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

If it's a video game it goes here.

Moderators: LawBeefaroni, Arcanis, $iljanus

Post Reply
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

Got a great breakthrough, Extractor AI, Metals Extractors and Rare Metals Extractors can work without crews at 50 performance. And that's 50 performance on all three shifts, so not too much of a disadvantage. Suddenly all those Rare Metals sources that were needed a nearby dome to exploit now just need a power cable and some drones. Now I'm rolling in rare metals.

And I now have a four-plex of domes, two with two connections and two with three:

Image


And the northernmost is a real tight squeeze with three passageways in one sector:

Image
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

New details on the upcoming Curiosity Update coming sometime next week, developer diary here


New Domes
Image
Curiosity introduces five new Dome types to the game. These are not skins or variants of the old Domes, but entirely new models with new shapes, functionality and costs. With one exception, they do not require new techs to be researched. Each of them is unlocked together with one of the old Domes, potentially by an existing tech. This means that many of them may be directly available even when you load a savegame created before the Curiosity update.
  • Micro Dome - a very cheap triangular Dome available at the start. No capability to host a Spire. Can be very useful when space or resources are limited or as an extension to an existing Dome when connected with passages.
  • Barrel Dome - an alternative to the Small Dome, available at the start. It provides more usable space but has no capability to host a Spire.
  • Trigon Dome - similar to the Medium Dome and made available at the same time. Cheaper to build, but provides less habitable space.
  • Mega Trigon Dome - similar to the Large Dome and made available at the same time. Cheaper to build, but provides less habitable space. The triangular shape can be kinda tricky to position on some places of the map with a Dome that big.
  • Diamond Dome - this is the only new design that requires a new tech, more specifically a breakthrough, so it will not be available in every playthrough. It is a rhombus-shaped Dome that has the capability to host two spires. We want to keep the "two spire" Dome configurations special and somewhat exclusive but with the new design, we are increasing the chance that you get at least one of the two available configurations during any of your games.
Command Center
Image
The Command Center is a handy new toolset that provides historical data for the colony and the ability to inspect and manage multiple buildings, colonists or vehicles without selecting them individually. It has been developed as part of our effort to reduce the micromanagement and to provide a more informative overview interface for certain gameplay aspects. The Command Center currently offers five different tools:
  • Graphs - view historical data for various colony metrics for the last 50 Sols
  • Buildings - inspect and manage buildings, work shifts, workers and upgrades
  • Domes - inspect and manage Domes and Dome Policies. Check average dome stats, as well as homes and jobs at a glance.
  • Colonists - inspect Colonists and compare their stats, traits and interests. Locate problematic colonists quickly.
  • Transportation - inspect and manage Drones, Shuttles and Transporters. Check Drone/Shuttle load at a glance and reassign Drones without hunting individual controllers in the normal view
Buildings and Colonists can be filtered by various criteria. If you want to upgrade only some of the extractors in the colony, you can filter out all extractors, quickly check them out in the view on the left side of the screen and upgrade only the ones that you want, all without closing the Command Center. You can use combinations of filters as well - for example, to hunt down all problematic colonists that live in a particular Dome.

The Command Center has been integrated with other existing game interfaces such as the Colony Overview and the Dome Filter - double-clicking a trait in the Dome Filter will open the Center filtering Colonists with this trait in the specified Dome. We plan to keep improving the Command Center and adding new options to it in the future, so any suggestions are welcome. Once the update goes live, please share what kind of information or management tools would you like to see added down the road!
Info Bar
Image
I've said it before, but it bears repeating - I love mods! Not only they empower the players to expand the game and make it cooler, but we can also cherry pick the ideas that we like best and shamelessly add them to the official game.

