PSA: The overpopulation issue is your fault

[Gundies]

We aren't getting prime candidates for bringing to Mars. We're getting total randoms, most of which apparently may not have even finished highschool. These people like to complain and have little to no discipline. Just look at all your whiny geologists complaining they have to go outside.

When you bump up that comfort level and do everything you can to appease the masses you are setting the mood. "Oh it's so pretty here today" "My this food was good" "Thank you for the pills doctor" "Let's do shots!" etc. Life is too good, they don't have any worries, and at the end of the day all you did was make them horny.

Every homeless adds a little bit of negative to comfort. You can tell just how overboard you went on comfort levels by how many homeless you can amass in your dome before they finally stop.

I'm guilty of saying it's the game's fault too. However I've found that comfort is a resource that can manage, no other resource has so many things in the game dedicated to it. Three types of housing, techs to affect buildings, diner, grocer, infirmary, multiple parks, bars, casinos, shops...you get the picture. Next time you consider putting in a Spacebar ask yourself this: "Do I want more Martian babies?"

Easiest fix: Turn off your infirmaries. That will change the minimum comfort to have babies from 55 to 75.
Easy to Hard fix: Show some self control in what you build for the colonists.
Hardest fix: Tell Haemimont Games they need to do a major fix to the colonists willingness to have babies.

 

[Lt Loco]

Better fix (except for a base-game fix): Find a mod that adds to the comfort requirement for children. I'm finding that +50 is probably too high. I think I'll drop it down to +25.

 

[Gundies]

That is in no way faster, better, or easier. At the very least that will make having a child after your first load of colonists impossible.

 

[Trinite]

There is a mod on Steam that sets birth parameters at 90 comfort and you can turn it on and off as needed to control number of births. For those of you without steam access, segregate domes by gender maybe?

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Yeah as Ivebeen saying all dang day shooting for the "Okayest" colony on mars in't my idea of a fun time. Given how much of a problem it is and how wide spread its the kind of thing they should have caught playtesting instead of hyping up a game that more or less stops when the colonsts arrive instead of just getting started. Even without the pop bomb, theresnot nearly enough to do with colonists.

 

[Lt Loco]

+50 does take it out of the reasonable range. I was trying it out for a modder. I'm trying out their +25 mod next. That'll make the comfort requirement 100 without an infirmary, basically making infirmaries and high comfort housing the requirement if I want kids from any particular dome.

Or you can do the gender separation thing. Or you can ignore mods and hope the devs fix it. I hope the devs do something - maybe "new colony optimism" that slowly goes away and slowly raises the comfort requirement for children to some max value that requires modern medicine availability for people to want to have kids.

 

[TekDragon]

In this thread, and others, I've seen suggestions to isolate people by sex, kill off excess people, make everyone homeless, starve them, etc.

I'm guilty of saying it's the game's fault too.

So it's not the game's fault that the only way to keep your colony from cascade failing is to implement completely unrealistic policies?

What a joke.

 

[Gundies]

As a feedback/suggestion post I made in the relevant forum I stated that I think it's more of an issue with the way comfort is portrayed ingame than an issue with comfort itself. It's sitting with three other bars that we want maxed. With the current game design we don't actually want that all the time in every dome, and that makes it misinformation. With the vast array of comfort options available to us it is well within our power to manage our population growth, unfortunately everything in game makes it seem like we're failing our colonists if we don't give them access to everything and use every comfort booting tech available.

Additionally I'm starting to wonder if comfort is the right word for this stat. I'm unconvinced that that being uncomfortable would make me leave the planet or go renegade, while being comfortable would make me pump out babies as fast as possible.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

As a feedback/suggestion post I made in the relevant forum I stated that I think it's more of an issue with the way comfort is portrayed ingame than an issue with comfort itself. It's sitting with three other bars that we want maxed. With the current game design we don't actually want that all the time in every dome, and that makes it misinformation. With the vast array of comfort options available to us it is well within our power to manage our population growth, unfortunately everything in game makes it seem like we're failing our colonists if we don't give them access to everything and use every comfort booting tech available.

Additionally I'm starting to wonder if comfort is the right word for this stat. I'm unconvinced that that being uncomfortable would make me leave the planet or go renegade, while being comfortable would make me pump out babies as fast as possible.

So your saying its possible for mankinds first foothold on a hostile alien world to be too comfortable? I'm sorry, but, the fact of the matter is the way the systems are aranged and the incentavesand rewards are structured is completly nonsensical. thats not an 'us' problem for playing it wrong thats a problem of how the game was desghned and its one that should have been acught in actuall playtesting.

 

[Skirlasvoud]

A far better solution is to simply introduce some Condoms and Birth Control pills, rather than being forced to have everyone live in a cardboard box, which is ridiculous and a completely counter-intuitive notion. I'm here to build a Utopia on Mars, not a purgatory just because the game is incapable of basic population control.

Fortunately, the devs realized their oversight during the Q&A and they've admitted that birth control should be high on the priority list.

 

[Gundies]

I gather everyone that has replied so far would rather a simple on/off instead of a mechanic they can influence to increase/decrease birthrate. No, the current system is not perfect and I fully agree it needs some tweaking, but it's far more interesting and fun than clicking a magical button to fix my foolish colony building choices. Take some responsibility, you're throwing 100% of the fault on the game while refusing to admit any shortcomings in your build strategy.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

I gather everyone that has replied so far would rather a simple on/off instead of a mechanic they can influence to increase/decrease birthrate. No, the current system is not perfect and I fully agree it needs some tweaking, but it's far more interesting and fun than clicking a magical button to fix my foolish colony building choices. Take some responsibility, you're throwing 100% of the fault on the game while refusing to admit any shortcomings in your build strategy.

