Survived until Sol 51 on 535%

[Beric]

Ultimately I lost due to no sustainable electronics production. Ran out of electronics and couldn't run my drone hub to restock my rocket with fuel to send back to Earth to buy more electronics. And the only reason I ran out of electronics was because a dust storm hit right before my rocket loaded with another batch of colonists was going to land.

I decided to go solar panels +batteries despite knowing that wind is OP, and it's likely I could have survived if I had gone with wind power. Dust storms shut down your power and I just didn't have enough polymer production to sustain a massive battery farm. Metal production was also an issue, as I essentially supplied all of my metal through surface mining.

I plan to start a new map and just use the OP wind turbines. I do hope they get nerfed though.

 

[Cethanis]

I watched "HotTips" attempting a playtrough at 535%. He failed 2 times, the 3rd time he did it. The Secret seems to be to avoid anything that need upkeep if possible. So no Solar Panels and especially no Wind Turbines (those need machine parts). He actually just used Stirling Generators for Power, these need no upkeep (if closed) at all. And he waited a long time before even attempting to bring colonists.

 

[pbatt]

I watched "HotTips" attempting a playtrough at 535%. He failed 2 times, the 3rd time he did it. The Secret seems to be to avoid anything that need upkeep if possible. So no Solar Panels and especially no Wind Turbines (those need machine parts). He actually just used Stirling Generators for Power, these need no upkeep (if closed) at all. And he waited a long time before even attempting to bring colonists.

The trick with his latest build though is he got Extractor AI @ breakthrough #2

You will need colonists so you can get money for machine parts / electronics and stuff.

 

[Beric]

I watched "HotTips" attempting a playtrough at 535%. He failed 2 times, the 3rd time he did it. The Secret seems to be to avoid anything that need upkeep if possible. So no Solar Panels and especially no Wind Turbines (those need machine parts). He actually just used Stirling Generators for Power, these need no upkeep (if closed) at all. And he waited a long time before even attempting to bring colonists.

I actually have to disagree - you need to bring colonists pretty fast or you will run out of money to supply machine parts/polymers/electronics. Mars-based production is critical.

 

[Cethanis]

I actually have to disagree - you need to bring colonists pretty fast or you will run out of money to supply machine parts/polymers/electronics. Mars-based production is critical.

As pbatt already said, he got lucky and got Extractor AI early. So he runs 2 rare ressource extractors on 50% efficiency all the time what gives him enough money to run his single rocket back and forth constantly.

 

[MarQan]

On my first try on 525% I managed to get the first child 5 days into founder stage. At that point I ran out of Machine Parts which lead to other problems.
I had enough fuel reserve to launch 3 rockets, so the obvious problem was letting the Fuel Refinery run for too long for no reason.
My infrastructure could've been better, could've skipped that tunnel building for sure. I thought I needed a Water Extractor for the 1st colony.

Because Research costs nothing you can just start the game and research everything without doing anything else, unless the game forgot to mention time limits.
Without some self imposed limitations/constraints the game's difficulty percentage seems meaningless.

Where did you find the 535% by the way?

 

[Cethanis]

On my first try on 525% I managed to get the first child 5 days into founder stage. At that point I ran out of Machine Parts which lead to other problems.
I had enough fuel reserve to launch 3 rockets, so the obvious problem was letting the Fuel Refinery run for too long for no reason.
My infrastructure could've been better, could've skipped that tunnel building for sure. I thought I needed a Water Extractor for the 1st colony.

Because Research costs nothing you can just start the game and research everything without doing anything else, unless the game forgot to mention time limits.
Without some self imposed limitations/constraints the game's difficulty percentage seems meaningless.

Where did you find the 535% by the way?

koordinaten sind: 44°N 112°W

 

[Tavior]

Hmm interesting. I thought 505% was maximum.

 

[Beric]

Well, I'm up to Sol 93 on my second run at 535% and I think I have a sustainable, if meager colony. Still at one dome (with 2 apartments). All manufacturing buildings up. I was very fortunate to get early farm tech. Main issue has been water - I could barely manage to reach the second deposit before the first dried up, and as I have no evaporator tech that's not an option. Now I'm quite worried about reaching a third deposit. Tech has been excruciatingly slow. I really need a research center but I don't have the dome space for one.

 

[Mike6979]

I took Hydrologist for that very reason, I felt all the other bonuses had work arounds but Hydrologist was critical.

 

[MontharKragan]

I made it to Sol 61 on my first attempt.

 

[spannbeton]

Survived it until I lost interest in it after finishing 2 wonders and the mystery, now playing it again, different mystery though.
See my post for specs to have a really good start

 

[Beric]

I made it to Sol 61 on my first attempt.

The game today isn't comparable to what it was yesterday. -1000M to the cost of the explorer rover is a MASSIVE decrease in difficulty.

 

[spannbeton]

The game today isn't comparable to what it was yesterday. -1000M to the cost of the explorer rover is a MASSIVE decrease in difficulty.

Yet I started yesterday, so had the same difficulty. but a very lucky RNG

 

[MarQan]

lol yeah, that Explorer price was crazy.
I thought it was intentional though, since you generally don't need more than 1 of them, and they can generate research without drawing any resources.

I stopped playing the hardest map after a while. It relies heavily on RNG (Extractor AI is OP), and not directly more difficult, but just slower. Which is fine, but at first I'd rather experience the game as the devs intended. It also helps to go into hardcore missions when you know what tech you can expect and when.