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Hello Martians! We have something new to share with fans of sci-fi! Paradox Interactive just released a new, futuristic mech wargame! Check out this trailer! [previewyoutube=TcJoUc7NaTo;full][/previewyoutube] Mechabellum is a tactical wargame where you gain victory by adapting your strategy and outthinking your opponents. You command varied, mechanized armies in battle against AI or other humans, customize your units and place them strategically on the battlefield to watch them destroy your enemies. https://store.steampowered.com/app/669330/Mechabellum/ We hope youll give it a shot and meet us on the battlefield!
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/25614/Surviving_Mars_All_New_In_Bundle/ Calling all Survivors! The day has arrived! The 3 new CCPs (Content Creator Packs) have finally arrived, and we're excited to welcome you aboard. The packs will be available separately, or in a "All New In" bundle! You'll be able to change how you play the game with the "Martian Express Pack" created by veteran modders Lucian "LukeH" Hada and Sylvain "Silva" Maupetit. The "Martian Express Pack" allows you to move your colonists and resources between stations facilitating access to far away domes and remote resource deposits. Other outside manned buildings will also be buildable near stations without needing a dome. You can also enjoy the 10 new terrestrial building skins included in "Future Contemporary Cosmetic Pack" by modder Teerapat "Quad Rioters" Kitjawijit while you listen to the 16 new songs from the "Revelation Radio Pack". Martian Express Pack created by veteran modders Lucian "LukeH" Hada and Sylvain "Silva" Maupetit include:
All aboard another party train! We have another video from PartyElite about the up-coming Content Creator Pack, this time focusing on the Future Contemporary Cosmetic Pack (made by Teerapat "Quad Rioters" Kitjawijit), and Revelation Radio. Join us for the release tomorrow! You'll get a glimpse of the new building skins, including three Dome Spires, and listen to the relaxing beats from the new radio station. [previewyoutube=RWccT79waX4;full][/previewyoutube]
Join the party and check out this sneak peek of the new CCP (Content Creator Pack) Martian Express! PartyElite has collaborated with us to show you the Pros and Cons of Using Trains, Building and Maintaining your Train Network. All aboard the train on the 28th of April! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9f-3bf56o0
Hello Survivors, News of highly requested features are arriving with a honk! We've got 3 new Content Creator Packs coming your way on April 28th, available separately, or in a "All New In" bundle! Change up your game dramatically with the Martian Express Pack by veteran modders Lucian "LukeH" Hada and Sylvain "Silva" Maupetit, give your buildings some new flair or listen to 70ish min of new music! The Martian Express Pack allows you to move your colonists and resources between stations facilitating access to far away domes and remote resource deposits.Other outside manned buildings will also be buildable near stations without needing a dome. Check out the trailer for the Martian Express Pack:[previewyoutube=fME_26QzIqA;full][/previewyoutube] Key features of the Martian Express Pack include:
Release date: 2022-02-08 Version: Steam: 1010838 GOG: 1010838 Epic: 1010838 Windows Store: 1010838 Paradox Plaza: 1010838 XBOX: 1010838 MAC: 1010838 Linux: 1010838 PS4: 1010838 Bug Fixes Fix the game becomes unresponsive when ordering unskilled colonists from the underground Fix no disasters when starting a new game with mods active (Fixed for save games) Fix Colonists working in the Sanatorium/School Spire have the "Not working in home dome" status Fix Recon discovery events are recurring while they should not Fix loaded cargo isn't shown in the Asteroid Lander payload tooltip on quick bar when it arrived on Asteroid Fix the Drone Hub and Hub Extenders active range is displayed after more than 2 hubs were converted into Prefabs at the same time Fix Lander rocket always defaults to auto mode on the Asteroid and user preference is always overridden Fix the Mystery Log cannot be dismissed on the Asteroid after completing the "Asteroid from outer space" mini-mystery Fix Fireworks are not displayed even if Show Fireworks option is enabled Fix the default cargo priority approving waste rock, causing issues with events Fix the menus being allowed to open on console while having the payload menu open Known issues/ notes: No disasters save game bugfix: In existing savegames that have the issue where disasters are not triggered, the disasters will be reset and treated as if a new game has started. This means that it will take the same amount of time for disasters to start occurring as if a new game was started with max disasters settings.
