Surviving Mars is a game of systems. Systems that don't work.

[TekDragon]

I've put 30 hours into this game. So far the parts I've enjoyed have been the parts that have been showcased heavily in sponsored content - the early/mid game.

I'm currently sitting at late-game, and I'm no longer having fun.

I have a medium-sized dome where I wanted to train my colonists. Heavy on nurseries, schools, and martian universities - this dome was where colonists were supposed to grow and train before moving on to other domes.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. I have 40 scientists in my training dome. The dome is set to not allow scientists.

Some distance away is another medium dome. This is where I wanted my scientists. The dome is set to prefer scientists. The science labs are staffed by people who aren't scientists. There's plenty of available residences. The scientists won't come. The science labs continue to under-perform.

In another dome I have all my engineering facilities. I don't have nearly enough engineers. The facilities are staffed by people who aren't engineers. Back at the training dome, my martian universities say I don't have an engineer shortage.

I'm not enjoying late game because over everything is a looming specter - needing to manually select a colonist, click the assign job site, zoom out, zoom into another dome, find the building, and click it, then repeat the process another 200 times.

I don't want to do that.

Paradox, this game is half-baked. It's not just that it doesn't have any late-game structure, it's that the systems you need to even attempt to enjoy the late-game are simply not coded properly.

Shame on you.

 

[Rider_of_Doom]

Just a side note: Paradox isn't the developer, it's the publisher. So in the first place the shame should be delivered to the devs, who thought this system would be fine.

And it's not only this system, there are a lot half-baked things in the game. If I would have paid full price instead of a cheaper key... I would have a bad feeling about it. And I agree with your post.

 

[Skirlasvoud]

I agree. I've progressed into the mid-to-late game and the way in which colonists completely ignore the affinities I set for them - both for domes and structures - is ruining the enjoyment I could've had. Not only is the fact that they're ignoring my orders like they know better, infuriating, but it foils any attempt at getting a decent system going.
With a few easy decrees and settings, the system should be self contained, with people moving about like I expect them. The AI does everything to sabotage this.

I'll say it again: Give me the ability to enforce work placements, like a third affinity setting that doesn't just suggest preference, but makes a demand. When I activate it because I want a medic in a specific dome, or in a specific building, the game kicks everyone out and scans the entirety of the map for a medic. If they're not in a building with this same highest and third affinity setting, the game forces them to move over.


Maybe I'm not getting something, but I blame Haemimont for never having been good in designing proper AI. It's the same story for the Tropico Series. It's a lot of fun in the beginning, but your people soon gridlock the island with ridiculous traffic jams and a poor choice of residence/work entering the mid-to-late game. I'm squeamish towards Tropico 6 too.

 

[EntilZha]

Honestly I've virtually stopped playing already. Way too many little problems that snowball into a game that just isn't fun to play. Kinda disappointed I bought the first colony edition. Hopefully the expansions, add on's and modders will fix the problems. I won't count on it though, I think to fix most of them you would need to almost rebuild the game from the ground up mechanic wise.

Well, Far Cry 5 comes out in just over a week.

 

[gjc8]

I have to say, I haven't really had this problem, despite doing exactly what you described: setting up a dome focused on universities. The result isn't perfect: there's always a few people working the wrong job in the wrong place. But a majority of people find their way to the correct job. And this despite not usually having a ton of spare residential space in my domes, except when I'm in the middle of filling a new one.

Now, my domes are all within walking distance (as I've rolled Extractor AI); if you're relying on the shuttle hub network to move colonists around, perhaps that's causing problems. I know I've had problems with the shuttles not moving resources around as quickly and efficiently as I'd like (especially before I had all the tech for them).

 

[Calvax]

I tried a similar thing. I thought a really useful and cool thing to do would be to make an agridome that was stocked preferentially by people with flaws (every other dome was set to deter them). In that agridome I put a sanatorium. The idea would be that people with bad traits would be sent to a peaceful place where they could tend to the farms, be treated and then head back into society. But it doesn't work at all and I think it's because a) colonists do not domes unless they have to (i.e. they are unemployed or homeless) and b) will only move if there is a residential spot for them. This is the same with jobs within domes, colonists won't change jobs aside to conform to the priorities you set.

What this means is that a botanist in a mine wont swap with a geologist on a farm because the proportions of workers are correct, and if both are full there's no space for them to move into. And even if a colonist would be better suited in another dome they won't swap with someone who isn't suited for that dome.

