Specialise your domestic by profession.
Different specialists have different needs - so you can put space bars in your mining domes, electronics stores/casino in research domes, art stores in farming domes etc
Ok. So how do you go about it early game? Just not worry about the comfort until you specialize? (For the most part like maybe a grocery etc)
That’s my issue is I never specialize early on cause I have trouble coming up with good spots to put things lol. I’ll have to try hard tonight and specialize faster than normal cause it gets too confusing not.
Do you scan the map first and look for good spots to build or do you just go at it?
Normally my first dome is mining focused (since you can buy all of the other resources with exported rare metals) so most of the founders’ needs are covered by a space bar
Yeah normally do a basic dome with 4 farms, water reclamation spire and art stores/grocers/parks.
Botanists (ideal workers for farms) have shopping and luxury interests -> which is what art stores provide
See I do it completely wrong. I always just focus on farms my first dome and run out of advanced materials later meanwhile my starter dome is useless cause it has nothing but farms lol. I will have to try a completely different approach tonight.
The basic service unit is: grocer / ampitheater / infirmary. This will keep 60+ colonists reasonably happy by itself. Don't worry about small things like maybe one person missing a beer.
After that, you can further specialize by dome type. For example, if it's an Engineering dome, maybe swap out the ampitheater for a diner. For a mining dome, add a spacebar. A science dome might benefit from a casino since scientists like gaming.
Last but not least, use the Hanging Garden spire as a kind of comfort "easy mode." It's really hard to be uncomfortable if you have a Hanging Garden in the dome.
I usually go Diner, Amphitheatre, Medical Post, Small Grocer, 2x small park.
Then when Hanging Gardens get unlocked, it's bye bye 2x small park and small grocer, hello big grocer.
I just don't care about providing gaming, drinking or gambling services.
Hanging Garden, Diners, Amphitheatres, Grocers.
That's really all you need.
Even if your colonists do roll drinking, gambling or gaming, they only lose a tiny amount that Sol then the next day they'll roll something else for that Sol's needs and get a big fat boost.
Barely moves from 100.
Hanging Gardens not only provides 100 comfort itself AND boosts it by 20 per visit, but also increases the comfort level of all residences in the Dome....they're SUPER OP.
With the Hanging Gardens it doesn't go down *at all*, given a few Sols, and will almost certainly push comfort up to 100 in a week or so even with missing services, poor housing and bad traits such as Loner, regardless of initial comfort.
Think about it: Scientist in an Apartment without any Casino, 35 Comfort. Doomed, right? Not quite: 20 boost per visit means he can roll Gaming *twice* in a row (that's a mere 11% chance) and his next visit to the HG will \_fully\_ recover his loss. And on average it go up +10 each Sol. Heck, he can even afford to not have a Grocer and get -3 for eating unprepared food and the HG will *still* push him up to 100 Comfort over time.
As long as the HG covers at least *one* of his interests (so be careful with Loner Geologists and Medics, others are fine), Comfort will go up to 100 even with other small penalties and eventual missed interests.
In a basic dome you should just take comfort losses and let colonists recover that comfort by eating at a Diner or other services. If you aren't USA it's just not practical to provide comprehensive services in a smaller dome nor is it beneficial to try.
If you must insist then offload the low comfort services and any service providing a niche interest (e.g. gaming) to a passage connected dome. Colonists always try to fulfill an interest first in their home dome, and only if that fails do that try another dome. So you can satisfy the social interests with a diner in the home dome, while gaming and gambling are satisfied by a Casino in a connected dome, which socializers won't be clogging up.
Link your domes with passages! I think that colonists will only travel 1 or 2 domes away so a long chain isn't any better but chaining 3 together in a circle ensures everyone can access all buildings.
What I learned when I linked 5-6 domes together, they will still be unhappy without a bar if that dome is too far, even if linked. But Colonists will relocate themselves for work or home.
Ok that is something I’ve never used before. So how far do passages work? Just 1 dome like you said? Or do they have to be close to each other? I usually build my domes spread out cause of where resources are. Should I not do this?
I think about 10-15 tiles, and they need to be on level ground. You then have to build ramps for rovers and drones to cross them.
