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I'm hoping the internal mod downloads happen soon. I bought off of gog so I can't access the steam workshop mods. I do feel that modders will make an amazing amount of excellent mods for this and hope for continued updates though. I do like this game even if at times it seems difficult to get going. Also artificial sun is loving awesome
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Mar 30, 2018 13:26
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Welp, first failed colony finally happened yesterday. I had my only very rich source of water dry up in the immediate aftermath of a great dust storm, and there was just no way to replace 14 units of water production in anything resembling a timely fashion. Not sure what I could have done differently other than not double-tap that water source, but then my growth is hampered and I can't reach that next source of metals so I can't make machine parts so I can't keep my windmills running.... It's a good game, just need a few more playthroughs to hone my skills and see how much of a difference the map + difficulty setting makes. The biggest problem with the dust storms wasn't even the lack of oxygen production (it's pretty easy to see how many days worth of extra oxygen you have onhand and just make sure it always equals about six days), but grounding the shuttles completely hosed my logistics distribution. I found a stack of 20 machine parts languishing in the far end of my colony when almost my entire windfarm was offline due to maintenance.
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Mar 30, 2018 15:33
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UCS Hellmaker posted:I'm hoping the internal mod downloads happen soon. I bought off of gog so I can't access the steam workshop mods. I do feel that modders will make an amazing amount of excellent mods for this and hope for continued updates though. I do like this game even if at times it seems difficult to get going. Nexusmods is starting to collect some of the mods but it’s a small fraction of what’s on the steam workshop. Still hoping someone will post the info panel mod, because drat it sucks trying to keep up with the stats manually.
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Mar 30, 2018 15:47
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It just occurred to me that one of the things I don't care for in this game is that there isn't attainable equilibrium. I understand in the late game there are moholes or whatever that have infinite resources, but beyond that, finite physical resources being necessary for maintenance means growth is mandatory. I had this same discomfort with Oxygen Not Included, where I couldn't get things *just right* and enjoy it for a while. With Tropico, on the other hand, I can.
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Mar 30, 2018 16:01
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So I finally bought the First Colony edition for Steam. But I can't load my old saves because I don't have "stellaris domes set" DLC which was only available for preorders. Owning Stellaris with all its DLC's doesn't help either -,- I guess it's time to start a new colony...
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Mar 30, 2018 16:02
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unbutthurtable posted:It just occurred to me that one of the things I don't care for in this game is that there isn't attainable equilibrium. I understand in the late game there are moholes or whatever that have infinite resources, but beyond that, finite physical resources being necessary for maintenance means growth is mandatory. I had this same discomfort with Oxygen Not Included, where I couldn't get things *just right* and enjoy it for a while. With Tropico, on the other hand, I can. You can with moisture vaporators for water, mohole for metal/rare metal/concrete and closed stirling generators for infinite power that never needs repair.
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Mar 30, 2018 18:08
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unbutthurtable posted:It just occurred to me that one of the things I don't care for in this game is that there isn't attainable equilibrium. I understand in the late game there are moholes or whatever that have infinite resources, but beyond that, finite physical resources being necessary for maintenance means growth is mandatory. I had this same discomfort with Oxygen Not Included, where I couldn't get things *just right* and enjoy it for a while. With Tropico, on the other hand, I can. I feel like the amount of resources in a deposit is way too small. I found this to be very similar with Tropico too. If you want to be an exporter in Tropico you're pretty boned if you want to do anything more advanced than the log->furniture route. If you do any of the expensive materials like oil you'll have a few decades max of good times then collapse once the oil runs dry. I like having finite resources, but the time-scale seems a bit off. As a side note I really miss the Tropico 1 days where resource-rich mines would result in a singularity. As for my own stuff, I have a decently successful base going on, but I have been playing without any mysteries to make things a little easier as I get mechanics down. One thing I have done is keep everything as a huge interconnected network. Each productive area that I have will have some redundancies built in but my main mitigation strategy is using O2, Water, and Power storage to coast through any periods where a dome or device gets cut off from a generating device. I also like to run my pipes right over my electrical infrastructure to cut down on tile wastage.  My colony as a whole right now A big downfall of my system are of course the maintenance costs. The extra wire, tube, and storage devices definitely is killing my metal budget. Now that I have nuclear accumulators I will probably decommission my older batteries to help reduce maintenance costs. My initial map start also kind of hindered me from being able to exploit metal mines at a significant level; so I have been relying on surface mining big time. Which by the way there is a mod to have transports auto-gather. I'm also struggling to get my food production up to where I need it to be since I foolishly started late with it. So I rely a lot on shipments from Earth. With my current map getting rare metals back is a breeze though so that hasn't been a big problem. For logistics I have overlapping drone hubs with storage piles set up for each specific resource. Usually this is sufficient as long as the resource chain itself is working. If a resource producer slows down or shuts down, then there are cascading effects. At this stage though the only thing I find myself rebalancing is food.  A close-up of my redundancy systems
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Mar 30, 2018 19:32
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why not tunnels to connect parts of your infrastructure? I use tunnels to connect far flung areas since it lets me not waste time and space with pipes and wires. you can basically connect power and pipe from one end of the map to the other with it at least.
