Dome Strategies

[Alaskan Glitch]

I am having issues with colonists when they first arrive. They always move towards the dome closest to the landing pad where they arrived. Which makes perfect sense. However, the first thing they do when they arrive is seek out an apartment and a job. If the first dome has apartments available and does not specifically prohibit them, they move in.

This causes a logistics problem with the first dome. Not only are all the apartments taken immediately, but so are all the jobs in the first dome. They are also very reluctant to leave and migrate to another dome.

One of the ways I've gotten around these problems is by creating my first dome closest to the landing pad(s) as being either my "Incubator Dome" or "Senior Dome." Since I don't recruit seniors or children I can prohibit all the new colonists from settling in either dome.

If my first dome closest to the landing pad(s) is for Engineers, Botantists, Scientists, or Geologists, then I have some serious micro-management to get things right, because the dome quickly becomes overcrowded.

I try to have just enough apartments to cover every job in the dome. The new colonists will move into those apartments and if they are not qualified for any position in that dome they will seek employment in another dome, but not move to that dome. This can really screw up a colony.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? What were the strategies you used to get around this logistical problem?

[Night_Wielder]

The big strategy I use is to quickly build a triangle of domes connected with passages. This allows people to live, work, shop, relax, ect in whatever dome they want. I also build a larger set of domes somewhere else and use the shuttles to move people around to wherever I want them. You can manually assign or kick out people, but I find that to be an inefficient strategy. If it’s really late in a game, and I have a ton of resources, I’ll make a hub dome, connected to six others in each direction on the hex grid. The middle one is just housing, and the others are all shops, work, farms, comfort, and whatever else I want.

[Blake Walsh]

The main trick is to simply have spare room in domes, it means you need to be perpetually expanding or have low birth rate. Forcing the old folk into retirement domes is helpful to keep things moving.

Use filters especially thumbs up very sparingly because colonists are A LOT smarter when not being filtered, they're a little slow but eventually they end up in about the right place. About the only reason to use a profession thumbs up is temporarily to get a lot of that kind of colonist to move into a new dome (i.e. if you're building a rare metal mining dome and want a bunch of geologists to move into it). You can use thumb down more aggressively than thumb up, for example there's no point in letting engineers live in a dome with no factories/fusion reactors or scientists live in a dome with no labs/institutes.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Night_Wielder:

The big strategy I use is to quickly build a triangle of domes connected with passages. This allows people to live, work, shop, relax, ect in whatever dome they want. I also build a larger set of domes somewhere else and use the shuttles to move people around to wherever I want them. You can manually assign or kick out people, but I find that to be an inefficient strategy. If it’s really late in a game, and I have a ton of resources, I’ll make a hub dome, connected to six others in each direction on the hex grid. The middle one is just housing, and the others are all shops, work, farms, comfort, and whatever else I want.

That is an interesting strategy that I have not tried yet. I have always set up homes for the colonists in the same dome where they work in order to avoid the penalty they get for working in different domes.

If you have no shops in the central dome and just housing, how do you keep the comfort level high enough for your colonists to reproduce?

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Blake Walsh:

The main trick is to simply have spare room in domes, it means you need to be perpetually expanding or have low birth rate. Forcing the old folk into retirement domes is helpful to keep things moving.

Use filters especially thumbs up very sparingly because colonists are A LOT smarter when not being filtered, they're a little slow but eventually they end up in about the right place. About the only reason to use a profession thumbs up is temporarily to get a lot of that kind of colonist to move into a new dome (i.e. if you're building a rare metal mining dome and want a bunch of geologists to move into it). You can use thumb down more aggressively than thumb up, for example there's no point in letting engineers live in a dome with no factories/fusion reactors or scientists live in a dome with no labs/institutes.

I have had domes with lots of spare room, and they are the first to become overcrowded, run low on resources, and colonists begin starving. The problem is that they do not migrate to other domes if there is space available in the first dome when they arrive.

The only two domes I place restrictions on are my Incubator and Senior domes, and only age restrictions. Most of my domes include at least a few of just about every Specialist, so I don't place career restrictions on my domes. I do my primary filtering when I recruit my colonists.

My domes usual include a few Medics, Officers, and Botanists, and the majority of either Scientists, Engineers, or Geologists. I use to have a dome just for growing food, but that proved to be very inefficient. So now I include a little food production in each dome (except for the Incubator and Senior domes).

[Blake Walsh]

Colonists will migrate between domes that are very close, or connected via tunnels. They'll also migrate across a series of domes that are close/connected. But if they aren't very close you'll need shuttles and patience.

Colonists only migrate for one of three reasons: The first reason is because they are homeless, a homeless colonist will always try to move to somewhere they can have a home even if it causes them to become unemployed, only a thumbs down will stop them. The second is because a thumbs down forces them out of a dome or a thumbs up forces them into another dome. The third reason is for employment/education, colonists prefer to be employed and they prefer to work in their profession, they also have something of a preference for understaffed buildings (relative to the priority), only being unemployed causes a strong incentive to migrate. Under no circumstances will a colonist move to a dome without free residence slots except when disembarking from a rocket. Colonists are not smart enough to move for the sake of services.

