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

[jztemple2]

Can you build multiple spires in medium or large domes? I haven't built either yet.... Maybe tonight...

Nope, only one spire. I chose to use mostly the Arcology in each dome just for the residence aspect.

[jztemple2]

Patch Notes: One Small Step For Man #1

New fixes! Check out the full patch notes below. And as ever, please keep reporting your bugs in the Surviving Mars bug forum.

OSX,Linux: Added OpenGL mods' shaders support
Linux: fixed occasional crash when loading savegames
Window: fixed white borders on some UI elements

UI: Research dialog now scrollable with mouse wheel and camera controls, saves last position on close
UI: Colonists with special traits are pinned to the menu bar, only when there are less than 100 colonists in the colony
UI: Voice notification for Pipe leaks/Cable faults disabled for colonies with over 100 colonists
UI: Tourist trait shown in "Review Applicants" UI
UI: Fix for cancelation of change of display settings
UI: Fix for senior colonists workplace display after the research of "Forever Young" tech
UI: Fix for Automation Upgrade Icon (displayed inconsistently in Fungal Farms)
UI: Fix for Custom anomaly icon disappearing from time to time
UI: Fixed missing sounds when some Mods are active
UI: Martian University infopanel now does not show colonists which are not part of the workforce (senior, child, tourist, stressed, etc.)
UI: Rockets have correct (default) skin on game start

Gameplay: Removed exploit for endless export from the Space Elevator
Gameplay: Refugees are now immune to Earthsick condition
Gameplay: New dome fractures should be repaired properly (this unfortunately does not affect already fractured domes from previous saves)
Gameplay: "Vocation-Oriented Society" tech performance bonus now works as intended
Gameplay: Fix for drones not to be abandoned by RC Rover
Gameplay: Fix for maximum drones allowed to work on trade rocket
Gameplay: Resource stockpiles now properly marked as 1-hex large object - should fix drone behavior to move stockpiles adjacent to construction sites rather then underneath them
Gameplay: RP cost of repeatable techs now increase after each research
Gameplay: "Alien Imprints" tech effect reduced
Gameplay: Fix for Fuel Extractor upgrade effect in the Concrete Extractor building (now 30% increase instead of 50%)
Gameplay: Fix for stuck drones when picking up resources from destroyed farm
Gameplay: Fix for resource count when interrupting drone after picking up resource cube from RC Transport
Gameplay: Fix for RC Transport when changing skin while loading resources
Gameplay: Fix to properly treat RC Transport as resource depot when adding new drone controller (Rover/Hub/Rocket) or changing active radius of drone controller
Gameplay: Fix for Rocket take-off in some cases
Gameplay: Fix for RP calculation to allow modifiers to have effect in cases of little RP production
Gameplay: Workers properly select workplace based on their specialty
Gameplay: Fix for workplace and training buildings requiring maintenance when turned off
Gameplay: Easy start now always starts with a Mystery
Gameplay: Scanning que increased
Gameplay: Shielded combination of incompatible traits (e.g. Genius/Idiot combo)
Gameplay: Biorobot gurus no longer create biorobots
Gameplay: Fix for replacing existing techs by using mods

Visuals: Dome glass has correct self illumination
Visuals: Meteorite craters no longer appear over and next to objects
Visuals: NVIDIA 1050s family now loads "High" setting preset
Visuals: Fix for proper positioning of newborn child colonist at spawn

[LordMortis]

Breakthrough spoiler if you want to discover them yourself....

Spoiler:

I wonder if I should stick with my dual spire domes instead of going to mega domes then.

Decisions... Decisions.... I'll have some playing around to do

With regard to building a research dome, don't you get steep diminishing returns for building more than one research facility in a dome? I forget what they call it but it's some sort of stacking penalty. The same applies to the multiple exploring drones research bonus. I swear I put a lab in the same dome and science institute, figuring "different ability, no diminishing returns" and then quickly scrapped all my labs as they seemed to aggragate with the institute for more penalties than they were producing.

[Fitzy]

I sent my rover out to build a scanner, but somehow it got destroyed. It's sitting way out there "malfunctioning". Short of sending another one out to it, is there anyway to get it back? It's carrying 8 drones and I don't actually have another to send. I maybe shouldn't have sent it out so soon.

It's well outside the borders of my drone shop.

The only thing I can think of is to land a cargo rocket near it. But I'm not even positive the thing is repairable.

[LordMortis]

I sent my rover out to build a scanner, but somehow it got destroyed. It's sitting way out there "malfunctioning". Short of sending another one out to it, is there anyway to get it back? It's carrying 8 drones and I don't actually have another to send. I maybe shouldn't have sent it out so soon.

It's well outside the borders of my drone shop.

The only thing I can think of is to land a cargo rocket near it. But I'm not even positive the thing is repairable.

