Surviving Mars - Start a Colony on Mars, from Haemimont Games/Paradox Interactive

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Thu May 23, 2019 3:53 pm

Lordnine wrote: ↑Thu May 23, 2019 3:49 pm What do the tunnels do exactly? I haven't tried to build them yet.

Tunnels connect plateaus with lowlands. You lay out two tunnel ends and as long as one part is within the range of drones and resources both ends will be built.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu May 23, 2019 3:59 pm

Tunnels allow you bypass obstacles by going under them. The only real use for tunnels that I've seen is they are the means by which you can get from one elevation to another. So for instance a tunnel would have an open and from bottom elevation to top or top to bottom here.

In addition to allowing your RCs and drones to move up and down elevations each end has four hexes to connect power and water, so your power and water can change elevation.

I always seem to build on lower elevations, so tunnel, then drone hub/universal depot/tower (I like to scan)/power line plus shuttles to the higher elevation allows me to start putting wind power at a higher elevation for more power per generator (wind is always higher at higher altitudes) rather quickly.

Edit or what jz said....

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Thu May 23, 2019 6:01 pm

Hahah. That is basically my map. I spent in game years building a ramp down to the lower level.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Thu May 23, 2019 10:44 pm

I'm really, really sloppy in calculating all those things like producing fuel, how much water I'll need, power usage, so I just tend to way overbuild. The good news is that I'm prepared for emergencies, the bad news is that I'm wasting a lot of resources just to keep up buildings that I really don't need right now. Oh well

I keep thinking I'm going to stop playing and go back to reading, my usual hobby, but I'm thinking I just want to get this dome built or that technology researched and soon it's 3am and I really, really need to get to bed

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu May 23, 2019 10:56 pm

Heh. i keep thinking I'm in good shape with resources (mainly over shipping from earth) but then a disaster hits. I had to save scrum and go back about five sols because the last dust storm annihilated my oxygen and water reserves and it still had another year to go. This was to say noting of the maintenance of the dust removal. I probably should turn all my moxies and moisture evaporators off when the storms come. I get annoyed at my drones maintaining them at an accelerated rate even though they aren't running.

Got up to 10% oxygen tonight and finished a tech the begins letting me start atmosphere but the tech turns out to be crazy fuel intensive so I've got some serious moisture farms to get working on to get the water to get the fuel.

It's actually kinda cool to play with so much disaster frequency. I used to finish a round of achievements in 100 to 150 sols and then reset. I'm 40 some odd sols in to this game and all I have is four small domes (The fourth just being constructed after this last disaster). I've almost build the space elevator and I'm sitting on like 20B cash, so I imagine that will change the pace of the game. I have no idea when the mystery will kick in nor it it's good or bad that it's taking so long to start.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Thu May 23, 2019 11:29 pm

So I made some awesome progress tonight.

Breathable atmosphere has been achieved! It's time to open the domes!

Mars is starting to look very earth like.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Fri May 24, 2019 10:06 am

Seeing your earthlike view makes me fear I'm headed for drowned colony by exploring transforming. Hopefully not before I get mystery achievement and my SpaceY goals on 500%+ difficulty achievement. I'll at least feel the achievement the Sol I tamper down dust storms, whenever that may be. I assume it's tied to Vegetation and water, neither or which have I started, nor do I have in my next 5 techs.

I'm fairly certain this game is going to destroy my long weekend and I'm OK with that.... Now... I'll probably have gamer's remorse over my lost weekend come Monday evening.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Sat May 25, 2019 1:26 am

Well, I had a dream colony and now things have started to fall apart again. My population went over 1000 people and now no matter what I do I cant seem to produce enough water to keep the farms running to keep them fed. I'm about to go nuke the polar ice caps in an effort to increase the water of the planet further and hopefully give my water evaporators a boost.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Sat May 25, 2019 9:22 am

Lordnine wrote: ↑Sat May 25, 2019 1:26 am I'm about to go nuke the polar ice caps in an effort to increase the water of the planet

Wait, literally? That's a thing? Picked this up during the recent sale but have yet to play so have been following other folk's adventures.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Sat May 25, 2019 11:14 am

Yep! It says it will raise the liquid water level of the planet by 20% but I will lose my rocket in the process. At this point that is a sacrifice I am willing to make. I’m not really using the rockets I have much at this point anyways since my population has hit exponential growth.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Sat May 25, 2019 1:11 pm

Ramps under construction:

I've now built three ramps for access to the lower plains, but I've discovered that I can't run cables or pipelines down the slopes because while I can put an RC Commander (mobile drone hub) midway to fill in the gap between the coverage of drone hubs, I can't put a depot close enough to provide resources (metal) to build the cables/pipelines.

