Population Control

[Holce]

Yes because you dont have enough housing. people need free living space to migrate.

That is the problem. You will never get enough houses. When you get enough, they breed and you start lacking houses again. In late game you can't have enough houses. Why an homeless and jobless colonist cannot move to a dome without houses and jobs? At least the specialist would move to domes where they can take jobs when people retire.

When you have homeless problem sanatorium start to become empty and the number of flaw they should treat increase. All is broker as soon as you get homeless people. Just becasue you can't do anything (moral) again endless breeding. And also because of the rules don't move if no house even if you don't have house where you are.

 

[Wenla]

Some comments (like special nursing/school/seniority etc. domes to separate people and maximise efficiency, population control and so on) over here reminds me more some totaliarity countries (both former and current) than free, voluntary colonialist wanting new, hard but free life from far away...

This is also differency between role playing and min/max/optimised playing. IMHO of course.

 

[Holce]

Some comments (like special nursing/school/seniority etc. domes to separate people and maximise efficiency, population control and so on) over here reminds me more some totaliarity countries (both former and current) than free, voluntary colonialist wanting new, hard but free life from far away...

This is also differency between role playing and min/max/optimised playing. IMHO of course.

I try to have room for children and old people in each dome. But it is hard for small domes. I would prefer if some old people would move in bigger domes. Some spire are made for specializd domes (farm, science or treating flaws). Even when trying to not specialized too much, the system breaks sooner or later because of endless breeding. Less specialization only help to reduce the issues.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Some comments (like special nursing/school/seniority etc. domes to separate people and maximise efficiency, population control and so on) over here reminds me more some totaliarity countries (both former and current) than free, voluntary colonialist wanting new, hard but free life from far away...

This is also differency between role playing and min/max/optimised playing. IMHO of course.

Really we need, something akin to Stellarus unity, or Civ culture, a political/social/cultural layer to show those devides, with rewards and opertunity costs and chains to give the tools to shape a colony into Chairmain Yang's Human Hive, or Proktor Zakov's university of [not that] Plannet, to create an electronic pirate bay where the hacker plays in the data of earth, or a loyal vassal, or a new martian state.

It'd add depth it would add precision, more importantly it;d add something to do in the long gulf between self sufficencyand a mystery starting, and afterwards to make the rewards worth while.

 

[Shadeseraph]

Some comments (like special nursing/school/seniority etc. domes to separate people and maximise efficiency, population control and so on) over here reminds me more some totaliarity countries (both former and current) than free, voluntary colonialist wanting new, hard but free life from far away...

This is also differency between role playing and min/max/optimised playing. IMHO of course.

Well, a scarcity economy generally requires strong measures and regulations regardless of political allegiance or correctness. A realistic mars colony would have very strict birth controls -if it is allowed at all- and gluttons would not be allowed to eat more than anyone else. A dome designed for children would actually make a lot of sense in order to optimize resources and personnel (pediatrists, teachers, child raising...). The parents would probably be allowed to see their children outside of their working hours, but I wouldn't be surprised if even that required some paperwork and restricted time slots.

If the colonists are not following those guidelines, I wouldn't find it weird if the project decided to split men and women to avoid ilicit relationships altogether, or even more drastic measures like kicking them back home in the next rocket.

A Mars colony is not a "country". There is no individual agency on settling, say, your own shop, because everything is handled by the project in order to minimize resource spenditure - it's more like a company. The only real agency they have is that if they don't like it, they can go back to earth (that's what earthsick is for - essentially your colonists are resigning from the job)

Of course, this is much more complicated once you include martianborns in the mix, who didn't have a choice on all this.

 

[SoftwareSamurai]

I would argue that in a realistic Mars colony, the idea of sending people back to Earth would only be considered for the most extreme reasons, especially in the beginning when the colony is just trying to get established and rocket flights are few, sporadic, and even unpredictable at best. Being pregnant or merely "Earthsick" wouldn't qualify in my opinion. So yes, I agree that a Mars colony (or any planetary colony for that matter) would necessarily require both the strictest rules and regulations and the most rugged, absolutely dedicated colonists right from the start. Now, once the population gets above a certain limit, and transportation to/from Earth becomes more regular and dependable, then sure, some of those restrictions could be relaxed.

