Comfort strategies 2.0 (with amphitheater)

[YertyL]

TL: DR: gyms, parks and amphitheaters can often replace food buildings, comfort is much more expensive and usually less important than (high) health and sanity, and smart homes and gyms are better than infirmaries (but not medical centers)

Comfort mainly has two effects: First, a +5 morale /performance when high and -10 when low, same as health and sanity. Second, colonists will start having children at 70 comfort (55 comfort with active shift in a medical building). The first important thing to note is that apart from children, which you will not need in the beginning, high sanity and health are more important than high comfort. Infirmaries will keep them from dipping in the red, but not in the green. So a colonist that has medium comfort but heals health and sanity damage via gyms and smart homes will have higher performance than one with high comfort that heals in an infirmary (+10 vs +5). Medical spires heal to high values and give high comfort even without relaxation upgrade, but are later tech and need staff. In the early game, I would definitely care more about health and sanity than comfort, and your main goal will only be to avoid low (red) comfort.

Colonists usually have 3 interests depending on their specialization, but I find it more helpful to think of all daily sources of comfort together. These are:
Housing, food, interest (one random of usually 3)
A few observations:

1. If you want to to satisfy food, you need about 3 times the capacity of a normal interest, or the same as all interests combined. E.g. to fully satisfy 90 colonists with 3 interests, you need 30 food capacity and 10 capacity for each interest: Every shift 30 people eat and ~10 go for each interest.
2. On average, the penalty for not having food is slightly lower than the for not satisfying an interest: -3 every day vs -10 every 3 days
3. High comfort, i.e. a comfort source that increase a colonist's comfort, is worth twice as much or more than low comfort. E.g. a colonist visting a spacebar at 50 comfort will gain +15 and avoid a -10 for an effective +25 instead of just avoiding the -10 loss when visiting a park. This is especially true for food that has the potential to give a colonist +10 every day: For 20 colonists at 50-60 comfort, a fully staffed diner (+10 comfort for 10, -3 for the other 10) will usually be better than two grocers ( 0 for all). If the colonists are below 50 comfort, 2 grocers are better.
   High housing comfort is worth about as much as high comfort for a normal interest: +6 every day vs +20 every 3 days. It's a bit less with smart complexes (+5) and appartments (+4). The fact that housing comfort is so reliable and cheap is one of the mainy reasons to avoid apartments most of the time.

To keep colonist comfort at a stable level, you want to have a net increase in comfort every day. As seen above, food, housing and interests are roughly of equal importance for this. Consider the example of 90 unspecialized colonists again: You can keep them at 50-60 comfort either just with 30 food capacity (-10 every day for no interest, +10 every day from food) or via housing (at 50+ comfort) and 10 low comfort capacity for 2 interests, i.e. social (gym) and relaxation (park): -9 for no food and -10 for no shopping every 3 days but +18 from housing and +10 from gym when below 50.

The main drawback of satisfying the food need is that all of the buildings need to be staffed, but they still are fairly low comfort. E.g. for colonists with social, relaxation or luxury interest, an amphitheater is better than a grocer in every way without needing staff.
Indeed, with the new patch unstaffed buildings can satisfy 2 of 3 interests for most specializations, which will be enough to to keep them at reasonable comfort even without food:

1. Unspecialized and scientists: Gym and parks or amphitheater (social, relaxation)
2. Botanists: Amphitheater and parks (luxury, relaxation)
3. Medics: Amphitheater and gym (luxury, social)

Which leaves geologists (social, shopping, drinking) and engineers (dining, shopping, relaxation). A spacebar has the same staff as a single diner but gives +15 instead of +10 at <60 comfort. This alone is enough to satisfy geologists and normal engineers combined with housing: +18 (housing) and +15 (spacebar) - 9 (food) - 20 (dining, shopping) = +4 every 3 days. Later, you can replace the bar with hanging gardens or medical centers for even higher comfort.
I like to have a single food building in larger domes as backup for loners and workaholics, but apart from that, unstaffed buildings will be a better deal for medium comfort and other high comfort buildings for high comfort. Gyms specifically are also just fantastic for keeping social colonists' health high for 0 maintenance, and as soon as a colonist becomes fit, they even satisfy two of their interests (social and exercise).
A colonist will first try to use the highest comfort building for each interest, so if you want to make sure colonists heal via gyms, use other buildings with social interest sparingly (not more than 1 amphitheater/space bar).