One such mod that has been particularly popular both with the community and here, at Haemimont Games, is the Info Bar mod, created by Waywocket. We liked Waywockets' info bar so much that we decided to add an Info Bar of our own to the game. As you can see in the screenshot, our Info Bar shows research progress but is otherwise very similar to the mod that inspired it. Thanks for the great idea, Waywocket, may your nickname live forever in our credits!
Tutorial

Until now I talked about the stuff I love - Domes, Mods and cool management interfaces. Let me tell you about the feature that almost every developer hates - the tutorial. Tutorials are notoriously hard to develop and maintain, and even a very good tutorial is often perceived as some kind of obstacle before the actual game experience. Still, tutorials may be necessary, as we learned the hard way with the launch of Surviving Mars. The feedback of many new players can be summed up by one simple sentence - "How do I play this game?"

Creating a tutorial after release may seem like a waste of effort, but we really want to make our game more welcoming to newcomers and we see this tutorial as very important for the future health of Surviving Mars. So we drew straws and my unlucky colleague Boyan was chosen to design and produce a comprehensive tutorial to be created by a pack of grumpy programmers (like wizards, programmers tend to be grumpy, but the ones working on tutorials are particularly so). Turns out Boyan took "comprehensive" a little too literally, so we now have a huge five-part monster of a tutorial on our hands. He is still recovering from the development of the damn thing, but we are quite happy with the result! It will certainly be helpful to newcomers, even if most of the existing players would never need it.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

Oops, forgot to post that the above mentioned Curiosity Update has been released. It has...

Also, released today, is the free Surviving Mars: Mysteries Resupply Pack with three new, free, mysteries:
• St. Elmo's Fire - Colonists find it hard to get a good night’s sleep, especially when mysterious lights begin appearing where they have no reason to be. What is causing these unexpected apparitions and is it connected to the confusing changes in the water supply?

• The Philosopher's Stone - Encounter beings that are a far cry from the fleshy bags we call carbon-based life when the colony stumbles upon entirely crystalline entities. Are they here to be of assistance or only out to protect the family jewels?

• Metatron - Colonists look to the sky agape as a great floating monolith has parked itself directly above your fledgling colony. Does it come in peace or is it even sentient? Either way, it is certainly blocking the views from the dome!
Also the base game and the other DLC are on sale starting today for a few days.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Kraken
Posts: 43688
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:59 pm
Location: The Hub of the Universe
Contact:

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

Post by Kraken »

Wow, that's spendy. If one wanted to jump into this game -- which has passed the forum test -- would one be advised to get the basic game, the Digital Deluxe, or the First Colony Edition?

I finished Tropico 5 and am halfway through replaying T4, and I might still have a citybuilder itch to scratch when I'm done with that.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

Kraken wrote: Tue Jun 12, 2018 5:16 pm Wow, that's spendy. If one wanted to jump into this game -- which has passed the forum test -- would one be advised to get the basic game, the Digital Deluxe, or the First Colony Edition?
I'd just suggest the base game. I got the Digital Deluxe version and there's really not much content there, just skins, icons, the art book and a radio station. There are much better radio stations out there in the Workshop. I wouldn't bother with the First Colony Edition as it just adds the Season Pass and so far the devs haven't announced the specifics of the post release paid content or the schedule. If you buy the the Season Pass later on it's only going to be a few bucks anyway.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

News on the upcoming Da Vinci update

Greetings from the red planet! Our Dev Diaries are back, and we have a new free update coming out hot from the pipeline for you. Codename: Da Vinci. That's right - we changed our naming convention because we were starting to run out of Mars missions and we are planning to support Surviving Mars for a good long while. From now on we are naming updates after great persons such as scientists and space explorers. The reason we chose Leonardo as our patron is that he seems like the best fit for the major feature of this patch - Creative Mode.

Get Creative!
Existing on the edge between two genres, Surviving Mars tends to attract both players that like survival games and players that like base/city building. While these two gameplay aspects usually work in harmony, sometimes they can step on each other's toes. Since day one we received many requests for some kind of more relaxed game experience with a focus on city-building and aesthetics, instead of survival. Sometimes you may want to quickly create a huge colony for an awesome timelapse video, to experiment with different base setups or just to experience the mysteries without worrying about pesky survival threats.

