RIMWORLD: Bedrooms vs. Barracks

My instinct when first setting up my colony is to pile everyone in a decent shared space, but I recently started questioning that. In this video I compare bedrooms to barracks, seeking the point at which one becomes more economical than the other...
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[@jamesmagee7643]

"Size only matters to the degree that it is affecting the overall impressiveness of the room." Makes me feel a lot better about myself thanks for the pro tip.

[@tam504]

Same here

[@KrugerFS]

So smaller room makes other tiny objects appear bigger?

[@cloudi7665]

😂

[@MysticAstru]

👀

[@Max_Griswald]

@@KrugerFS - Guess I'm moving to a tiny house...

[@Nightmarished]

Personally, I always do bedrooms just for the aesthetic of log cabins in the forest.

[@Jadziax]

Very cozy aesthetic, especially with the quilts and fireplaces from GloomyFurniture!

[@aprender1952]

@@Jadziax I’m making a colony, you think that the aesthetic could work along with industrial stuff? Cause I always get power as early as I can.

[@Jadziax]

@@aprender1952 absolutely! I highly recommend the GloomyFurniture mod for this if you don't already use it. It has a bunch of electric lighting options that emit warm yellowish light (like a fire or torch) instead of the cold white light of the classic RW lamps. They have standing lanterns, wall lights, and even electric fireplaces. I think the key to making a high-tech colony still seem cozy is keeping floors either stone brick or wood and using warm light sources. Also, do you have ideology? There are some really cute lamps and tables from the Rustic ideology style that totally exude cabin-in-the-forest vibes!

[@aprender1952]

@@Jadziax Thanks! and yeah, I have all the DLC :)

[@ellochickennugget1015]

Same.

[@j.doveyakamarvelousjacketm9823]

I've always started with a barracks (for speed) but quickly switch to individual rooms as I like to have at least 1 night owl, that way I can have someone doing something at all times without the disturbed sleep debuff. The fact that an okay room will always be better than a barracks was a surprise though. Thank you for looking into it

[@JimJamTheAdmin]

Having lived barracks life, I'd take a cupboard under a staircase over a barracks again, so that makes perfect irl sense to me.

[@deeraz]

I've had a similar approach - start with a barracks and only split off into separate bedrooms once the basics of the colony have been setup. Definitely will be updating my strategy after watching this. It's amazing how finicky these _crash_survivors_ are - god forbid you eat your survival meal without a table, or share your room with your fellow survivors! :D

[@Pyxis10]

It's why I'm thinking of getting Gritty realism installed next playthrough. Whiny Glitterworlders.

[@TESkyrimizer]

I'd be mad too if I had to hear people snore at night while trynna fall asleep 🤡

[@JohnSmith-ox3gy]

As someone who has lived in a barrack and eaten without a table I can confirm that you won't be having a mental breakdown every few days.

[@alpacawithouthat987]

@@TESkyrimizer But would you be mad enough to throw a tantrum that results in you destroying valuable equipment, refusing to work, and causing everyone to die including you?

[@BisexualPlagueDoctor]

Yeah but you’d be just as upset The ‘low expectations’ buff counteracts it the same way you would push aside how horrible it is

[@lauramae6548]

I find barracks the most useful when I'm playing extreme temperatures (at least at the start). It makes for fewer campfires to maintain and you can easily shove another bed in when you get a new colonist. :)

[@Jadziax]

This is a really good point--sometimes you just need people in a central area that can be heated or cooled quickly!

[@shurhaian]

Similarly, I think I once had a group of refugees show up during toxic fallout. Whenever you have a sudden influx of people and a pressing need for them to not just lie down and sleep outdoors, a quick and dirty barracks can buy the time to get better-established housing.

[@artonedx]

At tribal start I usually have open door between rooms working as vent and campfire on every second room.

[@OhNoTheFace]

I mean it makes sense, those more intense area likely would share a common room they could warm/cool

[@cavareenvius7886]

I learned to build a emergency barracks for the heat waves/ cold snaps. Everytime those happens i move my pawns for a short time. The low mood debuffs has almost no effect on my pawns because they got then more time for recreation.

[@victorlacasse-beaudoin9287]

Expected a small tutorial, ended up learning the entire mechanics of sleeping and sleeping quarters. 10/10

[@NotHappening-b8t]

same mostly. this had a lot more detail and good info then i was expecting

[@DamienDarksideBlog]

I always do a 5x5 room for my colonists after two days of sleeping in a barracks, tops. Building the main building is paramount to me as well as establishing a small growing area. This way my pawns can defend from bedrooms or use hallways as chokpoints. 5x5 is enough room for a dresser, a double bed (in case of relationships), a light table/end table, a 1x1 table (or 1x2 unmodded) with a chair. You can even get heating or a piece of art in these, and a 3x3 Ideology panel on the floor of the bedroom as well. Fun fact: The first qualification of a "hotel room" in North America was "a bed, a chair, and a hook for your coat". You shared the bathroom. In Vancouver there is a place called Gastown where a guy named "Gassy Jack" was well known. He had a hotel in the early early days where you could pay them $1 extra and they would wash the sheets before you slept. We've grown since then.

[@altaem9152]

A wonderfully in depth guide. The one thing you've overlooked in dual purpose rooms. Adding beds has no impact on dining/recreation rooms. These are often already really impressive, so you can get an impressive barracks "for free". Also sleeping alcoves do wonders for reducing or eliminating disturbed sleep debuffs.