Only, its a game set in the future on another plannet. We have birth controll now on this one. Theres nothing magical about it. We've had like a dozen flavours of nokidatol since before I was born. The "This population has too many babies" problem is one we faced, and solved its like right there.

 

[Skirlasvoud]

This isn't about smart or taking responsibility.

Comfort levels are supposed to be a positive attribute. People are more productive. They're less likely to leave the colony. The quality of the buildings we place, are directly related to their comfort levels.

Are you saying we are awarded buildings like the Arcology, Smart Homes and the Hanging Gardens, becaise we are NOT supposed to use them?


That is completely counter-intuitive and bass-ackwards.

You're not making any sense and are just trying to act like you're smarter than everyone else, by defending something dumb.

 

[Mauer]

Having Martianborn babies should a big deal, we're not just talking about having food, air and water like for the adults, they would develop both in the womb and as kids in conditions very different than those present in the planet nature made them for, lower gravity and sun exposure, a different mix in the air they breathe and a diet severely restricted in variety; at the very least some additional social technologies would have to be researched, though I would prefer the medical spire to be an absolute requirement for having babies consistently with domes without one creating children only very rarely and also maybe the children would die often from complications that the colonists couldn't see coming until after several sols.

 

[Gundies]

Comfort levels are supposed to be a positive attribute. People are more productive.

You are confusing morale and comfort. Check all of the colonist traits again, comfort has nothing to do with productivity. Comfort affects desire to leave the colony and desire to have babies.

Are you saying we are awarded buildings like the Arcology, Smart Homes and the Hanging Gardens, becaise we are NOT supposed to use them?

I never said to never use them. Have you even considered trying to use them in moderation? If I need 10 power I build 2-4 solar panels, not 20. If I want some population growth I give 1-2 domes all of the amenities. If I want all the homeless I can get I build them everywhere. Moderation. The game is called surviving mars, not simcity mars.

 

[Skirlasvoud]

There should be birth control especially because it's called surviving mars. Hell, even Tropico had such ordinances.

You're ironically arguing moderation. I think birth control - the most ordinary thing in the world - is a fine place to start exercising such moderation, instead of circuitously cutting back on things that should be far more harmless in their surplus. There's no reason why increased comfort should automatically lead to more birth. It's a requirement, but by no means an inevitable cause.

I'm very comfortable right now, and in the real world, this doesn't mean children will certainly happen. To insinuate that this makes sense in Surviving Mars and isn't a complete oversight, is downright idiotic.


The unavailability of birth control, in a limited environment where extra mouths to feed are serious drain on resources. Absurd...
Even the 20 extra solar panels have their uses when spread carefully enough to cushion against catastrophe.

Whatever you might like to do to bullshit your way around it, the devs have listened and are more than likely to implement it, because they too admit it's a good idea. And they're the ones who design these systems.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Having Martianborn babies should a big deal, we're not just talking about having food, air and water like for the adults, they would develop both in the womb and as kids in conditions very different than those present in the planet nature made them for, lower gravity and sun exposure, a different mix in the air they breathe and a diet severely restricted in variety; at the very least some additional social technologies would have to be researched, though I would prefer the medical spire to be an absolute requirement for having babies consistently with domes without one creating children only very rarely and also maybe the children would die often from complications that the colonists couldn't see coming until after several sols.

I totally agree, it should feel like an era change, and come with things to mark it new buildings new edicts, new options.
Really there should be 3 destinct phases to life on marsI think,
First ship, founder era: objectave is to understand mars, and explore. Foundesr are there to pioneer, to do the things that bots cant and that should include suiting up going eva and exploring. Think the Antarcic base for feel and scale.
Early days, colony very much supported by people imported from your sponsor, lots of controll from them, needing regular imports and conection. Should feel still very much an apendage of ones sponsor, dependant upon it.
Marsborn, not the few cherished onlys, but the point where the Marsborn outnumber earthborn, cononly well established chalenge is in creating and sustaining its own instituions.

Right now its "Og you have people- wow thats a lot of babies!" and there really isny any differancebwetween your colony at sol 10, ot 300, pop 1000, ot 10,000 that is a total waste of potential and I hope it wont take DLC to fix.

 

[Jeffry]

"Family planning" (or Birth control, meaning fewer births, birth rate is barely keeping up with death rate), "One child policy" (really low birth rate, the population will eventually die off), "Total procreation ban". Along with "No restrictions" these should be made available as dome settings. One should not be able to switch between them freely, some cooldown would need to be in place. And for the two harsher settings there should be some penalties as well, probably to morale.

It really doesn't make any sense that colonists breed like catholic rabbits just because they are too comfortable. People would not be able to breed like that in a real colony, those things will be carefully planned. Which the game ofc can't portray, but what it can easily portray are different child policies.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

"Family planning" (or Birth control, meaning fewer births, birth rate is barely keeping up with death rate), "One child policy" (really low birth rate, the population will eventually die off), "Total procreation ban". Along with "No restrictions" these should be made available as dome settings. One should not be able to switch between them freely, some cooldown would need to be in place. And for the two harsher settings there should be some penalties as well, probably to morale.

It really doesn't make any sense that colonists breed like catholic rabbits just because they are too comfortable. People would not be able to breed like that in a real colony, those things will be carefully planned. Which the game ofc can't portray, but what it can easily portray are different child policies.

Throw in "Child permits" for some growth, but not the tribble-atoinswe have now.

 

[draqsko]

The "This population has too many babies" problem is one we faced, and solved its like right there.

Since when? Last I checked the Earth's population is still exploding, the only thing that has choked off birth rate is, ironically, the comfort level of first world nations.

The problem is that the devs have comfort backwards, the more secure a person is in resources, the less driven they are to reproduce. http://auth.prb.org/Publications/Da...n-data-sheet/fact-sheet-world-population.aspx