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Mar 30, 2018 22:59
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Raldikuk posted:I feel like the amount of resources in a deposit is way too small. I found this to be very similar with Tropico too. If you want to be an exporter in Tropico you're pretty boned if you want to do anything more advanced than the log->furniture route. If you do any of the expensive materials like oil you'll have a few decades max of good times then collapse once the oil runs dry. I like having finite resources, but the time-scale seems a bit off. As a side note I really miss the Tropico 1 days where resource-rich mines would result in a singularity. you can infinitely process crops into cigars, rum, etc. mars booze!
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Mar 30, 2018 23:19
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Tourists are also a renewable resource.
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Mar 30, 2018 23:36
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I do think the game would be better if the inexhaustible mines breakthrough was the standard way it worked and they got rid of the mohole.
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Mar 30, 2018 23:59
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UCS Hellmaker posted:why not tunnels to connect parts of your infrastructure? I use tunnels to connect far flung areas since it lets me not waste time and space with pipes and wires. you can basically connect power and pipe from one end of the map to the other with it at least. Tunnels would probably be more efficient and require less maintenance, but I really like the aesthetic of the pipe and wire running around. I'll probably experiment with tunnels here for my next expansion because the rest of the resources I want are on the other half of the map. boner confessor posted:you can infinitely process crops into cigars, rum, etc. mars booze! Good point, I totally neglected the farm industry stuff. The metal and oil extraction though is a huge trap in the late game if you rely on it.
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Mar 31, 2018 00:17
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Yeah tropico has the same drat problem with exhaustible poo poo. I get that both games kind of want you to play the game through several times, but they really should understand that most folks playing this style of game would rather have one (or just a few) long rear end games where they build out their perfect bonsai garden across the map. It would be more interesting if the strength of the deposit affected how much could be pulled, and only a single extractor could be on a deposit, but they’re infinite. That makes it more of a logical, planned expansion to a new water or metal deposit. It’s even stupider in Tropico where there is literally no reason for them to become exhausted.
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Mar 31, 2018 00:20
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Raldikuk posted:Good point, I totally neglected the farm industry stuff. The metal and oil extraction though is a huge trap in the late game if you rely on it. It wasn't so bad in 4 where later on they did add infinite mines later down the time-tree. In 5 though it was egregiously bad, especially since you couldn't control your damned exports (at least when I played) so the teamsters would just take all the coal/uranium/oil you wanted to use for fuel, or gold you wanted to make into jewelry and shove it into the first waiting cargo ship.
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Mar 31, 2018 02:57
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Raldikuk posted:Good point, I totally neglected the farm industry stuff. The metal and oil extraction though is a huge trap in the late game if you rely on it. later in the game if you had enough docks you could import enough metals to process into manufactured goods, then sell them at a profit. not as big of a profit as if you produced the raw mats yourself, but enough so that you dont have to shutter the factories. that's a big thing missing from surviving mars, a trade system
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Mar 31, 2018 03:46
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boner confessor posted:later in the game if you had enough docks you could import enough metals to process into manufactured goods, then sell them at a profit. not as big of a profit as if you produced the raw mats yourself, but enough so that you dont have to shutter the factories. that's a big thing missing from surviving mars, a trade system It doesn't really make sense with the setting though. Shipping metal from Earth to Mars so Martians can assemble it into space-cars and ship it back to Earth is maybe the most retarded of all possible ideas. The problem is really that the economic ideas of the game don't really make any sense, so we're left doing dumb things. It would probably make the most sense to frame things so that you weren't the only Martian colony, so you could trade with your fellow Martians for raw materials/goods.
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Mar 31, 2018 04:22
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So I guess it's been about a week or two since the game launched. Remember seeing reports of a lot of jank, strange UI decisions, and other things; those still hold up, or have patchers and/or modders come to save the day?
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Mar 31, 2018 04:25
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Yea I would love a grand strategic add on and go the route of red/green/blue mars series. Have heavy mining colonies supplying the giant terraforming installations. eventually once you've achieved a terraformed planet you can export a map to cities:Skylines, which at that point will have a martians building pack.
