Sanity Loss

[littlelambsy]

just curious, not complaining LOL. I researched the tech that stops martian born from sanity loss for working outside the dome. Yet when I look at their stats, they are losing sanity for working outside the dome. why? and what is the best way to increase sanity, especially for those who work during the night shift? Is there a tech I'm missing for that one? I have Rapid Sleep and Safe Mode researched as well.

[kaki_gamet]

Personally I prefer to avoid assigning night shift other than for services (not full) and medical (full only for spire) buildings. And for what I know there is not a tech/breakthrough that can prevent sanity loss (but if you can get Good Vibrations, that would be nice it too).

Only suggestion I can give you is to assign (manually) those with Composed trait so the loss is more bearable. And be sure there are medical buildings for everyone. Other than this you can go the smart housing way, but I find it a bit expensive (and micromanagement-ish) : /

PS: have no clue about why they should lose Sanity anyway, need more info ^^'

PPS: checked 18 martianborns working at Polymer Factories/Drone Assembler, no one of them had Sanity loss of any type. While at it noticed that Gamer, in the case you are fulfilling its need, give a Sanity bonus it too. Sorry for not mentioning it before, I always see it as a Flaw more than a Perk (real life experience, lol) : D

PPS: do you have them on Heavy Workload and/or Night Shift? Or is it happening to anyone?

[Sticky Wicket]

This always tends to involve a fair bit of manual micromanagement if you want to run a tight ship; the reason being that there are not enough choices or filters on the relevant structures that would help.

For a start the level of insanity that a colonist will drop to before they seek medical help is, imo, way too low; (usually around 25-30, but sometimes colonists will drop to 15 before they go and visit the infirmary). This endangers them to risks from other sources (such as asteroid showers). Really I would like to have seen the option for a player setting that determines the level of (in)sanity for colonists that they seek medical help to get a cure.

Secondly ( a personal bugbear of mine) smart housing really needed to have a filter mechanism similar to domes so that type of colonist traits etc could have been used to assign relevant people to them. Eg since smart homes actually heal sanity damage being able to assign night shift personel, engineers & geologists (working in outside factories mines) would have been the obvious thing to do; but there is no game mechanic that allows you to do it.....thus fiddly and unnecessary micromanagement is needed.

The best thing you can do is to create a separate dome with smart housing for geologists and engineers working in outside buildings and connect the dome to another for services.

As to why martianborn are getting sanity damage after discovering the tech to stop it seems to be a bug?

[n3mes1s]

Originally posted by littlelambsy:

just curious, not complaining LOL. I researched the tech that stops martian born from sanity loss for working outside the dome. Yet when I look at their stats, they are losing sanity for working outside the dome. why? and what is the best way to increase sanity, especially for those who work during the night shift? Is there a tech I'm missing for that one? I have Rapid Sleep and Safe Mode researched as well.

In the beginning, DONT make workers to go on night shifts. Until you have a settled down colony, if you have a polymers factory, deactivate the night shift, and so on. When you see that most of your starts are in green (overall) and you have some research done about martianborns, then you can start activating night shifts. Not before, or sanity is going to go down pretty fast.

You can build the exotic treatment addition in the medical post or the infirmary. That increases sanity. Remember you need exotic minerals for that. The hospital also increases sanity as far as i remember, and the medical center as well. But honestly you shouldnt be needed those at all, its a waste of spire and space to use them in mid stages of the game.

Also remember that sanity also increases if all the other values of the colonist are high, and decreases if not, so if your health is at 99% and your comfort is at 99% but your morale is at 50%... sanity is going to go down.. before it goes up.

Also, remember there are many bugs in this game. One of them was precisely that, colonists taking sanity damage in outdome buildings when they shouldnt. You are going to find weird things all over the place.

[littlelambsy]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

I do have the good vibrations breakthrough but haven't researched it yet. I will do that for sure.
I will also cut back on night shifts for in indoor buildings except for essential services such as infirmary. I didn't know Spire buildings make a difference for night shift workers... interesting.

I know "composed" trait loses less sanity, so yes, good idea to make sure all night shifts are filled with composed colonists. I don't give heavy workload for out of dome workers or night shift workers. I also turn of the night shift slot for all out of dome buildings.

