A brief discussion of the 'basic' dome: Don't

[YertyL]

In short: Micro domes and barrel domes give you (a lot) more space at a similar price, and the ability to have a spire in a basic dome is almost always negligible.

In depth: 2 micro domes, a basic dome and a barrel dome have almost the same upkeep (1 oxygen, 1 water and 10 vs 15 vs 15 power). However, 2 micro domes will give you 66 hexes of space, the basic dome will give you 60, and the barrel dome an incredible 86 hexes of space (see here), making almost as large as than the trigon dome (90 hexes). This is at the cost of polymer maintenance and the inability to support a spire. Considering the polymers, I would argue that if you are hard pressed for advanced materials, you should stick to micro domes in the first place. Which leaves the advantage of the basic dome being able to support a spire.

However, you have to ask yourself in which situation you will actually want a spire in a basic dome.
Water reclamation? If you "outsource" your work force via a dome connection, you can fit 5 farms and 3 hydroponic farms in a basic dome. However your workers will all work at -10 performance (unless you play brazil), and you will not need 5 farms until the mid game, at which point you will likely have a medium dome anyways.
Medical center? One of the best options IMO, but again, a medical center for one basic dome is overkill, connected domes will suffer a service penalty, and when you have medical centers you will often also have medium domes.
Arcology? If you use the additional space of the barrel dome for 2 living complexes + 2 living quarters, you will have 4 more living space than a basic dome + arcology (36 vs 32), at a vastly lower price. Arcologies look cool but are almost never efficient, same as appartments. I would only use them at a great dome site (multiple vistas/research sites).
Which leaves hanging gardens (late game + waste of dome-wide bonus), network node (same), temple spire and sanatorium. The last two are the only ones I would actually build in a basic dome -- but they are restricted to church of the new ark, and the late game, respectively. I do not own the in-dome building pack, so I cannot comment on the school spire, but I would again suspect it is of no concern until at least the mid game.

So, to conclude: Unless you are church of the new ark, your early game domes should be micro dome (when low on polymers or people) or the IMO fantastic barrel dome. The "basic" dome should really be seen more as a small spire dome, and is pretty situational even in the late game.

EDIT: There was a mistake in the paradox wiki: 8 large and 2 medium plots is 86 hexes, not 96. I edited the wiki, hopefully it will stay.

 

[Jon_Smith]

Well one could also claim it is entirely pointless to ever build a Trigon Dome instead of a Medium dome.
You get less space and the cost difference of 20 concrete and 5 polymers is extremely small. There is also a small amount of extra water and power required but again these are small making the medium dome vastly superior every time.

The only reason you'd ever really want a Trigon Dome is because of the slightly larger influence zone allowing to to capture more research sites, vistas or resources to mine.

 

[YertyL]

Well one could also claim it is entirely pointless to ever build a Trigon Dome instead of a Medium dome.
You get less space and the cost difference of 20 concrete and 5 polymers is extremely small. There is also a small amount of extra water and power required but again these are small making the medium dome vastly superior every time.

The only reason you'd ever really want a Trigon Dome is because of the slightly larger influence zone allowing to to capture more research sites, vistas or resources to mine.

Let me put it this way: The upkeep of all larger spire domes is roughly proportional to how much bigger they are than the basic dome -- e.g. trigon is 1.5 times the size of a basic dome and has almost exactly 1.5 times the upkeep -- while the initial costs are generally a bit higher, especially for the largest domes (mega, but also oval and diamond). However, at the same time the usefulness of having a spire will generally also increase, and more importantly, you will not get these domes until the mid game and thus hopefully not waste early game resources on a spire spot you cannot use for quite a while.

If you specifically compare basic, trigon and medium dome costs -- 80 20 10, 100 50 15 and 120 50 20 -- they are pretty close to 1, 1.5 and 2 times the cost of a basic dome (which would be 120 30 15 for trigon and 160 40 20 for medium), while also having almost exactly 1, 1.5 and 2 times the hexes.
IMO for larger domes, costs are pretty even. It's mostly that a small dome does not need a spire, and at the same time the barrel dome is fantastically cost-efficient compared to all other domes, with the possible exception of micro in the early game, since that dome does not use advanced ressources.

It's a bit weird to me that the game seems to think having a spire is default, whereas I would argue that spires are more situationally useful. Medical center is the most generally useful, but even then you should make full use of it (lots of heavy workloads, little other comfort) to justify the cost.