It should still be in your bar with wrench next to it if it is repairable or with a lightning bolt if it's simply out of juice. As far as I know you need a drone to repair it and that requires

1) a cargo ship, shipping with drones (I don't think you can transfer drones to a cargo ship. I could be wrong)
2) a drone station within radio range
3) another rover carrying drones within radio range

Maybe 4?

Transferrring a drone to the rover that has enough energy to perform repairs? Mayabe?

Oh and 5 research the self repairing self charging drone rover. I bet that would even fix a broken one.



I'm guessing somehow would be dust devil. Friggen dust devils suck. They breeze across my wind farms and are treacherous.

[jztemple2]

After 49 hours of playing my first colony, I think I've finally reached the point where I'm not getting any more out of it. I've researched every tech, built all the wonders but one and have oodles and oodles of all resources. And I've got over $30 million in the bank and rising. About the only thing that's been bothering me is that out of my population of just under two thousand I have several hundred unemployed. I was wondering whether I should be concerned about this so I posted over on the Paradox forum. Aside from various unhelpful answers this was posted by one of the developers:

The high number of unemployed in larger colonies is something that we were already looking at before release. We are working on something for a future update, that will allow you to address that in the late game.

I'm all for my Martians enjoying the good life, but I imagine that one of the workers toiling on the graveyard shift in a metal extractor set to Heavy Workload would be a bit envious about some folks just kicking back at the Space Bar all day and might consider going renegade

[Fitzy]

I sent my rover out to build a scanner, but somehow it got destroyed. It's sitting way out there "malfunctioning". Short of sending another one out to it, is there anyway to get it back? It's carrying 8 drones and I don't actually have another to send. I maybe shouldn't have sent it out so soon.

It's well outside the borders of my drone shop.

The only thing I can think of is to land a cargo rocket near it. But I'm not even positive the thing is repairable.

It should still be in your bar with wrench next to it if it is repairable or with a lightning bolt if it's simply out of juice. As far as I know you need a drone to repair it and that requires

1) a cargo ship, shipping with drones (I don't think you can transfer drones to a cargo ship. I could be wrong)
2) a drone station within radio range
3) another rover carrying drones within radio range

Maybe 4?

Transferrring a drone to the rover that has enough energy to perform repairs? Mayabe?

Oh and 5 research the self repairing self charging drone rover. I bet that would even fix a broken one.



I'm guessing somehow would be dust devil. Friggen dust devils suck. They breeze across my wind farms and are treacherous.

Thank you! That’s more possibilities than I expected.

Do dust devils look like brown tornados? There was something zooming away when I went in to build my tower. I hadebt got any of the disasters yet so I wasn’t paying attention.

[LordMortis]

Do dust devils look like brown tornados? There was something zooming away when I went in to build my tower. I hadebt got any of the disasters yet so I wasn’t paying attention.

That's what I call them and yeah when I got to my 5th dome they moved from trivial inconvenience to major PITA, they sweep through my wind farms and take down massive amounts of power while also nailing the drone stations and drone that were suppose to repair them. I need to start learning to set my building priorities because one moment I'm plus 1000 power and then next moment I'm short power two domes are powering down, and I'm tapping my water reserves.

[jztemple2]

I sent my rover out to build a scanner, but somehow it got destroyed. It's sitting way out there "malfunctioning"..

Hey, I just had that happen too! Luckily it was an Explorer in range of some drones.

Just for fun I casually started another map and was reminded that having 49 hours of experience on one colony isn't a good guarantee that I'll know what the hell I'm doing when I start another with different starting conditions. I did have one good thing happen, I started with an already researched tech that meant I could set up a drone hub without power or maintenance.

[jztemple2]

I just found a mod that some of you might appreciate, Low Resource Warning

Mod adds an alert that fires any time a resource deposit falls below 300 units.

Notification is fully featured, indicating what resource, clicking on it will take you there, and once dismissed will never reappear. If more than one resource falls below the threshold simultaneously, clicking will cycle between and a slightly different message will appear.

Mod is configurable. Browse to %appdata%\Surviving Mars\LowResourceAlerts and open the config in any text editor. By default concrete is not notified, all other resources are. Notification threshold is also configurable, although any resource deposit that starts with less than half this value will be ignored and never throw a notification.

So this means the mods I'm running are Mars Radio One, Info Bar, Show Research Progress on HUD and Low Resource Warning

[Stefan Stirzaker]

Can you download steam mods and install on other versions?

[jztemple2]

Can you download steam mods and install on other versions?

I've been doing some searching and I can't find any answer. Seems weird that no one has addressed this.

[jztemple2]

From reddit, a post with some recommended mods.

[Stefan Stirzaker]

Can you download steam mods and install on other versions?

I've been doing some searching and I can't find any answer. Seems weird that no one has addressed this.

