Is decor still a thing?

[psusi]

It seems to me like the morale mechanic has completely supplanted the decor one.  As long as they have enough morale, it doesn't seem to matter what the decor score is.  Is there any point to working on decor any more?

[Chintam]

Yes. 

Decor provides a passive way of raising morale, that means you don't waste dupe time doing stuff that isn't building, deliverying or digging. 

The new recreational items are nice but they waste a lot of dupe time.

[suicide commando]

While bad decor doesn't penalize all that much, good decor can really help boost up their morale by a lot, without requiring any 'effort' on the part of the dupes, like chintam said. Also some rooms require decor items to be active such as the great hall.

[psusi]

44 minutes ago, suicide commando said:

While bad decor doesn't penalize all that much, good decor can really help boost up their morale by a lot, without requiring any 'effort' on the part of the dupes, like chintam said. Also some rooms require decor items to be active such as the great hall.

How much exactly?  I haven't gotten to the late game entertainment stuff yet, but so far simply using a bathroom and having a bed are free ways to maintain morale.  I guess I can see getting to the point that I'd rather not spend time and power using recreation buildings if I can avoid it, but does good morale really provide enough of a boost that it can keep a dup happy even though they only have 14 out of a required 16 morale?

[NinetyProof]

A lot

If you think about the skill system, you probably have your dupes specialized in some sense.  Digging, Research, Cookie, Ranching, etc, etc.

But, eventually, you will some / all of them to wear atmo suits, which means supply/suits.

You might even want all of them to skill up building.

So every dupe is going to end up with probably 3 or 4 full skill trees. Supply/Suits + Primary Tree (Research, Digging, Cooking, Operating, etc) + 1 or more secondary skills (building, decorating, etc, etc)

Ergo, your going to need a lot of morale.  This, AFAIK, is generally handled with "Decor Bombing".  Basically pimp out the living quarters with large statues and glass handing pots (with just standard cots).  Then also pimp out the Mess Hall. 

The over reaching theory here is that decor is a "per second" average, so id you can get the decor up to 500-1k during certain periods, then that will average out with the 'worst' decor they get exposed to (think industrial brick lack of decor).

So yes, "passive" decor is the long term solution. 

[psusi]

20 minutes ago, NinetyProof said:

Ergo, your going to need a lot of morale.

Yes, but decor does not provide a morale boost; it reduces stress.  And having 12/14 or 13/16 or 13/18 morale causes stress, so the question is, can high decor cancel out enough stress to make up for the low morale?  It used to be that once your dupes were skilled enough you either had to have tons of decor or they would have to spend lots of time in the massage chair.  So far this time I just don't train skills any higher than their current morale and never have to worry about either stress or decor.  Have I just been too cautious about stress and if I go over on the morale I can cure the stress with a few well placed decorations?

[Assault Chicken]

 

as an example.

Decor is the second best thing to increase morale.

[suicide commando]

Actually, the average decor a dupe has seen over a cycle provides a morale boost/penalty depending on how high it is. negative decor means they get a -1 penalty for bad decor, however, on the plus side, gorgeous decor can provide as much as 10-12 points of morale. Which is where the decor bomb comes in. If you decorate your mess hall, the barracks and the toilets/showers, they will spend a significant amount of time in a high decor zone ( I believe 120 is max decor you can get ). This in turn cranks up the average decor, and thus increases morale bonus from decor.

It also doesn't hurt to put a few statues or whatnot in their work areas if there's room for it. Ranches for instance have plenty of room for a statue or two three, farms can have some paintings etc. 

Add a morale bonus for good food, a great hall, lavatories, comfy beds, shower and you'll be rocking some serious morale bonus which is actually useful nowadays too as the new upgrade has added those overjoyed reactions. If you add up all the 'easy to get' morale bonusses, you can rock some serious morale already. ( comfy beds +2, great hall +6, food +8, shower +3, lavatories +2, high decor +10, 4 shift break +4.. )

My current base, my dupes are running around with +50 morale and I didn't even fully build proper entertainment yet.

 

[psusi]

<Screaming Blinding Light goes on>Ohhhhhh!  They did change decor to give morale instead of -stress%/cycle.  Now I get it.

7 minutes ago, suicide commando said:

My current base, my dupes are running around with +50 morale and I didn't even fully build proper entertainment yet.

Holy crap!  Can you even get close to needing that much?

