One of the main things you’ll be tasked with managing in Dead in Antares is the status of your crew members. Each member of the crew will have five different survival stats to pay attention to, and each one will deplete and be restored via unique factors.
Each stat will have four levels, with each level decreasing that character’s skills by a set percentage until it is resolved. The highest level will lower a crew member’s skills by 20 percent and, if that stat reaches 100, will result in that crew member’s death.
Fatigue
Fatigue is going to be the most commonly affected stat for every crew member. Every task, whether it is working on a station or heading out on an expedition, will make a crew member tired. Generally, this isn’t going to be too concerning, since it gets mildly restored each night, but it can become an issue if you overwork someone.
Fatigue directly causes a penalty for all Skills, with the amount being directly related to how tired the crew member is.
How To Resolve Fatigue
Crew members will have their fatigue resolved slightly at the end of each day, but depending on other factors, they may not be well-rested, so it’s not great to rely on this entirely. In addition to nightly rest, if a crew member is severely fatigued, try to abstain from utilizing them that day. As long as they’re left in the shelter, they will rest during each phase of the day as well.
For each of these stats, you can also craft healing resources at the Forge that will lower the impairments. However, you’ll need the appropriate materials.
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Hunger
In addition to Fatigue, Hunger is one of the only other stats that will regularly decrease each day, even if you don’t do anything to trigger it. Each night, your crew will experience the impact of ‘Day Effects,’ which includes an increase in their hunger. This will generally be around 20 units, and you’ll immediately have the opportunity to feed the members of your crew with the resources you have available.
Crew members who worked that day may have gained additional hunger throughout the day as well. That increase is separate from this nightly increase.
If you were unable to procure anything to feed your crew, then they will all keep their current level of hunger until tomorrow, when you’ll have another chance to feed them. This can impact their sleep, stress, and other factors, depending on how hungry they are at this point, so it’s not ideal, but if you have no other option, then you’ll have to accept it.
Hunger directly causes a penalty to Scientific Skills, with the amount being directly related to how hungry the crew member is.
How To Resolve Hunger
Unlike Fatigue, which gets resolved a little each night automatically, Hunger is something you’ll need to actively fix yourself. Initially, you’ll have a small supply of food that was on the ship already, but this will quickly run out, so you’ll need to build either the Gathering Camp, Hunting Camp, or Fishing Camp.
Each of those stations will provide food resources that can then be fed to your crew. However, it’s important to keep in mind that without the Pro Cooker station as well, your food may cause some of the crew to get sick while eating. Additionally, if you haven’t upgraded the Shelter to give you access to the freezer, then anything not eaten that night may spoil.
Sickness
Sickness is probably one of the least common status ailments you’ll need to treat. More often than not, this will only become a concern after acquiring a disease or eating raw food, and shouldn’t reach dangerous levels unless it is completely ignored. Unfortunately, this also means that the methods of treating it aren’t as easy as Fatigue or Hunger.
Sickness directly causes a penalty to Survival Skills, with the amount being directly related to how sick the crew member is.
How To Treat Sickness
Early on, your main method of treating Sickness will likely be through making healing materials at the Forge. However, once you’ve built the Infirmary using the Workshop, this should be your main method of treating sickness.
This station allows one crew member to treat another’s sickness or injuries. Additionally, if you use William to treat the other crew members, his Dedicated Doctor trait will also resolve a little bit of Fatigue and Stress for both him and his patient, too.
When treating someone at the infirmary, ensure you’ve prepared the necessary supplies and set the infirmary to focus on either Injury or Sickness, depending on what you’re treating.
Injury
Injury isn’t as common as Fatigue and Hunger, but is a bit more common than Sickness. Injuries are commonly sustained while working at stations and can be due to a number of factors. If the crew member is already experiencing negative effects from another factor, this can lead to injury, as can specific weather conditions and even the station’s current condition.
These will typically be minor injuries, though, with the more serious injuries coming from combat. When you engage in a fight, any of the damage you take will be transferred to your injury meter at the conclusion of the fight. If you take significant damage, this can end up being pretty detrimental, so don’t take any crew members with pre-existing injuries on expeditions, just in case.
Injury directly causes a penalty to Physical Skills, with the amount being directly related to how injured the crew member is.
How To Treat Injuries
Like Sickness, the method for treating injuries is with healing items crafted at the Forge or the Infirmary. At the Infirmary, William can treat a crew member’s injuries while also resolving some of their fatigue and stress along with it. Healing items should be used sparingly, and you’re honestly probably better off using resources to make something that relieves Hunger or Fatigue.
Stress
Stress, unfortunately, is incredibly common to accrue and one of the hardest things to resolve. Stress can build up while working at stations, dealing with bad weather, going on expeditions, or doing just about anything in the game. Even certain dialogue conversations may increase the stress level of crew members.
So, while you won’t be able to keep crew members from becoming stressed, the most important thing is that you’re aware when something may exacerbate the rate at which they become stressed. For example, if the weather is going to impact stress heavily that day, it’s probably not wise to use anyone who’s already stressed out.
Stress directly causes a penalty to Mental Skills, with the amount being directly related to how stressed the crew member is.
How To Resolve Stress
While you can use healing items you craft to resolve stress, just like with the rest of the stats, the primary method of bringing stress down significantly will be through the Recreation Area. The Recreation Area is a two-person station where crew members will relax, chat, and have a chance to relieve some stress.
This generally relieves a significant amount, so you shouldn’t need to repeat this too often with the same crew member. That said, the amount of stress relief is dependent on the other person’s communication stat. So, try not to pair up two crew members with low communication. If your crew members are suffering from an affliction, this station will also cure them of that as well.
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