Discussion on Morale and Furniture for it

[chemie]

First, this post is about using the morale buildings for morale.  Obviously, end game you can build whatever because it looks cool but this is not that discussion.  Also, you actually never need any of these if you do not over promote dups but let's assume you need a little bump due to terrible food and decor etc and want uber dups trained up.

Here is my take:

Good

* Water cooler (+1): Best way to get a quick great hall.  If you have the water, leave it on for +1, otherwise turn it off and enjoy the huge morale bonus for great hall.

* Jukebox (+2/960): Not bad option early game as a coal gen/smart battery is enough to power.  Has high capacity of 5 dups and is very fast.

* Soda machine (+4/480): Better than espresso machine (same power and less resources) and even deletes a bit of CO2!  Takes double the time of jukebox for double the morale but costs more per dup in power. Best +4 option.

* Surfboard (+2): A mini pump under it means it fits in 4-tile high floors.  Not terrible power usage compared to jukebox but probably too long usage time vs jukebox if you have available power supply.

 

Not great, not terrible

* Espresso (+3/480): If you are farming peppernuts for high end food or PW disposal/heat deletion, you might have extra so not a bad option. Despite being hot coffee, it does not destroy food poisoning (otherwise it might be promoted to good category).

* Beach (+5 / +8/960): Not convinced the high lux is worth it, and the time it takes is horrendous, but highest morale option if you over promoted your dups, otherwise I would skip it.  The low lux might be OK trade-off for the long use time.

* Juicer (+4/120): Not sure why you would have lice, berries and mushrooms all available but if you do, this at least does not use much power.  Not something I will ever use but might make sense in narrow use cases.

 

Terrible:

* Hot tube (+5): Too small an operating window and takes way too long.  Needs bleach stone so dups will likely drop sometimes and cause chlorine in your base.

* Wind tunnel (+4/1200): Too big and takes way too long and costs huge power.

* Sauna (+2): Second worse option in the game.  Takes steam so more complex design to avoid condensation.  Takes way too long for +2.  Surfboard is better compared to this.

* Arcade machine (+2/1200).  This is the worst thing in the game.  Compared to the jukebox, it takes more power, produces more heat, and only has 2 dup capacity.  You should never use this vs the jukebox, ever.

 

Honorable mention: Just add extra break time to the schedule.  Costs nothing but dup time and get a quick and easy bump up to 5 squares.  Great option if you over promoted and suddenly have a dup above the limit.

 

What are your thoughts?

[Gurgel]

You do not actually need to power the jukebox to make the room a great hall. I usually put one in early before I have the power to spare.

For the different options, it would also be interesting how long the buff keeps. Wind-swept seems to keep several cycles, for example, while danced keeps only one as far as I remember.

[crypticorb]

One thing you're forgetting that makes the wind tunnel even worse: it acts as a massive gas pump from the room below it. If you don't have a VERY open area setup or some means to disperse the air moving out the top, it can drain the room below to near vacuum and give dupes using the wind tunnel popped eardrums, which is one of the worst stress debuffs you can get.

Either use it in an incredibly open air base with looooots of airflow tiles, or only let them use it in atmo suits. The other option is to put the wind tunnel on a 2-high base, so that no actual airflow occurs. It will still function without moving any gas, which is weird.

One really interesting quirk about it is that the wind tunnel doesn't care what gas it moves, and can drain the room below to vacuum extremely quickly. This can be exploited to vacuum out a room in an incredibly short period of time, compared to using liquid layers or gas pumps to create vacuum sealed rooms.

 

 

Separate note: I feel you rated the espresso machine too harshly. Growing wild peppernuts is incredibly easy, particularly if you have pips, and a clean water source is fairly easy to come by in the mid to late game, so long is you didn't get a geodormant asteroid. On top of that, it is very fast to use, AND provides  +1 athletics, which puts it right up there with the soda press.

 

The beach chair can be worth it if you're pushing for overjoyed dupes, as you can easily set up a duplicant sensor rigged up to the sun lamp. I don't think the sun lamp even needs to be on the whole time, only when they finish the relaxation (needs testing).

[DarkMaster13]

It is worth noting that the new ones also give some stat bonuses.  The soda machine in particular has a very nice +1 science skill for that faster attribute gain rate.

[Coolthulhu]

My opinion:

* Water cooler: Put it in the dining hall to make hall great again, but disable it

* The rest: Not worth it, just get the passive bonuses, like decor, flower smell and nature reserve, instead

 

Did anyone do the math on morale equipment vs. massage room? I'd fully expect massage to win in most cases. As in, let the dupe get stressed, then squeeze that out, saving dupetime (and possibly even power) in the end.

My current method of managing morale is to scrub any dupe who gets too stressed. Other than astronauts - those lose stress when they fly.

[chemie]

I forgot the most important "furniture"; the park sign!

+4 park and +8 nature reserve cost zero power and have infinite dup capacity and are instant.  Put a park in front of your bathrooms and make the exosuit area a nature reserve and you get +12 morale for basically nothing.

 

Edit.  It is +3 and +6 and apparently my memory was wrong and they do not stack so just +6.  Still free.

[angrybovine]

 

12 hours ago, Gurgel said:

You do not actually need to power the jukebox to make the room a great hall. I usually put one in early before I have the power to spare.

For the different options, it would also be interesting how long the buff keeps. Wind-swept seems to keep several cycles, for example, while danced keeps only one as far as I remember.

https://oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/Morale

 

Dancing appears to last 3.95 cycles.

 

Personally, I don't look at these rec buildings as either\or.  Some are better than others, but since power and resources aren't hard to come by in this game, all are options.  Especially since they have different duration and can stack. 

Dupes can dance one cycle, play a game the next, have an espresso on the 3rd cycle, a soda on the 4th, and repeat.

[psusi]

How long does the soda buff last?  It looks like espresso is only 0.75 cycles, so they need that one every day.

[natanstarke]

Recreational stuff is more to add flavor and fun for me, i like them all but the arcade, mostly because i avoid using tons of power for a veeeeeery long time.

[Gurgel]

5 hours ago, chemie said:

I forgot the most important "furniture"; the park sign!

+4 park and +8 nature reserve cost zero power and have infinite dup capacity and are instant.  Put a park in front of your bathrooms and make the exosuit area a nature reserve and you get +12 morale for basically nothing.

These buffs stack? 

[chemie]

20 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

These buffs stack? 

yup

[Gurgel]

2 hours ago, chemie said:

yup

Thanks!

[chemie]

1 hour ago, Gurgel said:

Thanks!

hmmm...I was wrong.  I think they used to but quickly tested and they no longer stack.  So just +6 max

[Gurgel]

2 hours ago, chemie said:

hmmm...I was wrong.  I think they used to but quickly tested and they no longer stack.  So just +6 max

Hahaha, no problem. 

[chemie]

11 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Hahaha, no problem. 

What's worse is the park will "delete" the nature reserve effect immediately so it always just takes the last one....so if you have dups going through reserve each day, delete your park!