Game version: 1010784 Balance Changes
Hello Survivors! We just released a small emergency hotfix which addresses a few issues found in the Content Update #2 for Below & Beyond DLC. Patch notes
Game Version: 1010558 Main Focus: In this second part, we focus on making the underground and asteroids more beneficial for your main colony and build further upon the improvements of Merbold part 1.
Game version: 1009413 Main Focus: In this first part, we focus on making it easier to explore and expand into the underground earlier on while also making the Asteroid Lander and Elevator easier to use. We also start making Below and Beyond content more beneficial for your main colony by introducing a few upgrades that cost Exotic Minerals.
Game version: 1008298 Gameplay Improvements
Game version: 1008107 Notes
Game version PC: 1008025 Gameplay Improvements
Game version: 1007874 Gameplay Improvements
Get ready to dig below the Red Planets surface and experience a hole new world, because Surviving Mars: Below & Beyond is now available! [previewyoutube=8CtGyo7FreY;full][/previewyoutube] With the Below & Beyond expansion, you can expand their colonys horizons into underground caves and lava tubes, and beyond the surface to fleeting asteroids. The redefined Recon & Expansion tech tree gives you the tools to build, discover and evolve your colony. Construct underground buildings and bases to provide the colony with additional levels of protection against natural disasters. Leverage technological discoveries to mine passing asteroids for exotic resources - just make sure to get back before it leaves orbit! Also, dont forget about the brand new Mars Lifestyle Radio with its 16 original tracks. Available on all platforms!
Dev Diary #3 - Tech Tree and Free Update
Welcome back, Commander!
Good to have you with us one last time, we've got one more update for you about the development of the new Below and Beyond project. It's me again, Bart Vossen, design lead on the Below and Beyond planning and development team. Previously we went into the development of what lies below and what to find beyond. Today's briefing will focus on how to actually get there and some things we did to make life easier for all commanders.
As usual, let's start with an overview. The Below and Beyond project introduces a variety of new buildings, updates to existing tech, and a few new things that will help us explore the underground and exploit asteroids. This is a lot, and we don't want to overload our scientists with all this work. So, all these things are combined in the new Recon and Expansion tech tree. We recognize that managing a colony on Mars is a massive undertaking. For that reason, we also added a few new things for all players to enjoy, without having to be a part of the Below and Beyond project. These are primarily improvements to your UI and some extra control options, to help you build the exact colony you want and ensure you don't miss anything. Additionally, we made adjustments to a few buildings as some of them were being made obsolete. And in the process, we even found a blueprint for a completely new structure!
You will gradually unlock most Below and Beyond content through the Recon and Expansion tech tree. At first, we focus on getting access to both the Underground and Asteroids, giving you the basic tools you need to venture into these new environments. Underground, and especially Asteroids can be dangerous for colonists at first, so we thought it important to only introduce them after you've grown a bit more familiar with these locales. We'd want to avoid any unfortunate deaths, right Commander? In the later stages of the tech tree, we'll find techs that expand our options and opportunities, both on Asteroids and in the Underground. These advanced techs allow us to mine on multiple asteroids at the same time and possibly, under your well-orchestrated command, extract all possible resources from them.
That said, we didn't want the Below and Beyond project to be a completely separated experience. Several old techs will also improve our abilities to visit asteroids and explore the underground, such as the Advanced Martian Engines tech, which now also reduces fuel requirements for our new Asteroid Landers. This also goes the other way around. The discovery of Exotic Minerals has led to a few new options on the Martian surface. Especially the Drone Hub Extenders will prove useful when an additional Drone Hub would add unnecessary resource management.
