Update: It has been months since the release of Surviving Mars and there have been a number of patches and DLCs - including the first paid expansion - which have added new things to the game. That's why now seems to be a good time to update the original guide, which sought to help new players trying to figure out the game.
That being said, this update keeps the original guide intact and instead adds a couple of addendums discussing / elaborating on some of the game's subsystems. This is because the core principles outlined in the original guide have pretty much remained the same even with all the game's changes.
The Original Guide
This guide is meant to help new Surviving Mars players understand the fundamental principles that are at work behind the game. Hence it is not meant to be a tutorial showing how to build a solar panel. Rather, it explains WHY you should build solar panels; and why you sometimes shouldn't.
The Mars Commander Primer
Colony management is fundamentally an exercise in engine-building and resource management. You start with a pile of resources, which you convert into things (e.g. power plants or extractors) which extract or produce more resources. Keep feeding and repeating this engine, and you will achieve a "virtuous cycle" wherein your produce exponentially more and more resources to the point you enter the state of permanent surplus. At this point, the sky is the limit with regards to what you can build and achieve.
However you should also be careful to avoid a systems collapse. This can occur if your consumption of resources - particularly the maintenance of buildings - exceeds your production or importation capabilities. Should these deficits be left unattended for too long then a situation can occur wherein you are no longer able to acquire key resources needed to make the rest of the system function - effectively putting yourself in a deadlock situation. Fortunately, deficits can often be corrected to bring the system back into a state of surplus as long as they are identified and corrected before the deadlock state occurs.
Advanced Sidebar: That said, very large colonies (1000+ citizens) may soon find they are literally using up all the resources in the map and have to stick to some target size that can actually be supported by the game's handful of infinite resource production methods (mainly Wonders)
In short, Surviving Mars is in many ways a business simulation. You start with a pile of capital (resources and money), and you must earn a profit by building stuff that produce more resources. These "profits" allow you to grow further and gain even more profits, whereas deficits can cause the entire system to freeze up and the business to go bankrupt.
With this in mind, it's important to realize that Surviving Mars has three distinct phases:
1) Early game exploration - which is defined by the period BEFORE you land your first colonist and you develop your overall plan.
2) Establishment of your first Dome - which is defined by creating your first "profitable" manned settlement that produces a surplus of resources.
3) Expansion - which is basically replicating your early successes and / or exploring new ones.
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Exploration:
One of the unique mechanics of Surviving Mars is the fact that you are NOT forced to start sending colonists immediately. You instead start off with an unmanned mission - consisting of various rovers and drones - who are supposed to explore the area and build your initial settlement.
In this regard, it is important to remember these key principles:
1) You are NOT required to build on the first "revealed" sector. You do not even have to land there. If the resource mix on the initial scanned site is poor, you can land somewhere else; especially on spots that are noted as likely having the deposits you want.
2) Your rocket, after landing, needs to be refueled. Otherwise it will stay on Mars and be unable to bring you more stuff in the future. Fortunately, setting up a refueling system is really easy using prefabricated buildings - just remember to bring a Moisture Farm and a Fuel Refinery on your first trip. Build them beside your rocket, and build some solar powers or wind turbines to power them, and your rocket will be refueled in a few days and will be ready to use again. You should setup this refueling system right from the outset since it's independent from any on-site resources beside metal for Solar panels.
3) You don't have to bring an orbital scanner to find "better" spots. It is generally cheaper (and better long-term) to land and build Sensor Towers. Bring some electronics, and build a sensor tower on your initial landing spot to scan it and the surrounding area. Eventually, you will want to bring in a second RC Rover and a Transport to travel beyond your starting location and build a network of sensor towers all over the map.
4) The most consistently profitable "business" in the early game is selling rare metals to Earth. Some sponsor combinations may generate money in other ways that allow for more flexibility - Europe being a particular standout as they earn money from research. However, rare metal export works for all sponsors and indeed some combinations have no choice but rare metal export. Hence, your primary goal in the early exploration phase is to find a good rare metal source - preferably of "average" quality or better (as this affects how fast you can mine it).
5) Though the "exploration" phase will typically be over after a few Sols (or be done immediately if your starting tile has a good rare material source), you should continue doing step 3 until you have fully scanned the map; as the information you gather will be vital for the expansion phase. Scanning the map also reveals anomalies - which can be scanned using an Explorer Rover for research bonuses and more technology.
Your First Dome:
Do not aim for self-sufficiency with your first Dome.
I repeat: Do not aim for self-sufficiency with your first Dome.
While a lot of streamers have advocated this, it's good to step back, do some math and realize how profitable (cash-wise) rare metals actually are. A small deposit of just 300 metal for instance, selling at $20M (the minimum), would generate $6000M once fully consumed. This exceeds the initial funding of all the "hard" difficulty sponsors. Even if you spent everything to build that first colony (and you wouldn't) you'd still make $2000M profit and have a whole bunch of stuff you can reuse (e.g. fueling depots, and no-maintenance drones + rovers).
It is in fact "okay" to import stuff like machine parts and polymers early on to fulfill your maintenance needs, and food is so cheap at $10M per 5 units that having hydrophonics is really unnecessary. Just make sure your supply of parts or food will not dry up before the arrival of the next resupply rocket, and make sure you don't over-order. Indeed, importing stuff for a low upkeep mining settlement and waiting for the ability to build your own factories via technology might be more profitable than importing prefab factories.
When actually building your Domes, remember the following:
1) Domes require cement, metal, and polymers to build - plus generally more cement and other stuff to build structures inside of it. Cement can be produced using an extractor. Metal is best acquired by sending an RC Transport to collect surface metal. Polymers must be imported. Hence from a cash perspective Domes are actually "cheap" - as only the Polymers and the machine parts for the concrete extractor are imported.
2) Domes then require power, water, and oxygen. Power is best supplied by either Solar panels (with a battery for night) or wind turbines. You then need 1 water for the Dome and a Moxie oxygen-generator. This water can be provided by a deposit if one conveniently nearby, but don't be shy about importing Moisture Farm prefabs if it's not.
3) A mining Dome only requires living room and services (e.g. Grocer, Infirmary, etc) inside of the Dome, and mines outside of the Dome. When starting out however, prioritize ONE living quarters and the services. This is because you won't be allowed to send more colonists until 10 days after the first batch, unless a child is born in your colony before then. Prioritizing services increases comfort which increases the chance of a birth occurring.