[suicide commando]

* Points at Assault Chicken's post *

That is what you get when you go 100% overboard on morale. As for needing it.. not directly no. But since the latest upgrade ( meeps recreation pack ), dupes now have an overjoyed reaction, which is like a stress reaction but in reverse. Any dupe that has lots more morale than what they need can become overjoyed and do one of a couple of different possibilities. Sparkle Streamers for instance get +8 bonus to athletics and give +5 to other dupes they meet. Baloon artists give out baloons to other dupes which give them +8 to science/farming/ranching/doctoring/decorating. Sticker bombers put stickers around places ( no idea what those do, but I'll bet it's some kind of similar buff ), and super productive ones become well.. super productive I guess
 

[psusi]

1 minute ago, suicide commando said:

* Points at Assault Chicken's post *

That is what you get when you go 100% overboard on morale. As for needing it.. not directly no. But since the latest upgrade ( meeps recreation pack ), dupes now have an overjoyed reaction, which is like a stress reaction but in reverse. Any dupe that has lots more morale than what they need can become overjoyed and do one of a couple of different possibilities. Sparkle Streamers for instance get +8 bonus to athletics and give +5 to other dupes they meet. Baloon artists give out baloons to other dupes which give them +8 to science/farming/ranching/doctoring/decorating. Sticker bombers put stickers around places ( no idea what those do, but I'll bet it's some kind of similar buff ), and super productive ones become well.. super productive I guess
 

Oh, those sound nice. I thought most of the reactions just caused more morale or stress reduction for others. Bonus attributes are much nicer.

[Assault Chicken]

 

The classic "Nature Reserve Shower" is what helps me a lot with early game morale problems. (Not my Idea, there is a post about this somewhere on this forum)

Edit: Original Post

 

[psusi]

18 minutes ago, Assault Chicken said:

 

The classic "Nature Reserve Shower" is what helps me a lot with early game morale problems. (Not my Idea, there is a post about this somewhere on this forum)

Brilliant!  I am building a nature reserve but wasn't sure how to make people go there.  I even have some room above it left that I wasn't sure what to do with.

[Gurgel]

I use decor-blast during sleep and in the great hall. That gives me almost consistently the maximum bonus. I would probably have to include the toilet as well for it to be consistent, but I am too lazy for that....

 

[lunazone]

The decor reimagined mod is a nice change of pace if you want, it neuters decor bombing and penalizes harshly for having bad decor.

[suicide commando]

@Gurgel That's going a little bit overboard imho. As I mentioned the max decor you can have is 120 so you don't need THAT much decor to reach that.

 

[lunazone]

 technically it goes above 120, since you need 120+ for the highest decor moral buff. Having it above 120 is better since the average can fluctuate a lot.

[thewreckedangle]

2 hours ago, psusi said:

The classic "Nature Reserve Shower"..

i raise you the "nature reserve ladders"! no getting away from it

 

[nakomaru]

Decor has been a morale increase rather than directly applied to stress since as long as I can remember.

[crypticorb]

A question: How do I avoid having a massive decor debuff from dupes travelling next to heavy-watt wires?

I have a service shaft that runs from space all the way to my core, and a heavy-watt wire with branches off it all throughout my asteroid. Dupes spend >40% of their time travelling, despite transit tubes, plastic ladders, firepoles, and plastic walkways, and they STILL spend a massive amount of time next to the heavy-watt wire.

Here's what it looks like:

What could I do to reduce the penalty? I've decor-bombed the inside of the base, short of pedestals with space stuff, but that heavy-watt wire bumps decor to -600 in places, -300 at best.

[nakomaru]

1 hour ago, crypticorb said:

What could I do to reduce the penalty?

The obvious solution is to put your heavi-watt out of view of your paths.

However, the correct solution is to not use heavi-watt on your main line. Instead use battery switching and normal conductive wire to carry an arbitrarily high load.

[crypticorb]

5 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

The obvious solution is to put your heavi-watt out of view of your paths.

However, the correct solution is to not use heavi-watt on your main line. Instead use battery switching and normal conductive wire to carry an arbitrarily high load.

I know about the battery switching method, but I'm majoring in Electrical/Electronics Engineering Tech atm, and using that method just feels... wrong. A bit too exploity.

Does using heavy-watt conductive make a significant difference to decor? It would be a huge investment in refined metal, but if I can get non-stop overjoyed dupes, it might be worth it.

[nakomaru]

1 minute ago, crypticorb said:

I know about the battery switching method, but I'm majoring in Electrical/Electronics Engineering Tech atm, and using that method just feels... wrong. A bit too exploity.

Watch out for real transformers then. They can transmit power right through open space. Talk about an exploit.

Heavi-Watt is decor-25 radius 6.

Conductive heavi-watt is decor-20 radius 4.

Use a wall.

[natanstarke]

I always build statues both sides of any ladder going anywhere whenever theres a slot for it but i normally have it 

[psusi]

1 hour ago, nakomaru said:

However, the correct solution is to not use heavi-watt on your main line. Instead use battery switching and normal conductive wire to carry an arbitrarily high load.

Don't even need conductive wire; the normal stuff will do just fine.