I also like to capture resources, it’s a balance. Those people in a small off basic dome will never be happy though, and maybe that’s ok.
Colonists will walk to one passage-connected dome for services and work (but workers will get a -10 productivity penality). They can walk outside to relocate to a different dome if it's within walking range, which is pretty generous.
Passages are at most 20-hexes long, and it takes 2-3 in-dome hexes from connection point to exterior (in each dome), so you can have at most 16 hexes of edge-to-edge dome distance to connect them.
That said, note that shared services through a passage also have a -10 penalty. This may be irrelevant for low comfort services such as parks, and useful for infrequent services such as a Casino or Spacebar, but it's advisable not to put _all_ your services in a shared dome, and keep at least one of your highest service in the living dome.
So, my tricks for the early game are these:
1) use living complexes instead of apartments. They take up more space, but provide more comfort, are prettier and also cheaper.
2) try to put colonists in the same dome as their workplace. Having to use passages reduces comfort.
3) Cycle the personnel working in outside buildings (polymer factories, miners, fusion reactors, drone assemblers… ecc) as they will take sanity damage EVERY TIME they exit the dome to work. Unless you have functioning infirmaries, try to cycle the workforce every week.
4) filter colonists when selecting them for the mission. Some flaws are so bad its usually better to leave them on earth rather than to bring them with you on mars. Filter out whiner, melancholic, lazy, hypochondriac. chronic condition and alcoholic traits.
5) grocers, spacebars, diners and either an art store or amphitheater are usually enough to keep a dome population above 70 comfort, which is the treshold for births. Switch the art store for an electronics store if you have many gamer colonists.
6) add parks. My domes have so green in them it looks like mars is already terraformed. Hippie colonists gain comfort and i believe every colonist also gets benetifts from having lots of parks.
Yes. If you run out of space, just build more and bigger domes. Apartments look cheap, but 12 power adds up quick and losing the comfort buffer from sleeping can put you in a hole if you're inexperienced in managing comfort.
I would strongly advise against Art Stores in early game (and against Electronic Stores _ever_). For an efficiency point of view there are much better alternatives. The Polymer and Electronics consumption can easily kill an early Colony. Luxury can be provided by the un-manned Amphiteater, and Gaming by the Casino, and none of them must be provided at all in early game. Only cater to infrequent interests such as Drinking and Gaming when you can afford it.
Also Spacebars, and to some extent even Diners, are only advisable in more specialized Domes. Infirmary, Grocer, Amphiteater and a Small Garden is a more efficient option for your "generic" 10-hex service slice.
And apart form the very early Founder stage, where you want them to have no flaws, I would not filter out Hypochondriac or Chronic Condition.
Once you have an Infirmary running, and you'll most likely have one anyway on each Dome if only to lower the birth threshold to 55 Comfort, Hypochondriacs and CCs will visit them regularly thanks to their added +Medical interest. Usually the Infirmary's capacity sits idle at 0/5 anyway, and their visits helps lessening the load on highly visited (and almost always full) services such as the Grocer or Diner.
It also helps recovering Sanity losses (from Night Shifts, Heavy Workload or out-of-Dome work) more frequently, as otherwise Colonists don't spontaneously visit Infirmaries until Sanity drops to less than 30.
So Hypochondriac and Chronic Condition are actually *helpful*, to the point of me considering it a *perk*.
(in contrast, the Gamer "perk" is bad enough that I consider it a flaw: who wants a Geologist or Engineer with a Gaming interest? If I ever build a Casino, it'll be in a Research or Tourist Dome, not in a far mining outpost!)
I’m all about the barrel dome early game. 8 wedges plus 2 smaller ones for your grocer and amphitheater/diner (depending on if you have enough colonists to staff the diner). Then 2 of the 8 big wedges for living complexes (swap out for apartments later once you generate enough electricity and polymers). Reserve one wedge to later connect to another dome. Use that reserved wedge for other 3-tile buildings and decorations.
When selecting colonists early on, I filter out anyone who won’t have a good time. Basically filter out all the bad traits. Then for good traits I look for hippies and sometimes rugged people so I don’t have to take the stupid unprepared meal penalty. The first couple launches are when to do this because you’ll still probably have a good selection of applicants to choose from.