4) When the birth happens you can then "fill out" the colony. Make sure to just bring in enough people (and import food) to match the actual number of work slots you need; and indeed having a little extra tends to be a good idea (it's okay to have a few unemployed). Make sure that your buildings are also working multiple shifts - buildings often default to just a single shift and that's a very inefficient setup, as it means your structure isn't making you money for 2/3rds of the day!
5) Regularly send a rocket with resupply materials (food, machine parts, and polymers) to the colony to pick up exports. Refuel it using your original fuel refinery - simply transfer fuel using RC Transports to your colony if it's in a different location, and keep an RC Rover near the said refinery to keep it operational (Drone hubs cost maintenance and are bad for this).
Congratulations, you should now be making your first profit!
Expansion:
Now that you are making money, you can now turn to building more stuff and having a more diverse colony. Just remember to make sure you remain within the virtuous cycle of ever-increasing surpluses, and not fall into the trap of over-building deficits which can result in collapse. Here are some final ideas you could use to guide your expansion.
1) Generally continue to specialize your domes. Managing them is easy if you simply make a Dome "prefer" a specific set of specialists. For instance your first mining colony should be made to prefer Geologists. They should not reject other specialists however - because you might not have Geologists around to fill out all your slots and you don't need Geologists to man services.
2) Agriculture Domes are generally not viable until you have farms, as Hydrophonics and Fungus tend to eat up power and other valuable resources in addition to being less productive than farms. Agri Domes however do need quite a bit of water, so they should be built near a water source. Once built however, a single Agri Dome with just 3 farms can easily feed a hundred colonists, and with improved crops of various types it may push closer to 200. Later in the game, the water consumption issue all but vanishes with the addition of a water reclamation spire; at which point they stop really needing the water source and can rely on Moisture Farms againn.
3) A science-focused Dome will generally produce more research than your starting sponsor rate, but labs requires electronics for maintenance which are the most expensive type of import. On the other hand, you can simply spend money outright to get research through Outsource. Long-term Science Domes are generally desirable and should be built, just make sure you can support them and do consider just Outsourcing in the meantime. Unfortunately a previously available "business model" - wherein money is generated by researching patents - has been nerfed so building a lot of science Domes to make money is less viable.
4) Manufacturing Domes can produce multiple types of advanced resources - because they're all reliant on Engineer specialists. That said, electronics factories tend to require much more manpower than machine parts or polymers, so it may be better to leave them in a separate Dome due to manpower concerns. Indeed, I suspect a lot of the manpower issues lies with how people try to cram all three types of factory in a single Dome - resulting in too much labor demand and not enough workers.
In addition, make sure your supply of raw materials exceeds your manufacturing capability. There's no point in being able to produce 10 electronics per day if your rare metals production is only 3!
5) Have a specialized Dome for training specialists once you unlock the university. Make sure the university always works all shifts (there is no penalty for education buildings) Set it to prefer non-specialized adults and reject any specialists. That way non-specialists go into the university Dome and are kicked out as soon as they get skills. Name it after some famous real-world university town like say Heidelberg. That's part of the fun of the game
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6) Eventually your Domes will become "clogged" by Seniors and children, who do not contribute to the work force but prevent vital factories from being manned. At this point, a "retirement" Dome and a "children's" Dome might be in order.
However, unlike "specialized" Domes which prefer certain specialists, you must do the reverse: To create a Senior's Dome, you must select all other Domes and have them reject Seniors. The retirement Dome then prefers Seniors but does not disallow other age groups (except maybe children).
This is because seniors will not automatically migrate to the "retirement" dome unless their parent dome rejects them. Meanwhile, you still want the retirement dome to have a few working-age people (to man the services).
Apply the same logic to create a children's Dome, albeit the children's Dome should be full of nurseries and include schools to educate the next generation of Martians; similar to the university Dome.
7) Rely more on single-resource depot than universal ones, as this allows you to more easily set transfer routes between Domes using your RC Transports. If you do use universal depots then make sure to disable resources that are not needed in that Dome (e.g. fuel in a spot where the rocket never lands). Shuttle technology is also something to beeline for if you're having difficult micromanaging everything, though RC Transports remain the best and most efficient method of bulk transport.
Anyway, that's all for now. Good luck, commanders!
Addendum 1: Alternate Business Models
What if you don't want to be a rare metal miner? Is there really no way to make a profitable colony without resorting to rare metal mining?
The answer, unfortunately, remains "no" despite all the game's changes and additions. Rare metal mining remains the most profitable and consistent early "business model". This is even in combination with some sponsor powers and unique buildings in the expansion.
That said, there are a number of things that you can do in combination in order to stay afloat in the early game - albeit juggling to keep multiple balls in the air still tends to be a more difficult act than rare metal mining alone.
Hence, this section is really more for intermediate players rather than beginners. But if you really want to cut your teeth into a more complicated early start, consider the following:
1) Research Dome First. This approach is most viable with Europe as a sponsor as you get money every time you research any technology, but there are enough money-generating technologies that allow you to get by as long as you hold yourself to a tight budget (more on that in the next section).
2) Be very frugal. Really, if you can keep your colony costs very low then you can live with very little income. The Micro Dome, in particular, is awesome for cutting down early money costs and makes for a great early lab.
To be more specific, the Micro Dome does not require polymers (which generally has to be imported) to build and can run with only 0.5 water and Oxygen. Your original Moisture Vaporator (which you flew in with a Fuel Refinery to refuel your rocket) with its 1 water production could in fact supply all the water the colony needs. Simply limit your fuel refinery to one shift and store up some water in water tanks.
With three large slices and one medium slice the Dome can support about 2 large basic residences (28 people), which is enough to staff a lab plus your three basic services (grocer, infirmary, and diner) with some space left over (more on how to use that later).
Fuel production will have to be cut though, so you may have to rely on supply pods for a while (especially for deliver of your electronics to build and maintain the lab). That said with your research you should be able to get the Moisture Vaporator upgrade that increases water production by 0.5. This should be enough to let you run your fuel refinery at full capacity again for the rocket.
3) Fly in tourists for your MarsBnB. Each tourist gives you $10M upon landing, leaves automatically on the first rocket to arrive after 5 sols, and generates two new tourist applicants when they reach home alive - no matter how miserable they were during their stay. This means that each open living space in your colony can potentially be "rented out" for $2M per Sol.
