Kinda unmotivated to expand

[Herbert West]

I was hoping the new expansion might ignite some passion in me.

But I don't really feel that the game encourages playing it.

I have had 5 games (between 250 and 350 difficulty), and I never really felt the need to expand past the self-sufficient dome you are given, and maybe another basic dome. I know what I could use my colonists for, namely research, but I was never that bothered about the research pace, and only the endgame mysteries really required me to have more than 2-3k in research per Sol.

My main issue is that managing a colony of lets say 100 people does not feel that different from managing one of 1000 people. There is no new gameplay to be unlocked, there is just more of the same resource sink/source, with a smidge of specialisation in the food/research/breeding domes.

If I only get more of the same (with more busywork), why should I expand?

Terraforming is arguably worse, where it is just sitting on your arse doing nothing, seeing a small per Sol increase in the four counters, and then perhaps a new building that makes the increase a tiny bit bigger.

It just feels so samey and bland. We are building a pioneer colony here! I should be biting my nails in the first 50 or so Sols, and then be forced to cautiously, or recklessly, expand, and slowly settle into a stable point. But why should I bother? I get the same gameplay from two small domes.

 

[SillySMS]

I can think of two solutions:

1) Force yourself to expand, and aim for self sufficiency. There are two decent rules to help: Hunger (no food imports) and Inflation (imports get more expensive over time).

2) Stop playing as the International Mars Mission. That sponsor is so easy that you learn nothing from it. Other sponsors lack self-refueling rockets, passenger rockets carry only 1 food (a 5-sol supply) per passenger, no self-sufficient dome prefab etc.

 

[Herbert West]

I can think of two solutions:

1) Force yourself to expand, and aim for self sufficiency. There are two decent rules to help: Hunger (no food imports) and Inflation (imports get more expensive over time).

2) Stop playing as the International Mars Mission. That sponsor is so easy that you learn nothing from it. Other sponsors lack self-refueling rockets, passenger rockets carry only 1 food (a 5-sol supply) per passenger, no self-sufficient dome prefab etc.

1, Yes, but there is little difference in a self-sufficient 100 man colony, or a self-sufficient 1000 man colony. It's a matter of scale alone.

2, I have never played IMM. I tend to play Europe, for the research.

 

[SillySMS]

1, Yes, but there is little difference in a self-sufficient 100 man colony, or a self-sufficient 1000 man colony. It's a matter of scale alone.

2, I have never played IMM. I tend to play Europe, for the research.

1) There very much is. 100 man colonies don't have 6+ farms under a water reclamation system. They cannot be well balanced machines. With ~30-40 colonists locked up in service buildings, you simply don't have the manpower to run a rare metals mine (12), a metals mine (12), a polymer factory (18), small electronics and machine parts factories (12+9), at least one farm (6+), at least one research lab (9), and still cope with the elderly, children, and have a university.

2) Nobody but IMM gets the self sufficient dome prefab. You can technically build one, but you need to import a vaporator. There's something inconsistent in what you're saying.

 

[Foefaller]

You said "self-sufficient colony" which IMM gets as a prefab. You can still use the option as a footprint though, as long as you can either build or have prefabs for all the pieces, which I guess is what you meant?

My experience is that the game is most fun when you constantly push how fast you can grow the colony, with a couple of the max disaster game rules. Expand as soon as you have the resources for a fresh dome, have yourself constantly on the lookout for new water deposits by necessity rather than convenience (because you can call in Vaporator prefabs fast enough) and when the birth rate goes out of control, do nothing to stop it.

I had a game once where I had a major dust storm incoming just after I accepted 50 refugees from a non-mysteries event -almost doubling my colony's size- and barely enough O2 and water to make it. But then a leak occurred on the exactly 1 tile of piping connecting a dome to the O2 tank right next to it, ran out of life support, crops failed from lack of water found out I didn't have enough machine parts on hand to keep the wind turbines running, and the funds I spent getting extra Vaporators to build what I thought would be enough of a water surplus meant I had to wait until after the storm to launch the half-full rocket stuck in the ground to get more. By the end, had to completely close down 3 of the 4 domes while half the colonists starved/suffocated/committed suicide and another 40 left with the rocket that finally brought in Machine parts for the handful of turbines I hadn't turned off after most of the colony was shut down. All I had left were 8 Martianborn colonists and 5 others who were too busy losing their minds at the time to leave with the others, praying that the literal one colonist that was still willing to work would stay sane long enough to finish the wheat harvest so that they didn't all starve.

...And she did, and that kept everyone alive long enough for everyone to start working and to get applicants again, and slowly but surely the domes were turned back on, the turbines got fixed, and this time with enough of a surplus that no dust storm was going to destroy the colony like that again.

And that is the story of the best game of Surviving Mars I've had so far.