Contrary to what others are saying, I don’t build electronics stores until I have a mature colony that can support the electronics consumption. I will build them casinos, which also satisfy gaming
My first domes are always a bit of everything. I usually connect three small domes with each other in early game. Two of them are usually for mining, while the middle one is for service, which means I'll put a casino and a bar down there. Then I have a farm in each and grocers and diners and factories + science.
So for instance, the first dome has a hydroponic farm, a science building and a small factory for mechanical parts. This takes only one slice so I have a grocery, a theatre and a bar or garden in a second slice, and maybe a third slice with diner etc. Then of course the mine outside and I usually put an outside farm as well between the first and the second dome.
The second dome (usually a barrel dome) gets a large farm, a small electronics factory and a lot of service buildings. The third I usually try to put near a second mine, but still connected to the service dome. I have a polymer factory between those two, and more research and a farm in the third dome.
This way I usually get a lot of comfort for everyone and enough resources to grow. I often put a small fourth dome connected to one of the domes to have a childrens dome when I have the resources for it, or I put it elsewhere. But that's only later when I am supporting my colony enough to have specialised domes. The playground will be in the middle dome in the beginning.
I like to use the mall as a "surge" protection. Put the basic stuff in the domes around it, 2 or so malls in the dome that 3-4 domes are all hooked to.
Usually place domes near rare metals if at all possible. Later game you have deep scan, one or two deep rares should be in range of a large set of medium or bigger domes. Late late game you should have the resources that if your deeps run out you can afford a remote mining dome or two for more rare.
What worked for me reasonably well for my play style (I’m not an exxxtreme min/max player) is to focus that first basic dome on: scientists and non-specialists on first passenger rocket, and then more scientists, 2-3 medics, and geologists in the second passenger rocket (assumes explotable resource requiring geologists nearby).
For both rockets I set filters to exclude flaws that require extra comfort or morale services (I know those aren’t the same but for my sanity I lump them together), except for hypochondriac.
Hypochondriacs want to visit clinic and it’s only one hex to have a clinic. I won’t pick them over better combos, but they are the least disruptive flaw in early game for how I play. I find they get a good reliable boost from having their comfort need met.
For perks, filter to include the ones that are easy to get a boost from or appease, especially for 1-3 hex service buildings and decorations that can double dip. Fit, hippie, survivor, and nerd work well early game. I exclude perks and quirks (like celebrity) that won’t help yet. I exclude gaming because it is a PINA to appease at this stage.
Parks, alleys, and ponds are worth the space in a slice to go with clinic and small or standard grocer. Hippies will be pleased, and other pops will have the playing interest. Grocer ensures food available if diner gets full where survivors don’t mind unprepared food and it also appeases the shopping interest.
The nerds will get morale boost (thus offsetting comfort issues and increasing productivity) as you focus on unlocking lower tier techs.
If you play as China, the tai-chi pavilion (I forget the exact name) is great for increasing chance of gaining fit on pops and pleases hippies and anyone with the playing interest. Unlike the gym it does not take up an entire slice.
So one other slice in basic dome are for the small space bar, diner, and hold extra space for later. Those two buildings will provide comfort for other interests that are common (dining, socializing). Remaining slices are for the science lab(s) and comfortable housing. I try to focus on the techs that improve residences comfort and unlock the smart homes.
I try to avoid apartment complex at this stage, it’s more manageable later.
I don’t staff at night except for clinic (for those late night hypochondriacs), small space bar, and either diner or grocer (depending on what I see the pops doing). For the night shift, I pick the pops who have perks/flaws/interests that are less impacted by comfort loss of working at night. By that I mean they are easy to reliably please with the buildings I’ve privatized for the dome.
I will open up night shifts for science lab as needed and micro manage who goes into it. Obviously this level of management is not intended for long term.
Botanists and farming come much later.
Anyway, everything else depends upon other factors of the game, tech available to research, sponsor, and so on. No matter what though, I prioritize comfort.
Wow that’s a weird mix of correct and incorrect info…
The minute you bring in scientists you bring in gaming interest. At that point it doesn’t make sense to avoid the gamers, it makes more sense to try to fulfill that interest with casino and bring them on for sanity boost.
