Base Layout

Room and base layout priorities. What to build first, why single bedrooms beat barracks, and how layout feeds mood and defense.

At a glance

Rooms are scored on size, cleanliness, beauty, and wealth, which combine into an impressiveness stat that feeds colonist mood. Layout is not decoration. It is mood management and defense at the same time.


Rooms are scored on	Size, cleanliness, beauty, and wealth.
Bedrooms	Single rooms beat shared barracks for mood.
The freezer	A cold room to preserve food. Build it early.
The tension	More impressive rooms raise mood but also raise wealth, which raises raids.

Rooms to build, in rough priority

Bedrooms: one per pawn where you can afford it. Single rooms give a better mood thought than a barracks.
Freezer: a cooled room that holds food below freezing so it does not spoil.
Kitchen: near the freezer, kept clean. A dirty kitchen and an unskilled cook cause food poisoning.
Dining room: a decent, pretty space to eat. Eating in a good room lifts mood.
Hospital: clean, well-lit, with quality beds. Treatment quality depends on medicine, doctor skill, and the room.
Workshops: production benches grouped near their material stockpiles.
Prison cells: for recruits and, with DLC, slaves.

What raises a room’s score

Cleanliness: floors and regular cleaning. Dirt, blood, and filth drop the score and raise infection risk.
Beauty: floors, art, and pleasing furniture. Ugly rooms give a negative mood thought.
Light: darkness gives a mood penalty, so light living and work areas.
Size: cramped rooms score poorly, but oversized rooms cost more to heat, cool, and clean.

Layout for defense

A single controlled entrance and a walled perimeter, so raids funnel where you want them.
A spot to fight from with cover, not open ground.
Interior fallback positions in case the perimeter is bypassed.
Temperature control: coolers for hot maps, heaters for cold maps, and insulated (roofed, walled) rooms.

Do this in order

Put up walls, one entrance, and a first defensible spot.
Build a freezer and get food storage cold before anything spoils.
Add a clean kitchen next to the freezer, then a dining room.
Give each pawn a single bedroom as materials allow.
Add a proper hospital before the first serious disease or raid casualties.
Group workshops near their stockpiles, then improve beauty and light once survival is stable.

Watch out for

Impressiveness versus wealth. Fancy rooms lift mood but pump wealth and raid size. Improve deliberately, not everywhere.
Skipping the freezer. Without one, food rots and your colony starves in a bad season.
Dirty kitchens and hospitals. Filth causes food poisoning and infected wounds.
Dark rooms. Darkness is a standing mood penalty. Light the places pawns live and work.