 

[th3freakie]

These "breeding domes" sound kinky. Tell us more.

 

[Xeorm]

My experience so far is that bar the initial bit the game doesn't do a lot to kill you. You can screw things up by creating a colony that isn't self sufficient that doesn't generate any money and so can gradually die out, but it's difficult to do so if you're playing decently. Even when I've screwed things up it's hard to go all the way to colony death. So I wouldn't look at that for how to do challenges.

Personally I enjoyed doing the achievements for the different sponsors and exploring the different mysteries. Getting all the technologies eventually isn't terribly difficult, but getting the technologies you do need within 100 sols does make for more of a challenge. Dealing with the mysteries at the same time can make things also fun, and that's where the game does expand more. Trying to build a colony that can expand quickly and minimizing the hold ups is, imo, entertaining.

Plus it's fun to fail partially and you don't tend to get that if you're not pressing your luck to some extent. There's a thread on these forums where I talk about an India run that went...poorly. Still fun to try and manage when I ran out of machine parts and suddenly started seeing colonists die enmasse.

Other options too include some of the bonus hardships you can activate at start, or creating scenarios for yourself. How do things change if you only limit yourself to a small number of rocket runs before the Earth explodes?

 

[Foefaller]

My experience so far is that bar the initial bit the game doesn't do a lot to kill you. You can screw things up by creating a colony that isn't self sufficient that doesn't generate any money and so can gradually die out, but it's difficult to do so if you're playing decently. Even when I've screwed things up it's hard to go all the way to colony death. So I wouldn't look at that for how to do challenges.

Personally I enjoyed doing the achievements for the different sponsors and exploring the different mysteries. Getting all the technologies eventually isn't terribly difficult, but getting the technologies you do need within 100 sols does make for more of a challenge. Dealing with the mysteries at the same time can make things also fun, and that's where the game does expand more. Trying to build a colony that can expand quickly and minimizing the hold ups is, imo, entertaining.

Plus it's fun to fail partially and you don't tend to get that if you're not pressing your luck to some extent. There's a thread on these forums where I talk about an India run that went...poorly. Still fun to try and manage when I ran out of machine parts and suddenly started seeing colonists die enmasse.

Other options too include some of the bonus hardships you can activate at start, or creating scenarios for yourself. How do things change if you only limit yourself to a small number of rocket runs before the Earth explodes?

I've started to realize that Surviving Mars doesn't have as many things driving you to expand as other survival-y base/city builder games do, like say Oxygen Not Included, where securing sustainable sources water, food, electricity and, yes, oxygen drive most of the game. Instead, the means to get most all the essentials are available from day 1, even if you still need colonists to work the buildings or funds to buy the prefabs. Unless a disaster or the negative effects of a mystery happens to coming at you at just the wrong time it's unlikely you will ever been forced to, say, claim a water deposit or improve research for a tech or increase the amount of metals you are mining at once unless you want to expand at a size and rate that requires it.

That's not nessisary a bad thing, mind, but I do wish there was a mode or more game rules which made the road to self-sustablility (whether by production or trade) longer and the expansion/research to get there more urgent.

 

[SillySMS]

I've had a bit of time to think about it, and I think I see where the OP might be coming from.

1) I started playing near release (thank you Scott Manley), back when it was a desperate race to build up and maximize your evaluation at Sol 100. That meant a frantic rush... but now, while rivals can snipe some of the early milestones (especially the RNG-ish ones like finding a breakthrough), I have never once been in threat of losing a milestone below researching a breakthrough. Outside that early burst, there's minimal time pressure. I got used to frantic "expand so you can expand so you can expand", but a newer player might not catch onto that, leading to a boring, low-maintenance, small colony.

2) While there's a few efficiencies to large colonies*, there are disadvantages (so many shuttles!), and the closest thing to a "wow" factor for large domes is that water conservation systems finally become semi-relevant once you can put 6+ farms in a single dome. The only times I've bothered to semi-beeline for mega domes are when I'm playing Paradox Interactive and want to check off that last sponsor goal.

*Examples: massive farming domes (at least until open farms obsolete them), a good balance of facilities like schools, universities, factories, and retirement domes, and the ability to build specialized domes to prevent interference.

To help address this, I'd consider re-implementing the mission evaluation, preferably ensuring every sponsor has a goal that favors rapid expansion (unlike the old US goal of "scan anomalies"), and maybe consider adding 30-hex buildings that take three consecutive wedges and a huge number of colonists, but which are either substantially better than existing buildings or provide something others can't*.

*For example: 30-hex hospital is required for the Stem Reconstruction treatment, and substantially buffs med clinics throughout the colony, since now they can send critical cases to an actual hospital with first-rate equipment and specialist doctors. It also would function as a pretty good med clinic.