Base design

[Florius]

One of my more efficient bases to defend against big raids seems to work reasonibly well:
http://puu.sh/k3bNu/83b7feba76.jpg

Especially if I place more turrets on the side (haven't found the steel to do that on this map).
With rows for 4-8 turrets, and place them so they just about reach to the end of where they enter, so the raiders have to walk far to reach the turrets to melee attack them.

Not sure if there is a better way to take on bigger raids, so if anyone has tips, I would gladly hear them!

[Too-DAMN-Much]

i think i play this game a bit too much like i do prison architect, personally, each new colony is an iteration of the same design i always make, fresh with insights from the failures of the last.

typically i always do 7x7 colonist rooms horizontally somewhere there's a good amount of cover from mountains nearby and a choke point, then i'll expand a large "living room" downwards which holds most work stations that don't get their own area, i always try to plan out a fridge (for raw) and a freezer (finished products and herbal meds) next to the cooking stuff and finally where i can fit one in my battery storage room (no space left for colonists to walk).

i'm one of those people who usually always builds in odd numbers too, it annoys me to have a door off-center a lot.

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

I don't do 7x7 rooms as they take up to much space in my opinion

[RoboticManiac]

I used to do open bases since they seemed more realistic and gave a good space western feel when made out of wood and had automated sentries strewn about, but the game has beat me into the mountains. I use hydroponics even when I'm not on an ice sheet, simply because I like to be as self sufficient and insular as possible. I'm prone to even barricading my self in by destroying the old doors for entrance in and filling them with walls.

[Too-DAMN-Much]

I don't do 7x7 rooms as they take up to much space in my opinion

to be quite honest the more i think about it my rooms should be 8x8 to account for the extra space double beds would use after the colony's lived a few years

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

I wedge myself between hills usually so I only have two points of entry to worry about and because it's a hill and in between two I rarely have enough space to have large rooms with out stuff getting cluttered... I keep my building apart to prevent things like fire from spreading too fast

[TLHeart]

Since every colonist does not need the same size room, I vary the size according to the needs of the colonist. And rooms do no have to be square, they can be "T" shaped, "L" shaped, just need to get the size and wealth to the point the colonist wants.

Ascetic thrives in small rooms. Just don't make it cramped.

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

I have been planing something like then when I heard there were different colonist traits for rooms but I haven't gotten anyone with them

[TLHeart]

After some more play time, here are some screen shots of the growing base,

first off the hospital. The entire room does not need to be floored with sterile tile to achieve a sterile environment.  Also sick patients were getting cramped environment when the bed was against a wall, so no more hospital beds next to walls. Now my sick (malaria, flu) patients can rest until healed without bad moods.



Onto the new dining hall. The colonist like it, built all the table out of wood, until they were all good quality or better, same with the chairs. And  Sparkles my level 20 jealous artist, provided the sculpture. I did rearrange my freezer so that the food storage was close enough that they would use the detached dinning hall. And 50 beers for that joy time.



next the rec room, had a table and soft chairs in here originally, but that table was closer to the meals, so the colonist would not use the dinning hall, so I removed the table, and put two additional chess tables in. Again Sparkles worked hard on sculptures, all those little ones to get her skill up, and then the awesome ball for the rec room.  Horseshoes and telescope are on the south patio.



Hope these all give you some ideas....

[TLHeart]

and here are the benefits from building those very impressive rooms.
+4 mood for 1/2 a day from dinning hall
+4 mood for 1/2 a day from rec room
and indirectly
+5 mood for a day from pleasant environment.

[Wex]

I have basically no control about "HOW" my base grows. It's like a cancer. It expands itself.
I do my best to at least keep a perimeter, but sometimes it simply escapes.

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

I like to keep the dinning room and freezer close to each other as well as the hospital nearby since i store medicine there to keep it from deteriorating. I keep the colonist rooms nearby the rec room and sometimes by a field of flowers if I'm out side. Then I just put the work room and prison by eachother as they don't really have anything in common with the other rooms and all my buildings a near by eachother

[MisterVertigo]

Here is the latest template that I use for my bases. This is a new version I just created, but it's based off the one I've been using for a while now. This template varies from time to time, to account for terrain, geothermal locations, natural barriers, etc. The left half I usually try to carve into a mountain. It is my "living quarters". The right half I try to keep outdoors with a thick wall around it. This is where all my work gets done.

(Grey squares are walls, orange squares are doors, blue squares are coolers and vents, and red squares are turrets)



The room in the top-left is my hospital, complete with it's own cooler for my meds and any organs I may buy or harvest.

The larger bedroom on the right is reserved for my colonist with the highest social value. I will build the comm relay right in their bedroom to make it easy for them to make a call right when waking up or before going to sleep.

In the middle of my bedrooms I have two large rooms. The bottom one is my kitchen/freezer. It has three AC units and two sets of double-doors. My butcher tables and stoves are all inside the freezer. All hunter kills, butchered meat, crops, and prepared meals are all in this cooler. The top square room is my dining room/rec room. Colonists walk into the kitchen/freezer and grab a meal, and then sit down at the tables to eat.

The outside bedrooms on the right side of the living quarters I use for prisoner cells, or bedrooms once they decide to join.

You can see I put a duct going all the way around the living quarters. This is to vent the heat from my two coolers. I can also add coolers to bedrooms if I want. I haven't quite figured out a way to cool my dining room yet.

The right half of the map I usually try to keep outdoors with thick walls on the outside. The big, square rooms on the bottom are my warehouses and trade beacons. The room in the center is my workshop with all of my workbenches. Sometimes if the terrain is right I can keep these inside the mountain too.

The smaller room at the top is my crematory, where raider bodies are piled before I strip them and incinerate them. The larger room is my animal pen. This is still something I'm trying. In my last game I kept part of it with a roof over it to store hay. During the growing season the outdoor part of it is my hay field. Typically during the growing season I'll let the livestock outside my walls to graze on the natural grass. This allows the hay field to fully grow and allows me to stock up for the winter. When the snow falls and there is no more grass to graze I'll move the livestock back inside to eat the hay. It just sucks during raids in the summer! Sometimes they will get to my livestock before they move inside.

The open area in the middle is where I grow all my crops. It's not a TON of room, but so far I haven't had any issues feeding my colonists. The far right side is my kill box. It works OK, but not as well as it did a few patches ago.

The only thing missing here is my battery storage. Since I'm usually carved into a mountain I just find a random spot to hollow out and store them.

Anyway, I know it's not perfect, but I like it. It takes a while to get carved out, and you can't really "move in" from your original temp base until you at least get the kitchen and dining room carved out. That can take a while sometimes.

I'd love to hear what you guys think!

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

It looks simple and very effective... What program are you using to design this as well as for any temp control problems you can always move walls apart and make a central hallway for hot air to go out through

[MisterVertigo]

It looks simple and very effective... What program are you using to design this as well as for any temp control problems you can always move walls apart and make a central hallway for hot air to go out through

I use a chrome browser extension called grid-paint. I literally lets you color in squares on a grid. It's kind of nice, because I can bring up my picture on another monitor when I'm in-game, and then I can use the planning tool to draw out where I need to mine and build walls.