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SpringFall Wiki

Needs & Satisfaction

Overview

Every colonist carries a set of needs — hunger, energy, social, hygiene, comfort and recreation — that slowly drain as they go about their day. Left alone, a colonist will notice their own needs and go do something about them: walk to the larder and eat, find a bed and sleep. Your job isn’t to micro-manage every meal — it’s to make sure the colony has food, beds and a bit of comfort, so people can look after themselves and still get work done.

When a need runs low it drags on the colonist’s mood, and a colony of miserable, exhausted people works badly and eventually breaks down. Keeping needs met is the quiet backbone of a stable settlement.

How it works

Each need sits on a bar from full to empty. Cross a threshold and the colonist becomes hungry, tired, lonely, and so on — and that shows up as a debuff on their character panel with a plain-English cost (“−15% move speed”, “Cannot work”).

Two needs are urgent enough that a colonist will drop what they’re doing to fix them:

  • Hunger — a hungry colonist looks for food in order: something in their own pack, then a storage container or stockpile holding food, then a loose stack on the ground. If the colony has food somewhere, they’ll walk to it and eat, even across the whole map. If there’s genuinely no food, they say so (“No food!”) and go hungry. See Food & Eating.
  • Energy — a tired colonist looks for a bed: their own assigned one first, then any free bed, then a roofed room to sleep in, and failing all that they’ll lie down on the ground. A bed restores energy much faster than the bare floor, which is the whole reason to build them. See Sleep & Rest.

A colonist who is too hungry or too tired won’t take on new work until they’ve dealt with it — that’s the game telling you the shortage is real, not the colonist being lazy.

The gentler needs — social, hygiene, comfort and recreation — don’t send anyone running, but each one that’s low chips away at mood. A colony that never socialises or relaxes will drift unhappy even if it’s perfectly well fed.

If boredom gets bad enough a colonist will take a proper break, walking to a fire or a bench to sit at. When there’s nowhere in the colony to do that they’ll say so (“Nowhere to relax!”) and carry on working anyway — bored, and paying the mood cost for it, but never standing idle waiting for a comfort that doesn’t exist. That bubble is your cue to build somewhere to sit, near where people actually work.

Playing with it

  • Open a colonist’s panel to see every need as a coloured bar. Red or orange bars are the ones costing them mood — the panel’s Buffs & Debuffs section spells out exactly what each low need is doing to them.
  • Keep food where people work. Food a hauler has stashed in a container or on a stockpile is food your colonists can find; food nobody has stored yet isn’t. If people are starving next to a full field, you probably need somewhere to store the harvest. See Food & Eating.
  • Build beds early. One bed per colonist, ideally in a roofed room, turns sleep from a slow floor-nap into a proper rest. Assign a bed to a specific colonist if you want them to always use the same one. See Sleep & Rest.
  • Don’t forget the soft needs. A social spot, somewhere to relax, and clean, comfortable quarters keep mood up — see how mood adds up.

Good to know

  • A colonist eats a whole meal, animation and all — they won’t nibble one bite and wander off. If they’re still hungry with food left, they’ll eat again.
  • Colonists won’t feed themselves off the land. They eat food the colony already has — stored, dropped, or carried — but they will not go forage berries or hunt to fill their own belly. Feeding the settlement is your responsibility; a colony that runs out of food gets hungry and idle, which is your cue to fix the supply.
  • Uncooked food that needs cooking is skipped — it isn’t a meal yet, so leave it for the cook.
  • Food a colonist is carrying for a specific job won’t be eaten — deliveries and reserved items are safe.
  • A starving or exhausted colonist loses mood fast, and the worse it gets the faster it falls, so a small shortage caught early is far cheaper than a colony-wide slump.
  • Needs that stay empty stop being an inconvenience. A colonist who runs right out of food or sleep eventually collapses, and one left with nothing to eat can die of it — see what happens when needs run out.