So, overall: Especially before you have universities,living complexes, gyms, parks and amphitheaters will keep most colonists happy enough for very low cost and keep their health up as a bonus. When you do want high comfort, a spacebar, medical center or hanging gardens will almost always be a better investment than a food building. I would use food only very sparingly as backup for loners and workaholics, in tourist domes where you want ALL comfort, or in very specific situations (e.g. a single grocer/diner will keep 28 colonists in a micro dome at 50/60 comfort by itself).

 

[Alchemist79]

Huh?
"children, which you will not need in the beginning"
-Children are top priority in early game. Now i am playing with last ark on, but even without that, the first baby is needed to end your founders stage. In late game on the other hand, they are a plague because you get way too many.

The rest of the story kinda forgets to explain how comfort really works. Im not going to explain it here in detail, there's so many guides that explained it in perfect detail. But to keep it short:
The building with the highest service level is what decides your colonists comfort level. Besides that you want to have a bunch of buildings that satisfy interests at the least /space/upkeep/personel investment possible. This is so your citizens won't lose comfort more to missed interests than they gain from visiting that highest comfort level building. If your highest comfort level building is a medical center, you can also abuse your people's sanity sufficiently to force them to go there almost every day. In that case you don't need any other comfort building. Obviously, the amphitheater is a nice new addition that satisfies interests cheaply.

 

[YertyL]

Huh?
"children, which you will not need in the beginning"
-Children are top priority in early game. Now i am playing with last ark on, but even without that, the first baby is needed to end your founders stage. In late game on the other hand, they are a plague because you get way too many.

The rest of the story kinda forgets to explain how comfort really works. Im not going to explain it here in detail, there's so many guides that explained it in perfect detail. But to keep it short:
The building with the highest service level is what decides your colonists comfort level. Besides that you want to have a bunch of buildings that satisfy interests at the least /space/upkeep/personel investment possible. This is so your citizens won't lose comfort more to missed interests than they gain from visiting that highest comfort level building. If your highest comfort level building is a medical center, you can also abuse your people's sanity sufficiently to force them to go there almost every day. In that case you don't need any other comfort building. Obviously, the amphitheater is a nice new addition that satisfies interests cheaply.

I assumed it was understood that for last ark, high comfort is of much, much higher importance, and you will not want to pick the cheaper options. Although I would then still make very high comfort (art shops, casinos, hanging gardens) a priority before food. Like I wrote, the malus for unprepared meal (-3 daily) is actually the lowest of all comfort penalties.
It is also true that your very first child can be pretty important, but after that, there is a long phase in which importing colonists will be a better and much cheaper option than raising them yourself and wasting half your workforce on comfort. I like to go grocer/spacebar in the very beginning, but then switch to gym/parks after the first birth.

I thought I did explain a bit in the rest...for example, that a spacebar with +15 at 60 comfort is actually quite a bit better than a diner with +10 at 60 comfort for both the higher max comfort and higher average comfort increase. It's not just service comfort.
The important part for me is that food buildings are really pretty situational, even when going for high comfort. And while gyms are larger than diners, dome space is much cheaper than colonists in the long run. I think a lot of newer players tend to go apartments and diners when you should mostly go living complexes and gyms. Roughly, your priority should be
Housing comfort -> unstaffed comfort -> staffed comfort -> food
whereas I often see the opposite.

 

[Alchemist79]

I assumed it was understood that for last ark, high comfort is of much, much higher importance, and you will not want to pick the cheaper options. Although I would then still make very high comfort (art shops, casinos, hanging gardens) a priority before food. Like I wrote, the malus for unprepared meal (-3 daily) is actually the lowest of all comfort penalties.
It is also true that your very first child can be pretty important, but after that, there is a long phase in which importing colonists will be a better and much cheaper option than raising them yourself and wasting half your workforce on comfort. I like to go grocer/spacebar in the very beginning, but then switch to gym/parks after the first birth.

