Which buildings do you consider to be optional?

The blog mentioned the mid-game period being when the player could start building the optional buildings. This made me wonder what the consensus view was as to which buildings could be lived without.

In theory, the barbershop, and foreign office can be lived without, but I think arguments can be made that all are truly important to colony survival... the barbershop to extend the lifespan of soldiers,the foreign office to replace what was originally an automatic cost-free system (prestige).

The naturalist merely automates the process of exploration (rally points being the manual method)... and mines reveal the contents of mineral points.

The public house may dispense alcohol faster than the stockpile, but colonists will still self-medicate if they have no pub to visit.

The chapel seems to be a by-request-only necessity.

The laboratory is a novelty.

I've not reached the point of using the trade office yet, but it seems like additional depth rather than filling a pressing need.

Upper class housing is clearly unneeded at this stage in the game.

 

I never build the pub because it never works properly and wastes my colonists' time.

 

You can probably get away without a chemist.

Trading Post is also not really needed, though why not, it's cheap.

 

Forgot completely about the chemist... but yes, optional indeed

 

It may just be me, but most buildings aren't that big a deal. To say you can afford them is a bit odd... you can frequently get away with leaving buildings overseerless until you need them as well.

Chapel: You can build a 2x2 and have no modules. Sadly it will suck up someone's time. However, it is more efficient to not have an altar (leaves your vicar nothing to do but chase people for confession)

Foreign Office: Another 2x2 with 2 standing desks perhaps (1 plank for each desk). As I'm taking to spamming standing desks for use in trading, not a problem. Move a laborer in or out if you need to. Most important is to run 1 mission for bandits so they won't attack.

Barracks: 2x2 with no modules. You'll probably have one or two.

Trade post: 2x2, no modules

Barbershop: 2x2, 1 chair. You don't need your overseer there once you've cleared all the injuries.

Pub: Don't know, still bugged?

Naturalist: 2x2, no modules

Lab: 2x2, just need 1 module (macroscope) but... researching doesn't do anything?

Middle class housing isn't important, though perhaps you rather use planks and bricks instead of the lower class bunkhouse's logs and stone...

Upper class housing is bad, as it will spawn upper class who don't do anything but take up population space and eat food. And complain.

Chemist, just use a 3+1 building or a 5-square +sign, or a 2x3... as you only need one module (chemist workbench).

While you can super-scrimp on some (a 1 square chapel or naturalist office etc), a 2x2 still has the costs at like 1 of each item (so 1 brick+1 plank etc)

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Mid-game in my mind is about the time when I have a bunch of pistol-armed soldiers (ie: have the metalworks up) and am about ready to switch from maize-subsistance to wheat-based overkill food production.

Late might be from 30 to 50+ people, food is buffered at like 5+ days, I'm making carbines, etc. Also critically, perhaps I might be earnestly hunting for stone to mine...

 

What Alavaria said, basically.

I personally consider the woodworks, brickworks, barracks and barber and metalworks critical, but I only man the barber when needed. Everything else gets built based on my whims or whatever unusual circumstances occur.

 

The better and shorter list would be buildings I consider non-optional:

Kitchen.
Carpentry.
Ceramics.
Ironworks.
Barracks.
Tailor/clothworks. (Though with proper workcrew schedule staging, the initial beds can go a long way)


Everything else can be taken or left out.

lower/middle class housing, well quite frankly why ever build them for now with the builds as they are. They're not even optional but rather are completely pointless.

Barber is needed IF you get attacked and colonists sustain wounds, but until that point it's pretty much a waste of overseer time... so for that reason I regard it as entirely optional and only built in required situations, and some colonies that means going 2 weeks or more without one.

Naturalist very much depends on surface node generation, unfortunately some games one is needed within the first week even. Other maps Naturalist office isn't really needed at all unless you randomly build things for the sake of building things.

 

I get that it's all alpha and things are going to change, but I hope the end game moves away from the gameplay described above. It seems cynical to build 2x2 chapels and module-less barracks - almost like cheating the game. I hope there'll be some incentive to build nice looking buildings rather then tiny hack-y cubes.

 

The funny thing is that the chapel (I think it's this building) needs minimum 2 bricks to make, but a 2x2 needs only 1 unit. It's their punishment for annoying me.

Actually most people spend a lot of resources on a large chapel which doesn't really do much for them, I think.

Anyway, it's a function of how modules work with the colonists.