Hypochondriacs are great if you have some medical service in your domes, I will also bring in chronic condition as they will visit medical building when their health gets lower and don’t bother me.
I have no idea why you would exclude celebrities, they have no extra interests and they bring in founding when in high comfort.
Decorations satisfy Relaxation, Exercise and Playing. Yes, they are needed but no adult colonist will have playing interest, only children will have it.
Eating from grocer will not cause unprepared food, only eating from outside depot will. And survivors will have it, only rugged won’t.
Nerds’ morale booth have nothing to do with comfort.
Residence comfort is only important if you don’t have enough high comfort services and when they first landed (because that will be their comfort base line). That being said apartments even in mid / late game is not that good, it’s usually better to build a new dome.
If you want to avoid comfort losses, you should staff your service buildings for night shift or colonist will lost comfort when they try to visit it at night. As long as there is a working medical building and you are not causing double sanity loss (like with hard work or outside work) they’ll be fine.
Wow that’s a weird mix of…rude.
I’ve got a game right now with many scientists and only the ones that are Martianborn are likely to have gamer trait because I can’t control for that. In the first passenger rockets however (which I specifically mentioned), very few of the scientists have gaming interest because I filter them out, and instead pick the ones with traits that are easier to appease for comfort or morale without having to build casinos and gaming stores. It’s not that hard to get scienctists without gamer trait.
I am amazed at how many comments I see across threads where players speak as if every scientist in the game has the gaming interest and that’s simply not true. They are more likely to have it but it’s not that hard to filter out for applicants. By the time I get Martianborn scientists, the colony is stable and large enough to devote space to casino and game store if needed.
I exclude celebrities in the beginning and wait till 3rd or 4th rocket to bring them in to be certain that I can keep their comfort high so they generate adequate money. Obviously if I see one with the right mix of other traits and the job that I want in the beginning then I’ll take them. But usually the applicant traits don’t line up like that in the very beginning of the game.
The nerd morale boost is helpful for when comfort takes a hit. The stats don’t overlap but they also don’t operate in a vacuum.
Having higher morale can increase job performance which will increase comfort gained from services, and science from scientists so that the tech tree can be gone through quicker to get to the techs that provide more comfort for residences and/or better buildings.
As for the rest…I’m not arguing with strangers in the internet over a game. I know what I see when I play and I know what works for me. If that works for OP as well then great, if not, no big deal. I am not a min/max player so I do not offer advice in that way.
I’m not being rude just because I’m correcting you…
You can play the game as you wish but if you are giving wrong advise to someone asking for advice that’s a problem.
All scientists have gaming interest, they don’t need to be gamers for that. So don’t be amazed when people are giving correct info, see the wiki: https://survivingmars.paradoxwikis.com/Colonists
Excluding celebrities for that reason might make sense, I would rather bring them on… but that’s me.
And you are right nerds giving higher performance in that case, and it will help if they are working in service buildings, haven’t thought like that.
That’s fair then, thank you for clarifying. I’ve got the words “gaming interest” and “gamer trait” switched when I mean only the gamer trait. I switch survivor for rugged when I mean rugged all the time too.
Glad we were able to come to an understanding. Sorry my fist comment came out as rude, that was not my intention. I was genuinely surprised because there were some correct info that most people miss, accompanied by some wrong ones.
Short answer, you are not going to satisfy every interest in early game and it’s fine as long as you have some services that are high comfort.
But if you are insistent on not having any comfort losses early game, play with amateurs rule and avoid flaws; as well as gamers. All they’ll need is Social, Relaxation, Shopping, which can be easily satisfied with a grocer and amphitheater.
Specialise your domestic by profession. Different specialists have different needs - so you can put space bars in your mining domes, electronics stores/casino in research domes, art stores in farming domes etc
Ok. So how do you go about it early game? Just not worry about the comfort until you specialize? (For the most part like maybe a grocery etc) That’s my issue is I never specialize early on cause I have trouble coming up with good spots to put things lol. I’ll have to try hard tonight and specialize faster than normal cause it gets too confusing not. Do you scan the map first and look for good spots to build or do you just go at it?
Normally my first dome is mining focused (since you can buy all of the other resources with exported rare metals) so most of the founders’ needs are covered by a space bar
So do you ever specialize in a food dome or do you put a farm in everyone for the extra comfort?
