Tired of Herding Chickens

[DrBrydon]

I've been enjoying Surviving Mars, but I am seriously getting tired of constantly trying to keep people in their jobs. It's ridiculously tedious. As far as I can tell, the dome controls don't do anything. All my Engineers leave their jobs in Dome A, and wander over to Dome C, where there are no jobs, going through Dome B, which doesn't allow engineers. The game needs a different time sink.

 

[SillySMS]

There does, indeed, need to be better automation of worker placements. I'm kinda tired of seeing scientists working in metal extractors in dome A, and geologists working science labs in dome B, and any dome with a university getting a glut of botanists working the diners because you just built a farm dome they're not migrating to.

EDIT: My suspicion for the reason most people go with highly specialized domes is because in order to keep any sanity in who works what job, they have to absolutely brute-force the filters. They build an all-factories dome so they can enforce an engineers-only, no-children-or-seniors filter because that's the only way to make sure that those engineers are working in factories and not a farm, whilst botanists are in the factories.

 

[zenstrive]

You can actually force each workplace to accept specialists only. But it takes LONG LONG LONG LOOOOOOOOOOONG TIME for the game to actually balance that out.
If only people can be delivered by drones.

 

[Xeorm]

I'm actually not seeing this at all. With the new patch I've seen the system get very good at balancing out the people, as long as I allow for enough residences in each dome that even at max job amount they still have room to move in.

 

[EEE_boy]

The point is to have enough resident spaces across all domes, then apply filters correctly.

The game works fine if the dome planning is corrrectly done. Also need to control birth/death rate to leave enough spaces for colonists to migrate among domes

 

[Promethian]

I'm actually not seeing this at all. With the new patch I've seen the system get very good at balancing out the people, as long as I allow for enough residences in each dome that even at max job amount they still have room to move in.

This is the key. Migration for ideal jobs happens but only if there are open homes to move into. Senior and kiddy domes help a lot as they are usually the cause of a dome being full but not fully worked.

 

[rhaak]

If only people can be delivered by drones.

Wait, drones can transport people, I have seen a drone drop of a colonist at a dome.

 

[rhaak]

Ah, that was a shuttle, sorry.

 

[SoftwareSamurai]

If only people can be delivered by drones.

Wouldn't that be so cool? And when you research the artificial muscles so drones can carry two things, I'd like to watch them carry 1 food and 1 colonist to their new dome!

 

[Gilmund]

There is no trouble at all as long as :
a) you have enough houses to make people move as previously said
b) you make very specialised domes where you thumbs up one category of people and thumbs down all the others (except unspecialised/doctors)
c) you keep your houses in your working domes free of children and old people by creating old/children domes.

 

[UncleGamer]

Would be nice to create a monorail system between domes to allow resources and people to be moved in mass on a scheduled transit. Think of a mini Railroad Tycoon sub game.

 

[SoftwareSamurai]

Would be nice to create a monorail system between domes to allow resources and people to be moved in mass on a scheduled transit. Think of a mini Railroad Tycoon sub game.

On the last Twitch stream, they said they were going to add "passages" to connect domes.

 

[SillySMS]

There is no trouble at all as long as :
a) you have enough houses to make people move as previously said
b) you make very specialised domes where you thumbs up one category of people and thumbs down all the others (except unspecialised/doctors)
c) you keep your houses in your working domes free of children and old people by creating old/children domes.

Yes, because clearly making a dome with only children and a dome with only seniors and a dome with only engineers and a dome with only botanists makes sense and...

Oh no, wait, it only makes sense if you're trying to cheese your way through a game with horrible migration AI. It doesn't help if your number of domes is growing rapidly and planned based on what resources are needed, not on "okay, next I'll make a dome right out of Lord of the Flies filled with only children, that'll be right next to the retirement home dome."

I probably fall closer to Haemimont's original intent that domes be self-contained cities, maybe with a small bit of specialization per city, but given a few factors, domes with only a few service buildings plus only one kind of specialization only makes sense because otherwise it's difficult to keep people working the correct jobs.

