Help me 'git guid' how do you build a colony with no early exports?

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

So, because I simply suck at this game it seems can someone exokain (Ideally using small words) what I am meant to do when the inital tiles I can survey dont show any rare metals?

I mean I could restart the map, and scan other tiles, but theres 100 tiles and it gets tedious. I could pick cordinates, carefully scan everything and ake a note of a start site, but again that feels like cheating and is a lot of work to get information that strictly I shoudnt be party too.

I could take the mars geologst and start with at laest one deposit... But honestly there are other comanders I like better and theres no guarentee that the rare metals found will be in drone hub reach of conrite and the rest.

Dont get me wrong I like to be chalanged, but 'magically guess which tiles to scan for starting' in order to have any kind of cash flow for moast sponsors isn't a chalenge, its more a save vs inevitable and nonobvious colony colapse wasting several hours.

So, sugestions? Advice? I;d rather not spend all my days playing the EU, I want the chalengebut I just dont see what I'mmeant to do and I'm also sick of restarting maps.

 

[Jaol]

Where you land first doesn't have to be where you build your first dome. In fact, if you come with a rover and transport you don't need to build anything there at all.

All that you really need to build ASAP is a fuel production facility (fuel refinery + either a vaporator or water extractor). Also a good idea to start making concrete early, especially if it can share the power grid with the fuel setup. It's best if those are near your landing spot, but not absolutely necessary.

The Autonomous Sensors tech (no maintenance for sensor towers) is early in the physics tree. If your initial site isn't good, rush that tech, and build a bunch of sensor towers to scan for better spots.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Where you land first doesn't have to be where you build your first dome. In fact, if you come with a rover and transport you don't need to build anything there at all.

All that you really need to build ASAP is a fuel production facility (fuel refinery + either a vaporator or water extractor). Also a good idea to start making concrete early, especially if it can share the power grid with the fuel setup. It's best if those are near your landing spot, but not absolutely necessary.

The Autonomous Sensors tech (no maintenance for sensor towers) is early in the physics tree. If your initial site isn't good, rush that tech, and build a bunch of sensor towers to scan for better spots.

Rushing tech isntreally possible with New arc though... Then again I suppose small isolated science shack, low upkeep, while I scan... I just hate the combination of low information and all the resorces being so finite. Is a 500 deposit of rares really, actually worth building a dome for? when you factor in the costs of materisla for building and supporting and upkeep in the days before self sufficency it all feels like a permenant responce to a temporary situation and when the deposit is gone I'll still have the upkeeps.

And I'm not new, Ive played a few games to all mile stones and longed hundreads of hours but I loathe the very early game as it seems so many of the chalenges are completly out of my hands.

 

[zenstrive]

500 rare earth metals definitely worth the initial dome.
I rarely start exporting rare earth metal in the first 20 days.
If you starting as the The Church, it's good to find starting place that has:
1. Tons of surface metals
2. Concrete
3. and the rare earth metal.

Would be good to have shallow water deposit though.

So my steps for now:

1. Land
2. Build Drone Hub
3. Build 5 large solar cells
4. Build moisture vaporator, water tank, MOXY, oxygen tank, sensor tower, fuel refinery, electricity accumulator, and concrete extractor
5. Start scanning surrounding sectors, and use your RC transport to collect the surface metals found while fueling your rocket. Keep on collecting the surface metals over and over. Soon you'll need 2 or 3 metal depots.
6. Launch your rocket, buy 2 moisture vaporators, and 10 of polymers, 10 of electronics, and 10 machine parts, and 20 food
7. Land your rocket, build the moisture vaporators and 3 water tanks and 3 oxygen tanks.
8. Start building your dome as close as possible to the initial buildings while still able to place a rare earth metal extractor near it.
9. Launch your rocket again, and buy the advanced resources and food again.
10 . With your dome and rare earth metal extractor completed, make sure you have double the water, oxygen, and electricity needed to support the dome. Build wind turbine as required only.
11. Build living quarters, infirmary, diner, and research lab.
11. Land your rocket, refuel it, and launch again.
12. Get 4 medics, 4 geologists, and 3 scientists. Add 1 random person.
13. Land them, and enjoy your first colony. Should have martian born before the 10 sols period. If you somehow playing with chaos theory rule and discover martian patents or martian copyrights early, shut the rare earth metal extractors off and fill up the research labs to get easy money.
14. Launch the rocket, ensure to buy enough polymer for 3 hydroponics and 20 food.
15. Land the rocket, Build 3 hydroponics on the dome and a living quarter or an apartement on the dome. I prefer apartment.
16. Launch the rocket, get 9 botanists and 3 scientists
17. land them, and start food production. Make sure all botanists working in the hydroponics.
18. Should be able to survive from the hydroponics alone for now.

After that, see your surrounding sectors and plan accordingly. Just place a dome somewhere good and shut it off before drone actually building it as reminder where to prioritize development next. Metals should be plenty enough for first two or three domes.

 

[MagicMagor]

The thing is, unless you are playing with the Inflation game-rule you are in no hurry to put people on Mars. Just continue scanning and you will find a rare metal desposit. I usually build a single sensor tower (powered by a small solar panel - disable the night-shift) before i get autonomes sensor towers.

Scanning a lot of sectors can also help you in uncovering anomalies and these can help you with your no-research problem. What you need is the earth-mars initiative and you can get the intial research points for that either by outsourcing or by the research-anomalies. Once you have that, you can start researching like normal.

You also only have one rocket with the church sponsor, and i usually require at least a second supply-run before i call people. Refueling the rocket and sending it back to earth takes time. So you can uncover several sectors before you start thinking about calling people.

 

[Jaol]

Rushing tech isntreally possible with New arc though... Then again I suppose small isolated science shack, low upkeep, while I scan...

We have very different definitions of rushing tech. I mean prioritizing other physics techs in your research queue (to unlock new ones in the tree), prioritizing anomalies that unlock techs over ones that give research points, and immediately putting the tech you want to the top of the queue once unlocked. All this happens well before you bring any colonists over. The tech is always one of the first 5 physics techs, so you just need a couple unlock anomalies to get it, which you should be able to find with just one sensor tower.