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Your First Dome

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Rare metal deposit with water close enough to pipe in, usually what I go for first. You can often times collect enough metal and polymer right off the ground, at least enough to get started and building. Rare metal though is your export product so that is the only thing you can use to generate additional funding beyond sponsor funding and the tech options, so it'll always be useful to get that sucker up and running to build a stockpile you can sell back to Earth if need be. If you don't have to do that, then you can turn that stockpile into electronics and then use that for the high tech building maintenances so it's not a total loss if you don't export rare metal either.
 
joelzhl said:
Flat space with water fairly close by. My first dome tends to be farms and research labs only.
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Same for me. Farms and Research. I can usually postpone Metals and Rare Metals till second Dome, living off looting the stuff above ground. Especially on resource rich locations (can easily hit 2k metal there just picking it up is a chore :D ).
 
Ugh. My Europe game set up screwed me so hard. I've had to call in SO MANY water vaps because either there is no tech for building them yourself or I haven't yet uncovered the tech (which would mean it'll cost at least 13k research). There were no water deposits in the first TWENTY-FIVE tiles I explored, and I specifically looked for a four pip water location.

So my next dome, probably a mega dome will have access to a pair of water resources, but my other two domes are relying on water vaps exclusively, and that includes for producing fuel and polymers.

On the plus side, without water I was able to prioritize other resources. I have a ton of high grade metal and rare metal resources, so I'm now producing polymers, electronics, and machine parts fast enough to be self-sufficient.
 
It depends what you are playing with and what you have where you landed.

Usually I want to be near a rare metal to sell. If I can I rush it medium dome and skip the basic one. Anyway I plop a machine parts factory first since I like going wind (solar gets rekt in a dust storm, but I use both, wind for night time energy and add solar for when factories are working during the day). Polimer is next. I limit hard on working slots, just to get by the maintenance cost. Once the founder stage is over I bring in more drones to work my mines. I start with normal housing but I replace with apartment when out of space . Then usually is a struggle with disasters. Food I use a fungi farm in the begging or a hydro, fast yields is good enough. I plop a farm in my second some
 
For me first dome location is not of much importance, as the first dome will usually be food, research and polimer. Unless I got SpaceY as my sponsor, for which I want first dome to be food, research and rare metal, as import are extremely cheap and got to do something with that ton of rocket laying around.
 
Ri0Rdian said:
Same for me. Farms and Research. I can usually postpone Metals and Rare Metals till second Dome, living off looting the stuff above ground. Especially on resource rich locations (can easily hit 2k metal there just picking it up is a chore :D ).
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Don't find it much of a chore, but I am one of those who use a lot of RC rover before putting down my first drone hub, unless inventor commander. As RC have no maintenance cost and can operate off the power grid from a regular tech. So I just put down metal depot around surface ore deposit and let RC rover do the collecting, instead of using transporter, which duty is to transfer those pile to the main pile by trade route, that way less micro needed.
 
Invictus5966 said:
I scanned the forums but I didn't see a thread on this...

What do you guys/gals look for when you place your first dome?

I was thinking of a metal deposit or am I wrong?

Thx
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Rare metals should be the first, as it's the only way to generate cash for most missions. Don't bother building farms or hydrophonics (save that for a separate specialized Dome), but do import 50 or so food and don't be afraid to resupply. Food is cheap and your rare metals should pay them off.

Research-first is really interesting, but do note that you can also pay cash to do research via Outsource. I might try a run that does Research-first and gets money from the technology instead though to see if this "business model" can work; as setting up a research station first is really very thematic.

Metal should not be an early priority. Instead bring along an RC Transport and have it pick up surface metal. You should get enough for your early needs.

Water is also not necessary. Two Moisture Farms are sufficient to supply most early Domes and indeed many late game Domes rely entirely on them. Place your agriculture Domes (Farms specifically) near Water - they're the ones that are really water-intensive.

Also don't be afraid to put your Dome away from your Concrete source or your original landing spot. That's what the RC Transport is for.
 