This approach is particularly strong for Brazil, as their regular colonists also pay out $10M upon landing (and the sponsor bonus is on top of the usual tourist payout), but also works very well for sponsors with small applicant pools like Japan or Paradox because you will often have extra living space in your colony regardless and the tourists help produce more babies to overcome the initial population issue.
Just remember however that tourists do NOT work in your buildings, hence you still need a regular non-tourist workforce to actually get stuff done. Also, makes sure you have enough food - albeit tourists do still bring 1 food with them which is enough to feed them through 5 Sols unless they are gluttons.
4) Chase after Sponsor Goals that give money. This of course depends on the sponsor, but the extra funding they give is often a godsend for an early colony.
5) Be Russia, use your automated rare metal mining rover, and be patient. Yes, it's not efficient because you lose half of the rare metals in the deposit - but it's essentially "free" money and you probably won't miss one or two rare metal deposits in the end anyway.
There are also two sponsors offering other possibilities for early money - namely Paradox and its Game Development building and Blue Sun's coporate offices - but I would suggest both of these are something of a trap option especially in the early game. Random money is very hard to plan around, while the Blue Sun building requires a huge workforce.
Ironically, Brazil can also theoretically convert waste rock into money via the building which turns waste rock into rare metal, but simply bringing in more people for $10M each is a more reliable early source of income; and you will need a lot of waste rock (meaning a fairly large colony) to maximize the converter anyway.
Addendum 2: Planning for Power (Solar, Battery, Wind, etc)
Many players seem to get confused by how solar and battery power works, which is frankly why a lot of players seem to swear by Sterlings despite being a poor early choice. Early Sterlings are frankly too expensive and relying on them is very often why colonies fail.
In reality, Solar + Battery is very simple once you realize these simple rules:
1) A battery can only discharge 20 power per hour. Connecting enough buildings to consume 25 power means that you will be 5 power short even if your battery was fully charged. Hence your nighttime power requirements should try to remain within these 20 power increments or be supplemented by wind (which never goes offline)
2) There are only 9 hours of nighttime. This means that your fully charged battery should actually have 20 power leftover even if fully utilized through the night (20 consumption x 9 hours = 180 power, versus the 200 total capacity). This means a fully charged battery will leave you with a margin of error in case of any recharging issues during the day (e.g. your solar panels were out of service for an hour due to maintenance).
3) There are 16 hours of daylight, meaning you need 12.5 power per hour during the day to fully charge a battery. That translate to 3 large solar panels per battery, or better yet just 5 large solar panels per 2 batteries.
Being aware of these three principles, then your early game powergrid should consist of these four specific elements based on your colony's power needs. I suggest you keep organized on the map to help you figure out your power capability:
1) Daytime-only Power: Fields of Large Solar Panels to supply your daytime-only buildings. For instance if you are building a Machine Parts factory (50 power!) that you only run during the daytime (which you probably should!), then build 10 large solar panels to supply it.
2) Nighttime-only Power: As noted above, this is a combination of 3 large solar powers and 1 battery for 20 power/hour, or 5 large solar panels and 2 batteries for 40 power/hour. The panels will fully charge your batteries during the day so you can supply power during the night.
3) All-Sol Power: A combination of items 1 and 2. That means you need 7 large panels and 1 battery to supply 20 "all-sol" power/hour , or 13 large panels and 2 batteries for 40 power. Basically, add 4 solar panels (20 power/hour during the day) for every nighttime-only power unit of 20 power/hour.
4) Supplemental/Auxillary: Build Wind as an all-sol supplement if you don't need a full 20 power setup yet (eg. you need 25-30 power all-Sol, rather than 40), or are in a dust storm-prone map. Indeed in a disaster-prone map you should probably throw in a Wind Turbine every for every 20 power produced by solar + battery.
The above setup should lead to rather low maintenance using imported parts - basically you just pay some polymers and machine parts - and most of the maintenance is instead paid using metal which in the early game can be collected fairly easily on the surface using transport rovers.
That said, having huge metal maintenance and space devoted to solar panels is not ideal for the lategame, since by that point all surface metal will have been used up and you want space for other things. This is why lategame power systems are centered around triboelectric scrubbers - because scrubbers DO clean each other and basically reduce their maintenance to zero.
In this maintenance-less future, you should really only have wind, stirlings, and fusion covered by the scrubbers, because you want buildings with a high power-to-space ratio. Initially, wind should be your mainstay because of the low build cost and it can produce more power than solar for the same space, but once you have a steady supply of polymers and electronics Stirlings should be your mainstay as they produce much more power for less space. Fusion is potentially even more efficient from a space-saving perspective, but do note they require manpower.
Finally, note that you still need to have backup power production or storage in the lategame - because scrubbers only prevent maintenance and not disasters!
Addendum 3: Labor, Comfort, and Housing Myths
Labor Myths
A recurring criticism of Surviving Mars is that players can't seem to figure out how to manage their colonists. The problem is that many of these critics are over-complicating the issue and don't realize they are managing an entire colony, not catering to the whims of every single colonist.
In this regard, it is important to realize that good colonist management revolves around a set of much simpler factors:
1) It is not your job to ensure that each colonist is happy and is working an ideal job. You are NOT a jobs placement officer. You are the manager of an entire colony. Bob the Geologist can suck it up serving meals in the Diner while you don't have a mine built yet.
2) Your job instead is to ensure that there is an adequate supply of labor compared to the jobs needed to be done in the colony. Ideally, you want to fill a job with a specialist, but realize that a warm unspecialized body is ALWAYS better than none at all.
3) You will always have chronic labor shortages in the early game so you will be constantly using unspecialized workers in the wrong job. This is not because the AI is bad at managing colonists. It is because you have an absolute shortage of specialists of the right type. You cannot fill 6 scientist worker slots if you only have 4 scientists to begin with.
4) Therefore never, ever manage individual colonists. Instead, use filters as noted in the guide above. Specialize Domes and have them prefer the right specialist (but do not reject non-specialists because of the aforementioned labor shortages). Reject seniors and children and put them in their own Domes where they can have their needs met. Build a university dome that prefers non-sepcialists (new students!) and rejects specialists (to throw the graduates out to the work force).