[@brohvakiindova4452]

but sleeping alcoves also make it less space efficient, I'll definitely am going to try out something like this on a super compact base because multi purpose rooms are almost brokenly good

[@altaem9152]

@@brohvakiindova4452 Place the pawns bed behind their personal workstations. No one else will be walking within a few tiles and that's enough to prevent the debuff.

[@brohvakiindova4452]

@@altaem9152 neat

[@TheHughgee]

I've always tried to pump out a bunch of low quality rooms for quick expansion so this video made me feel better about that

[@Gabriel87100]

This is gonna be extremely helpful. From my experience with other playthroughs I kinda established as a personal tradition to have 7x7 (wall measurements) individual bedrooms, which was always aesthetically pleasing until I had my first colony surpassing 16 colonists. The lack of space to build artillery or landing pads because of the amount of bedrooms is a nightmare.

[@That__Guy]

That's actually amazing. I kept using the realistic rooms mod to get down the required room size for no reason then.

[@HadenSavanti]

Thank you for the science of sleeping, much appreciated. I always go separate sleeping room with shared walls and vents for ease of temp control. Usually 4x5 for some reason.

[@had_fun_once]

I always ended up using bedrooms for my pawns because that's what I would have wanted. The moodlet debuffs from these pawns when they sleep in barracks are absolute jokes compared to how many I would have had... my "sleep disturbed" debuff would definitely go past 3 stacks for sure.

[@TheElusiveReality]

this is exactly my reasoning lmao

[@BisexualPlagueDoctor]

Luckily there isn’t a snorer trait because that would make it too realistic

[@seraphonica]

A good thing to note is that early game small spartan bedrooms can become prison expansions with very little work. If you get three prisoners when you only have space for one, you can evict people from their beds, get the prisoners tucked away quick, and upgrade your pawns' sleeping situation after the dust settles.

[@johnneill9740]

This was seriously mind blowing... I've been spending ages (insane number of play throughs) doing the 6 x 6 rooms with all the trimmings.. well done! :) This has made my early game so much more effective trying it this afternoon :)

[@frenchpressfinance]

Like many others here, it always starts with a barracks arrangement just to get them under a roof and around a campfire as quickly as possible. They start to get rooms as colony survival chances increase and I have the basic food and shelter established. When I do get around to rooms tho, they're 6x6 interior spaces and each room is a double bed so that when they do start to pair up and have romances, the double bed is already available.

[@grawham]

This is very interesting! I still prefer doing a barracks because I can also turn it into an extra-impressive dining hall and recreation space super easily and get the mood benefits for all three despite only having to build one impressive room.

[@clnetrooper]

This is a good and small guide. However, i disagree with it in that you treat barracks as a separate room of your colony. Nothing stops you from having the rec room being the same as the dining room... And the barracks. Each of those can be fused into one giant room in your colony. Meaning that with a few great sculptures, you can turn it into a wondrously (or at least unbelievably) barrack, dining room and rec room. Each of those rooms give a mood bonus for being impressive, and so being able to fuse them together means you can get them to a higher level of impressiveness with fewer ressources. While you have a net loss of mood comparing the barracks individual rooms, you get more mood out of it by having a better dining room/rec room. For example, i'd expect you to have an impressive rec room and dining room if you were to go the bedroom way. Which means +5 for very impressive dining room and +5 for very impressive rec room and +2 for decent bedroom. While going unbelievably impressive, it's +7 and +7, +3 for the barrack and -3 for being disturbed. It stacks at max -3, can't go lower than that for being disturbed during sleep. Here, it's a +2 mood gain for the barrack route. And i think i've been kind to the bedroom route with this calculation, not going full wondrously for the barracks and going up to very impressive dining/rec room. Of course if you got the ressources and wealth to have a wondrously impressive dining, rec room AND with bedrooms. Go for it. But not everyone can or want to invest this wealth into a few more mood bonuses.

[@royce9018]

This reason is why a barracks is the best way to set up sleeping. A single room can provide 10+ mood quite easily.

[@karezza1089]

Indeed.

[@joelrasdall7662]

I start out with that and then end up branching off to individual bedrooms at a certain point in the game.

[@pandaprince5869]

Plus you don't even need any investment from resources at all, you can just plant a bunch of daylilies inside your barracks (don't use floors)

[@coreblaster6809]

If you can afford to make a dining room unbelievably impressive you might as well have individual rooms.

[@coreypalmer1523]

basic rooms are the way to go! I've always tried to give my people good rooms, but it puts you too far behind and in turn gives you more and worse mood buffs. You know how much space you can save and time! Even the -4 mood buff is super easy to offset with the time saved. You can have a nice rec room, Time to grow and hunt more which provides lavish meals, sit at a fancy table. Of course though. The leader must have have a royal room, I go all out with that, silver walls, nice white carpet in the bedroom area, drapes, double royal bed, gold nightstands, silver dresser (gold's expensive ok leave me alone) then a nice marble tile floor for a nice table and chair, and some games on the other side. Of course some silver shelving for his armor set incase he needs it. :) But seriously thanks so much, I never thought I could get away with just a bed in a room. The amount of space I am going to have is mind numbing. I've spent too much space and time on bedrooms no moar!

[@brohvakiindova4452]

all gold looks insanely awful anyway, I kind of like a combination of jade, silver and gold and eventually some plasteel, with skilled artists and crafters you get maxed out bedroom without issue

[@AdRxElite]

Super underrated, and you have a voice that's really easy to listen to. Great vid

[@Jadziax]

Thanks so much :)

[@tiedyerupee4570]

Major early game tip of you are ok with using a weird mechanic. If you combine your barracks and hospital they don't get the barracks debuff. You can have a dirt floor terrible environment but if it's a hospital they don't care at all because they are in a hospital not a barracks. Note that you need more hospital designated beds than normal beds and for those who don't know there is an option to designate a normal bed as a hospital bed if you click on it.