 

[Jon_Smith]

If you're gonna do the maths on it, do it properly though. See attached my screenshot that breaks down the 'per hex' cost of everything associated with a dome.

You'll see, as I said, that a Trigon Dome is worse on every metric except for power, but thats a tiny difference between them. So, like I said, Trigons are pointless by your logic. They aren't far off being as bad per hex in most categories as a Basic Dome. Furthermore if you compare getting 86 hexes in a Barrel Dome to to 90 you get in a Trigon dome, well you can see how it pales in comparison. If you want a spire then a Medium dome makes much, much more sense as its cheaper per hex and also supports a Spire.

A Mega Trigon on the other hand is more efficient per hex than a Mega Dome in general, but again, the hex sizes are so vastly different, a Mega Trigon is more comparable to a Medium Dome, which is more efficient and available much much sooner.

Its fair to promote the Barrel Dome, its fantastic, but the Basic Dome does have a place since its the smallest dome that supports a Spire.
If you're going to hate on it for its cost to benefit ratio overall, then like I have pointed out, the Trigon and Mega Trigon are just as bad or worse.

Alot of these Domes were added in later patches after the original base game was released, they aren't perfectly balance nor do they need to be. Sometimes you want Domes of different sizes or just variety.

Now I do think the Barrel Dome should have its concrete cost raised and the Basic Dome lowered just to balance these out. But its not a big deal currently.

 

[YertyL]

If you're gonna do the maths on it, do it properly though. See attached my screenshot that breaks down the 'per hex' cost of everything associated with a dome.

You'll see, as I said, that a Trigon Dome is worse on every metric except for power, but thats a tiny difference between them. So, like I said, Trigons are pointless by your logic. They aren't far off being as bad per hex in most categories as a Basic Dome. Furthermore if you compare getting 86 hexes in a Barrel Dome to to 90 you get in a Trigon dome, well you can see how it pales in comparison. If you want a spire then a Medium dome makes much, much more sense as its cheaper per hex and also supports a Spire.

A Mega Trigon on the other hand is more efficient per hex than a Mega Dome in general, but again, the hex sizes are so vastly different, a Mega Trigon is more comparable to a Medium Dome, which is more efficient and available much much sooner.

Its fair to promote the Barrel Dome, its fantastic, but the Basic Dome does have a place since its the smallest dome that supports a Spire.
If you're going to hate on it for its cost to benefit ratio overall, then like I have pointed out, the Trigon and Mega Trigon are just as bad or worse.

Alot of these Domes were added in later patches after the original base game was released, they aren't perfectly balance nor do they need to be. Sometimes you want Domes of different sizes or just variety.

Now I do think the Barrel Dome should have its concrete cost raised and the Basic Dome lowered just to balance these out. But its not a big deal currently.

Math can be done correctly but applied or interpreted incorrectly. IMO a pretty relevant problem in real life as well.
Case in point: Concrete, metals and polymers are not "worth" the same. Concrete can be harvested just using drones. Metal is almost free in the early game, but relatively hard to get in the mid to late (for non-Japanese). And polymers are always relatively hard to produce. So an unweighted sum is a pretty misleading description of total cost. Which is why I am mostly focused on polymers,water, and (to a lesser degree) power, the IMO sparsest resources.

With spire domes, yes, in general bigger domes are better, since have effects that are either dome-wide or at least are only fully used by a larger dome, and arcologies as the exception to that rule are just extremely costly themselves. But for a trigon it is already more conceivable to me that you would use it with water conservation, or, as I have done, for an education + rehabilitation dome (nurseries, university, and sanitorium), for which its specific space limit seems to be a good fit. I would also generally recommend medium more than trigon, but they are not so far apart that trigon can't be better in specific situations.

The basic dome kind of combines the worst of all worlds: It is small, which makes its spire slot generally pointless, and it is early game, at which point, again, its spire spot is almost always pointless. And it uses less polymers than barrel, but still some, which is why in my eyes you should either go micro or barrel.

 

[Jon_Smith]

What is wrong with the maths? What you have said isn't backed up by any maths, if you applied a weighting you'd arrive at the same conclusions I made. I provided a breakdown for each material. Concrete, metals and polymers are all shown separately. The total isn't intended to show a full picture but is relevant since simply delivering materials can slow down construction.

