Surviving Mars is in many ways similar to the Tropico series but i think some key mechanics from Tropico are missing in Surviving Mars leading to some of the problems this game currently has.
In Tropico the most important resource to manage is money. Because you need money to run your island as you have to pay wages, generating money is an important concern. There is also a balance problem at hand as you need people in order to make money and you need money to support these people. If you grow too quickly you can go bankrupt. So the goal is to reach a stability point where you make enough money to support your current population but also generate a surplus in order to grow.
How does that compare to Surviving Mars? Here we have something similar with the maintaince mechanic and the advanced resources. We need people in order to produce said resources or make money to buy them from earth but we also need to spend these resources to maintain the buildings required for supporting our people.
Again we strive for stability where we produce enough goods in order to support our infrastructure.
However there are in my opinion two key differences here with Tropico which i believe are the reasons why the system works in Tropico and does not work as well in Surviving Mars
Point 1: Money and the resupply rocket
If we are low on money in Tropico we have limited ability to just gain more money. The only real solution is to fix the problem with our economy, which means increasing income or decreasing costs.
In Surviving Mars we can just order a resupply rocket from earth to deliver the required materials. This is amplified by the fact that money in Surviving Mars surves no real purpose other than buying stuff from earth. There is no money sink in the game and we can therefore gain a lot of money just by waiting (We could either spend research on the two money-granting techs - after all we have a small supply of free research from our sponsor - or export rare materials when we are in a sufficently stable condition)
Imaging playing Tropico but with a bank that offers unlimited loans with 0 intereset. That is the supply mechanic in Surviving Mars.
Point 2: No push to destabilize
Once we reach a stable point in our economy we stay stable unless we do something to destabilize it - at least in Surviving Mars.
In Tropico you have the average carribean wage which slowy rises over time. Which means that even if you reach a stable economy, if you do nothing at some point it will destabilize because the people are leaving your island. This push is really gentle but it is there to encourage players to constantly improve their economy.
Surviving Mars lacks any kind of such mechanic which is one reason why the game tends to become a bit boring after reaching stability.
The proposed solution:
I think there are already mechanics built into the game that could be used to fix this.
To fix the resupply problem the prices for advanced materials on earth could rise after a while because even on earth supply isn't unlimited. They would obviously have to be capped but it should become unprofitable to rely on earth for supplies after a certain time. In addition there need to be some sort of money-sink. Maybe after a certain time the sponser wants to see some return of his investment and demands a certain intereset per Sol. Failure to pay the intereset could either lead to failure (you are replaced as commander of the colony) or just supend all rockets from earth until the debt is paid.
To create a gentle push to destabilize an otherwise stable colony i would use the comfort-statistic and the already existing earthsick-mechanic. First of all tie the size of the applicant pool to the average comfort of your colony. People are more likely to move to mars if life there is nice and less likely if it is really hard. There should obviously be a grace period in the beginning where this is not in effect as building a new colony on an hostile planet is supposed to be hard.
But as the player has to replace his colonists over time this means he can't ignore comfort completly or he will run out of people. Also the required comfort level needed to maintain the current pool could rise over time (i expect a 200 year old colony to be more delevoped and comfortable than a 20 year old one) as to push the player to try to raise the comfort level.
People from earth already try to leave the colony if their comfort reaches 0. However it is too easy to keep the comfort above this level and martian born people never leave, which makes this mechanic a non-issue.
Similar to the required comfort for applicants the required comfort level before a person decides to leave Mars could also slowly raise over time. In addition martian born people would also leave if their home was too bad (their threshold obviously should be lower than earth-born ones).
Then tying the homelessnes and unemployment statistics to the comfort levels of the colonists would be the last piece of the puzzle.
Yes this would make Surviving Mars a bit more like Tropico but i don't think thats bad in itself. However this would force players to work on their colony even after reaching stability with respect to resource production and would make them care more about the wellbeing of their colonists as they would otherwise leave.
