Transhumans & Sleep Accelerators & Schedules

[marcusaddamsson]

I've been playin' lo-tech tribals for a while, but I thought it might be interesting to try transhumans, all hi-tech and stuff. So I finally get a colony of five transhumans (with collective, just 'cuz it's taken so long to get that part straight)... they've all got their own sleep accelerators, and neural chargers, and I think I've got a biosculpt pod for everyone 'cept the mech/main guy, 'cuz he's 20.

Aside from how expensive all that stuff was to build and maintain... the thing I'm really wrestling with at this point is schedules. Everyone's on a completely different schedule, popping and down all willy-nilly, as their sleep/food needs fluctuate. I mean, it's nice from the standpoint of 24-hour coverage... but it's weird, 'cuz you literally have to micro-each pawn, 'cuz you can't assume they're well-rested 'cuz it's noon.

And then there's this nigglybit: I've got a married couple in a double bed. They have to share one sleep accelerator, so it's whoever goes to bed first that gets it. The sleep accelerator specifically says that you can't put more than one on a bed, or if you do it's a waste... despite the fact that the bed has two people in it? Odd that.

[Astasia]

A sleep accelerator on a double bed affects both pawns that sleep in it.

As for schedules, it's not really feasible to maintain any sort of constant schedule later in the game. Leaving everyone on the default 16 anything 8 sleep means usually people are awake during the day and get some amount of sleep at night, but the issue is with high quality beds, bionic organs, sleep accelerators, colonists don't have 24 hour schedules anymore. Colonists get drowsy and want to sleep after 18 hours, but with quality beds and such they can be back to fully rested within 3-4 hours, this causes schedule shifting.

That said it takes like 34 hours for a colonist to become exhausted, so while some might be slightly tired when you need them because their schedule is off, they should always be rested enough to get what you need done. Because of that buffer it's not really something you need to micro, unless you are trying to make babies and need two pawns in bed at the same time. Throwing a few work blocks in can force pawns to be awake at certain times and influence them to sleep at the time you want, but tends to be inefficient long term in terms of productivity.

[marcusaddamsson]

Hrm. Thank you for your response. Yea, I'm not micro'ing them too much... it's really more before/after a battle, during the prep/clean-up. Sometimes I'll set up a quick zone to get stuff hauled quickly, set some mechs/pawns on those zones... and I find some dude asleep in the middle of a field. Fercrissakes, it's noon! ;)

I didn't know that about quality beds mean less sleep... I thought it was just comfort need bonus. Yea, I've only had a few transhumans in a larger colony of normals; and I liked havin' that extra coverage. But now that *everyone* is on some funky schedule...

Plus there's the paste dispenser. I totally get why the Devs made it work the way they did; it's incredibly efficient, but pawns won't pull a second meal to carry with them for the next meal. I know I could mod that behavior, but I wanted to figure out why they made it this way. Anyway, the dispenser is like the center of a transhuman colony, isn't it? Everyone's constantly crossing the map to eat... Bright side is no need for a bunch of tables scattered across the map.

[brian_va]

i think the point is that you are exchanging the mood debuff (ideology dependant) and the worker efficiency (carrying one with them) with the idea that a paste meal is more nutrient efficient as well as if you place tables near by, they will not get the ate without table debuff. so basically its (potentially) suboptimal gameplay in exchange for avoiding while perpetuating a meme.

if a -3 mood hit is really that big a deal, you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up royally elsewhere.

[Astasia]

I've played a few transhumanist colonies, I never use nutrient paste. It's not worth the mood penalty and the extra nutrition efficiency is rarely needed. The transhumanist precept to make them 0 mood is still a significant mood "penalty" compared to fine or lavish meals. A fine meal eaten without a table is still net positive mood and objectively better than nutrient paste even with the precept, not to mention lavish meals.

Nutrient paste is more for early game sea ice runs, where the extra nutrition efficiency is absolutely vital to survival. Or for prisoners when you don't want wardens wasting time delivering meals.

[Swordmouse]

I'd humbly disagree.

Even in biomes where food is plentiful, freeing up someone who would otherwise be tied down cooking, eliminating food poisoning risk, and stretching ingredients further (thus reducing the amount of farming/hunting needed, and a welcome boost from the added hunger rate from both the sleep accelerator and supercharger) are all quality boosts to efficiency, and 2 of those 3 become much more significant the bigger your colony gets. Having everyone rock a mood buff from constantly being on fine/lavish meals leads to less micro overall that's true, but it's not really a penalty outright, as it's not too difficult to get even a high-wealth colony happy without food buffs and anyone that's struggling can be switched to prepared meals as needed, treating them more like drugs.