Creative mode offers this and more! It is implemented as a set of eight new game rules:

Easy Maintenance - buildings never malfunction due to lack of maintenance
Easy Research - the tech tree is revealed, and base research is greatly increased
Fast Rockets - rockets travel ten times faster
Fast Scanning - sector scanning is much faster
Free Construction - buildings don't require resources to be constructed
Iron Colonists - Health and Sanity can't be lowered below 50 and Colonists never become Earth sick. There is no Founder stage
More Applicants - start with 500 additional applicants
Overfunded - start with $100,000M additional funding

Starting a game in creative mode will activate all of these rules, but they can also be used individually and are combined with other rules and game sponsors normally. Note that while many bad consequences do not happen in creative mode, the game mechanics still function "under the hood" so it can be useful for experimentation and learning. For example, when you want to check if a particular base setup is self-sufficient - if any resource stays low, this Colony will probably struggle without help from Earth in a normal game. And if you have Colonists at 50 Health or Sanity, they would probably be under the risk of dying or having a breakdown in a normal game.

Creative Mode can be a great way to explore the game mechanics and learn the ropes in a relatively safe environment. Since many achievements are trivialised by the significantly reduced threats, activating some of the new game rules disables achievements for the playthrough.

Storage Management
We improved the controls for managing resources and storage buildings. You can now set a custom Desired Amount for resources in any particular storage. Drones and shuttles will try to maintain the desired amount as a reserve in each storage building (or all allowed resources in case of Universal Depots). This can really improve the efficiency of large colonies and is very useful both when planning a large project and when you know that a particular resource is often needed at a particular location in the colony, but gets there late due to logistic issues.

We were never entirely happy with the controls for customising types of resources stored in Universal Depots - it was too obscure and even experienced players often failed to notice it without being pointed there explicitly. We revamped these controls in Da Vinci, making them more visible and easy to use.

Power Connectivity
Prior Da Vinci, each building, had to be connected to the electrical grid with an individual Power cable. Our reasoning behind this decision was that we wanted to make the Power infrastructure more visible and complex to manage. Still, it proved to be more "complicated" than "complex" and too different from the expected practices for a city-building game.

This is why we are changing Power connectivity in Da Vinci, allowing each power producer or consumer to connect to the electrical grid automatically when placed adjacent to another building of the grid. Power cables are still used to extend the grid, but individual connections are not required for each structure.

Follow Camera
The follow camera is a minor feature, but I feel it deserves its own highlight in the dev diary because it was requested often. It can be activated for any Drone, Rover, Colonist or Shuttle. The camera tracks the movement of the selected unit and has no effect on gameplay but can be useful to create some nice close-up footage of your colony. It also gives you another way to enjoy all the little details in your colony. Last but not least, following shuttles around feels pretty rad!

Patch Highlights
Here are some highlights from the new free update:

Pacing - increased drone speed, reduced building costs, reduced rocket and shuttle fuel consumption and adding a Stirling Generator to the starting setup all contribute to a more dynamic gameplay experience and less downtime.

Survival - Health and Sanity threats from disasters have been increased and are now randomized per colonist - you should expect more deaths and mental breakdowns when things go bad. Pipe Leaks and Cable Faults now only happen because of disasters, increasing the demand on your grid during Dust Storms. Solar Panels now don't work at all during a Dust Storm.

Quality of Life - You can now cycle between the unemployed, homeless, free residences and free work slots by clicking on the corresponding icon in the Infobar. Turning off a Dome manually now automatically turns off all buildings within, conserving power and resources. Placing a construction outside drone commander range is now indicated more prominently. Several on-screen notifications about colony problems have been improved.