I found some stuff in another reddit thread, if youcan download the mod you can install the files manually. thankfully the infobar guy has his on github. Unfortunately it's for the patched Steam version and won't work on GoG version until it's patched

[jztemple2]

There's a great article over on NASASpaceflight.com, Curiosity marks 2,000th Martian day of operation; science team eyes rover’s future. Here's the opening paragraph...

Today marks the 2,000th Martian day (Sol) of operation for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory – more commonly known as the Curiosity rover. The exploration platform touched down on the surface of the Red Planet after a daring and never-before-used landing sequence on 5 August 2012 (Pacific Daylight Time) and has since well surpassed its initial science goals as its science teams plan for the rover’s future.

[jztemple2]

Started another game, this time with a bit more difficulty. Not being the Easy Start Game I'm a bit more lost, but I'm getting there.

You can see the mods I'm running. A number of them are sponsors or commanders so I'm not using them for this mission. And three of them are radio channels.


And a nice near ground level view of my base, very barren compared to the previous one. I'll keep that old save game as a way to test out mods and see any end-game changes.

[jztemple2]

My USA 85% mission continues. Water! No where near my starting location. I finally found one far away from my landing spot. My rocket is just south of the square with the "1", while the water is two squares to the right. I'm hoping to find water in "1", "2" or "3".


Another day, another mod! This one is called Mod Config by Waywocket and is initially intended to provide a way to make in-game changes to his mods. Pretty cool.

[LordMortis]

Not playing the international with all of it's money is a total game changer. Oi.

[Fitzy]

How much money do you get internationally? I jumped straight to US because I have some weird obsession with always being the US.

[LordMortis]

$30,000M

[Fitzy]

Huh. I should have paid attention.

[LordMortis]

Huh. I should have paid attention.

And you get five rockets and they slowly fuel themselves, even without a refinery.

So you can either go hog wild with expansion or you can be silly like I was spend it all on outsourcing research until you finally realize how precious money can be in a jam when you aren't careful about your expansion.

[Fitzy]

That sounds easier. I’ve gotten a game to around day 30 playing US, but I always find something new I did wrong.

Oh well. Keep swimming.

[jztemple2]

I've decided that after putting in 54 hours on the game I'm going to hold off playing for awhile. One, because Far Cry 5 is coming out Tuesday and since there's only three weeks left in the tax season I have to get as much of it done during that time. And two, I've been seduced by the promise of all that upcoming free content. I'm especially interested in seeing how the developers handle the Passages concept; for me the game was quite playable without it, so do they just make passages be a slight or moderate help, or do they throw in the towel and essentially allow you to fill one dome with services and then surround it with word and residence domes?

[Lorini]

It's always hard for me to play a game when I know fixes are coming for outstanding issues.

[LordMortis]

Ditto, but I don't feel like there are issues.

I decided to play the sampler this weekend. I've tried to start all but the religious and Russians so far on varying maps. The play style for the opening game is different each time. I appreciate that, though I imagine the game, as it stands is get to self sufficiency and then it all plays the same.

Though.... From the sound of it, there are different evaluations, though I've only seen one, the tech one, and I've still not gone to SOL 100 to see it though and there are different mysteries, of which I've only seen one. So at the moment there are still some legs for me.

I usually have a hard time playing when a game is not content complete. Knowing this game has "a subscription", it won't be content complete for some time, but I'm still enjoying it.

[jztemple2]

It's always hard for me to play a game when I know fixes are coming for outstanding issues.

I don't think these are outstanding issues to be fixed as much as enchantments being added. The UI isn't great, but it's quite serviceable. There is a micromanagement challenge but this occurs later in the game in large colonies but having enough shuttles mitigates it a lot. And I still contend that the passages concept, to allow colonists to travel between domes to get service or work or live, is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist; I've had a colony get up to almost 1900 people without it.

There are some mods that make things a bit better:

• Info Bar
• Show Research Progress on HUD
• Mod Config, works with above
• Low Resource Warning
• Research Autorepeat
• Better Zoom Distance (30K)
• Drones Fix Leaks Faster
• Colonists Can Live Outside Longer
• Show Resources on Resupply Screen

[LordMortis]

And I still contend that the passages concept, to allow colonists to travel between domes to get service or work or live, is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist;

Agreed. It only becomes a problem if the game becomes a lot more complex and servicing complex the needs becomes a distraction instead of a choice.

[Lorini]

OK I'll go back to it, I trust you folks. There's so much hate on the game I guess it infected me unintentionally

[jztemple2]

This is interesting, from over on Reddit, The stats for all 50901 possible start locations, so you can find the perfect new home! I linked to the subtopic, but if you click the title there it will open a Google Docs spreadsheet with apparently all the starting locations. Note that on the spreadsheet, if you scroll down a lot, you'll have to wait for the data to load. It is sorted by the ratio of threats to resources.

