Switch to a farm asap if you don't already have one. Build an apartment if you didn't build one for the first set of colonists. 5 Geologists, 6 engineers, and 1 unspecialized. Set the infirmary and diner to only have 1 colonist per shift. Set the farm and clinic to high priority. Build 1 living quarters (apartment if available), preferably 1 farm (1 hydroponics if it isn't), 1 grocer, 1 infirmary, 1 diner, and a single hex park for inbetween the small buildings. Build your first basic dome beside a source of rare metals. For your first 12 colonists bring 6 botanists, 3 medics, and 3 geologists. Buildings: 3 apartments, 1 farm, 2 diners, 1 grocer, 1 research lab, 1 infirmary, 2 one hex parks, 1 three hex park, 1 mine, 1 polymer factory.

Colonists: 6 botanists, 6 medics, 9 scientists, 12 geologists, 17 engineers, 10 unspecialized. I built this guide using the default maximum load of twelve colonists on a rocket. I don't personally value the extra colonist on a rocket techs very much. If you have it, great, but it's not worth the additional time waiting in my opinion. I don't often get access to the medium dome by time I want my third dome so I don't account for having it. There is no penalty for an offspecialization working in a diner or grocer. Unless it's for the martian university a security or offficer works just as well as an unspecialized colonist. if you can't bring enough of the desired colonist specializations bring security, officers, or unspecialized. They seem to turn into regular colonists if the comfort is high enough in the dome they're visiting. Later on when you run low on actual useful colonists you can start to bring tourists. Every other flaw is passable after your first 2-3 loads of colonists. There's only two colonist types you should never ever bring on your rocket. I've found that rushing the machine parts and electronics factories are unwise as they take too much manpower too early. Even then use the shipments to bolster stockpiles that you're low on. Ship rare metal out and import the polymer, machine parts, and electronics that you need until you get factories for them.

In general this will increase your colonies birthrate a lot. It keeps the comfort minimum for children at 55, this helps you have your first martianborn sooner so you can skip the 10 sol delay until your second load of colonists. Even if you don't like my build order you can still use the general ideas within to better deal with the colonist ai. I never feel the need to manually move colonists around anymore. I didn't like it at first either, but I've learned to deal with it and make it work for me. I decided to share this after seeing a lot of people complaining about the ai making the colonists working the wrong jobs. It has however been working incredibly well for me as I've slowly stumbled upon and dialed it in over multiple play sessions. I by no means assume this is the best strategy.

Surviving mars wiki dome