Duplicant Base

Lore & Background

In the world of Oxygen Not Included, the Director arrives at a colony where the original crew is no longer present to manage day-to-day survival. The solution is the Clone Vat: a machine that assembles a new human body and populates it with a mind, a personality, and a set of randomised aptitudes. Each Duplicant Base that tumbles out of the vat is unique — one might be a natural sprinter with a terrible metabolism, another a slow, bookish thinker who thrives in the cold. They do not remember a childhood; they simply wake up, blink, and immediately start complaining about the temperature.

The colony itself is a layered cross-section of rock, gas, and liquid, and the duplicants must carve a livable pocket out of it. They dig, build, cook, clean, and socialise, all while their moods swing between contentment and outright misery based on the quality of their surroundings, the food on the table, and whether someone left a dirty toilet nearby. Disease is a constant threat — a single spore cloud or a patch of radiation can turn a thriving worker into a shivering, coughing patient who needs antibiotics and a warm bed. The Director's job is to juggle all of this: air, water, food, temperature, and the fragile emotional needs of a dozen tiny humans who will absolutely quit if the lighting is wrong.

What makes the Duplicant Base feel alive to players is the sheer specificity of their little lives. A duplicant with the Night Owl trait will refuse to sleep at 22:00 and instead wander the corridors at 03:00, bumping into walls. Another with a Sloth trait will move at half speed and sigh audibly. They form friendships, they get jealous, they overeat, they under-sleep. The Base is not a single character but an archetype, and every colony is a different cast of those archetypes colliding in a cramped, oxygen-starved bunker.

In Their Own Story

The Clone Vat hissed and shuddered, spitting out a small, round figure in a pale suit. The new duplicant blinked, looked left, looked right, and said, in a flat monotone, "It's a bit cold in here." The Director, watching from the control terminal, typed a single command: *Assign to: Kitchen.* The little one trudged off, already complaining about the tile floor, and disappeared around the corner into the warm amber glow of the cooking station. Somewhere deeper in the rock, another duplicant was sneezing for the fourth time in a minute, and the colony's oxygen gauge ticked down by one more unit. The Director sighed, opened the medical tab, and queued up a dose of antibiotics. The colony would survive. It always did. Barely.

Reader's Guide

Name: Duplicant Base (standard human clone)

Stat Bonuses & Penalties: Every base duplicant receives a randomised value in each of six stat categories — Strength, Charisma, Intelligence, Endurance, Metabolism, and Speed. Higher Strength and Speed increase work and movement efficiency. Higher Intelligence improves learning and research output. Higher Endurance delays fatigue. Higher Metabolism means the duplicant consumes more food and water per cycle, so it is a penalty in resource-tight colonies. Higher Charisma improves social interactions and mood gains from talking. There is no single 'best' build; a high-metabolism, low-endurance duplicant will starve and tire faster, while a low-metabolism, high-endurance one will last longer but work more slowly.

Mood Triggers & Needs: Base duplicants cycle through mood states from miserable to thrilled. Positive triggers include eating well, sleeping in a comfortable bed, socialising with friends, and being in a warm, well-lit environment. Negative triggers include hunger, thirst, oxygen deprivation, cold, dirty surroundings, and isolation. A duplicant in a very negative mood will work slower, make mistakes, and may refuse tasks entirely.

Species-Specific Abilities & Restrictions: As the default human type, the Base has no innate superpowers. They cannot survive in vacuum, extreme heat, or high radiation without protection. They require a continuous supply of breathable oxygen, potable water, and edible food. They can be assigned to any profession (farmer, miner, cook, scientist, etc.) but will perform best in roles matching their stat strengths. They are susceptible to all common diseases (flu, fungal infection, radiation sickness) and require medical treatment to recover. They can be cloned repeatedly, but each clone is a new individual with a fresh random stat roll.

Did You Know?

• Every duplicant's stats are rolled independently at creation, so two clones from the same vat can have completely opposite strengths — one a sprinter, the other a sloth.
• A duplicant's mood is not a single number but a composite of many small factors: room temperature, food quality, proximity to friends, and even the cleanliness of nearby toilets all shift the gauge in real time.
• Duplicants with the Night Owl or Early Bird traits will actively resist sleeping at 'normal' colony hours, forcing the Director to schedule shifts around their personal circadian quirks.
• A single untreated fungal spore in the air can infect an entire room's worth of duplicants, turning a productive shift into a medical emergency within a few cycles.