Commanders Meta Discussion

[Promethian]

So lets have a meta discussion to kill some time before release. Rate the commanders and tell us why you think they are good! My ratings are Ok, Good and Very Good and are subjective in relation to each other.

For reference: https://survivingmars.paradoxwikis.com/Commander_Profile

Inventor
Drones are gradually optimized to work and construct faster until Sol 100
Bonus Tech: Autonomous Hubs (Drone Hubs no longer require Power or Maintenance)

I rate the Inventor as Very Good.

First on the Drone hubs. If I saw correctly they require machine parts to maintain. Cutting down your advanced resource maintenance cost is an excellent benefit. Even more so because the no power cost also means a bit fewer energy sources needed to build and maintain. Additionally the Autonomous Hubs tech is a breakthrough so its not something you can rely on to get every game and picking the Inventor means the breakthrough pool is one tech smaller. This perk alone would be enough for me to rate a commander as Good.

Now about the drone optimization. I suspect this is another unique bonus. I read it as drones do things faster, gradually getting better until they hit the maximum of this bonus at Sol 100. I'm pretty sure its a general bonus applied to all your drones, even those bought/made later. Its hard to say just how helpful this is but I'll upgrade the sponsor's rating by 1 for having it.
​

Oligarch
Fuel production increased by 25%
Bonus Tech: Arcology (unlocks a residential spire)

I rate the Oligarch as Very Good

The fuel bonus doesn't seem like a lot but go watch a lets play where they only have 1 or 2 rockets. They really feel that refueling time. Additionally there is the Fueled Extractors upgrade which the Oligarch is better at taking advantage of. This is an Ok bonus on its own.

The Arcology is where the real value is. I saw a video where someone built it. 3 times the housing and 10 more comfort than residences. Costs 70 or 80 concrete (a good bit but not so hard to get) and 10 polymers to make. 10 polymers requires a bit of fore thought but is not an amount that is going to break you in the early game. So its entirely possible to start with an Arcology in your first dome. This is more than just huge space savings on living quarters. The comfort means it'll be easy to get your colonists baby making. This will let you grow your population much more easily and not have to rely on applicants as much. This benefit puts the Oligarch at a very high Good on its own.
​

Hydro Engineer
Start with a Water deposit revealed
Domes consume 25% less Water
Bonus Tech: Water Reclamation (unlocks a spire which reduces Water consumption)

​

I rate the Hydro Engineer as a high Good.

The early water is a major convenience. Water and rare metals are your driving forces for early colony planning. So this is a big relief.

Domes chug a lot of water. So that 25% saves you a lot of infrastructure overall. Great bonus. Do want. Gimmie gimmie.

The Water spire is very nice. I suspect I'll be using it to create farm specialized domes eventually. It requires a good few workers and you likely don't have the resources to spare to build it early though. So it effectively saves you from having to research a technology.
​

Doctor
Minimum Comfort required for birth lowered by 15
Bonus Tech: Stem Reconstruction (colonist lifespan is increased)

I rate the Doctor as Ok.

Stem Reconstruction is nice to have but not great. The advantages of it are something that tend to come about after you have overcome the initial difficulty. Plus its not a breakthrough so everybody will get it eventually.

The minimum birth comfort seems great except from what I've seen its not so hard to exceed the comfort threshold as it is. The clinic with decent services is enough without any bonuses to get comfort high enough for breeding. Its made even more prominent by the fact that its competing with the Oligarch and the Arcology boosting comfort even more and providing lots of space for those kids.
​

Psychologist
Colonists recover 5 additional Sanity while resting in their homes
Bonus Tech: Behavioral Shaping (unlocks a Sanatorium spire which treats colonists' flaws)

I rate the Psychologist as Ok baseline but potentially Good in niche circumstances.

Sanatorium is difficult to make in the beginning. It eats a simply huge amount of resources and doesn't directly contribute to establishing resource production. Additionally, generally around the time you'd unlock Sanatorium normally is when you've established yourself enough that you might be interested in making a "betterment" dome.