1: Biome engineering: it's nice to have a farm (manned by 6 botanists) in each dome to increase the comfort of residents.
2: Production should ideally be close to extraction centers, and unless you have something like a half-dozen extractors around a core metals deposit, a medium dome often has enough space for both the extractors and factories.
3: If you're growing organically, you generally wind up making multipurpose domes: "I need a couple extractors on this rares deposit. More than 2 would deplete it too quickly, though. What else can I put into this dome... hm, I'm short on universities, so I'll add one, not to mention my customary farm-for-comfort".
4: Are you kidding me on having a Lord of the Flies dome for kids and a city composed solely of retirement homes? Last I checked, parents want to be with their kids, and old folks with their kids, and the kiddie/senior dome thing is utterly absurd.

 

[Gilmund]

Based on the fact you can't put every building in a basic dome anyway i don't know what you're complaining about. And the auto-sorting of people works, its just slow (takes 5 sols or so) but it only works if you have free houses or and free job slots able to let people switch from domes and workplaces. Most time you need the room asap and you don't have enough houses for your needs.

I could reply a farm in each dome is an awful way to save water for the comfort it gives you (you can have this comfort by other means, hanging gardens arcology, enough services...). Each farm should be under a water spire or you'll face heavy water issues in no time.
Your production center doesn't have to be in your extractor dome to work and usually you don't build extractors and factories at the same time. It's even better to have a factory alone in an educationnal dome to let the university fill your needs.

You play the way you want to play but your way doesn't make more sense than mine. Actually being on Mars, which is a awful planet to live on i don't expect people to have liberty to take their children to live with their parents.
And once you have your old specialised people living in a dome and taking house slots and start facing you industry not working you think otherwise. But what will you answer then, they have to stay in their houses with their kids and just make the entire colony unable to work cause it sounds real like on earth ? Seriously...

 

[jpinard]

You can actually force each workplace to accept specialists only. But it takes LONG LONG LONG LOOOOOOOOOOONG TIME for the game to actually balance that out.
If only people can be delivered by drones.

They can be carried via shuttle.

 

[Seriously_Unserious]

I like the idea of specialized domes, but so far I've never had enough resources to do it. It's the Polymers, and Machine parts that get me most of the time. I just never have enough to build a dome just for seniors or kids or whatever. I want to, but I always urgently need those resources for productive domes that extract raw resources to feed the factories that don't produce enough to keep up with demand.

I'd love to know how those that do this have enough polymers and other advanced resources to build all those domes.

 

[jpinard]

I just buy extra from Earth and ship them. Once you've researched 60% of the tech tree you're set.

 

[zenstrive]

I like the idea of specialized domes, but so far I've never had enough resources to do it. It's the Polymers, and Machine parts that get me most of the time. I just never have enough to build a dome just for seniors or kids or whatever. I want to, but I always urgently need those resources for productive domes that extract raw resources to feed the factories that don't produce enough to keep up with demand.

I'd love to know how those that do this have enough polymers and other advanced resources to build all those domes.

Machine parts and polymers are easiest advanced resources that you can work right away. Buy prefab factories for them. Metals can be gathered from the environment in initial phase, polymers can be made from fuel and oxygen. Fuel can be made from water. Oxygen can be made by moxies and farms.

Make machine parts to make turbines. Make polymers to make lots electric accumulators.

DO NOT MAKE ELECTRONIC FACTORIES. Sell your rare earth metals and buy electronics instead
Make Electronic factories once you have Mohole or you have deep core rare earth metals.

 

[Promethian]

I'd love to know how those that do this have enough polymers and other advanced resources to build all those domes.

Are you setting your factories to work two shifts? Because you can do that. Same for the extractors.

DO NOT MAKE ELECTRONIC FACTORIES. Sell your rare earth metals and buy electronics instead
Make Electronic factories once you have Mohole or you have deep core rare earth metals.

I disagree. Set up your research before going for electronics factory but waiting for a deep tech? Nah.

 

[EEE_boy]

Are you setting your factories to work two shifts? Because you can do that. Same for the extractors.



I disagree. Set up your research before going for electronics factory but waiting for a deep tech? Nah.

Waiting for Mohole is a bit too extreme, but generally Electronics Factory should be delayed until University can be set up to train engineers. Before that buy advanced materials whenever needed, including polymers for domes, and machine parts for tunnels.