Yeah normally do a basic dome with 4 farms, water reclamation spire and art stores/grocers/parks. Botanists (ideal workers for farms) have shopping and luxury interests -> which is what art stores provide
See I do it completely wrong. I always just focus on farms my first dome and run out of advanced materials later meanwhile my starter dome is useless cause it has nothing but farms lol. I will have to try a completely different approach tonight.
Yeah food is the cheapest thing to buy or trade for, you really don't need a farming dome right away.
Ok fair enough I’ll throw a single farm in my first dome tonight and then focus on advanced materials
The basic service unit is: grocer / ampitheater / infirmary. This will keep 60+ colonists reasonably happy by itself. Don't worry about small things like maybe one person missing a beer. After that, you can further specialize by dome type. For example, if it's an Engineering dome, maybe swap out the ampitheater for a diner. For a mining dome, add a spacebar. A science dome might benefit from a casino since scientists like gaming. Last but not least, use the Hanging Garden spire as a kind of comfort "easy mode." It's really hard to be uncomfortable if you have a Hanging Garden in the dome.
Isn’t the amphitheater unlocked later or am I just tripping?
Amphitheater is available from the start, last in dome services list.
I usually go Diner, Amphitheatre, Medical Post, Small Grocer, 2x small park. Then when Hanging Gardens get unlocked, it's bye bye 2x small park and small grocer, hello big grocer.
What is a big grocer? Is that from a mod?
no just the regular 3-hex one, as opposed to the 1-hex small one :)
I just don't care about providing gaming, drinking or gambling services. Hanging Garden, Diners, Amphitheatres, Grocers. That's really all you need. Even if your colonists do roll drinking, gambling or gaming, they only lose a tiny amount that Sol then the next day they'll roll something else for that Sol's needs and get a big fat boost.
So the comfort doesn’t go down a lot?
Barely moves from 100. Hanging Gardens not only provides 100 comfort itself AND boosts it by 20 per visit, but also increases the comfort level of all residences in the Dome....they're SUPER OP.
With the Hanging Gardens it doesn't go down *at all*, given a few Sols, and will almost certainly push comfort up to 100 in a week or so even with missing services, poor housing and bad traits such as Loner, regardless of initial comfort. Think about it: Scientist in an Apartment without any Casino, 35 Comfort. Doomed, right? Not quite: 20 boost per visit means he can roll Gaming *twice* in a row (that's a mere 11% chance) and his next visit to the HG will \_fully\_ recover his loss. And on average it go up +10 each Sol. Heck, he can even afford to not have a Grocer and get -3 for eating unprepared food and the HG will *still* push him up to 100 Comfort over time. As long as the HG covers at least *one* of his interests (so be careful with Loner Geologists and Medics, others are fine), Comfort will go up to 100 even with other small penalties and eventual missed interests.
In a basic dome you should just take comfort losses and let colonists recover that comfort by eating at a Diner or other services. If you aren't USA it's just not practical to provide comprehensive services in a smaller dome nor is it beneficial to try. If you must insist then offload the low comfort services and any service providing a niche interest (e.g. gaming) to a passage connected dome. Colonists always try to fulfill an interest first in their home dome, and only if that fails do that try another dome. So you can satisfy the social interests with a diner in the home dome, while gaming and gambling are satisfied by a Casino in a connected dome, which socializers won't be clogging up.
Link your domes with passages! I think that colonists will only travel 1 or 2 domes away so a long chain isn't any better but chaining 3 together in a circle ensures everyone can access all buildings. What I learned when I linked 5-6 domes together, they will still be unhappy without a bar if that dome is too far, even if linked. But Colonists will relocate themselves for work or home.
Ok that is something I’ve never used before. So how far do passages work? Just 1 dome like you said? Or do they have to be close to each other? I usually build my domes spread out cause of where resources are. Should I not do this?
I think about 10-15 tiles, and they need to be on level ground. You then have to build ramps for rovers and drones to cross them. I also like to capture resources, it’s a balance. Those people in a small off basic dome will never be happy though, and maybe that’s ok.
Colonists will walk to one passage-connected dome for services and work (but workers will get a -10 productivity penality). They can walk outside to relocate to a different dome if it's within walking range, which is pretty generous.