I thought I did explain a bit in the rest...for example, that a spacebar with +15 at 60 comfort is actually quite a bit better than a diner with +10 at 60 comfort for both the higher max comfort and higher average comfort increase. It's not just service comfort.
The important part for me is that food buildings are really pretty situational, even when going for high comfort. And while gyms are larger than diners, dome space is much cheaper than colonists in the long run. I think a lot of newer players tend to go apartments and diners when you should mostly go living complexes and gyms.

Ah yes, i rarely consider either the diner or the spacebar to be my active comfort building. I usually start with an art store to give them a quick boost and then passively keep it there. (so yes that requires food buildings) Until i get medical centers and/or hanging gardens. At that point the whole comfort mechanic has sort of become obsolete. (which i think is a design flaw in the game)

PS: i like apartments over living areas because neither will be a factor in comfort and its only a 1 time expense.

So my priority is active comfort is: Medical center or hanging gardens -> none.
For passive comfort yes, unstaffed as much as possible.
I might use smart homes in a science dome where i want a research node for a spire.

 

[YertyL]

Ah yes, i rarely consider either the diner or the spacebar to be my active comfort building. I usually start with an art store to give them a quick boost and then passively keep it there. (so yes that requires food buildings) Until i get medical centers and/or hanging gardens. At that point the whole comfort mechanic has sort of become obsolete. (which i think is a design flaw in the game)

Yeah last ark just fundamentally changes the comfort rules. But in a normal game, consider this example: You use 24 colonists for a grocer(3), diner(6), infirmary (4-6), 2 hydroponic farms (6) and a lab, and you will not even be able to fully staff the lab. Or you use 12 colonists for 1 hydroponic farm and a lab, and keep them healthy with smart homes, a gym and parks/amphis. Higher productivity (still in the green with heavy workloads) for half the staff. Staffed comfort, especially food, has a bad cost/benefit ratio before you get to medical centers unless you absolutely need children. And even then, it's a bad idea to try to satisfy all needs.

EDIT: Living complexes are not a factor in comfort if you aim for perfect comfort. But that is again very specific for the early phases of last ark. If you just want to keep an equilibrium somewhere between 40 and 70 comfort, the constant +6 can be extremely helpful and save you several staffed buildings. Dome Bioscaping is an early tech and lets you get to 65 just from "passive" (low) comfort. Combined with a vista you are at 75. Smart homes add another +20 (95 max). And with home collective you are up to 105. That is really really good for its price.
EDIT2: Consider this example: The dome is at a reasonable comfort level (60 average) with absolutely minimal comfort buildings (1 gym for 44 people, even 2 homeless), mostly just from housing comfort.

 

[Tremualin]

Your math is great; I just want to say it feels wrong that a Dome with only a Gym is considered confortable and able to keep people healthy and sane ; this game needs bigger penalties (mods here I come). It's like the game rewards you from treating people to horrible conditions. But agree with everything else.

 

[YertyL]

Your math is great; I just want to say it feels wrong that a Dome with only a Gym is considered confortable and able to keep people healthy and sane ; this game needs bigger penalties (mods here I come). It's like the game rewards you from treating people to horrible conditions. But agree with everything else.

Well, look at it like this: When we do manage to send 12 people to Mars in real life, we will probably not have 6 of them working in a diner.

I honestly prefer the idea of your initial domes being more like space stations, i.e. only just enough comfort to keep colonists from getting depressed, and then evolving to comfortable city-like habitats when you are more established. The dome in the picture is a pretty extreme example, and it does serve as a temporary dome (colonists come for university/sanitorium), otherwise I would have at least put in parks. I mostly want to show that keeping colonists' comfort from dipping below 40 requires very little, and this is often a better strategy than sacrificing half your workforce to go from 50 to 60 average comfort.

 

[Tremualin]

I agree with the idea of the initial domes being like Space Stations; it's why Last Ark feels very wrong. Making babies doesn't seem like the first priority for colonists; not before we have secured food and other critical infrastructure.

Like you, I don't build many Diners, so no disagreement there. The first few people come to work on extraction and food production; unless Last Ark which is totally unrealistic (but even then there are much better alternatives that the Diner). And I do agree with your strategy; I use it myself. But it feels like something is missing.

