A newbie seeking some info/assitance

[Crazytown1]

Hi guys. Had a read through the forum and quite surprised at how friendly everyone is! Usually i don't bother asking stuff like this on game forums as the fan boys like to rip into you....but this place seems different.

Anyways, as per title, im new. Bought the game yesterday (through lack of patients waiting for it to go to steam....looks too good a game to wait for!) So i watched some lets play to get an idea and had a fart about the game myself, but im always getting beaten very early on by my guys going bonkers and their mental health drives them to wander or attack anything and everything around them. What can i do to help stop this?
Is there any good beginner guides for this current alpha as im struggling to find one!

Thanks in advance for any help or info!

Crazy.

[vagineer1]

Hi guys. Had a read through the forum and quite surprised at how friendly everyone is! Usually i don't bother asking stuff like this on game forums as the fan boys like to rip into you....but this place seems different.

Anyways, as per title, im new. Bought the game yesterday (through lack of patients waiting for it to go to steam....looks too good a game to wait for!) So i watched some lets play to get an idea and had a fart about the game myself, but im always getting beaten very early on by my guys going bonkers and their mental health drives them to wander or attack anything and everything around them. What can i do to help stop this?
Is there any good beginner guides for this current alpha as im struggling to find one!

Thanks in advance for any help or info!

Crazy.

My advice for mental breaks is to designate a flower growing zone at several areas outside your base and a lot of beautiful objects inside. Get carpeting, plant pots and things like that. They help to keep the colonists happy and helps to prevent mental breaks.

[Crazytown1]

spot on. Will try the gardens. Is happening to me with my first 3-4 dudes....so its maybe still a bit early on for carpets, but it's something I will work towards. I take it larger rooms with even the likes of a wooden floor will assist in my efforts?

[EarthyTurtle]

Hi Crazytown, welcome to the game & community.

Dw quite a few have asked this question and still do sometimes. When starting your game I would suggest you focus on meeting the needs of your people immediately. Your biggest enemies in terms of mental health will always be (In order):
-Hunger
-Fatigue
-Health
-Environment

Focus on meeting these needs in this order.

Hunger:
Never let your colonist go hungry. Setup a growing zone as fast as possible, a good 8-8 zone should be enough for now, expand it as your get more colonists. This might seem excessive but their is a reason you want a good growing zone like this. If you produce more food than you actually require then if a couple of blights and a solar eclipse come along your set to survive it. That and you can sell the farmers which is useful.
Hungry -8
Urgently Hungry -20
Starving -50
Packaged meals will help you for a while, but getting a paste dispenser helps when they run out.

Sleeping:
Try Setup a large room, with actual beds before the first day is up. This will help your colonists immensely. Their under shelter for the night and they have beds instead of sleeping on the ground. Because their all in the same room they will get a small penalty for sharing a bedroom, but it's not that bad for the short terms. You can fix it larger.

Health:
Not really an early game thing, but if a colonist is injured for whatever reason then they will get a penalty for it. Have a medical bed spare incase this happens so your colonists can heal up quickly. Save your medpacks early game for your colonist! Least until you can afford to buy more.
Also try keep your medic out of the direct line of combat. A lot of people wanna go give the Lee-Enfield to their best shooter, I say give it to your medic, it keeps him out of the direct line of fire but still utilises them in combat and keeps them onhand to treat colonists who are injured. If your medic becomes a patient he can't help your other colonists if they are also injured.

Environment:
Your colonists will eventually get cranky if their colony is a dump. Investing in moving some rocks or placing some floors (cleaning also) is worth-while in the long run. Make your area look pretty!
Metal tiles, Stone Paths, Wood paths, Carpet and Smoothstone are the best tiles you can use for this, save concrete and paved tiles for more practical things like kill zone flooring, fire walls or dumping/burning sights.

Stockpiles? Nein!
A lot of players like to make a nice stockpile so they can gather all the resources from around the area, I personally don't see any point in making a stockpile till later in the game. The resources are either close enough that you can use them straight away anyways or their too far away for your characters to grab in any feasible amount of time. Don't worry about collecting all the resources on the map until your colonist's "new colony optimism" subsides and your colony is able to sustain itself.

Hope this helps!

[Crazytown1]

your a top man tinnedepic, much appreciated, some things in there i didnt know and wouldnt have thought off. Will give it a blast.

thanks.

[ItchyFlea]

With each new colony I build, I generally do the following:

First, place down stockpiles (size: 6x6), growing zones (size 8x8, growing potatoes), etc where I intend to build my colony. I also tell my starting colonists to haul the survival meals to the stockpile.
Second, build a table and chairs next to my stockpile. Having a table prevents colonists from getting the 'Ate off the ground' debuff.
Once that's built, I build 3 rooms that have an internal size of 3x3 with a bed. While the small size does give a debuff, it's only lasts while their in that room, and as soon as they leave it goes away.
By the time I've done those three things my supply of survival meals starts running out. I then build a cooking stove and a genethermal generator and assign a colonist to be a cook, and have the cooking stove bill set to:
Simple Meals
Do until you have X amount: 6
The simple meals don't give a debuff like nutrient paste does, and having the table nearby lets you stop worrying about the debuffs your colonists get from their food, so you can concentrate of the debuffs they are getting from elsewhere.