5) Close work shifts that can't be fully manned. Closing shifts is better than closing work slots because closing a shift also kills the building's power requirement for that time. You don't need all buildings working all three shifts.
6) Give the AI a few Sols to do its job. Colonists do have to walk to their new Domes, which takes in-game time. If your Domes are located far away prioritize building a shuttle network to handle the transport.
Comfort Myths
Another recurring criticism of Surviving Mars is that players can't seem to figure out how to make their colonists happy. This is actually even simpler than managing their labor as long as you remember a few key principles:
1) The primary determinant of a colonist's comfort is their residence. Having a 70 comfort residence is more important than having a lot of services. This is because they will always visit their residence. That said, don't build anything but Basic Residences (see the Housing section for details).
2) Your colonists do not need to have their every whim catered to. Building a Games store and stocking it with Electronics is expensive. Your Gamer colonists can suck it up for a while, especially if they have a nice home.
3) Your service buildings have a CAPACITY. Having a wide variety of service buildings means little if your colonists can't get in because it's always full. That's why rushing to build a huge Dome and building every kind of service doesn't actually result in happier people, because the combined capacity of the service buildings often outstrips that of the population. Have 1 big service "slice" (with 3 medium and 1 small buildings) for every 50-60 people.
4) Colonists of the same specialization have the same interests (check the wiki). For instance all scientists want games. This should also guide your service slice design.
5) A service slice should always have a Diner and Infirmary, because all colonists need to eat and have their wounds / sanity treated. The third medium building should be a shop - because almost every specialization has the shopping need - of which the Grocer is the cheapest to run because it consumes only food.
However, if you really want high comfort and don't mind spending the resources to get more babies - then build an art store (for farming Domes) or a game store (for science domes) instead of the Grocer, as these stores have a much higher comfort level than the Grocer and your other colonists will still shop there. For the small building, a park usually helps the most as there are quite a few colonists who want relaxation too.
6) Kid's Domes should have playgrounds. It's pretty much all they want other than food.
Housing Myths
Finally, a recurring misconception about Surviving Mars is that you should abandon Basic Residences in favor of Apartments (or Arcologies) as soon as possible. This is bluntly wrong for a few simple reasons:
1) Apartments are simply the worst single building in the game because of their enormous power requirement (12) compared to basic residences (1!). You are always better off building a new Dome and filling them with basic residences than to fill an existing dome with apartments from a cost and maintenance perspective. They also have terrible residence comfort, which is the most important factor in keeping your people happy.
Moreover water and air - two resources people often cite to justify building apartments and complaining about the lack of space - are in fact ridiculously easy to get. Moisture Vaporators can be called in from Earth and have very low power and maintenance requirements. A single Moxie produces enough Oxygen for multiple basic Domes.
Both require less power combined than a single apartment. If you are running out of space in a present Dome, just build a new one already.
You should only consider Apartments when you have literally run out of space to build any new Domes on the map and still want more population; and even then I'd tear down old space-inefficient power systems (e.g. solar power systems that have not yet been replaced by banks of Sterlings cleaned by scrubbers) first. Indeed, I suspect the game will crash or slow to a crawl before you get to this point.
2) Basic residences are the best. They are extremely cheap and reasonably comfortable, and their comfort can be upgraded.
3) If you want to really boost your housing comfort, build Hanging Gardens, not Arcologies. Hanging Gardens boost the comfort of all residences in a Dome. Arcologies provide a limited number of high-comfort residences and are frankly expensive construction and power-wise, much like Apartments. With a Hanging Garden and a few upgrades, your Basic Residence provides as much comfort as a Smart Home. The Gardens themselves are an awesome service building too.
4) Smart Homes are also pretty much unnecessary unless you want to show off.
Addendum 4: Quick Notes on New Features
1) Connections - You don't really need them. Seriously. The game was designed without connections and it can still be played without them as long as you are disciplined with regards to specializing your Domes. Use them once you've mastered specializing Domes, not before. That said...
2) New Domes - use them, particularly the ones that can be build without research. The Micro Dome in particular is the best way to build a Dome faster than anyone else and is very low-cost to maintain. They make ideal outposts (specifically science or mining) which can be connected later to bigger Domes using passages.
The Barrel Dome is the best Dome for an industrial center because there are no spires that boost industrial production (polymers/machine parts/electronics) in the first place, so you get a lot more space for less cost.
The Basic Dome remains a pretty good Dome because it is the cheapest Dome that can support a spire -and it will be your workhorse for most of the game -, but a lategame Megadome is more efficient in terms of spires that confer a Dome-wide ability. For instance, why build four Hanging Gardens for four basic spires when one Megadome can affect as many residences with just one Hanging Gardens?
Rather, your lategame setup should consist only of Megadomes, Basic Domes, Barrel Domes, and Micro Domes. Megadomes will get spires that confer Dome-wide abilities (e.g Hanging Gardens, Network Node). Basic Domes get spires that have a limited capacity (e.g. Sanitorium) but you want a lot of. Barrel Domes focus on industry (which has no spire that confers bonuses) because they are more efficient in terms of maintenance, while Micro Domes are also efficient maintenance-wise and can be used as outposts. The Barrel and Microdomes could also be used to just house industrial production buildings, so that you can save all of the space in your Hanging Gardens Megadome for housing and keeping them happy. Do not be afraid to demolish buildings and reconfigure Domes at this late stage because you get a refund on some of your construction costs.
Finally, if you get the two-spire Domes, use them. They are pretty strong even if they aren't the most efficient space/maintenance-wise.
3) Unique buildings / rovers - unless already mentioned in other addendum (e.g. the Russian miner), none are really groundbreaking enough to radically alter your early play. Treat them as conveniences or late game curiosities, not something to build a strategy around.
4) Rules to make the gamer "harder" - frankly, don't bother because most of them simply drag the game out rather than increasing the risk of failure. Trying a 1100% challenge is basically a regular game but with long periods of waiting while you slowly research / wait for babies / wait for disasters to pass/ run a small profit. Instead go with what seem like interesting combinations or self-imposed challenges. There is no "win" condition.
5) Planetary anomalies and events - fairly interesting, but not ground-breaking except when it blows up your only rocket. That said it does mean you should have a rocket on Mars to explore anomalies; and you should send the rocket on an expedition from the main screen (not the planetary view) so that your drones only load the 15 fuel needed for a short expedition.
