Stress management

[Sniper_IX]

I'm struggling to keep stress manageable. I'm a long time player that just recently jumped back in to recent updates, but the morale system is really slowing things down to a crawl despite my best efforts. Sure I can plaster the inside of my base with 300+ decor, but the moment I send my dupes out for exploration and expansion their "average" decor plummets and stress increases rapidly. Then they spend a whole cycle on a massage table, go back out, rinse and repeat. This basically means 50% less productivity since they are on the massage tables so often. 

[PhailRaptor]

The biggest adjustment is working the Jobs system.  Just because you want to promote someone to a higher tier Job for the skill points and any attributes, doesn't mean you should.  You need to be paying attention to what Morale your Dupes are getting.  This will limit how high a tier of Job you should promote your Dupes to.

Building Rooms is very important to maintaining Morale.  You should be able to slap together a Latrine around your starting Outhouse on the first cycle, and a Barracks on the second.  The Great Hall is pretty easy to build, and provides a substantial boost to Morale.  As you develop your systems and acquire more resources, you can upgrade your Latrine to a Bathroom (Lavatories instead of Outhouses) and Bedrooms (currently only requires upgrading the Cots to Comfy Beds, but eventually this will likely be single occupancy).

Food is also an important piece of the puzzle.  Better tiers of food items provide more Morale (while the bottom tiers reduce it instead).  There comes a point where you need to move up from Mealwood or Lice Loaf to better foods, like Fried Mushrooms or Omelettes.  Later you will move to Frost Buns, Pepper Bread, BBQ, etc.

The last part is Scheduling.  Each additional block of Downtime you assign your Dupes will add one more Morale to them.  During Downtime, Dupes will use the Recreational items, like the Water Cooler, Dancebot, Arcade Machine, and Espresso Machine.  These bonuses all stack if the Dupe has enough Downtime to use them all.

If you are not meeting the Morale needs of your Dupes, their Stress will rise.  It will rise faster the greater the gap between their expectation and what they are receiving.  This is what's getting you stuck in your Massage cycle.  You're only treating the Morale problem with Decor, when you need a variety of the other tools to keep things running.  Just like with Germs, the best course of action is prevention, rather than treatment.

[Neotuck]

I never let any dupes get promoted past tier 3 for the first hundred or so cycles until I'm able to manage stress better with hi quality food and decor

Also I set up an RnR schedule that has full downtime with sleep, this is for emergencies when I see a dupe rising in stress and need to quickly bring it back down 

[Sniper_IX]

18 minutes ago, PhailRaptor said:

The biggest adjustment is working the Jobs system.  Just because you want to promote someone to a higher tier Job for the skill points and any attributes, doesn't mean you should.  You need to be paying attention to what Morale your Dupes are getting.  This will limit how high a tier of Job you should promote your Dupes to.

Building Rooms is very important to maintaining Morale.  You should be able to slap together a Latrine around your starting Outhouse on the first cycle, and a Barracks on the second.  The Great Hall is pretty easy to build, and provides a substantial boost to Morale.  As you develop your systems and acquire more resources, you can upgrade your Latrine to a Bathroom (Lavatories instead of Outhouses) and Bedrooms (currently only requires upgrading the Cots to Comfy Beds, but eventually this will likely be single occupancy).

Food is also an important piece of the puzzle.  Better tiers of food items provide more Morale (while the bottom tiers reduce it instead).  There comes a point where you need to move up from Mealwood or Lice Loaf to better foods, like Fried Mushrooms or Omelettes.  Later you will move to Frost Buns, Pepper Bread, BBQ, etc.

The last part is Scheduling.  Each additional block of Downtime you assign your Dupes will add one more Morale to them.  During Downtime, Dupes will use the Recreational items, like the Water Cooler, Dancebot, Arcade Machine, and Espresso Machine.  These bonuses all stack if the Dupe has enough Downtime to use them all.

If you are not meeting the Morale needs of your Dupes, their Stress will rise.  It will rise faster the greater the gap between their expectation and what they are receiving.  This is what's getting you stuck in your Massage cycle.  You're only treating the Morale problem with Decor, when you need a variety of the other tools to keep things running.  Just like with Germs, the best course of action is prevention, rather than treatment.

