My biggest peeve with the game right now - mental breakdowns

[dalanmiller]

The game for me starts to become not fun at all when the base starts to get pretty big and I have to start micromanaging each colonist from doing stupid things that will cause them to go into a mental breakdown.

I'm not sure that the player should be expected to constantly cater to the breaking down of each colonist it just turns into a game of whack-a-mole of how many mental breakdowns you can juggle at once which starts to really suck.

What I wish is that there was a setting where when a person starts to get stressed that you can just have them stop whatever ultimately unimportant work they are doing and go take care of their needs. Like at the moment going to grab that X item from across the map isn't really necessary right now but if you have another breakdown, I (the player) am going to have a breakdown.

How do other cope with this? Am I the only one who thinks that there should be some more mental fortitude or at least ways to better strengthen the will of your colonists?

[Shinzy]

I don't have lot of mental problems (Ingame, before any wisecrack says anything!)

If you keep the outside the base area jobs under control
Don't have all the animals being hunted at the same time or assign all the remnants of a siege site to be hauled in at a one go

Then they don't have reasons to constantly wander off and completely flip out in the middle of the desert somewhere cause they have sand in their boots and they didn't think of eating anything or having a nap and the surrounding being really, really unidyllic and totally not pleasing to the eye

Slow and steady usually wins the race =P

Then again I really enjoy juggling with everyone losing their mind at the exact same time

[Bog]

Are you maximizing their morale during peace time?

I don't have many problems on this front, but I usually have all my colonists in 5x6 rooms eating lavish meals all the time.

[bobucles]

The biggest factors for every day morale come from food and lodging. You want to make sure colonists are eating cooked meals at a table all the time, and that they sleep in their own bed in their own bedroom.

Any indoors location should be cleaned regularly with the cleaning job. The biggest dirt makers come from managing crops and not building floors indoors. Snow maps are nice because the default snow terrain does not make dirt tracks.

Dead bodies should be cleaned up and battles kept as far away from your key colonists as possible.
Also, don't play huge maps! The distances are simply too far for your guys to do anything useful. A bad hauling task from the edge of the map can send your guys loco as they make a 20 hour expedition for a single thing.

[ZanathKariashi]

If their morale starts getting low, just put them under house arrest and give them some counseling to max it out. Works quite well with a 10+ social guy as your counselor/warden, the convinced by warden buff lasts a few days and is quite huge.

[ousire]

The biggest problem comes if you don't have a lot of colonists. If you only have four or five people, they're going to have to do a lot of work to keep up with all your requirements. When I had 20+ colonists then the workload is divided between them enough they all get a generous amount of free time and sleep, and I almost never had any problems with their mental state except for right after a large siege, or something that forced me to keep them all busy for long periods

[cj9999]

I agree with proposal

Its painfull when you can not order the colonist to go the bed or eat, because he/her is doing something very important (extinguishing fire prehaps) 

mental brakedown can occur even in large colonies when multiple negative factor influence the colonists at same time (psychic drone, cleaning mess after large raid,inability to prepare fine or lavish meal, prehaps because of lack of meet...)

[dalanmiller]

Are you maximizing their morale during peace time?

I don't have many problems on this front, but I usually have all my colonists in 5x6 rooms eating lavish meals all the time.

Besides full body messages? Absolutely, everyone has their own room, fully furnished, and I try to upgrade to the nicer bed. I also make sure that everyone eats at the minimum a simple meal and that food is always plentiful and that the main pathways in and out or speedy so they can quickly get to one thing or another. I even make sure that there are lights in the main mining tunnels.

Your suggestions still don't solve the problem that a colonist will simply work themselves into a frenzy when in times of peace and prosperity but it's not an easy thing to balance between putting out a fire which may seem critical or going and having a meal which is actually the more important thing since it's going to prevent me having a fire AND a crazed colonist.

[BetaSpectre]

Tynan is thinking about making breakdowns temporary/elastic.

[Damien Hart]

Are you maximizing their morale during peace time?

I don't have many problems on this front, but I usually have all my colonists in 5x6 rooms eating lavish meals all the time.

Besides full body messages? Absolutely, everyone has their own room, fully furnished, and I try to upgrade to the nicer bed. I also make sure that everyone eats at the minimum a simple meal and that food is always plentiful and that the main pathways in and out or speedy so they can quickly get to one thing or another. I even make sure that there are lights in the main mining tunnels.

Your suggestions still don't solve the problem that a colonist will simply work themselves into a frenzy when in times of peace and prosperity but it's not an easy thing to balance between putting out a fire which may seem critical or going and having a meal which is actually the more important thing since it's going to prevent me having a fire AND a crazed colonist.

There's a design flaw in your base right here; anything you build in a colonist's room (except the bed, obviously) is essentially wasted, as the only time they spend in their room is literally the time spent walking between the bed and the door (sleeping doesn't count, because environmental factors have no effect then).

This might change if Tynan institutes some concept of ownership, with colonists being made happy by having more stuff, but until then you'd be better off to shift it to commonly used areas, like the dining room, heavily used hallways, especially near your entryway(s).

[ZanathKariashi]

Another thing that could be done is the ability to assign a motivational speaker. Could make a podium they can stand on and give speeches to improve the morale of the listeners in range, with the ability to make speaker poles to expand coverage .

Basically, you could give speeches just before a defense to give your soon to soldiers some much needed pep to help offset the rigors of the battle to come, or during peace-times, go all Jonestown on them by brainwashing them to believe that everything is fine despite the fact that they just ate their friends corpse or are living in squalor, aside from the speaker himself. Though the exact bonus being capped on based on the speaker's social skill.

[Bog]

If their morale starts getting low, just put them under house arrest and give them some counseling to max it out. Works quite well with a 10+ social guy as your counselor/warden, the convinced by warden buff lasts a few days and is quite huge.

Haha, I never thought to arrest people before they go berserk.

I'll definitely give that a try soon. Kudos.