Nevermind, I figured out that I can use a transporter to just dump resources right on the slope. Silly me

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Sat May 25, 2019 1:34 pm

Lordnine wrote: ↑Sat May 25, 2019 11:14 am Yep! It says it will raise the liquid water level of the planet by 20% but I will lose my rocket in the process. At this point that is a sacrifice I am willing to make. I’m not really using the rockets I have much at this point anyways since my population has hit exponential growth.

And possibly create a dust storm like no tomorrow. I've had three of dust storms in my current game. One triggered a go back 7 sols and prepare better. The other two almost wiped me out. There will be no polar ice cap nuking until dust storms are not a thing.

Built my first lake and not doing much with atmosphere and still have no vegitation. Chaos tech giveth and chaos tech taketh away.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Mon May 27, 2019 12:51 am

I think I have pretty much won at this point.

100% Terra-formed.

My capital city has about 700 people in it.

All wonders have been built. Most of which can be seen in this photo.

I only have one milestone left to achieve and that is to get 40% of my workforce into workshops. This is proving hard.

Asharak · Post by **Asharak** » Tue May 28, 2019 3:40 pm

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu May 23, 2019 3:59 pm Tunnels allow you bypass obstacles by going under them. The only real use for tunnels that I've seen is they are the means by which you can get from one elevation to another. [...] In addition to allowing your RCs and drones to move up and down elevations each end has four hexes to connect power and water, so your power and water can change elevation.

Aside from the elevation change, the power-and-life support connections also allow you to connect two different colony sites without having to run lengthy cable networks across the map, which means you don't have those hard-to-maintain sections in the middle of nowhere (sure, you can have drone hubs and supply depots all along the network to keep the cables running, but then you have to keep those maintained and stocked).

---

I've been playing and thoroughly addicted to this game since the Green Planet expansion hit. I tried playing it back when it first came out and found it fairly sterile and uninteresting. I bounced off it pretty quickly back then. Partly thanks to Terraforming Mars being the recent obsession of my board gaming table, Green Planet grabbed my attention very quickly and it's an absolute blast.

I'm not nearly as far along as some of you (wow, Lordnine!) but I'm trying to get there. My first significant game fell apart on me somewhere around Sol 120-130, I think, as a result of the Last War mystery. I just didn't keep up with what that plot-line asked of me and then the inevitable snowball of lack-of-resources happened and things went into the toilet:

Spoiler:

I didn't want to save-scum, so I started again.

This time, I'm up to around Sol 70, I think, and things have been fairly stable so far. I haven't gotten very far with terraforming yet in this game (temperature is up to 20%, I think, but my forestation plants haven't made much of a dent and I have yet to touch water or atmosphere). We're self-sufficient in everything except seeds, electronics, and unspecialized-people-to-work-our-crap-jobs at this point (since my quite efficient school-to-Martian University pipeline is nicely turning all of my Martianborn into needed specialists). The mystery seems to be just get started, this one seeming to involve either a bunch of really miniaturized Borg or some sort of extraplanetary haunting by Rubik's ghost.

I really should start taking screenshots with the next game I play. This game seems like a great one for some emergent storytelling.

- Ash

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Tue May 28, 2019 6:04 pm

Asharak wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 3:40 pm Aside from the elevation change, the power-and-life support connections also allow you to connect two different colony sites without having to run lengthy cable networks across the map, which means you don't have those hard-to-maintain sections in the middle of nowhere (sure, you can have drone hubs and supply depots all along the network to keep the cables running, but then you have to keep those maintained and stocked).

