The tunnel fallacy

[AlbertKerbin]

So, I was watching Quill18’s walk-through of Surviving mars, and I noticed something. Something dreadful. Something game-breaking. Something so horrible, I had to go back and double-check it against other youtubers playing the game, desperately hoping I was wrong..

Unfortunately, I was right.

Tunnel costs do not scale with the length of the tunnel.

This is, quite honestly, game breaking for me. Boring a tunnel through dense soil and solid rock takes a lot of effort- specialized machines, years of planning, test bores, explosives- the list goes on. And on.

Of course, mars simplifies this somewhat, as you don’t have to deal with water tables, or human-made interference (like a giant building running it’s foundation where you wanted to dig), but there are other dangers to make up for that.

My point, however, is simple- the construction time, Cement cost, and upkeep costs of a tunnel should vary linearly with the distance between the end points, and tunnels should produce waste rock in an amount that varies linearly with the distance (they apparently don’t produce any waste rock right now, which I also find game-breaking).

Building a ten-square tunnel to clear a bit of dangerous ground? Right now, it costs the same, and has the same construction time, as hurtling your colonists and drones halfway across the map.

I will suggest, for the sake of discussion, adding a .01 cement cost to upkeep per hexagon of distance covered, and making the cement cost something like Cement = 20+2*distance .

 

[mteir]

Not realistic? Yes. Game-breaking? No.
It might just be a design oversight or would take time that they want to use elsewhere. If the cost of buildings are designed to be integers then making them functions for one building might not be worth it (but i do not have the game code so i'm just guessing).

 

[KDubya]

They are limited in length, you can't go across the map or anything. They don't seem outrageous to me.

On the easier youtubes resources look to be really easy to get. No need for efficiency or optimizing or anything, just send more stuff from Earth. In these tunnels are built more for style than necessity. The hard playthru like Skye's 485% the economics of everything become a real challenge, there tunnels are quite expensive and agonized over (well except for that nigh useless one that went into the center pit and never scanned the rest of the pit yet )

I'm thinking that on harder settings tunnels will be expensive enough, while on the easy settings why bother trying to make them cost more.

 

[katiekat3000]

They are limited in length, you can't go across the map or anything. They don't seem outrageous to me.

On the easier youtubes resources look to be really easy to get. No need for efficiency or optimizing or anything, just send more stuff from Earth. In these tunnels are built more for style than necessity. The hard playthru like Skye's 485% the economics of everything become a real challenge, there tunnels are quite expensive and agonized over (well except for that nigh useless one that went into the center pit and never scanned the rest of the pit yet )

I'm thinking that on harder settings tunnels will be expensive enough, while on the easy settings why bother trying to make them cost more.

^
Charlie Prier is doing a 535 play on twich wich will also be going on youtube and making a tunnel is a super risky move becuse ofthe lack of money and only 1 rockit + 100 costto fuel the rockit. this is not a strate realistick simlater and i dont fealthe needto have eachting be realistick

 

[EntilZha]

 

[grandad1982]

Here was me thinking this was going to be about vehicles etc not automatically using tunnels if they can drive to their destination normally.
Still we all choose different hills to die on.

 

[AlbertKerbin]

They are limited in length, you can't go across the map or anything. They don't seem outrageous to me.

On the easier youtubes resources look to be really easy to get. No need for efficiency or optimizing or anything, just send more stuff from Earth. In these tunnels are built more for style than necessity. The hard playthru like Skye's 485% the economics of everything become a real challenge, there tunnels are quite expensive and agonized over (well except for that nigh useless one that went into the center pit and never scanned the rest of the pit yet )

I'm thinking that on harder settings tunnels will be expensive enough, while on the easy settings why bother trying to make them cost more.

I've never seen that particular youtuber. I'll have to check them out!

It just seems like it would be a good game-play mechanic if short tunnels cost less resources, both initially and as upkeep, than long tunnels.

 

[Great Dane]

So, I was watching Quill18’s walk-through of Surviving mars, and I noticed something. Something dreadful. Something game-breaking. Something so horrible, I had to go back and double-check it against other youtubers playing the game, desperately hoping I was wrong..

Unfortunately, I was right.

Tunnel costs do not scale with the length of the tunnel.

The fact that it can be extremely difficult to find a place to actually build one of the infernal things makes up for this. I've been searching a good deal of the map so far, and I have STILL not found a place where I can place my entrance, AND the exit without the exit being "too far from nearest drone commander" or without terrain being uneven. And as there's likely an alien ship waiting for me at the top (as well as several nice anomalies), that I can't get to no matter what the [censored] I do, this is getting frustrating to the umpteenth degree. The game has apparently spawned a map where no tunnel building is possible, and then decided to place one of the main events in the place I can't get to.

 

[PaulMClem]

How do tunnels work...do both ends need to be in range of a drone commander? Assume you have to have scanned the destination cell? Haven't used one yet (this in my first play-through where I think I will need to - kept making a mess around 20 days, doing better this time having learnt my lessons). At the moment I am crabbing around by placing a new drone hub in the next-door area to allow work to commence in them.

 

[MontharKragan]

... I have STILL not found a place where I can place my entrance, AND the exit without the exit being "too far from nearest drone commander"...

Only one end needs to be near a drone commander.

 

[Keschnarf]

Only one end needs to be near a drone commander.

Preferably the one you placed first, since that's the place the drones will build the entire tunnel, even if the end you placed second is the only reachable at that moment. ;-)

 

[Great Dane]

Le sigh. That frustrated me to no end. In my defense, it's not very clear that "this is too far away" means "go ahead and build anyway, because it's not too far away"

 

[Wandering Sentinel]

In fairness, the warning is valid if you don't have an RC Rover to send through the tunnel (either you realistically can't spare one at that exact moment or, for some unfathomable reason, you don't have one to begin with) since you can't build anything on the other side of the tunnel without it.since you can run life support and power through a tunnel, it makes sense you'd want a Drone Controller on both sides.