[@ephemispriest8069]

15x9 Barracks lets you easily fit eight double beds, using four nightstands, and two dressers. The size also allows it to grow impressive with ease, and you can even fit large statues. I have found 5x7 bedrooms to be capable of about the same comfort levels, but for the same bed space you would need twice as many nightstands and dressers. Not to mention eight 5x7 rooms. When you consider that colony wealth contributes to what the storyteller throws at you... the barracks is the no brainer. Individual bedrooms are literally just for slightly higher moods. There is no other advantage.

[@chrissear6065]

When your colony gets large, individual rooms may end up being placed a long way from your dining room. Pawns who are hungry immediately after sleep and too far from a table will eat without one. Now, you could put a table in their room, or neglect the -3 debuff, but what you're actually losing out on is the relatively large mood buff that comes from eating in an impressive dining room. Combined with the need to heat, defend, and build all those extra rooms, along with the increased distance between pawns and their rec/dining room and workstations and I find it hard to justify bedrooms over barracks as the game goes on as it's just so much easier to scale things up when all you need is an extra bed. Ultimately I blame the formula for bedroom impressiveness and in particular its dependence on size; bedrooms should not need to be as large as other rooms to reach the same impressiveness.

[@edmundmanuel9304]

hence why i always load in the realistic room sizes mod. couldn't stand needing a room to be the size of a mansion to get my pawns to think it was spacious. this is a gritty sci fi universe damnit! you pampered fucks are lucky to be in a space where two people can walk side by side comfortably

[@KhrisKruel]

you could always build more than one dining room

[@edmundmanuel9304]

@@KhrisKruel i actually love doing this. Makes it feel like the colony is bigger and more lived in

[@JBloodthorn]

I made a mod just to stop pawns from carrying food. So they have to go down the hall to the impressive dining room instead of eating on the floor of their bedroom.

[@fltfathin]

@@KhrisKruel i make one long corridor with tables every ~10 block as rec room + dining room + central heating/ cooling shaft, works wonders

[@yametekudasai3973]

It's been a while, miss your vids. Welcome back! 🥺

[@Demoninjassassin]

Thanks for this! I'm just getting back into rimworld and this thorough but bite-sized explanation is just what I needed. I hope to see more content like this in the future.

[@theg0z0n]

I'm just getting into rimworld. I probably watched three or four of your videos now. You're a fantastic content creator. You have a great ability to explain things easily and quickly.

[@Jadziax]

I’m so glad you’re enjoying the videos! Good luck with RimWorld. It can be frustrating at first but is sooo much fun!

[@manuelnilsson7233]

A thing you forget to take into consideration is that your nice barrack can at the same time be your recreation room and your dining room giving only a +2 for sleeping but also the positive moodlets at the same cost for the other two rooms.

[@alex2143]

Also, your pawns will probably spend quite some time there, meaning more time exposed to statues and beautiful areas, it helps keep wealth low, and it's very space efficient. Combined with a nutrient paste dispenser it makes for a very very efficient colony.

[@timothymclean]

If you've got the resources and manpower to make an impressive mess hall/rec room/barracks, you probably have the resources to make an impressive mess hall/rec room and dull individual bedrooms, or maybe even decent ones. And as the video notes, you need an unbelievably impressive mess hall/rec room/barracks for colonists to prefer that sleeping arrangement over a dull individual room. Which is kinda silly, but that's how the mechanics work.

[@giin97]

​@@timothymclean in my experience, barracks vs bedrooms is equal to at least 2 levels of difficulty under the storytelling, the amount of wealth they create is just insane. 1 room bases for the win 😂 Well ok 3. Need a sterile hospital and a prison :P

[@shurhaian]

I've usually gone with 3x5 or even 5x5 rooms - this video clued me in to just how little difference that makes early on, but once you can actually get impressive flooring and other high-beauty things, it starts to help, especially if you want to include some manner of rec space (or the pawn wants to meditate/pray there). Still, I might stick to 2x3 bedrooms going forward.

[@brohvakiindova4452]

I always disliked how some natural comfort upgrades make little sense in rimworld: if you make a tv or something in the room (as in real life) you have it worse off than in a giant communal rec-room that is extremely impressive (especially considering wealth etc.)

[@ttv_Simply_Soph]

This video is so underrated, this is the 2nd time I've referenced it when building a base. Thank you so much!!

[@Swordphobic]

Good tips, I always go for the 5x5 bedrooms, not because they´re good, but because Rimworld has enough leeway for me to do some roleplay.

[@Jadziax]

Yeah, I like having dressers, side tables, double beds, and a potted plant :) definitely worth it to do some RP!

[@alphaprawns]

Nice, thanks for breaking it down with the stats, I've never thought about it in this much details before. For me though I use the Hospitality mod, which is why I always end up keeping my starting barracks and sprucing it up. You sometimes get like a dozen guests visiting, and I just don't want to build that many bedrooms in my base that are only sometimes in use lol.

[@Jadziax]

Barracks definitely make sense for Hospitality, especially for your cheaper rooms! I haven't played with Hospitality in ages but now I suddenly want to build a hotel lol

[@alphaprawns]

​@@Jadziax Playing a wasteland hotel is a lot of fun, there's a similar mod called Gastronomy that also lets you set up restaurants for your guests, and adds a waiter job for your pawns

[@BTFranklin]

This was a fantastic analysis. I had been operating under the same assumption you had, and had always been starting out trying to build up a nice barracks before branching out into bedrooms. This will definitely change my early-game play style!