But I bet by now you are itching to learn more about these plans to make your life easier since they are completely free for everyone! Below and Beyond adds more places to manage in parallel with your main colony, so we wanted to focus on improvements that help all commanders manage their colonies. We launched an internal investigation to find some of the biggest pain points; cable and pipe leaks being hard to spot, no easy way to quickly have a look at all your separate power and pipe grids, and having trouble placing buildings outside the dust range of others were the biggest. It was most important for us to give you the tools to better handle these; clear feedback where leaks are, an easy way to quickly cycle through your different grids, an option to show dust ranges during construction as well as other relevant ranges based on the building you are constructing, and more information in the resource tooltips. It is important to understand what is going on in your colony so you can prepare and avoid future disasters.
Besides giving you a better overview of your colony, we also made improvements to let you manage your colony the way you want. There were again a few major points we wanted to address. Have you ever been frustrated with reordering your tech tree? Are you tired of colonists still making babies while all domes are already overpopulated? Do you also find it difficult to find that one celebrity on the resupply screen? We say - no more! We added new controls for you to reorder the tech tree, set a new birth limit policy, and added the "must include" filter option. In addition, we had a long and hard discussion with all the different sponsors and persuaded them to give commanders the rights to name their own colony. Please use this power responsibly.
We also heard the many comments about too many geniuses coming from the School Spire and putting Research Labs and Hawking institutes across all colonies out of business. We had another good look at various buildings and their purposes and decided to make a few changes. We reduced the chance that School Spires generated geniuses to ensure your scientists and research buildings are still viable options. We changed smart apartments to function as a bigger version of smart homes, while still keeping apartments relevant in case you want to house as many people as possible. The medical post now helps fewer colonists but gives more comfort, making it a smaller alternative to the infirmary. Lastly, the Door to Summer event just gave bad rewards for all the effort you had to put into it, so we made that one much more lucrative.
Lastly, we know you love to add even more unique buildings to your colonies. Thats why were happy to introduce the Amphitheatre. A building where both colonists and tourists can relax after a long day of work. It gives you an early game alternative for colonists with the luxury interest and more diversity in buildings that increase tourists' satisfaction.
It has been a real pleasure giving you these tours, Commander! Unfortunately, its the last one we can offer you for now, but the launch of Below and Beyond is just around the corner. In the meantime, we've got one more instructional video for you to watch. Now, if you'll excuse me, I could use a vacation after all this. Ive heard that Asteroids are all the rage these days. Maybe I'll see you up there. Until we meet again.
[previewyoutube=dsHNgW8MN8I;leftthumb][/previewyoutube]
Welcome back, Commander!
We've prepared another update for you on how we developed the new Below and Beyond project. My name is Bart Vossen, design lead on the Below and Beyond planning and development team. Nice to meet you! As my colleague already informed you about what lies beyond, today's tour is all about exploring what's below; the Underground!
Let me give you a quick overview before we dive deeper. Our RC Explorers recently started running into surprisingly deep holes, which, after some further inspection, uncovered an entire underground network of tunnels beneath our colony. You should be able to drop an RC Explorer down there for initial reconnaissance. We've also developed a new building, the Elevator, which will be able to transport everything we need between our surface colony and the underground. Reports tell us the underground contains more resources and should provide protection against all hazards from the surface. Though the darkness and any local quakes, caused by our expansion efforts, may pose their own challenges. To this end, we've developed several buildings to keep our colonists safe. Lastly, those who came back also rambled on about something they called buried wonders, which we'd advise you to investigate further.
Now you might be wondering, why the underground? Well, 99.9% of Mars's mass lies underground, and it gives us a network of tunnels to explore and expand into with completely new challenges. But mostly because Mars's underground has eluded us for centuries. As we got closer and closer to Mars, we were still only looking at its surface. Even after we landed, we were only able to scan the top layer. Now, we have an opportunity to fully discover what secrets Mars has been hiding from us.
Expansion into the underground will get us closer to resource veins and provide shelter from meteors, dust storms, and even cold waves. Though it may destabilize the area and cause local, underground quakes with occasional cave-ins. To better protect our buildings, our scientists came up with a nifty solution involving Exotic Minerals. This should make exploring and expanding into the underground a worthwhile endeavor to do while our surface colony is gradually expanding.
