dont listen to that. that doesnt work. having nearly as many nurseries and universities as residences is WAY above necessary and is just a waste of resources and very important scientists. i also noticed that for every 3 residences you need at least 1 medical center and for every residence filled to 85% you require at least 1 agridome. anyway...
i have a formula that ive gone with since i discovered it and ive never had problems with colonists since. if your game starts with no research and little or no morale buildings (nurseries, uni, medical center, residence, etc), begin researching the necessary subjects to get them enabled, those being (in order): health maintenance, hypnopedia, environmental psychology, and finally hydroponic growing media. beginning research in these fields should be the first thing you do. when the first subject is being researched, begin building residences as this is a first and cheapest way to raise morale and stop colonist deaths. build anywhere from 2 to 3 but no more than 3 initially as the capacity percentage doesnt mean much at a point when you have no medical centers yet. by the time your residences are completely built you should have at least completed the first 2 research items and be nearly finished with the third. build a nursery. when it is done being built and all other research is complete, begin researching universities if it hasnt already been started. when this subject is being researched, build at least one medcal center. two would be ideal at this point but would slow down research. i leave this part up to the player depending upon their confidence to manage morale. if youre not so confident, only build one and leave the scientists to research, but be aware that colonist deaths will be higher than with two. (you should begin thinking about power levels and keep a tokamak kit in the factory for when power levels begin to stretch to their limit. remember to add tokamaks when needed as this will vary depending upon how you choose to build.) when university research is complete build a university. begin researching other subjects at your discretion; but it would be wise to research upgrades to morale-modifying subjects like disaster-resistant housing, automated-diagnostic examinations, hydroponic growing media. when the first university is done and your other research subjects have started, build an agridome. you will start hearing "food supplies diminishing" within 5 to 10 minutes at this point in the game without it. once hydroponic growing media is researched, agridome output will increase and give you more time to focus on other things, which you need. anyway, when the agridome is done, begin building a second nursery and university kit. at this point you have to delegate your scientists and begin to sacrifice research speed for the lives of the colonists. you might get a bit nervous at this point, but stay focused on the task. dont panic. dont get upset. it is okay to begin to scale back research at this time as the most vital research (to colonist survival) is complete and the rest is more or less simply upgrades to what youve already finished. start construction of the second nursery and university. before they complete, make sure to remove enough scientists from research to allow the new buildings to become operational, or you can simply pause researching until the buildings come online and begin research again when all the scientists have been allocated. throughout this first stage of the game, colonists will be dying and by the construction of the first agridome you will reach the point where colonist deaths versus births will (hopefully) shift and you will begin to have more available workers in your university(ies). you may notice that soon after a worker becomes available, a worker dies and the new one is sent to replace them, removing them from the possibility of being trained into a scientist. you will also notice that if your efforts are successful, the time between a new worker becoming available and another worker dying requiring a replacement inceases. eventually you will have more than one worker, then three, and on and on. when you get to the point that you have at least 2 workers available at any one time, begin training workers into scientists whenever you see them available at the university. but this time, colonist deaths should have reduced to the point that having a constant supply of workers available to replace dying ones isnt as vital and they can instead be directed toward training. this is the ultimate goal of this first part of the game. once youve reached this point, you can begin to build advanced residences and/or demolish and replace the regular residences. if you have one convec demolish the old one while having a convec with the advanced one on-site, you shouldnt lose any colonists or scientists to deaths by morale in the hang time between the destruction of the original and completion of the new. from this point on, you are simply adding more residences to accomodate births, medical centers to treat the growing population, agridomes to feed them. in terms of colonist survival, you are safe at this point. however by the time you are finished building your advanced residences you should switch your game from increasing population to resources and combat. start scouting for mines and start building smelters as the number of available workers will allow. when you are done researching morale upgrades, research metallogeny to increase ore production. when this is done, research cybernetic teleoperation to get vehicles available. then start researching weapons, etc. i follow this exact build order every time i play and it has never failed me. i have never lost a game due to colonist deaths since i started using it and if you follow it exactly, you should be fine.
also keep in mind that the map you are playing - eden population 1 - has some significant hazards. after youve played this map as much as i have, youll notice that meteorites seem to be drawn to the north-west corner of your base, near the large crater. the northern edge of your colony lies right on the outer-reaches of a meteor pincushion. if you are able to play this map to mark 2,000 youll see that the terrain is pock-marked on at least every other tile by a meteor hit, while the rest of the map has the normal random hits. try not to build your colony north of its starting boundary. try building south or south-east. you might consider developing a splinter colony away from the starting colony to escape the disasters, but only if you are confident enough to do so. also be aware that on the easy and intermediate difficulty, several disasters strike your colony no matter what. these increase when approaching mark 2,000 (i think. it might be higher). eventually a vortex will strike directly on the common ore mine just north of your colony. you should have multiple smelters so replacing this loss shouldnt be difficult unless you rely upon this mine solely. a time after this event, another twister will drop on the map between your starting common ore smelter and the boulder to the north-east of it. make sure not to build vital structures in this area if you cannot replace them easily. the largest and most difficult disaster to handle is when you begin approaching the 2,000 - 5,000 mark (its somewhere between there) when a vortex drops on your structure factory. if this is your only structure factory, you will lose the game because you cant continue to build your colony and increase population. the final guaranteed disaster after this occurs near or above mark 5,000 or 6,000 when a vortex drops just north-west of your command center. it will mow right over it and destroy it, so make sure you have more than one cc. as i said, it is wise to build a splinter colony away from the starting one when you have acquired enough resources and colonists. however, dont start thinging about this until you are nearing the number of colonists required to win the mission as this usually occurs near the mark when the "guaranteed" disasters begin.
ive played this map thousands of times and these disasters ALWAYS happen at certain marks. while ive played it and noticed it enough to know the general time they occur, i am not positive on the exact times and how that time changes with difficulty settings. i will do some research to find the exact mark of all disasters if anyone would think it useful.
