Can’t wait to jump into it today. Woop woop!
Hmm. I also liked the review, but the things he describes are things I like. It makes me more interested in the game. No challenge? Sounds great for a city builder for my tastes.
This review does not say how many stars it is
:-D
I got this game, and I am liking it quite a bit. Sorry Rob!
Played a few hours of this tonight and am enjoying it so far, but even for a “Paradox lite” game it’s infuriatingly poor at highlighting what you’re doing wrong or not doing right. I understand there’s a 5 part series from Quill that serves as a tutorial but the Easy Game mode probably causes more issues than it solves and I’ve put myself into positions where I’m stuck with little idea of what I’ve done wrong. After 5 minutes of clicking around on things I can generally find the reason I’m not progressing but it really shouldn’t be this difficult.
When people do Youtube tutorials I wish they’d do a super condensed fast version. I started watching HOI IV tutorial and after 3 minutes quit. Takes too long and I would much rather be playing.
Absolutely. Most of these amateur videos really need a script and an editor. And probably most of the professional ones do too! Often I’ve had enough while the presenter is still doing the uneccessary five minute intro… :)
And don’t get me started on one hour videos about the interface… I can work most of that out myself or with tool-tips. :P
What I prefer is a five-to-ten minute video showing the first few moves in a game and explaining why they were made. Maybe something about longer-term goals in different game phases.
Paradox did do some decent ones for HoI4 that were on the right track, five videos where each went through a game concept in about five minutes.
But then they also did ‘Survivng Mars Marathon’. 12 hours. Part 1. ;)
Just watch them on 1.5 X or 2.0 X speed. You can still tell what’s being said and there aren’t any long pauses.
The first hour I was lost, but then it all kind of clicked into place on my second game. I was over thinking it. The game just needs a proper tutorial for the first 30 minutes. Build concrete and power. The life essentials and a dome. Explain how resource quality works, or that you can place more then 1 pump on water resource, etc. Seems like it would be easy to implement.
Also think the game could use some more player feedback. My buildings are constantly requiring maintenance, but I am not sure why for instance. Something must be creating dust, but I am not sure what because it wasn’t a problem for the longest time.
Okay, so those of you with multiple domes, or multiple areas with water and metal extractors, how are you managing supplies between them? Are you setting up transport rover routes? Should I be chaining storage platforms somehow? And if so, is there something I’m supposed to be doing with the storage platforms that I’m not seeing? Seems the recourse specific platforms hold with 180 units or zero, and the universal platforms are a real pain in the ass to trim down to one specific resource. And since each one needs drones, they don’t do any good without drone coverage.
I get the feeling this game is supposed to play like an early Anno game with multiple “islands” trading goods with each other. But I also get the feeling Surviving Mars doesn’t give me very effective tools to manage this. Either that, or it simply hasn’t taught me how to use those tools, or really even told me what they are.
Gee, I wonder what that could be? Maybe the whole planet. :)
-Tom
I accidentally left this idling for eight hours today, so it’s going to look like I enjoy this much more than I really do. After being pleasantly surprised by Aven Colony - Surviving Mars isn’t making a great first impression. Well, it actually made a good first impression, but not a great second impression I guess. The look and flavor is well done, but so far the actual play isn’t terribly interesting.
It could be that I’ve taken things too slowly, or that I started too easy - or both. It seems like there is even less variety in the game play loop than most city builders. I have my…
- main site: making concrete, some power, some water from condensers, some fuel to speed up rockets returning, and a polymer factory. I have one dome there that is doing some research.
- 2nd site: scanner, some power, working a metal deposit, one dome.
- 3rd site: pumping water from a deposit back to the other areas
- 4th site: working a rare metals deposit, one dome
- 5th site: one more water deposit
Most of the gameplay seems like busywork instead of planning - building pipes and power lines, shuffling resources around, making sure my pipes have coverage by drones to repair the frequent failures. I think I can mitigate some of the busywork by using some shuttles.