[@marshakthebearbarian8326]

This was recommended to me and I actually learned something new! Gone are the days of barracks, today we have wooden boxes to sleep in!

[@Narvre]

THis is an insanely good video for meta bedroom building early game. Ive never imagined using anything other than barraks early game because i had no idea how to make efficient bedrooms, and the people i watch who play losing is fun stick with barracks with no floor to keep wealth low, but i think this video actually shows you how to make low wealth bedrooms which is just so cool

[@sykomaniax187]

Very interesting, though i probably still will barrack untill my usually solo constructor has finished most other important rooms before i start building actual housing. In the end the buffs and debuffs arent that severe so its really only pertinent in difficult and cruel colonies

[@ledvapour6937]

Especially when you still have low expectations, it's very feasible to keep everyone in a barracks.

[@glockshifters8640]

Using this video and many of your other guides for my channels rimworld let’s plays! Your videos are very informative!

[@SpruceWillis16]

I usually build bedrooms for my starting colonists and for some who earned it (yes, I RP a little bit too). I build my bases like an onion. The inner layer is for my leader, the royals and the most loyal guards and followers with separate bedrooms. The middle layer consists of a military district and different buildings for crafting, storage etc with impressive barracks or rarely spearate houses for the wealthier colonists. The outer layer of the "onion" is the farming/slave district, where I have these huge barracks with their own kitchen, canteen, bathrooms etc. I usually use a lot of mods (sometimes more than 200) and have a lot of colonists and I like to spice up things with a little bit of roleplay, so my goal is not to build the most efficient layout, but to make pretty bases and have fun managing the colonists in terms of promoting or demoteing them to different housing units or granting them titles so they can move into the most luxurious district where they have endless recreation, parties, the best food, drugs etc while being protected by the soldiers in the middle layer. I would heavily recommend to try the mod which allows you to set up patrol routes and have your soldiers patrol around your base in different shifts while the royal family and their friends are having a huge drugparty in the throneroom :D

[@peterknutsen3070]

I just start with one huge room to use as stockpile, barracks and some crafting. Later I make a new building (or 2-3 such) divided into several 3x5 bedrooms, since I once read that the pawn perceives a room as being larger if he’s in the middle of it. Later again I combine the 3x5 rooms two and two into 7x5 large bedrooms by removing the middle wall. So for instance one building with six 5x3 bedrooms becomes a building with three 5x7 bedrooms.

[@Jadziax]

I start the same too, one bigger room, bc the priority is getting out of the elements. But usually I keep them in barracks for AGES after; sometimes forever! Reevaluating that... I hadn't heard the "middle of the room" tip, that's interesting... I did discover during this video that if your pawn isn't spending any time in their bedroom while awake, they won't get any "cramped interior" etc debuffs from it

[@eldabys]

this is actually a great tip. I usually keep my pawns sleeping in my storage room until i can get at least somewhat reasonable sized bedrooms, but seeing this it makes way more sense to make little coffin rooms

[@pookage]

Yayyy, she's back! 🙌 This was really insightful, thanks! I really like to give my pawns their own houses, haha. So, at the start, everyone is just sharing a room in one house - then they're each moved out into their own spacious cabins one by one as they're completed. Then, when I get richer, I can sorta...rennovate each existing cabin to improve its quality, and give it its own rec-room and walk-in wardrobe and stuff 😅

[@Jadziax]

Sounds great, I love separate houses but they never end up going well for me... I've found they are much harder to defend!

[@pookage]

@@Jadziax Ahh, you're talking to someone who plays on suuuper low difficulties because I mostly just like making pretty bases 😅

[@reverendcascade]

Very informative, i would not have expected that to be the case.

[@qx0ni]

Ah a compliment and insult in one package, very nice. Have a thought about women and what they are to you and how they have to be and act ect. Thanks in advance

[@reverendcascade]

@@qx0ni what i didnt expect was the outcome of the small room versus the barracks, which was the point of the video.

[@qx0ni]

@@reverendcascade ah right, wow. I totally miss judged that one. Now I feel like an ass. Sorry!

[@royce9018]

@@qx0ni what crawled up your butt?

[@qx0ni]

@@royce9018 not sure, been around the internet too long I guess. My bad.

[@Oroberus]

Lifecycle of a Rimworld bedroom: - A sleeping spot inside the 7/7 main building being stitched together from whatever material is quickly available during a Naked Brutality start - A bunch of simple single beds in a somewhat orderly barrack, made out of wood - Seperate bedrooms with double beds, including a washing basin and a latrine in an adjescent small room, made out of stone bricks - Seperate, quite big, bedrooms with high quality double beds, including full fletched 5 star bath rooms in a complex specifically ment for housing and being build out of concrete - Coffin-like wall niches containing cryptosleep caskets ... and a big pile of luciferum xD

[@chrisw6164]

I put them in a 10x10 barracks and stuff as many beds as possible in there. Leave room for 2 grand sculptures for beauty (and lights, heater, etc).

[@Rinzler842]

This was really helpful, I make bedrooms just like the stone brick one you made, I guess I'll start rethinking bedrooms!

[@huckleton]

very informative video! i'd love to see a follow-up for prisoner arrangements, especially for conversion (ideology) vs. recruitment. i think i heard somewhere that prisoners are easier to convert at low mood (vs. recruitment), but that might be disinformation; all i know is that low mood lowers their "will" more.

