Surviving Mars - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)
We’ve diligently posted about DLC and similar gubbins for Surviving Mars, Haemimont and Paradox’s good-ish space colony management game, over the past few months, but one thing we’ve not done is dip a finger into its red soil to check whether or not it’s ready for new life to grow. Along with the DLC – most of it free – there’ve been a few major patches, which include trying to streamline the finickity interface, add more variety to the otherwise one-note geodesic domes and generally save us from falling into a black hole of needless micro-management. This month’s ‘Mysteries Supply Pack‘ free DLC having caught my eye, I though I’d quickly establish the grass roots of a new colony to see how it’s all doing.
- doesn't submit Steam/GOG user IDs to our Mantis - several ways for the game to hang, popular with the community - submit game difficulty to telemetry (which we regrettably forgot to include in the initial release)
As always, if you encounter bugs please report them on the Surviving Mars bug forum! Thanks!
Surviving Mars - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)
You can go a whole game of Surviving Mars without triggering one of its ‘Mysteries’, though that’s as much to do with a slightly dodgy interface as it is personal choice. But when you do the flip the switch and welcome uncertainty into your citizens’ delicate lives, everything gets upended. I won’t soon forget the legion of floating orbs that sucked all the heat out of my colony, killing hundreds. They’re one giant leap into the fantastical from a game that is otherwise fairly sedate about its sci-fi, but I dig the option to wilfully remix things once your base-building turns staid – it reminds me of triggering a disaster in SimCity 2000, just to sadistically mix things up.
So I’m glad to hear that the latest round of free DLC for Haemimont’s mostly great red planet management sim introduces three more ‘Mysteries’ with which to optionally traumatise your off-world colonists. As well as meaning you won’t just run into the same few scenarios in a new playthrough, they give you new things to deal with in your current one. (more…)
Surprise! We are releasing Mysteries Resupply Pack today on PC and tomorrow on Console.
It is a totally free DLC that basically resupplies your mysteries!
Below is some information about the new mysteries contained in the pack:
St. Elmo's Fire - Colonists find it hard to get a good night’s sleep, especially when mysterious lights begin appearing where they have no reason to be. What is causing these unexpected apparitions and is it connected to the confusing changes in the water supply?
The Philosopher's Stone - Encounter beings that are a far cry from the fleshy bags we call carbon-based life when the colony stumbles upon entirely crystalline entities. Are they here to be of assistance or only out to protect the family jewels?
Metatron - Colonists look to the sky agape as a great floating monolith has parked itself directly above the fledgling colony. Does it come in peace or is it even sentient? Either way, it is certainly blocking the views from the dome!
In his 80-scored Surviving Mars review, Fraser concluded that "managing a burgeoning colony never stops being compelling" despite at times being "a lot of hard work". With so much going on, city-builders can overwhelm—which, following player feedback, is why Haemimont Games rolled out a five-part tutorial system in last week's Curiosity update.
"Before launch, we thought to ourselves: nobody wants to play a tutorial," the developer's CEO Gabriel Dobrev tells me when asked why Surviving Mars shipped without a tutorial. "People would rather jump straight into the game, right? We decided then to build this elaborate game system that gives you a guide at any moment, which tells players what the next best step is.
"This works well, it gives people a clue, but what I think is missing there—and this is why people wanted a tutorial—is to help players understand the bigger picture. What is the goal here? Sure, the next step might be that I need more power, but where is this going?"
Surviving Mars' Curiosity update adds several new domes, a Colony Control Centre UI tool that helps players later in the game, and a new Infobar that provides an overview of resources and research progress. Each branch of the new five-part tutorial system focuses on specific areas, and while they're designed to be played in order, each is self-contained allowing players to cherry pick as they see fit.
Dobrev explains that at its core, Surviving Mars is about balancing the way it scales from an empty map to managing thousands of citizens and drones. "It's a big, huge mess, by that point," he says. "It's impossible to control every single person—but initially you start with a few, where it is possible. We needed to balance those opposites and that's where the tutorial came in.
"On the tutorial question: we made a mistake. A straight, honest to god mistake. To us, the game did not seem that complex because we know it. We decided that, okay, we will do this elaborate system and people will gradually learn it as they go. In the end, it wasn't exactly like that.