Again, good luck Commanders!
That being said, this update keeps the original guide intact and instead adds a couple of addendums discussing / elaborating on some of the game's subsystems. This is because the core principles outlined in the original guide have pretty much remained the same even with all the game's changes.
The Original Guide
This guide is meant to help new Surviving Mars players understand the fundamental principles that are at work behind the game. Hence it is not meant to be a tutorial showing how to build a solar panel. Rather, it explains WHY you should build solar panels; and why you sometimes shouldn't.
The Mars Commander Primer
Colony management is fundamentally an exercise in engine-building and resource management. You start with a pile of resources, which you convert into things (e.g. power plants or extractors) which extract or produce more resources. Keep feeding and repeating this engine, and you will achieve a "virtuous cycle" wherein your produce exponentially more and more resources to the point you enter the state of permanent surplus. At this point, the sky is the limit with regards to what you can build and achieve.
However you should also be careful to avoid a systems collapse. This can occur if your consumption of resources - particularly the maintenance of buildings - exceeds your production or importation capabilities. Should these deficits be left unattended for too long then a situation can occur wherein you are no longer able to acquire key resources needed to make the rest of the system function - effectively putting yourself in a deadlock situation. Fortunately, deficits can often be corrected to bring the system back into a state of surplus as long as they are identified and corrected before the deadlock state occurs.
Advanced Sidebar: That said, very large colonies (1000+ citizens) may soon find they are literally using up all the resources in the map and have to stick to some target size that can actually be supported by the game's handful of infinite resource production methods (mainly Wonders)
In short, Surviving Mars is in many ways a business simulation. You start with a pile of capital (resources and money), and you must earn a profit by building stuff that produce more resources. These "profits" allow you to grow further and gain even more profits, whereas deficits can cause the entire system to freeze up and the business to go bankrupt.
With this in mind, it's important to realize that Surviving Mars has three distinct phases:
1) Early game exploration - which is defined by the period BEFORE you land your first colonist and you develop your overall plan.
2) Establishment of your first Dome - which is defined by creating your first "profitable" manned settlement that produces a surplus of resources.
3) Expansion - which is basically replicating your early successes and / or exploring new ones.
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Exploration:
One of the unique mechanics of Surviving Mars is the fact that you are NOT forced to start sending colonists immediately. You instead start off with an unmanned mission - consisting of various rovers and drones - who are supposed to explore the area and build your initial settlement.
In this regard, it is important to remember these key principles:
1) You are NOT required to build on the first "revealed" sector. You do not even have to land there. If the resource mix on the initial scanned site is poor, you can land somewhere else; especially on spots that are noted as likely having the deposits you want.
2) Your rocket, after landing, needs to be refueled. Otherwise it will stay on Mars and be unable to bring you more stuff in the future. Fortunately, setting up a refueling system is really easy using prefabricated buildings - just remember to bring a Moisture Farm and a Fuel Refinery on your first trip. Build them beside your rocket, and build some solar powers or wind turbines to power them, and your rocket will be refueled in a few days and will be ready to use again. You should setup this refueling system right from the outset since it's independent from any on-site resources beside metal for Solar panels.
3) You don't have to bring an orbital scanner to find "better" spots. It is generally cheaper (and better long-term) to land and build Sensor Towers. Bring some electronics, and build a sensor tower on your initial landing spot to scan it and the surrounding area. Eventually, you will want to bring in a second RC Rover and a Transport to travel beyond your starting location and build a network of sensor towers all over the map.
4) The most consistently profitable "business" in the early game is selling rare metals to Earth. Some sponsor combinations may generate money in other ways that allow for more flexibility - Europe being a particular standout as they earn money from research. However, rare metal export works for all sponsors and indeed some combinations have no choice but rare metal export. Hence, your primary goal in the early exploration phase is to find a good rare metal source - preferably of "average" quality or better (as this affects how fast you can mine it).
5) Though the "exploration" phase will typically be over after a few Sols (or be done immediately if your starting tile has a good rare material source), you should continue doing step 3 until you have fully scanned the map; as the information you gather will be vital for the expansion phase. Scanning the map also reveals anomalies - which can be scanned using an Explorer Rover for research bonuses and more technology.
Your First Dome:
Do not aim for self-sufficiency with your first Dome.
I repeat: Do not aim for self-sufficiency with your first Dome.
While a lot of streamers have advocated this, it's good to step back, do some math and realize how profitable (cash-wise) rare metals actually are. A small deposit of just 300 metal for instance, selling at $20M (the minimum), would generate $6000M once fully consumed. This exceeds the initial funding of all the "hard" difficulty sponsors. Even if you spent everything to build that first colony (and you wouldn't) you'd still make $2000M profit and have a whole bunch of stuff you can reuse (e.g. fueling depots, and no-maintenance drones + rovers).
It is in fact "okay" to import stuff like machine parts and polymers early on to fulfill your maintenance needs, and food is so cheap at $10M per 5 units that having hydrophonics is really unnecessary. Just make sure your supply of parts or food will not dry up before the arrival of the next resupply rocket, and make sure you don't over-order. Indeed, importing stuff for a low upkeep mining settlement and waiting for the ability to build your own factories via technology might be more profitable than importing prefab factories.
When actually building your Domes, remember the following:
1) Domes require cement, metal, and polymers to build - plus generally more cement and other stuff to build structures inside of it. Cement can be produced using an extractor. Metal is best acquired by sending an RC Transport to collect surface metal. Polymers must be imported. Hence from a cash perspective Domes are actually "cheap" - as only the Polymers and the machine parts for the concrete extractor are imported.
2) Domes then require power, water, and oxygen. Power is best supplied by either Solar panels (with a battery for night) or wind turbines. You then need 1 water for the Dome and a Moxie oxygen-generator. This water can be provided by a deposit if one conveniently nearby, but don't be shy about importing Moisture Farm prefabs if it's not.
3) A mining Dome only requires living room and services (e.g. Grocer, Infirmary, etc) inside of the Dome, and mines outside of the Dome. When starting out however, prioritize ONE living quarters and the services. This is because you won't be allowed to send more colonists until 10 days after the first batch, unless a child is born in your colony before then. Prioritizing services increases comfort which increases the chance of a birth occurring.