[@Emmezali]

I always mine out 7x7 rooms in the rocks. It has the added benefit of finding ore. The downside is that it can take long if you don't have a decent miner in your group. I always put a double bed, two plant pots, an end table, a dresser, a table and a stool in the rooms. I recently started smoothing the walls, but that is a very time consuming task, especially if you do not have a high level constructor in the group. And lastly when I have researched carpet I put carpet on the floors. The carpet makes it very easy to see dirt too.

[@murphychurch8251]

With all the smoothing, though, construction skills go up really fast. I sometimes train people by telling them to smooth a wall and then, when they're almost done, I draft-undraft them and tell them to start all over. Not nice...but effective training. 😂

[@byronviljoen4899]

Everything I thought I knew was wrong. Thanks for the video!

[@seaofinsanity6523]

And again I have learnt something new. Starting with barracks has always been a struggle, never thought of giving people box rooms.

[@Jadziax]

Honestly I always started with barracks too! Even though I now know this, I still might stick to barracks just for the RP lol

[@calamariaxo]

600+ hours of Rimworld and I never really even bothered to investigate this any closer. I always end up with private rooms of course, but I almost always start with a barracks for convenience. My brand new colonists will from now on have the luxury of sleeping in their very own de facto closets thanks to you :P

[@originalsteveo]

I always made separate bedrooms because of the colonists disturbing each other's sleep, but I had no idea about the size not mattering past 2x3 nor was I aware of that cleaning mod. Thank you very much for letting us know about it, it was a real pain in the arse having to jerry-rig restrictions to try to keep my cleaners from sweeping areas that I couldn't care less about being dirty!

[@Jubijub]

Short and to the point, explains the mechanic very well. Thanks !

[@AProudDad]

Just got into rim world, subbed. Man... I love this game.

[@jamesketchum5047]

welcome back

[@Jadziax]

Thanks James! Trying my best. I appreciate ya! :)

[@codyedition]

always did this, but wasn't sure if it was worthwhile! great video

[@SteveWhipp]

Very early game I have them share a room, but once set up I've always made 5x5s for each to allow the sleeping furniture and decorations. For prison cells, it's a 3x3 with a 1x1 table and dining chair as well as the bed. For event temp guests, I have a barracks for soldiery and a couple 5x5 for VIPs. Seems to work for me, in most playthroughs.

[@laidback100]

Very good breakdown. Thanks. I've been trying to find more Rimworld vids like these.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

I used to use barracks at first and then build bedrooms later but I realised that building a few 3x4 bedrooms is easy to do on the first day, so that’s what I do now. I eventually create some 4x4 bedrooms for rooms with double beds, and on some luxury colonies all of my rooms will be 4x4s with doubles.

[@phun1901]

It is not often I see a video with 1 like for every 10 views. Totally deserve it too.

[@Jadziax]

Ah thank you, that means a lot :)

[@Auraknight]

When I started playing rimworld, I stuck with the 1x2 coffin rooms. Then, a few hundred hours (and mods) later, I advanced to 3x3. These days, I have 5x5 for my VIP colonists, 3x3 for everyone else, and a single large barracks for guests and prisoners. I'm not much of a fan of re-zoning my housing when the upgrades roll around, so 5x5 means I get good moodlets, while also having more then enough room to add in the end table, dressed, sleep accelerator, double bed, radiator, private shower, and whatever else needs to be stuck in there to make the pawn live in the lap of luxury. While a 5x5 may feel like a lot of space for just _one_ pawn, if they have a little luck in love, a 5x5 for 2 is better then a 4x4 for 1, not only in cost, ease, and space, it also provides enough room that a little 'filth' doesn't torpedo things at a bad moment. One important thing to keep in mind is that the room's space counts open pathable- so if you're making oddly shaped rooms, ((and I do love making right-angle triangle rooms,)) That dresser and headboard are gonna make the room's size smaller then if you don't have them. There's a few breakpoints to consider before adding in the extra luxuries if you toe that line.

[@camo_kamikaze1598]

I usually build 19x19 apartment blocks, makes for six 7x7 rooms on either side of a 5-wide hallway (usually I make it a rec room/storage/food hall. That'd be enough room for all colonists in the basic scenarios to have a bedroom and a spare(s) to use as a kitchen, storage, or small workshop lol

[@DamienDarkside]

I do a 3x3 hallways with 5x5 interior space rooms, close!

[@camo_kamikaze1598]

@@DamienDarkside Either one works and it makes for good standard of apartments, plus upsizing is easy

[@saga8724]

Very good info video , answers all the basic housing questions, thank you.

People forget that if you make big enough barracks and stuff in a large table with few board games, you can make a megastructure that gives you lots more buffs, like impressive rec room and dining room, offsetting the need to make a buttload of sculptures and yank up your colony wealth making raids worse than needed. Barracks are more efficient if it comes for structure entities, resources and pawn distance travelled, they are less roleplay-friendly, i will admit that, but also faster to set up, and early-game that's where your priorities lay.

to add to that, you can easily get impressive barracks by using only wood, add to that a dresser that can buff most of the beds at once, and to that try to roll for a excellent large or massive sculpture, and voila, you got beauty maxed out for anyone who does anything in there, you can also stuff artist workbenches and research to make those pawns even happier. Not even mentioning about spacious interior buffs. I am a stout believer in barracks supremacy over Individual housing.

[@01001010010001001100]

Good vid. 3x3 is typically my standard because in a regular colonist room I can also have an end table and a dresser (I know I can fit all that in a 2x3 but it's more aesthetically pleasing to me in a 3x3). Typically stays that way for most of the game until lategame when I move towards 4x5 or 4x6 rooms. But typically around then is when I'm bored with a colony anyway. Also the first "c" in ascetic is silent.