Regarding transhumanists specifically though, I wouldn't say their paste tolerance isn't their main appeal, as that comes down to avoiding a measly -4 moodlet. I'd say it's more about the sleep accelerator and supercharger, both of which require a transhumanist to build and their reduced downtime in biosculptors. The mood bonus from having implants/bionics is fairly minor, but still a nice addition considering you're probably going to augment your colonists anyway, so it's essentially a free boost.

[marcusaddamsson]

Yea, the thing that really attracted me to the transhumans was the Biosculpture pod time reduction. That's HUGE, especially once you graduate from age reversal to actual biosculpting... I don't have the numbers in front of me, but that transhuman 50% reduction is really nice. And I don't see how you'd ever use a pleasure cycle on a normie, it barely makes sense for a transhuman.

[Swordmouse]

The pleasure cycle is pretty meh, I agree. I'm glad it exists in some form, but I personally have a hard time justifying the downtime required. Usually I use it in rare instances as a "timeout" for colonists who are both losing their minds, and are not impactful enough to be missed for extended periods of time.

[di eshor ribly]

The pleasure cycle comes in handy for Non-transhumanist colonies, assuming you want to speed up the biosculpting cycles a little bit. The pleasure cycle has one of the lowest run times, so you use it to biotune the pod. Then the next cycle (regenerative or age) takes less time.

[marcusaddamsson]

And yea, I've had my paste dispenser since the beginning, and I'm kinda lovin' it. Typically at this point of the game, I'd have a guy on the stove for hours a day... and then I gotta manage swappin' the mats, etc as the food supplies wax and wane. And frankly I've rarely ever seen the need for everyone to be eating Lavish meals, Fine seems to be enough in my experience. Let's not forget that whole the cook's down/gone and you didn't notice it until everyone's chewing on the furniture aspect...

Regardless, it's often a chore to ensure you have enough food to last 'til day X. With the Paste, no cooking (other than butchering and kibble)... loads of food in reserve, and I'm not storing a ton of food (aka reduced colony wealth)... it's just pretty good system overall, even the stupid 'extra meal' aspect.

[Vermillion Cardinal]

Not adding much except to say that in my colonies, paste is for animals, prisoners, the odd transhumanist, and emergencies; fine meals are standard fare for everyone else.

Food poisoning is a non-issue once you have a skilled cook and clean floors, planting more crops isn't a problem when they can be sold, and I need a cook anyway to brew my selection of alcohols for export.

[brown29knight]

I'm a transhumanist player who also doesn't go in for the paste. I find meals easy enough to make in large batches, and freeze until needed. After all, you have so many power needs late game, that getting power up and running early is something you are likely going to do anyway, so may as well get the freezers up too and start stockpiling.

I found the paste dispensers to be clunky. as I'm hauling to the hoppers constantly, and if the hoppers are not in a frozen area, then meat put in them will constantly spoil. Better to get a kitchen with shelves for limited warm food storage, near a freezer with long term storage.

Properly set up, my cook can make 45 meals without walking a step (meat on a small shelf, veggies on a large shelf, drop finished meals on ground.) After the chef finishes, the haulers come in, fill both shelves and haul the meals to my pantry, or as the colony gets bigger, haulers will come while he cooks, and the chef can make well over 100 meals in one day. (my current colony is 26 people, and I store 130 fine meals and 130 simple meals, so the chef is usually only making 52ish meals a day, leaving him plenty of time to make kibble and butcher.)

Transhumanist play is about having super-productive pawns who have more expensive upkeep... but Biotech lets you overcome almost all the downsides:

low metabolic rate = up to 50% less food eaten

Ageless = no biosculptor 3 day downtime per year.

Non Senescence = free use of nuclear stomach = one meal a day with sleep accelerator AND neural supercharger.

Xenogenes count as an augment: Even easier to get the "Transhumanist modded" bonuses.

Tox generators + Pollution pumps: Easy power in small space, very early in the game. (6 tox generators + 4 pollution pumps = power for a medium sized base, no batteries needed, 144 wastepacks per year,[which is also exactly what one wastepack atomizer will get rid of in a year])

Also, low sleep + Sleep accelerator + high quality bed = 1-2 hours sleep total for a night, which minimizes the power use/hunger increase of sleep accelerators, and lets you maximize the uptime of neural superchargers.

With hunger rates and aging controlled by genetics, and power made cheap and easy with tox generators, the downsides of the transhumanist meme are largely ignorable, but the upsides are still as good as ever.

Biotech really makes transhumanist shine as a powerful meme, instead of a niche one.