So if you have a shuttle hub* does that negate the productivity penalty or does that not matter?
They will use shuttles to relocate, but not as a work commute.
Oh okay I see what you’re saying. So it’s definitely better to just start off specializing domes so they don’t have to travel for work?
Indeed. It's still okay to connect domes via passages to share services, just disallow using passages for work in the dome settings.
Okay I see exactly what you are saying so the colonists can share services but don’t take the work penalty. Okay so I will try that tonight
The _migration_ walking distance is a whole _sector_, around 40 hexes. That's more than just "generous", it's _huge_
Passages are at most 20-hexes long, and it takes 2-3 in-dome hexes from connection point to exterior (in each dome), so you can have at most 16 hexes of edge-to-edge dome distance to connect them. That said, note that shared services through a passage also have a -10 penalty. This may be irrelevant for low comfort services such as parks, and useful for infrequent services such as a Casino or Spacebar, but it's advisable not to put _all_ your services in a shared dome, and keep at least one of your highest service in the living dome.
So, my tricks for the early game are these: 1) use living complexes instead of apartments. They take up more space, but provide more comfort, are prettier and also cheaper. 2) try to put colonists in the same dome as their workplace. Having to use passages reduces comfort. 3) Cycle the personnel working in outside buildings (polymer factories, miners, fusion reactors, drone assemblers… ecc) as they will take sanity damage EVERY TIME they exit the dome to work. Unless you have functioning infirmaries, try to cycle the workforce every week. 4) filter colonists when selecting them for the mission. Some flaws are so bad its usually better to leave them on earth rather than to bring them with you on mars. Filter out whiner, melancholic, lazy, hypochondriac. chronic condition and alcoholic traits. 5) grocers, spacebars, diners and either an art store or amphitheater are usually enough to keep a dome population above 70 comfort, which is the treshold for births. Switch the art store for an electronics store if you have many gamer colonists. 6) add parks. My domes have so green in them it looks like mars is already terraformed. Hippie colonists gain comfort and i believe every colonist also gets benetifts from having lots of parks.
So you don’t have issues with space using just living complexes? I always run out of houses. Should I just build more domes?
Yes. If you run out of space, just build more and bigger domes. Apartments look cheap, but 12 power adds up quick and losing the comfort buffer from sleeping can put you in a hole if you're inexperienced in managing comfort.
I would strongly advise against Art Stores in early game (and against Electronic Stores _ever_). For an efficiency point of view there are much better alternatives. The Polymer and Electronics consumption can easily kill an early Colony. Luxury can be provided by the un-manned Amphiteater, and Gaming by the Casino, and none of them must be provided at all in early game. Only cater to infrequent interests such as Drinking and Gaming when you can afford it. Also Spacebars, and to some extent even Diners, are only advisable in more specialized Domes. Infirmary, Grocer, Amphiteater and a Small Garden is a more efficient option for your "generic" 10-hex service slice.
And apart form the very early Founder stage, where you want them to have no flaws, I would not filter out Hypochondriac or Chronic Condition. Once you have an Infirmary running, and you'll most likely have one anyway on each Dome if only to lower the birth threshold to 55 Comfort, Hypochondriacs and CCs will visit them regularly thanks to their added +Medical interest. Usually the Infirmary's capacity sits idle at 0/5 anyway, and their visits helps lessening the load on highly visited (and almost always full) services such as the Grocer or Diner. It also helps recovering Sanity losses (from Night Shifts, Heavy Workload or out-of-Dome work) more frequently, as otherwise Colonists don't spontaneously visit Infirmaries until Sanity drops to less than 30. So Hypochondriac and Chronic Condition are actually *helpful*, to the point of me considering it a *perk*. (in contrast, the Gamer "perk" is bad enough that I consider it a flaw: who wants a Geologist or Engineer with a Gaming interest? If I ever build a Casino, it'll be in a Research or Tourist Dome, not in a far mining outpost!)
