Colonists

Colonists are brave souls who decide to settle Mars and risk death and injury with no possibility of rescue. Colonists begin arriving once you create a colony with domes that can sustain human life and require care and attention. Notably, each colonist has their own personality and distinct set of likes and dislikes, which can evolve over time. Colonists require the resources Oxygen, Water and Food to survive.

Applicants are potential colonists and may be chosen based upon the traits and specializations listed below. The Sponsor determines the number of initial applicants available and various technologies and sponsor traits may also influence the number of applicants available. Non-age related colonist deaths reduce the pool of available applicants by 2.

Colonist Behavior

Each colonist prefers to work in a building that matches their specialization (below). If no such job is available, then they will fill spaces depending upon the priorities that you have set. They also have characteristics such as comfort and sanity that must be managed lest the colonist become Earthsick and demand to leave on the next shuttle home.

Colonists will only work within the dome that they live in, but they can walk from dome-to-dome or take a shuttle (provided via the Shuttle Hub) to transfer from one dome to another should you choose to manually set their new home or new work in a different dome.

Colonist work assignments follow these rules, in order:

1. The player can manually assign individual workers, ignoring all rules below. Ideally we hope that there will be no reason to do so, unless the player particularly likes to micromanage. Clarification: Manual assignment is not permanent, so after a long period the colonist may decide to switch jobs.
2. Buildings with the highest priority are fully staffed if possible
3. If there is not enough workforce higher priority buildings will be fully staffed while lower priority buildings will be partially staffed, but the game will try to keep them operational if possible (e.g. all buildings at high priority staffed at 100%, all buildings at the medium priority staffed at roughly 50%, all buildings at low priority staffed at 0%)
4. Specialists prefer to work according to their specialization, as long as this doesn't mess up the above rules.
5. Keep in mind that since everything depends on the individual simulation, you may have to wait for 1-2 sols until all workers find their desired workspots, so in any current moment there may be a situation where e.g. a Botanist is working in a Bar and a colonist without a specialization is working at a Farm. This is temporary and should be resolved automatically after a while.

Note that the colonists won't try to find a job at another dome. You'll need to manually optimize the domes settings to make sure the properly specialized colonists live in the properly specialized domes.

Characteristics

Each Colonist has four Stats: Health, Sanity, Comfort and Morale. These Stats have a value between 0 and 100 and are modified by various factors and events (Traits, quality of life, workplace, disasters, etc.).

Health

Health represents physical fitness. It is lowered by working on a heavy workload (see Workplaces and Performance), having no functional home (see Residences), shock when deprived from vital resources or when the Colonist is injured. Colonists can be healed in medical buildings in a powered Dome, but only if they are provided with Food, Water and Oxygen. Colonists can't work at low Health unless they have the Fit Trait.

Sanity

Sanity represents mental wellbeing. It is lowered by working on a heavy workload, in outside buildings and during dark hours, witnessing the death of another Colonist living in the same residence or various Martian disasters. It is recovered when resting at home and by visiting certain service buildings. Low Sanity (0) may result in psychotic breakdowns, gaining negative Traits (Flaws) and even suicide.

Comfort

Comfort represents the quality of the Colonist's life on Mars. Visited buildings improve Comfort up to their Service Comfort value, but Colonists will try to visit only buildings that correspond to their Interests (see Traits). Colonists are more inclined to have children at higher Comfort. Earthborn Colonists whose Comfort is depleted quit their job and will leave the planet at first opportunity (see Issues and special statuses).

Morale

Morale represents colonist's happiness, optimism and loyalty.

Individual colonists are not born equal and have a slightly randomized base morale in the range of 40-60.

Some morale modifiers:

Modifier	Value
Religious	+10
Nerd, and a tech was researched recently	+10
High health, sanity or comfort	+5
Low health, sanity or comfort	-10

Colonists' morale directly influences their job performance, with 50 being a neutral baseline.

Colonists living in a dome with average morale consistently below 65 may become renegades. This cannot happen at the early stages of the colony (less than 50 people).

Age Groups

Colonists are divided into five age groups according to the stage of their life.

Age Group	Age	Description
Child	0-5	Children are too young to work and use many of the buildings in the Colony. They can go to School and use certain special buildings such as the Playground and Nursery.
Youth	6-10	A young Colonist, able to work in all buildings.
Adult	11-30	An adult Colonist, able to work in all buildings.
Middle Aged	31-60	A middle aged Colonist, approaching retirement, but still able to work in all buildings.
Senior	61+	A senior Colonist, too old to work.

Birth

For martianborn children to be born, there should be fertile couples in the Dome.

Each fertile couple effectively has a ((comfort-30)/10)% chance per Sol to have a baby. More technically, all fertile couples contribute (comfort-30) points daily to the shared pool of birth progress points in the dome. When that number reaches 1000, a baby is born.