The sanity regain is potentially useful because disasters give your colonists the cray cray. So kick up the disasters, bring some cowards and let the Psychologist soothe their minds. I strongly suspect there is a mystery that inflicts the cray as well which the Psychologist makes much easier. Outside of those niches insanity doesn't seem to be a problem as long as you provide the necessary services.
​

Politician
All Funding gains are increased by 20%
Bonus Tech: Martian Patents (repeatable tech that grants Funding)

I rate the Politician as Ok for sponsors that can easily get money and Very Good for poor sponsors.

Starting with a hit of Martian Patents is a huge boon to the poorer sponsors. That breathing room starting out makes things far easier. Money overall is very flexible for problem solving. So that 20% extra stays useful forever for everybody.
​

Futurist
Breakthrough techs are researched 30% faster
Bonus Tech: Autonomous Sensors (Sensor Towers no longer require Power or Maintenance)

I rate the Futurist Ok

Futurist is the weakest sponsor. You aren't going to get a lot of breakthroughs. They will comprise a tiny amount of your total research overall. So the 30% is effectively the worst of Commander perks.

Autonomous Sensors is a nice bonus to starting out. Less maintenance and power consumed in the beginning is obviously good. Also allows you to make lone sensor towers out in the boonies to speed up the scanning speed and get anomalies quicker. However compared to the benefits of other commanders this is a simple convenience. Not a powerful driving bonus.
​

Ecologist
Service Comfort of decorations increased by 10
Bonus Tech: Hanging Gardens (unlocks a spire which improves residences in the Dome)

I rate Ecologist as a high Ok, potentially Good.

A permanently better comfort provided to your pops is obviously a good thing. Makes thing a bit easier starting out and is a relevant bonus for the late game.

Hanging Gardens I simply don't know enough about. Its competing for space with the Arcology which makes me wary of its usefulness. Even moreso that spires tend to require a lot of workers to function which are in high demand in the early game.
​

Astrogeologist
Start with a Rare Metal deposit revealed
Extractor production increased by 10%
Bonus Tech: Deep Scanning (allows the scanning of sectors for deep deposits)

I rate Astrogeologist Good.

Starting with a revealed Rare Metal is very convenient. Water and rare metal are two things you are looking for early on for planning your initial set up. Rare metal is especially important early on when you are broke so knowing you can rely on having exports right away is a relief.

Starting with Deep Scanning is a major time saver. It tends to land in the tech tree after techs cease to be cheap and saves you a step in actually getting deep metals. Also saves you a ton of clicks and time spent rescanning everything. Also allows you to better plan your eventual final set up.

The extractor production is a very valuable bonus. The speed that you can extract resources is the primary throttling mechanism for expanding.
​

Rocket Scientist
Start with an extra Rocket
Bonus Tech: CO2 Jet Propulsion (unlocks Shuttle Hub and long-range transportation)

I rate Rocket Scientist Good but only for sponsors with just 1 rocket starting out.

So here is the thing with Rocket Scientist. It is pure starting benefit that you can grow out of but is a huge quality of life increase if you are rocket poor. It can make or break the game for the harder sponsors and is absolutely useless to most of the easier sponsors.

Shuttle Hubs are wonderful but they are hardly a late game tech. Saves you having to research a tech but overall far from a unique bonus and definitely one that you out grow.​

 

[KDubya]

Here's my theorycrafting

Inventor - I read the bonus as only being active until sol 100 and then it stops. Drones are fairly cheap to buy so having more efficient drones just means you could get by with a few less. How many drone hubs will you have, especially early, two maybe three? I'd drop them down to the OK level as the actual savings seem pretty minor.

Oligarch - look very strong, starting your dome with an arcology would be a game changer and faster fuel is better than nothing. I'd give them an excellent rating.

Hydro Engineer - from what I've seen there is always water and if there's not, you always can bring a few evaporators to cover re-fueling until your scans find a water source. Absolute worse case you'd need a bunch of evaporators and just make more power to handle the load. Water infrastructure looks pretty cheap so saving 25% is just OK. making a massive food dome looks to be troublesome as transporting that food across your entire civilization is going to be a real problem for your drones and shuttles. I'm thinking a farm in each dome would alleviate the hassles of massive food shuttling. So based on that I'd give them an OK.