What do you think about the new changes? Where would you like to go from here? Keep the feedback coming - we are listening!

p.s. The new Patch is coming (very) soon, so keep an eye out for the Patch Notes!
I like the new Power Connectivity and Storage Management changes. Also removing random pipe leaks and cable faults is good, they never were more than a nuisance. I might just uninstall all my mods and see how the game now plays without them.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

The Da Vinci update has been released. Check the link for the full patch notes.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Sepiche
Posts: 8112
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:00 pm
Location: Olathe, KS

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

Post by Sepiche »

I'm enjoying the new update. It's not a ton faster than before, but things do progress more swiftly, and it's nice to not have the constant cable faults, although the breakthroughs for no fault cables and pipes seem pretty lackluster now.

I'm playing as the Chinese whose achievement is to have 200 people before Sol 100. I'm currently sitting at 194 colonists on Sol 41. 8-)
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

The new DLC is coming next week, November 15th. Here's the trailer.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Sepiche
Posts: 8112
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:00 pm
Location: Olathe, KS

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

Post by Sepiche »

jztemple2 wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:12 pm The new DLC is coming next week, November 15th. Here's the trailer.
Looking forward to it. Not sure why exactly, but this is a builder I enjoy coming back to every now and again, and I'm happy to see they're continuing to put out new content for it.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70098
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

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

Post by LordMortis »

Remind me to wishlist this so I can watch for sales. I haven't touched this game since before Curiosity. Also am I reading correctly, they're charging $20 for 25 additional building skins? The Paradox model make it hard for me to be a fan and yet, I buy more Paradox games than any other.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

OK, here's a treat, Dev Diary - Space Race by Boyan Ivanov from Haemimont Games. It's a well illustrated post by one of the devs that details the new content coming with the paid Space Race DLC and the free content that's part of the Gagarin patch, which you can read about in more detail here: Surviving Mars – Gagarin Free Update Patch Notes for all platforms.

Image
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

Ah, this seems weird, but it also seems to be a good deal. The Surviving Mars: Space Race Plus bundle is offering all three new DLC, Surviving Mars: Colony Design Set, Surviving Mars: Marsvision Song Contest, and Surviving Mars: Space Race for $17.99 USD. Now Space Race by itself on Steam is $11.69 USD (10% off as a pre-order purchase). So for $6.30 you get two more DLC. Those other DLC have no price right now on their separate pages, although the bundle says that each is $64.99 :shock: which must be an error. Anyway, it's up to you to decide whether getting a new radio station and new skins for a bunch of buildings is worth $6.30 USD more. Just wanted to let people know.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70098
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

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

Post by LordMortis »

Unless they re-evaluated the list price for the colony set was $19.99 on the 7th. That was a serious turn off for me. Either it was a typo or they had a serious re-evaluation

https://www.paradoxplaza.com/surviving- ... ASTER.html

The song DLC is now 3.99
The Colony DLC is now 4.99

I still wouldn't do it, but at least I'm not in sticker shock about the future of the game.

The $64 you see must reflect the pricing I saw on the 7th.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

I wasn't really interested in the song DLC but I like the new building skins for breaking up the monotony. And I'm a sucker regarding DLC, on most games I pass on getting any, but if I'm going to get some I'll probably just get a bundle deal :roll:
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Sepiche
Posts: 8112
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:00 pm
Location: Olathe, KS

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

Post by Sepiche »

I have this, Crusader Kings, and Fallout 76 to play tonight. Someone needs to tell Paradox to cool it. Next thing they're going to do is tell me the Stellaris expansion is out tomorrow. :P
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

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

Post by Daehawk »

Big sale on it today for Cyber Monday. Game is $20. Dont let the $7 price at the top fool ya thats the upgrade pack. More on sale there too.

https://www.paradoxplaza.com/surviving- ... 126_blafri
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

Announcement on a new DLC, Surviving Mars Green Planet

My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Sepiche
Posts: 8112
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:00 pm
Location: Olathe, KS

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

Post by Sepiche »

Will wait to hear the details, but sounds good to me. The end game always feels like you just kind of run out of stuff to do, so having to terraform Mars would be a great way to extend the game.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

And besides the upcoming DLC, there will be new content via the free Armstrong patch,
We’re back with another dev diary for Green Planet. Today we will be discussing the awesome free update, which is going to be released together with Green Planet and Project Laika DLCs. We’ve added a bunch of new content and Quality of Life improvements in this update, the most notable new feature being landscaping. All owners of Surviving Mars will get new Special Projects, events, research UI, multiselect, rover orders queue, and new buildings as well.
Check out the linked article, there's a lot of content there.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

OK, so the new DLCs Green Planet and Project Laika have been released, along with the free Armstrong patch.