Without accounting for technologies, considering a 55 year fertile life and an ideal men/women ratio, you can expect these population trends based on comfort:

Average comfort	Sols per child	Children per couple per 55 sols	Trend
55 (minimally fertile with infirmary)	40	1.375	inevitable extinction (-1.1%/Sol)
66.4	27.5	2	stable population
70 (min without infirmary)	22.2	2.475	steady growth (+0.85%/Sol)
100 (max)	13.3	4.125	rapid overpopulation (+7.5%/Sol)

Immigration

Earthborn humans from the applicant pool typically immigrate as young working adults with desirable specialty and perks. Unless the colony just needs any warm body to send into that Rare Metals mine.

Death

Colonists can naturally die of old age, lose all their health due to disasters or lack of resources, or suicide due to running out of sanity.

Specializations

Citizens perform better at workplaces that match their specialization. Non-specialized colonists never receive a bonus to job performance, and all colonists receive a penalty if working the wrong type of work. Specializations also determine the colonists' interests.

Specialization	Ideal Workplace	Interests
None	Non-specialized work (Diner, etc)	Social, Relaxation, Shopping
Botanist	Farms.	Relaxation, Shopping, Luxury
Engineer	Factories.	Relaxation, Shopping, Dining
Geologist	Extractors	Social, Shopping, Drinking
Medic	Infirmary, Medical Center	Social, Shopping, Luxury
Scientist	Research Lab, Science Institute	Social, Relaxation, Gaming
Security	Security Station	Relaxation, Social, Exercise

Sex

Colonists are separated into three categories for Sex: Male, Female, and Other.

Perks

Beneficial traits, representing various talents and abilities of the Colonist:

Perk	Description
Celebrity	Generates Funding when in the Colony.
Composed	All sanity losses are halved.
Empath	Raises the Morale of all Colonists in the Dome. The effects of multiple Empaths stack.
Enthusiast	Increased performance boost when at high Morale.
Fit	More health recovered when resting. Can work when health is low. +Exercise
Gamer	Recovers Sanity when gaming. +Gaming
Genius	Generates Research when in the Colony.
Hippie	Gains twice as much Comfort in gardens and parks.
Nerd	Gain a temporary Morale boost every time a new technology is researched.
Party Animal	Gains additional Comfort when satisfying social interest. +Social
Saint	Raises the Morale of all Religious people in the Dome. Benefits stack with each additional Saint.
Sexy	Greatly increased birth rate.
Survivor	Loses less Health without food, water, oxygen, or when living in an unpowered Dome.
Religious	Higher individual base morale. Low sanity never leads to suicide.
Rugged	No Comfort penalties when eating unprepared food or having no residence.
Workaholic	Individual performance increased by 20, no penalty for heavy workloads. -Relaxation

Flaws

Detrimental Traits, representing various flaws and disabilities of the Colonist:

Flaw	Description
Alcoholic	Work performance lowered by 10. Can be caused by Sanity breakdowns. +Drinking
Chronic Condition	Loses Health each day.
Coward	Double Sanity loss from disasters. Can be caused by Sanity breakdowns.
Idiot	Can cause a malfunction at workplace (10% chance). Malfunctioning buildings stop working and require maintenance.
Infected	Loses Health each day. Spreads to other Colonists in the Dome.
Gambler	Has a 50% chance to lose 20 Sanity when visiting a Casino. Can be caused by Sanity breakdowns. +Gambling
Glutton	Eats double rations. Can be caused by Sanity breakdowns. +Dining
Hypochondriac	Will randomly visit Medical buildings and take Sanity damage if unable to do so. +Medical
Lazy	Individual performance decreased by 20 at all jobs.
Loner	Loses Comfort every day while living in a Dome with population over 30. -Social
Melancholic	Increased performance penalty when at low Morale. Can be caused by Sanity breakdowns.
Renegade	Performance decreased by 50 at all jobs. Can cause crime events when there are not enough Security Stations in the Dome.
Whiner	Loses Sanity when low on Comfort.

Quirks

Traits that don't fit into any of the other groups:

Quirk	Description	Source
Guru	Randomly spreads other traits of this colonist to persons in the same Dome with less than 3 traits.	Applicants
Tourist	Doesn't work. Leaves at first opportunity, but will decide to stay if Comfort is high. +Gambling	Applicants
Vegan	Don't worry. They'll tell you.	Applicants
Founder	One of the first Martian Colonists.	First Rocket Colonists
Martianborn	Martianborn Colonists never become Earthsick. The Martianborn group of techs can improve this trait significantly.	Born on Mars
Clone	Has half the lifespan of a naturally born human.	Cloning Vats
Biorobot	Synthetically created humans that function similarly to us - they breathe, they eat and they sleep. However they do not age and cannot reproduce.	Biorobot
Dreamer	Taught to children at schools, grants +15 productivity.	Inner Light Mystery
Refugee	Untrained for life on Mars, which results in decreased performance (-40 productivity) at all jobs. Cannot be Earthsick. High chance to become a Renegade.	The Last War Mystery

References

Game concepts