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Mar 31, 2018 04:44
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Ciaphas posted:So I guess it's been about a week or two since the game launched. Remember seeing reports of a lot of jank, strange UI decisions, and other things; those still hold up, or have patchers and/or modders come to save the day? The big UI issue for me was resolved with the resource overlay. There isn't a colonist management screen yet but they plan to add one. It really is unnecessary though because you can set filters on your domes to have the system manage everything. The other issue for me is that there is no way to do a box select or other way to select multiples. This can make drone management more difficult than it needs to be. Hopefully that gets fixed as well but I haven't read specific plans for that. The other gripe was with surface mining where all the rocks look the same. There's a mod to have your stuff auto gather so that isn't an issue either. I like the game so far and better than the other colony games out there. Right now I would say its biggest flaw is a lack of clear progression beyond the mid game. Even if exporting to Earth didn't make sense I would like more options for how to control my colony. Adding in a colony money system and having production good trees would be nice. I would think this could even be exported to Earth as niche luxury goods. Oh and graphs. I miss the PopTop Tropico days where you had an almanac with all of the nitty gritty details you could ask for. That'd be lovely.
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Mar 31, 2018 04:45
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Bedurndurn posted:It doesn't really make sense with the setting though. Shipping metal from Earth to Mars so Martians can assemble it into space-cars and ship it back to Earth is maybe the most retarded of all possible ideas. The problem is really that the economic ideas of the game don't really make any sense, so we're left doing dumb things. It would probably make the most sense to frame things so that you weren't the only Martian colony, so you could trade with your fellow Martians for raw materials/goods. if they introduced additional martian colonies for intra-mars trade it would be more feasible or in mars orbit (food, booze exports), plus also the setting is pretty not realistic. besides, why even colonize mars in the first place if we're super interested in realism, other than for some economic reason? maybe instead of tourists you could also accept refugees or settlers, just, we'll pay to ship people to mars they just need somewhere to live. since one of the goals is to spread across the landscape anyways Ciaphas posted:So I guess it's been about a week or two since the game launched. Remember seeing reports of a lot of jank, strange UI decisions, and other things; those still hold up, or have patchers and/or modders come to save the day? not yet, wait for a sale if you're hesitant or on a budget boner confessor fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Mar 31, 2018 |
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Mar 31, 2018 05:09
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rightyo, thanks a bunch 
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Mar 31, 2018 05:11
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b
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Mar 31, 2018 11:24
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Anybody know if clones count as martianborn for the New Ark achievement?
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Apr 1, 2018 05:53
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This is the dumbest game
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Apr 2, 2018 07:29
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Herstory Begins Now posted:This is the dumbest game I love it, but I'll probably put it down for a bit. It's just frustrating to go "Oh okay, I should be getting X amount of materials from my mines/polymer factory/etc." today only to find that when the shift finally rolls around half the workers have vacated it due to engineers wanting to sell electronics instead or retiring. Yes I know you're old, but we're kind of in a delicate, life-or-death situation here.
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Apr 2, 2018 07:34
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I just had an entire colony get destroyed by a 2 sol long meteor shower that literally destroyed 80% of my buildings. I could save scum if I wanted to go back like 8 days, but easier to just uninstall and play games that aren't dumb.
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Apr 2, 2018 07:39
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I think I'm going to buy tropico instead of this one until it gets fleshed out. I already played 3, which one should I get, 2, 4 or 5? I ask here because it looks as if there's a bunch of overlap in the users of Surviving Mars and the tropico series.
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Apr 2, 2018 11:08
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Meteor storms are the dumbest. I’ve only had them gently caress up a dome once (knock on Martian wood) but it’s frustrating for it to be so random and yet binary—you either have the tech or you don’t. Every other disaster you can deal with by building breathing space into your infrastructure.
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Apr 2, 2018 11:11
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double nine posted:I think I'm going to buy tropico instead of this one until it gets fleshed out. I already played 3, which one should I get, 2, 4 or 5? I ask here because it looks as if there's a bunch of overlap in the users of Surviving Mars and the tropico series. 2 is its own game - it's a completely different setup and does its own thing, and that thing is a lot more micromanagey and finicky. (Also, the graphics have aged terribly.) 4 and 5 are almost the same game, with 5 having a few more features and more expansions you can buy, so 5 is probably the better buy. Edit: Being Haemimont games, be aware that they suffer the same flaw of being crap at telling you specifics around what buildings do or how effective they are; the good news is that the game is much more forgiving overall, and the difference between bad setups and good setups is "I don't make as much money so expansion is slower" instead of "I am out of important resources and cash so now I death spiral". skeleton warrior fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Apr 2, 2018 |
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Apr 2, 2018 12:54
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double nine posted:I think I'm going to buy tropico instead of this one until it gets fleshed out. I already played 3, which one should I get, 2, 4 or 5? I ask here because it looks as if there's a bunch of overlap in the users of Surviving Mars and the tropico series. Tropico 5 with two expansions are on Humble Bundle for $5 until tomorrow. I think 4 is the best but it’s hard to compete with that price.