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It depends a lot on the sponsor.
For poorer sponsors, rare metals are important, as you really need some way to afford advanced materials.
For richer sponsors that matters less.
Water has been one of my higher priorities, as it provides a lot of savings compared to running a bunch of moisture farms. Elevation is also an advantage, to save on the amount of wind turbines required.
 
Chiruadr said:
It depends what you are playing with and what you have where you landed.

Usually I want to be near a rare metal to sell. If I can I rush it medium dome and skip the basic one. Anyway I plop a machine parts factory first since I like going wind (solar gets rekt in a dust storm, but I use both, wind for night time energy and add solar for when factories are working during the day). Polimer is next. I limit hard on working slots, just to get by the maintenance cost. Once the founder stage is over I bring in more drones to work my mines. I start with normal housing but I replace with apartment when out of space . Then usually is a struggle with disasters. Food I use a fungi farm in the begging or a hydro, fast yields is good enough. I plop a farm in my second some
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Bring in more drones to work your mines. Can drones be assigned to mines? Okay did not know that. That can save me alot of unhappy people from working outdoors.
 
stavern said:
Bring in more drones to work your mines. Can drones be assigned to mines? Okay did not know that. That can save me alot of unhappy people from working outdoors.
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I think drones here is refers to a low paid worker - otherwise one should bring those in before the founder stage ended....
 
Concrete, water and surface metal nearby. They are needed. The surface metal a bit less. If you don't have enough surface metal close you will need a transport rover pretty soon. I better wait a bit for my second supply rocket.

The problem is I play "broken europe". My first rocket don't use more 2000M and I after that I spend only what I gain from research. I have 2000M to create my first dome and are self sufficient with 4000-4500M. After that I don't need any fund except for speeding things. It is a good training for harder difficulty. You can always break the rules if needed.

Rares metal and metal deposit can wait if you have a good starting spot. It is safer to have rare metal if you have an hard environement. 4000-5000M is enough to be self sufficient if you spend carefully. You can get that with research alone. If you lack water you will need a lot of evaporator. Rare metal will be needed to get the funds. You will have to buy food until you get enough water to make farm. The fungul farm may be good if you lack water. More power and oxygen but nearly no water.
 
Zinegata said:
Research-first is really interesting, but do note that you can also pay cash to do research via Outsource. I might try a run that does Research-first and gets money from the technology instead though to see if this "business model" can work; as setting up a research station first is really very thematic.
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Tried that on Europe. It's completely viable with an initial research-focused dome, you just breeze through early tech and rack in extra billions in no time.
 
PaulMClem said:
Huh, so the RC Rover itself can collect metal OR do you mean its drones?
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The drones will get any metal if you put down a depot. After that, I suppose you can create a depot closer to you base and destroy the old one. The drone will get the metal to the new one. It may be possible to get metal far away. A transport rover is better of course.
 
Holce said:
The drones will get any metal if you put down a depot. After that, I suppose you can create a depot closer to you base and destroy the old one. The drone will get the metal to the new one. It may be possible to get metal far away. A transport rover is better of course.
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Don't you need to mine metal deposits or are you talking about lumps of rock on the surface?
 
PaulMClem said:
Don't you need to mine metal deposits or are you talking about lumps of rock on the surface?
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I was speaking about surface metal. They can last very long.

I am sol 46 on my new colony and self sufficient except for metal (I have a breakthrough that reduce metal cost by 25%). I use the surface metal. I have two subsurface deposits waiting. I am going to create a farming dome and remove the farm in the dome near the metal deposits to free workers. I am about to get shuffle. I get lucky to have a meteor shower on my head at start. I have lost one drone, one metal part and 5-10 metal but gaine 20-30 metal and about 10K research (8-9 anomalies). That was insane.
 
Surface metal chunks, place a depot, and the drones will "mine" it. With a new depot and banning metal from the previous one you can ferry it back to your base. Micro intensive but sometime you have to do it.
 
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