I kinna like the idea of the mod "Nurseries limit births". Seems like a reasonable compromise to me. Can't have a baby unless there's an open slot in a nursery somewhere.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Well, a scarcity economy generally requires strong measures and regulations regardless of political allegiance or correctness. A realistic mars colony would have very strict birth controls -if it is allowed at all- and gluttons would not be allowed to eat more than anyone else. A dome designed for children would actually make a lot of sense in order to optimize resources and personnel (pediatrists, teachers, child raising...). The parents would probably be allowed to see their children outside of their working hours, but I wouldn't be surprised if even that required some paperwork and restricted time slots.

If the colonists are not following those guidelines, I wouldn't find it weird if the project decided to split men and women to avoid ilicit relationships altogether, or even more drastic measures like kicking them back home in the next rocket.

A Mars colony is not a "country". There is no individual agency on settling, say, your own shop, because everything is handled by the project in order to minimize resource spenditure - it's more like a company. The only real agency they have is that if they don't like it, they can go back to earth (that's what earthsick is for - essentially your colonists are resigning from the job)

Of course, this is much more complicated once you include martianborns in the mix, who didn't have a choice on all this.

While I agree with this, that the extraordinary conditions of a manned mission to mars would need extraordinary sacrifices on the part of those who go, it dosent feel like Hermont do. The whole human element is oddly detailed compared to other city builder type games, but also oddly lacking. Theres no politics, no culture or colonial adminsitration, the Sponsors place virtually no demands on the colony theres nether tensions between earth and mars born, nor shifting generations, nor even any whisper of discontent at the draconian measures we, actually dont have the tools to go full transhuman social experamental crucible with.

Look at the ameanities we have to choose from, a cassino over say Earth / Mars comlink? I know I;d want to write home, download e books or the latest movies if I was on mars. I'll certainly care more about seeing Infinity war than a hand of Blackjack

I mean realy the game is great for the early bit, choosing a site, getting to a point of self sufficeny(Though much of early tech seems arbitary, why do we need a whole seperate reserch tech to bulldose buildings? If you can build photovaltic cells from surface metal deposits salvaging andreusing a concrite extractor shoudn't be an issue.) but that leaves a long dry gulch to wait and serve time till a mystery starts, and they are both underwhelming and poorly scripted/comunicated.

 

[zenstrive]

Do we actually have negative effects from unemployment and homelessness?

 

[Holce]

Do we actually have negative effects from unemployment and homelessness?

Not much. Homelessness add a confort penalty. The real penalty is that any filter on domes stop working.

 

[Shadeseraph]

Also, homeless people lose morale and health daily (unless rugged) so they can potentially cause other side effects like going renegade or dying and causing you to lose applicants (not like that matters once you have an overpopulation issue). Low morale workers also have reduced performance.

 

[SoftwareSamurai]

And if you're like me, you'll soon discover hundreds of homeless and jobless colonists in a dome when you suddenly start to get "colonists are starving" warnings even with 1000s of food units available. (I feel like homeless colonists eat more, but I can't prove it.)

 

[beholdtheflesh]

Looks like they added birth control in the latest patch (Spirit). From patch notes:

• Added Birth Control Policy in domes. You can now set births to allowed or forbidden (Ctrl + LMB sets birth control policy in all domes)

 

[SoftwareSamurai]

Now I just have to get the patch through GoG...

 

[beckermt]

Yeah in pen and paper gaming we call this the rule 0 fallacy, that because a game gives us the tools to fix a flaw that means the flaw dosen't count.

It may be easy to mod a fix, but there should be no need to do so, and doing so may interact with other things in ways that are hard to anticipate so it really needs an official solution that fits into the metagame better. For example, the Church of the New Arc has a goal of 100 martian born by sol 100, if there is an offical solution to the birthrate issues they will probibly alter that, none of the mods will have which can create a trap of sorts.

Rule 0 of pen and paper is "have fun."