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SpringFall Wiki

Sleep & Rest

Overview

Sleep refills a colonist’s energy. Unlike Food & Eating, this need can always be met — a tired colonist who can’t find a bed will lie down on the ground rather than stay awake forever. So sleep never deadlocks your colony; it just gets slower and less pleasant the worse your accommodation is.

That’s the real decision here: not whether people sleep, but how much of their day it costs you.

How it works

A tired colonist looks for somewhere to rest in order:

  1. Their own assigned bed, if they have one.
  2. Any free unowned bed.
  3. A roofed room — they sleep on the floor, but sheltered.
  4. Wherever they’re standing.

A bed restores energy substantially faster than bare ground, which is the entire argument for building them. A colonist who beds down properly also sleeps through to genuinely rested rather than waking the moment they cross the “not tired” line — so they don’t need another nap an hour later.

Like hunger, low energy stops a colonist taking new work until they’ve dealt with it.

Playing with it

  • One bed per colonist, as early as you can manage it. This is one of the highest-value early builds: it converts a slow floor-nap into a short proper rest, and gives you the day back.
  • Roof the sleeping area. A roofed room is the fallback tier above bare ground, and it’s what makes an unassigned colonist’s night tolerable.
  • Assign beds if you want specific colonists to always use the same one — otherwise they take whatever is free.
  • If someone is sleeping on the floor next to a bed, the bed is occupied. That’s working as intended, not a pathing bug — beds hold one sleeper.

Good to know

  • A tired colonist always sleeps eventually. There is no state where exhaustion has no resolution.
  • Sleeping rough works, but poorly. Ground rest is deliberately slower than a bed so that furniture is worth building.
  • A broken or unreachable bed downgrades gracefully — a colonist who isn’t actually recovering will give up and take the floor rather than lie there all night.
  • Energy costs mood as it falls, and steeply at the bottom end. An exhausted colony is a miserable one even if it’s well fed — see Mood & Morale.
  • Needs & Satisfaction — the full picture of colonist needs
  • Food & Eating — the other need colonists resolve on their own
  • (planned) building — how to put up beds and roofed rooms