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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.

You don’t have to wait for it to get that bad. A colonist with nothing to do — no work, no orders — will find something to do with their free time. Which thing depends on what they’re short of and who they are:

  • Sit somewhere — a fire, bench or table, when recreation is running low. A nearby seat beats a distant one, a crowded one loses to a quiet one, friends make a place more tempting and rivals less, and somewhere they haven’t been lately feels fresher. A Bard performing there makes it pull harder.
  • Practise — a training dummy or a reading stand tempts a colonist who is interested in what it teaches, and the time actually trains the skill.
  • Pray — a believer drifts to a shrine a little before their next rite is due.
  • Chat — two idle colonists who both want company will walk over to each other and talk.

A colonist who is content, or who has work to do, stays put or carries on. Spread a few seats and props around the settlement and idle colonists will use them. In the Assignments window, the Free time buttons switch whole kinds on or off for the colony (for example, no one practises, or no one is drawn to music).

Plan the day. The Schedule tab of the Assignments window lays the day out as a grid of 24 hours. The top row is the colony’s plan, and every colonist has a row under it. Pick a brush and drag across the hours to paint them:

  • Sleep — colonists who are even a little tired go to bed and stay there until the block ends. Anyone starving still gets up to eat.
  • Meal — colonists who are getting hungry go and eat, instead of waiting until they are desperate. The colony takes its meal together: a table is set up round a tavern table or fire near the middle of the settlement, colonists with nothing to do walk over and sit down, hungry ones eat there, and people who eat side by side warm to one another (which is how courtships begin). Set chairs round the table and they sit in the chairs and eat from them; with none, they stand round it. A larger colony gets a second table, and a third, when the first is full — and if enough colonists have painted a Meal hour of their own, a table is set up for them even when the colony’s plan has none. Sitting in company lifts the mood a little and eases loneliness. Guards, scouts, wardens and healers stay on call, and anyone who is starving eats where they stand.
  • Leisure — idle colonists stop looking for ordinary work and spend the hour at a fire, a bench, a shrine or with a friend. Colonists who want company gather in a small circle round a fire or table and talk with one another. Guards, scouts, wardens and healers stay on call, and anything already in someone’s hands, or that you ordered, carries on.
  • Work and Anything — no change; colonists follow their needs as they always did.

Standard day paints a sensible default for the colony, Clear takes the colony’s plan away, and a gold bar marks the hour it is right now. A plan never stops a colonist saving their own life — it only moves when the ordinary wants are met.

Hours of their own. Paint on a colonist’s own row and only that colonist changes — a night owl who sleeps through the morning, a cook who eats late. Hours they have not set keep following the colony’s plan, so a change to the colony’s day still reaches them there. A faded cell is inherited from the colony; a solid one was set for that colonist; a hollow, outlined cell means ignore the colony’s plan for this hour. The Colony brush gives an hour back, and the tag at the end of the row hands the whole day back at once.

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.