This game seriously needs a patch to address colonist migration between jobs and domes to have it make sense (an also IMO a mechanic to allow sharing of services between domes). Some UI improvements to allow mass selection of certain people across the whole colony or individual domes to tell them to all migrate, swap jobs or whatever is also sorely needed. Ditto for drones because swapping drones between hubs is an exercise so tedious and clicky I'm surprised anyone played it and thought "yeah that's good!"

 

[EsoEs]

If you're in the mid-late game, it seems like you barely need "specialized" buildings and domes anyways. As frustrating as it definitely is how poor the worker AI etc is, the fact is that once you conquer the mid-game hump, you can infinitely build without any real problems stopping you. At least that was my experience my 4th try of this game once i actually learned how to survive, and got 3+ domes up.

 

[Calvax]

If you're in the mid-late game, it seems like you barely need "specialized" buildings and domes anyways. As frustrating as it definitely is how poor the worker AI etc is, the fact is that once you conquer the mid-game hump, you can infinitely build without any real problems stopping you. At least that was my experience my 4th try of this game once i actually learned how to survive, and got 3+ domes up.

Same(ish). By the midgame things were stable with all income being in the green. The next stage of the game was steadily saving up, selling rare metals to immediately outsource research, and building wonders. However I've found that in the end game expansion is a bit of a chore as you throw down generic domes stuffed with the same things just to get the endless homeless and jobless out of the other domes. This is why colonists travelling to other domes for work and services would be so much better than the current system. In the late game when there seems to be dozens of homeless people per dome we could quickly put down small "suburb" domes of just apartments next to larger metro domes. Rather than having to tediously build the same cluster of buildings in the same ratios to keep everyone happy.

 

[gjc8]

Same(ish). By the midgame things were stable with all income being in the green. The next stage of the game was steadily saving up, selling rare metals to immediately outsource research, and building wonders. However I've found that in the end game expansion is a bit of a chore as you throw down generic domes stuffed with the same things just to get the endless homeless and jobless out of the other domes. This is why colonists travelling to other domes for work and services would be so much better than the current system. In the late game when there seems to be dozens of homeless people per dome we could quickly put down small "suburb" domes of just apartments next to larger metro domes. Rather than having to tediously build the same cluster of buildings in the same ratios to keep everyone happy.

I'm not sure that would actually help. You have to build more service buildings anyway as population grows; even within the same dome, I find, for the larger domes. Even if people did go between domes for services, putting down another dome of just apartments is just going to crank up the "X colonists couldn't satisfy their Interest ([Whatever]) - service buildings are full" problem.

It sure would be convenient to be able to say "stop having babies you don't have room for", but I guess population pressure is supposed to be part of the challenge.

 

[Calvax]

I'm not sure that would actually help. You have to build more service buildings anyway as population grows; even within the same dome, I find, for the larger domes. Even if people did go between domes for services, putting down another dome of just apartments is just going to crank up the "X colonists couldn't satisfy their Interest ([Whatever]) - service buildings are full" problem.

Hmm. I think it would help somewhat just for making it less of a chore each dome, i.e. being able to quickly through down a pure habitation dome as a stop gap. But your comment makes me think that a "copy dome" button would be great. By the end game throwing out new domes becomes a bit of a chore to deal with population pressure rather than something needed.

It sure would be convenient to be able to say "stop having babies you don't have room for", but I guess population pressure is supposed to be part of the challenge.

True, though some sort of policy system would be good. You'd think a Mars colony that's only two accidents away from a cascade failure would be less cavalier about reproduction.

 

[EEE_boy]

The game design is fine, and the dome colonist filter also works fine for me, and the drones are also working fine.

If you have trouble moving colonists around, you need to get the dome filters right, I’m sure there will be a community guide out at some point later. so far I only figure out the early game and working on the mid game dome planning (I use a 5 specialized domes per community strategy for early game: food, machine/polymer, electonics, education, extraxtor/senior)
If you have trouble moving resouces around, there is a problem in your infrastructure planning and expansion plan.

 

[DominusNovus]

I’m optimistic, if only for one reason: H’mont is now dealing with P’dox customers on a P’dox forum. The tedium that could crop up on Tropico is not going to fly here. They pretty much have to be responsive to these concerns.

 

[Rhaegor]

I do expect Paradox to intervene and I also expect these problems to be addressed promptly. The game is now at the dreaded "mixed" rating with only 64% positive reviews on Steam. Neither Paradox nor the Developer can be happy about this, especially since Paradox is one of the few gaming companies, as a both a developer and a publisher, with a good reputation these days.

