Shelf
Shelf
A shelf for storing miscellaneous items. Items stored in this will not affect room beauty and they won't deteriorate, even if outside.
Base Stats
Building
- Size
- 2 × 1
- Placeable
- Yes
- Cover Effectiveness
- 40%
Creation
- Work To Make
- 600 ticks (10 secs)
A shelf is an item of furniture that holds two stacks of items similar to a Stockpile. It also protects these items from deterioration and removes their beauty penalty. Their default setting is to contain weapons only at "Important" priority level, however this can be changed at will. Shelves can be reinstalled as needed and slow, but do not block, passage.
The shelf's beauty depends on both the material it is built from as well as its quality. Similar to grand sculptures or beds, its beauty will be added to the underlying tile. Additionally, any items stored within it will remove the -4 ugliness penalty they would otherwise have if left on the ground.
Acquisition
Constructing a shelf requires the Complex Furniture research to be complete and requires 600 units of work and either 30 (300 for small volume materials) materials of any stone, wood or metal.
Analysis
Shelves have three primary uses: to protect the items from the environment, to allow for efficient hauling and to negate the penalties from seeing the items in the shelf.
The effect of the first is simple. Shelves protect their contents from deterioration when placed outdoors and/or in unroofed areas. This makes them useful to preserve weapons, armor, and mortar shells close to defense structures.
Secondly, while effectively acting as Stockpiles otherwise, Shelves allow a pawn to place or remove an item without walking on top of them, making frequent hauling tasks marginally quicker. The direction a shelf faces is purely cosmetic; a pawn can interact with it from any adjacent tile. Thus, a pawn seated at a crafting station can pick ingredients directly off of adjacent shelves without having to leave their seat, significantly improving overall crafting time. This technique is best combined with "drop on floor when finished" and having other pawns restock the shelves.
Lastly, they negate the beauty penalty of the items they store, typically -4, while also providing their own small amount of beauty on top of that. As you'd expect, they also prevent pawns from observing corpses, and thus prevent the mood debuff from seeing them. This makes them great for holding high negative beauty items, allowing easy storage of human corpses in a freezer without affecting the pawns using it, or to cut down on both travel time and the beauty penalty in rooms sensitive to the penalty, such as by storing medicine in hospitals.
Material Table
Like sculptures and beds, shelves have beauty of their own that is dependent upon both their material and quality.
| Material | HP | Base Beauty |
|---|---|---|
| Silver | ? | 7 |
| Gold | ? | 22 |
| Steel | 100 | 0 |
| Plasteel | ? | 0 |
| Wood | ? | 0 |
| Uranium | ? | 0 |
| Jade | ? | 11 |
| Granite Blocks | ? | 0 |
| Limestone Blocks | ? | 0 |
| Marble Blocks | ? | 1 |
Version history
In Alpha 16, it was known as the Equipment rack and could only store apparel, mortar shells, or weapons.
In 1.0, shelves were given a path cost. This made them slower to move on top of, but also enabled the behavior of placing items on them without walking on top of them. Prior to this, players would use the "stool trick" for crafting stations, where several stools were placed around a crafting station that had high-priority stockpiles on top of them. Stools had a path cost (but allowed stockpile zones), achieving a similar effect.
- Furniture
- Animal bed • Animal sleeping box • Animal sleeping spot • Bedroll (Double) • Plant pot • Sculptures (Small, Large, Grand, Terror
) • Sleeping spot (Double, Baby 
) • Stool • Table (1x2, 2x2, 2x4, 3x3) • Torch lamp • Urn • Wall torch lamp • Wall lamp • Animus stone 
• Darktorch • Fungus darktorch • Crib - Complex Furniture
- Armchair • Bed (Double) • Bookcase (Small) • Couch • Dining chair • Dresser • End table • Royal bed • Shelf (Small) • Brazier (Darklight ) • Drape • Grand meditation throne • Meditation throne • Slab bed (Double) • Baby decoration • Blackboard • School desk • Toy box
- (research)
- Flood light • Hospital bed • Standing lamp • Sun lamp • Bonsai pot