Ugly Environment

[Vault Dweller]

Ive read many guides and have the basics of the game down, can any vets share just tips for getting my environment as non- ugly as possible; I am using the three colonist playmode with the chillax storyteller on "some challenge". I have nothing researched yet.

[Jigain]

Basically boils down to two things: beauty and filth.

Filth is the easiest one to manage - in the work tab, ensure someone has a high priority on cleaning. It's not something that requires a lot of work, so just pick whomever is doing the least important stuff, preferrably with a high walk speed as they're going to go all over your home area to clean it up.

For beauty, give your rooms floor. Smoothed floor if you can (only possible on stone, so perfect for mountain bases), otherwise probably carpets if you can afford it, simple wooden floors otherwise. Build high-quality furniture (easier the higher the construction skill of the colonist building it is) - late-game I never accept any furniture less than Superior, and if I have the resources to spare, only Masterwork stuff gets saved. And have a pawn make sculptures to install in rooms where you need to raise beauty, ideally made of marble, but anything goes. I recommend large statues, as grand ones take up too much space for my tastes. If you're short on statue-making ability, you can also build flower pots and have your growers plant flowers in them.

[Ashardalon]

on the bottom right there is an icon that looks like the upper third of a human
if you click that you can see a locations beauty and what is affecting it
its an easy way to see what is wrong in a room

beyond that jigain has mentioned everything that i can think of immediatly

quick advise tho, dont stick to wooden flooring if you can help it
it burns and has only a neutral beauty value
stone flooring is superior in every way and stonecutting should always be the first thing you go for if you are not on some insane biome

on flower pots, i advise changing the plant from the standart daylily that is selected once built to the rose
rose has slightly lower beauty but a longer lifespan
in the early game having your grower constantly run around planting flowers instead of food might not be the best plan, the longer lifespan will make that more managable

[elipod]

For visibilty, there's tool in bottom right coner that shows beauty around cursor. Another good way to scan for beauty is to look up needs tab for any pawn. Beauty for all visible tiles is normalized, with some penalty for tigh spaces, but small rooms are still esier to beautify (less statues needed)

Quality furniture affects beauty less now, it's better to go with flowers early, statues later. With furnture, I only care about efficiency/comfort bonuses, if there are any.
In very early game, if you can't spare work time for cleaning, don't rush floors, exept for hospital, each pawn/animal coming from dirty tiles to handmade floor will create a dirt stain, each animal with non zero wildness will cause filth on handmade floors, all of that will chew most of your cleaner's time. Cheapest way to make rooms beautiul without floors, is to set up grow zone for flowers. They can grow inside with just regular lamp or torch light.

[cstoneburner]

To help keep down filth, don't forget to pave/smooth/carpet under doors.

Stuff on the floor has a negative beauty. It doesn't matter in warehouses, but in places where your colonists spend a lot of time shelves are your friend when it comes to storing stuff.

If you're really into beautiful environments you may eventually want to look into some mods as there are several that add beautiful things (including some unlikely ones like https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1185274792 which has stunningly beautiful plants).

For some numbers relative to all room stats (not just beauty) check out http://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Room_stats

[Vault Dweller]

Thanks guys, the beauty tool, and fact that furniture actually has qualities has helped improve my people. Also I will definitely check out mods down the line that one looks like it would sooth my ocd.
I've tried to find a way to restrict my cat from going indoors,and also to prevent visitors from entering my colonists rooms, is it possible to do this?

[elipod]

Can't control visitors without mods like door locks or Hospitality.

Cat can be assigned to zone, it has zero filth and can be kept on floors only, or off floors only to avoid any dirt created. It might also be wize to zone cat away meal storage, as it will consume entire meal worth of nutrition each time it goes hungry, while with small foods like raw meat or kibble it does not need much.

And for quality, check out Quality builder mod, which makes sure that only best builder is making furniture.

[CyPunk]

The Hospitality mod is nice for restricting visitors, but sometimes seems glitchy... could be I sometimes forget to restrict them though!

A few others for your beautification efforts:

Cleaners clean your home area, which can include dirt paths and mines. This allows you to set the area so they clean what matters:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=870089952

I find the bedrooms to be huge in vanilla, compared to other rooms that should be huge (workshop etc). This helps, and includes a slight "its only a little dirt" fix. Lite version also available if this seems too OP.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=848972794

If you need to build against a mountain, a life saver for those ugly walls:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1198839349

As for actual advice, I would add do not neglect getting streets and storerooms paved with at least something neutral asap. Lots of dirt gets drug in when your stonecutter, for example, grabs a rock, come in the cut it, then goes to put in storage... over and over again. Material is up to you, I use concrete for store rooms/fridge, paved tile at most, and flagstone for streets/main paths, since it lays quicker than tile (there is also a mod so it uses less stone, in full and lite versions, which I find realistic).

[Ashardalon]

dont use concrete, it has -1 beauty
even wood is better unless you have pyromaniacs
and you should turn pyros into hats instead of letting them wander around your base

[Jigain]

Concrete is fine so long as you're using it in areas pawns merely pass through. But try to avoid putting it in rooms with any kind of work benches or otherwise things that would cause pawns to spend a lot of time around.

If you're looking at floors from a purely beauty standpoint, gold tiles are the best at 4, followed by carpets, silver tiles, and smooth stone all at 2, then stone and metal tiles at 1, then wood, sterile tiles, flagstone and paved tiles at 0, and finally concrete at -1.

But honestly, what kind of floor you use doesn't really matter in the long run. Let's say your bedrooms are a generous 7x7 room (internal measuring), that's 49 tiles of floor. That's negated by 1 small normal quality sculpture of steel. Let's say instead you make a superior quality large sculpture of marble, that'll give you a net beauty of about +220, and yes, that includes the concrete floor malus. Throw in a nice bed and maybe a flower pot and the floor barely counts for anything.

[Ythill]

I use concrete floors in my battery/generator rooms, coolers, and warehouses. Nobody seems to mind.