For a quick (two and a half minute) video of how the Green Planet DLC works, look below:


I've got a few hours into a new playthrough of the game using both DLCs. There are quite a few changes to be seen in the gameplay, like the ability to level terrain which gives you more options on positioning domes for instance. The whole terraforming routine is a bit further down the line for me as I'm just trying to get a couple of domes occupied without killing everyone. Overall though these are some pretty interesting changes, especially how they will change the end game.

For info on all the changes, including links to the developer diaries, check out this news release.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Sepiche
Posts: 8112
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:00 pm
Location: Olathe, KS

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

Post by Sepiche »

I'm liking the changes so far. As mentioned, the landscaping changes I hadn't heard about, but are really sort of game changing in terms of being able to utilize land much better.

Previously you could be, not exactly screwed, but punished if you picked a location for your colony with a lot of terrain features that weren't completely obvious, but blocked you from building over them. Now it takes time, and potentially a lot of waste rock, but you can slowly use dozers to level out terrain including cliffs and rocks. Really makes for a much more cohesive colony once you're done.

I also like that from the beginning, or at least near it, you have access to the terraforming tech, and can start making progress with that. The greening of Mars is exactly what this game needed: something to make the mid to late game more interesting.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70098
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

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

Post by LordMortis »

So Green planet and Liaka is $25.98?
The season pass which includes those two and the Space race and something else is $23.44
First colony Edition insludes all that the Deluxe uprade and the original game (which I won't get a second copy of ) for $22.09

Steam and Paradox, you guys are nuts. So here I am buying the First Colony edition and hoping it is as advertised.

I suppose it's good I never bought any of the DLC before.

...

Yep. That's exactly what happened.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

I passed on the Season Pass early on, buying individual DLC, then decided to just get the Pass in case they decided to add some unannounced goodies.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
Stefan Stirzaker
Posts: 1136
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:12 pm
Location: Australia

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

Post by Stefan Stirzaker »

Looks interesting and fun but not sure if i want to basically buy the game again. :( I already upgraded to deluxe edition but now I either have to buy the same thing again or miss out. No upgrade from deluxe to first colony it seems
User avatar
Sepiche
Posts: 8112
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:00 pm
Location: Olathe, KS

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

Post by Sepiche »

Stefan Stirzaker wrote: Sat May 18, 2019 9:16 pm Looks interesting and fun but not sure if i want to basically buy the game again. :( I already upgraded to deluxe edition but now I either have to buy the same thing again or miss out. No upgrade from deluxe to first colony it seems
It's worth waiting for and getting on sale sometime. Terraforming really completes the game IMHO.
User avatar
Lordnine
Posts: 6034
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 1:09 pm
Location: Burlington, VT

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

Post by Lordnine »

I picked this up this weekend. Really enjoying it so far. I didn’t play before terraforming was a thing but for me at least I love it as a overall goal to work towards. Currently I have a whole 1% of the planet terraformed! This mostly just means I have lichen growing over the majority of my starting area. :D
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70098
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

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

Post by LordMortis »

It rained most of the weekend so my scheduled yard work was replaced with a lot of time re-familiarizing myself with this game after what appeared to be about 18 months of not playing. The $24ish I spent really changed the game a lot. I picked up where I left off achievement hunting for purpose. I was on SpaceY doing the Sphere mystery and I get a few hours in to the game and see that there are new achievements and that I need to play on 500% difficulty to get the full SpaceY goal and I start over. I play with the settings changes and while I'm at it, I add "Chaos technology".