Again, I'm applying YOUR logic of the value. A Trigon dome is more cost, per hex, on concrete and on metals AND on polymers than a Medium Dome.
A Mega Trigon is a small amount more efficient then a Mega Dome but size wise compares to the Medium Dome, which it is awful in comparison to.

I'm not saying bigger is better. I am applying your logic, given the choice between a Mega Trigon and a Medium Dome it makes very little sense to choose the Trigon, just like given the choice between a Barrel and a Basic, it makes very little choice picking the basic Unless you want a spire. So arguably the Basic Dome has more utility than a Mega Trigon since it can be the smallest Dome Spire.

I'm just pointing out you aren't consistent in your disparaging of Domes.

 

[pitkanen]

I have a special love for megatrigons for drone flow in a factory dome... those workable hexes and on average much closer to an exit. At that point polymer production is already solid though. At that point concrete is also a joke due to commander-turbine-extractor "outposts".

I still would say there is a benefit to the spire in lower size domes. Even with tunnels.
-Sanatorium domes are a specialized category for me, and their capacity only needs a basic.
-Medical Centers provide a much larger value boost and have a 3 specialist worker to 12 visitor ratio. The larger boost is nullified by using the neighboring domes, but not the worker-visitor ratio. Late game, rejuv treatment... insane birthrates.
-Hanging Gardens do boost housing values, but just as a park that people visit they are insane (100 vs 40 comfort, 20 vs 5 boost to comfort from visiting, +social, 20 slots vs 10 slots in a large park). That two water though could be annoying on a dusty low water map early game.

With tunnels, a larger population can use the spires, getting full use of visitor slots. Because they have large comfort/healing values, they still outperform non-spire versions even considering the neighboring dome penalty. I do build basics as "service domes" to support my big domes (research especially) for exactly this reason.

Barrel domes are really nice though. Perfect amount of space for a 4 school kid-dome.

 

[YertyL]

What is wrong with the maths? What you have said isn't backed up by any maths, if you applied a weighting you'd arrive at the same conclusions I made. I provided a breakdown for each material. Concrete, metals and polymers are all shown separately. The total isn't intended to show a full picture but is relevant since simply delivering materials can slow down construction.

Again, I'm applying YOUR logic of the value. A Trigon dome is more cost, per hex, on concrete and on metals AND on polymers than a Medium Dome.
A Mega Trigon is a small amount more efficient then a Mega Dome but size wise compares to the Medium Dome, which it is awful in comparison to.

I'm not saying bigger is better. I am applying your logic, given the choice between a Mega Trigon and a Medium Dome it makes very little sense to choose the Trigon, just like given the choice between a Barrel and a Basic, it makes very little choice picking the basic Unless you want a spire. So arguably the Basic Dome has more utility than a Mega Trigon since it can be the smallest Dome Spire.

I'm just pointing out you aren't consistent in your disparaging of Domes.

I guess it just goes against my instinct to add together different "units". Even if it is in principle just additional information, it can mislead an uniformed viewer. (would you sum up 3 prices in dollars, rubles and yen as one 'total cost'?) Same with a "maintenance" that does not distinguish polymer and concrete maintenance btw.

And my logic was not just about ressource per hex. The worth of a spire is very dependent on the specific context. If arcologies were early game and fantastic, basic domes would rule. But in the current state, I see very little use specifically for the basic dome spire slot.

This is why I would not feel confident generally saying that a mega dome is worse than a medium dome, since e.g. hanging gardens are much more effective in a mega dome compared to a medium dome, and I am not sure about (normal) trigon vs barrel (roughly same size but spire), but I am pretty sure about barrel vs basic.

I would agree on the mega trigon dome though -- it is indeed very comparable to the medium dome in almost every way, and equally quite a bit worse in almost every way.

 

[YertyL]

I have a special love for megatrigons for drone flow in a factory dome... those workable hexes and on average much closer to an exit. At that point polymer production is already solid though. At that point concrete is also a joke due to commander-turbine-extractor "outposts".

