Tips for keeping people happy? (And not murdering eachother)

[AJ_]

My biggest issue is that in every game there's that one guy that just won't take it anymore and starts tearing stuff apart. Usually some spoiled brat that finds his bedroom too ugly. Any tips to keep the morale high? My biggest complaint is that they don't like how the basecamp looks, even though I keep it clean. These people should be happy to be alive.

[EmperorVolo]

Man the only thing I've found has been to rush for sculptures. It's the only method of pacification.

[Nixx]

Make sure you have a cleaner. Your colonists go ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ when the floor is muddy. Hideous surroundings is a -15 moodlet and it crushes your morale

[Nixx]

You could also remove his eyes so he can't see his ugly bedroom :)
Also try to get stonecutting research done early, get some stone flooring down for easy beauty stats

[Gnocchi]

Have you tried using potted plants and entertainment objects such as the horseshoe toss or chess table? I also try to make the rooms quite large per person and give each person their own individual room, otherwise they get a negative buff.

[Zubenelgenubi]

Originally posted by Caru:

I also try to make the rooms quite large per person and give each person their own individual room, otherwise they get a negative buff.

5x5 seems to be the smallest for rooms you can go without any small space negative buff, so i use that for all bedrooms, and even hospital beds. I see a lot of people putting multiple hospital beds in the same room but they get all kinds of negative buffs from that.

[Xodox]

little things, like a table beside food stores, making a fine meal instead of a simple one (5 of two foods as a opposed to 10 for simple), separate bedrooms with a flower pot and a small piece of art.

Work schedule should reserve atleast 2 hours for a joy activity, it may take an hour just to get back to the base.

make sure they cant see any corpes while they are working, either bury them or feed the wargs...

[Beltane]

Various things, not all can be easily done right from the bat. And some depend on your colonists. Here some tips that worked for me, at least i had no one gone totally beserk in my currently playthrough (though edgy at times, at dire circumstances):

- Colonists like space, give it to them. Build them a mid-sized house instead of a small room (mine are 9x11)
- Build a horse pin at the start. Easy to build an enough for them to build up joy.
- If you have enough wood at hand, skip the normal beds and go for double beds instead. Ditch those for royal ones later
- If you have a good cook and a good supply of a second meal ressource, craft lavish meals. Thats +10 mood from the meal alone, but needs cooking 10. But even fine meals grant a bonus.

Later you can also start to beautify their homes with sculptures, which can be quite tedious though if the sculpture are not either of really high quality and / or expensive materials. Beeing master of an animal give also a bonus, though i strongly recommend to do that only with non-combat-colonists.

A billard table comes also in handy rather early. Though i build such things mostly in some kind of towncenter with some tables to eat, as not eating at a table gives negative mood. Beer can also cheer people up. And even more funny if one of your colonists goes on a booze binge :D

And last but not least, take care for the temperatures. As most of us, colonists like rooms to stay at room temperature. So depending where you settled you will either need AC, heaters, or both.

Those are some of the things comming to my mind that helped me to pull against the many many negative factors you have no influence over. Hope it helps, cheers!

[Cultist]

You probably already understand how Joy works and what causes unhappiness. But if you're already caught in an infinite loop of bad mood, you can't fix it by normal means without consequences.

In these cases, the best thing you can do is force-feed pawns beer (they will pass out and/or be useless, but the mood buff is huge. And blind drunk pawns can't start fights if they can't get up from the floor). Keep them as drunk as possible until the worst mood penalties have expired.

If this is not an option, you may have to get rid of some of the most problematic pawns in order to prevent the others from being dragged into the negative mood spiral by being assaulted, insulted etc. Don't make them kill each other, as this will just make things worse. Find some other way to "lose" them, like putting them at the front lines of battles, fist fights with bears etc.

[AJ_]

Originally posted by Cultist:

You probably already understand how Joy works and what causes unhappiness. But if you're already caught in an infinite loop of bad mood, you can't fix it by normal means without consequences.

In these cases, the best thing you can do is force-feed pawns beer (they will pass out and/or be useless, but the mood buff is huge. And blind drunk pawns can't start fights if they can't get up from the floor). Keep them as drunk as possible until the worst mood penalties have expired.

If this is not an option, you may have to get rid of some of the most problematic pawns in order to prevent the others from being dragged into the negative mood spiral by being assaulted, insulted etc. Don't make them kill each other, as this will just make things worse. Find some other way to "lose" them, like putting them at the front lines of battles, fist fights with bears etc.

I'm 30 hours into the game, but I've never tried making beers yet, is it any good?

Also thanks for the other tips, guys.

[Joe Coffee]

Originally posted by AJ_:

My biggest issue is that in every game there's that one guy that just won't take it anymore and starts tearing stuff apart. Usually some spoiled brat that finds his bedroom too ugly. Any tips to keep the morale high? My biggest complaint is that they don't like how the basecamp looks, even though I keep it clean. These people should be happy to be alive.

Large enough spaces for them. I made an 8x8 bedroom equipped with heaters and vents, had a light source, and a double bed. Make sure temperature was set arount 76F. Had A/C installed elsewhere. All I had was shoddy or awful art pieces as they were being made so I put them in rooms. I did have around 3-block wide hallways and some passageways that had crafting booths and they didn't like that all much, but I'm like, FU, not tearing down walls to make you happy. But I also upgraded to fine meal and whenever trade happened with visitors, if they had beer, I got that. I put in a horseshoes game outside, two chessboards and a pool table inside. Most of the time now my colonists are above the contented level. With occasion of seeing a humanoid corpse somewhere, they have more benefits than deficits in happiness.

I just got my research done so I'm eligible to put in tube tvs so...not that I really need them, but I'll put them in anyway.

[Joe Coffee]

Originally posted by AJ_:

Originally posted by Cultist:

You probably already understand how Joy works and what causes unhappiness. But if you're already caught in an infinite loop of bad mood, you can't fix it by normal means without consequences.

In these cases, the best thing you can do is force-feed pawns beer (they will pass out and/or be useless, but the mood buff is huge. And blind drunk pawns can't start fights if they can't get up from the floor). Keep them as drunk as possible until the worst mood penalties have expired.

If this is not an option, you may have to get rid of some of the most problematic pawns in order to prevent the others from being dragged into the negative mood spiral by being assaulted, insulted etc. Don't make them kill each other, as this will just make things worse. Find some other way to "lose" them, like putting them at the front lines of battles, fist fights with bears etc.

I'm 30 hours into the game, but I've never tried making beers yet, is it any good?

Also thanks for the other tips, guys.

That'd help. I heard that beer will also help if your colonists have experienced some disturbing event, so give 'em beer if you get the chance.

[Azrail]

ive seen it somewhere but i would recomend for this ppl go take theyre eyes off , feed them to your rest from the colony, take organs out or sell it to a pirat in slavery (for that down him and then let him have fun in youre prison, oh yeah and before u sell him take 2 organs out when u go for 3 he dies )

[Shad]

Originally posted by Azrail:

ive seen it somewhere but i would recomend for this ppl go take theyre eyes off , feed them to your rest from the colony, take organs out or sell it to a pirat in slavery (for that down him and then let him have fun in youre prison, oh yeah and before u sell him take 2 organs out when u go for 3 he dies )

You you want all your colonsts to take a massive organ harvesting mood debuff for a season? That's not exactly going to solve the problem.