Are hot tubs skewed ?

[mrjoseph]

Seriously at end of my wits here. I made elaborate setup connected to refinery output, and back to reheat when is too cold.

issues i have rn

- since hot tubbed buff last for 3 cycles, is it intended that dupes go for it every cycle , wasting time ?

- ive observed weird behaviour where tub is filled to half and dupes still using it . then water gets too cold but not expellled,and dupes still get buff

- they also go for the tub when is not filled yet , and in this state tub consumes no power ,doesnt heat up , as above, but functions

If these are bugs ,is there a way to actually make it work without breaking immersion ?

Edited June 27, 2025 by mrjoseph
added screenshot

[asurendra]

1 hour ago, mrjoseph said:

- since hot tubbed buff last for 3 cycles, is it intended that dupes go for it every cycle , wasting time ?

 

Dupes try to use different recreational building if possible. If you have only hot tub they have to use tub...

I personally never seen that dupes used unprepared tub. But there is one single weird bug: tub heats up always. Doesnt matter if it ready, not ready, even broken... When it starts it never stops

[Kderosa]

I haven't tried making a hot tub since the latest DLC, but I haven't had any issues before that,  I usually just feed it steam turbine output from a geotuned cool geyser set-up with the tub output getting dumped right back into the steam room to be recirculated.  You can do the same with the sauna though you might need a gas tank or other mechanic trick in the steam room if the pressure is over 20K to buffer the steam.  Whether the dupes use it or not is up to them.  All I can do is give them enough time slots to do so.

[mrjoseph]

1 hour ago, asurendra said:

Dupes try to use different recreational building if possible. If you have only hot tub they have to use tub...

guess im gonna build 2 more rec builds then to allievate it. Just wish some of the buildings werent so clunky ...

thanks for replies its back to drawing board for me

29 minutes ago, Kderosa said:

 I usually just feed it steam turbine output from a geotuned cool geyser set-up with the tub output getting dumped right back into the steam room to be recirculated

My build uses somewhat same idea , to recirculate water through refinery and fill tub once a cycle with 100 kg water , and while it looks good on paper, building bugs out after a while

 

[blakemw]

Hot tubs do have some oddities and bugs, but here's basically how to use them:

1. Fill them with the hottest water you can, no need to worry about scalding just load it up with 95 C water to maximize time between water changes.
2. Dupes prefer to use recreation buildings they don't already have the buff for, if they already have all buffs, they prefer to use the nearest recreation building. So you either want low priority distractionary rec buildings with a fast expiring buffs, Showers are a good choice for this as the buff only lasts 0.75 cycles and they're super low priority, and/or you want to try and arrange for the nearest rec building at the end of downtime activities (like eating) will be one that is fast and cheap to use like the Arcade Cabinet or Jukebot.
3. Try not to look at it or worry about any of the weird things it may or may not do.

 

Edited June 28, 2025 by blakemw

[Gurgel]

2 hours ago, blakemw said:

1. Dupes prefer to use recreation buildings they don't already have the buff for, if they already have all buffs, they prefer to use the nearest recreation building. So you either want low priority distractionary rec buildings with a fast expiring buffs, Showers are a good choice for this as the buff only lasts 0.75 cycles and they're super low priority, and/or you want to try and arrange for the nearest rec building at the end of downtime activities (like eating) will be one that is fast and cheap to use like the Arcade Cabinet or Jukebot.

That explains some things with my dupes in landed rockets going for the sun-chair every cycle even if the buff lasts 8 cycles. So essentially, provide some 0.75 cycle rec building and they will only do the slow/long ones when needed?

[blakemw]

2 hours ago, Gurgel said:

That explains some things with my dupes in landed rockets going for the sun-chair every cycle even if the buff lasts 8 cycles. So essentially, provide some 0.75 cycle rec building and they will only do the slow/long ones when needed?

Indeed. The Sun Chair buff lasts 11.95 cycles. I've experimented with builds where it is only accessible for one cycle out of 13, e.g. by using an automated door for access or a mechanical airlock that opens to disable it, with a duplicant sensor if needed, this works well at least for a single dupe (or more with carefully tuned schedules). If your base is landed, it should work to build some distraction buildings on the surface.

Note that you CAN NOT straightforwardly use Drink machines or Party Line Phones as distractions: the reason for this is they bizarrely have even higher priority than the Sun Chair! You can use Showers (0.75 cycles) and Water Cooler (1.1 cycles), the Water Cooler would presumably only work well if you use an advanced schedule such that the dupe only gets to use recreation buildings every other cycle. Or you COULD use a party line phone as a distraction, but in an inverse to the "disable the chair" logic, disable the phone when you want the dupe to use the chair.

Edited June 28, 2025 by blakemw

[Kderosa]

5 hours ago, blakemw said:

Indeed. The Sun Chair buff lasts 11.95 cycles. I've experimented with builds where it is only accessible for one cycle out of 13, e.g. by using an automated door for access or a mechanical airlock that opens to disable it, with a duplicant sensor if needed, this works well at least for a single dupe (or more with carefully tuned schedules). If your base is landed, it should work to build some distraction buildings on the surface.

I believe the sunchairs now decrease the fatigue of the dupes as well which prevents/lessens them from falling asleep mid-workshift from exhaustion. So, in a sense when they use the sunchair and blow by their sleep time it still all works out and isn't as wasteful to keep them available for the substantial morale buff.

[Gurgel]

On 6/28/2025 at 6:49 PM, Kderosa said:

I believe the sunchairs now decrease the fatigue of the dupes as well which prevents/lessens them from falling asleep mid-workshift from exhaustion. So, in a sense when they use the sunchair and blow by their sleep time it still all works out and isn't as wasteful to keep them available for the substantial morale buff.

Hmm. I actually put recreation _after_ sleep for the sunchair to work well. 

[Tigin]

Beach chairs always recovered stamina, just not enough to counteract existing.

However, for normal duplicants exhaustion isn’t an issue anymore. They’ll never fall asleep from exhaustion if there’s a bed they can use. 
 

For boops you should have the downtime after bedtime, as their meditate chore will interrupt Beach Chairs (and beach chair progress is not saved if interrupted)

[Kderosa]

2 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Hmm. I actually put recreation _after_ sleep for the sunchair to work well. 

Me too. But then one time I built a few beach chairs on the niobium planet to help with stress and didn’t adjust their down time. They seemed to regain enough stamina to not pass out or at least made it to their bed before they did. So there’s not as much of a need to mess with the downtime.