The five survival stats and what drains them

Open the supplies list Every item with the exact change it makes to all five stats, sortable by any of them.

Only Satiety and Stamina drain fast enough to need daily attention. Satiety falls 2 points an hour and Stamina falls 1; the other three drain at 0.17 an hour or slower and move mainly because something else pushed them. This page gives the drain rate for each stat, the threshold where each one starts hurting you, and the exact penalty attached.

Figures are for Wage Slave. The other characters share these rates and differ only in their caps.

How fast each stat drains

The game stores a drain interval per stat: one point every so many seconds while nothing intervenes.

The spread is the whole point. Satiety empties from its starting 80 in 40 hours of doing nothing at all, while Morale would take 15 days. Anything you see moving Morale, Fitness or Life quickly is an effect, not the clock.

What each stat is for

Satiety, If you're hungry, eat something. If your Satiety drops below 30, you'll become Hungry. If it drops to 0, you'll become Starving and you'll automatically seek out food.

Morale, An indicator of your mood. If it drops below 30, you'll become Depressed. If your Satiety and Stamina are high enough, Morale will slowly recover. Seeking out entertainment and completing events will also increase your Morale. At the end of each day, every point of Morale above 50 will go towards extra Survival points. So keep your chin up!

Stamina, Many events will consume Stamina, which can be restored by resting. If it drops below 30, you'll become Fatigued and automatically seek out a place to rest. If it drops to 0, you'll become Exhausted, which affects your Fitness and Life.

Fitness, High Fitness reduces your chances of becoming sick. If it drops below 30, you'll become Weakened. Being Hungry or Fatigued for too long can also impact your Fitness.

Life, An indicator of your health. If it drops below 30, you'll become Weak. If it drops to 0, you'll die! Being Starving or Exhausted for too long can also affect your Life.

To find what restores a particular stat, filter the supplies list by it: every item carries the exact change it makes to all five.

The penalties, in order of how soon you meet them

Each low-stat state is a condition the game applies on its own and removes when the stat recovers. They stack: nothing stops you being Hungry, Depressed and Fatigued at once.

Hungry

Lose 1 Morale every 3 hours. Reduces Max Stamina by 10 and Satiety decay speed by 30%. Occurs when Satiety is below 30.

From a full bar this is 35 hours away. It is the one you will meet on day one, and the Max Stamina cut is what makes it matter. You lose headroom on the stat you need for travel and work.

Starving

Lose 6 Life every 2 hours. Reduces Max Stamina by 10 and reduces movement speed. Occurs when Satiety reaches 0.

The Life drain is the fastest in the game outside a fight. Treat an empty Satiety bar as a timer, not a warning.

Depressed

Gain 10% less Satiety and Stamina. Occurs when Morale is below 30.

The 10% cut applies to what you gain, so eating your way out gets slower the longer you leave it. See Keeping Morale up for what actually moves the bar.

Fatigued and Exhausted

Gain 10% less Satiety, Morale, and Life. Occurs when Stamina is below 30. Gain 10% less Satiety, Morale, and Life. Lose 2 Life per hour. Reduces movement speed. Occurs when Stamina reaches 0.

Stamina is the stat you spend rather than lose, travel and work draw on it, so the 1 per hour above is a floor, not a forecast. Sleep is what refills it.

Weakened

Reduces Max Life and Max Stamina by 10. Lose 2 Life per hour.

The state’s own text names no threshold. The Fitness bar’s tooltip does: "If it drops below 30, you'll become Weakened." Fitness falls when a stat has been low for long or an illness is running, so this state is a symptom to trace rather than a bar to refill.

Critical

Gain 10% less Satiety, Morale, and Stamina. Reduces Max Stamina by 10 and reduces movement speed. Occurs when Life is below 15.

Life only falls this far after something has been wrong for a long time: days of starving, untreated illness, or repeated injury. If you are reading the Life bar to decide what to do next, you are already several days behind.

What moves a ceiling

Every figure above is measured against a ceiling, and the ceiling moves in both directions. 14 things raise one for good, and 5 states take one away while they last.

3 of them raise Max Morale, which is the one that compounds. Morale above 50 converts into survival points every night, so a higher ceiling pays every night for the rest of the run rather than once. Where Planning Points come from has that conversion and what it is worth. Mystery Novel Mystery Novel Books Stamina -10 500 g 1×2 cells $200 Keeps indefinitely Fuel 3000 Detective's Insight , You're extremely logical. Lose 50% less Morale whenever you run into trouble. Max Morale Read for 1 hour; for 24 hours, Morale loss reduced by 50%, Max Morale permanently +3 is the largest at +3 Max Morale, for $200.

That is what makes a penalty state expensive. Losing Max Stamina does not slow you by a percentage; it lowers the roof, so everything you do to climb back out is done with less to spend.

What puts a stat back

Sleeping and eating are the obvious answers and they are not the only ones. Furniture carries buttons that hand a stat back, and two of the stats have no other source worth the name.

The top two pay 10 Stamina each, once a day, and the Massage on the Massage Chair Massage Chair Package Furniture Packages 2000 g 2×2 cells Keeps indefinitely also pays Morale for nothing at all. The rest have no daily limit and pay 3 at a time, which is a trickle rather than a plan.

Life works the other way round. 91 items restore it and the best of them beat any button here: Military Medical Kit Military Medical Kit Meds Life +30 3000 g 3×3 cells $500 100 d shelf life Can be used multiple times for self-treatment, restoring Life and removing Bleeding and Concussion with Bleeding statuses. pays 30 for $500. But every one of them is bought, carried and eventually gone, and these 8 buttons cost nothing after the furniture is in the room.

So keep the medicine for the day something goes wrong and take the free 20 a day these pay between them. One of them has no daily limit at all.

What to do

1. Eat before Satiety reaches 30, not when it reaches 0. Crossing the threshold costs you Max Stamina, which slows everything you do to fix it.
2. Sleep when Stamina is low rather than pushing one more trip. The Exhausted penalty removes Life on top of everything else.
3. Watch Morale on the days you eat repetitively. The drain rate is slow but food choices push it down far faster than the clock does.
4. Treat Fitness and Life as outcomes. They fall because of illness, spoiled food or starvation. Fix the cause; the bars follow.

Quick reference

• Satiety: 48/day. Hungry below 30, Starving at 0.
• Stamina: 24/day before any activity. Fatigued below 30, Exhausted at 0.
• Morale, Fitness, Life: about 4/day each from the clock alone.
• Every penalty state cuts what you gain by 10% or removes Max Stamina, so recovery from a low bar is slower than the fall into it.