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Apr 2, 2018 13:08
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double nine posted:I think I'm going to buy tropico instead of this one until it gets fleshed out. I already played 3, which one should I get, 2, 4 or 5? I ask here because it looks as if there's a bunch of overlap in the users of Surviving Mars and the tropico series. Tropico 4 is the best, tightest version of what 1 & 3 were going for. Tropico 5 adds a bunch of new features (many of which are cool and good) and changes a bunch of things, and also simplifies a lot of things (in a frustrating way sometimes). what I'm saying is that Tropico is an island of contrasts
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Apr 2, 2018 13:57
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Wordicuffs posted:Tropico 5 with two expansions are on Humble Bundle for $5 until tomorrow. I agree with everything about this post. Surviving Mars reminded me I got 5 with all the DLC awhile back so I'm playing it now and it's quite good, but I seem to remember 4 being slightly better overall. But 5 bucks man.
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Apr 2, 2018 16:01
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double nine posted:I think I'm going to buy tropico instead of this one until it gets fleshed out. I already played 3, which one should I get, 2, 4 or 5? I ask here because it looks as if there's a bunch of overlap in the users of Surviving Mars and the tropico series. 4 with modern times is the best imo. that one is going to be the closest to 3, while being the most feature complete. some of the modern times stuff is dumb (office buildings...) and some is game changing (mass transit, basically a teleporter for citizens) 5 isn't bad but it made some changes, some are good, some that aren't so good. eras are slightly neat dont really work, the presidente family is dumb, the army changes are bad because you'll get rebels popping up for little reason except to give the army something to do. it's worth playing though, but i wouldn't pick it over 4 if you could only get one or the other 2 is kinda fun from a gimmicky pirate perspective but tropico 1 and 2 were made by poptop back in the day, and play pretty differently from the modern haemimont tropicos from 3 onwards. 2 may be worth a playthrough for the sake of pc gaming history but it's probably too dated to be fun, and the gameplay loop is way different from other tropicos (instead of exporting, you outfit pirate ships and send them on cruises for booty - frequently they are destroyed, killing many pirate citizens)
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Apr 2, 2018 18:19
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maybe take "not-poo poo" out of the title huh
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Apr 2, 2018 22:48
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I mean I'm open for it to be replaced with "Is really good!" instead because it is. Though meteor storms are stupid it's true. Nothing you can do if they land on your colony.
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Apr 3, 2018 00:07
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I suppose the answer to that is to spread your colony and resources apart and to have redundancy in each area. The meteor showers will always be centred on an area determined when the event starts so if you spread out you'd not lose as much. But that's not a satisfying answer and they're still far more devastating and dangerous than the other disasters except for maybe dust devils. which as far as I know have no mitigation at all but will ruin less structure normally. I feel like the meteor defence laser is very late on the tree which makes it a difficult investment. There should be a cheaper but less efficient option earlier on to allow you to deal with meteors better. At the moment you can at least save scum to get them to spawn in different places.
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Apr 3, 2018 02:23
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HiKaizer posted:I suppose the answer to that is to spread your colony and resources apart and to have redundancy in each area. The meteor showers will always be centred on an area determined when the event starts so if you spread out you'd not lose as much. I mean by that point it's about as practical as "have the laser researched and build a load of them" in that it relies on you having a really developed colony. Really they shouldn't have a concentrated area and there perhaps could do with being a bigger, staffed version of the anti meteor defence from which the one tile automated one is an upgrade. You could give it a lower maintenence footprint and a wider range to keep it useful later on, and once you research the small ones it gets an automation upgrade.
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Apr 3, 2018 02:30
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The meteor storms are really weird. 90% of the time they're a free 3-4k science point boost. The rare instance when they hit a dome or any other area with a bunch of critical buildings is devastating, unless you're like 100+ days in and running a decent surplus.
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Apr 3, 2018 02:43
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OwlFancier posted:I mean by that point it's about as practical as "have the laser researched and build a load of them" in that it relies on you having a really developed colony. I would definitely agree there needs to be a better, more feasible and more practical early in the game solution for them. Hopefully somebody mods something until such a time the devs do something with it.
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Apr 3, 2018 03:34
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Ironically the colony was spread out over about a 100x100 area, it just destroyed basically everything and far more than I had the resources to rebuild.
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Apr 3, 2018 03:43
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