• pews don't work, I think. if they are buildable
• chairs let colonists sit down, but they are fine with standing, they can all stand on top of one another too...
• altars let some people be happier when they listen to preaching, but it takes up vicar time in which the Take Confession jobs pile up

I actually wonder if it is better to have no chapel and just shoot anyone who is Spiritually Inclined (they are the ones who complain), or even wait until you see them start trying to make a cult and then shoot them. The issue is it can be a bit hard to check the lower-class's attributes.

Barracks doesn't have any real modules for it... you can put some cots/beds and pretend but any colonist will sleep there and your military will sleep anywhere else as well, so it doesn't really play pretend well.

 

My understanding is that what will be the final late game basically doesn't exist at all in the public builds, so I really am not too concerned. I think what we currently call the late game will be mid point more or less, with added complications from ownership / upper class ect. Gold is more or less entirely useless now, for example.

Chapels and other morale booster type buildings seem strictly optional at the minute. Honestly I think the penalties for cultists / maddness / sadness / fear ect need to be much stronger if these buildings are going to have real value.

 

I have had similar dark thoughts lol

 

One man's dark is another's pragmatic.

 

God I hope not. Eldritch magicks, an extended supply of meat, alliances with cosmic horrors, and reduced need for creature comforts?

I'll put up with some ministry raids to have all that.

EDIT: I'm referring to net penalties of course. I'd love a high-risk, high-reward mechanic of intentionally driving your colonists insane to your own mad ends. Imagine the potential Pro/Cons:

Cons:

• Heavily armed witch hunters with expensive, powerful weapons come in to destroy everything
• Your cultists are quite powerful themselves
• Cosmic horrors spend time patrolling the colony and destroying things
• You can't grow your normal crops anymore, there are some new ones...
  
• Strange new modules and architectures replace what you had before
• Colonists develop habits of cannabilism and human sacrifice

Pros:

• Heavily armed witch hunters with expensive, powerful weapons come in to destroy everything
• Your cultists are quite powerful themselves
• Cosmic horrors spend time patrolling the colony and destroying things
• You can't grow your normal crops anymore, there are some new ones...
  
• Strange new modules and architectures replace what you had before
• Colonists develop habits of cannabilism and human sacrifice

 

Agreed, and there needs to better rewards for studying artifacts, dissecting things, etc... because now there's really no incentive to do so, other than the possibility of madness, which doesn't really cause many problems either.

 

Just to reply to people who have picked up my chapel comments. Clearly I would not want to advocate straight penalties that chapels exist solely to 'fix', that just turns maddness / sanity into a straight failure / success situation.

I'd actually be interested in some form of 'holiness' rating that brings benefits from the holy cog / conflict from horrors / cultists. You could have your own holy war

 

Pretty sure devs have commented at least a dozen times that all the consequences of unhappy colonists and similar situations have been massively dialled back intentionally until a later point in development, so it should kind of go without saying that the buildings focusing more on the emotional and psychological state of colonists would be rather lacking at present and the repercussions of overlooking them few to non-existent.

 

Laudanum, tons of laudanum will save us all.

That's the thing huh, I've put chapel, I've made beer, I've distilled it into whiskey and now I'm mixing in certain herbage to make laudanum, but not sure what it does to the crazy ones, they don't quite seem to be chugging the whiskey even after an event that drives everyone crazy...

What does sulfur tonic do?

Actually wait a sec, wonder if you can make laudanum with ingredients farmed in Sogwood...

 

My usual order of building is: carpenter, kitchen, barracks, ceramics, metalworks, trading post, foreign office. After that it sort of depends on how many overseers I have; if I don't have many then I build out housing, add better modules to existing shops, etc.

Next wave is usually barber, naturalist, textile, chemist, lab. I put the last three off as long as possible. I only build a chapel if the people complain about it. And yes the pub never works right so I don't bother with that.

 

I generally leave out the Barbershop and Tavern, because even in 47A, neither the Barber or Innkeep will stay in the freaking building long enough to actually do thier job when needed.

As far as chapels go -


I love the thought of a giant, sprawling temple lead by a mad Vicar who screams and preaches blasphemies of the cosmos.
I really, really wish we could do more with the weird stuff we dig up, because i'd decorate my entire church with them if I could.

 

That's weird, I have way more trouble with the chapel not doing its job than the barbershop. Barbershop is also essential if you want to put up a fight