ALPHA 47D NOW IN EXPERIMENTAL BRANCH

Kitchen buff is mentioned at the bottom of the "jobs/economy" section.

 

Yep, just noticed they included it in the development report update just not the actual R48 announcement list.


Edit: Scratch that, now it IS there.... hmmmmm.... guess I'm going blind.

 

It depends, but I think that rather than building for empty space, you'd be better off building to cram with decor.

Suppose an extra 4 tiles costs you 1plank&1stone. Then we can:
A: +16 tiles -> 4plank, 4 stone for +4
B: +4tiles and +4 decor => 5 planks and 1 stone for +4
C: +4 windows (if there's wall-space) -> 4 planks for +4

But wait! Taking up more space is troublesome, though you can plan for it. We don't have buildings needing much beyond logs/planks and stone. A decent number need brick, but only the lab needs glass/copper plates and that isn't something you need a high quality for either.

 

If you want sensible looking interiors with proper pathing, then go with corners.

More wall space in a smaller area for wall mounted modules, and allows for reasonable number of windows without them looking quite so daft as they do side by side.

Set a smaller block area than you would usually have where you need the work/function modules if it's a workshop, establish at least 1 grid space clearance either end, then have a small 3x2 or 3x1 area to double up as an entrance and extra walls for mounted decor.

When it comes to sleeping areas, if you're fine with wall mounted decor but still want it to look sensible and not some giant blob of non-pathing clutter that has colonists clipping through solid objects, then you can pack in quite a fair bit still.

Change it up slightly and you can get even more value for your space, and also end up with something more interesting to look at than just AxB blobs.

Non-optimal live example:



In that case I was more interested in aesthetics, so built the sides off more than I needed just to give additional floor space so if I ever needed too I could place another 1 or 2 cots in the middle and still have pathing around the sides.

If I hadn't gone with cabinets on those corners, I could have also scored 2 wall decors for that single grid rather than having that entire grid get taken up by 1 object, and thrown in two more cots in their place to boot.

Going even more hacky and throwing aesthetics out of the window, I could have placed windows on the other side of the wall to my shrines, got a half dozen or more shrines down, and still had a barracks that could have factored in 14 cots if I ditched the cabinets.

Edit: Well more than 14 cots actually, but then it would start to look rather silly.

And because the exterior creates little sinks into the building it can be utilised for localised mini-stockpiles or other misc things in the space if desired.

 

That's 72 squares, holding 14 cots? So one cot per 5.14 squares. Not bad.

Although my hellish bunkhouse has one bed per 4 squares, you can theoretically (by making a horrible jigsaw) obtain one bed per 3.5 squares.

It might make the building not render properly though.

 

If I took advantage of just leaving the interaction points option, could fit in at least 16 there, leaving complete clearance space from one side of the barracks to the other, and to each interaction point for the cots.

Interaction points to the wall shrines would probably be a problem though.

Probably not the most efficient for cot space, but for overall decor space balancing whilst not having a barracks just extending on further width wise, it's not too bad and is largely to do with keeping it looking sensible and somewhat symmetrical (E.G. navigation is clean across the building, door either side of the building etc).

 

Yeah the idea of the current "1cot-per4tiles" set up is to make it look sort of like a terraced house Which is kind of does from just the outside, looking at a row of doors with windows next to them or so on.

But the inside is just a hell of beds crammed in.

These in fact are apparently Victorian/Edwardian terraced houses in Loughborough, England.

Haha, though in the colony the most labor-intensive parts are probably farming followed by cooking, huh.