GAMESYSTEM_Dungeon_StayPenaltyTerm, the
GAMESYSTEM_Management_DungeonStayMoodPenalty* rows and the stage affecters. The rules
around them (when a stage lands, what resets it) come from the game binary of build
24354931, cited at 3 call sites at the bottom of this
page.What Dungeon Stay is
The longer you stay in the dungeon, the more you experience mental distortion and suffering due to the high concentration of magical energy.
Like sinking into an invisible swamp, something slowly, sticky, and unpleasantly seeps into you.
A squad inside the dungeon is on a clock. From the moment it sets foot on a floor that is not a safe floor, every unit carries a Dungeon Stay debuff, and the debuff gets worse for each full in-game day the squad stays down there. There are 4 stages; the unit only ever carries the current one.
What each stage costs is Mood, and the amount is set by your campaign's Management difficulty, not the combat one. On the hardest management setting the last stage is a standing -24 Mood, before food, sleep or traits are counted.
The ladder when each stage lands
One step per 1440 in-game minutes (1 in-game day) spent off safe floors. One in-game day is about 18 real minutes at 1x speed (64800 ticks at 45 ticks per in-game minute).
| Stage | Time inside | 1x speed | 3.5x speed | 7x speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Dungeon Stay (D1) | on arrival | - | - | - |
 Dungeon Stay (D2) | 1440 min (1 in-game day) | 18 min | 5 min | 3 min |
 Dungeon Stay (D3) | 2880 min (2 in-game days) | 36 min | 10 min | 5 min |
 Dungeon Stay (D4) | 4320 min (3 in-game days) | 54 min | 15 min | 8 min |
The ladder stops at Dungeon Stay (D4): the game holds 3 intervals for 4 stages, so once the last one is reached it stays there for as long as the squad remains inside.
What it costs by management difficulty
| Management difficulty | Dungeon Stay (D1) | Dungeon Stay (D2) | Dungeon Stay (D3) | Dungeon Stay (D4) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | -1 | -4 | -7 | -10 |
| Normal | -3 | -6 | -9 | -12 |
| Hard | -4 | -10 | -16 | -22 |
| Very Hard | -5 | -11 | -17 | -23 |
| Devastation | -6 | -12 | -18 | -24 |
Safe floors reset it not just pause it
Reaching a safe floor does two things: it freezes the clock, and it puts the squad back to the first stage. Step off the safe floor and the count starts again from the bottom, with a fresh 1440 in-game minutes before the next step.
That makes a safe floor the natural staging post for a long push: a squad that reaches one on day 3 walks out of it in the same shape as a squad that just arrived, so a deep run that touches each safe floor never has to pay the worst rate at all.
Coming home the aftermath
Leaving the dungeon drops the stage debuff, but the trip still leaves a mark:
Dungeon Stay Aftermath,
Code truth the rules behind the numbers
Where these rules come from
These rules were read out of the game binary of build 24354931, because no table carries them. Each entry names the function and the address the rule was read at.
DungeonBehaviorSimulator.CheckDungeonPenalty@0xB5619C
Runs every tick against the in-game minutes elapsed since the penalty clock was last reset. While the level is below the number of intervals it compares that time to the current interval; on reaching it the level goes up by one and every unit swaps the stage it carries for the next one, so a unit only ever carries the stage matching its level.DungeonBehaviorSimulator.OnEnterSafeFloor@0xB56C04
Resets the level to 0, restarts the clock and sets the 'stop checking' flag, so the ladder is frozen while the squad stands on a safe floor.DungeonBehaviorSimulator.OnEnterNonSafeFloor@0xB56C40
Resets the level to 0 and restarts the clock, so stepping off a safe floor starts the ladder again from the bottom.