Sheesh, so now you mention that alternative use of tunnels

. As you can see from the image below (well, you can see the domes), I built a long pipeline+cable connector from my plateau settlement on the left all the way to the top right of the map so I could link it with the dome there. What was really silly (from a cost consideration) was that the upper-right dome was already fitted out with power, oxygen and water sources and didn't really need to be linked to my main settlement. I just want to see if I could do it

. It also helped that I had the breakthrough that gave me drone hubs that didn't need power or maintenance.

By the way, although I figured out how to run cables and pipelines down a very long slope, it was a pain and if I had a leak it would be a nuisance to repair. A slope is cheaper than a tunnel however so there is that to consider.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Tue May 28, 2019 10:31 pm

A better view from the plateau to the far distant dome.

What has to be the saving grace of my colony is that I've now mining my fourth through sixth rare metals deposits, so money is really a matter of just getting enough flights back to Earth. With all that cash I'm able to disregard any need to build factories and I'm flying in seed till I can get a decent production going of it on Mars.

UPDATE: You want pipelines? I got pipelines!

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Tue May 28, 2019 11:03 pm

Asharak wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 3:40 pm Partly thanks to Terraforming Mars being the recent obsession of my board gaming table, Green Planet grabbed my attention very quickly and it's an absolute blast.

After nearly two years of almost exclusively playing TM, I think we're finally moving to other games.

I kinda meh'ed my last game and restarted playing a 1005% difficulty game. It's been... a challenge... I'm 70 Sols in... and my colony is still going. As an added challenge, I'm making it my mission to flatten my every where I go. I'm in a split valley so flattening is an effort. It's also got very little concrete, so I'm foregoing tunnels to get around. I've yet to start terraforming. Resources are precious. Part of 1005% was only getting one passenger ship. At Sol 70, I'm up to about 85 citizens, 7 of which are seniors, 9 are children, 6 are renegades.

Static Dust Storms are puppies.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed May 29, 2019 12:07 am

I'm finally working on my MoHole Wonder which while hopefully end my concerns about metal. Or rather I would be working on it, except that for the first time I can remember in over 160 hours of playing, the game locked up. So I'll have to load a previous save. The good news was that it was in the middle of a meteor shower that was destroying my base. The bad news is that I think it will be doing it again. I could save scum, but I don't think I care that much about completing this playthrough. While it has been fun, I feel a bit like I'm grinding now. But we'll see once I get the game back up and running.

Asharak · Post by **Asharak** » Wed May 29, 2019 10:17 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 11:03 pm After nearly two years of almost exclusively playing TM, I think we're finally moving to other games.

We just started it a couple of months ago, so I guess we have a lot of value left!

There's a birder in the group, though, so I know it's going to get bumped (at least temporarily) once we can finally get our hands on a copy of Wingspan.

I kinda meh'ed my last game and restarted playing a 1005% difficulty game.

Waah... that sounds unpleasant! I think my current game is something like 230% difficulty. Granted, that has actually seemed easier than the 180% or my last game, by virtue of not having meteor showers in the area and a mystery that involved fewer missiles falling on my head. Still, I think I'll worry about getting a 1000+ colonist game stable at this level before I try anything like that.

- Ash

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed May 29, 2019 12:12 pm

The beauty of TM for us was that in a 3+ player game with the full set and drafting, nearly every game is different. After two years I still haven't played all of the corporations. It seem the most reliable way to win is to play to hunt Jovians and hoard them until the end and the science tags to draw them. But that isn't reliable because everyone at the table knows this. The only reason I think I'm toward the end of the game is because I've seen too many science tag draw/Jovian wins. That's maybe one out of every four games but 25% after two years is finally the we've explored the game enough level. It's more than 25% in a two player game, which is a shame, as otherwise this would be one of the more solid 2 player games out there. I think we've probably played maybe 60 games of this two, three, and four players with the growing expansions and I'll likely be excited to play again when the next expansion hits.

Also don't get the computer game. The complexity of the game is totally lost on the AI and the UI is pretty bad.

My mystery hasn't started yet to my knowledge. I'm playing Marsgate. I never played it before so I have no idea what I'm in for. At present pace I suspect it will kill me.

