Happiness and surviving.

[CountJeffrey]

From what I can tell from others the best way to defend and survive is to build under ground. But when I try and build underground my people start getting really upset and get close to mental break downs. Now I give them light food and everything else they need but I just have to keep them from doing jobs and circulating them on and off so they don't go crazy and even that's not enough.

I think my biggest problem is that the area is ugly but I don't know how to actually make their surroundings looks nice. I have a screenshot of one of my earlier bases and it has a lot of what looks like rock shards and even if that doesn't effect happiness it just annoys me. Am I able to get rid of it?

http://i.imgur.com/gex6YSG.jpg (Note: this is a picture from an earlier base when I first started but even when I place floors it still has those rock shards)

Is there something I should be doing that increases happiness alot? Do I need a minimum number of lights in a room or something? I can't seem to figure out what I am missing. Any help/tips would be appreciated.

[RedStorm58]

The rock shards are debris. You are supposed to order your colonists to take them away.

[daft73]

From what I can tell from others the best way to defend and survive is to build under ground. But when I try and build underground my people start getting really upset and get close to mental break downs. Now I give them light food and everything else they need but I just have to keep them from doing jobs and circulating them on and off so they don't go crazy and even that's not enough.

I think my biggest problem is that the area is ugly but I don't know how to actually make their surroundings looks nice. I have a screenshot of one of my earlier bases and it has a lot of what looks like rock shards and even if that doesn't effect happiness it just annoys me. Am I able to get rid of it?

http://i.imgur.com/gex6YSG.jpg (Note: this is a picture from an earlier base when I first started but even when I place floors it still has those rock shards)

Is there something I should be doing that increases happiness alot? Do I need a minimum number of lights in a room or something? I can't seem to figure out what I am missing. Any help/tips would be appreciated.

Yes you can set your colonists to clean...go to your 'OVERVIEW' tab on the right-hand bottom corner. Set priorities there.

here are some old posts on the subjects of happiness, cleaning and what-have-you.
http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=1346.0
http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=1250.0

..add thought..as said above also set your colonists to haul debris. That is on the left-hand-bottom tab 'ORDERS'

[lewisd]

Some types of flooring also make them happier.  Check out the tooltips on the flooring, if they mention something about being nice to look at, or ugly, that gives some indication of their affect on happiness.  I like using polished stone, since that doesn't cost any metal, but that can only be used in caves, or on stone areas outside.  Where I can't use that, I use metal floor (no research needed, only 1 metal) or carpet (needs to be researched, costs 2 metal).

Putting the potted plant in places they go improves their happiness too.

For the big pieces of rock or slag debris, you'll need to order your colonists to haul it away, under the orders menu.  For the small dirty stuff, you need to designate your home region, and give someone priorities to do cleaning.

If they're complaining about cramped environment, make sure that they're sleeping indoors, and not sharing rooms with anyone.  The rooms need to have 27 tiles of walkable floor space to avoid being cramped.  A 5x6 room with a bed in it (and nothing else) is just big enough. If you're going to add other furniture, you'll want to use a bigger room.

I like putting a table and chairs near the food dispenser, so that they sit and talk while eating.  The social bonus from that helps them stay happy.

Hope that helps!

[OobleckTheGreen]

1. Make sure you mark your whole base as "Home" -- colonists will not clean anything not marked with the "Home" zone.

2. Use the "Haul Away" command to mark big rocks for removal.

3. Make sure you have adequate zoning for debris. I like to put a zone in my "fire lane" (where I bottleneck raiders into), then set that zone to debris only, highest priority. Once they fill it up with the crap you've marked as "Haul Away" it'll slow down incoming raiders significantly.

4. All the stuff said by previous ppl is good too, especially the stuff in the previous response about room sizes and social bonuses.

5. For later on, make sure you have a separate zone for corpses only, and make sure it's walled off so colonists don't see it accidentally. What I do is place a couple blasting charges while it's empty -- enough to blow everything inside to bits -- then as it starts to fill with bodies of raiders, blow the charges. No more bodies, no more colonists complaining about seeing dead bodies.

