Sep 26, 2018

Sagan Patch Notes - The update is now live!

Surviving Mars - candyalien

New Feature: Challenges
Challenges are a new game mode where you have to accomplish a specific objective within a time limit. Mission parameters, game rules and colony coordinates are predetermined and unique for each challenge. A total of 24 challenges are now available.

Self-sufficient Rovers
Rovers no longer have batteries and there’s no need to recharge roves from Power cables. We reevaluated this mechanic and decided that the amount of micromanagement it required was more tedious than actually presenting a meaningful challenge. We are removing it as part of our initiative to reduce the unnecessary micromanagement in the game and allow the player to focus on more important tasks.

Rover Command AI tech now enables automated mode for Explorers and Transports.

Changes to Concrete Deposits
We have reworked the Concrete Extractor to work more in line with other extractors. Concrete Extractors have to be placed in the vicinity of the concrete deposit marker and no longer take into account the specific patch of terrain they cover. This way concrete deposits can be fully exploited even with a single extractor.

Changes to Maps
Due to the changes in concrete deposits, as well as other fixes to the random map generator, all maps have been generated again and will look different than previous versions. Environmental variety of maps has been improved.

Changes to Research
The randomization of research (both order of techs in the research tree and breakthroughs discovered from anomalies) is now tied to the random seed of the individual map. This means that techs are always the same on the same map but different between different maps. This change allows players to compete for score on even terms on the same map coordinates and to have the same experience with techs when attempting Challenges.

Changes to Messages
Popup messages will now arrive first as blinking notifications, which will pop up after some time has passed. This way popups will not interrupt your current actions like placing or managing buildings. Some important messages will still pop up without a notification.

Controller Support for the Infobar
"Resource Overview" buttons are removed from the HUD for both mouse and controller interfaces. The Infobar can now be navigated using controller. Rollover highlights have been added to the Infobar in the controller version of the UI.

Balance Changes

Reduced Mega Trigon Dome construction and maintenance costs
Trigon Dome now requires Polymers for maintenance
Dust generated from Building and Rocket sources has been increased

General Fixes and Improvements
Crystals in “The Philosopher’s Stone” mystery should now work properly
Resource deposit markers are now aligned to the building grid
Increased the range in which the Transport Rover looks for Transport Route resources to 25 hexes
Fixed the sound effect of the Artificial Sun
Rockets no longer require cargo to be launched towards Mars
Meteor Storm epicentre now moves during the disaster
Improved Pipe placement logic, related warnings and cost predictions
Price of Pipe segments placed over non-buildable or rough terrain is now properly calculated
Landing Pads are no longer being suspended by disasters
Deep scanning progress for sectors is now properly reset after surface scanning
Sub-surface Heater & Mohole Mine are now protected from freezing
Endless Supply game rule now disables achievements
Fixed the game not launching on some Linux distributions
General performance improvements

UI fixes and improvements:
Dust radii of Extractors and Rockets are now shown on placement and selection
New auto pin settings in Options > Gameplay, that allow customization of pinned objects
Key-bindings now properly appear in rollover hints
Added key-bindings for passages and passage ramps
Added warning sign over buildings that lack input resources
Settings for Photo mode are now properly saved
Added Reset button to Photo mode
Fix for Photo Mode, which removes black artefacts appearing on some buildings
Fix for the "Build Menu" shortcut to work as a toggle button instead of only opening the build menu
Various encyclopedia texts have been updated to reflect Sagan changes
Added description text for Health lost due to the "Infected" trait
Reworked the early warning notification for disasters to be more informative

Sep 23, 2018

Dev Diary 12 - Challenge Accepted! By Boian Spasov from Haemimont Games

Surviving Mars - candyalien

Hello and thank you for checking out this shiny new dev diary dedicated to the upcoming update, codenamed Sagan. While our previous update (Da Vinci) catered mostly to our players that like to focus their efforts on city-building in Creative Mode, Sagan's main feature is targeted towards our more hardcore survivalist crowd. It introduces a new game mode meant to test your colony building skills as well as your mastery of not just surviving under the alien conditions, but being fast and efficient while doing so.

Challenges
How can you measure the skills of a player in a sandbox city-builder? Even in a survival-oriented one, like Surviving Mars, the difference between a very good player and merely a competent one is often in the efficiency and game time they need to accomplish their goals. While the existing Score system tries to evaluate this to some degree, it is far from perfect, and there is really no fair way to balance it for all possible play styles and game rules.

Challenges are meant to be our answer to this problem, introducing a new way to test your skills. Each Challenge presents a single objective before you that may be as simple as "complete the Founder stage" or more complex like "research all technologies". All Challenges are time-limited, so you have to optimize your approach and be efficient to pass the test.

You can read the dev diary in full here.

Aug 6, 2018

Da Vinci Patch Notes

Surviving Mars - Paradox_bus

New Feature - Creative Mode
Creative Mode features a set of new game rules that allow you to enjoy a simpler playthrough with endless resources and everything unlocked. Added a Creative Mode option in the main menu which has these game rules on by default.

• Easy Maintenance - Buildings don't malfunction due to lack of maintenance
• Easy Research - Start with additional 3000 Research per Sol and all base techs revealed
• Fast Rockets - Rockets travel ten times faster
• Fast Scanning - Sector scanning is ten times faster
• Free Construction - Buildings don't require resources to be constructed (they still have construction time)
• Iron Colonists - Colonists can't lose Health or Sanity below 50 and they cannot become Earthsick
• More Applicants - 500 additional applicants
• Overfunded - Start with $100,000 M Funding

Some of the new rules disable all Achievements.