The loss of sanity, even for martian born doesn't happen to all of them. Some are way up in the green no matter what they're doing. Others are heading for disaster in the red. I can't figure out why when I have the tech researched for martian born. ???

I agree that "gaming" should be a flaw or a quirk - life experience also! LOL And the religious trait should be curable at the sanitarium. I have nothing against religion in RL but, in game it seems that every martian born develops it so you end up spawning that awful "Holy Dome" storybit which plummets the moral of most of the colonists and sets them to zero! (game pet peeve)

I didn't know smart homes healed sanity. I have smart homes researched and usually put them in my science/research dome, because they look so "futuristic" LOL. I also like the idea of a smaller dome with smart housing just for outdoor workers. Thanks for that tip.

I have the hospital researched and I usually put that in a dome with tons of workers, like factory domes. But from the comments and suggestions, I think I will add more infirmaries and medical posts. From the ratio it seems I don't have enough.

Also the "exotic treatment addition" for hospitals, infirmaries and medical posts was mentioned. Is that the same as the rejuvenation upgrade? And, what are the exotic minerals, are they the same as rare metals? I have below and beyond but I have it turned off. I wasn't overly impressed with it.

Yes, I never understood why the game was created with outdoor workplaces, then workers got penalized for working in them??? That sounds a little redundant and silly.

Thanks again for all the wonderful suggestions and comments. I'm going to apply these right away. I have taken notes :)

[cap-boulanger]

Originally posted by littlelambsy:

I agree that "gaming" should be a flaw or a quirk - life experience also! LOL And the religious trait should be curable at the sanitarium. I have nothing against religion in RL but, in game it seems that every martian born develops it so you end up spawning that awful "Holy Dome" storybit which plummets the moral of most of the colonists and sets them to zero! (game pet peeve)

I think "Religious" is one of the default traits taught by schools, but you can manually change that.

Also if anyone has "Guru" their other traits become contagious.

[littlelambsy]

I just checked and the schools do train the religious trait, but I don't have that one checked off for teaching. I usually check off the Composed, Survivor and Nerd traits and, with the breakthrough, Workaholic and Hippie traits. So I don't know why my kids are being pumped with the religious trait when I don't have it active in the schools.

I do have a few Guru's because I have the NASA Education Mod which replaces the Idiot trait for a Guru in schools. I'm going to hunt down my guru and see what trouble he's up to LOL Thanks for the tip on that.

Aha! I found one colonist who is Religious and a Guru! He's going in a separate quarantined dome. LOL

[kaki_gamet]

Don't let the event Holy Dome scare you : D

It happens once and most of the times (always?) the best answer is to penalize religious. Why? Unless are you playing with Church (and then ALL of your colonists are Religious), most of the times those with Religious trait are far less than others, even if you are teaching it at school and the event triggers late, but the best part of it is that sinking Morale of Religious means really nothing as they have one of the best morale booster, Saints.

So if event happens early you won't notice it, if it happens late, you won't notice it ; )

By the way, I never meant that Spires are different for night shift, I just said that I prefer to keep the Medical spire fully staffed at night too. Or any spire as they are one-of-a-kind buildings after all, but everything must be set on a case by case, like if you have Martian Network and then leave all research buildings empty at night, the spire too can stay deserted at night. Water Reclamation I'm not sure yet, if it has a meaning to leave it on when farms are not active (in case of a specialized dome) or if it must stay on 24/7. Anyway are just two guys so I'm fine to leave it too on.

Service buildings including medical ones (and even security ones) it is better to have them on three shifts, but one can leave night shift not fully staffed. But if do you have enough colonists and with the "right" trait, why not? : )

Last note, I'm speaking from the point of view of base game only, but as you have access to more and better buildings, techs, breakthroughs, you may find that what I'm talking of is obsolete for your colony ^^'

[littlelambsy]

Thanks kaki_gamet, the last time I got the Holy Dome at least half of my colonists were religious, even though they are not scheduled to learn that trait in schools. And, I don't bring in religious colonists. So now that I know its not that big a deal I won't worry about it. :)

I started a new game (didn't like my layout and had too many colonists to change it), so now I can start putting into practice all the new things I've learned, especially about the night shifts. I have a mod where I can lock residences/workplaces, so I plan to build a smart apartment in my factory dome and make sure all the out of dome (day shift ) workers occupy that building, then I'll lock them in so they can't move out.