I still would say there is a benefit to the spire in lower size domes. Even with tunnels.
-Sanatorium domes are a specialized category for me, and their capacity only needs a basic.
-Medical Centers provide a much larger value boost and have a 3 specialist worker to 12 visitor ratio. The larger boost is nullified by using the neighboring domes, but not the worker-visitor ratio. Late game, rejuv treatment... insane birthrates.
-Hanging Gardens do boost housing values, but just as a park that people visit they are insane (100 vs 40 comfort, 20 vs 5 boost to comfort from visiting, +social, 20 slots vs 10 slots in a large park). That two water though could be annoying on a dusty low water map early game.

With tunnels, a larger population can use the spires, getting full use of visitor slots. Because they have large comfort/healing values, they still outperform non-spire versions even considering the neighboring dome penalty. I do build basics as "service domes" to support my big domes (research especially) for exactly this reason.

Barrel domes are really nice though. Perfect amount of space for a 4 school kid-dome.

There is always something one can overlook Good to know about the mega trigon.

With hanging gardens and medical centers it's more about visitor capacity. If I understand comfort service correctly (I am still not sure that I do), a 10 capacity building can serve approximately one interest of 90 people, or 2 interests of 45 people (or 3 of 30). Gardens will likely serve ~2 interests (social, relaxation), but are 20 capacity -- so they are still very likely overkill for a 6 plot dome. Same with the medical center.
Maybe you could do a weird configuration where you only put housing and the spire in the dome, and work only external buildings. But that is again pretty specific and not early game... my point was mostly that you should not treat the basic dome as your default from the start.

 

[Jon_Smith]

I explained the benefit of knowing the total cost though. Its not the same as adding up three different currencies. I don't know why you are focused on it when I never made it a pivotal point of any of my statements aswell as having the individual breakdowns.

If you are so concerned about a misinformed viewer then you shouldn't make the broad statements you made which I demonstrated to not be accurate.
The maintenance values are so similar they are largely irrelevant and only the micro dome has a different resource, it didn't seem relevant to go to great effort to over explain that.

My point stands. You are giving unnecessary hate towards the Basic Dome when, by your metrics, there are other bad domes such as Trigon and Mega Trigon that don't have the virtue of being compared to domes without a spire giving the Basic Dome a slight edge on usefulness.

The Domes are fine as is, even if its simple as a nice little aesthetic change. Its common knowledge that the Barrel Dome is excellent value, especially early game, but there is no reason to discourage people from using Basic or Trigon domes even if they aren't as good per hex as some other options.

 

[YertyL]

I explained the benefit of knowing the total cost though. Its not the same as adding up three different currencies. I don't know why you are focused on it when I never made it a pivotal point of any of my statements aswell as having the individual breakdowns.

If you are so concerned about a misinformed viewer then you shouldn't make the broad statements you made which I demonstrated to not be accurate.
The maintenance values are so similar they are largely irrelevant and only the micro dome has a different resource, it didn't seem relevant to go to great effort to over explain that.

My point stands. You are giving unnecessary hate towards the Basic Dome when, by your metrics, there are other bad domes such as Trigon and Mega Trigon that don't have the virtue of being compared to domes without a spire giving the Basic Dome a slight edge on usefulness.

The Domes are fine as is, even if its simple as a nice little aesthetic change. Its common knowledge that the Barrel Dome is excellent value, especially early game, but there is no reason to discourage people from using Basic or Trigon domes even if they aren't as good per hex as some other options.

I guess if we are talking about concrete being flown in via shuttle I can see the point about material delivery being a (significant) limiting factor, but otherwise cost in production seems to far outweigh transport. I would e.g. pretty much always pick a cost of 120 concrete over 60 polymers.

And I am not sure about the 'hate' and unjustified broad statements? My main point is:
I believe most players that haven't done the math think that your standard should be basic -> medium -> mega, with micro, barrel and (mega) trigon being situational. I believe it should be micro/barrel -> medium -> mega, with basic and trigons being situational. It's mostly about the game being misleading to new(er) players via naming and descriptions. Hence the "small spire dome" suggestion.

 

[Jon_Smith]

Thats a different point to what you made above though and there are scenarios where a Basic Dome is useful, and like I said, if you are saying don't build a Basic Dome early game for the reasons stated its worth pointing out that Trigon and Mega Trigon are equally as 'bad'.

You're wrong in some assertions aswell since you are making out the Micro Dome is a great choice, its much much worse in efficiency of metals than a Basic Dome and if you are on a map with poor surface metals then it can be an issue to waste metals.

