With the Opportunity update announced, passages are on the way. Connected domes, more akin to neighborhoods than small cities, will surely open up a whole new raft of strategies.
Discuss!
Discuss!
Last edited:
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
New strategies? Not so sure about that. I was under the impression that passages were a new research, but I can't find a source. If it a research, your starter dome is still going to be a mixture of housing, entertainment, food, science, engineering, and mining (pick 3-4). If it isn't, there will be a couple people who can't stand the inefficiency of a mixed dome and instead make a housing dome and a work dome of some variety. I think a lot of people are picturing passages being useful on your first dome, but they really probably won't be. They'll probably be advanced resource expensive, and they will require more than two domes to make them worthwhile, and they will require space. That's a lot of "ands" and I think it makes the point - sometimes, you will just need a mixed singular dome, rather than a dome network.
I think there are a couple of details that will determine my usage of passages, however:
1) Which dome will determine the birth comfort levels? The housing dome or a service dome? If you can make a service dome that controls the birth requirements, I'd probably make that one my school and university dome, with simple services for local residents.
2) Can you chain domes? Work and services are limited to domes directly connected to the housing dome, but if you can build domes in a pattern of Work - Housing - Service - Housing - Work, you could add addtional housing off of the services dome for both infants and the elderly. Suddenly the colony becomes organic chemistry.
3) How big is the penalty to separating domes? If it's too large, my domes will largely consist of Housing + Work with Services as a connected dome. My people can have penalized comforts (if they're not primary birthing candidates) but they shouldn't be getting penalized electronics construction, for example. Morale gives nice bonuses but if there's a paradise dome just a walk away, literally every need can be fulfilled and keep colonists content.
Essentially the question becomes "what dome is going to be the middle of the hub" - Do you have a working hub with multiple connections to housing? A housing hub with connections to work and services? A services hub with connections to housing with connections to work?
I think there are a couple of details that will determine my usage of passages, however:
1) Which dome will determine the birth comfort levels? The housing dome or a service dome? If you can make a service dome that controls the birth requirements, I'd probably make that one my school and university dome, with simple services for local residents.
2) Can you chain domes? Work and services are limited to domes directly connected to the housing dome, but if you can build domes in a pattern of Work - Housing - Service - Housing - Work, you could add addtional housing off of the services dome for both infants and the elderly. Suddenly the colony becomes organic chemistry.
3) How big is the penalty to separating domes? If it's too large, my domes will largely consist of Housing + Work with Services as a connected dome. My people can have penalized comforts (if they're not primary birthing candidates) but they shouldn't be getting penalized electronics construction, for example. Morale gives nice bonuses but if there's a paradise dome just a walk away, literally every need can be fulfilled and keep colonists content.
Essentially the question becomes "what dome is going to be the middle of the hub" - Do you have a working hub with multiple connections to housing? A housing hub with connections to work and services? A services hub with connections to housing with connections to work?
The biggest value I see will be the kiddy and senior domes. Can make the domes with pure living space for them and connect them to domes that went a bit heavier on the food services.
Also centralizing food service and putting the food depots near that dome will be very useful. Get a lot of short term starvation because the shuttles aren't moving food to depots. Will be a big help if there are fewer depots to move the food to.
Also centralizing food service and putting the food depots near that dome will be very useful. Get a lot of short term starvation because the shuttles aren't moving food to depots. Will be a big help if there are fewer depots to move the food to.
I see this allowing the creation of more specialist domes. Build a central dome that is all housing. Off of it build domes for manufacturing, mining, agriculture, science and entertainment.
This is actually the value that I see. Once you hit the middle stages of development, rather than doing one farm plot per medium and 2 farm plots per mega, instead I can drop whichever size I'm working with in the middle and star out from there to create 6x domes in a snowflake pattern, all fed by one giant central farm dome. Right now, I don't like doing this because I generally end up with domes all over the place since I want to maximize resource harvesting (metals, etc) and food doesn't seem to get transported terribly well... but in a case like this, where it'd be produced RIGHT outside the doors, just down the passage...
Maybe I can finally feel comfortable taking advantage of the Farm Dome + water spire, knowing that the farms will be worked and the neighboring senior domes will siphon off those who would normally squat and keep the farms from being worked in the meantime.
I see the addition of passageways, especially at the no cost of one hex, making an easy game even easier.
At least make a passageway occupy an entire wedge so there is some cost involved. If not then chained small domes can get you everything you'd ever need
At least make a passageway occupy an entire wedge so there is some cost involved. If not then chained small domes can get you everything you'd ever need
An entire wedge is 10 hexes. That's a large building, which you'd need on both sides of the connection. I could possibly get on board with 3 hexes on each side (so a small building's space on each dome) to avoid the "so I'll just replace a tiny park with a connector" non-decision caused by a 1-hex size, since our small-building plots have that as a leftover anyway. But 10 hexes in each dome, for each connection, is entirely too much.
IF they made a long range version of the passageways, like a monorail system that transports colonists and goods between faraway domes, but requires a 'train station' on both ends, that MIGHT be worth a full wedge, but these small, short range ones? No way...
Then make it at least 3 hexes. IMO there absolutely should be some kind of trade-off or the game will become many times easier.
It's just that they wanted the game to be designed around idea of domes being each a city of their own, not districts of one big colony or sub-colonies spread around the map. But from the real world martian point of view it never made sense that they wouldn't be getting interconnected. Really looking forward to how will they manage to solve this problem, which is ultimately big game design problem.
It's just that they wanted the game to be designed around idea of domes being each a city of their own, not districts of one big colony or sub-colonies spread around the map. But from the real world martian point of view it never made sense that they wouldn't be getting interconnected. Really looking forward to how will they manage to solve this problem, which is ultimately big game design problem.
We already know some of it. If they work through a passage they are less effective. If they get a service through a passage it is less effective. The passage takes up a bit of building real estate. They will only go up to one passage away from their home dome.
I'm curious if someone will find a way to mod this, actually... If nothing else, someone's going to find a way to make passageways longer, I think, but even if neither of these are done, you can still like a central dome to 6-12 others in theory with that length.