Morale. Some people like it, others hate it. Here is what to do with it!
In multiplayer: It is always active on every single player map. It is by default, active on multiplayer. To disable it, simply click the "Morale Steady" box. Leaveing it unchecked results in active morale.
Table Of contents! (unneccasry, but I feel like it!)
1.0 The Benefits of Morale
1.1 The Penalties of Morale
1.2 How to please your pesky colonists! The do's and don't's of morale management. Also information on how it works.
1.3 Morale Facts: Things we know about the morale system in OP2!
1.4 Final Notes
1.5 Credits
1.0 Benefits of Morale:
The biggest benefit of morale is that all units and buildings build faster with a higher morale. Reserch also goes at a faster rate. However, the exact opposite can be said with low morale. Excellent morale can only be acheived with morale unsteady, unless it is scripted to be excellent, and it never is. Reserch also suffers and is slow.
In addition to this, people die off at a slower rate at higher morale, and they also reproduce faster. Again, the opposite is said at lower levels. The minimum for colony growth is to have over around 250 colonists, or at least Fair morale for continued growth. After you are over 250 colonists, roughly, the colony will still grow even at Terrible. Unfortunately, reserch and construction suffer greatly from this.
1.1 Penalites of Morale:
You will always have less free colonists. This is both a curse and a blessing! It can make startups very slow, and it will result in slower reserch. Improper management of your people will result in your death, so you have to be careful.
1.2 How to please your pesky Colonists:
There are many factors that affect morale.
1. Housing demand
2. Medical Center demand
3. Recreation Facility/Forum demand
4. Active GORF
5. Consumer Goods Factory
6. High idle colonist percentage
7. Disabled Building Ratio (idled structures are not counted)
8. Colonist Death
9. Colonist Training completed (scientists, workers) child birth
10. Too many scientists
11. Scientists as Workers
12. Reserch
13. Disasters (I'll go in more detail on this later)
14. Battle Losses
15. Battle Victories
16. Destroying "Good" structures
17. Destroying "Bad" structures.
18. Building Construction/Destruction
19. Food
1. Housing Demand:
Housing is the very base to keep your people happy. It is very difficult to keep morale up without any houses. Keep demand under 100% at all times or morale is adversely affected. (overcrowding)
2. Medical Center Demand:
Medical centers are very useful for keeping morale up. Without medical centers, keeping morale steady at excellent is a little more difficult. Medical centers also come with the added bonus of slowing colonist death rate, thus benefiting your morale even more. Keep demand under 100% at all times or morale is adversely affected.
3. Recreation Center/Forum Demand:
While not necessary, they can help keep morale steady at a specific level. Forums have a higher capacity then recreation centers. (Plymouth Only) Keep demand under 100% at all times, or morale is adversely affected. Does not affect morale until you reserch it.
4. Active GORF:
Reserching Metals Reclamnation makes the GORF available. You then must build a GORF. Failure to do so results in a minor penalty to morale. It does need to be active. Does not affect morale until you reserch it.
5. Consumer Goods Factory:
Big bonus to Eden, this lets you buy morale. Each item that is built in the factory raises morale by a certain amount. Luxery goods are the most expensive and are slow to build, but also provide the biggest benefit, while Impulse Wares provide a small boost, but build quickly. It does not need to be active. Morale functions normally weather you build it or not.
6. High Idle Colonist Percentage:
Having a high idle colonist percentage adversly affects your morale. The more idle colonists you have, the worse it affects morale. Try not to go higher then about 6%.
7. Disabled Buildings Ratio:
Ratio of your total buildings. Any disabled buildings are bad, for whatever reason. Idle them immediately to lessen morale impact. Idle buildings are not counted, and thus your morale will not drop.