Since all these mechanics would only really kick in after a grace period they would have zero effect on the early game and only start to work from mid-game on.
In Tropico the most important resource to manage is money. Because you need money to run your island as you have to pay wages, generating money is an important concern. There is also a balance problem at hand as you need people in order to make money and you need money to support these people. If you grow too quickly you can go bankrupt. So the goal is to reach a stability point where you make enough money to support your current population but also generate a surplus in order to grow.
How does that compare to Surviving Mars? Here we have something similar with the maintaince mechanic and the advanced resources. We need people in order to produce said resources or make money to buy them from earth but we also need to spend these resources to maintain the buildings required for supporting our people.
Again we strive for stability where we produce enough goods in order to support our infrastructure.
However there are in my opinion two key differences here with Tropico which i believe are the reasons why the system works in Tropico and does not work as well in Surviving Mars
Point 1: Money and the resupply rocket
If we are low on money in Tropico we have limited ability to just gain more money. The only real solution is to fix the problem with our economy, which means increasing income or decreasing costs.
In Surviving Mars we can just order a resupply rocket from earth to deliver the required materials. This is amplified by the fact that money in Surviving Mars surves no real purpose other than buying stuff from earth. There is no money sink in the game and we can therefore gain a lot of money just by waiting (We could either spend research on the two money-granting techs - after all we have a small supply of free research from our sponsor - or export rare materials when we are in a sufficently stable condition)
Imaging playing Tropico but with a bank that offers unlimited loans with 0 intereset. That is the supply mechanic in Surviving Mars.
Point 2: No push to destabilize
Once we reach a stable point in our economy we stay stable unless we do something to destabilize it - at least in Surviving Mars.
In Tropico you have the average carribean wage which slowy rises over time. Which means that even if you reach a stable economy, if you do nothing at some point it will destabilize because the people are leaving your island. This push is really gentle but it is there to encourage players to constantly improve their economy.
Surviving Mars lacks any kind of such mechanic which is one reason why the game tends to become a bit boring after reaching stability.
The proposed solution:
I think there are already mechanics built into the game that could be used to fix this.
To fix the resupply problem the prices for advanced materials on earth could rise after a while because even on earth supply isn't unlimited. They would obviously have to be capped but it should become unprofitable to rely on earth for supplies after a certain time. In addition there need to be some sort of money-sink. Maybe after a certain time the sponser wants to see some return of his investment and demands a certain intereset per Sol. Failure to pay the intereset could either lead to failure (you are replaced as commander of the colony) or just supend all rockets from earth until the debt is paid.
To create a gentle push to destabilize an otherwise stable colony i would use the comfort-statistic and the already existing earthsick-mechanic. First of all tie the size of the applicant pool to the average comfort of your colony. People are more likely to move to mars if life there is nice and less likely if it is really hard. There should obviously be a grace period in the beginning where this is not in effect as building a new colony on an hostile planet is supposed to be hard.
But as the player has to replace his colonists over time this means he can't ignore comfort completly or he will run out of people. Also the required comfort level needed to maintain the current pool could rise over time (i expect a 200 year old colony to be more delevoped and comfortable than a 20 year old one) as to push the player to try to raise the comfort level.
People from earth already try to leave the colony if their comfort reaches 0. However it is too easy to keep the comfort above this level and martian born people never leave, which makes this mechanic a non-issue.
Similar to the required comfort for applicants the required comfort level before a person decides to leave Mars could also slowly raise over time. In addition martian born people would also leave if their home was too bad (their threshold obviously should be lower than earth-born ones).
Then tying the homelessnes and unemployment statistics to the comfort levels of the colonists would be the last piece of the puzzle.
Yes this would make Surviving Mars a bit more like Tropico but i don't think thats bad in itself. However this would force players to work on their colony even after reaching stability with respect to resource production and would make them care more about the wellbeing of their colonists as they would otherwise leave.
Since all these mechanics would only really kick in after a grace period they would have zero effect on the early game and only start to work from mid-game on.
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