4) When the birth happens you can then "fill out" the colony. Make sure to just bring in enough people (and import food) to match the actual number of work slots you need; and indeed having a little extra tends to be a good idea (it's okay to have a few unemployed). Make sure that your buildings are also working multiple shifts - buildings often default to just a single shift and that's a very inefficient setup, as it means your structure isn't making you money for 2/3rds of the day!
5) Regularly send a rocket with resupply materials (food, machine parts, and polymers) to the colony to pick up exports. Refuel it using your original fuel refinery - simply transfer fuel using RC Transports to your colony if it's in a different location, and keep an RC Rover near the said refinery to keep it operational (Drone hubs cost maintenance and are bad for this).
Congratulations, you should now be making your first profit!
Expansion:
Now that you are making money, you can now turn to building more stuff and having a more diverse colony. Just remember to make sure you remain within the virtuous cycle of ever-increasing surpluses, and not fall into the trap of over-building deficits which can result in collapse. Here are some final ideas you could use to guide your expansion.
1) Generally continue to specialize your domes. Managing them is easy if you simply make a Dome "prefer" a specific set of specialists. For instance your first mining colony should be made to prefer Geologists. They should not reject other specialists however - because you might not have Geologists around to fill out all your slots and you don't need Geologists to man services.
2) Agriculture Domes are generally not viable until you have farms, as Hydrophonics and Fungus tend to eat up power and other valuable resources in addition to being less productive than farms. Agri Domes however do need quite a bit of water, so they should be built near a water source. Once built however, a single Agri Dome with just 3 farms can easily feed a hundred colonists, and with improved crops of various types it may push closer to 200. Later in the game, the water consumption issue all but vanishes with the addition of a water reclamation spire; at which point they stop really needing the water source and can rely on Moisture Farms againn.
3) A science-focused Dome will generally produce more research than your starting sponsor rate, but labs requires electronics for maintenance which are the most expensive type of import. On the other hand, you can simply spend money outright to get research through Outsource. Long-term Science Domes are generally desirable and should be built, just make sure you can support them and do consider just Outsourcing in the meantime. Unfortunately a previously available "business model" - wherein money is generated by researching patents - has been nerfed so building a lot of science Domes to make money is less viable.
4) Manufacturing Domes can produce multiple types of advanced resources - because they're all reliant on Engineer specialists. That said, electronics factories tend to require much more manpower than machine parts or polymers, so it may be better to leave them in a separate Dome due to manpower concerns. Indeed, I suspect a lot of the manpower issues lies with how people try to cram all three types of factory in a single Dome - resulting in too much labor demand and not enough workers.
In addition, make sure your supply of raw materials exceeds your manufacturing capability. There's no point in being able to produce 10 electronics per day if your rare metals production is only 3!
5) Have a specialized Dome for training specialists once you unlock the university. Make sure the university always works all shifts (there is no penalty for education buildings) Set it to prefer non-specialized adults and reject any specialists. That way non-specialists go into the university Dome and are kicked out as soon as they get skills. Name it after some famous real-world university town like say Heidelberg. That's part of the fun of the game
.6) Eventually your Domes will become "clogged" by Seniors and children, who do not contribute to the work force but prevent vital factories from being manned. At this point, a "retirement" Dome and a "children's" Dome might be in order.
However, unlike "specialized" Domes which prefer certain specialists, you must do the reverse: To create a Senior's Dome, you must select all other Domes and have them reject Seniors. The retirement Dome then prefers Seniors but does not disallow other age groups (except maybe children).
This is because seniors will not automatically migrate to the "retirement" dome unless their parent dome rejects them. Meanwhile, you still want the retirement dome to have a few working-age people (to man the services).
Apply the same logic to create a children's Dome, albeit the children's Dome should be full of nurseries and include schools to educate the next generation of Martians; similar to the university Dome.
7) Rely more on single-resource depot than universal ones, as this allows you to more easily set transfer routes between Domes using your RC Transports. If you do use universal depots then make sure to disable resources that are not needed in that Dome (e.g. fuel in a spot where the rocket never lands). Shuttle technology is also something to beeline for if you're having difficult micromanaging everything, though RC Transports remain the best and most efficient method of bulk transport.
Anyway, that's all for now. Good luck, commanders!
Addendum 1: Alternate Business Models
What if you don't want to be a rare metal miner? Is there really no way to make a profitable colony without resorting to rare metal mining?
The answer, unfortunately, remains "no" despite all the game's changes and additions. Rare metal mining remains the most profitable and consistent early "business model". This is even in combination with some sponsor powers and unique buildings in the expansion.
That said, there are a number of things that you can do in combination in order to stay afloat in the early game - albeit juggling to keep multiple balls in the air still tends to be a more difficult act than rare metal mining alone.
Hence, this section is really more for intermediate players rather than beginners. But if you really want to cut your teeth into a more complicated early start, consider the following:
1) Research Dome First. This approach is most viable with Europe as a sponsor as you get money every time you research any technology, but there are enough money-generating technologies that allow you to get by as long as you hold yourself to a tight budget (more on that in the next section).
2) Be very frugal. Really, if you can keep your colony costs very low then you can live with very little income. The Micro Dome, in particular, is awesome for cutting down early money costs and makes for a great early lab.
To be more specific, the Micro Dome does not require polymers (which generally has to be imported) to build and can run with only 0.5 water and Oxygen. Your original Moisture Vaporator (which you flew in with a Fuel Refinery to refuel your rocket) with its 1 water production could in fact supply all the water the colony needs. Simply limit your fuel refinery to one shift and store up some water in water tanks.
With three large slices and one medium slice the Dome can support about 2 large basic residences (28 people), which is enough to staff a lab plus your three basic services (grocer, infirmary, and diner) with some space left over (more on how to use that later).
Fuel production will have to be cut though, so you may have to rely on supply pods for a while (especially for deliver of your electronics to build and maintain the lab). That said with your research you should be able to get the Moisture Vaporator upgrade that increases water production by 0.5. This should be enough to let you run your fuel refinery at full capacity again for the rocket.
3) Fly in tourists for your MarsBnB. Each tourist gives you $10M upon landing, leaves automatically on the first rocket to arrive after 5 sols, and generates two new tourist applicants when they reach home alive - no matter how miserable they were during their stay. This means that each open living space in your colony can potentially be "rented out" for $2M per Sol.