It may be that the game will open up once I get better stuff, like larger domes - but so far it seems like they took away interesting choices and replaced it with busywork.
So far with my water I’m piping it quite a distance but made sure I have drone coverage for repairs. The rest of the resources I’ve been manually pushing resources around or making a transport route. I think the shuttle can help with this too, but I haven’t used it yet.
Shuttle hub and the different storage spots. The shuttles will ferry supplies and people where they need to go. Prior to having the shuttle hub, you have to rely on the rc transport.
Ugh, when do I get shuttle construction? I’m 65 sols into my game and not only do I not have the option to build shuttles, but it’s nowhere to be seen on my tech tree. I didn’t think the game meant for me to micromanage these transports, but if the randomization on the tech tree shuts me out of shuttles, I don’t have any other option. I’m trying to set up some sort of chaining situation with drones and storage, but it’s not cooperating. So I’m supposed to manually drive food from one dome to another? I’m supposed to dribble across Mars the electronics parts I need for maintenance?
This also seems to mean my colonists can’t move between domes. I’ve got homeless in one dome and vacancies in another. I’ve got a brilliant guru scientist moping around about having to work in a metal mine, but no way to get him to the research lab in the other dome. Can colonists use tunnel connections?
I guess the problem is that I set up the two domes too far apart. But they’re within two map grids of each other. I just assumed I’d be able to walk colonists between them and that having overlapping drone coverage would mean goods go where they need to go.
-Tom
I’m not sure how to move colonists prior to the shuttles. I was even surprised when it started dropping people off.
I’d love to say I have an answer, but I didn’t even know you could stick multiple production buildings on a resource location. This game is horrible at explaining things to you. I think I got access to shuttle hub research fairly early through an anomaly. I wonder how far they will walk if you assign them to another dome.
And why aren’t there charts and graphs anywhere? It took me a while before I even noticed that they had the tooltips with extra info about production and consumption on the overview window (when hovering over the section icons).
Randomly appears on the tech tree. :)
Actually, now that I’m watching the drones more closely, it seem that daisy chaining resource-specific storage platforms will do the trick. Assuming you can also daisy chain drone coverage. What’s tripping me up is that I’m not sure what their priority is for moving resources around. The solution was to just saturate the area with more drones. I can see, for instance, Dome A producing food, which stacks up on a storage platform once the dome’s grocery is stocked. From there, I can set up a chain of food storage (it’ll probably work with universal storage, too?) to Dome B and the drones will move it up there as needed. That seems to be working as intended.
But it’s still a real pain that I can’t move colonists around. Surely my mopey scientist guru can hitch a ride on the transport rover!
I had previously thought this game was going to be more colonist-centric than Aven Colony, which is more resource-centric. Now I’m not so sure.
-Tom
Not to mention overlays for finding buildings or resources. Where are the 28 polymers that my colony is supposed to have? Because I need them over here to service these power accumulators, stat!
-Tom
This 100%.
What’s stopping me from enjoying this more is the supply chain stuff. It’s just a lot of busy work I don’t have fun doing. Trying to set up bringing 20 metals (but only 20 metals, I need some metals where they are currently at as well after all) to an area almost out for general upkeep is just a PITA and not fun.
I think I’d be happier if I could just make sure all drone coverage had over lap and then any drone would just go grab what it needed off the nearest universal palette. E: I’m I’m being totally honest I wish resources just went to an abstract menu where they were spent like an RTS. Oh, I have 24 metals now and I’m losing 2 per SOL due to the difference between maintenance and income, would be kind of great to me.
Also, why build anything besides universal palettes again?
they only hold 30 of a certain resource vs the 180 for the specialized right? No real reason beyond space I guess. I’ve got mountains of food stored outside domes because they bring a ton with each passenger ship. I hope for the colonists sake they aren’t all MRE omelettes.