I've got all the services covered, available, not full, and very nearly all on three shifts. Indeed, looking at individual colonists, these "service missing" complaints often come *right before* they use the service in question, just to be extra baffling. All, of course, with comfort penalties that they shouldn't be getting >.<

Are the stores, diners, etc, on equal priority with the other work sites, and getting full manning? If a diner, etc, is not fully staffed, it can only serve a proportion of its nominal service capacity.

Also, if the services are in a different dome a passage away from the domicile, they will have a reduced effect on that colonist. If the services are in a connected dome, but MORE than one passage away from the domicile, I don't believe that the colonist will use that facility at all.

Don't focus so much on the specific services per colonist, but rather on the general Comfort maintenance over several sols. Every colonist does not need every service every sol to stay above the "make babies" and "don't wig out" thresholds.

I find that, typically, 1 diner, 1 infirmary, 1 grocer, 1 art store, 1 to 2 standard parks, plus spot parks/foutains/etc in any odd spaces, is enough to keep a small-to-medium dome (up to 50-60 domiciles) "happy enough". I don't bother with detailed service comfort watching unless there seems to be a severe problem. It tends to balance out over a few sols.


Stick with Living Complexes and Quarters mostly, to get the best bang for buck on Comfort recovery, until you can get Arcology. Smart Homes/Complexes do not provide enough of a benefit to justify the loss of living spots vs LC & Q, and the additional expense, especially in maintenance. For different reasons, Apartments are not worth it. Surpriingly expensive to build and maintian relative to the addition space provided, AND the residents take a Comfort hit. If you need more functions in the dome and are tempted to cramp by using Apartments, build another dome instead.

Later on, after you have Arcology, AND several Comfort boosters like the farm-gives-comfort tech, and the smaller-domes-friendlier tech, you may be able to replace some LC with Apartments to expand manning.

Exceptions would be a Seniors dome or a University Dome. The residents of domes specialized that way are less Comfort critical (i.e. Seniors don't have babies anyway), so you can sometimes get away with some cramming in Apartments even early on.

Don't do this in a University Dome unless you really need to, however, as low Comfort will stretch time to graduation a bit. I find that a Micro Dome (small triangle) with a University (15 spaces max), 4-5 Living Quarters (16-20 beds), a diner, some parkland, and a passage to a work dome with more complete services works extremely well. Sometimes I trade one LQ or park plot for an infirmary.

At the time I was experiencing the problem, I only *had* two domes. The comfort hits were showing up as received in the exact same time period that they then used the services.

The colonists individual interests are determined by profession (google for Surviving Marse interests...or professions).
Of each persons group of 2-3 interests (plus food + rest, and sometimes med svc), the interests will be triggered randomly each off shift.

Once one of the interest is triggered, the Colonist will keep trying to fulfill it during that shift, unless a different one is randomly triggered. Hey, someone may leave the Diner before the off shift is over. Hence, tick..."No Socializing! Oh, No, Mr Bill!", tick..."Oh look, a table opened up - I feel better, tick..."Never mind. I'd rather go to the Spacebar for some Drinking."

The main thing is that you want their personal Comfort to not fall below 35 (30? Can't recall.) That makes them Earthsick / depressed, and they won't go to work.

Now the way Service Comfort works is: when any colonist's personal Comfort is below the Service Comfort of the facility they finally get in to, their personal Comfort is brought UP to the Service Comfort of the building. Resting at home also massively restores Comfort.

So its kinda the opposite of the old joke about pleasing your sergeant: One "Attaboy" will quickly cancel several accumulated "Awshits". If you've got a reasonable spread of the Service Buildings that address most of the most common interests, not necessarily ALL interests, and everyone has a comfy place to sleep, each colonist's personal Comfort is most likely gonna reset up to a useful level (~55) sometime within the 24-hr Sol.

The usual recommended spread to do this in early domes is Diner, Infirmary, Grocer, and a couple of 3-hex parks, for up to about 50 people in a given dome. Small Space bar is a good substitute for one of the parks, especially in a Geologist heavy dome. Later, if you are rolling in Polymers, you could replace the Grocer with an Art Store, or do Small Grocer & Small Art Store & a dot park. That will tend to make the Botanists slightly more comfortable.

BTW, until you get a couple of techs that boost comfort (Biome Engineering, "Happy Farm Green", etc), Apartments are NOT a comfy place to live...and they are expensive to maintain. Do them later as an expansion.