I start with the repeatable social tech for 1000 research that grants me $2B. :shock:

I haven't yet terraformed yet and I haven't played with competing players yet. There should be another $25 worth of game for me here. I will eventually see what ally'all mean by terraforming adding more to the game.

I would be annoyed if I were paying full price for each expansion under this model. Although maybe not. If the game had kept me entertained as my main game for the last 18 months, $60 or $70 more in total may not seem like that much.
User avatar
Lordnine
Posts: 6034
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 1:09 pm
Location: Burlington, VT

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

Post by Lordnine »

The terraforming definitely gives me the drive to push myself. It’s hard to achieve, which is something I really like in City Builders. The first time I made it rain felt like a real achievement. It was acid rain and caused colony wide damage but still…. I made it rain on Mars!

Also, it is a small thing but I get a kick out of the fact that the game bothered to include multiple radio stations you can listen to, each with its own DJ. It makes me think of Three Dog from Fallout 3. I just wish they had included a little bit more banter to go with the music, maybe some event specific dialogue.
User avatar
Sepiche
Posts: 8112
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:00 pm
Location: Olathe, KS

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

Post by Sepiche »

Yeah, this has really gone from a pretty good city builder to a great one with the expansions, especially terraforming.

It does something that it very hard in terms of builder game design in that it's fairly challenging most of the way through the game. Even in the mid and late game it's often a struggle to keep a balance of enough people to produce all the food and resources you need, and keep those people happy, healthy, and productive.

I just passed Sol 100 in my game as the new terraforming faction. I built a number of lakes and just got the temperature up enough that they unfroze, and I'm getting very close to being able to start planting grass, but I'm also dealing with one of the major events that's randomly shooting EMPs at my colony while a dust storm is fast approaching.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70098
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

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

Post by LordMortis »

27 Sols in on 500% difficulty for a SpaceY achievement. I have had 3 years of meteor showers, 3 years of dust storm, and 5 years of cold snap. It's a good thing the game isn't timed, though my mystery might be.

I don't remember dust storms being so brutal 18 months ago. When it hit, I basically just stopped everything but trying to keep up with fixing stuff until it passed.

I have warmed the planet to 4% of of the goal temp and seeding clouds is my text research.

With the expansions this might very well be the next city builder for me after Pharaoh. I won't know until I'm deep in the game but this feels like it hit a sweet magic spot that just about every city builder misses.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

I had started a new game with the Green Planet DLC, but felt a bit burned out after a while since in the early stages the gameplay is so much like every other colony I've started. However, after reading the new postings here I've picked it back up and am going to try to complete terraforming at least once.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Lordnine
Posts: 6034
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 1:09 pm
Location: Burlington, VT

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

Post by Lordnine »

My colony is finally recovering! For a while my population just collapsed and low morale led to over 20 people committing suicide which in turn meant another large chunk of my population started starving to death. It took about 30 Sols to get that straightened out but things have finally stabilized. Just got this achievement which felt pretty good!

Enlarge Image
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

Lordnine wrote: Wed May 22, 2019 10:20 pm My colony is finally recovering! For a while my population just collapsed and low morale led to over 20 people committing suicide which in turn meant another large chunk of my population started starving to death. It took about 30 Sols to get that straightened out but things have finally stabilized. Just got this achievement which felt pretty good!

Enlarge Image
Pretty awesome! How do you raise the Atmosphere rating (the cloud symbol)?

I'm giving up on my current playthrough. I'm still very bad at overbuilding items that consume electronics, machine parts and polymers for maintenance and ended up spending every penny from my rare metal shipments on those three. What I need to do is really stick to minimums, especially in providing services for my colonists early on. In my death spiral colony I had an art store and a game store, both of which just eat up resources. So I'm going to start another colony and maybe give myself a break and make it a bit easier.