8. Colonist Death:
Each colonist death negatively affects morale. Colonists that die from whatever reason, includeing the destruction of a building can greatly hurt morale. Try idleing buildings that are in the immediate path of any Tornados, landing location of meteors, or are within a good half screen distance of an earthquake. If a volcanic eruption occurs, idle EVERY building on the black terrain, chances are thats going to be submerged in lava. Command Centers cannot be idled, so if you have a second one, activate the second one and idle the first. You will not lose any colonists this way. Natural death is unavoidable. Do not worry, the situation will fix itself surprisingly quickly. If a building reaches the damage of RED, about 1/4 the total hitpoints, idle it. This will prevent loss of life, and thus you will be spared the loss of morale. Losing buildings does not seem to affect morale a whole lot, though it does a little.
9. Colonist Training: (scientists, workers)
Whenever a new worker is available, or scientist training is completed, morale goes up. However, so does your total unemployed colonists! Quickly employ these people in whatever tasks are necessary to avoid any morale penalty. Child birth can also improve morale. For this to occure you must have a nursery and university active.
10. Too many scientists!
Your workers are always the greatest number of your total colonists! However, they don't want to be reminded of their lesser intelligence! Thus, too many scientists lower morale. Be careful how many scientists you train, I rarely have more then 15% of my colony as scientists (50% children, 35% workers) This may not go for every game however.
11. Scientists As Workers:
Scientists hate being given the work of the lowly worker, so they whine and complain about it until you resolve the problem or another worker is ready. Thus, they lower morale by annoying everyone around them...
12. Reserch:
Reserch completed will give you a morale boost! Save the quick, non morale hurting topics for when your morale gets bad. Examples of this are the disaster warning technologies. You should reserch these anyway at some point, to be covered later.
13. Disasters:
Disasters have major effects on your colony. An unwarned disaster hitting your colony, even just a pesky storm, does hurt your morale. Thus, disaster warning technologies are a good idea to have. They also allow you to idle structures in the path of these disasters, thus saving lives, and preventing a disabled building ratio from appearing.
14. Battle Losses:
Units you lose in battle ends up negatively affecting your morale. Optimally, you want to keep unit losses at a minimum. All units are included here, so careful with them! Buildings that are destroyed as a result of enemy or disaster activity count here, they will harm your morale.
15. Battle Victories:
Every victory can be counted as every single enemy unit you destroy. This helps morale! Here, superior technology is better then superior numbers, so long as you can fend off the invasion.
16. Destroying "Good" Structures:
Destroying good structures can negatively affect your morale. Things like the Agridome, the Residence, and the Medical Center are examples of good buildings. Basically anything your tanks don't autoshoot (excludeing EMP) Neutral structures can be counted here as well, though they do not have a morale penalty. EX. the Command Center.
17. Destroying "Bad" Structures:
Bad structures like the Guardpost will raise your morale if you destroy them. However, this will be negatively affected if you lose units in the process. Whatch out for those explosive buildings!
18. Building Constructions/Destruction:
Building buildings will raise your morale. This is very useful to know. For example, building a command center grants you a small morale boost. Not all structures do this. Destruction of buildings lower morale, so be careful! Idle these structures to lessen the impact. Deconstructing buildings does not affect morale.
19. Food:
This is fairly simple. Surplus food raises morale, while food storage deminishing lowers morale. No food effectively kills morale, as well as kills off half your colony. Whatch those food levels!
1.3 Morale Facts:
Plymouth has a morale bonus of +10% over Eden.
Plymouth gets the Forum which has a higher capacity then that of the Recreational facility, but takes 2 workers.
Eden gets the Consumer Goods Factory, allowing them to easily increase their morale. However, it is expensive to run, eating away at your common storage and takes 2 workers.
1.4 Final Notes:
Important colony information can be found in the Resources Menu, in the morale information screen and the colonist counts. Hotkeys are: Alt+C, Alt+M Alt+F, and for the general overview, R. C= Colonist Report, M= Morale Report, F= Food report. These 3 reports are invaluable for telling you everything about your colony.
The first of my guides! Feel free to add anything (I'll add it to the post, and all previous posts should be cleared if possible. This keeps the posting area nice and clean)
1.5 Credits
Thanks To:
The OPU team for the information they provided!
Players who played Morale games and help me learn some of this stuff:
Joe566
And others whos names I do not remember at this time. If you arn't on here, remind me...
