Troubleshooting your colony

Nobody is cooking

Check the workstation’s bill first: it must be active and below its target. Confirm the ingredients satisfy every required group, are allowed and can be reached. Enable Cook on an undrafted colonist who can do that work and reach the station’s working side. A powered stove also needs electricity. Food and farming

Colonists will not build or haul

Check work priorities, backstory restrictions, access and allowed materials. For hauling, check stockpile filters and space. For construction, inspect the blueprint and the cell beside it. A drafted colonist will not return to normal work until undrafted. Work priorities

My colonist is idle despite unfinished work

Look for missing materials, inaccessible targets or a disabled work type. Check their needs, health and schedule. Try selecting that colonist and right-clicking the target to see whether a prioritize action is available.

My crops stopped growing

Check temperature, fertility, maturity, blight and roofs. Ordinary crops need light and grow more slowly at night. Below 0 °C they stop. Roofed fields need sun lamps; hydroponic basins need electricity and suitable temperatures. Farming

There is an animal corpse but no meat

Add a butchering bill at a Butcher table and make sure a cook can reach the corpse. Hunting and slaughter leave corpses that still need processing. The bill must allow the relevant animal corpse.

Food still rots in my freezer

Check the actual room temperature and whether the food says Frozen. The roof must be finished, the cooler powered and correctly oriented, and its exhaust must have somewhere to lose heat. Set the target below 0 °C; add cooling capacity if necessary. Build a freezer

A building has no electricity

Turn on the power view with L. Check conduits, fuel, available generation, empty batteries and switches waiting for a colonist. A consumer can connect within six cells of a conduit, but a generator needs one touching it. Electricity

A roof will not be built

Check constructor availability, access, the roof area and support within six cells. Grow zones are excluded from automatic roofing, so greenhouses need an explicit Build roof area. Overhead mountain cannot be removed. Roofs

My animals are hungry or outside the pen

Check that the animal area contains food or usable pasture. Grazing runs out and winter slows its recovery. Keep hay or kibble accessible. Handlers lead animals into otherwise unreachable pens. Fences contain animals but do not create a heated room. Animals

No milk, eggs or chicks are appearing

Check food, age and sex: young animals do not produce, and only females give milk or eggs. Milking and shearing need handlers. Chicks need a fertilized egg in a nest box and a hen brooding it. Cooking may consume fertilized eggs if your bills allow them.

My prisoner is not being recruited

Provide a warden, set Recruit in the Prisoner tab, and allow time between talks. Resistance must fall first. Improve the prisoner’s mood, keep them fed and treated, and check that their bed and room remain usable. Prisoners

Colonists keep having mental breaks

Read their thoughts in Needs. Hunger, exhaustion, pain, uncomfortable temperatures, poor surroundings and social events all matter. Address the main causes rather than increasing work pressure. Mood and relationships

I cannot select the thing beneath another thing

Click the same cell again to cycle through its contents. Double-click selects visible things of the same kind. Escape closes a tool or panel that may be taking your clicks. Controls

My save is missing on another device

Saves are local to the browser or desktop installation. Export a .sav file from the original device and import it on the other one. Another browser profile and cleared site data can also mean different saves. Saves