This is probably a dome or two too many early on...
Image
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Lordnine
Posts: 6034
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 1:09 pm
Location: Burlington, VT

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

Post by Lordnine »

Most of my atmosphere early on came from doing the global space missions to collect CO2 from earth. A carbonate processor is the main way to get the cloud coverage though. It burns waste rock. My colony is significantly messier than yours.

Enlarge Image

I also built a lake.

Enlarge Image

A warning though, this thing is what initially tanked my colony as it requires an obscene amount of water to keep full.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

Water? Tell me about it :D. I've started that new colony. There is a small plateau about maybe a sixth of the map, but there are two rare metal deposits almost on top of each other. So I landed there. Problem is, there's little concrete, so I had to build a new Drone Hub just to get concrete from further away. My sponsor is China so somehow I ended up with seven Moisture Vaporators, which is good because there is no water. Oh, and something else. Every other colony I've started there has been plenty of Metals on the ground that my drones and transport could pick up. But not here on the plateau, there is almost none. I'm having to actually bring in metals from Earth :shock:. I have found a metals deposit, but it is so far away I'm having to build a new standalone dome there, using the new (in the patch) pre-fab Basic Dome. I'd build a pipeline back to my original dome, but hey, no metal :doh:. Luckily having the China sponsor means I get 22 colonists on one flight, so that should help.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Lordnine
Posts: 6034
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 1:09 pm
Location: Burlington, VT

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

Post by Lordnine »

Maybe invest in the air transport facilities if you have metal elsewhere on the planet?

Metals were a major problem for me as well until I got the automated upgrade. Now I don’t need to worry about building mine close to a dome as they produce a small amount of metal even when unmanned.

Concrete is the one thing I have never had to worry about. There was two concrete depos right near where I started. I ended up with so much of it stored that I actually had them turned off for like 100 sols and have just been running off the stored amount.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

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

Post by jztemple2 »

Lordnine wrote: Thu May 23, 2019 11:11 am Maybe invest in the air transport facilities if you have metal elsewhere on the planet?
Of course air transport makes it all easier but I haven't unlocked that yet. Right now I have a chain of depots for the drones to carry the metal back. And my north dome is out of reach of my south dome as far as the colonists walking is concerned, so until I unlock the shuttle hubs I have to pretty much treat them as two separate colonies, although I finally did build a pipeline and cable to connect them.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70098
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

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

Post by LordMortis »

At 27 days in I don't know what's what in in changes since 18 months ago but I swear by Shuttles as a habit from the old game. I push cheap techs as quickly as I can to reveal those shuttles. They move stuff to where it is need so much more intuitively than drones. And that's just the bonus. I do it because

1) They make using Tunnels to extend your build area from a small headache in logistics into a simple drop of one electric wire, one drone hub, one universal depot, send one Drone RC. Forget about it and come back in a few minutes.

2) I like to build domes independent and far from each other. More importantly than moving good back and forth quicker. They move colonists where I need them to be.

In my Chaos game I was beginning to panic that the tree that shows shuttles was going to suck out on me. Every tech reveal was a distraction with little value or no value until prerequisite tech was researched. I think it was about 9 techs deep (6500 research, however deep that is) but I finally got it toward the end of last night. One little hub changes the pace of everything. I'm now finally warranting getting out the valley to set up wind towers and building a third basic dome on metals far away from my first two domes.

I like that you guys are playing with domes other than original ones. I like spires too much to deviate. I hope I don't burn out before I move from "efficient way to 'beat' the game" to "organic way to build a colony that is still very functional"
User avatar
Lordnine
Posts: 6034
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 1:09 pm
Location: Burlington, VT

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

Post by Lordnine »

The cylinder domes are great and probably my favorite outside of the super massive one. The small triangle dome on the other hand was a bit of a disaster for me. When I had colonist living there they all committed suicide because I couldn’t fit enough services inside it. Now it’s probably haunted… The only things I have in it now are farms and a university.

What do the tunnels do exactly? I haven't tried to build them yet.
Post Reply