 

[DominusNovus]

I do expect Paradox to intervene and I do expect these problems to be addressed promptly.

Hopefully they won’t need to, I do expect any company that signs up to have P’dox as their publisher goes in with open eyes that there is a very high level of community engagement expected from their existing customers.

 

[Herbert West]

True, though some sort of policy system would be good. You'd think a Mars colony that's only two accidents away from a cascade failure would be less cavalier about reproduction.

Yeah, from what I can tell (I refunded the game at the 119 mark due to the shoddy UI and the lack of any tutorial, sure hints that this game needed months more playtesting), the game does a very poor job of simulating a frontier colony.

 

[Calvax]

Yeah, from what I can tell (I refunded the game at the 119 mark due to the shoddy UI and the lack of any tutorial, sure hints that this game needed months more playtesting), the game does a very poor job of simulating a frontier colony.

In its credit I think it does in some respects. One of the things that really drew me to this game is that the colony relies fundamentally on large scale robotic automation, not just to get things done but get things going. On top of that the gradual weaning off of imports from Earth all the while constantly aware that a few mistakes/disasters could lead to a cascade failure really cement in the idea this is a first attempt at establishing a sustainable colony on mars (it's simplified sure but I'm not sure how fun a realistic game would be given how much of your time would be dedicated to pouring over ecological flow/health reports).

Where the game seems to fall down is the colonists who act like morons; too dumb to do simple things like swap jobs with someone who would be better at theirs (and vice versa), take a flying taxi to the next dome over for their art supplies, or run to another dome without checking to see if they have enough oxygen.

 

[TekDragon]

I have to say, I haven't really had this problem, despite doing exactly what you described: setting up a dome focused on universities. The result isn't perfect: there's always a few people working the wrong job in the wrong place. But a majority of people find their way to the correct job. And this despite not usually having a ton of spare residential space in my domes, except when I'm in the middle of filling a new one.

Now, my domes are all within walking distance (as I've rolled Extractor AI); if you're relying on the shuttle hub network to move colonists around, perhaps that's causing problems. I know I've had problems with the shuttles not moving resources around as quickly and efficiently as I'd like (especially before I had all the tech for them).

Hmm, this suggests that the problem is in the shuttles, which means that bases need to be built near each other with no elevation changes. In my experience, that takes a lot of trial and error on world gen. That shouldn't be the default.

 

[Taran14]

While migrating colonists between domes (or drones between hubs) could be a lot more intuitive, I do feel there is a case to be made for workplaces not being optimised. Your colonists are supposed to be human beings after all, not perfectly rational machines. People do not always work in the job they would be "best" at. In reality, there are many reasons that determine where people choose to work. Availability, enjoyment, co-workers etc. Maybe that geologist working on a farm doesn't want to work in a mine because he found out he prefers working on a farm and because his co-workers are such great people? Trying to min-max everything would be unrealistic. Also, it is not like the system doesn't work at all either. Geologists do tend to end up working in extractors more often than in farms, where you are more likely to find botanists. I actually like this.

 

[Rhaegor]

While migrating colonists between domes (or drones between hubs) could be a lot more intuitive, I do feel there is a case to be made for workplaces not being optimised. Your colonists are supposed to be human beings after all, not perfectly rational machines. People do not always work in the job they would be "best" at. In reality, there are many reasons that determine where people choose to work. Availability, enjoyment, co-workers etc. Maybe that geologist working on a farm doesn't want to work in a mine because he found out he prefers working on a farm and because his co-workers are such great people? Trying to min-max everything would be unrealistic. Also, it is not like the system doesn't work at all either. Geologists do tend to end up working in extractors more often than in farms, where you are more likely to find botanists. I actually like this.

This is a Mars colonization mission which would cost trillions of dollars. Colonists would be issued commands by their commander (you in this case) and infractions would be dealt with swiftly and harshly. I expect any colonization mission in real life would be handled like a military operation and insubordination would result in planetary deportation or worse.

 

[Taran14]

This is a Mars colonization mission which would cost trillions of dollars. Colonists would be issued commands by their commander (you in this case) and infractions would be dealt with swiftly and harshly. I expect any colonization mission in real life would be handled like a military operation and insubordination would result in planetary deportation or worse.

There is nothing in the game to suggest this is a military mission. Quite the contrary, the fact that your colonists include alcoholics, compulsive gamblers and criminals suggests that there is anything but military discipline in your colony. Also, I'd expect a real-life colonisation effort of Mars to be conducted like a research expedition rather than a military mission. Polar expeditions are a good example.