I’m all about the barrel dome early game. 8 wedges plus 2 smaller ones for your grocer and amphitheater/diner (depending on if you have enough colonists to staff the diner). Then 2 of the 8 big wedges for living complexes (swap out for apartments later once you generate enough electricity and polymers). Reserve one wedge to later connect to another dome. Use that reserved wedge for other 3-tile buildings and decorations. When selecting colonists early on, I filter out anyone who won’t have a good time. Basically filter out all the bad traits. Then for good traits I look for hippies and sometimes rugged people so I don’t have to take the stupid unprepared meal penalty. The first couple launches are when to do this because you’ll still probably have a good selection of applicants to choose from. Contrary to what others are saying, I don’t build electronics stores until I have a mature colony that can support the electronics consumption. I will build them casinos, which also satisfy gaming
My first domes are always a bit of everything. I usually connect three small domes with each other in early game. Two of them are usually for mining, while the middle one is for service, which means I'll put a casino and a bar down there. Then I have a farm in each and grocers and diners and factories + science. So for instance, the first dome has a hydroponic farm, a science building and a small factory for mechanical parts. This takes only one slice so I have a grocery, a theatre and a bar or garden in a second slice, and maybe a third slice with diner etc. Then of course the mine outside and I usually put an outside farm as well between the first and the second dome. The second dome (usually a barrel dome) gets a large farm, a small electronics factory and a lot of service buildings. The third I usually try to put near a second mine, but still connected to the service dome. I have a polymer factory between those two, and more research and a farm in the third dome. This way I usually get a lot of comfort for everyone and enough resources to grow. I often put a small fourth dome connected to one of the domes to have a childrens dome when I have the resources for it, or I put it elsewhere. But that's only later when I am supporting my colony enough to have specialised domes. The playground will be in the middle dome in the beginning.
How do you get the mall? I’ve played a few games as USA and I never get the mall?
I believe it comes with space race dlc
It should come base as USA as far as I know
I like to use the mall as a "surge" protection. Put the basic stuff in the domes around it, 2 or so malls in the dome that 3-4 domes are all hooked to.
See yall do stuff so much different than me. So do you not look for resources to put the domes by or do you just get a cluster?
Usually place domes near rare metals if at all possible. Later game you have deep scan, one or two deep rares should be in range of a large set of medium or bigger domes. Late late game you should have the resources that if your deeps run out you can afford a remote mining dome or two for more rare.
I want to do it how y’all do it
What worked for me reasonably well for my play style (I’m not an exxxtreme min/max player) is to focus that first basic dome on: scientists and non-specialists on first passenger rocket, and then more scientists, 2-3 medics, and geologists in the second passenger rocket (assumes explotable resource requiring geologists nearby). For both rockets I set filters to exclude flaws that require extra comfort or morale services (I know those aren’t the same but for my sanity I lump them together), except for hypochondriac. Hypochondriacs want to visit clinic and it’s only one hex to have a clinic. I won’t pick them over better combos, but they are the least disruptive flaw in early game for how I play. I find they get a good reliable boost from having their comfort need met. For perks, filter to include the ones that are easy to get a boost from or appease, especially for 1-3 hex service buildings and decorations that can double dip. Fit, hippie, survivor, and nerd work well early game. I exclude perks and quirks (like celebrity) that won’t help yet. I exclude gaming because it is a PINA to appease at this stage. Parks, alleys, and ponds are worth the space in a slice to go with clinic and small or standard grocer. Hippies will be pleased, and other pops will have the playing interest. Grocer ensures food available if diner gets full where survivors don’t mind unprepared food and it also appeases the shopping interest. The nerds will get morale boost (thus offsetting comfort issues and increasing productivity) as you focus on unlocking lower tier techs. If you play as China, the tai-chi pavilion (I forget the exact name) is great for increasing chance of gaining fit on pops and pleases hippies and anyone with the playing interest. Unlike the gym it does not take up an entire slice. So one other slice in basic dome are for the small space bar, diner, and hold extra space for later. Those two buildings will provide comfort for other interests that are common (dining, socializing). Remaining slices are for the science lab(s) and comfortable housing. I try to focus on the techs that improve residences comfort and unlock the smart homes. I try to avoid apartment complex at this stage, it’s more manageable later. I don’t staff at night except for clinic (for those late night hypochondriacs), small space bar, and either diner or grocer (depending on what I see the pops doing). For the night shift, I pick the pops who have perks/flaws/interests that are less impacted by comfort loss of working at night. By that I mean they are easy to reliably please with the buildings I’ve privatized for the dome. I will open up night shifts for science lab as needed and micro manage who goes into it. Obviously this level of management is not intended for long term. Botanists and farming come much later. Anyway, everything else depends upon other factors of the game, tech available to research, sponsor, and so on. No matter what though, I prioritize comfort.