I kinda wish you could get a log of disasters so you could see what the colony is going through. Pretty pathetic but pretty pathetic at 1005 difficulty.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed May 29, 2019 1:20 pm

That's quite an unusual map you got there, at least from my experience.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed May 29, 2019 2:48 pm

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 1:20 pm That's quite an unusual map you got there, at least from my experience.

It was listed as the most difficult map difficulty % wise via google and was the only way I could get the difficulty above a 1000.

My life is moving from one prolonged event to another, often having them overlap. Though cold snap is (now) a fairly easy disaster and a meteor storm is free stuff so long as doesn't happen concurrent with other disasters. Dust devils suck because the come without warning and last three to five sols but 3-6 sol dust storms have triggered my only suck out so far. Every dust storm is an exercise in panic and I get about one every 10 to 15 sols after the last one ends

The game definitely holds my attention.

I am already regretting using the more worse renegades option. They're starting to get bold. I've never needed to waste people on security before. Now, I do.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed May 29, 2019 3:57 pm

OK, I didn't expect this. I have a scientist who is running outside the dome to go visit a food depot. Is this a good thing? A bad thing? Is he doing it for exercise?

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed May 29, 2019 4:19 pm

Is anyone else having problems with getting enough seeds to Forestation buildings? I've got 29 seeds showing on the top bar but about half of my ten stations aren't getting seed, even though they have a nearby depot with shuttle access enabled. Do I need to bring in more seeds?

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Wed May 29, 2019 5:14 pm

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 4:19 pm Is anyone else having problems with getting enough seeds to Forestation buildings? I've got 29 seeds showing on the top bar but about half of my ten stations aren't getting seed, even though they have a nearby depot with shuttle access enabled. Do I need to bring in more seeds?

I don't believe seeds are stored in standard universal depos. You need a specialized seed one.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed May 29, 2019 5:52 pm

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 3:57 pm OK, I didn't expect this. I have a scientist who is running outside the dome to go visit a food depot. Is this a good thing? A bad thing? Is he doing it for exercise?

Either he's a survivalist and doesn't care about raw food or food services are full and he's doing it so he doesn't starve.

Lordnine wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 5:14 pm
jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 4:19 pm Is anyone else having problems with getting enough seeds to Forestation buildings? I've got 29 seeds showing on the top bar but about half of my ten stations aren't getting seed, even though they have a nearby depot with shuttle access enabled. Do I need to bring in more seeds?
I don't believe seeds are stored in standard universal depos. You need a specialized seed one.

This. I don't know how may sols I went getting frustrated about seeds not being distributed before creating a seed depot out of frustration and then seeds started moving so long as I had a depot to depot to forestation route or I dumped them at the Forrester manually by RC.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed May 29, 2019 6:18 pm

Lordnine wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 5:14 pm
jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 4:19 pm Is anyone else having problems with getting enough seeds to Forestation buildings? I've got 29 seeds showing on the top bar but about half of my ten stations aren't getting seed, even though they have a nearby depot with shuttle access enabled. Do I need to bring in more seeds?
I don't believe seeds are stored in standard universal depos. You need a specialized seed one.

I'm not using a universal depot (I hardly ever use them), and I am using the specialized depot (the one called Seed Depot). They just don't seem to be filling.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Wed May 29, 2019 7:06 pm

Maybe drag the desired quantity setting up? I know sometimes if resources are low they don't deliver to far away hubs.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed May 29, 2019 7:28 pm

Lordnine wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 7:06 pm Maybe drag the desired quantity setting up? I know sometimes if resources are low they don't deliver to far away hubs.

I have them set at ten. I finally fixed the issue by flying in 75 seeds from Earth

Babies! I had all my domes set to allow births and wasn't paying attention, so I ended up with way more infants than nursery spaces. It took some tweaking so I now have just one medium dome that hosts infants.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed May 29, 2019 8:54 pm

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 7:28 pm Babies!

Martian population explosion is a thing. But not so much in my game and I'm OK with that. It's been a steady growth and not having to block it means I shouldn't get the wave of retirees I can't handle in another 70 sols or whatever the aging takes.

Marsgate is freaking me out a bit.