We are in survival mode, sure, but if this was a real colonization effort, I feel we would need to have more medics (the game could use some diseases), and we would need to satisfy at least 2 interests to get by rather than just one. That Gym-only Dome being viable makes the game seem a little too easy to me, and leaves me wanting for more. I would accept it for hard-trained Applicants; but not for Martianborn.

I feel like I should mention the Small Spacebar, and the Medical Post; I'm not sure if you haven't mentioned them because you don't have the DLC or because you find them to be bad.

 

[YertyL]

I agree with the idea of the initial domes being like Space Stations; it's why Last Ark feels very wrong. Making babies doesn't seem like the first priority for colonists; not before we have secured food and other critical infrastructure.

Like you, I don't build many Diners, so no disagreement there. The first few people come to work on extraction and food production; unless Last Ark which is totally unrealistic (but even then there are much better alternatives that the Diner). And I do agree with your strategy; I use it myself. But it feels like something is missing.

We are in survival mode, sure, but if this was a real colonization effort, I feel we would need to have more medics (the game could use some diseases), and we would need to satisfy at least 2 interests to get by rather than just one. That Gym-only Dome being viable makes the game seem a little too easy to me, and leaves me wanting for more. I would accept it for hard-trained Applicants; but not for Martianborn.

I feel like I should mention the Small Spacebar, and the Medical Post; I'm not sure if you haven't mentioned them because you don't have the DLC or because you find them to be bad.

My rule of thumb is to at least satisfy two interests with low comfort. Like I said, the gym only dome is an extreme example. I would not use something like this from the beginning -- partially because I believe it depends on the high housing comfort after bioscaping + home improvement techs. Notice that the occupant selected got a double increase (+12) from housing. I am still not sure when that happens, but I believe one condition is service comfort being much higher than the current comfort of the colonist. Without the very high housing comfort, there is a higher risk colonists dip below 40 comfort, which means -10 performance -- not worth it just to save a few parks.

Indeed I do not have the medical post, but I would make its usefulness dependent on service quality (70+: Extremely good, otherwise situational). I do own the DLC with the small spacebar. For medium comfort, I would say it's slightly better than a grocer/diner (+15 higher comfort with 4 capacity), but I like the large spacebar more, mostly because I think workers are generally more costly than dome space, and the spacebar has a better capacity per worker. 10 capacity is also rarely overkill, since almost all colonists (apart from loners/workaholics) have at least one interest the bar satisfies, some two.

 

[Banaghran]

Hi, i found this interesting (the OP parks and gym thing) so i went and tried it, from start to 'midgame' and the result is mixed.
What about workoholic engineers? What about colonists selecting the wrong interest to satisfy 4 times in a row in reality? What am i doing wrong?
I would write more, but this forum has some stupid rule that i have to write short posts until i get the privilege to write 10 lines of text.

 

[YertyL]

Hi, i found this interesting (the OP parks and gym thing) so i went and tried it, from start to 'midgame' and the result is mixed.
What about workoholic engineers? What about colonists selecting the wrong interest to satisfy 4 times in a row in reality? What am i doing wrong?
I would write more, but this forum has some stupid rule that i have to write short posts until i get the privilege to write 10 lines of text.

If you will allow me to quote myself here:

I like to have a single food building in larger domes as backup for loners and workaholics, but apart from that, unstaffed buildings will be a better deal for medium comfort and other high comfort buildings for high comfort.

So yes, for engineers specifically I do use food buildings (sparingly!), and sometimes for geologists too, if I do not have the space for a bar. Still, it's mostly gyms, parks and aphitheaters early game and the fantastic medical centers (6 workers are more than enough) mid to late.

 

[Banaghran]

And heavy workload so that colonist visit before rejuvenation, yes? Apologies for being negative, the way you describe it in the first post seemed like an alternative to the usual approach, and i may have been too eager...

 

[YertyL]

And heavy workload so that colonist visit before rejuvenation, yes? Apologies for being negative, the way you describe it in the first post seemed like an alternative to the usual approach, and i may have been too eager...