[@jaxrammus9165]

i do the usual stockpile sleeping spot barracks until i can get a common room down then build 6x6 rooms so i dont have to fuck with it later. its space for a double bed, nightstand, footlocker, and a statue and allows a single speck of dust to not blow out the room.

[@reverie_melih2451]

The Barrack's power doesn't comes from its multiple sleeping spots. The fact that you can shove 3-4 statues to a barracks, make concreate floor and make that room sleeping - dining - recreation and you can have +15 mood buff because your pawns have impressive dining and rec rooms. In the early game, when you can't make statues, you can just plant some dandelions/roses (i prefer roses but dand give more beauty but roses have a longer lifespan) and have that room slightly impressive or very impresive. And the fact that your pawn doesn't have to travel much considering your workplace is in that barracks, its better for productivity. Overall barracks are supperiour. But there is a debate that having a room similar to barracks (same impressiveness, same room but not with beds) and indivitual rooms being better but that means extra wealth and as i said, more travel times. Well its a f* sandbox game, play however you want. EDIT: There is a funny bug with barracks; If you have hospital beds (or sleeping spots, which are free and no building time) more than your collonists casual beds, you don't get the awful barracs -7 mood debuff because it is considered as hospital. But you still loose the value you might get the mood buff from having a impressive indivitual room

[@wesołameduza]

Wow, thats a great video, very informative! I like this kind of short format, I learnt a lot about the game :) cheers

[@n0nchalanc3]

The most efficient barracks are bigger than what you show but also include recreation and dining. That way you take up less space, resources and wealth to get the "impressive dining room" and "impressive recreation room" moodlets (while also getting the "impressive barracks moodlet") instead of having to build lots of bedrooms as well as impressive dining and rec rooms. Getting these moodlets easier/quicker counterbalances the "disturbed sleep" debuff (which can only go to -3 anyway) imo. You also get around jealous pawn requirements because everyone has the same bedroom, and around greedy needs if the room is nice enough. That said, its obviously nicer from an aesthetic POV and probably fits in better with most role playing scenarios to have individual bedrooms. And if you can't find an ascetic pawn and want to go down the Royalty storyline and gain ranks you'll need a bedroom at some point. Bedrooms certainly have their place in colonies on the Rim

[@DamienDarksideBlog]

To counter your own point, I'd rather have "Impressive X/Y/Z" AND the "Impressive Bedroom" stacked on top of that. It can really help when encountering Emotion Drones (negative mood) or all the other RNG BS that Rimworld likes to throw at you. You also need a significant amount of positive things in the room to get a buff. When I host another Nation's warrior/Cataphracts/Champions etc for quests I will keep those dudes in an impressive barracks to make sure they don't take up the good rooms. Never colonists. It's ridiculously easy to get a high mood boost off of a room than it is to get one from a barracks. You can get an amazing buff simply from wood if you get a decent piece of art in there too. Singular rooms also can help isolate and defend against Drop Pod Attacks (Outside Base) or Infestations (Mountain Base) since there is now a chokepoint and damage is confined to a tiny area. Also if you set anything on fire in the room, it heats to 500 degrees. Toasty bugs. Finally, my favorite thing is being able to put a small 1x2 (1x1 modded) table into their room. Easily counters the "Didn't Eat At a Table" thing they have.

[@altaem9152]

@@DamienDarksideBlog Easiest way to get a room up to really impressive is to fill it with mastercrafted beds. No artwork required.

[@DamienDarksideBlog]

@@altaem9152 Have you heard of Occam's Razor? You might want to study up on it, you don't have the point you think you do. It is infinitely easier to get any construction worker to make a bed, dresser, table, chairs and toss a end table into a bedroom over getting a construction worker to make a Mastercraft Bed. Let alone multiple for a room. If you have to have a very specific item that is either a quest reward or a high level crafting item, it isn't an alternative. Occam's Razor.

[@altaem9152]

@@DamienDarksideBlog I've always had a surplus of decent beds. What are you using your construction inspirations on?

[@n0nchalanc3]

@@DamienDarksideBlog I've made colonies with individual bedrooms with their own table/chair/art, and others with one big barracks in my many 100s of hours playing this game and I don't think there is a definitive answer to the question of "bed rooms vs barracks" because there are so many variables, like: - difficulty (where the wealth of the extra building materials matters more at higher difficulties), - available building materials (i.e. are you on Sea Ice or a flat Desert where its hard to come by stone), - map layout, - biome (its easier to heat/cool a barracks than individual bed rooms in extreme climates), - whether you are using the Nature Primacy or Tree Connected precepts so can't spread out without taking mood hits for cutting/disturbing trees, - whether you have the Transhumanist precept and don't want to hit the certain colony wealth cut-off points that change pawn expectations and bring certain wants with them (i.e. hitting 81,000 colony wealth meaning that you suddenly need to have Neural Superchargers for everyone) The point of my initial post was more that there is a better way to build a barracks than it just being a bigger room with a bunch of beds in it like was shown in the video, and to point out that if everyone is in a barracks that it can largely cancel out the negative of jealous/greedy pawns (traits that are almost universally despised by Rimworld players).

[@sydthesquid4540]

Always love when a new Jadz video comes out!!! 👏🥳💐

[@HellMotel-Chris]

I learn something new from every one of your tutorials!