Number of resources can be relevant for a bunch of reasons, not just shuttle transport, it also takes drone transportation time (this is why Artificial Muscles is such a great breakthrough since carrying two resources speeds things up massively), there is also the time taken to manufacture the resources, this is negligible but if we are fussing over the efficiency per hex of a dome then its relevant still.

The quicker you get a dome up the faster you can land colonists and start snowballing so a slow build can delay that.

Furthermore there are plenty of examples of great use of a basic Dome, for example if you have the Commander Bonus for having Hanging Gardens at the start, its an expensive thing to build but it means you could replace a large garden with housing a bring in a bunch of colonists. You mentioned New Ark.
If you are farming its perhaps smart to invest in a basic dome with a water reclamation spire, you mention you won't need 5 farms until mid-late game, but in the meantime where are you putting your farms? Wasting space in the Barrel Dome, then when you need two farms where is it going? Its not a bad choice to have a Basic Dome connected and start with just 1 farm in it, as your population scales add another farm etc etc. Eventually you will need 5 farms and they will be very water efficient compared to ones dotted around 'normal' domes.


I agree the Barrel Dome is a fantastic choice, but you are in my opinion wrong to discourage the use of a Basic Dome, players will find interesting and useful ways to use them you perhaps haven't considered.

 

[YertyL]

Thats a different point to what you made above though and there are scenarios where a Basic Dome is useful, and like I said, if you are saying don't build a Basic Dome early game for the reasons stated its worth pointing out that Trigon and Mega Trigon are equally as 'bad'.

You're wrong in some assertions aswell since you are making out the Micro Dome is a great choice, its much much worse in efficiency of metals than a Basic Dome and if you are on a map with poor surface metals then it can be an issue to waste metals.

Number of resources can be relevant for a bunch of reasons, not just shuttle transport, it also takes drone transportation time (this is why Artificial Muscles is such a great breakthrough since carrying two resources speeds things up massively), there is also the time taken to manufacture the resources, this is negligible but if we are fussing over the efficiency per hex of a dome then its relevant still.

The quicker you get a dome up the faster you can land colonists and start snowballing so a slow build can delay that.

Furthermore there are plenty of examples of great use of a basic Dome, for example if you have the Commander Bonus for having Hanging Gardens at the start, its an expensive thing to build but it means you could replace a large garden with housing a bring in a bunch of colonists. You mentioned New Ark.
If you are farming its perhaps smart to invest in a basic dome with a water reclamation spire, you mention you won't need 5 farms until mid-late game, but in the meantime where are you putting your farms? Wasting space in the Barrel Dome, then when you need two farms where is it going? Its not a bad choice to have a Basic Dome connected and start with just 1 farm in it, as your population scales add another farm etc etc. Eventually you will need 5 farms and they will be very water efficient compared to ones dotted around 'normal' domes.


I agree the Barrel Dome is a fantastic choice, but you are in my opinion wrong to discourage the use of a Basic Dome, players will find interesting and useful ways to use them you perhaps haven't considered.

I am still not sure why I seem to have upset you...I am well aware that there are some situations in which a basic dome is a good choice, even early game. For example, in my last game I actually went for a basic dome as my second dome -- but that was dependent on several factors: I already had a steady money supply and didn't need a production center (SpaceY), I got the breakthrough that increases morale in spire domes, I got sanitorium tech very early through randomization, and my main problem were very crappy applicants.

My point is not that the basic dome can never, ever be a good choice -- but I would still say in 90% of cases a barrel or medium dome is better, depending on what you go for. And I think unless they have looked at the details, many players will likely not be aware how much space they are wasting if they just go basic as their standard -- that's why I made the thread.

Also concerning the farm/water reclamation dome... I am still not convinced you should ever go for water reclamation. Maybe if the spire was unmanned, but colonists have a lot of downstream costs. You always have to compare it with e.g. putting the same 6 people into a polymer factory instead. On the other hand, the housing comfort that farms give is generally fantastic (+6 comfort every day). In theory, I really like the idea of greenhouse domes, but in practice, that much effort to save ~5-10 water never seems to be worth it to me. That might also be because I play with hunger and thus have to build farms from the start though.

 

[Jon_Smith]

You've not upset me, I just think you were focusing on a single dome type and painting a skewed picture where there are plenty of domes that are equally bad by your standards and don't have the advantage of being the only type that size that can support a spire so a topic bashing on the Trigon and Mega Trigon would be more in order rather than focusing on the basic dome.

