100+ rare metals a day from a single deposit without colonists.

[Mauer]

I made a thread about breakthrough synergies and how Extractor AI (Metals Extractors and Rare Metals Extractors can work without crews at 50 performance) combined with Magnetic Extraction (Extractor upgrade - Production increased by 50%) made unmanned extractors very profitable, but I didn't realize at the time this means you can place nine extractors over a single deposit to get production above that of a Mohole mine.

Now add Core Rare Metals for new 25,000 deposits of very high grade (I got two) and production totals 112.5 rare metals a day for a cost of 135 power (after regular techs Extractor Amplification, Fueled Extractors and Plasma Cutters) and some fuel.

I also have Nano Refinement, so even depleted deposits will continue to produce about 11.7 per day for the rest of the game.

If I had got Overcharge Amplifications I could get even more (I think about 10% net more) and sadly you can't overwork an AI, but still my ghost town of a colony is doing better than my previous ones.

 

[Elordis]

Problem is that Extractor AI is a total game breaker (as are many other breakthroughs). Everything else is an icing on the cake.
With Extractor AI you can super efficiently mine out all of the map, outsource 2/3 of the research tree, and after that bring your colonists to a paradise mega domes.

 

[MarQan]

Extractor AI + Nano Refinement break(through?) the game for sure. Even one of them alone is too strong.
I hope we'll see a research rework/rebalance at the release of Passages.

Did you do this with a mod btw? Cheesed map exploration? Or just got lucky?
I was testing breakthroughs for a while and I could never get Nano Refinement and Extractor AI in the same game. At least not with Russia + Astrogeologist.

 

[Mauer]

Extractor AI + Nano Refinement break(through?) the game for sure. Even one of them alone is too strong.
I hope we'll see a research rework/rebalance at the release of Passages.

Did you do this with a mod btw? Cheesed map exploration? Or just got lucky?
I was testing breakthroughs for a while and I could never get Nano Refinement and Extractor AI in the same game. At least not with Russia + Astrogeologist.

Got lucky, I got both breakthroughs fairly early, I'm only using UI mods like the one that tells you how much of the deposit remains when you select the extractor.

I agree that breakthroughs are too strong, they're supposed to be OP, but getting 14 of them each game seems like too much to me. Even the regular technologies, especially Wonders, end up making things too easy IMHO, so only the early game is challenging. I wish we had a hard mode where we only end up unlocking like 2/3 of the regular technologies, and only a handful of breakthroughs.

 

[spannbeton]

I wish we had a hard mode where we only end up unlocking like 2/3 of the regular technologies, and only a handful of breakthroughs.

Got you covered. Not quite that but tried to make the game harder while maintaining game balance. Kicked my butt hard in my last testgame.
Breakthroughs certainly need a rebalance, I'm with you on that. That is why I have an option to turn them off in my mod leaving you with a maximum of 4 breakthroughs.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1339570684

 

[Mauer]

Got you covered. Not quite that but tried to make the game harder while maintaining game balance. Kicked my butt hard in my last testgame.
Breakthroughs certainly need a rebalance, I'm with you on that. That is why I have an option to turn them off in my mod leaving you with a maximum of 4 breakthroughs.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1339570684

Looks interesting, though no breakthroughs at all until the late game wonder is much more restrictive than I'd prefer tbh.

 

[spannbeton]

You can turn it off in that mod and play without that restriction, hell you can turn all restrictions on and off.
So you can also research the amount of breakthrougsh you like and then turn it on.

 

[zenstrive]

rare metals? what rare metals? Not so rare anymore, eh?

 

[_mattdm_]

Problem is that Extractor AI is a total game breaker (as are many other breakthroughs). Everything else is an icing on the cake.

As I see it, so many breakthroughs are "game breakers" that they're not actually "breakers". They are the game. It's part of the fun. Embrace it, enjoy it. Adapt your colony to whichever crazy thing you get this time through.

 

[MarQan]

Does anyone know whether Extractors working off of Nano Refinement take resource quality into account? I mean the grade of the deposit.

 

[Mauer]

Does anyone know whether Extractors working off of Nano Refinement take resource quality into account? I mean the grade of the deposit.

No, they work at a lower rate than even very low grade deposits, and the deposit itself is gone. So if you want to place many extractors over a single deposit you have to do it before it runs out.

 

[Keschnarf]

What's the problem with these suposendly "gamebreaking" breakthroughs? If you find them to make the game too easy for you, who or what is forcing you to research and use them?

 

[Elordis]

What's the problem with these suposendly "gamebreaking" breakthroughs? If you find them to make the game too easy for you, who or what is forcing you to research and use them?

Such logic is broken. If you see someone drop their wallet, do you bring it to their attention or do you simply not steal it?

 

[xMer]

afair my top with manned extractors was 870 rare metals per day. it could be higher but i had more issue with shipping them earth than mining. It is Core rare metals that is breaker for score run with any company that go for export evaluation

 

[josefrees]

Can’t you just choose to not research the breakthrough or choose to take it at point in the game you think would be less over powered?

 

[Keschnarf]

Such logic is broken. If you see someone drop their wallet, do you bring it to their attention or do you simply not steal it?

Just a question of self control.
I would give the wallet back to it's owner, of course, but where is the connection to the "problem" with suposendly "gamebreaking" breakthroughs?
Or would you start complaining that your life's going easier with the money you got from the stolen wallet, too?

 

[MarQan]

With that logic every game should be a sandbox and left to the users to balance it for themselves... ridiculous.

Setting up game rules should stop as soon as you started the game. It shouldn't rely on players restricting themselves from researching overpowered techs.
In Cities: Skylines for example the complexity of the simulation is high enough so that you can justify the sandbox level difficulty. You don't see that at all in Surviving Mars.

The research system needs some love, I really don't know why anyone would be against that.

 

[Mauer]

Especially when we're talking about a completely optional mode to give players who have a already played the game a few times something more interesting the next time they play instead of the same thing only with different starting conditions.

 

[Keschnarf]

[..]
The research system needs some love, I really don't know why anyone would be against that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against rework or rebalance of some techs or the research system at all.

I just wonder why some are complaining about a few breakthroughs that are making the game too easy for them and call that gamebreakers. IMHO they were gamebreakers when you are forced to research and use these techs to continue with the game.
Of course are some of the breakthroughs OP and can change the gameplay dramaticly, no doubt about that, but they don't make the game unplayable at all and can be rebalanced in further patches.

This is not multiplayer where you have to use everything the game offers you to be competetive. It IS a singleplayer sandbox-game where you can do whatever you want. Just because you have the options you don't necessarily need to use them.

 

[MarQan]

...
This is not multiplayer where you have to use everything the game offers you to be competetive. It IS a singleplayer sandbox-game where you can do whatever you want. Just because you have the options you don't necessarily need to use them.

Surviving Mars is simply not complex or interesting enough for a purely sandbox game, that's exactly why I gave the example of Cities: Skylines.

In this situation the devs have 2 routes: make the simulation deeper, more detailed or balance the game to make it challenging.
It's not that I believe that they need to go for balancing, but they strongly implied that they plan to, and the best and most obvious place to start would be the research system.

In a reddit comment one of the devs stated that they're planning to add increased difficulty options.
They also added scores to the game, there's already a Top Colony thread in this forum.
The devs also removed cheat mode from the game before release, so they don't believe in the "but you don't have to use it" method either.