"But that's something we've learned from, and that's something that's very good about Paradox and reflects our thinking as well—that we'll keep listening to players and keep improving the game. The launch is just the beginning."
Five-part Tutorial - Comprehensive tutorial separated into five thematic sections, introducing the core gameplay concepts in the different stages of Surviving Mars.
New Domes - Curiosity introduces five new Dome types. These are entirely new models with new shapes, functionality and costs. With one exception, they do not require new techs to be researched. The smallest domes do not allow Spire construction
Infobar – Provides general overview of all the resources of the colony, including research progress
Command Center - The Command Center is a handy new UI toolset that provides historical data for the colony and the ability to inspect and manage multiple buildings, colonists or vehicles without selecting them individually. It has been developed as part of our effort to reduce the micromanagement and to provide a more informative overview interface for certain gameplay aspects. The Command Center currently offers five different tools: Graphs, Buildings, Domes, Colonists, and Transportation.
Important changes and fixes:
- New Game Rule: "Endless Supply" - the first Universal Depot you place will automatically fill with resources each Sol. - Removed "Request maintenance" button and related functionality - Vehicle pin icons now indicate battery level - Added "Home dome" to colonists infopanel - Updated Mouse pointer/cursor texts for Rovers, drones, and colonists - Added rollover about colonists to Resource Overview - Added stored food in service buildings to Resource Overview - Added ticks to completed mysteries in pre-game menu - Clicking on the HUD pause button toggles between pause and last used game speed - More detailed cursor messages when trying (and failing) to place passages and ramps - Fix for "Reassign all" button to no longer reassign uncontrollable drones (dead, disabled, embarked, rogue) - Added new photo mode filter, "Orton" - dreamy and saturated - Added frame rate cap in options - Fix for reborn colonists (Project Phoenix) to keep their traits, including their specialization - Fix for biorobots specialization to allow college education - Ctrl-click on drone prefab buttons converts five drones at a time - Fix for colonists to properly select new home when current residence is turned off - Fix for Psychologist commander profile to properly provide 5 Sanity boost - Added Simplified Chinese language
Other changes and fixes:
UI: - GDPR-related changes to Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, and in case you have been living on another planet the past two weeks, it is related to the mandatory EU regulation of the same name. - Fix for Research UI to shield scrolling instead of pressing Outsource or Close buttons - Controller: Workslot rollover now properly updates after firing a colonist - Controller: Fix to go back in the Encyclopedia hints section with the "back" button - Controller: In-game menu now handles safe area margins better - Photo mode: Hide UI fix - Fix for Rover infopanel to hide battery when "Rover Command AI" tech is researched
Mysteries:
- Added check to avoid spawning an anomaly inside dome - Black Cubes: Fix for some remaining single Black Cubes, now properly collected - Spheres: Fix for wrong positioning of sound sources when Spheres make cold areas
Passages and related issues:
- Fix for Passages and Ramps to return resources when demolished - Tweaks to job selection logic in the presence of Passages - Updated dome warning/error messages to work better in the presence of passages - Fix for Passages to light up only if at least one of the connected domes has power - Fix for a bug where colonists became suspended in the air and walk in place
Mods:
- Added Building Entrance Path to entities - Documentation fixes and additional details - Removed obsolete texture channels from Blender exporter General fixes: - Fix for proper calculation of Sponsor effects in launch UI - Shielded case where it was possible to accept legal agreements while in Steam offline mode - Fixed certain cases of stuck drones, coming from reporting unreachable destinations - Colonists can no longer eat from Rockets - Colonists now wear space suits when exiting Rockets in all cases - Pathfinding: fixed a bug where passage entrance/exit may be inaccessible - Fix for missing palette when changing skins during dome placement - Fix to prevent rovers from going into another rover that is uncontrollable (e.g. broken) - Fix for Automated mode rockets to wait their inbound cargo to be fully unloaded before taking off - Fix for Rockets takeoff, happening without refuel - Fix for proper demolishing of Automated Depots - Self-maintenance buildings are excluded from maintenance resource overview calculation (caused negative values) - Drone controller load notification now displayed only for working Drone controllers - Fix for in-dome sounds to be more prominent when in-dome or when a dome is selected - Fix for resources