While playing Below and Beyond, my biggest problems have come from an inability to access information found in other screens. Near as I can tell, the implementation of the underground and asteroid screens was done by creating a completely separate colony/game on the new screen, with the elevators and asteroid landers working as the only way to get resources between these games, and those require instructions to work. Because of the strange way that loading materials works with these two features, and because the icons for the maps are so small, controlling multiple separate colonies, essentially playing two or more games of Surviving Mars simulataneously without the ability to pause only some of the games, is really quite unintuitive, hard to grow accustomed to, and, ultimately, not very fun. As is, I have decided to not bother with the underground or asteroids before my main colony is completely self sufficient so that I do not need to worry about something failing catastrophically while I play around on the other maps. While I am by no means an expert in game design, I believe that automating certain things completely while also sharing certain pieces of information between screens would go a great deal towards improving the expansion. Here they are:
1. Shared Alerts
Simply making it so that I get all the alerts from all my screens on every screen would make it much easier to play between maps early on while you are still working on self-sufficiency. If there is a concern about alert clutter, shrink the alert notification box sizes or create subcategories of alerts and let us collapse every item in a subcategory to reduce the number of visible alerts while still giving information on those alerts.
2. Shared Pins
This one is similar to the last one, only instead of sharing every pinned item, share only pinned rockets and vehicles. If a rocket or vehicle is currently on a different planetary body than the current map, have clicking on that pin take you to where it is. However, while on Mars, have rockets and vehicles be selectable from both levels as well as commandable without shifting screens. Furthermore, if an elevator is built, allow vehicles on a different map to receive move orders to the current map, with a visit to the elevator included in the pathing. This will dramatically reduce both the number of clicks necessary to have a functioning above/below ground, but will also make jumping between Mars and Asteroids faster while also preventing any forgetfulness when it comes to important vehicles and landers on asteroids.
3. Automatic Resource Sharing Between Below and Above Ground
Instead of having the elevator handle all resource change requests, especially because the elevator seems to be capable of only sending resources to the other map, not requesting resources for the current map, have any missing resources on the other level automatically be requested in the elevator. Similarly, allow all prefabs to be used regardless of the level without any requests necessary. Furthermore, allow the RC Explorer, Transport, and Dozer to receive requests from another map when on a different level. By this, I mean that an RC Explorer will automatically seek out anomalies on a different level, the RC Transport will meet transport requests between stockpiles and deposits when the resources in question are on a different level, and the RC Dozer will seek landscape work on both sides of the elevator. This automation will make the two colonies feel like one colony and reduce the amount of micromanagement pain that the current system inflicts.
As a final aside, as an astronomer, the implementation of asteroids has really bugged me. The distance between the asteroid belt and Mars is not that much different than the distance between the Earth and Mars (only half an AU). Considering that the asteroids are on a rougly circular orbit just as the Earth and Mars are, asteroids should not magically disappear. The travel time between Mars and the Asteroid might change, but since the travel time between Earth and Mars never changes, I see no reason to suddenly implement such a change for asteroids. While this makes Asteroids a less risky source of materials, just make them have less valuables and be more frequent. The choice changes from which asteroid is worth going to in the limited amount of time available to which asteroid is most worth visiting. Instead of having every asteroid represented in the screens menu, just put a collapsable submenu with all the asteroids on it, or make them only accessible through the Planet screen. Considering that asteroid mining is a legitimate thing that people are planning right now, with intent to operate on asteroids for years with no waystations between the Earth and the asteroid belt, it really disappoints me that asteroids are considered this crazy risk because anything sent there might be lost forever when the asteroid "leaves range" of Mars.
1. Shared Alerts
Simply making it so that I get all the alerts from all my screens on every screen would make it much easier to play between maps early on while you are still working on self-sufficiency. If there is a concern about alert clutter, shrink the alert notification box sizes or create subcategories of alerts and let us collapse every item in a subcategory to reduce the number of visible alerts while still giving information on those alerts.
2. Shared Pins
This one is similar to the last one, only instead of sharing every pinned item, share only pinned rockets and vehicles. If a rocket or vehicle is currently on a different planetary body than the current map, have clicking on that pin take you to where it is. However, while on Mars, have rockets and vehicles be selectable from both levels as well as commandable without shifting screens. Furthermore, if an elevator is built, allow vehicles on a different map to receive move orders to the current map, with a visit to the elevator included in the pathing. This will dramatically reduce both the number of clicks necessary to have a functioning above/below ground, but will also make jumping between Mars and Asteroids faster while also preventing any forgetfulness when it comes to important vehicles and landers on asteroids.
3. Automatic Resource Sharing Between Below and Above Ground
Instead of having the elevator handle all resource change requests, especially because the elevator seems to be capable of only sending resources to the other map, not requesting resources for the current map, have any missing resources on the other level automatically be requested in the elevator. Similarly, allow all prefabs to be used regardless of the level without any requests necessary. Furthermore, allow the RC Explorer, Transport, and Dozer to receive requests from another map when on a different level. By this, I mean that an RC Explorer will automatically seek out anomalies on a different level, the RC Transport will meet transport requests between stockpiles and deposits when the resources in question are on a different level, and the RC Dozer will seek landscape work on both sides of the elevator. This automation will make the two colonies feel like one colony and reduce the amount of micromanagement pain that the current system inflicts.
As a final aside, as an astronomer, the implementation of asteroids has really bugged me. The distance between the asteroid belt and Mars is not that much different than the distance between the Earth and Mars (only half an AU). Considering that the asteroids are on a rougly circular orbit just as the Earth and Mars are, asteroids should not magically disappear. The travel time between Mars and the Asteroid might change, but since the travel time between Earth and Mars never changes, I see no reason to suddenly implement such a change for asteroids. While this makes Asteroids a less risky source of materials, just make them have less valuables and be more frequent. The choice changes from which asteroid is worth going to in the limited amount of time available to which asteroid is most worth visiting. Instead of having every asteroid represented in the screens menu, just put a collapsable submenu with all the asteroids on it, or make them only accessible through the Planet screen. Considering that asteroid mining is a legitimate thing that people are planning right now, with intent to operate on asteroids for years with no waystations between the Earth and the asteroid belt, it really disappoints me that asteroids are considered this crazy risk because anything sent there might be lost forever when the asteroid "leaves range" of Mars.