To realize this vision of an enigmatic yet dangerous underground, we started development on an explorable network of underground lava tubes. They should feel dark, cramped, and mysterious while you're exploring, but also have enough room to build and expand your colony. We created a network of interconnected tunnels, with rooms spread around to provide building space. But we left it in darkness to give the underground a real cramped and mysterious feel to it as if you're spelunking and placing lights along the way. Don't worry, we also equipped all buildings, RC Vehicles, and drones with plenty of lights and some emergency lights in case they break down. To really emphasize the exploration, we equipped our RC vehicles with scanning technology that will reveal any anomalies or resources they pass by. Unfortunately, these tunnels are placed at depths our orbital scanning technology is not yet able to analyze at any meaningful level.
Our goal is for players to explore the underground in parallel with expanding their colony on Mars. So we did some early simulations with test commanders to see if our underground maps worked with this goal in mind. Unfortunately, we found them going through the underground at lightning speed, losing the sense of exploration and discovery. To this end, we sprinkled some cave-ins and blocked tunnels throughout the underground. These give commanders natural moments to check up on their surface colony and Asteroid outposts. Blocked tunnels can be cleared with a new landscaping tool and unlock access to new rooms and tunnels. Cave-ins require a better understanding of the underground to remove, as the area is clearly unstable. But once you obtain that technology, you'll be able to clear cave-ins to find shortcuts between chambers and many discoveries hidden by the darkness.
The real treasure hidden in these depths are the buried wonders; ancient natural, and some unnatural, features long covered up by Mars's soil. Each with its own secrets to reveal and benefits to acquire. Once fully unlocked with Exotic Minerals, they are just as powerful as the wonders our technology can accomplish. Though not all of Mars is equal, besides different tunnel layouts and entrance locations, not all wonders can be found on each landing site. It will always be a surprise what we will find down there in the darkness.
Most buildings from the surface are still buildable in the underground, while we also have a few new ones to deal with the unique challenges found down there. While they're protected from the hazards of the surface, underground marsquakes, caused by our elevators and expansion, pose a real risk of burying our buildings beneath cave-ins. We've engineered support struts that should be able to take the bulk of the impact, and reinforced domes to at least keep our colonists safe in the underground.
Once we had this up and running, we had a series of test commanders run various simulations. This gave us many different results that allowed us to better adjust the underground layouts and risks and rewards. Though the biggest problem proved to be drone command. Our simulations showed placing a drone hub within a larger room worked perfectly, however connecting it required several drone hubs within the tunnels. To solve this problem, our engineers went playing with some Exotic Minerals and came up with Drone Hub Extenders. These buildings are able to extend a Drone Hub's signal through the entire tunnel. And theoretically, it should also work on the surface and on Asteroids.
My favourite part of the underground? After a long day, I like to just sit on the back of an RC Explorer and look around as it drives through the underground. Or maybe an RC Safari, if the tourists aren't making too much noise. There's something about the calm darkness as if you'll find a new treasure any second.
That should cover everything, so I'm going to find myself an RC Explorer right now and I'll see you around. Do make sure you come back, there'll be another tour soon. The next one will dive into our new tech tree that will make all this possible and look at a few ways we managed to improve your life. Still here? Then you might as well watch our instructional video on underground exploration. It might help give you a better bearing once you start exploring the underground yourself.
Until next time Commander, and I hope I'll see you exploring down here soon!
[previewyoutube=jsUJaOtQs0c;leftthumb][/previewyoutube]
Welcome, Commander!
It appears you requested an update on how we developed the new Below and Beyond project. The names Elmer Lexmond designer on the Below and Beyond planning and development team, nice to
meet you! Im here to give you a peek behind the curtain. On the agenda today is Mining Asteroids!