[@Jadziax]

So happy to hear that! :)

[@Butterkin]

Its a lot easier to cool down or heat up a barracks than many separate bedrooms. Of course you can go hotel or apartment style and have grid rooms, but I've always noticed just how space inefficient it is to build a large apartment complex like that for my pawns. Its also difficult to decide the room material, its bad to waste steel, gold, silver, etc and if you use wood fire generators like I do and ignore batteries, you also dont really want to use wood either. I usually train up my constructors by having them smooth a mountain base first, then construct a lot of the same furniture and deconstruct the ones that suck, but keep the ones that are good or excellent. I will use some steel for furniture, some silver for furniture, marble for end tables, dressers and sculptures. Maybe a little bit of wood. But everythings excellent quality, and I can get to very impressive barracks, prisons, hospitals, rec rooms, dining rooms, etc.

[@sircharlesvonpimpsmack7667]

I like making my rooms 6x4 so once i get cloth/devilstrand production going in earnest, i can beautifi the spaces by eventually making them a personal suite. Everyone gets an excellent or better armchair, drapes, a wittle bonsai tree, excellent or better furniture made from marble. I like the extra space so that changing a bed to a double bed doesn't require a huge shift of space. I can just slap down another end table blueprint and be done with it to let my pawns get it on and grow the colony in peace. Sometimes, if they are a special role, i'll include a shelf with specialized gear related to their position. Like a spare cape for the moral guide or a place for the psychic to put their hard earned eltex equipment down to prevent wear and tear.

[@Stormbolter]

Very informative! I usually keep up a medium sized barrack for "buffer" while I make individual rooms as I never stopped to see how they felt about sleepin there. I think on my next run I will go for the 2x3 "guestrooms" instead, and see if there is an improvement :)

[@Miyuuq]

Glad i found this video, i wouldn't have guessed pawns hated sharing that much lol

[@wicked_bitz]

I like the idea that you “set up sleeping spaces “I make enough for my first set of ponds and then have to Add rooms in a very slapdash manner that’s typically with my colony falls apart

[@SaltyMaud]

I always start with a great room (combined dining and recroom) as my first structure and dump all my beds, or even just sleeping spots in there for the first couple of days. Then storage to stop my stuff from detoriorating away, then attached freezer and kitchen next to the great room, then individual somewhat impressive bedrooms. The initial mood buff keeps them happy enough until they get their own bedrooms.

[@Xeonzs]

Thanks, I never knew this, I always started out with a barracks of sleeping spots, now I'll have them sleep in the dirty privately at least... lol

[@deilusi]

I personally make bedrooms only for pawns that want them, most use barracs, and I make them in a way where only ones that go to sleep can disturb I am not sure if my mods affect it, but I only saw "disturbed sleep" if anyone walked next to bed where pawn sleeps, sometimes when they walk diagonally it still happens. I put wardrobes/dressers in their legs so they dont touch other beds, and It seems much more space efficient to make super impressive barracks than making slightly impressive bedroom. IMHO if you have a lot of wood, a large statues of good quality can take 2x3 bedroom to decent, so it would be an easy choice for most players. all you need is pawn with 6 artistic randomly waltz in, easy thing if you have "guests mod" if you play with mods, get "Door Mat" from many options and put them at halway to your bedroooms to keep them clean. they make pawns drop all dirt they have on doormat, so put outside of bedroom, keep it 100% clean 99% of the time.

[@Sweaper]

You can throw the barracks together with the dining, recreational and workshop rooms to bump up their space. Throw in some open walls for both aesthetic and manipulating pawn's route to avoid them walking close to someone else's bed

[@buggydust]

i used to do big individual rooms for all my pawns but i recently started trying out barracks in ideology. i saw another streamer (adam vs everything) put the barracks, dining, and rec rooms all in one large space which was something that hadnt ever occurred to me before! im not executing it as well as he did lol but it's nice to try something new and shake things up! maybe next playthru ill just give everyone coffin rooms

[@omnomzofchainsaws4278]

Yeah, saw him do this. The key is having enough light and grow space to plant day lilies so you can spike your beauty up to impressive and get the other 2 buffs for impressive dining room and rec room.

[@pklemming]

Yeah, Adam is awesome. It was him who introduced me to the very OP bisphasic schedule, though I am a lot less scrimpy on wealth than he is. I was using multi-function rooms prior to that, but the sleep schedule too just made things so much better.

[@pklemming]

@@omnomzofchainsaws4278 Lillies are nice if you can support it, but even without the wealth increase to keep them happy does not make keeping under expectations much more difficult and frees up production time on replanting. I will use daylillies to around mediocre expectations then slowly move over to static room bonuses.

[@ThaGamingMisfit]

Great tutorial ! Next run I'll be going for 2x3 bedrooms and use the saved space for other purposes. Heck my prisoner rooms will be bigger !

[@ShiftingSkys]

I always started with Individual rooms. I just asked myself what I would prefer and it was individual rooms. I also will put a vent in every room connecting to the main hallway to keep them warm.

[@tefnutofhoney2832]

I tend to do barracks early game as an "all in one" structure. Containing limited early storage furniture (i use storage mods), a table with enough chairs for all my colonists, a research table, and if i feel saucy, a stonework table

[@brianlhughes]

I add a table and chair for eating but I could just add a few small dining rooms around so I don't get ate without a table..

[@Jadziax]

Yes this is a great idea! I hate when pawns go into other pawns' bedrooms to eat, though. I feel like that always happens to me when I start putting tables in bedrooms!

