Galacticare: Guide to 100%

In this guide I will assume you have completed the 11 chapters of story and you are here to get your full 5 stars.
I lay out some general tips to the game that might be unclear for some. Some of these tips might be obvious to you as well, in that case, just skip ahead and see if you can’t learn something here.
While I have seen discussion on each chapter, I believe that these general tips will resolve most of the issues, and there are only one or two chapters that deserve any special comments.
I will expand on this guide as I read comments and wrap up the final achievements for myself.

Very understandable, and I felt that myself.
If you are on your first or second mission and feel that 5 stars are “too hard”, even after several hours on the same mission…. Move on.
I couldn’t recommend this stronger. Not only is the story enjoyable and you should make sure to enjoy the journey first, but you learn a lot through the chapters. I happen to get chapter 5 pretty well, felt I had to do it again on 6 (TOUGH!), but then let go. Once I finished the last chapter, I went back to chapter 1 and suddenly it was easy and down to a science. Every 5-star took around 1-2h after that, and I understood the mechanics a lot easier.
Double checking my score time, and I see that chapter 8 was done in 5 hours, because I refused to move on.
Simply put: that 4->5 stars is a tough leap, but comes with experience.

Have you not finished the last chapter yet?!
STOP READING THIS!

I SAID STOP IT!

As a general rule, (unless the story calls for something specifical) start every chapter with two diagnosis rooms, 2-4 receptionists, a set of toilet-vending-trash (I just always put these together), and nothing else. Start your missing, and once the first patients appears, click them and see their needs before they reach the reception.
Build the rooms that are required as you go. Story specific rooms and your main rooms for that chapter (see chapter “Every chapter” in this guide), you should plan a nice place for. Measure your spaces, and know that a 4×12 space can be divided into 4 spaces of 4×3 next to each other etc.
Always build spacious rooms (see exceptions in this guide on “Sandboxes”). That means Diagnosis (ask for 3×3) are always 3×4 or 4×3 (depending on which orientation you need). I have never made them bigger, and if I’m left with a 1×4 space on the side, I choose to build something different there, or go for staff lounge.
Staff Lounge is your best “filler room” for odd-spaces.
Even if spacious rooms ask for 3 more spaces, 4×4 rooms, turn into 4×5 for simplicity sake.

Always have minimum 2 wide corridors, and “main roads” through the hospital should be 3 wide. Remember that benches build out, and Kouba (the gorilla race) want 2 wide spaces.

Start every chapter with undecorated rooms. Spend those credits carefully and only when you know you are clear, have plenty of space before you need a new sector, start your decorations. Some missions start in large sectors, those are safe from the start.
Decorate ONE diagnosis room, and copy it over and over. You might have to move some things and the door, but copy saves you a LOT of time.
Since several races prefer different decorations, I like to have every room with 1 window (next to the door), one doormat, One locker, one plant, one curiosity and a poster. Basically one from each category and I do vary what’s in which room, but this mentality ensures all races are happy. If one piece of decoration doesn’t fit well into that room, replace with another, but a good general rule.

Well made entrance makes a huge difference. Find the entrance for the patients and make sure your receptionists are there. I always start with 2-4 in that initial starting area. All my diagnosis rooms are close by this area, and the rest doesn’t matter. If you have enough teleporters, then nothing else matter. Otherwise, Skin lab + Boning chamber = Jellified condition makes for less walking. There are some other combos, but again, teleporters fix most of your issues.

Teleporters! Two in each sector (exception with very small sectors). One in each end of it, often one close to the diagnosis rooms as well. Place them in the centre of the corridors, it makes for less crowding and avoid being too close to vending-trash-toilets.

To clarify: Never use skin lab expertise in the boning chamber.
If you find someone with favourable traits and they are only a trainee, hire them. Levels are nice, but can be gained, traits cannot.
There are a few especially desirable traits:

• Quick Fingers (for any high demand, such as diagnosis and scenario-specific treatment)
• Efficient (more credit, less good for diagnosis, but always nice regardless)

While all red traits are undesirable, there are a few that are unforgiving.
Never hire:

• Sociopath (do it once for the achievement, and never again)
• Unlucky (2% chance of death will give negative mood and halt your 5-star)
• Embezzler (Taking less money isn’t SO bad, but is not acceptable in the harder sandboxes)
• Slow worker (especially for those high demand treatments)

There are a few traits you can almost pretend doesn’t exist and hire blindly:

• Faster and slower learner (In time, you reach expertise and in longer time, max out at level 5 anyway)
• Glutton (for Vizarj (big eye race)).
• Ignorant (you will max research easily anyway)
• Rude (you will max influence in time anyway)
• Uninspired (Eurekas don’t make that huge difference)
• Litter Bug (annoying, but medi is on top of it, hang in there buddy!)

The final ones with more or less need for toilet, nutrition and energy is nice/bad ofc, but you can’t control everything and wait for the perfect candidate every time.