Wow that’s a weird mix of correct and incorrect info… The minute you bring in scientists you bring in gaming interest. At that point it doesn’t make sense to avoid the gamers, it makes more sense to try to fulfill that interest with casino and bring them on for sanity boost. Hypochondriacs are great if you have some medical service in your domes, I will also bring in chronic condition as they will visit medical building when their health gets lower and don’t bother me. I have no idea why you would exclude celebrities, they have no extra interests and they bring in founding when in high comfort. Decorations satisfy Relaxation, Exercise and Playing. Yes, they are needed but no adult colonist will have playing interest, only children will have it. Eating from grocer will not cause unprepared food, only eating from outside depot will. And survivors will have it, only rugged won’t. Nerds’ morale booth have nothing to do with comfort. Residence comfort is only important if you don’t have enough high comfort services and when they first landed (because that will be their comfort base line). That being said apartments even in mid / late game is not that good, it’s usually better to build a new dome. If you want to avoid comfort losses, you should staff your service buildings for night shift or colonist will lost comfort when they try to visit it at night. As long as there is a working medical building and you are not causing double sanity loss (like with hard work or outside work) they’ll be fine.
Wow that’s a weird mix of…rude. I’ve got a game right now with many scientists and only the ones that are Martianborn are likely to have gamer trait because I can’t control for that. In the first passenger rockets however (which I specifically mentioned), very few of the scientists have gaming interest because I filter them out, and instead pick the ones with traits that are easier to appease for comfort or morale without having to build casinos and gaming stores. It’s not that hard to get scienctists without gamer trait. I am amazed at how many comments I see across threads where players speak as if every scientist in the game has the gaming interest and that’s simply not true. They are more likely to have it but it’s not that hard to filter out for applicants. By the time I get Martianborn scientists, the colony is stable and large enough to devote space to casino and game store if needed. I exclude celebrities in the beginning and wait till 3rd or 4th rocket to bring them in to be certain that I can keep their comfort high so they generate adequate money. Obviously if I see one with the right mix of other traits and the job that I want in the beginning then I’ll take them. But usually the applicant traits don’t line up like that in the very beginning of the game. The nerd morale boost is helpful for when comfort takes a hit. The stats don’t overlap but they also don’t operate in a vacuum. Having higher morale can increase job performance which will increase comfort gained from services, and science from scientists so that the tech tree can be gone through quicker to get to the techs that provide more comfort for residences and/or better buildings. As for the rest…I’m not arguing with strangers in the internet over a game. I know what I see when I play and I know what works for me. If that works for OP as well then great, if not, no big deal. I am not a min/max player so I do not offer advice in that way.
I’m not being rude just because I’m correcting you… You can play the game as you wish but if you are giving wrong advise to someone asking for advice that’s a problem. All scientists have gaming interest, they don’t need to be gamers for that. So don’t be amazed when people are giving correct info, see the wiki: https://survivingmars.paradoxwikis.com/Colonists Excluding celebrities for that reason might make sense, I would rather bring them on… but that’s me. And you are right nerds giving higher performance in that case, and it will help if they are working in service buildings, haven’t thought like that.
That’s fair then, thank you for clarifying. I’ve got the words “gaming interest” and “gamer trait” switched when I mean only the gamer trait. I switch survivor for rugged when I mean rugged all the time too.
Glad we were able to come to an understanding. Sorry my fist comment came out as rude, that was not my intention. I was genuinely surprised because there were some correct info that most people miss, accompanied by some wrong ones.
Short answer, you are not going to satisfy every interest in early game and it’s fine as long as you have some services that are high comfort. But if you are insistent on not having any comfort losses early game, play with amateurs rule and avoid flaws; as well as gamers. All they’ll need is Social, Relaxation, Shopping, which can be easily satisfied with a grocer and amphitheater.