So if there are accessible domes with employment opportunities and free residence slots, any homeless or unemployed colonists should migrate to them and they should do so nearly immediately (if they don't it could be a bug with a mod or something), those who aren't homeless or unemployed will pretty much stay where they are.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Blake Walsh:

Colonists will migrate between domes that are very close, or connected via tunnels. They'll also migrate across a series of domes that are close/connected. But if they aren't very close you'll need shuttles and patience.

Colonists only migrate for one of three reasons: The first reason is because they are homeless, a homeless colonist will always try to move to somewhere they can have a home even if it causes them to become unemployed, only a thumbs down will stop them. The second is because a thumbs down forces them out of a dome or a thumbs up forces them into another dome. The third reason is for employment/education, colonists prefer to be employed and they prefer to work in their profession, they also have something of a preference for understaffed buildings (relative to the priority), only being unemployed causes a strong incentive to migrate. Under no circumstances will a colonist move to a dome without free residence slots except when disembarking from a rocket. Colonists are not smart enough to move for the sake of services.

So if there are accessible domes with employment opportunities and free residence slots, any homeless or unemployed colonists should migrate to them and they should do so nearly immediately (if they don't it could be a bug with a mod or something), those who aren't homeless or unemployed will pretty much stay where they are.

The order is also important. As you point out, the first thing they do is seek out a home. Once they have acquired a place to live, then they focus on getting a job. Which means that if a home is available in the dome closest to the landing pad(s) they will occupy that first. Even if there are no jobs in that dome. Only after they acquire a place to live do they look for a job.

If I'm not using an Incubator or Senior dome, which specifically prohibits new colonists from occupying either dome, then my first dome is always overwhelmed and they never migrate on their own. I have to force them out of their homes one by one. Or shut down the power to the entire complex to get them all out.

Sometimes it is easier to just shut down the housing complexes in the first dome, so nobody can occupy them. That will force everyone to migrate to other domes. The downside is now I have the reverse problem. Colonists who have residences in other domes, but have jobs in the first dome. It is a "Catch-22."

I am running a few mods, so I'm not willing to say anything is a bug at this point. It could be a problem with one, or more, of the mods I'm using, or a combination thereof.

I'm going to give Night_Weilder's strategy a try and put all my homes in a central dome and all the jobs in smaller surrounding domes. There is a penalty for working in another dome, but at least the new colonists will occupy the central dome and not fill up my other domes, just because they were closer to the landing pad(s). I'm not sure it will work, and I have concerns about comfort levels, but I'm willing to give it a try.

[Night_Wielder]

Originally posted by Alaskan Glitch:

Originally posted by Night_Wielder:

The big strategy I use is to quickly build a triangle of domes connected with passages. This allows people to live, work, shop, relax, ect in whatever dome they want. I also build a larger set of domes somewhere else and use the shuttles to move people around to wherever I want them. You can manually assign or kick out people, but I find that to be an inefficient strategy. If it’s really late in a game, and I have a ton of resources, I’ll make a hub dome, connected to six others in each direction on the hex grid. The middle one is just housing, and the others are all shops, work, farms, comfort, and whatever else I want.

That is an interesting strategy that I have not tried yet. I have always set up homes for the colonists in the same dome where they work in order to avoid the penalty they get for working in different domes.

If you have no shops in the central dome and just housing, how do you keep the comfort level high enough for your colonists to reproduce?

If you have medical centers in all the domes, it drops the comfort requirement to 55, and that’s usually sustainable.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Night_Wielder:

Originally posted by Alaskan Glitch:

That is an interesting strategy that I have not tried yet. I have always set up homes for the colonists in the same dome where they work in order to avoid the penalty they get for working in different domes.

If you have no shops in the central dome and just housing, how do you keep the comfort level high enough for your colonists to reproduce?

If you have medical centers in all the domes, it drops the comfort requirement to 55, and that’s usually sustainable.

I did get around to testing your suggestion about placing all the homes in the central dome and found that it worked rather well at avoiding the congestion problem I was experiencing in my OP.

I was able to gain a 60% comfort level with an Arcology Spire and provide additional homes in the central dome at the same time, but thanks for the Medical Center suggestion.

FYI, I found a mod that eliminates the penalty for living in one dome and working in another. That eliminated my only other concern.

[Hate Bear]

I generally like the thumbs up filters. You can use those on every dome except your overflow/city sort of domes, and accentuate those with the occasional thumbs down filter. However, there are times to not really bother using them, but I find that it helps get critical domes staffed (like more outlying "expeditionary" domes that are mining and smaller, as opposed to larger cities that do secondary and tertiary industries). You really just have to check it sometimes and decide when you want to use the thumb method and when you don't.

To add to that, I usually have shuttles only haul colonists when I start settling them, then only unforbid food stockpiles (shipping food + colonists), then eventually clear them to do my universal depots (which I keep between drone hubs so resources flow on the ground network), food, and maybe some more critical things (like feeding factory stocks from afar to a small amount).