Your crew consists of colonists and robots
they all have three basic stats:
- smarts
- muscles
- athletics
These all affect their tasks, mostly in the way that you´d expect (smarts is good for research) and which can be reviewed by hovering over the job icon.
You can reroll them and sometimes they will get a high stat in the different jobs.
You should get a Botanist for growing food (not Biologist), an engineer for crafting stuff and a technician for keeping machines repaired and the generators charged.
BUT: if you don´t get a quirk which forbids them some specific jobs ("will not cook") everyone can do every job AND they will level up in their performed jobs 10 being max level.
Later on they can train their 3 basic stats with training facilities (i don´t know the max level).

Now for robots there are two types (I have found so far):
Worker Bots can do the following jobs:
- Builder
- Miner
- Technician
- Hauler
- Janitor
Deep Drillers con only:
- Mine and
- Haul
BUT they are the only ones that can deep mine, which is digging up resources out of floor tiles.
You CAN roll a deep driller at the start which i recommend because you can build your base without having to remember where you built over resource tiles. And of course you get access to more resources. If you don´t start with one it is a pretty long wait till you can research one and they are expensive to build.
Choose a map to your liking though bigger means more space and thus more resources underground. It will take some time till you get to planetside exploring.

At first you have to open the Stasis Capsules (really) and activate the robots that are located in the starting room.
Next assign them three jobs each.
If there is no one with a specific job for a task you want, nothing will happen.
- Mining will remove natural walls and everything not dirt will give resources.
- Building will remove artificial structures (walls, floors, machines and capsules)
- Hauling will store resources in containers (Builders will still take them for their jobs even if on the floor)
- and so on. If you want something done and nothing happens maybe no one has the job for it.
You can change jobs and their priorities anytime.
Specific tiley need specific tasks:
G - gathering has Mine/Harvest/Deep Drilling
H - deconstruct has Structure/Floor/Power/Water
So if you´re trying to get something away and it will not become selected maybe you have the wrong category.
The colonists are actually quite amenable compared to other survival games.
They need food (no water), sleep and a nice environment.
There is a box with basic rations and equipment.
They will sleep on the floor (and not like it) and eat while standing (and not like it) and work in the open (and not like it).
The "Tutorial" instructs you what to do e.g. build some fields for crops. Colonists will eat raw potatoes (and not complain) though cooked food restores more hunger. Food variety will stay low for rather long.
Hemp will not get you weed but let you craft cloth which is also good for their mood as you can craft mattresses and beds later on.

You need rooms, which consist of a wall-enclosed space (door would be nice) and a floor.
Different structures require different floors but the build menu tells you which. Only hallway floors speed up movement by 10%.
Rooms have a decor value which affects stress (for colonists) and productivity (for the machine) levels. Add lights and decor and colonists can work longer. Also don´t put too many machines into one room as it is harder to get the whole room to pleasant decor. Especially the EMGs which have to be only tended to for recharging cause lots of stress and can be put in a separate room.


Again everything can be viewed with mouseover (why am I writing this guide...?)
If you don´t enclose rooms, cave ins can occur.
Robots don´t have stress levels but power level and need to be recharged on a charging station.
Build a research room quickly and get beds (reduce sleep downtime for colonists) and food prep.
The fishing trap catches mostly worms (even with bait) which only clogged my storage...
Every machine/bed/etc. can be moved, walls/doors/floors/wires/plumbing and the elevator can´t.
But the latter can be deconstructed without ressource loss. I like! So your ressources don´t get lost generally unless you burn them in a generator (anthracite) or craft mods for robots/colonists/machines and replace them. You´ll get a warning...
On the other hand all minerals are ultimately limited (boiplastic and cloth are not since they´re based on hemp).
After establishing a basic economy (research, craft, eat sleep) you´ll want to build an elevator. which starts surface exploration...after a while...

Once the Elevator is up and you have the Map Table (which doesn´t have to be powered) you can view the upside world.
You can build power plants which don´t require upkeep like the E.M.G. but may require power poles.
to start expeditions you CAN go by foot, which is very slow or you need vehicles.
Obviously to build vehicles you need a vehicle bay which has to be built next to the mercury facility so don´t surround yourself with wind turbines!
There are four vehicle types:
- Passenger Vehicles (Rover/Hover Explorer) --> these are for Expeditions
- Miner (Beetle Miner/Turtle Miner) --> mine surface deposits.The Turtle Miner states it would also dig up sub-surface deposits but it doesn´t.
- Explorers (DOGE/Wasp) --> these can be set to automatic and will find POI´s and Biomes
- Transports (Transport/Sea Turtle) --> these will haul resources from mining platforms
If you have a resource scanner in your base and a colonist with the corresponding job, you will find resource depots which can be collected by the miners (surface) or mined by mining platforms.

Now POI´s will give blueprints for advanced equipment, vehicles, crops and so on.
the yellow ones will give tech fragments and the green ones will give new seeds and bio samples which will enable you to unlock new research projects.

In later Expeditions you come across 5 POIs which have job requirements:
10 Biologist
10 Mining
10 Builder
10 Botanist
10 Janitor
Now the first 3 should be no problem by the time you get there and can be leveled easily.
10 Botanist requires A LOT of fish tanks/water traps tending. but can be done.
The Janitor I don´t know. I saw an occasional spill in the kitchen, which gets rare the higher the cooking level is. Even if you swap in new level 1 cooks it doesn´t happen often. Another source for janitorial duties is the xeno mold which appears during cave-in events, although very rare.
Even though I did only ever assign ONE bot this job as of writing this on day 200+ I still have no Janitor Lv 10.
If anyone knows how to trigger janitorial events please comment...