This approach is particularly strong for Brazil, as their regular colonists also pay out $10M upon landing (and the sponsor bonus is on top of the usual tourist payout), but also works very well for sponsors with small applicant pools like Japan or Paradox because you will often have extra living space in your colony regardless and the tourists help produce more babies to overcome the initial population issue.
Just remember however that tourists do NOT work in your buildings, hence you still need a regular non-tourist workforce to actually get stuff done. Also, makes sure you have enough food - albeit tourists do still bring 1 food with them which is enough to feed them through 5 Sols unless they are gluttons.
4) Chase after Sponsor Goals that give money. This of course depends on the sponsor, but the extra funding they give is often a godsend for an early colony.
5) Be Russia, use your automated rare metal mining rover, and be patient. Yes, it's not efficient because you lose half of the rare metals in the deposit - but it's essentially "free" money and you probably won't miss one or two rare metal deposits in the end anyway.
There are also two sponsors offering other possibilities for early money - namely Paradox and its Game Development building and Blue Sun's coporate offices - but I would suggest both of these are something of a trap option especially in the early game. Random money is very hard to plan around, while the Blue Sun building requires a huge workforce.
Ironically, Brazil can also theoretically convert waste rock into money via the building which turns waste rock into rare metal, but simply bringing in more people for $10M each is a more reliable early source of income; and you will need a lot of waste rock (meaning a fairly large colony) to maximize the converter anyway.
Addendum 2: Planning for Power (Solar, Battery, Wind, etc)
Many players seem to get confused by how solar and battery power works, which is frankly why a lot of players seem to swear by Sterlings despite being a poor early choice. Early Sterlings are frankly too expensive and relying on them is very often why colonies fail.
In reality, Solar + Battery is very simple once you realize these simple rules:
1) A battery can only discharge 20 power per hour. Connecting enough buildings to consume 25 power means that you will be 5 power short even if your battery was fully charged. Hence your nighttime power requirements should try to remain within these 20 power increments or be supplemented by wind (which never goes offline)
2) There are only 9 hours of nighttime. This means that your fully charged battery should actually have 20 power leftover even if fully utilized through the night (20 consumption x 9 hours = 180 power, versus the 200 total capacity). This means a fully charged battery will leave you with a margin of error in case of any recharging issues during the day (e.g. your solar panels were out of service for an hour due to maintenance).
3) There are 16 hours of daylight, meaning you need 12.5 power per hour during the day to fully charge a battery. That translate to 3 large solar panels per battery, or better yet just 5 large solar panels per 2 batteries.
Being aware of these three principles, then your early game powergrid should consist of these four specific elements based on your colony's power needs. I suggest you keep organized on the map to help you figure out your power capability:
1) Daytime-only Power: Fields of Large Solar Panels to supply your daytime-only buildings. For instance if you are building a Machine Parts factory (50 power!) that you only run during the daytime (which you probably should!), then build 10 large solar panels to supply it.
2) Nighttime-only Power: As noted above, this is a combination of 3 large solar powers and 1 battery for 20 power/hour, or 5 large solar panels and 2 batteries for 40 power/hour. The panels will fully charge your batteries during the day so you can supply power during the night.
3) All-Sol Power: A combination of items 1 and 2. That means you need 7 large panels and 1 battery to supply 20 "all-sol" power/hour , or 13 large panels and 2 batteries for 40 power. Basically, add 4 solar panels (20 power/hour during the day) for every nighttime-only power unit of 20 power/hour.
4) Supplemental/Auxillary: Build Wind as an all-sol supplement if you don't need a full 20 power setup yet (eg. you need 25-30 power all-Sol, rather than 40), or are in a dust storm-prone map. Indeed in a disaster-prone map you should probably throw in a Wind Turbine every for every 20 power produced by solar + battery.
The above setup should lead to rather low maintenance using imported parts - basically you just pay some polymers and machine parts - and most of the maintenance is instead paid using metal which in the early game can be collected fairly easily on the surface using transport rovers.
That said, having huge metal maintenance and space devoted to solar panels is not ideal for the lategame, since by that point all surface metal will have been used up and you want space for other things. This is why lategame power systems are centered around triboelectric scrubbers - because scrubbers DO clean each other and basically reduce their maintenance to zero.
In this maintenance-less future, you should really only have wind, stirlings, and fusion covered by the scrubbers, because you want buildings with a high power-to-space ratio. Initially, wind should be your mainstay because of the low build cost and it can produce more power than solar for the same space, but once you have a steady supply of polymers and electronics Stirlings should be your mainstay as they produce much more power for less space. Fusion is potentially even more efficient from a space-saving perspective, but do note they require manpower.
Finally, note that you still need to have backup power production or storage in the lategame - because scrubbers only prevent maintenance and not disasters!
Addendum 3: Labor, Comfort, and Housing Myths
Labor Myths
A recurring criticism of Surviving Mars is that players can't seem to figure out how to manage their colonists. The problem is that many of these critics are over-complicating the issue and don't realize they are managing an entire colony, not catering to the whims of every single colonist.
In this regard, it is important to realize that good colonist management revolves around a set of much simpler factors:
1) It is not your job to ensure that each colonist is happy and is working an ideal job. You are NOT a jobs placement officer. You are the manager of an entire colony. Bob the Geologist can suck it up serving meals in the Diner while you don't have a mine built yet.
2) Your job instead is to ensure that there is an adequate supply of labor compared to the jobs needed to be done in the colony. Ideally, you want to fill a job with a specialist, but realize that a warm unspecialized body is ALWAYS better than none at all.
3) You will always have chronic labor shortages in the early game so you will be constantly using unspecialized workers in the wrong job. This is not because the AI is bad at managing colonists. It is because you have an absolute shortage of specialists of the right type. You cannot fill 6 scientist worker slots if you only have 4 scientists to begin with.
4) Therefore never, ever manage individual colonists. Instead, use filters as noted in the guide above. Specialize Domes and have them prefer the right specialist (but do not reject non-specialists because of the aforementioned labor shortages). Reject seniors and children and put them in their own Domes where they can have their needs met. Build a university dome that prefers non-sepcialists (new students!) and rejects specialists (to throw the graduates out to the work force).
5) Close work shifts that can't be fully manned. Closing shifts is better than closing work slots because closing a shift also kills the building's power requirement for that time. You don't need all buildings working all three shifts.