Doctor - the lowered threshold on comfort applies to all domes all the time. You aren't restricted to the arcology spire, you can use any and reap the benefits. Plus the arcology spire will eventually be available to everyone. I think that this would let you have a massive population growth, especially if paired with the Church. If you are going for a massive baby boom strategy then this'd be a Very Good trait, if you aren't prepared for a massive baby boom this'd be a negative trait.

Psychologist - looks like one of the weaker choices, OK at best.

Politician - depending on how the math works out on Martian Patents being repeatable and Outsourcing, this could be either game breakingly powerful, great, or just merely good. I'd give this an Excellent as money is always good to have.

Futurist - OK sounds about right. A small solar panel added to your scanning tower pretty much replicates this trait except for whatever minimal maintenance is required. Maybe coupled with Paradox sponsor the breakthrough techs might be more prevalent but that alone won't save this.

Ecologist - I don't have enough details. If their bonus make apartments competitive with arcology for comfort then that'd be something good.

Astrogeologist - is it one rare metal revealed or all? One sounds sort of weak. Deep scans saves you having to research it but it'd be a long time until you could actually extract any of those resources. The extra production looks good. Overall sounds like a middle of the road 'good' rating.

Rocket Scientist - Unless you have only one rocket the extra rocket doesn't look that special. Early game you can't afford shuttles except on the easier settings. I could see it being popular with people wanting a truly easy experience as early shuttles would really make things easy to go along with abundant funding, tech and low danger/high resources.

For my hard first run I'd be thinking of taking Oligarch, Doctor, Politician or maybe Astrogeologist.

 

[spannbeton]

I agree. Probably the oligarch is the strongest. Build an archology, medic, grocer, diner in the first dome have babies instantly and get in new people.

 

[arc2611]

Astrogeologist - is it one rare metal revealed or all? One sounds sort of weak. Deep scans saves you having to research it but it'd be a long time until you could actually extract any of those resources. The extra production looks good. Overall sounds like a middle of the road 'good' rating.

If you're picking the astrogeologist you should to go with the Blue Sun Corporation, as that gives you immediate access to Deep Metal extraction. There's a good synergy there that lets you start finding and exploiting deep metal deposits immediately.

My Blue Sun colony eventually ran into problems once I started running out of food and the water deposits I was exploiting dried up, but I never had any problems with metals.

 

[sortulv]

Inventor - I read the bonus as only being active until sol 100 and then it stops. Drones are fairly cheap to buy so having more efficient drones just means you could get by with a few less. How many drone hubs will you have, especially early, two maybe three? I'd drop them down to the OK level as the actual savings seem pretty minor.
.

I read this the other way around - it starts at 0 bonus, and then grows until you reach 100 sols...
Also - Having drone hubs break down (or the power line to them be cut) is a major problem unless you build them to overlap - you need them to do anything...

 

[Cymsdale]

Shuttles are just so freaken useful, I'd hate to have to wait until late game for them.

 

[spannbeton]

Currently playing european politician. A strong combo. get 180mil each research completed and more from exports as well. very good for early game.
It is only a very small loss to just outsource for 2billion and research all the 1k techs very fast...

 

[KDubya]

First game went with a Russia Ecologist.

WOW building a Hanging Garden in all your domes is fracking great! +30 comfort to all your housing is really good, it lets your apartments have 65 comfort and your houses have 80.Very easy to pass the founder stage when your people are at 80 comfort from housing alone.

Seems way better than an arcology.

 

[Stormcow]

the game is so easy that i have not really noticed any bonuses affecting anything.

 

[Exemplar Voss]

the game is so easy that i have not really noticed any bonuses affecting anything.

Eh. The game has issues, particularly in the AI and prioritization areas, but if you aren't noticing the effects of commanders, techs and buildings, you simply aren't paying attention.

 

[Stormcow]

yes, that was my point. you should not be able to do well in a paradox game if you are not paying attention. hence my comment