All information is perfect, regardless of what additional things I have access to. Of all the add ons for this game I think the best thing is the trains. I turned off the Below and Beyond because it made holes in the ground and hindered my building. Besides, for me, it wasn't anything special. And I never play with rival colonies, the pop up notices of who's doing what bugged me. LOL

[YertyL]

Originally posted by n3mes1s:

Also remember that sanity also increases if all the other values of the colonist are high, and decreases if not, so if your health is at 99% and your comfort is at 99% but your morale is at 50%... sanity is going to go down.. before it goes up.

That is not true. Morale is affected by all other stats (+5 for high/green values, -10 for low/red), but health, comfort and sanity are not.

To OP:

Originally posted by littlelambsy:

just curious, not complaining LOL. I researched the tech that stops martian born from sanity loss for working outside the dome. Yet when I look at their stats, they are losing sanity for working outside the dome. why? and what is the best way to increase sanity, especially for those who work during the night shift? Is there a tech I'm missing for that one? I have Rapid Sleep and Safe Mode researched as well.

Perhaps the sanity loss is from before you researched the tech? Check the sol number. Otherwise it sounds like a bug, but one I never encountered in many, many hours of play time.

Sanity loss is initially compensated by infirmaries, but they will only heal to medium/yellow sanity values. Later you can use medical centers, which heal to green and are much more efficient in medium+ domes (2 workers per shift often suffice) or smart homes, which are best for smaller domes, e.g. mining mini domes, or domes in which you want to use the spire slot for something else, e.g. research domes. For colonists with a social interest, you can combine smart homes and gyms (make sure they visit regularly, so not many other sources of social interest) to run heavy workloads with high/green health and sanity. Notably, engineers and botanists do not have a social interest, and geologists work outside already (smart homes can only safely compensate for 1 source of sanity damage), so it's best used for science domes.

[littlelambsy]

Ok thanks again for the suggestions and help. I will keep my eye on martian born and see how they do on night shifts (for infirmaries and services). :)

[Bored Peon]

No colonist should have a sanity break working third shift inside the dome.
You have another source of sanity loss, most likely disasters.

I see everything mentioned except the one thing that prevents sanity loss during disasters, a security station.

Originally posted by littlelambsy:

I have nothing against religion in RL but, in game it seems that every martian born develops it so you end up spawning that awful "Holy Dome" storybit which plummets the moral of most of the colonists and sets them to zero! (game pet peeve)

If you play the same save long enough you will get every event possible.
Holy Dome always occurs at some point. Just like the broken moxie, the water chip, etc.

[littlelambsy]

Interesting... I don't play the same save, when I save a game I give it a new name. Most of the time I forget to save and rely on the auto save. I find playing as "inventor" has its perks. A lot of the disaster storybits can be solved with the inventor options.

[littlelambsy]

I've never used the security station because I have a mod that stops/cures renegades. So I find it interesting that you mention that this helps with sanity. So should I use a security post/station in my domes anyway?

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by littlelambsy:

I've never used the security station because I have a mod that stops/cures renegades. So I find it interesting that you mention that this helps with sanity. So should I use a security post/station in my domes anyway?

Security Stations reduce the amount of sanity loss during a disaster. I cannot remember the exact numbers but it is something like this:
-10 each tick during a disaster for no security
-7 or -8 for a tiny 3 man one
-5 for the large 15 man one.

Which depending on how many colonist in the dome that can reduce the frequency they are all visiting the medics for sanity, if needed at all

Plus you may want a few security stations throughout the colony because you may need them for certain events and for planetary expeditions.

Of course a lot of this is going to depend on what your disaster settings are at. For example if you have cold waves maxed out and they can last 3-6 sols. Dust Storms 2-4 sols.

[littlelambsy]

Ok thanks. I have disasters very low. I think the map I play on (1S178E) is 2 Meteors and the others are all 1's. I will add a security station in my domes. :)