General / Off-Topic Surviving Mars
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stormyuk
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I am not playing it on PS4, I tried it on the PC and mixed feelings from me, I got to build my first dome and got my first colonists but its just not really keeping my attention, it did start to grow on me but it didn't like really suck me in, so maybe only played it for a few hours in total. Went back to the Witcher and then played a little bit of Elite last night, trying to find some way to make some decent credits, failed and watched TV instead.
Just happened to see this from the "home" page, and while I'm not playing it on the Playstation, I have been playing it, and because I've been home sick the last couple days, I've been playing it a lot.
First Colony, used a "normal" difficulty sponsor (Europe) with a fairly easy starting location (about 150% difficulty bonus, IIRC), reached 500 colonists, built all the "wonders," reached the point where I spent long periods of time doing nothing but watch.
So I decided to up the difficulty by going with a harder sponsor (Church of the New Ark), and aiming for around 250%.
Second Colony: A very unlucky meteor storm took out the tunnel connecting the two halves of my early colony, my transport drone, and much of water generating infrastructure. I had no reserve of machine parts to repair it. While desperately trying to research "Martian Patents" to get some money to buy more, one half of the colony starved to death, while the other half died of dehydration.
Third Colony: Thanks to a very unlucky starting order for the tech tree, I decided to fast track some research. Colony died of dehydration due to being unable to afford to buy a machine parts factory to keep vital systems running.
Fourth (current) Colony: I had to sacrifice the inhabitants of the "education" dome during a Great Dust Storm, due to realizing I had enough stored oxygen for three days, but the storm would last five. It used the most oxygen, but had the least amount of trained people. Colony has managed to recover from that blow, but the population has plateaued at about 220 thanks to a housing crisis. Currently implementing austerity measures and extra work loads in an effort to build up enough of a safety margin to expand to a fourth site, so my people are not happy.
Current crisis: surface deposits of water and metals are starting to be depleted, and I'm still researching deep extraction technologies. New site will help with the latter, and currently extending the pipe network to a new, though low quality, water deposit.
Hi,
i am playing it on Xbox One and really like it. Spend something about 20 hours with it - constantly learning to optimizing my colony. There are a couple of "hidden" functions... E.g. you can restrict storage to specific goods (i learned today)... And it takes some time to learn the pros and cons e.g. of wind turbines and solar panels.
Reading the build-in information (in german language called "Lexikon") does help - but still a lot to discover. I like the atmosphere of the game and in general i like this kind of games.
My main problem with "Surviving Mars": It takes time *g* Due to the current situation with E i find myself stuck with "Surviving Mars" most of my free time...
Ciao, Udo
i am playing it on Xbox One and really like it. Spend something about 20 hours with it - constantly learning to optimizing my colony. There are a couple of "hidden" functions... E.g. you can restrict storage to specific goods (i learned today)... And it takes some time to learn the pros and cons e.g. of wind turbines and solar panels.
Reading the build-in information (in german language called "Lexikon") does help - but still a lot to discover. I like the atmosphere of the game and in general i like this kind of games.
My main problem with "Surviving Mars": It takes time *g* Due to the current situation with E
i find myself stuck with "Surviving Mars" most of my free time...Ciao, Udo
I think I would like it because I like base-building (one of my favorite features in NMS). I once suggested that Frontier release a game like this based (pun) in the ED galaxy, where players could build bases on moons and planets and then Elite Dangerous players could visit these places in our ships. Considering two of Frontier's three core games are basically 'base-building', I'm actually kinda surprised someone else beat them to a space-base building game.
If nothing else, I am happy to see others embracing the 'space games' genre. I may get this game someday just to show my support for the genre in general...
If nothing else, I am happy to see others embracing the 'space games' genre. I may get this game someday just to show my support for the genre in general...
I think the key to "Surving Mars" is that your goal is NOT to build a giant colony - but to simply survive the starting phase *g* If you have researched everything, survived the mystery and build everything you need you should stop the game and start elsewhere on mars with new starting conditions again....
There are some players that seem to be frustrated by this fact ;-) I like it this way. No endless game with a single colony.
Ciao, Udo
There are some players that seem to be frustrated by this fact ;-) I like it this way. No endless game with a single colony.
Ciao, Udo
I agree.
My fourth Colony is getting close to being self sufficient. Right now, I’m still relying on Earth for some specialists (scientists and medics, primarily) and Polymers for new construction. With the breakthrough discovery of the Extraction AIs, I’ve been able to divert my geologists from mining to factory work. With electronics and machine parts now being created in sufficient quantities, I’ll be opening a new university devoted to those specialties, and building some more polymer factories. My goal in this game is to be completely free of dependency on Earth.
And build an Artificial Sun.
Turned it on last night on my Xbox, spent about 45mins mucking about
..... then got a xbl party/game invite ta sail the Sea of Thieves with some ol' chumbuckety mateys o' mine.... anyway back to S' Mars.....
..... seemed to have a very steep learning curve ( no more than our great ED ) and the text seemed to be slightly to small for me to read comfortably from my sofa, which is where I intend to sit/spend my time whilst playing this hopefully relaxing ( when I get to grips with it ) game.
Having read quite a few reviews from 'Metacritic' and watched over 2.5 hrs of YT tutorials ( before buying ), I felt that I would be prepared for the console controller version to frustrate me a little bit ( and it did )
but having said that I loved playing Sim City many years ago, though It was with a PC and mouse and keyboard hopefully I come to really enjoy this console city builder !
ps. am looking forward to the 'Mysteries' [alien]
..... then got a xbl party/game invite ta sail the Sea of Thieves with some ol' chumbuckety mateys o' mine.... anyway back to S' Mars.....
..... seemed to have a very steep learning curve ( no more than our great ED ) and the text seemed to be slightly to small for me to read comfortably from my sofa, which is where I intend to sit/spend my time whilst playing this hopefully relaxing ( when I get to grips with it ) game.
Having read quite a few reviews from 'Metacritic' and watched over 2.5 hrs of YT tutorials ( before buying ), I felt that I would be prepared for the console controller version to frustrate me a little bit ( and it did )
but having said that I loved playing Sim City many years ago, though It was with a PC and mouse and keyboard hopefully I come to really enjoy this console city builder !
ps. am looking forward to the 'Mysteries' [alien]
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Reviews aren't so great on PS4 version - https://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Mars-PlayStation-4/dp/B079M4FL1D/