Ostranauts crew needs are part of the route you choose, not a panel to open only after a person fails. The official Steam description explicitly lists food, oxygen, water, intimacy, and security as crew AI needs. It also names backgrounds, traits, skills, and a Career Kiosk. This page explains how to use those categories to plan work while keeping exact decay rates and thresholds within the boundary of current-game verification.
Identify the person at risk
Start with the crew member, their current task, and their location. A need problem can be caused by a long route, a blocked path, a missing supply, a ship state, or a choice that sent the person away from a stable area. Read the current status text and note the time or action that preceded the change. Do not assume that every crew member responds identically in every situation.
Keep the version, branch, save, and mod state with the observation. A guide that says “crew needs fall after this many minutes” is incomplete unless it names the crew, task, ship, and build. The store page establishes the categories, not a universal timer.
Protect oxygen, food, and water
When oxygen, food, or water is the issue, inspect the supply, the room, the path, and the part or interaction that controls access. Move the crew toward a stable area if the current task can wait. If the ship itself is unstable, fix or isolate the ship problem before asking the person to resume work. The exact thresholds are not public in the store description, so use the current gauge and tooltip as the final evidence.
Avoid applying several supplies, repairs, and route changes at once. One change makes the result explainable. If a warning improves, record what changed; if it does not, restore the previous state before testing another cause.
Treat intimacy and security as real planning inputs
The presence of intimacy and security in the official crew list means a route can fail even when basic resources look adequate. Consider where people spend time, how a job isolates them, and whether the ship’s layout gives them a reasonable way to recover. Do not reduce the categories to a single morale score without seeing what the current game displays.
A crowded or unfamiliar ship can make it harder to understand why a need changes. Keep the first test small and avoid combining a new ship layout with a mod. Record the crew, room, task, and observed response so a future update note can separate a balance change from a pathing problem.
Match needs to work
Before taking a long salvage or travel task, name the people affected and the check that will happen before the trip ends. A skill may make a task attractive, but the ship still needs to support the person. A profitable job that leaves no recovery route can be a bad first choice. If a need begins to fall, stop the job long enough to confirm whether the person can return and whether the ship state is stable.
Keep a clean save before a new class of work. If the result is not recoverable, reload and change one planning choice. This is especially useful while the 1.0 interface and AI behavior are still receiving maintenance.
Use a recovery checkpoint
Before a long job, keep a named save that shows a stable crew state and the current ship layout. If a need changes unexpectedly, compare that checkpoint with the first warning. Check whether the person can return, whether the relevant supply is accessible, and whether the job can be cancelled without a second risk. This sequence gives you a concrete recovery route while leaving the exact AI timing open for verification.
Sources and boundaries
Official Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1022980/Ostranauts/ . It supports the five crew-need categories and the Career Kiosk at a high level. Exact thresholds, timing, pathing, and task effects require current in-game verification. Checked 2026-08-11 UTC.