not displayed on the construction depot when placing a building on a pile of resources - Fix for Triboelectric Scrubber to stop resetting its cleaning cycle every time it is selected - Fix for a pathfinder bug leading to drones stuck near dome entrances - Fix for better handling of unreachable buildings by drones - Drone reassignment and packing/unpacking streamlined; added to RC Rovers and their infopanels - Malfunctioned and dead rovers block other units' movement - Fix for anomalies and surface deposits which blocked constructions around them in a too wide radius - Fix for assigning of workplace/residence with right-click - Fix for colonists to stop going outside domes when food depots are empty - Fix for drones getting stuck in Rockets in some rare circumstances (yet again) - Fix for flickering elements of construction hex grid - Fix for meteor cycle button notification - Fix for the negative resource amounts in depots - Fix for a water production bug happening when upgrading a Water Extractor with Fueled Extractors - Fix for proper effect of Storage Compression tech for water tanks - Numerous fixes for to RC Transport right-click actions - Fix for negative water consumption of farms in certain cases - Fix for Dome working state leading to "x" icon on Dome pin - Fix for yellow grid appearing under domes - Fix for Rocket alignment when landing - Fixed a Rocket launch condition which led to take off in automated mode during dust storms - Fix for misaligned cranes when rotating mechanized storage depots - Fix for a non-refreshing infopanel re. electricity - Clicking the Hints button now opens the Encyclopedia on the last dismissed hint - Fix for colonists to look for workplace considering specialist filtering - Gamepad: "Invert look" option now properly applies to zooming in and out - Fixed scaling of Space Elevator rope - Fixed missing launcher icon on some Linux installations - Fix for mod radio stations to work properly on some Linux installations - Fixed double click on Linux - General performance improvements - Sound fixes and improvements
Surviving Mars - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)
Red planet colonisation sim Surviving Mars did a mostly stand-up job of transplanting Sim City tropes to a hostile new world, but a slightly iffy interface and an inflexible aesthetic perhaps meant that its high-stakes potato-farming wasn’t always as epic as hoped. As is increasingly tradition for Paradox-published games – hey-o, Stellaris and Cities: Skylines – it seems long-term refinement is very much plan. We’ve had two major updates since its March launch, adding features and tweaking annoyances, and this week sees the third, ‘Curiosity.’
This performs some pretty signficant user interface-reworking, but clearly the first thing we’ll all be cooing at is the different dome designs it’s adding to the hitherto ‘any shape you want, so long as it’s an upside-down pudding bowl’ options. In other words, Surviving Mars is now even better suited to taking screenshots that look like prog-rock LP covers. (more…)
Surviving Mars' domes, in which your colonists live, are one of my favourite things about the game. They're full of colour and light and really stand out from the dusty backdrop of the Red Planet. In an update on Monday, developer Haemimont Games will add five more dome types of various shapes and sizes, and they look very pretty indeed.
I especially like the design of the barrel dome, which you can see below. It's quite small, but it won't require many resources to build, so it should be handy early in the game. You can say the same for the micro dome, another cheap dome that's triangular in shape.
You'll have two larger triangular domes to play with: the Trigon dome and the Mega Trigon dome. They'll provide more space, but their shape makes them harder to place on the map.
The only dome that actually requires new tech (the others will unlock alongside the old domes as you play) is the Diamond dome, below. That requires a 'breakthrough', which you find by researching anomalies on Mars. It stands out because it can host two Spires—central structures that make your domes more useful. Most other domes can only house one.
Alongside the new domes, the Curiosity update will add a "huge five-part monster of a tutorial", which a lot of new players have been asking for. And rightly so, because the game can get a little complex at times. "Creating a tutorial after release may seem like a waste of effort, but we really want to make our game more welcoming to newcomers and we see this tutorial as very important for the future health of Surviving Mars," the team said in a blog post.
The update also introduces the Command Center, which is basically a massive data tool set that can help you get more information about your buildings, colonists and transportation system, complete with graphs. Lastly, it adds an info bar to the main screen that shows you how your current research project is progressing.
If you're a fan of city builders and haven't yet checked out Surviving Mars, it's worth considering. Read Fraser's review to find out why.