Let’s not get political here, but there are literal races in this game.
There are very few consideration to bother about. At first I believed the Dyonai (flower people) would give good mood to everyone in the diagnosis, but the distance is too far. Even in dreamariums (where they stand next to each other for a moment), the radius is not large enough.
The only ones not worth having in high demand rooms, are Tenki (small furry) and Kouber Baly (big gorillas). Tenki because they need to idle to do any repairs and Kouber because they don’t need to eat, also while idle. Use these in low-demand rooms.
Ohde and Humans can be used in the early game to boost influence and research, but there is no way you finish the last chapter without maxing out almost every race and disease. The ones you don’t, you can clean up in sandbox.
All in all, like in real life, a mix of people of different heritage and backgrounds are good 🙂

As a general rule, don’t touch their wages when you hire.
Once you get close to that 4.5 star, have a check-in that every doctor is happy.
Open “Staff overview”, click the “expand button” and scroll through. You will quickly see a yellow or red credits-icon.
Set their wages to one level above expectation. There is no reason to set one doctor to 5-10 levels above. One person can only be so happy. 10 people 10% happy makes more than one person 80% happy (or something).

Should you set a priority on diseases in rooms?
MOSTLY, no. The exception can be 1 disease for each room, and save it for those with a fatality rating of 3 or more. Check with your pathogen for that mission and sort by lethality. In almost all cases, you want to build more rooms.

Can you set priority on jellification on skin lab that are next to a boning chamber?
Yes and no. It just works a little too good. It is very hard to balance exact numbers of each disease, and once a room prioritise one condition, everyone with that tends to go to the same room. Suddenly you have 10 jellified people waiting for one room, while the other two skin labs have almost no queue without any priority.

Room upgrades!
In most missions, you don’t need them outside pleasing your Tenki. You can usually build more rooms or hire faster people to ensure throughput.
I will say, the ones worth getting are 1. More Money 2. Faster working speed 3. Short range teleport (only for large rooms)
All the rest are more or less for fun, can be salvaged or put out randomly.
Some special cases are:
Nourishment for rooms with doctors that have the glutton trait.
Regeneration (+20% healing) for “1st rooms” like skin lab in case of jellification.

Holo-emitting doctor I would NEVER use. Not only is doctor wages low already, but the holo-doctor will lower the treatment quality.

If you play the game correctly and follow the general building tips, as well the traits are taken care of, 4 stars should be easy.
Pushing to that final 5 are often linked to a few things.

1.
Check that every race is satisfied with their needs of curiosity, windows and especially upgraded rooms. I have gotten 5 stars on a few with poor corridors (gorillas were 0%), but ensure at least 13/14.
2.
Patient moods are not met for several smaller reasons. Undecorated area, messy area etc. Double check your medi bots, if you need more, use the lense to see your coverage of vending-toilet-trash and maybe one area has particularly high traffic. Pests are common as well. Open your “Patient Overview”, use the “expand” button and see their moods as overview. Most things should be green. Scroll down until you find a yellow or red and click that person. See where they are, and what the problem is. Resolve that area, and repeat until you have no issue. Several times I could have 100% patient moods.
3.
Finances might struggle. A few of my stars lacked that final revenue. Remember that it is revenue, not profit (after wages), and not your balance. Also check that your latest numbers are on the left, not on the right (finance-tradition). In several cases, I had to use my craftium or buy the extra “spawners” (700 craftium or 70k credits) and spam those. At most I had 8 set up next to each other, with a whole reception area right there. This area required decoration as well.
(some discussions here will mention that you can lower the wages of some doctors for a time, but this increases your profit, not revenue. It will also make them unhappy)

There are of course several other issues that can occur, but I found these three to be the ones I lacked from 4->5 stars.

Those that are not tied to “complete”, or “gain 5 stars” are mentioned here. Almost all achievements are gained by merely playing the games, but I will make some comments on those that are possible to miss.
Equal Opportunity Employer – Hire a psychopath. Never do this ever again.
Doc Idol – Have 5 doctors working inside Twiggy Pop’s aura in Chapter 2: Burning Moon. Happens more or less by chance. Let the game run for a while, or teleport her to a specific spot with several rooms around… OR teleport 5 doctors to the Lounge.
Viral Trend – Equip retrograde skin on any character in Chapter 9: The Fourth Wall. The easiest here is to use the medi-skin you gain by 5 stars.
Thanks for the Memories – Place a hospital ratting reward decoration from every campaign level in Chapter 11: The Loamcore. I first believed I could just use all the different rugs. That is not the case. Go to the map select and look at the reward for each chapter. I screenshot each chapter, put them all in a cut-out in paint and then looked for the items when placing each one. Some of them aren’t that obvious.
The Real Test – Fully research all 50 conditions in the Pathodex. You get most done by getting 5 stars in every chapter and sandbox, but check which you are missing, and check it against what room is used for the condition. Check that room against what mission uses that room a lot and go to that mission. Make sure you have the research-boost in those rooms, and let it run in sandbox for a good while. Just takes time.
When the walls fell – Max out your reputation with all 7 species. More or less same here, except you can nitro-boost your racism and go full human staff with no rude trait. Or just give it time.

