The Complete Surviving Mars Guide

[ghostbirdofprey]

I’m not saying ranches are bad. I just don’t think they are as efficient because the recent threads tend to forget the construction cost and power requirement.

The advanced material requirements of the outside ranch hurt a bit, but the inside ranch only needs one machine part on top of metal and concrete, so it's not that expensive to build.
As for maintenance requirements, 5-10 power isn't a big deal nor is oxygen when moxies produce so much of it, and the water cost of everything aside from cows is reasonably close to that of crops aside from the fact outside ranches don't benefit from the water reclamation system which doesn't have a reasonable cost/benefit ratio for an early colony anyway.
Again the outside ranch requiring a polymer to maintain is less than ideal, but not a big deal, but the indoor one only requires metal.

Overall, ranches don't scale well, but I still think they are a decent thing to run before you finish setting up your farm dome and maxing out soil quality.

Services are less effective if they have to travel to a different dome, so you're just pushing the malus elsewhere.

I also really do like passages for maps with dust storms, as you can't get a pipe leak or cable fault from them; same reason why I continue to use tunnels rather than ramps in many cases for passing cables and pipes across elevation.

Since most of your comfort comes from homes anyway (unless you're trying to use apartments without hanging gardens and other comfort boosters), having services isn't important for their comfort boost as much as the fact having them avoids a comfort malus,and it doesn't matter whether or not they're in the home dome for that. You might not get babies quite as quickly, but I don't see that being a huge problem. The more basic service buildings that account for most of your services don't provide much comfort anyways either.

On the other hand the production malus always applies and is quite inconvenient.
I do agree that passages are better than pipes and cables for connecting power and life support grids, though.

EDIT:
Regarding housing, once you get hanging gardens, I think apartments get pushed into useful territory if you can combine them with another minor comfort boost whether it's a vista, the small dome bonus, or a farm.

On the other hand, Smart Homes are something I wish I could love. The sanity bonus sounds pretty nice for reducing the load on infirmaries/medical centers from outside workers, the night-shift, and anyone working hard, but with the rare metals cost and massive manpower requirement, electronics are just too expensive to produce to be using a ton of it on housing, and that comfort boost is easy to find elsewhere.

 

[capi3101]

I'm still a relative newbie to the game; been following this guide for the last couple of colonies I've tried and it's been quite helpful. So far the colonies I've built that have failed have been because of my own ignorance of the in-game events. For example, telling Seth it's okay to pay me to set off the bomb was, in hindsight, rather stupid of me...

I do have a question about the setup of a dedicated agricultural dome using the suggested setup, that is 2 living complexes, 3 farms, a service wedge and a Water Reclamation Spire in a Basic Dome. If I've done the math right, the setup has housing for 28 people, the farms hire 6 a pop for 18, the service wedge hires ten assuming you've got them running two shifts (4 for the infirmary, 4 for the diner and 2 for the grocer), and the spire hires four, again assuming two shifts, two people per shift.

That's 28 people in a dome with 32 jobs. When I've tried this, the building that the game usually shuts off due to labor shortage is the Infirmary...

I'm assuming I need to shut off a few jobs somewhere in the dome; which ones would you recommend? Would you recommend preventing breeding in the dome? As a corollary, would you recommend halting breeding in all domes after the Founder stage comes to an end until your resources are such that you can build a dedicated child/education dome?

Thanks again for the guide; it's very much appreciated.

 

[Col]

Great read, great resource. Thanks!

 

[Uberviking]

Hi,
I know this is considered to be an old thread, but I really couldn't resist to show my appreciation for this guide. You rock, Zinegata!!
Definitely changed the way I even start a colony now - from first rocket contents to not aiming to be 100% independent from Earth, to sticking to Basic residences, to having specialised domes (not trying to have farms&science&education in every single dome and driving myself crazy with trying to cram all the same crap in my clone-domes as I used to do previously).

Best guide I have found for this game! 10/10

 

[Morbus Bubbonicus]

Things are looking good for Surviving mars and this guide will always be welcome, especially with upcoming DLC

 

[krishnamkothari]

Have a specialized Dome for training specialists once you unlock the university. Make sure the university always works all shifts. Set it to prefer non-specialized adults and REJECT any specialists. That way non-specialists go into the university Dome and are kicked out as soon as they get skills. Name it after some famous real-world university town like say Heidelberg. That's part of the fun of the game.

6) Eventually your Domes will become "clogged" by Seniors and children, who do not contribute to the work force but prevent vital factories from being manned. At this point, a "retirement" Dome and a "children's" Dome might be in order.


Okay but

5) Have a specialized Dome for training specialists once you unlock the university. Make sure the university always works all shifts. Set it to prefer non-specialized adults and REJECT any specialists. That way non-specialists go into the university Dome and are kicked out as soon as they get skills. Name it after some famous real-world university town like say Heidelberg. That's part of the fun of the game.

However, unlike "specialized" Domes which prefer certain specialists, you must do the reverse: To create a Senior's Dome, you must select all other Domes and have them REJECT Seniors. The retirement Dome then prefers Seniors but does not disallow other age groups (except maybe children).
organized on the map to help you figure out your power capability:


Good luck, Commanders. Make Mars Green.

cant I put engineer and Geologist as a combo in my dome and get some medics and botanists later on