I also discourage any discussion that tells a player 'how to play' a game like this, especially since you are not considering all the options. If someone wants to min/max then its perhaps worth considering which dome is most effective, but for a majority of players simply building a basic dome because maybe they think it looks nicer is fine enough.

Whether you are convinced of the benefit of a farming dome or not is largely irrelevant since you are talking about min/maxing again and in that scenario farming at all is just not a 'top tier' strategy (even with hunger rules on). Greenhouse domes and specialized domes in general are considered pretty good, the water savings across multiple farms can be very considerable so it can really reduce the number of vaporators you need to order from Earth which can be valuable to some players.

Since there is no single way to play I just want to argue against people saying there is. Let people enjoy the basic dome if they want, by all means make a topic saying how useful you find the barrel dome as perhaps that will make someone consider using it when they haven't and open more avenues of play, but don't try to discourage or shut down different routes someone can take.

 

[Devan The Space Elf]

Basic is nice over Barrel because it saves polymers both up-front and for maintenance. Meanwhile Micro dome just has too little space.
For efficiency Ecology is the strongest commander because of Hanging Gardens so if you'd care about optimization you'd porbbaly be playing that and go Basic.

 

[Makinus]

The basic dome is worth it only for those sponsors/commanders that give an early spire that you wish to use from the start, otherwise micro and barrel should be the go to domes for early game. Unless i´m playing with one of the early spires commander/sponsors my first dome is always a barrel dome, and i use micro domes only for exploiting deposits that are outside the radius of a vista/research dome.

 

[YertyL]

Poll about dome usage. "Basic" includes medium and mega, but still, it being at 55% while barrel is at 18% below trigon is why a thread like this is IMO called for. It really is a waste if you don't know what you are doing, i.e. have a plan for the spire spot.
Especially when you start building apartments and arcologies to compensate for the basic dome's lack of space while not using the spire slot at all you are really shooting yourself in the foot compared to just using a barrel dome. I suspect a lot of new players do this. You can almost have a whole new dome for the cost (and upkeep) of one apartment, and you can definitely have a new dome for the cost of an arcology spire.

 

[Jon_Smith]

Poll about dome usage. "Basic" includes medium and mega, but still, it being at 55% while barrel is at 18% below trigon is why a thread like this is IMO called for. It really is a waste if you don't know what you are doing, i.e. have a plan for the spire spot.
Especially when you start building apartments and arcologies to compensate for the basic dome's lack of space while not using the spire slot at all you are really shooting yourself in the foot compared to just using a barrel dome. I suspect a lot of new players do this. You can almost have a whole new dome for the cost (and upkeep) of one apartment, and you can definitely have a new dome for the cost of an arcology spire.

Yeah and as I keep pointing out, make a topic about how great the barrel dome is then rather than telling people not to use a basic dome. There is a subtle but important difference between promoting something and telling people how they play or want to play is wrong, which you have done, especially since like I mentioned Trigon and Mega Trigon are worse yet you excluded them from your 'don't build it narrative'.

You're also assuming people are ignorant of the benefits of a barrel dome, many players like to just make a base 'look cool' and barrel domes are one of the ugliest in my opinion. People like having spires. The twitter account you reference frequently show people's 'pretty' bases, are they min maxed and super efficient, in all likelihood not and that doesn't matter.

Don't try and gatekeep how people play or tell them how they should play and I wouldn't argue back against you. Its really that simple.

 

[Shark7]

My biggest reason for using the 'basic' dome set is that I like the way they look. I don't get into the number-crunching or the min-maxing of the game, I'm playing to relax and enjoy it.

So long as it looks the way I want it to, I'll continue using it.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

However, 2 micro domes will give you 66 hexes of space, the basic dome will give you 60

That's simply not true.
A Basic dome gives you 60 hexes, but 2 micro domes give you only 64 hexes.
Furthermore: 1 Basic dome gives you 6 large building slots while 2 mirco domes give you 4 and 8 small spaces.
This means you can only have 2 large houses in one dome. Sure, you can have multiple domes with fewer housing areas but then you need more medical centres to keep the comfort threshold low (70 is quite high, especially in early game).

In my humble opinion this whole calculation crumbles to dust once you realize that you have to connect the domes.