Helena does not have a chat option.
Was it on new save, or already advanced one?
My goal is to make managing mood hard at the start of the game, but easier as time goes on. That's why there are things like drugs and alcohol, which give you a lot of mood but also give you some penalties. Food also gives you nice mood bonus. Simple stew gives you 3 and something like meat pie gives you even 10. Together with big stomach perk, this means you can get 20 mood just from eating food every week.
Getting mood at later stages should be easier, since you will have more social points, hideout upgrades and enough money for good quality food and enough morality levels to make killing humanoids or abominations less taxing on your mood.
I have plans for more ways to increase mood, but if you have any ideas that would be quick and easy to implement, then I could do that today.
Have a day activity where you can take it easy for a small mood boost. The way the new update limits mood gains to ~5 a week without perks early on is less than the cost of doing anything. You also need to keep in mind the emotional flaw which makes you lose at -50 mood.
As for going back a version, I momentarily went to 0.36 before going back to 0.35.1, which is the version I started playing at.
That's quite similiar to one of the ideas I had.
You get a "recreation area" which gives you certain amount of slots. You can upgrade the area to get more slots.
You will be able to put certain items into those slots, which will change the atributes you get when you use that area and skip half a day in it.
If you put in things like toys or games, you get a mood bonus. If you put in skill books, your trade skills would increase. The more slots you have, the more freedom you will have in combining these bonuses, like when you put in wooden toys and smithing handbook, you will gain +1 mood and +1 smithing. If you put in two wooden toys, you get +2 mood and so on.
It should be quite easy to make. I try and finish it today.
As for the mood, chatting with kids will give you more mood than with adults. You can also try buying bread from Billy, which gives I think 5 mood. Beer and cider is also relatively safe alcoholic drink that won't make you too addicted.
If I'm not mistaken, you get copper from the mining spot near the bridge. You just need a lot of strength to get it, because you get better rewards the higher your stats are. If you want it for the electrical stuff, you can buy already finished parts from Roman I think.
As for the onions, it is possible to run out of some resourcess. I will edit the potato quest garden and put more plant types in there, so that you can always get atleast one free plant to start your own garden again if you run out.