6) Give the AI a few Sols to do its job. Colonists do have to walk to their new Domes, which takes in-game time. If your Domes are located far away prioritize building a shuttle network to handle the transport.
Comfort Myths
Another recurring criticism of Surviving Mars is that players can't seem to figure out how to make their colonists happy. This is actually even simpler than managing their labor as long as you remember a few key principles:
1) The primary determinant of a colonist's comfort is their residence. Having a 70 comfort residence is more important than having a lot of services. This is because they will always visit their residence. That said, don't build anything but Basic Residences (see the Housing section for details).
2) Your colonists do not need to have their every whim catered to. Building a Games store and stocking it with Electronics is expensive. Your Gamer colonists can suck it up for a while, especially if they have a nice home.
3) Your service buildings have a CAPACITY. Having a wide variety of service buildings means little if your colonists can't get in because it's always full. That's why rushing to build a huge Dome and building every kind of service doesn't actually result in happier people, because the combined capacity of the service buildings often outstrips that of the population. Have 1 big service "slice" (with 3 medium and 1 small buildings) for every 50-60 people.
4) Colonists of the same specialization have the same interests (check the wiki). For instance all scientists want games. This should also guide your service slice design.
5) A service slice should always have a Diner and Infirmary, because all colonists need to eat and have their wounds / sanity treated. The third medium building should be a shop - because almost every specialization has the shopping need - of which the Grocer is the cheapest to run because it consumes only food.
However, if you really want high comfort and don't mind spending the resources to get more babies - then build an art store (for farming Domes) or a game store (for science domes) instead of the Grocer, as these stores have a much higher comfort level than the Grocer and your other colonists will still shop there. For the small building, a park usually helps the most as there are quite a few colonists who want relaxation too.
6) Kid's Domes should have playgrounds. It's pretty much all they want other than food.
Housing Myths
Finally, a recurring misconception about Surviving Mars is that you should abandon Basic Residences in favor of Apartments (or Arcologies) as soon as possible. This is bluntly wrong for a few simple reasons:
1) Apartments are simply the worst single building in the game because of their enormous power requirement (12) compared to basic residences (1!). You are always better off building a new Dome and filling them with basic residences than to fill an existing dome with apartments from a cost and maintenance perspective. They also have terrible residence comfort, which is the most important factor in keeping your people happy.
Moreover water and air - two resources people often cite to justify building apartments and complaining about the lack of space - are in fact ridiculously easy to get. Moisture Vaporators can be called in from Earth and have very low power and maintenance requirements. A single Moxie produces enough Oxygen for multiple basic Domes.
Both require less power combined than a single apartment. If you are running out of space in a present Dome, just build a new one already.
You should only consider Apartments when you have literally run out of space to build any new Domes on the map and still want more population; and even then I'd tear down old space-inefficient power systems (e.g. solar power systems that have not yet been replaced by banks of Sterlings cleaned by scrubbers) first. Indeed, I suspect the game will crash or slow to a crawl before you get to this point.
2) Basic residences are the best. They are extremely cheap and reasonably comfortable, and their comfort can be upgraded.
3) If you want to really boost your housing comfort, build Hanging Gardens, not Arcologies. Hanging Gardens boost the comfort of all residences in a Dome. Arcologies provide a limited number of high-comfort residences and are frankly expensive construction and power-wise, much like Apartments. With a Hanging Garden and a few upgrades, your Basic Residence provides as much comfort as a Smart Home. The Gardens themselves are an awesome service building too.
4) Smart Homes are also pretty much unnecessary unless you want to show off.
Addendum 4: Quick Notes on New Features
1) Connections - You don't really need them. Seriously. The game was designed without connections and it can still be played without them as long as you are disciplined with regards to specializing your Domes. Use them once you've mastered specializing Domes, not before. That said...
2) New Domes - use them, particularly the ones that can be build without research. The Micro Dome in particular is the best way to build a Dome faster than anyone else and is very low-cost to maintain. They make ideal outposts (specifically science or mining) which can be connected later to bigger Domes using passages.
The Barrel Dome is the best Dome for an industrial center because there are no spires that boost industrial production (polymers/machine parts/electronics) in the first place, so you get a lot more space for less cost.
The Basic Dome remains a pretty good Dome because it is the cheapest Dome that can support a spire -and it will be your workhorse for most of the game -, but a lategame Megadome is more efficient in terms of spires that confer a Dome-wide ability. For instance, why build four Hanging Gardens for four basic spires when one Megadome can affect as many residences with just one Hanging Gardens?
Rather, your lategame setup should consist only of Megadomes, Basic Domes, Barrel Domes, and Micro Domes. Megadomes will get spires that confer Dome-wide abilities (e.g Hanging Gardens, Network Node). Basic Domes get spires that have a limited capacity (e.g. Sanitorium) but you want a lot of. Barrel Domes focus on industry (which has no spire that confers bonuses) because they are more efficient in terms of maintenance, while Micro Domes are also efficient maintenance-wise and can be used as outposts. The Barrel and Microdomes could also be used to just house industrial production buildings, so that you can save all of the space in your Hanging Gardens Megadome for housing and keeping them happy. Do not be afraid to demolish buildings and reconfigure Domes at this late stage because you get a refund on some of your construction costs.
Finally, if you get the two-spire Domes, use them. They are pretty strong even if they aren't the most efficient space/maintenance-wise.
3) Unique buildings / rovers - unless already mentioned in other addendum (e.g. the Russian miner), none are really groundbreaking enough to radically alter your early play. Treat them as conveniences or late game curiosities, not something to build a strategy around.
4) Rules to make the gamer "harder" - frankly, don't bother because most of them simply drag the game out rather than increasing the risk of failure. Trying a 1100% challenge is basically a regular game but with long periods of waiting while you slowly research / wait for babies / wait for disasters to pass/ run a small profit. Instead go with what seem like interesting combinations or self-imposed challenges. There is no "win" condition.
5) Planetary anomalies and events - fairly interesting, but not ground-breaking except when it blows up your only rocket. That said it does mean you should have a rocket on Mars to explore anomalies; and you should send the rocket on an expedition from the main screen (not the planetary view) so that your drones only load the 15 fuel needed for a short expedition.
Again, good luck Commanders!