New Feature – Desired Amount in depots & storages
You can now set a desired amount in storages and depots. Drones will try to keep at least the desired amount of resources in depots and storages taking resources from other storages if need be.

• New UI – reworked the UI of depots and storages to allow the enabling/disabling of resources in depots more easily. The player can also enable/disable resources in all depots of the same type via Ctrl + Click

Changes to Power Networks
• Adjacent power producers & consumers will now connect to each other without the need for a cable.

New Feature – Follow Camera for vehicles and colonists
Follow camera is activated from the selected unit infopanel. Follow camera removes all UI until deactivated.

Balance Changes
• Reworked default initial rocket cargo for all sponsors to include a Stirling Generator prefab and more drones to allow for faster starts
• Reduced the construction cost of many buildings to reduce the amount of resources being carried by drones and improve game pacing
• Increased speed of drones by 20%, techs that increase speed of drones have their effects slightly reduced
• Drone battery capacity increased to reduce how often drones need to recharge. Initial battery of drones randomized to avoid having all drones run out of battery at the same time
• Reduced fuel needed to refuel a rocket to 50 (30 with tech). Paradox sponsor is down to 80(60 with tech)
• Shuttles require less fuel to operate
• Reworked applicant generation so the starting pool of applicants is of greater importance. Sponsors with larger starting pools will continue to have more applicants down the line.
• Increased the effects of the Celebrity and Genius trait but they now have requirements – Genius colonists will grant research points if their Sanity is high (in the green); Celebrity will grant funding if their comfort is high (in the green).
• Electronics Factory now requires maintenance of 2 Machine Parts instead of 3 Electronics
• Increased power consumption of Polymer Plant & Electronics Factory to 10
• Reduced maintenance of Smart homes
• Outsourcing is now limited to five orders at one time
• Tourist trait has been reworked - it now grants 10M funding when the colonist arrives. The tourist stays for 5 Sols and then leaves (on the next rocket to Earth). When the tourist leaves Mars they generate 2 new tourist applicants.
• Working medical buildings provide birth rate boost bonus for the next 24 hours.
• Added new commander profile: City Mayor – 2,000 M additional starting Funding; buildings require upkeep less often; bonus tech: Mars Nouveau (building costs in Metals & Concrete are reduced by 20%).
• Added new game rule – Increased Production – base production of all resources is doubled
• Endless Supply game rule now lowers difficulty by 200 (instead of 25)
• Chaos Theory game rule now lowers difficulty by 50 instead of increasing it

Changes to Disasters
• Cable faults and Pipe leaks now happen only during dust storms or as a result of dust devils and meteor strikes. Their effect has been increased but the repair time is much quicker.
• A popup message describes the effects of disasters the first time they trigger in each playthrough
• Solar Panels are now disabled during Dust Storms and automatically close down
• Buildings left without power during a Cold Wave now freeze 3 times slower (after 24 hours, was 8 hours)
• Health and Sanity damage, suffocation, dehydration, and freezing effects from disasters are now randomized– colonists will now die or have a sanity breakdown gradually during an emergency rather than all at the same time when time runs out.
• Lightning Strikes during Electrostatic Dust Storms have been fixed and will now disable buildings for 24 hours rather than 4 hours. They will also drain power accumulators they hit.

General Fixes
• Added new construction colorization of building placement cursor - orange - to indicate possible placement of a building outside drone controller range
• Autosave Count and Interval settings added in Options > Gameplay
• Buildings inside a Dome are turned off when the Dome is turned off
• Colonists can now eat from stockpiles in connected domes when starving
• Night shift Sanity loss introduced for training buildings
• Fix for passages not returning resources when salvaged
• Terrain is properly restored after demolishing a Geoscape Dome
• The Stirling Generator will no longer take more dust than intended
• Funding is now properly modified by global modifiers
• Large Water Tank now freezes and defrosts for the same time as the basic water tank
• Constructions in Domes are no longer affected by cold areas
• Fixed the Renegades counter in Infobar
• Supply grid now properly reconnects through a Passage
• Fixed unintended disabling of some buildings by Ion storms

UI
• GDPR notice removed. Rejoice!
• Fixed various scrolling problems. UIs are now scrollable instead of using pages
• Added new keybindings for tilting the camera up and down - F, G
• Clicking on icons in the Info Bar now cycles through stored resources, free jobs, free residences, unemployed and homeless Colonists
• Wind Turbine production boost during Dust Storms is now indicated in the info panel
• Command Center graphs timely update
• Renegade morale no longer visible in Command Center
• Trait selection in Schools fixed
• Yellow decals no longer remain stuck on the martian surface
• Added "Low Storage" notifications and removed duplicate other notifications
"Domes without Life Support" notification replaces separate notifications about dome problems
• Added list of problematic buildings as rollover of the "Buildings not working" notification
• All ground vehicles are collectively called "Rovers". The old "RC Rover" is now named "RC Commander"
• Changed displaying of Collaboration loss in Research buildings
• Power percentage is no more visible for pinned Rovers after Rover Command AI gets researched
• Fixed Ctrl+click not setting desired specialization in all Martian Universities
• Added resource conversion ratio in the infopanels of Factories
• Added Queue first option in the Sector scanning queue
• Added Disabled residential slots stat in the Info Bar
• The Info Bar now lists the different sources of Funding for the last Sol and how much Funding was gained from them
• Added space communism

Mods
• Added Radio Station ModItem and related documentation