I assume you know the basics and have completed the story, so I will make some notes on each.
I found that if you “restart sandbox” in a chapter after finishing the story, you find yourself in chapter 1 with all rooms available. I will therefore, include my number of each room, as a reference to what you’re aiming towards.
The ones you see have the most in each mission will be your “main rooms” to plan around. The ones with 1-2 of will be filler space and you build them only when a patient shows up with the need.

Chapter 1
7 Diagnosis, 16 Skin lab (2 boning, 2 Dreamarium, random events)
4 Staff lounge, 2 recovery wards

Chapter 2
Only big thing here is to plan your layout according to where big and small rooms go
5 Diagnosis, 6 Boning, 10 Skin Lab (1 Dreamarium, 1 Xen Garden, 1 Projectile, random events)
2 Staff lounge, 2 recovery wards

Chapter 3
Hard to balance which side of train track to use, but move rooms as you expand to centralise, or leave open spaces for future plans
6 Diagnosis, 4 Boning, 2 Laser, 2 Centrifuge, 5 Skin Lab, 3 Projectile, 3 Dreamarium
2 Staff lounge, 0 recovery wards (should have had at least 1)

Chapter 4
Same challenging planning here as chapter 2, plan reserves and move rooms after opening 2nd sector.
8 Diagnosis, 3 Boning, 4 Laser, 3 Centrifuge, 2 Skin lab, 3 Projectile, 3 Parasitology, 5 Dreamarium
3 Staff lounge, 0 recovery wards (should be 1)

Chapter 5
Easier layout, less complicated planning, but need that 2nd sector somewhat early. Barely used 3rd sector here.
9 Diagnosis, 6 Boning, 4 Laser, 1 Centrifuge, 5 Skin lab, 2 Projectile, 2 Parasitology, 4 Dreamarium
2 Staff lounge, 1 recovery wards

Chapter 6
Challenging in several ways. Tough layout, forced small space, move rooms as you expand, or ignore centralisation altogether and have more or less 1 of each in every sector.
18 Diagnosis, 4 Boning, 5 Laser, 4 Centrifuge, 5 Cerebral, 9 Skin lab, 6 Projectile, 6 Parasitology, 6 Dreamarium
6 Staff lounge, 2 recovery wards

Chapter 7
Another strange layout that makes planning tougher. Openness to the cannos are forces, so you can’t use it as walls.
7 Diagnosis, 1 Boning, 2 Laser, 1 Centrifuge, 2 Cerebral, 2 Skin lab, 1 Projectile, 2 Parasitology, 3 Xen Garden, 2 Dreamarium
1 Staff lounge (should be 1 or 2 more), 1 recovery wards

Chapter 8
Same as 6 here. Strange layout, you can’t unlock sectors in your own pace (bonus that they are free), and lots of knocks around things. I would never share a screenshot of this place, just as messy as when I arrived 🙂
11 Diagnosis, 3 Boning, 3 Laser, 1 Centrifuge, 2 Cerebral, 2 xtra-ray, 3 Skin lab, 6 Projectile, 5 Parasitology, 3 Xen Garden, 6 Dreamarium
3 Staff lounge, 2 recovery wards

Chapter 9
Very tough start. Go easy on “one of each” to begin, open a new sector early and move rooms around to better space usage. I tended to make a room in the centre of the first two sectors, so corridors go on each side of the centre-room.
9 Diagnosis, 1 Boning, 1 Laser, 1 Centrifuge, 2 Cerebral, 1 xtra-ray, 5 Nanoscopy, 6 Skin lab, 2 Projectile, 1 Parasitology, 1 Xen Garden, 9 Dreamarium
2 Staff lounge, 1 recovery wards

Chapter 10
Plenty of space, should be straight forward. I only used 2 sectores here, and most of the corridors were 3 or even 4 wide.
9 Diagnosis, 1 Boning, 2 Laser, 1 Centrifuge, 3 Cerebral, 1 xtra-ray, 2 Nanoscopy, 4 Skin lab, 1 Projectile, 3 Parasitology, 3 Xen Garden, 1 Dreamarium
2 Staff lounge, 2 recovery wards

Chapter 11
Somewhat tough start, with a lot of varied demand, but calms down quickly and I ended up only using 2 and a half sectors.
7 Diagnosis, 1 Boning, 1 Laser, 1 Centrifuge, 3 Cerebral, 1 xtra-ray, 4 Nanoscopy, 1 Skin lab, 1 Projectile, 2 Parasitology, 2 Xen Garden, 1 Dreamarium
2 Staff lounge, 1 recovery wards

More to come, very soon!

I will happily take any feedback.
Let me know if a section of this guide is unclear, or if I need to expand on a topic.
I want this guide to be comprehensive, but also relevant for those 4->5 hunters.
This guide is not for the basic mechanics, and if you are still on chapter 1 or 2, read my first two sections again.
Happy hunting, medi!