Let me start you off with a quick summary. We have developed a new building, the Recon Center which lets us track Asteroids that pass in close proximity to Mars. You can visit these tracked asteroids with our brand-new Asteroid Landers, rockets designed to land in conditions that would be impossible for our standard Supply Rockets. Once there, we have a limited amount of time to mine as many resources as possible and leave the asteroids before it is too far away from Mars to make the return trip. We will need specialized Micro-G Auto Extractors at first, but we can eventually get permits to send the personnel that can populate our more efficient Micro-G Mining Stations.
Why the asteroids you ask? First off, because 86% of colonists think asteroids are very cool, and
secondly because creating these short-term mining bases in an isolated location is a completely
different challenge from anything we have done on the surface of Mars so far. You will have to work
with limited resources, irregular building space, and a specific time window, but the reward is also
different. You invest resources on a mission to get access to an abundance of materials, such as the
newly discovered Exotic Minerals that are exclusive to asteroids. This makes visiting asteroids a perfect opportunity for when you are developing a project on the Martian surface that requires some time to finish.
To make our vision come true, we started by developing the asteroids themselves. Our goal was to make each asteroid feel unique. We created various asteroid types based on existing classifications of asteroids. Each type has a different spread of resources available and a different rate at which they can appear. A C-type asteroid for instance is much more common than the elusive X-Type. We also created different looks for the asteroids based on the main resources available on them. Combine this with various pre-authored maps to get a diverse mix of asteroids that require different strategies each time around.
But an asteroid on its own doesnt get us very far. We needed to decide what new buildings we
needed and which existing ones we could reuse. For new buildings, we focused on the ones with
specialized functions such as extractors and small-scale living space for colonists that wouldnt
require a full dome. For the existing ones we eliminated the buildings that wouldnt function in the
micro-G environment, this meant that we had to introduce a substitute for the MOXIE if we wanted our colonists to be able to breathe, which led to the new Electrolyzer.
With all this in place, we called upon our test commanders to run simulated missions. We got a wide
range of results, but most prominent of all was the sentiment that managing multiple locations at
the same time was quite taxing for most commanders. After investigating further, we learned that
one of the biggest problems was setting up the Asteroid Landers for their trip back to Mars. To be
successful our commanders needed to update the cargo request on the Asteroid Lander frequently
to get it loaded before the time on the asteroid ran out. To remedy this, we created an AutoLoad function where commanders can set their preferences and let the rocket AI update the cargo request continuously based on the specifications and what is available on the asteroid. The second problem was the need to launch the rocket manually. To relieve some of the stress of trying to launch the rocket at the perfect moment, we gave the rocket an AI subroutine to launch automatically when the time limit on the asteroid was reached, regardless of whether the current cargo request was fully completed. You should thank our testers, commander, they saved you a lot of stress by running these simulations before we rolled the project out to you!
Do you want to know what was my favourite part of creating the asteroids? I must say I had a lot of fun working on the naming convention for them! We took cues from how they are named and classified on earth and tailored them to be more appropriate for our purposes. You will find that our team added some creative new names to the vast list of existing asteroid names already out there!
Well, Im sure Ive covered pretty much everything, not to mention Im in dire need of a coffee break.
But worry not, there are more dev diaries on the horizon! According to the schedule, the next one will delve deeper into the development of the Martian Underground. I highly recommend youll join us again for that one, there will be some very interesting things explained there. Itll go into further detail on why Exotic Minerals are worth all this trouble. In the meantime, please watch our instructional
video on Asteroid Mining, it might help you to not lose some of that pricy new equipment to the
dark void of space.
Until next time Commander and I hope to see you on our first real asteroid mission soon!