Here's a shot of an underground base kept clean so you can see that it can actually be done

[lewisd]

5. For later on, make sure you have a separate zone for corpses only, and make sure it's walled off so colonists don't see it accidentally. What I do is place a couple blasting charges while it's empty -- enough to blow everything inside to bits -- then as it starts to fill with bodies of raiders, blow the charges. No more bodies, no more colonists complaining about seeing dead bodies.

Oh, that's a good one.  Not much makes them as unhappy as seeing someone die, and seeing corpses.

I find that, after a battle, it's best to pick some colonists who are already traumatized from the corpses, and ordering them to prioritize hauling the corpses to the corpse dump.  They'll often be scared enough that the fear will stop them from rebelling.

Although blasting charges work well for 'cleaning up' the corpse pile, they need to be researched first, and they cost metal to build.  Once you've got frag grenades from some raiders, I use those instead.  Arm a colonist with them, then draft them and move them to *just* within grenade lobbing range of the corpses.  That should be far enough still that they won't complain about having seen corpses.  From there, you can fire at the corpses and 'clean up'.

If you surround your corpse dump with walls, make sure to leave the walls far enough away from the stockpile that badly thrown frag grenades won't damage the walls.  Also leave enough room for the grenade thrower to stand far enough away from the corpses that he doesn't complain.  To be honest, I don't usually put walls around the dump, I just make a 5x5 dump far enough away from my colony that they don't wander into it by accident.  I usually keep it clean anyway, so it doesn't matter too much.

[Coenmcj]

Everything here is a valid point, but I think you've missed something.

Colonists really don't like sitting in the dark, or in cramped places and especially don't like sharing bunk space with another person let alone a whole group so try and always provide large, lit areas and try and refrain from putting 2 people in the same room for sleeping.

[CountJeffrey]

Thanks for the responses guys . I think I should be able to do all this my only problem is early game where I don't have much and I have to start building is where my biggest problem lies.

[Pirx Danford]

In the early game it is best to just let your people camp outside, until you are able to provide single finished rooms for them within the base.

What I do is to provide 6x6 sized rooms (7x7 with walls) with smooth stone structured ground, until I can provide and afford carpets, also everything has to be cleaned.
Each colonists room gets a bed, a standing lamp and at least one flower pot and has doors at the entrances (no gaps in walls!).
Similar to what OobleckTheGreen shows with his base setup.
This works well enough for happiness.

If a solar flare happens it might become necessary to set up outside camping to prevent mental breakdowns, especially in combination with a raid and a pile of corpses it can drive people to the brink.

Alternatively if mental breakdown only affects a few you could also arrest them and convince them to stay later on... reducing workforce is dangerous business though.

[CountJeffrey]

In the early game it is best to just let your people camp outside, until you are able to provide single finished rooms for them within the base.

What I do is to provide 6x6 sized rooms (7x7 with walls) with smooth stone structured ground, until I can provide and afford carpets, also everything has to be cleaned.
Each colonists room gets a bed, a standing lamp and at least one flower pot and has doors at the entrances (no gaps in walls!).
Similar to what OobleckTheGreen shows with his base setup.
This works well enough for happiness.

If a solar flare happens it might become necessary to set up outside camping to prevent mental breakdowns, especially in combination with a raid and a pile of corpses it can drive people to the brink.

Alternatively if mental breakdown only affects a few you could also arrest them and convince them to stay later on... reducing workforce is dangerous business though.

Thanks for the further help. How do you defend yourself during this initial set up? Camping outside seems like it can leave you in a very exposed position.

[Pirx Danford]

Thanks for the further help. How do you defend yourself during this initial set up? Camping outside seems like it can leave you in a very exposed position.

Well constructing living rooms has priority of course, normally I get that done before too many attacks happened. At that stage I also do melee attacks on wannabee raiders to capture them in a makeshift prison if possible. Recruiting them then will speed finishing the base up pretty well.

Also take care to set the home zone only to the living rooms at first and expand it to a larger area later when the rooms are done.

[lewisd]

One thing about beds I forgot to mention.  Don't put them in a corner.  Sleeping next to two walls makes them feel cramped.

[Coenmcj]

The first few raids are usually quite relaxed, something to do is avoid turrets in its entirety as they will prompt larger forces. The main thing to focus on in the beginning is getting the base started and recruiting where possible.