[LordMortis]

As it stands, the only negative thing I have to say is the core of the game is learning how to become self sufficient. It is interesting that it's different for each interest. It is interesting that there are mysteries for which I know just about nothing. From the sound of it, there may be different evaluations, but the core of the game is always become self sufficient which is limited. Sandboxes quickly become boring to me. As if the enjoyment of the game is learning how to play it and once you've learned the game well enough to play it, there is no point in playing.

I like the take, I hope it gets better with time. In it's present shape, it's no Children of the Nile or my all time favorite, Tropico II.

Edit, jz snuck in. That was in response Lorini

To jz, neat! I've has some fun with varying relatively flat areas, but that's all I've really played in. I may trying other terrain types later. I've varied on the resources and disasters a bit, but I don't gimp myself to hard.

[jztemple2]

OK I'll go back to it, I trust you folks. There's so much hate on the game I guess it infected me unintentionally

I think a lot of people had in their minds that this was going to be a straightforward city builder on Mars, me included, based on the title of the thread (which I gave it and am fixing now ) which implied a less challenging game.

The new title of the thread is now Surviving Mars - Start a Colony on Mars, from Haemimont Games/Paradox Interactive

[jztemple2]

Saw this on Facebook, I think it's time to get some drones into action!

[jztemple2]

Oops, sorry for posting again, but Waywocket just posted another one of his brilliant mods to the Workshop: Show Resources on Resupply Screen

Shows your current resource inventory when on the cargo resupply screen, to make it easier to know what you need to order.

Attention: I couldn't find a tidy way to do this, so it involves a fair bit of digging around in the internals of the resupply screen. This means there's a good chance it won't be compatible with any other mods that alter this screen, and may not work with mods that add additional resources that could be in the list. My hope is that this functionality will be included in the base game before that becomes an issue.

[LordMortis]

nice!

[naednek]

yes! that's actually helpful. They should just list all your resources on top of the screen at all times.

[jztemple2]

yes! that's actually helpful. They should just list all your resources on top of the screen at all times.

There's a mod for that, top item in the list below of mods I'm currently using:

• Info Bar
• Show Research Progress on HUD
• Mod Config, works with the two mods above
• Low Resource Warning
• Research Autorepeat
• Better Zoom Distance (30K)
• Show Resources on Resupply Screen
• Drones Fix Leaks Faster
• Colonists Can Live Outside Longer

The bottom two could be considered "cheats", although I consider them tweaks. The rest are UI fixes.

[jztemple2]

Found another interesting mod, AutoGatherTransport

Idle RC Transports automatically gather resources scattered around the surface and bring them back to the closest Universal Storage location as well as automatically recharging from a nearby Power Cable. Such resources are Metal and Polymer surface deposits revealed by surface scanning. The transporter will not pick up other forms of resources dumped on the surface automatically.

The Transporter's Info Panel features an "Auto Gather" section that can be toggled on. Transporters will automatically use tunnels and should not get stuck on ledges/canyons anymore.

If ModConfig is installed, the status notifications can be disabled in the Mod Config Menu.

Notes:
- The Transports dump their gathered resources near the Universal Storage instead of into them because I wasn't able to prevent the popup of the "Select resource to unload" dialog.
- I made this mod to avoid trying to click on every rock to see if it is a resource deposit or not. Some maps have large amounts of such deposits scattered all around.

[jztemple2]

The same author, akarnokd, had two more mods I liked and have added, and a couple more I might add. I'll just list the links and let folks check them out on their own:

AutoHelpRover

RC Rovers will automatically look for malfunctioning or out of battery rovers (such as Explorers, Transporters or other Rovers) and rescue them, while keeping themselves charged. If currently not rescuing, they are ordered back to the nearest Power Cable for recharging and/or safekeeping.

The Rover's Info Panel features an "Auto Help" section that can be toggled on.

If ModConfig is installed, the status notifications can be disabled in the Mod Config Menu.

AutoExplore

Idle RC Explorers automatically move to discovered anomalies and research them. In addition, when they get below 60% of battery and are also idle, they go to the nearest Power Cable to recharge, making sure there is plenty of power in case the next anomaly is a bit further away.

The Explorer's Info Panel features an "Auto Explore" section that can be toggled on.

If ModConfig is installed, the status notifications can be disabled in the Mod Config Menu.

The rover doesn't try to get to unreachable anomalies anymore and contains some elaborate custom path management so that it uses tunnels to get to its destination across maps and zones.

[jztemple2]

Sol 13 at my latest Mars colony, sponsored by the USA at 140% difficulty. I got a hint from someone a while ago who suggested running the pipes in a loop so that if you have a link or a meteor hit you can isolate that one issue and still keep the rest of the loop active.



You know I should be playing Far Cry 5...