Shelter

A shelter is a completely enclosed area, which can be a house, tunnels or a combination of both, which has a totem somewhere inside it. Dwarves will only sleep within a suitable shelter.

What Classifies as a Shelter

A shelter has several conditions that must be met before dwarves will sleep there:

• You must place a Totem within the confines of the shelter; a totem has a maximum range of 14 horizontally or vertically and 10 tiles diagonally (thus making either a 29 diameter circle in squares or a 21x21 box). Ideally it should be placed near the Stockpile in order to protect it from Ghosts.
• Every background tile within the shelter needs a wall or a window.
• The shelter must be completely enclosed with a perimeter of walls, floor and a roof. This can be accomplished with foreground walls, doors, hatches, or other solid blocks or objects.
• A trail of small orange-yellow stars traces the perimeter of the shelter.
• Hatches must be placed one square above the hole in the floor or ceiling, not in the hole. If the hatch is placed in the hole, then the shelter will only be secure when the hatch is shut, and opening the hatch will break the shelter.
• If there is a hole in the perimeter around the totem then the nearest hole will be pointed out with a large orange star (unless the hole is caused by an open improperly placed hatch).

To use a second totem to expand the size of the shelter, place the second totem at an edge of the first totem's maximum range.

Comfort Level

The comfort level of your shelter influences the dwarves recovery time while they sleep. A higher degree of comfort will reduce the time dwarves need to sleep to regain health.

In order to obtain highest level of comfort follow these tips:

• Each bed in your house beyond the first drastically lowers comfort as overall comfort is divided by how many beds are in the shelter.
  • If dwarves don't fight very often, keep only one bed and reassign it after use until comfort is maxed out. Then add a bed and repeat once more comfortable items become available.
  • Replace all beds as soon as a better version becomes available as they now have an effect on overall comfort.

• The material used for the external walls makes a big difference. The following list sorts them from the best to the worst:

• Brick Wall
• Stone Wall
• Stone
• Wooden Wall
• Dirt

• Background material makes no difference, so you can use the cheapest material without impacting the comfort level.

• Doors and hatches type have an impact on the comfort level, the stronger the door, the better is the comfort provided. The following list sorts them from the best to the worst:

• Steel Door
• Iron Door and Iron Hatch
• Wooden Door and Wooden Hatch

• Roofs provide less comfort than walls, so is better to use roof tiles only for deco on top of a line of wall tiles.

• Shelter size per dwarf now increases comfort.

• Overall lighting affects the comfort level. The bigger the shelter, the more lighting needed until the effect is capped. The type of lighting doesn't appear to have an effect.

• Currently, the comfort provided by furniture/deco items DO affect the overall comfort level.

Tips

• A bed with a bag next to it means it has already been assigned to a Dwarf, and cannot be used by another one.
  • Removing or replacing a bed will make it available again, so it is possible to have all 20 Dwarves use only one bed (but not at the same time).
• Beds cannot be placed adjacent to another bed or a foreground wall, but can be placed on top of an adjacent tile with a ladder below.
• Ladders count as floor for the purpose of placing furnishings.
• The best way to max comfort is to place Black and White Pennant on top of Stained-Glass Window, since the windows function as backgrounds.

Shelter Defense

A useful design of wall for dealing with large swarms of enemies is the Sand_Wall.