Bury dead raiders quickly, or cremate them if you've unlocked the crematorium. Bury/cremate dead colonists ASAP! It takes a few days for the debuff to kick in, but an unburied colonist can mean the difference between having someone lose their mind or not.

If you're building a base underground, make sure to get a colonist to clean up the rubble left behind as your miner mines. Many times my miner has gone insane just because of the mess he/she was making.

In the end though, you'll find a play style that works for you and prevents your colonists from going nuts. When you get the alert that a colonist is approaching to the point of having a mental break, I usually pause the game and check out who it is. I look at their current thoughts and see what the problem is so I can prioritise them to fixing it themselves. The most common ones, at least for me are being tired and/or hungry.

Hopefully this wall of text helps.

[BetaSpectre]

I found a trick for dealing with ship parts early game.

Build a wooden wall around it then collapse the wall. The Ship Part will disappear.

Also if your prison breaks it will mark all your food as socially improper so be sure to Deconstruct and prisoner beds that get exposed to the world.

You can't naturally put a prison bed in the over world but if the wall breaks then it can happen.

[Fruit loops]

here is a small introduction on food:
Food, food is love food is life it is the NUMBER ONE priority
Me personally struggled to give my colonists the proper diet I relied on raw food
first off don't use nutrient paste dispensers they are more trouble than they are worth
make a cook stove and a butcher table relatively close to each other along with 1 2x2 stockpile next to the cook stove only containing ingredients and 1 for the butcher table only containing animal corpses
make them the highest priority possible
go to configure and make sure the (take to where) thing is set to drop on floor
and later game have a designated cook that does only cooking and if you have enough colonists have a designated hauler

Hope this helped   

[Raufgar]

On the subject of bedrooms : Get each of your starting colonists bedrooms that are at least 5 x 6 (I make mine 5 x 7), with a bed that is not touching any walls, a lamp, either a shelf or a flower pot and something other that the generic floors (try carpets, smooth floors or stone tiles).

[Feniks]

As most people mention food is number one killer early on.

I will add to this as well be selective with your colonist. You get to pick your starting 3 guys make sure they are tough as steel. I have a personal rule of not taking aboard anyone who is psychic sensitive or  pansy in any other way.

Your skill selection for starting guys should be.

Skills you should focus on early on are cooking, growing, mining, construction and research. Also having a guys with shooting is good idea. Make sure your first free are capable of doing every job otherwise if one of them dies your colony will be doomed.

Default difficulty level in this game is very hard and unforgiving. I suggest new players start with rough rather than challenge difficulty level.

[Crazytown1]

Thanks for the tips guys. Keep them coming if anyone has anything else they feel is relevant.

So I had another go based on the advice and tips you have all given me and I got a really good start. Everyones mental health (which is what i struggled with most) is fine now. I noticed it was my miner(s) that always cracked first as they were generally in the dark and an ugly environment, so I've kept a close eye on them and pull them out to do something else if their mental health gets a bit low...this seems to have helped a lot.

[EarthyTurtle]

Tip number one.... Don't trust Pheobe, she is diabolical!
Tip number two.... Don't trust Tynan either , he's the one who made Pheobe the way she is.

Tip number three (which is serious this time) - If you have no moral qualms about being evil towards your allies, or exploiting a few game mechanics then what you can do for some early game items is trap visiting allies somewhere in your base without food.
A few days after they all pass away from starvation you can open up that section again, loot their bodies, and burn their corpses .
It's especially good if they have like 20+ visitors and some of them are packing miniguns/power armour. I love me some minigun-powerarmour/warmachine action.

[Crazytown1]

My moral compass has been known to be...pretty non exists any when it comes to looking out for my own alien colony's so I'll keep that in mind! Cheers!

[Raufgar]

Some things you'll want to keep an eye out for :

1) Starting colonists should not have any disabled jobs, except perhaps for Art. Also, avoid the aforementioned psychic sensitivity. Good Mining, Farming and Construction skills are needed for starting a colony, so don't be afraid to mash that Randomize Button over and over again.

2) I usually run power lines in the direction of my miners, with lights at intervals. This alleviates the "In the Dark" debuff. You can decommission the conduits and lights of you are not building in that direction yet.

3) Allies are more trouble than they are worth (comes in droves to eat your food, kill your prisoners and go insane inside your compound), so don't bother bribing them. Also, Goodwill resets after each loading of save games in A6.

4) Have fields of flowers to help with mental breaks (Draft the ticking time-bomb colonist, stand him in a field of roses). Carpeted, lit rooms with potted plants can help in a pinch. Pause the game when it tells you one or more of your colonists are about to go gaga, you can have someone else strip them of their belongings and standby melee specialists to incapacitate them in case they decide to revolt.

5) Mods are your friends, they can add new ways to help or antagonize your colonists, such as a different source of protein (meat) or furniture to improve moods. Or giant, highly accurate, automated guns that fire explosive rounds over your walls to hit siegers/raiders/mechanoids.