I appreciate the fast response. I am already using rooms and decor to manage morale. Meal lice are my go to but it appears mushrooms (which aren't too hard) are a slight improvement. It sounds like you simply just have to go slow? I'm all for minimizing the game and checking back hours later but it's somewhat frustrating that the morale system puts a break on progress.

[Lifegrow]

Decor in areas where dupes spend a lot of time - rec room areas, cooking areas, sleeping areas, etc. Thats a great way to give yourself a good hit of Morale. Great hall is another easy given, and then the rest can easily be made up with food.

[Neotuck]

23 minutes ago, Sniper_IX said:

I appreciate the fast response. I am already using rooms and decor to manage morale. Meal lice are my go to but it appears mushrooms (which aren't too hard) are a slight improvement. It sounds like you simply just have to go slow? I'm all for minimizing the game and checking back hours later but it's somewhat frustrating that the morale system puts a break on progress.

have you tried ranching hatches for omelets? 

they are a good step up from mushrooms and you will need to start collecting the egg shells early for steel production later on

Another Idea is have only one dupe that will be promoted, this dupe will be your first astronaut late game but for now can be your tenured scientist and/or exosuit engineer

As long as all your other dupes stay at tier 3 or below you can feed them mushrooms while your future astronaut can enjoy pepper bread by him/herself

Pepper bread for a single dupe is easy to maintain with wild crops

[Sasza22]

Different schedules for different levels of dupes. Low expectation dupes get little free time and bad food. Medium expectation get more downtime and better food. Highest expectation get only the best food and (since those are usually scientists) they get a night schedule for optimal telescope usage.

Didn`t have problems when having one ot two dupes on highest expectation, a bit more on medium (mostly farmers and ranchers) and the rest being just workers trained in mining and construction at +8 expectation easily achievable with just great hall and other room bonuses.

Also don`t forget showers. +3 morale is pretty nice early on.

[DaveSatx]

I take my time now compared to the old days lol.  but its not a matter of going afk or anything.  just promote slower.

as others have said.  latrine, barracks first.  then as soon as you can get that to a bathroom.

great hall is wonderful.  decor is a rolling average now so as lifegrow said focus your art where they are most first

[Nitroturtle]

Great Hall alone covers you for tier 2, and 3/4 of the way to tier 3.  This can easily get you through a couple hundred cycles.  Also remember, they don't keep the requirement until the job is mastered.  I usually cycle in dupes for ranching or research if it's needed earlier, and just switch them back after their task is done.  But I definitely suggest getting the great hall created ASAP.

[Lurve]

The model you should aim for is a base full of simple happy dupes except one expert who's a slobbering mess.

Great Hall is +6 morale, and if you don't have a creative dupe, a statue will fulfil the decor requirement.  Other than that I don't really worry about it.

I pick a dupe to be my rancher and start them farming early.  Everyone else stays tier 1 or 2 until my other morale bonuses catch up and they're not using the massage table every other day.

Once I can handle all the dupes at that tier, I pick another dupe to be my astronaut and start them analysing geysers and training exosuits.  Same deal, except they (and other elite dupes) eventually get their own fancypants minibase with all the nice things the rabble isn't allowed to have.

[Neotuck]

Equip your dupes with snazzy suits as soon as possible.

A single PW puddle can irrigate enough thimble reeds to provide your whole Colony with snazzy suits.

Or you can irrigate directly from your toilets

It's their new slogan: From Piss to Snazzy Suits!

[greggbert]

I am on cycle 130 and have seen no need to promote any dupe beyond 12 morale and most of my dupes have 15 morale.  I have 400Kcal of barbecute in fridges waiting for my first promotion beyond 15.

[0xFADE]

Gold base. I’ve got my living and some work areas made of gold metal tiles. Build all the better rooms as well. 

I also have all the dupes on +3 morale from extended break times so they can get all their stuff done. They will go back to work during break time if they have finished all that.

Feeding the dupes mushrooms I’ve got an average low morale of 30. 

Oh yeah and decor everywhere too. Statues have a longer range than paintings. 

Make stuff out of granite and gold amalgam if it has a nonzero decor. Things with a negative decor will be less negative like storage compactors and positive things will get better like mess tables. 

[Gurgel]

Excessive decor is really your friend. Place it where dupes must spend time, i.e. around the beds and mess-tables and toilets. That mostly solves the issue. Eventually you also want high-tier food and maybe showers. 

Note that by "excessive", I mean something like this:

and this: