If it's that much of a problem, you can just turn births off in a dome.
Is there a way to deal with renegades? I've just got the one (who may be feeling slightly annoyed after a meteor landed on his head during his morning commute), I built a security station... and now the renegade is staffing it. Will that neuter him from doing anything bad? Can I fire everyone else from the station and just leave him there, keeping himself from committing crimes?
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
The update added a lot of much needed tools like that and done connections. All I could really want at this point are more detailed population breakdowns and sorting methods.
There's a new update coming tomorrow, apparently.
Including new domes that aren't really domes!
It also includes a Command Centre that gives you more information on your colony. I don't know how it works, but there's graphs! Everyone loves graphs.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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Gennenalyse RuebenThe Prettiest Boy is Ridiculously PrettyRegistered Userregular
The next update's actually out now after a few days of delay! Have fun with graphs!
Also maybe new dome choices, I guess. If you're interested in choice.
Five-part Tutorial - Comprehensive tutorial separated into five thematic sections, introducing the core gameplay concepts in the different stages of Surviving Mars.
New Domes - Curiosity introduces five new Dome types. These are entirely new models with new shapes, functionality and costs. With one exception, they do not require new techs to be researched. The smallest domes do not allow Spire construction
Infobar – Provides general overview of all the resources of the colony, including research progress
Command Center - The Command Center is a handy new UI 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, Buildings, Domes, Colonists, and Transportation.
Important changes and fixes:
- New Game Rule: "Endless Supply" - the first Universal Depot you place will automatically fill with resources each Sol.
- Removed "Request maintenance" button and related functionality
- Vehicle pin icons now indicate battery level
- Added "Home dome" to colonists infopanel
- Updated Mouse pointer/cursor texts for Rovers, drones, and colonists
- Added rollover about colonists to Resource Overview
- Added stored food in service buildings to Resource Overview
- Added ticks to completed mysteries in pre-game menu
- Clicking on the HUD pause button toggles between pause and last used game speed
- More detailed cursor messages when trying (and failing) to place passages and ramps
- Fix for "Reassign all" button to no longer reassign uncontrollable drones (dead, disabled, embarked, rogue)
- Added new photo mode filter, "Orton" - dreamy and saturated
- Added frame rate cap in options
- Fix for reborn colonists (Project Phoenix) to keep their traits, including their specialization
- Fix for biorobots specialization to allow college education
- Ctrl-click on drone prefab buttons converts five drones at a time
- Fix for colonists to properly select new home when current residence is turned off
- Fix for Psychologist commander profile to properly provide 5 Sanity boost
- Added Simplified Chinese language
Other changes and fixes:
UI:
- GDPR-related changes to Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, and in case you have been living on another planet the past two weeks, it is related to the mandatory EU regulation of the same name.
- Fix for Research UI to shield scrolling instead of pressing Outsource or Close buttons
- Controller: Workslot rollover now properly updates after firing a colonist
- Controller: Fix to go back in the Encyclopedia hints section with the "back" button
- Controller: In-game menu now handles safe area margins better
- Photo mode: Hide UI fix
- Fix for Rover infopanel to hide battery when "Rover Command AI" tech is researched
Mysteries:
- Added check to avoid spawning an anomaly inside dome
- Black Cubes: Fix for some remaining single Black Cubes, now properly collected
- Spheres: Fix for wrong positioning of sound sources when Spheres make cold areas
Passages and related issues:
- Fix for Passages and Ramps to return resources when demolished
- Tweaks to job selection logic in the presence of Passages
- Updated dome warning/error messages to work better in the presence of passages
- Fix for Passages to light up only if at least one of the connected domes has power
- Fix for a bug where colonists became suspended in the air and walk in place
Mods:
- Added Building Entrance Path to entities
- Documentation fixes and additional details
- Removed obsolete texture channels from Blender exporter
General fixes:
- Fix for proper calculation of Sponsor effects in launch UI
- Shielded case where it was possible to accept legal agreements while in Steam offline mode
- Fixed certain cases of stuck drones, coming from reporting unreachable destinations
- Colonists can no longer eat from Rockets
- Colonists now wear space suits when exiting Rockets in all cases
- Pathfinding: fixed a bug where passage entrance/exit may be inaccessible
- Fix for missing palette when changing skins during dome placement
- Fix to prevent rovers from going into another rover that is uncontrollable (e.g. broken)
- Fix for Automated mode rockets to wait their inbound cargo to be fully unloaded before taking off
- Fix for Rockets takeoff, happening without refuel
- Fix for proper demolishing of Automated Depots
- Self-maintenance buildings are excluded from maintenance resource overview calculation (caused negative values)
- Drone controller load notification now displayed only for working Drone controllers
- Fix for in-dome sounds to be more prominent when in-dome or when a dome is selected
- Fix for resources not displayed on the construction depot when placing a building on a pile of resources
- Fix for Triboelectric Scrubber to stop resetting its cleaning cycle every time it is selected
- Fix for a pathfinder bug leading to drones stuck near dome entrances
- Fix for better handling of unreachable buildings by drones
- Drone reassignment and packing/unpacking streamlined; added to RC Rovers and their infopanels
- Malfunctioned and dead rovers block other units' movement
- Fix for anomalies and surface deposits which blocked constructions around them in a too wide radius
- Fix for assigning of workplace/residence with right-click
- Fix for colonists to stop going outside domes when food depots are empty
- Fix for drones getting stuck in Rockets in some rare circumstances (yet again)
- Fix for flickering elements of construction hex grid
- Fix for meteor cycle button notification
- Fix for the negative resource amounts in depots
- Fix for a water production bug happening when upgrading a Water Extractor with Fueled Extractors
- Fix for proper effect of Storage Compression tech for water tanks
- Numerous fixes for to RC Transport right-click actions
- Fix for negative water consumption of farms in certain cases
- Fix for Dome working state leading to "x" icon on Dome pin
- Fix for yellow grid appearing under domes
- Fix for Rocket alignment when landing
- Fixed a Rocket launch condition which led to take off in automated mode during dust storms
- Fix for misaligned cranes when rotating mechanized storage depots
- Fix for a non-refreshing infopanel re. electricity
- Clicking the Hints button now opens the Encyclopedia on the last dismissed hint
- Fix for colonists to look for workplace considering specialist filtering
- Gamepad: "Invert look" option now properly applies to zooming in and out
- Fixed scaling of Space Elevator rope
- Fixed missing launcher icon on some Linux installations
- Fix for mod radio stations to work properly on some Linux installations
- Fixed double click on Linux
- General performance improvements
- Sound fixes and improvements
But some people are saying they're getting a crash from the title screen. A hotfix is being worked on, but apparently you can avoid it if you start Steam in Offline Mode? Do they mean Steam or the game? Either way, I'm just going to avoid it until it's patched.
I held off long enough to pick this up during the sale. Gave it a good play last night and wow! The tutorials do not prepare you for how slow the tech crawl is at all.
I’m trying to get fully self sufficient, but don’t have all the techs I need. I’m still having to fly in electronic parts. I also started on a map with no water deposits close by, so I have approximately a gazillion vaporators.
It’s pretty and I like it. Any tips for managing dome inhabitants? I notice I have a lot of people not in heir specialty, but I’m missing a lot of tech to build various extractors.
The early tech game can be helped if you prioritise tech for the first dome/passenger rocket.
This is my general early build (up to when I start looking at a second dome):
I generally bring people in on the third rocket (first is basic setup (no RC vehicles, plenty of drones), second brings in a transport and explorer (once you've probably scanned a few sectors to make it worthwhile) and around 30 food.
I build a dome with a living quarters, infirmary, grocer and research lab, then ideally get 8 scientists, 2 medics and 2 other (biologists or engineers for preference, but non-specialists work too).
(As an aside, if you have any genius or celebrity applicants, bring them even if they're the wrong class. You'll find work for them eventually, and the benefits make them worth it)
Setting the lab to be almost fully staffed (with just 2 on the night shift) and overtime during the day will get you up to around 1000 research points per sol, and putting 2 medics in 1-person day shifts on OT keeps everyone's health up as OT brings it down. It should get you through the founder period with a birth after a 3 or 4 sols. With around 40 food, it can last long enough to unlock farms and get them set up with some more people, and apartments to house them.
And obviously anything that boosts research will give you more benefit the earlier you get it.
After that it's more free-form based on what you have and what you need, but the priority is on at least making yourself self-sustaining. Even if you have the wrong specialists, you can at least get factories running (which might be prefabs or homemade, depending on how your research tree turns out) and you can leave electronics longer and rely on imports for a while, as they get more important later on. Until you have a reliable rare metals source, don't both with them.
Factories are also easy to leave on solar power (Machine Parts Factory needs 30 power, but six large solar panels are cheap enough to build/maintain, and it'll be a good while before you should look at a night shift for them).
Metal extraction is a lower priority if you've got a transport, as there's enough surface stuff out there to keep you going for a good while.
Once you've got all that set up you can start on a second dome, and then it's really a matter of expansion of what you have.
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Booted up for the first time in a while to try out the sweet green stuff. Sort of interesting to begin with. I started with Chaos Theory, which completely randomized the tech trees, so the new terraforming techs weren't in the order they probably should be. But I started with a few seeders to get some lichen growing. Good stuff! The new landscaping tools look promising. I've used the flatten feature so far to get rid of some small craters that were in my way.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
The terraforming seems pretty sweet! I didn't spend too long with the game at launch, but having a long term goal to paint everything green is just what I needed.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
The terraforming seems pretty sweet! I didn't spend too long with the game at launch, but having a long term goal to paint everything green is just what I needed.
I've really enjoyed it so far. with it's addition it pretty much moves the mystery to the mid game and heavy duty terraforming to the end game. You can get started with it though pretty early, a few seeders here and there, a bit of temperature modification, things like that.
Gennenalyse RuebenThe Prettiest Boy is Ridiculously PrettyRegistered Userregular
edited May 2019
This is probably the best I've seen terraforming done in a game. Usually it's been either a button you click, extremely fast once you get your tools, or in more Civ-y games, just tile improvements or something. The way they implemented terraforming in this expansion feels like an actual process with weight to it. You have to devote serious resources and a lot of time to actually make a dent in altering the planet.
I've wanted to see terraforming done like this for a long time and it's so satisfying to have it finally implemented like this. Watching the global map slowly shift from a red, barren wasteland with bare wisps of clouds in the sky to something comparable to Earth in blues and greens? Watching your territory slowly but surely get covered in plantlife? Seeing Martian boulders get covered in moss and impact craters covered by a fresh layer of grass? Everything I ever wanted from a game with terraforming in it, and the first time I've seen the process given the heft it deserves.
I got this during the free weekend, have enjoyed it quite a bit.
... so much so that I missed the chance to get the season pass while it was still on sale >_<. So I'm still playing vanilla.
First game was with the default setup (MCI, Rocket scientist) on a map that saw nothing worse than a couple of meteors. But this time I went off the deep end as the New Ark Church on a map that is guaranteed to have crazy stuff happening. Luck out with a super early event (before I even started building my first dome) that got me sponsor research and added the Prefab Spires breakthrough as a research option. Thanks to that and some milestones I was able to have upgraded vaporators and a legit farm for the founders ready when they landed, who were a little peckish thanks to having to wait out a dust storm in orbit. Had to zero out my starting funds though, so not going to feel safe until I get that food production sponsor goal done.
Now that I've missed the free weekend and the sale...
Is this standard open ended city builder, or more like Frostpunk where it's a well disguised time-trial scenarios?
(Nothing against Frostpunk, I dug it)
Most of A with a bit of B. There are these "Mysteries" story chains that start when you are reasonably established which go full-on into the "fi" part of sci-fi, and many of them can have disastrous consequences if they aren't addressed or are failed.
However, the only way the game ends is if all your colonists die. Even in Challenge Mode you can keep playing after it's done, success or failure.
It's also more Frostpunk-y in that not getting resource A in time can quickly lead to everything going to shit, and there is even a Cold Wave disaster that can cause everything to freeze over.
Now that I've missed the free weekend and the sale...
Is this standard open ended city builder, or more like Frostpunk where it's a well disguised time-trial scenarios?
(Nothing against Frostpunk, I dug it)
It's pretty much the former. However, you do get a randomly selected sci fi story/end game in each game that will cause random, sometimes time sensitive, events to happen.
It's ultimately just a series of quests though. I'm pretty sure you can turn it off entirely, and the game doesn't end when you complete the quests. You could also argue they're more mid game than end game now, what with terraforming being around in the newest DLC.
I am having SUCH a good time with this game since all the improvements came out. Playing with Brazil as a Psychiatrist, the no-penalty for connected domes and base sanity recovery is great. Specialized domes is a much better way of doing things than the old days. The planet anomalies and missions, combined with the terraforming system, do a great job of expanding the middle and late game.
The mysteries are still the weakest point of the game, imo. I did the Dredgers in this latest game and it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great, either.
Over 500 colonists living in the geo-dome with 120 residential comfort. Four medium domes surround it. School/playground/university with Sanatorium in the top-left, services w/ medical spire top right, manufacturing/workshops w/ medical spire bottom left, and research/workshops w/ network node top right.
You do have the option to disable mysteries in a game if those random events don't appeal to you.
I had The Last War trigger while I was trying to explore all of the new terraforming content as I try (and largely fail) to keep a self-sustaining colony ticking over.
This $20 on Humble store right now w/ all DLC and season pass. My first mystery challenge: convincing the kids it will be more fun watching Daddy build a colony on Mars than playing a game themselves.
What do you think? Too much? It's too much, isn't it.
On the positive side, I have room to grow.
What I actually need to do is carve out the space for another three cities to make it a proper hexagon, but That's going to be for Colony Are You Kidding Me, which I'll be working on once this one is done.
Steam had this on sale for 20ish dollars with the current dlc, expansion and season pass. I have to say this is rather fun.
-Only issues I ran into was I had to abandoned my first game since I ran into two really obnoxious bugs. First one was I did several landscaping projects (a ramp, filled in some holes and adjusted a cliff side) and everything ran into pathing issues, so I could build stuff on the things I landscaped and had to supply drop an explorer in on one area in order to get access to anomalies. Haven't seen this in my second one, so I'm hoping maybe they had a hot fix in to nix that. Also had an issue where all my drones and colonists apparently hit a massive pathing problem in the original part of my colony, so a ton of building didn't get maintained and people started dying, since the colonists bugged, they could just walk to places that worked and had working stuff.
Only have done two games so far. So don't have a consistent view on mysteries.
First game had the asshole metallic spheres. I'm curious if it's possibly to somewhat farm them. You do have to get rid of all of them to deal with the cold snap, but since I think they only steal energy, it's a fair bit of free resources if that's all they do, even when factoring the costs of decoy buildings and energy buildings. Though I do have to wonder if they have a max number they hit.
My second one was beyond earth. I have a few complaints about this one. First, the supply cost for the various projects seems excessive. Each project requires three supply runs, you have to complete 3 of 4 of them, so just ignore, whichever one you won't do completely. This ends up being a total of 240 electronics for one project, 240 polymers for another, 90 each of polymers, electronics & machine parts and the last being 360 metals IIRC. You have to remember to keep the beyond earth shuttle in orbit, when you can't afford to supply it. Of the four projects, I would say the polymer and metal ones aren't unreasonable. It's a ton of resources but given the rewards (I'll admit, I'm assuming the crop from the polymer one is good, but I suspect it'll be the least taken). The other two seem excessive; especially, the one that needs 240 electronics because that feels like the last resource one can become self-sufficient in and they are expensive to import in or to make. This also comes early enough, where it seems like a player could have an instant project failure because there is no way they are cobbling together all those advanced resources in time. I also have a minor quibble in that I'm not given the option to complete the fourth project as a bonus, I really feel like the rice crop is going to not see a ton of use given the rewards for the other projects (research cost reduction on two trees, 25% boost for fusion reactors and 25% boost for extractors). I'm also on the fence with the repeatable research for it, which goes away upon project completion. I did that one 3 times and opted for the research cost reduction each time, I haven't done the math so this might have been a suboptimal decision. I just feel like this mystery is a touch over tuned and that could come down to just not knowing how much time is left. I guess that's why it can't destroy the colony and why the player gets a reward for each completed project.
complaints are:
-Landscaping is really finicky. I wish we could flatten out individual hexes. I think for colony three, I'll just have my bots flatten out the first few areas before I build anything.
-There seem a be a few techs that are absolutely worthless if one hits a certain breakthroughs. I got the one that makes my fusion reactors not require meatbags and I'm glad I didn't research the one that makes it require less workers. They probably should do a pass and add something very minor to some of these tech choices, so that a breakthrough doesn't render some stuff completely useless. It doesn't even need to be great, a very minor maintenance reduction would be find be that less resources or just takes longer to break. Something where the tech isn't render useless upon getting certain breakthroughs, but also not being good enough to make it a worthwhile choices until the player runs out of other options.
-I'm not going to bother with the micro managing thing that some fall into, but I do wish that colonists would take less time filtering to places with jobs and housing than they currently do. The game also has a real knack for apparently picking a designated dome that just about all the new settlers go to first. ><
I know my second colony is going to be fun times, when I get forever young and start getting better automation because I have a very minor unemployment issue right now and a ton of seniors, so I'll need to make sure to build up more domes and stuff. I'm glad I went with Europe for this one. I can use their special labs to engineer myself out of unemployment for domes that still have housing, while getting research.
Finally fired this up, first run hit a bit of a snag where I've now got ~60 starving people, no metal mines, and all the water pumps / wind generators are broken for want of machine parts I didn't note were required (for the former).
I tried to set up a remote dome to mine some much needed metal and farms, but I'm going to have to set my one transport Rover to shuttle the stuff across the map.
So rather than actually do that or watch them all starve to death, I think I'll just note that little lesson learned and restart. Didn't really have a clear view of material tiers going in that time and went right for luxury metal when I guess I should have been establishing a robust regular metal industry to feed part fabs and aim for a food surplus rather than a delicate balance...
Pretty fun overall, though kind of annoying that certain techs essential to a desired playstyle have to be randomly unlocked to research. I like that I can buy prefabs for most things, but stuff like shuttles don't seem to have a cash-alternative.
Say I have three drone zones (West, Central, East) and two depots (West / East). The C zone overlaps both depots, the E/W zones only encompass one. If W produces Metal and E produces food, what's the best way to ensure that both outer zones have access to both resources?
Asked another way: what's the best way (early on) to ensure depot stocks are balanced across drone-zones?
You click on a depot and tell it how many materials of its type you want stored there as a minimum. So long as drones can pick up from point A and drop off in point B in range they will do so.
If I'm reading that correctly, your west and east drone hubs do not overlap coverage, which means central hub needs to have both W and E's supply depots within range of its drones, which will do all the transporting between depots.
Shuttle depots make long distance hauling (and colonist migration) much, much easier. I wouldn't set up long distance colonies if all you've got to rely on for supplies is a transport rover.
Rich metal deposits are a good early game resource to have if you've made it so your fuel production is self-sufficient (got a water vaporiser hooked up to a fuel refinery for example). That way you have a reliable fuel supply to constantly be shipping a cargo rocket back to Earth full of precious metals to exchange for all of the mechanical parts, polymers and electronics you need to keep afloat until you have established factories of your own.
You click on a depot and tell it how many materials of its type you want stored there as a minimum. So long as drones can pick up from point A and drop off in point B in range they will do so.
If I'm reading that correctly, your west and east drone hubs do not overlap coverage, which means central hub needs to have both W and E's supply depots within range of its drones, which will do all the transporting between depots.
Shuttle depots make long distance hauling (and colonist migration) much, much easier. I wouldn't set up long distance colonies if all you've got to rely on for supplies is a transport rover.
Rich metal deposits are a good early game resource to have if you've made it so your fuel production is self-sufficient (got a water vaporiser hooked up to a fuel refinery for example). That way you have a reliable fuel supply to constantly be shipping a cargo rocket back to Earth full of precious metals to exchange for all of the mechanical parts, polymers and electronics you need to keep afloat until you have established factories of your own.
You click on a depot and tell it how many materials of its type you want stored there as a minimum
Ah! That's exactly what I needed.
I had my fuel production way up, turning out expeditions and same-day returns on my rockets. I started getting in trouble when I didn't realize the GHG incinerators burning off all the excess inexplicably required shitloads power rather than, IDK, producing it. Didn't notice until they drained my (previously) ample battery arrays, spammed large wind power plants to compensate, but then and my emergency part shipments weren't getting where they needed to go and the brownouts continued to snowball.
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
For your regular metal woes, are you using your RC to harvest the dark? Tons of loose metal just laying about.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
You click on a depot and tell it how many materials of its type you want stored there as a minimum. So long as drones can pick up from point A and drop off in point B in range they will do so.
If I'm reading that correctly, your west and east drone hubs do not overlap coverage, which means central hub needs to have both W and E's supply depots within range of its drones, which will do all the transporting between depots.
Shuttle depots make long distance hauling (and colonist migration) much, much easier. I wouldn't set up long distance colonies if all you've got to rely on for supplies is a transport rover.
Rich metal deposits are a good early game resource to have if you've made it so your fuel production is self-sufficient (got a water vaporiser hooked up to a fuel refinery for example). That way you have a reliable fuel supply to constantly be shipping a cargo rocket back to Earth full of precious metals to exchange for all of the mechanical parts, polymers and electronics you need to keep afloat until you have established factories of your own.
You click on a depot and tell it how many materials of its type you want stored there as a minimum
Ah! That's exactly what I needed.
I had my fuel production way up, turning out expeditions and same-day returns on my rockets. I started getting in trouble when I didn't realize the GHG incinerators burning off all the excess inexplicably required shitloads power rather than, IDK, producing it. Didn't notice until they drained my (previously) ample battery arrays, spammed large wind power plants to compensate, but then and my emergency part shipments weren't getting where they needed to go and the brownouts continued to snowball.
You can always turn off buildings if you can't afford to keep them running. You can even set shifts for most of the automated producers to conserve power and resources at certain times of day as well. IIRC they still get damaged and will probably require maintenance if they've been off for more than a couple sols, but at least noone has to freeze to death or starve.
There seem a be a few techs that are absolutely worthless if one hits a certain breakthroughs. I got the one that makes my fusion reactors not require meatbags and I'm glad I didn't research the one that makes it require less workers. They probably should do a pass and add something very minor to some of these tech choices, so that a breakthrough doesn't render some stuff completely useless. It doesn't even need to be great, a very minor maintenance reduction would be find be that less resources or just takes longer to break. Something where the tech isn't render useless upon getting certain breakthroughs, but also not being good enough to make it a worthwhile choices until the player runs out of other options.
-I'm not going to bother with the micro managing thing that some fall into, but I do wish that colonists would take less time filtering to places with jobs and housing than they currently do. The game also has a real knack for apparently picking a designated dome that just about all the new settlers go to first. ><
I know my second colony is going to be fun times, when I get forever young and start getting better automation because I have a very minor unemployment issue right now and a ton of seniors, so I'll need to make sure to build up more domes and stuff. I'm glad I went with Europe for this one. I can use their special labs to engineer myself out of unemployment for domes that still have housing, while getting research.
On Breakthroughs, your example is probably the most egregious one, especially since IIRC the output is better than anything the engineers themselves could do (there is a similar one for service buildings, but at least there people get better comfort when real people are working there) any other breakthrough that makes another tech "useless" does so because they boost something to the point where there is no longer a reason to go another way. (In fact, a complaint about the game balance is that some buildings come off as worthless *unless* you have the breakthrough tech, though in most cases this is because of scrubbers, the Mohole or prefabs.)
On getting colonists where they want to go. You can encourage or kick out any group of colonists (age, specialization and even traits) from domes to try to get them where you need them. *However,* it's best to only encourage colonists to a dome for age or tourisms purposes (so education dome, retirement dome, and tourism* dome) because colonists can keep coming even if there is no home and/or jobs there and they already have both where they are. Discouraging specializations from domes where they aren't needed, however, is a great way to sort them into specialized domes, and discouraging anyone non-specialist to leave the dome where universities are is a good way to get them to immediately leave for where it is you need them.
Finally, one little tip about min/maxing domes; each colonist has a set of comforts based on their specialization and traits that they expect to have access to when they want it or get unhappy thoughts. For example, Geologists want a place to shop, a place to drink and a place to socialize, so you will always need a Spacebar in domes that they are in to keep them as happy as possible. Also keep in mind that unless you get the right breakthrough, colonists need to sleep for at least one shift and prefer to do it at night, so most of your colonists are going to try to fulfill their needs in their off-duty shift during the day. Also also, sometimes the majority of colonists try to fulfill the same need at the same time, leading to some missing out as the buildings fill up and complain that there isn't enough places where they can fulfill X at. This is normal, completely OK, and avoiding it isn't worth the massive amount of infrastructure required to make sure every shift has enough working buildings to support every colonist in the dome potentially going to fulfill the same needs at the same time.
Yeah, I looked at one of the guides and saw the suggestion about how only go with preferences for jobs in domes and don't ban the incorrect specializations. Only ban old people and kids from the domes that are supposed to be productive, but let people not in those groups work those domes so they don't starve to death.
I think in my current game, I'll be fine if I don't get forever young. My pop has snowballed to a point where it's nearly impossible to keep ahead of just massive unemployment and homelessness. So making the 50 some odd olds in my colony productive is more trouble than it's worth. I probably should look at options for pop control because a sixth of my colony is useless snot nosed kids. Clearly, I'm doing a fine enough job of keeping domes really comfy even though people are desperate for jobs and homes . . . it's to the point where even though mars in flames fired off (not sure if the game is bugged because I don't have rivals colonies or if it was because I investigated an abandoned colony and took the breakthrough tech that wasn't very great for me). Anyways, that fired off. Killed 10 colonists and I was like, "whatever, barely point a dent in my unemployment and it'll just bounce back." Game was like "you lost applicants that are vital for the Mars missions," and I was like "um, massive homelessness and unemployment has kept me from accepting earthborn peeps for some time." Then there were the five destroyed buildings and I was like "fuck you game, I'm trying to get homelessness and unemployment done in the low teens instead of over a hundred and having to replace five dome buildings doesn't help!" Clearly, my colony is a model futuristic society with it's unemployment and homelessness issues.
Undertook a massive two dome expansion, which were both targeted by a meteor shower as the new colonists were about to touch down, which was immediately preceded by a deadly virus outbreak in one of the labs.
Lesson learned #2:
Don't go to Mars.
That was a great run up until that Dwarf-Fortress level catastro-FUN.
This is a good game.
I assume I need to find more anomalies to cure Wildfire, but the last wave of space rocks also nailed my RC Explorer juuuust outside drone range.
My last act was dispatching the RC Commander to go fix it, but I'm pretty sure Earth is doomed, because I spent a few years trying to fix all the meteor damage to my central life support systems before I noticed
I guess the real lesson learned here is to keep better tabs on my power usage, and priority settings. Both games seemed to turn on me not noticing that my once ample power reserves were only barely keeping up at night, and the whole system buckling after a sudden massive expansion.
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Is there a way to deal with renegades? I've just got the one (who may be feeling slightly annoyed after a meteor landed on his head during his morning commute), I built a security station... and now the renegade is staffing it. Will that neuter him from doing anything bad? Can I fire everyone else from the station and just leave him there, keeping himself from committing crimes?
Starts up a game immediately
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Including new domes that aren't really domes!
It also includes a Command Centre that gives you more information on your colony. I don't know how it works, but there's graphs! Everyone loves graphs.
Also maybe new dome choices, I guess. If you're interested in choice.
But some people are saying they're getting a crash from the title screen. A hotfix is being worked on, but apparently you can avoid it if you start Steam in Offline Mode? Do they mean Steam or the game? Either way, I'm just going to avoid it until it's patched.
I’m trying to get fully self sufficient, but don’t have all the techs I need. I’m still having to fly in electronic parts. I also started on a map with no water deposits close by, so I have approximately a gazillion vaporators.
It’s pretty and I like it. Any tips for managing dome inhabitants? I notice I have a lot of people not in heir specialty, but I’m missing a lot of tech to build various extractors.
This is my general early build (up to when I start looking at a second dome):
I build a dome with a living quarters, infirmary, grocer and research lab, then ideally get 8 scientists, 2 medics and 2 other (biologists or engineers for preference, but non-specialists work too).
(As an aside, if you have any genius or celebrity applicants, bring them even if they're the wrong class. You'll find work for them eventually, and the benefits make them worth it)
Setting the lab to be almost fully staffed (with just 2 on the night shift) and overtime during the day will get you up to around 1000 research points per sol, and putting 2 medics in 1-person day shifts on OT keeps everyone's health up as OT brings it down. It should get you through the founder period with a birth after a 3 or 4 sols. With around 40 food, it can last long enough to unlock farms and get them set up with some more people, and apartments to house them.
And obviously anything that boosts research will give you more benefit the earlier you get it.
After that it's more free-form based on what you have and what you need, but the priority is on at least making yourself self-sustaining. Even if you have the wrong specialists, you can at least get factories running (which might be prefabs or homemade, depending on how your research tree turns out) and you can leave electronics longer and rely on imports for a while, as they get more important later on. Until you have a reliable rare metals source, don't both with them.
Factories are also easy to leave on solar power (Machine Parts Factory needs 30 power, but six large solar panels are cheap enough to build/maintain, and it'll be a good while before you should look at a night shift for them).
Metal extraction is a lower priority if you've got a transport, as there's enough surface stuff out there to keep you going for a good while.
Once you've got all that set up you can start on a second dome, and then it's really a matter of expansion of what you have.
Starts in about half an hour.
The next big expansion has been announced! This time the focus is on terraforming the planet.
Ironically I've been spending much of what little free time I have in Stellaris. Paradox owns me at this point.
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I've really enjoyed it so far. with it's addition it pretty much moves the mystery to the mid game and heavy duty terraforming to the end game. You can get started with it though pretty early, a few seeders here and there, a bit of temperature modification, things like that.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
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I've wanted to see terraforming done like this for a long time and it's so satisfying to have it finally implemented like this. Watching the global map slowly shift from a red, barren wasteland with bare wisps of clouds in the sky to something comparable to Earth in blues and greens? Watching your territory slowly but surely get covered in plantlife? Seeing Martian boulders get covered in moss and impact craters covered by a fresh layer of grass? Everything I ever wanted from a game with terraforming in it, and the first time I've seen the process given the heft it deserves.
... so much so that I missed the chance to get the season pass while it was still on sale >_<. So I'm still playing vanilla.
First game was with the default setup (MCI, Rocket scientist) on a map that saw nothing worse than a couple of meteors. But this time I went off the deep end as the New Ark Church on a map that is guaranteed to have crazy stuff happening. Luck out with a super early event (before I even started building my first dome) that got me sponsor research and added the Prefab Spires breakthrough as a research option. Thanks to that and some milestones I was able to have upgraded vaporators and a legit farm for the founders ready when they landed, who were a little peckish thanks to having to wait out a dust storm in orbit. Had to zero out my starting funds though, so not going to feel safe until I get that food production sponsor goal done.
Is this standard open ended city builder, or more like Frostpunk where it's a well disguised time-trial scenarios?
(Nothing against Frostpunk, I dug it)
Most of A with a bit of B. There are these "Mysteries" story chains that start when you are reasonably established which go full-on into the "fi" part of sci-fi, and many of them can have disastrous consequences if they aren't addressed or are failed.
However, the only way the game ends is if all your colonists die. Even in Challenge Mode you can keep playing after it's done, success or failure.
It's also more Frostpunk-y in that not getting resource A in time can quickly lead to everything going to shit, and there is even a Cold Wave disaster that can cause everything to freeze over.
The former.
It's pretty much the former. However, you do get a randomly selected sci fi story/end game in each game that will cause random, sometimes time sensitive, events to happen.
It's ultimately just a series of quests though. I'm pretty sure you can turn it off entirely, and the game doesn't end when you complete the quests. You could also argue they're more mid game than end game now, what with terraforming being around in the newest DLC.
Now to wait for another decent sale.
The mysteries are still the weakest point of the game, imo. I did the Dredgers in this latest game and it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great, either.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1749108605
Over 500 colonists living in the geo-dome with 120 residential comfort. Four medium domes surround it. School/playground/university with Sanatorium in the top-left, services w/ medical spire top right, manufacturing/workshops w/ medical spire bottom left, and research/workshops w/ network node top right.
I had The Last War trigger while I was trying to explore all of the new terraforming content as I try (and largely fail) to keep a self-sustaining colony ticking over.
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Well that didn't take long!
This $20 on Humble store right now w/ all DLC and season pass. My first mystery challenge: convincing the kids it will be more fun watching Daddy build a colony on Mars than playing a game themselves.
What do you think? Too much? It's too much, isn't it.
On the positive side, I have room to grow.
What I actually need to do is carve out the space for another three cities to make it a proper hexagon, but That's going to be for Colony Are You Kidding Me, which I'll be working on once this one is done.
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-Only issues I ran into was I had to abandoned my first game since I ran into two really obnoxious bugs. First one was I did several landscaping projects (a ramp, filled in some holes and adjusted a cliff side) and everything ran into pathing issues, so I could build stuff on the things I landscaped and had to supply drop an explorer in on one area in order to get access to anomalies. Haven't seen this in my second one, so I'm hoping maybe they had a hot fix in to nix that. Also had an issue where all my drones and colonists apparently hit a massive pathing problem in the original part of my colony, so a ton of building didn't get maintained and people started dying, since the colonists bugged, they could just walk to places that worked and had working stuff.
Only have done two games so far. So don't have a consistent view on mysteries.
My second one was beyond earth. I have a few complaints about this one. First, the supply cost for the various projects seems excessive. Each project requires three supply runs, you have to complete 3 of 4 of them, so just ignore, whichever one you won't do completely. This ends up being a total of 240 electronics for one project, 240 polymers for another, 90 each of polymers, electronics & machine parts and the last being 360 metals IIRC. You have to remember to keep the beyond earth shuttle in orbit, when you can't afford to supply it. Of the four projects, I would say the polymer and metal ones aren't unreasonable. It's a ton of resources but given the rewards (I'll admit, I'm assuming the crop from the polymer one is good, but I suspect it'll be the least taken). The other two seem excessive; especially, the one that needs 240 electronics because that feels like the last resource one can become self-sufficient in and they are expensive to import in or to make. This also comes early enough, where it seems like a player could have an instant project failure because there is no way they are cobbling together all those advanced resources in time. I also have a minor quibble in that I'm not given the option to complete the fourth project as a bonus, I really feel like the rice crop is going to not see a ton of use given the rewards for the other projects (research cost reduction on two trees, 25% boost for fusion reactors and 25% boost for extractors). I'm also on the fence with the repeatable research for it, which goes away upon project completion. I did that one 3 times and opted for the research cost reduction each time, I haven't done the math so this might have been a suboptimal decision. I just feel like this mystery is a touch over tuned and that could come down to just not knowing how much time is left. I guess that's why it can't destroy the colony and why the player gets a reward for each completed project.
complaints are:
-Landscaping is really finicky. I wish we could flatten out individual hexes. I think for colony three, I'll just have my bots flatten out the first few areas before I build anything.
-There seem a be a few techs that are absolutely worthless if one hits a certain breakthroughs. I got the one that makes my fusion reactors not require meatbags and I'm glad I didn't research the one that makes it require less workers. They probably should do a pass and add something very minor to some of these tech choices, so that a breakthrough doesn't render some stuff completely useless. It doesn't even need to be great, a very minor maintenance reduction would be find be that less resources or just takes longer to break. Something where the tech isn't render useless upon getting certain breakthroughs, but also not being good enough to make it a worthwhile choices until the player runs out of other options.
-I'm not going to bother with the micro managing thing that some fall into, but I do wish that colonists would take less time filtering to places with jobs and housing than they currently do. The game also has a real knack for apparently picking a designated dome that just about all the new settlers go to first. ><
I know my second colony is going to be fun times, when I get forever young and start getting better automation because I have a very minor unemployment issue right now and a ton of seniors, so I'll need to make sure to build up more domes and stuff. I'm glad I went with Europe for this one. I can use their special labs to engineer myself out of unemployment for domes that still have housing, while getting research.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I tried to set up a remote dome to mine some much needed metal and farms, but I'm going to have to set my one transport Rover to shuttle the stuff across the map.
So rather than actually do that or watch them all starve to death, I think I'll just note that little lesson learned and restart. Didn't really have a clear view of material tiers going in that time and went right for luxury metal when I guess I should have been establishing a robust regular metal industry to feed part fabs and aim for a food surplus rather than a delicate balance...
Pretty fun overall, though kind of annoying that certain techs essential to a desired playstyle have to be randomly unlocked to research. I like that I can buy prefabs for most things, but stuff like shuttles don't seem to have a cash-alternative.
Say I have three drone zones (West, Central, East) and two depots (West / East). The C zone overlaps both depots, the E/W zones only encompass one. If W produces Metal and E produces food, what's the best way to ensure that both outer zones have access to both resources?
Asked another way: what's the best way (early on) to ensure depot stocks are balanced across drone-zones?
If I'm reading that correctly, your west and east drone hubs do not overlap coverage, which means central hub needs to have both W and E's supply depots within range of its drones, which will do all the transporting between depots.
Shuttle depots make long distance hauling (and colonist migration) much, much easier. I wouldn't set up long distance colonies if all you've got to rely on for supplies is a transport rover.
Rich metal deposits are a good early game resource to have if you've made it so your fuel production is self-sufficient (got a water vaporiser hooked up to a fuel refinery for example). That way you have a reliable fuel supply to constantly be shipping a cargo rocket back to Earth full of precious metals to exchange for all of the mechanical parts, polymers and electronics you need to keep afloat until you have established factories of your own.
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Ah! That's exactly what I needed.
I had my fuel production way up, turning out expeditions and same-day returns on my rockets. I started getting in trouble when I didn't realize the GHG incinerators burning off all the excess inexplicably required shitloads power rather than, IDK, producing it. Didn't notice until they drained my (previously) ample battery arrays, spammed large wind power plants to compensate, but then and my emergency part shipments weren't getting where they needed to go and the brownouts continued to snowball.
You can always turn off buildings if you can't afford to keep them running. You can even set shifts for most of the automated producers to conserve power and resources at certain times of day as well. IIRC they still get damaged and will probably require maintenance if they've been off for more than a couple sols, but at least noone has to freeze to death or starve.
On Breakthroughs, your example is probably the most egregious one, especially since IIRC the output is better than anything the engineers themselves could do (there is a similar one for service buildings, but at least there people get better comfort when real people are working there) any other breakthrough that makes another tech "useless" does so because they boost something to the point where there is no longer a reason to go another way. (In fact, a complaint about the game balance is that some buildings come off as worthless *unless* you have the breakthrough tech, though in most cases this is because of scrubbers, the Mohole or prefabs.)
On getting colonists where they want to go. You can encourage or kick out any group of colonists (age, specialization and even traits) from domes to try to get them where you need them. *However,* it's best to only encourage colonists to a dome for age or tourisms purposes (so education dome, retirement dome, and tourism* dome) because colonists can keep coming even if there is no home and/or jobs there and they already have both where they are. Discouraging specializations from domes where they aren't needed, however, is a great way to sort them into specialized domes, and discouraging anyone non-specialist to leave the dome where universities are is a good way to get them to immediately leave for where it is you need them.
Finally, one little tip about min/maxing domes; each colonist has a set of comforts based on their specialization and traits that they expect to have access to when they want it or get unhappy thoughts. For example, Geologists want a place to shop, a place to drink and a place to socialize, so you will always need a Spacebar in domes that they are in to keep them as happy as possible. Also keep in mind that unless you get the right breakthrough, colonists need to sleep for at least one shift and prefer to do it at night, so most of your colonists are going to try to fulfill their needs in their off-duty shift during the day. Also also, sometimes the majority of colonists try to fulfill the same need at the same time, leading to some missing out as the buildings fill up and complain that there isn't enough places where they can fulfill X at. This is normal, completely OK, and avoiding it isn't worth the massive amount of infrastructure required to make sure every shift has enough working buildings to support every colonist in the dome potentially going to fulfill the same needs at the same time.
I think in my current game, I'll be fine if I don't get forever young. My pop has snowballed to a point where it's nearly impossible to keep ahead of just massive unemployment and homelessness. So making the 50 some odd olds in my colony productive is more trouble than it's worth. I probably should look at options for pop control because a sixth of my colony is useless snot nosed kids. Clearly, I'm doing a fine enough job of keeping domes really comfy even though people are desperate for jobs and homes . . . it's to the point where even though mars in flames fired off (not sure if the game is bugged because I don't have rivals colonies or if it was because I investigated an abandoned colony and took the breakthrough tech that wasn't very great for me). Anyways, that fired off. Killed 10 colonists and I was like, "whatever, barely point a dent in my unemployment and it'll just bounce back." Game was like "you lost applicants that are vital for the Mars missions," and I was like "um, massive homelessness and unemployment has kept me from accepting earthborn peeps for some time." Then there were the five destroyed buildings and I was like "fuck you game, I'm trying to get homelessness and unemployment done in the low teens instead of over a hundred and having to replace five dome buildings doesn't help!" Clearly, my colony is a model futuristic society with it's unemployment and homelessness issues.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Lesson learned #2:
Don't go to Mars.
That was a great run up until that Dwarf-Fortress level catastro-FUN.
This is a good game.
My last act was dispatching the RC Commander to go fix it, but I'm pretty sure Earth is doomed, because I spent a few years trying to fix all the meteor damage to my central life support systems before I noticed
I guess the real lesson learned here is to keep better tabs on my power usage, and priority settings. Both games seemed to turn on me not noticing that my once ample power reserves were only barely keeping up at night, and the whole system buckling after a sudden massive expansion.