Yes. There are generally two ways to run heavy workloads while keeping health and sanity in the green: Smart homes + gyms, which I would recommend for social and fit colonists (e.g. scientists), and medical centers. Engineers have no social interest by default, so medical center is usually the best option for them.

Np about being negative I am curious: Did you get a lot of earthsick colonists? I tend to overbuild comfort even when I consciously try to limit myself. The thought of "ah, just throw a comfort building in there just to be safe, can't hurt" is always an attractive one to me -- I just try to at least limit myself to unmanned buildings to minimize cost.
I am also still experimenting with optimal comfort levels...currently trying waiting out 10 sols instead of going for a marsborn. It does take longer, but you can save grocer, infirmary and space bar/diner workers, which will be almost all of your starting 12. Amphitheater is a game changer in that regard as it keeps standard scientists and biologists in the yellow by itself.

 

[Banaghran]

I have tried it until my usual 3 medium domes had around 50-60 colonists each, bar gym amphitheter infirmary from the start, and there was always 2-4 earthsick colonists (more an annoyance due to the announcements) + the outliers like gluttons (seems more weight *hehe* on dining) and workoholic engineers, the issue was more or less that since many colonists were howering below 60 comfort, it happened from time that if a colonist got a bad streak with interests he would fall trough to earthsickness.
The already mentioned issue that until 40-50 colonists noone uses the gym didnt help either, but lack of luxury worsened the situation.
Also had several renegades.

Also for fun i tried a more extreme example understaffed 36 comfort mega mall gym park medical center, this is maybe the purest example wehere colonists without relaxation hover (-15 +5) around the comfort of their home based on luck getting a prepared meal and squeezing themselves into the mega mall which is almost always full unfortunately. With 85 comfort homes (vista, farm, collective) this would probably work for all for the 70+ comfort birth rate. With 9 service employees (mall 3 medical 6) in a 100 colonists dome.
(Hey, i can post long paragraphs now!)

EDIT:
But to return to aphi, yes it is extremely useful, at the early game (8 visitors on 3 hexes and no employees, luxury), micro dome mining colonies (amphi. two small bars, a tree , infirmary center, enough space left for 2 houses) and in late game to relieve overtaxed casinos in science domes.

 

[YertyL]

I have tried it until my usual 3 medium domes had around 50-60 colonists each, bar gym amphitheter infirm ary from the start, and there was always 2-4 earthsick colonists (more an annoyance due to the announcements) + the outliers like gluttons (seems more weight *hehe* on dining) and workoholic engineers, the issue was more or less that since many colonists were howering below 60 comfort, it happened from time that if a colonist got a bad streak with interests he would fall trough to earthsickness.
The already mentioned issue that until 40-50 colonists noone uses the gym didnt help either, but lack of luxury worsened the situation.
Also had several renegades.

Also for fun i tried a more extreme example understaffed 36 comfort mega mall gym park medical center, this is maybe the purest example wehere colonists without relaxation hover (-15 +5) around the comfort of their home based on luck getting a prepared meal and squeezing themselves into the mega mall which is almost always full unfortunately. With 85 comfort homes (vista, farm, collective) this would probably work for all for the 70+ comfort birth rate. With 9 service employees (mall 3 medical 6) in a 100 colonists dome.
(Hey, i can post long paragraphs now!)

EDIT:
But to return to aphi, yes it is extremely useful, at the early game (8 visitors on 3 hexes and no employees, luxury), micro dome mining colonies (amphi. two small bars, a tree , infirmary center, enough space left for 2 houses) and in late game to relieve overtaxed casinos in science domes.

Yeah I rarely build all 3 (amphi, bar und gym). Do you split your domes on specializations? I would restrict the bar to domes with geologists and engineers.

You do want the gym to be used, since colonists that use it will likely become fit, which means that the gym can satisfy two of their interests by itself (social and exercise). However it will usually be the lowest comfort social building, and colonists choose the highest comfort building first, so it does not mix well with a bar. The same is in principle true for amphitheater, but I find that a single amphi gets filled quickly in domes with botanists and medics (where you should primarily build it). It is also helpful to make the gym your only social service building in the university domes, since then martians will become fit immediately after growing up. And if you still get earthsicks/renegades, throw a grocer in there.