[@justhallowed8499]

I always put my bed as close as possible to the door to minimize the area that gets dirtied in the room

[@Jadziax]

oo interesting idea, I always put it farthest just bc that's how I would want my bed irl 😅

[@justhallowed8499]

@@Jadziax that was how I did it as well initially but then I realized filth in the middle of the room and the cleaner will travel half way across the map to clean it

[@brohvakiindova4452]

my current strategy for bedrooms is building 3 by "x" rooms in one designated corner of my base, the reason being simply that I like to keep my base compact so each room is only 3 blocks wide I found it unnecessary complicated to fit in additional 5x5 rooms or larger for each additional colonist while trying to keep things compact I start with 3x4 or 3x5 and expand if necessary (usually digging into a mountain side for easy beauty) I don't like how it looks past 3x5 but it's still "better" in my opinion apart from bedroom situation I highly recommend combining your rec-room and dining room and make it extremely impressive + spacious, you save both space and colony wealth that way and get massive mood buffs so you can get away with smaller bed rooms if necessary too

[@zourin8804]

barracks are always useful. At the start of the game, you can quickly house your pawns with minimal resource investment and time requirements. If you keep that barracks, you can house temporary quest-guests and new pawns on the cheap without needing expansions, which help keep your wealth under control. Dedicating more space to individual pawns can be a more selective choice, offering privacy and value to those pawns that need it (couples and jelous pawns), as there are better options for mood-boosting in the early-mid game.

[@qx0ni]

This was awesome! Perfect layout of the vid and great info! Thanks you for the information and Good job!

[@ProfBoggs]

Anyone know what mod is used to give the beds quilted sheets seen at ca. 00:15 into the video?

[@Akanon74]

Thanks, I didn't know about spatious interior thing. This was my reason to always set up barraks, as I thought that the +5 I get from spatious interior would offset the other negative moodlets. Also, I didn't think to check out how long it lasts, so my reasoning might have been flawed anyway :)

[@rayceeya8659]

I start with sleeping spots in a common room and then build bedrooms as soon as I have carpets, and cotton available. Get it all done at once. Everyone gets a nice cozy bedroom and then the colony really kicks off.

[@carlchristianlindalen9311]

Early game I make 5x5 (7x7 if you're counting the walls) wooden huts completely separated from eachother by 3 tiles of road or dirt. This leaves enough room for lighting, decorations, wardrobes, bedtable and facilities such as heating/cooling or a cat/dog bed etc. Importantly it also leaves room for upgrading to double beds when they partner up. The reason they are separate is due to fire risks early on until you can get into stonework and better materials. Also makes for excellent corner cover during interior base defence. The risk of friendly fire is very low, it gives great overwatch and any pawns that get hurt will only have to take one step back to be completely out of enemy line of fire. If you're doing a mountain base the separation is irrelevant, ofcourse.

[@darkohish9065]

That 5x5(7x7) dimensions are exactly the same for my late game bedrooms, for early game I combine my dining/recreation room into a barracks since all the added stuff like dining chairs and chess tables boost the room impressiveness to a point that there is never a mood debuff and the base is compact with no room wasted. Also I would say that 3 tile wide corridors with choke points are key to any mountain base that has any chance to survive end game infestations.

[@NataliaAllenova]

Thanks for the video, it's very interesting to watch other players play styles. Obviously, even a tiny bedroom is better than a decent barracks. But having private rooms early game is not cost- and time effective. It is very easy to achieve "impressive" or "very impressive" status with a large room (beds-dining-rec-kitchen-etc), and the debuff for disturbed sleep is negligible.

[@michaelfournie6174]

This shocking revelation deserves a sub.

[@SFHFWill]

This is so incredibly helpful. I'm about to stack those handy 2x3 rooms.

[@keatontruman3275]

I always do bedrooms because of bed quality they always get up at different times, my bases always look like hotels haha

[@richardschumack5271]

I personally only use a barracks in the first few days until i can setup up 5x5 rooms for each of the colonists. Only other time i will use a barracks is for prisoners and for short term visitors, especially if they are part of a quest that I wasn't prepped to handle for housing the pawns. I find that making apartments is a good way to save space but also allow each pawn to have their own room/space. For the 5x5 rooms, you can keep it as wood for time efficiency without having to worry to much about what the pawn thinks until later in the game when you can build better rooms for them, like with granite or marble walls and tiles, unless you have rustic as an option for the colonists beliefs. Each room gets an end table, a dresser, 1 chair, and a table to eat at in-case they have food on them for when they wake up. couples get a 7x8 room with the same items, but they get 2 chairs and have space to add things like statues and such to make the room better for value and such.

[@utomocalvin]

Combining the dinner/recreation/barracks room for extra spacious and share the decoration (or bed tables) effect. You can then focus on using the best material/decoration/etc. (maximize wealth, space, & beauty) into 1 room.

[@mrfatboy327]

I once did a run where I turned the bedroom also into the rec room and dining room to save space with all of them being extremely impressive. This is when I didn't want to spend the time to give anyone their own private rooms. It did tremendously well.

[@p_tassa]

This 👆is my new go to. Very efficient

[@Jadziax]

I've seen a lot of people say this, it seems super efficient! It somehow feels a little like an exploit to me--like the extremely impressive barracks, rec room, dining room etc shouldn't stack in my opinion if they are all the same room? But hey, if it works for your colony then heck yea :)

[@styxriverr5237]

I build barracks to start off with, then build cluster of rooms with a temperature control hallway and vents to save of heating and cooling costs, but I never get rid of the barracks as I use it for newly joined pawns, they stay in there till I get a room built or until I confirm that they aren't gonna turn on us.

[@ForeverGoth]

well thats a really in depth look into bedrooms excluding the fact that the art bench is almost always available at the very beginning of the game allowing you to craft any sculpture and add it to any 4 tile or more bedroom to completely boost room impressiveness the pawns dont know this but sleeping alone is actually quite depressing so I make all of them sleep in a barracks for their own good, and only moving them into their own spaces once they've found their love interest.