Quick Look: Surviving Mars

Yes, been waiting for Vinny's take.

It's a really cool game, but I wish there were more too it, some kind of campaign would be welcome

Can't wait to get this game on a steam sale.

I already have over 100 hours in this game, it's fun and it's Paradox.

1 Sol = 1 Day

I hope they brought enough architects to Mars.

Vinny playing a Paradox game. Should of sent a poet.

i have 48 hours in this game and i don't know why, it's overly dull and lacks content.

This was fun for a while but ends up feeling somewhat shallow once you get past a couple of 100 colonists and they become just another mass resource to manage, with very bad tools.

Also really weird to see how many of the mods end up fixing/polishing the micromanagement issues the game has. One of the developers is giving out suggestions on the Steam forums for mods fixing rather serious issues, like buggy migration system leading to colonists being stuck in a loop, walking long death marches between domes.

@vinny Will you come back to this after some expansions? I love paradox but I feel all their games need a year after release to really build up, and they are probably the publisher least suited to launch day quick looks, I won't be getting this for myself until at least the first patch, maybe first expansion. I've heard a lot of complaints about colonists not being able to use services in other domes or work elsewhere, which is currently their focus for the first post-release patch. They just hadn't finished pedestrian tunnels, which maybe they should have waited but paradox just don't.

If you see Parth Bakshi hosting this anywhere remember to report it as a copyright violation.

Currently domes are self-contained, their residents will not go to other domes except for permanent relocation. I think that's somewhat fine since it gives you a reason to build the bigger domes.

I don't stick to a single game for more than ~200 sols, the game heavily encourages starting many different games with all those mysteries and different starting setups (sometimes you can get a different experience with the exact same setup just by getting different breakthroughs unlocked). I still haven't played a game with dust storms, for example.

BTW, depots are free, they are effectively just instructions to drop stuff on the ground here. If they don't appear instantly you've placed them on removable rock, the drones have to clear the area then before the depot comes into existence.

It's no alpha centauri but it wants to be

That is how numbers work.

Seems really neat!

That said though, Ill still be waiting for the 'complete edition'.

Paradox games are great but their tutorials are either non existent or it's a 10 pages of text like Crusader Kings that impossible to remember when you're actually in game.

I started it but had no idea what the supposed flow of the game is.

I forgot Dan was on this QL. Does the music of this game seem strange to anyone else?

This isn't the game Abby thought it was.

@vinny - A sol is a martian day, not a year. Wikipedia page: Timekeeping on Mars.

I really wanted this game to be better, and I still enjoyed it, but I found it to be so slow it just stopped being fun after a while, especially since it does seem to want you to play multiple shorter games. So much of the tedium in this game could have been automated but instead it's just a ton of micromanagement. Like, why can't your little drones just transfer from one controller to another automatically when the areas overlap, so that building multiple controllers just makes the overall controlled area bigger instead of creating discrete bubbles? It makes no sense except to increase boring micromanagement. Combined with the general obtuseness of the interface and reliance on slooow systems like waiting for research or materials to gradually stockpile and it just feels like it takes forever to get anything done, especially with that ten day waiting period that hits right as soon as you're ready to start expanding with colonists.

Not being able to have colonists travel between domes and forcing you to build small pipe/power resource networks is also I think the worst decision. It would have been so much more satisfying to be able to build tunnels or trains between domes so that colonists could travel freely to get what they needed. You'd still want to build bigger domes so you can have a big city center to provided services, but it'd let you focus the smaller domes more tightly on one thing if they didn't all need their own clinic/park/bar, and given the feeling of building more of a real city that needs to be managed as a whole than a series of discrete, continually needy outposts.

@ethan_raiden:Is there an end-game at all? I pressed easy start and then proceeded to hit all but one milestone (the 1000 citizen one) and sols went by without anything happening... But I'm not sure there is any challenge left. I'll probably run out of resources eventually. Rich metals don't seem to bring in a lot of cash, so. But that just feels like a weird 'end' to this game.

I suppose I expected more of an end goal because it does not feel like a city builder.

FYI, this is not a Paradox Development Studio game. It's published by Paradox Interactive, but so are a fair number of games, like Magicka 1/2 and Cities Skylines. But they didn't develop this game, and it doesn't share anything really with EU4, CK2, Stellaris and games like those.

If anyone is interested in this theme and likes board games, I strongly recommend Terraforming Mars. I played it for the first time this week, and I was really surprised by how much I loved it!

lol I forgot too. At a certain point I thought maybe I misremembered hearing his voice but then it comes back.

@rasrimra: The Easy Start is actually a bad way to start a new game, because choosing a new game properly basically lets you set what endgame and story you want. The game has a bunch of "Mysteries" you can select that basically amount to the plotline that pop up in the mid-to-late game. The details of each mystery are hidden (and only hinted at by the title and quote) and range from semi-realistic survival scenarios to high-concept sci-fi events.

AFAIK easy start has no Mystery selected by default.

I like simple strategy/management games on my PS4, as compared to something like EU4 on my pc. This seems too simple. Every game would play out much the same way mysteries or no and the map is just so barren, though that at least is thematically correct.

If it's 60% off with some expansive DLC then I'll probably get it, but otherwise the one Quill18 playthrough I watched will be enough for me.

Can I create a colony that's composed entirely of architects?

@zipzopzoobitybop:

I got that reference

Yeah it's the people who have done the last few Tropico games

There are no games the require you to look at wikis or youtube tutorials. The people who fill out those wikis and make those videos had to figure that stuff out for themselves, and you can do that too. It's just a matter of whether you want to/have the time to put in the effort to figure it out for yourself by poking and prodding at things, or just reading any in game tutorials that come with it.

thanks for the ql!

I didn't have any external information (besides RPS complaining about their base failing to pipe leaks so I always build plenty of reserve life support but it seems they just played it wrong) about the game and still managed to learn it all. If necessary you can hit escape and open the Encyclopedia to get more details on something if you are really unclear on it.

It's both in this game, people age one year per Sol (well, one Earth year it seems) but a Sol lasts one day/night cycle and the story seems to treat them as days too. Probably so you have to worry about aging populations (people actually retire in this game and stop working) and can have children grow into adults in a reasonable time.

Easy Start picks a random mystery (they now patched it so Easy Start never picks "none") but depending on how quickly you build your colony it may take a while to trigger (seems to happen a bit after you reach 100 colonists). I got the AI one in my Easy Start which is actually ranked medium difficulty.

However the Easy Start's International Mars Mission/Rocket Scientist start is of course super easy to deal with and it tends to pick rather easy starting points too.

Good quick look with great music.

I'm still buying this game on sale after all the content (there is a season pass) is out. Like most paradox games.

Vinny: "Water". Dan: "Is that a thing?".

Yes, Dan, that's definitely a thing!

@lumbermancer said:

Yeah, but Excel doesn't have this style. Not yet.

Pretty sure you can just do custom formatting.

people who never played the PC version of Minecraft maybe don't realize that the recipes weren't prepared for you like they are now and always were on consoles. Having to memorize not only the ingredients but where to place them on the 2x2/3x3 grids was a pain in the ass. Minecraft has a load of mechanics that are never explained in the game.