Stress

[Bobalot]

Noob at this game.

How do I reduce stress other than alcohol?

I know there are events like watching the sunset, flirting, etc. but they don't seem to have much impact.

[ambi]

you'll need to cook food. alot of meals come with a stress debuff. fruit platters (made from a single piece of fruit) and warm milk (made from one milk) are very good for reducing stress early in the game. they provide -8 and -16 stress, respectively. fruit platters satisfy only 25 hunger, so you can eat alot and wipe away your stress.

[veryinky]

Cook your meals. Even cooking rations eliminates the stress they cause when eaten raw. Cooking most ingredients is better than eating them raw. Salt and sugar seem to be the near universal addition to basic ingredients to make simple meals. Adding water usually makes a soup, adding flour makes more expensive but better meals.

Early on I like buying up mushrooms and game meat, cooking a mushroom and game meat together; they're cheap and combined provide ~60 food and remove ~7 stress, a meal of that costs about 30. Cheaper than buying a ration.

An other simple recipe is fruit + sugar, makes a fruit lollipop which gives 30 food and -20 stress relief. Add milk, for fruit + sugar + milk and it gives stewed fruit, 100 food and -47 stress relief.

What I make when I have a settlement is mass produce Braised Meat and Fruit Lollipops.
Pork + salt + flour = 130 food and -50 stress. Paired with Fruit Lollipops stress is no longer a problem. Town produces wheat -> flour, pork, ore->salt, fruit, sugarcane ->sugar. With that I no longer have to worry about food or stress.

[Tahnval]

As a minor addition, you can usefully forage for mushrooms when stopped in a forest area. Mushrooms can be used for game with fried mushrooms and seafood with fried mushrooms. It can be a useful addition to buying mushrooms. There will probably be some times when you're in a town that sells game and/or seafood but not mushrooms.

There are a lot of recipes, but as other people have said food is the key to managing stress. (in this game. Not in real life!) Just find somewhere not too infected where you can camp, camp and open the kitchen tab that appears on the left of the screen. Or you can cook in complete safety in any town you've claimed for your own, regardless of how developed (or not) it is.

I like to bulk cook hot dogs (pork or chicken + bread) myself, but all sorts of cooked food works just fine. Or prepared food, since some of the recipes aren't actually cooked despite being made with the cooking mechanic. You can also add extra optional ingredients to many dishes to increase their stats. For example, you can add vegetables, salt, spices and/or seasoning to hotdogs.

The quality of the food is affected by the cooking skill of your crew member with the highest cooking skill and only them. At higher levels they'll make better quality versions of the dishes, with better stats. normal, advanced, legendary. The higher their cooking skill, the more of the meals they prepare will be higher quality. So it's worth having one crew member at least somewhat skilled at cooking.

Some skills go on the average of your crew, some on the total of your crew, some go on only the most skilled of your crew. If you click on the crew button towards the lower right of the screen the skills will pop up and the ? button next to each one will tell you whether it's average, total or highest only.

[Flash]

Everytime there sunset, sunrise and moon rises (start of night), try to be outside so that your crew can view these events. They can reduce stress a lot and try to keep your crew happy. it lowers stress increase a lot for duration of happiness (stress bar will become green color)

[Myth Alric]

Most things have a minor impact, but they add up over time. Outside food as mentioned, you can also reduce stress while resting at the VIP inn. I usually get some clout so I can free rest there every time I enter town.

[Flash]

1. Having crew of opposite genders (with orientations to match) can help you with hooking up IF and once they become friendly with each other (relationships is a bit messed up and can go the other way here). This is the biggest stress reliever at the cost of fatigue

2. Crew eat a lot. So as Tahnval said, Eating stress relief food like hot dogs etc. can help a long way. Having an exquisite table can also help reduce fatigue at the same time

3. You can flirt with people at bars. It does cost money though.

4. Sunset, sunrise, admire the moon are all events that occur every day so while they reduce about 1/6th the stress, you can accumulate the stress relief (admire the moon can be initiated twice as its the longest duration event spanning 2 clicks) to reduce more than half of your stress

5. Food made for stress relief can be force fed for your characters. Click on character --> eat and give them the best stress reducer quality food. Just make sure you time it right so their hungry then

6. Drinking booze is a quick solution. I think using the bathroom in bars reduces the time to sober up from booze

7. VIP room in bars reduces some stress

8. If your characters have negative stress traits, make it a priority to gain 3 traits points to remove these first or this can end your game. Positive stress relief traits are not really that good imo at the moment.. your characters stress seems to increase the same and the other points above do a much better job

9. VERY IMPORTANT - Once your crew is at zero stress, KEEP them happy. Time your sunrise etc. events so every 8 hours or so your crew witnesses it and remains happy (green stress bar). Their stress (tested) and fatigue (not fully sure) increases very slowly for the duration of happiness.

Tip: If your having too much issues, one solution would be to get the gourmand (great stress reduction when eating) trait and then add an attack pet to your character to increase their appetite. now all you need is a truck full of nice stews, braised game and hot dogs

[Mr. Samsa]

The homophile and heterophile traits are a huge help for set-it-and-forget-it style. Having one of those traits with the right crew, a fancy dining table and 50 fruit salads will get you a loooong ways. Generally having good food all the time is the best way to keep stress down.

[uncleed]

Cook good food
Mingle at the bar with acquaintances
Get frisky at the bar
Throw a party with an entertainer during a sandstorm
Try to score perks that lower stress or increase the limit

Have a crew that bonds well. You can always spend 10 bonding points from a character to console the stressed one and buy some time.

When you have an influx of clout points, use those to sleep in the VIP suites, which rests the crew and cuts a large portion of stress.

Stare at the moon, the sunset, the sunrise.

[david]

think there are some bugs in this. the VIP does nothing for my crew and the food sometimes does not work as well.

[PlayerGamer]

Bloodthirsty is by far one of the best trait for maintaining stress IMO,

+Reduces increase of stress during combat encounters

+Easy to activate, Just make sure that the finishing blow is melee

+Combat initiation is easy and control (go to low infection areas just for melee them quickly)

-Auto combat/auto resolve doesn't activate this trait (in my testing)

-Keep an eye on your crew's fatigue because melee uses fatigue moderately

[Tamazin]

Have equal amount of male+females so everyone can pair up, save-scum and get monogamist on every trucker because by god they cheat all the time otherwise, get every trucker to hook up with each other, done; just hook up when camping for free stress reset.