
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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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.
  
−
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.
+
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.
  
−
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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==== Cooler column ====
  
−
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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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 ===
  
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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.
+
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.
  
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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.
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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 ==
  
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[[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 ===
  
−
=== Do not rush flooring ===
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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'.
  
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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.
+
For places like hospitals however, it's better to use sterile tiles and manually clean them instead.
  
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However, for places like hospitals, it is always better to use sterile tiles and manually clean them instead.
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=== Flooring outside ===
  
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=== Flooring outside ===
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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.
 +
 
 +
This should obviously be done only if you have enough janitors, otherwise it's better to just not build any floors (see above).
  
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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 brought inside your base.
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=== Bridges ===
  
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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 ===
  
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[[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 on 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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{{nav/guides}}
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[[Category:Gameplay]]
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[[Category:Guides]]

Revision as of 11:07, 4 August 2019

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

Base Types

There are different ways to build your base.

Superstructure base Town-like settlement Mountain base
Description Put everything in one 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 some space
  • More resistant against toxic fallout
  • Improved temperature control
  • Shortest walking paths
  • Very flexible
  • Does not require large patches of continuous land
  • Best satisfies Outdoors need
  • Best temperature control
  • Easy to defend
  • Immune to mortar strikes
  • Leaves more soil available for farming
  • Saves most building materials
  • 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 Outdoors need
  • Requires most space and building materials overall
  • Requires more planning to defend
  • Worst temperature control
  • Longest walking paths
  • Infestations can happen within base
  • Least flexible
  • It takes a lot of time to mine out separate rooms and clear stone chunks
  • Least able to satisfy Outdoors need

Base Structures

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

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 set 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 prevents 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

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.

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

See also: Space
Mid-game bedrooms from Alpha 17. Each is carpeted, has beds, tables with chairs, flower pots for decoration and a vent connected to the corridors.

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.

You can improve comfort and rest effectiveness by building beds of higher quality.

Colonists often carry a meal with them (gear tab) 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.


Conjoined facilities

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

Freezer coolers placement.png

The Freezer is a stockpile room to preserve raw food, plant matter and fresh animal corpses. In non-freezing biomes, this is accomplished with the addition of coolers set to freezing temperatures. Freezers are vital for food preservation in hot biomes. Cold biomes, on the other hand, may be able to perform well without the need of air conditioning. Even though food freezes at 0 °C (32 °F) you should have your freezer at least set at -5 °C (23 °F) since it will gain heat whenever a colonist comes in. 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.

Unlike any other room, 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 just increase the size of it without needing to deconstruct other rooms. Because you will be storing your harvests here, it is wise to position this room in close proximity to your fields to shorten hauling jobs, with the doors also pointing towards your growing zones. 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.

Butcher spots, butcher tables and crafting spots can be placed inside the freezer to butcher corpses, make kibble and make smokeleaf joints 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.

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 their hoppers in the freezer and activation spot in the dining room.

Kitchen

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

  • The butcher table should be placed in a different room as it creates a lot of filth just by being there, besides all the animal blood.
  • 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.

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 the other to accept meals only the as these do not spoil in a matter of days, unlike meat which should always be in the freezer. Hauling colonists will do the transport work for your cooks instead, assuming you can actually spare the manpower and the cook is also useful for other tasks.

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

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

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 or billiards tables, or Tube 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 offers more recreation than the craftable tube and flatscreen televisions.

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

Courtyard

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 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.

Template:Clr

Laboratory

You may want to have a room dedicated to research, with hi-tech research benches, multi-analyzers 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

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

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.

Hospital

Hospital with sterile tiles, hospital beds with vital monitors, decorations and megascreen TVs facing the beds.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Patient rooms

If you have even more resources 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

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

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

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

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.

Prison cells

Like colonists, prisoners will also suffer from the mood penalties associated with being kept together in a prison barracks. In addition, prison breaks are more serious should they happen, for every prisoner locked up in the same room will simultaneously break out, while prisoners in different cells may choose not to join. Thus, you should keep them separated.

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. They can't use any recreation items put in the cell, nor do they have a recreation need, so don't bother with recreational items other than for room impressiveness.

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.

Holding cell

A larger cell with more beds. It should be 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.

Multipurpose rooms

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

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.

Production

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

Crops

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.
See also: Food production

Crop fields

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 long growing time 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

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

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

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

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

It is not recommended to start deep drilling without an active scanner as you cannot see the locations of mineral locations.

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 to deal with infestations near or close to the drill.

Animals

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

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

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

Solar power

Wind turbines with solar generators packed underneath the exclusion zones.

Solar generators provide power only during the day except during eclipses. It provides a constant 1700W, quite a decent figure, but still shouldn't be fully relied on.

Wind power

Wind turbines provide unstable power day and night. It can provide up to 3450W or nothing at all, and rarely hits its peak production.

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.

Fueled generation

You can build the wood-fired generator which runs on wood, or the chemfuel powered generator which runs on chemfuel, constantly providing 1000W 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 refinery it's a better idea to refine wood into chemfuel before usage as fuel.

Boomalope setup

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.

Infinite chemreactor setup

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.

Infinite chemreactors are only available as a reward for quests.

Geothermal power

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. A basic mid-sized colony can be sustained using 5 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

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

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

A vanometric power cell constantly provides 1000W of power regardless of any condition and can be placed nearly anywhere. Obtaining it can be quite hard due to its rarity, even in the mid-late game, yet a constant, uninterrupted source of power is always valuable to any colony. It can be used as a good starting power source when you are branching off to start a new colony.

If not currently being used, batteries will slowly self-discharge. A vanometric power cell can be placed next to your reserve batteries to keep them topped off (connecting them using conduits makes them vulnerable to short circuits) if you have a large number of batteries, though most of the time it would be better to connect the cell to the main grid instead.

Power network

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.

Defenses

Main article: Defense structures
See also: Defense tactics

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

The greatest advantage on your side is cover. 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 also 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 also choose to build turrets if you have unlocked them. They are essential if you don't have enough colonists to defend against raids, most typically the start of the Rich Explorer scenario.

Temperature control

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 comfy 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

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

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

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

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

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'.

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

Flooring outside

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

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

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.

Guides
Progression
Quickstart Guides • Basics • Intermediate Midgame Guide • Advanced Endgame Guide • Ending the game
Scenarios
Lost Tribe Guide • Rich Explorer Guide • Naked Brutality Guide • The Mechanitor GuideContent added by the Biotech DLC
Survival
Extreme Heat Guide • Extreme Cold Guide • Extreme Desert Guide • Ice Sheet Guide • Sea Ice Guide • Events Guide
Combat
Defense tactics • Offense tactics • Weapon Guide
Construction
Colony Building Guide • Defense structures
Production
Food production • Money making guide
Other
Skill Training • Permadeath save conversion guide •
Ideology Min-Maxing Content added by the Ideology DLC

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