Housing
Basics
Every Whisker you recruit to your colony will require a house eventually. Whiskers sleeping outside will produce significant negative thoughts about it. They will also not be shielded from the harsh elements, especially during winter.
In the beginning, you will be reliant on sheltering Whiskers in Stone Shelters and Log Cabins based on your limited starting resources and space to build. Once you get going, you will be able to build better quality houses.
Be sure to build more houses than you currently need so that you're ready for the next Whisker ship. If you're not sure how many empty houses you have available, you can put your cursor over your Whisker count on the top menu bar. It will then display Whiskers versus available housing.
Housing Quality
Whiskers need housing that at least matches their desired expectations.
If you give them a house that exceeds their expectations, they will produce additional positive thoughts. If you give them a house that is below their expectations, they will produce negative thoughts related to subpar housing.
Housing is available in the following qualities.
| Quality | Types of Housing |
|---|---|
| 0 ☆☆☆☆ | Stone Shelter |
| 1 ★☆☆☆ | Log Cabin |
| 2 ★★☆☆ | Plank Abode, Plank Blockhouse, Plank Rowhouse |
| 3 ★★★☆ | Stone Abode, Stone Blockhouse, Stone Rowhouse |
| 4 ★★★★ | See note below |
4-star quality houses are not yet available. You may provide Bedding and Furniture to a 3-star house via a Luxuries Supplier to increase positive thoughts by up to 4. This effect on the house is temporary as Bedding and Furniture functions like catalysts in Factories and decay over time.
Occupancy
Two Whisker traits will cause problems with using blockhouses and rowhouses. Whiskers that snore will inflict the disturbed sleep negative thought on the other occupant of the house. Loner Whiskers will be upset about their lack of solitude. Make sure to build single occupant homes if you have these Whiskers in your colony.
Upgrading
Some housing can be upgraded in place to the next tier of housing of the same type as long as you have sufficient resources and the associated building researched.
This can be done by selecting a house and looking for the upgrade button on the pop-up menu. Once pressed, the house will automatically upgrade to the next tier over a few seconds and the resources will be deducted from storage. Whiskers are not required to complete the upgrade construction.
Single occupancy houses cost 13 resources of the next tier to upgrade. A Log Cabin will cost 13 Planks to upgrade to a Plank Abode and then 13 Cut Stone to upgrade to a Stone Abode.
Double occupancy houses cost 21 resources to upgrade.
Stone Shelters cannot be upgraded and must be replaced by other housing.
Should you upgrade or rebuild?
Short answer: Upgrade.
Unless you want to move your housing or are in dire need to recover some incremental resources otherwise lost in upgrading, there is no good argument against just using the upgrade button.
The tradeoff is that you will not receive back the differential cost for sunk resources. For example, a Log Cabin costs 5 logs (converts to 25 planks). Upgrading it to a Plank Abode costs 13 planks but you lose the 5 logs. This makes the total cost effectively 38 planks. If you built a new Plank Abode, it costs 21 planks. Keep in mind this is the largest difference in resources for any house upgrade and you still have to "pay" the construction costs of time and Whiskers assigned to build the new house. You are also paying the opportunity cost of not just assigning those builders to a Sawmill or to gather logs. You will also have to micromanage rebuilding houses to prevent leaving Whiskers homeless in the process.
Effectively, this means rebuilding for the resource conservation is niche. It is included here because it may be a tactic to consider on harder difficulties or in extreme circumstances.