Spoiler:

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Thu May 30, 2019 2:53 am

I figured out at least part of my problem with not having seeds at the Forestation buildings. Even though my resources said I had plenty, I didn't realize that dozens of units were stuck at hydroponic and the other in-door farms. Somehow I'd have twenty or thirty seeds sitting in storage at each one. So I blew them up to release the seeds and then rebuilt.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu May 30, 2019 7:02 pm

where we leave off today. This is life on Mars.

Mohammad had to take a break from the mountain being brought to him. I had to forge a drone presence up top as I am just about out of concrete on the surface. I'm debating jumping on the waste rock to concrete tech but I also want to start on the terraforming techs and I still have more research techs to go which I like to prioritize. I also think I'm going to need income moving soon.

The last of my earth borns are gone. I probably could have kept them going with the phoenix project but I just haven't had time for it and I fear my renegade problem will only get exasperated by bringing renegades back from the dead. If I get enough population going... Ahem, when I get enough population going, I am setting up a penal dome and labeling all renegade enemies of the state.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Thu May 30, 2019 8:12 pm

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 7:02 pm where we leave off today. This is life on Mars.

Mohammad had to take a break from the mountain being brought to him. I had to forge a drone presence up top as I am just about out of concrete on the surface. I'm debating jumping on the waste rock to concrete tech but I also want to start on the terraforming techs and I still have more research techs to go which I like to prioritize. I also think I'm going to need income moving soon.

I've been running out of various resources, but I've fixed that by trading with the other colonies like crazy. I have ten trade pads and I'm constantly tweaking what I trade for to keep up my stocks.

And unfortunately that waste rock to concrete tech which I finally got and built the building isn't producing as much as I hoped. I'll need to upgrade it and that is expensive in resources.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu May 30, 2019 8:13 pm

I have no other colonies. Mars in mine!!!! and these damned spying rovers...

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 3:55 am

My Artificial Sun, and all the solar panels that worship it:

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 9:19 am

Neat. I just rushed mine in no way where I could benefit from solar panels. I'll play smarter next time, assuming I don't set it down after this playthrough (and that's a big assumption).

I rushed mine to prepare for 6 Sol 7 Month winter and I'm glad I did. It promptly turned in to a 7.7 Sol winter and then 12.7 sol winter. I still have 8 more sols to get through and sit in fear of the marsgate mystery or a dust devil making an extended wasting of my wind farm or heavens forbid, a dust storm happening concurrent with Ned Stark's nightmare.

Spoiler:

I just put up my first major polluter, um terraformer. I have waste rock to contaminate the air for years and year and years.

Resource generation is still problem but I'm up nearly 200 colonists who turn renegade at about 1:10.

At 130 Sols in, I think I'm surviving Mars but I also feel like I'm doing it while living in a house of cards. The exact sort of planning that would stress me to no end at work is enjoyable at home, probably because at worst case I could suck out or quit and no harm no foul.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 1:06 pm

jztemple2 wrote:My Artificial Sun, and all the solar panels that worship it:

That seems an inefficient use of power. Like using a nuclear reactor to boil water for tea.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 1:35 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Sat Jun 01, 2019 1:06 pm
jztemple2 wrote:My Artificial Sun, and all the solar panels that worship it:
That seems an inefficient use of power. Like using a nuclear reactor to boil water for tea.

The Artificial Sun gives off radiation in addition to its normal power. Putting up all those solar panels captures the otherwise wasted energy. And the panels put out more power than if they were just exposed to the sun.

And I can now shut down a bunch of wind turbines and save the maintenance costs.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 6:52 pm

I'm doing something wrong, I'm not getting any Vegetation growth from my Forestations:

I've got about twenty Forestations active, they have seeds, power and are functioning. I've got them set for grass, bushes and trees as the three options. And as you can see from the screenie, I've got 100% atmosphere, 100% temp, 79.53% water but only 41.91% vegetation and a lot of that was from Planetary missions. So am I missing something? Shouldn't I be seeing some kind of grow numbers? Right now every Forestation installation shows zero individual increase and zero for the total increase

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 7:44 pm

You can't get higher than 40 without doing the global missions. The game never tells you this as far as I can tell. I had to look it up online. I get what they were going for, a small colony shouldn't be able to easily terraform a full planet by itself, but it did annoy me that all progress is capped at that level. There should have been some incremental increase past a point.