[previewyoutube=D-NLYknhfts;leftthumb][/previewyoutube]
~Incoming transmission~ Commanders, get ready to explore the Martian depths and extract precious minerals from the elusive asteroids in this brand new DLC for Surviving Mars! Below & Beyond pushes the limits of what is possible on the Red Planet. Expand your horizons with additional buildings, more resources, and a cavernous world full of mysteries. You can tunnel beneath the surface and construct subterranean bases below the colony and in nearby underground caves. Or you can attach rocket-propelled buildings to passing asteroids and mine exotic resources, but youll need to make it back to the Red Planets surface before the asteroid leaves orbit or else you lose your stuff and your colonists. The DLC will launch on September 7th on all available platforms. Key Features
Hello Survivors, welcome to PDX Con Remixed! We have some exciting events and activities scheduled, you can view the full Surviving Mars event list here: Friday May 21st 22:00 CEST - Reviving Mars: Meet the New Team - Discord Get your ass to Discord and meet the folks at Abstraction Games, the new developers of Surviving Mars! Find out what it takes to bring a breath of fresh air to the red planet and ask your questions! Saturday May 22nd 10:50 CEST - Meet the New Mars: Abstraction - Twitch Welcome back to Surviving Mars! Weve got the team from Abstraction here to discuss what its been like working with your favorite interplanetary survival game. Join us for a look at where the game has been, and where its headed next! 11:55 CEST - Is there life on Mars? Surviving Mars Quiz - Discord Are you a true Survivor? Challenge yourself with this quiz about Mars, Survival, and Surviving Mars, and win prizes! We hope to see you there!
Hey Survivors, While our team is working hard on [redacted], today we have a pocket-size patch for you with some small adjustments and fixes. Version: 1001586
Game Version: 1001569 Bug fixes
Hey Survivors, we have another small hotfix coming your way today. Game Version: 1001551 Bug fixes
Game Version: 1001539 Bug fixes
Greetings, Martians!
I am happy to see you again, and it is with great enthusiasm that I present to you this Content Creator Pack that I created. For those who dont know me, Im Silva, and I started modding strategy and RPG games in 1997. After a very long break, when the excellent Surviving Mars (2018) was released, I resumed modding. I had very little knowledge of 3D and programming, but that didnt discourage me from making a large number of mods that were very well received by the gaming community. Modding has allowed me to improve my 3D modeling and programming at lightning speed.
And today Paradox contacted me to create this Content Creator Pack, giving me the freedom to choose the theme, the features to be added, and any other content. My specialty as a modder is to create new buildings, so I chose this type of content for this Pack. You see, they are not just new building skins but entirely new buildings, with new gameplay features for some of them.
[CCP trailer on YT]
The design of this Pack was done in two phases: in the first one, I wrote the game design and created each asset to make a mod. The second one was handled by Abstraction Games for the integration of my work into the game as true DLC.
I decided to focus on simple but interesting gameplay elements for the players and to limit asset animations to ensure final quality. I chose to make exclusively 8 new buildings to place in the Domes, trying to be faithful to the graphic style of the game.
I was inspired by the requests of the players, but also by my own experience, to add to the mechanics of the game and bring novelty and fun. Big settlements pose a lot of problems when the population becomes very large and the current buildings are not adapted to accommodate so many people. For example, the kindergarten is too small, so I decided to make a bigger one as well as a big school that has the feature of being a Spire, plus an improvement to give the trait of Genius to a small percentage of students.
In the advanced settlements, the number of retiring settlers also becomes a housing problem as they take essential housing for workers. This situation can cause labor problems in some Domes. This is why I have integrated a new type of residence exclusively reserved for retirees. Health can also become a big problem when there is a large population; infirmaries are too small, and medical Spires are not a priority in the choices of players. To solve this problem, I included the design of a Martian Hospital that will be able to cope with the influx of many patients.
The smaller Domes, where the choice of buildings is important because of their reduced space, are often without security or health facilities. This is why I created the Medical Post and the Security Post occupying a single box but with smaller capacities.
Another interesting building is the TV Studio, which is a new workshop where your settlers will produce Reality Shows for the Earthlings. Each broadcast will increase your funds. Finally, I added Smart Apartments, a new residential building halfway between the Apartments and the Smart Complex.
Most of the buildings are unlockable by technologies and have upgrades.
To create all these assets, I used the same tools as for modding, namely: Blender for 3D modeling, Substance Painter for texturing, and the Mod Tools from Surviving Mars to add assets to the game.
After I wrote the game design of the Content Pack, it was validated by Paradox. I didnt make any sketches or concept art to start the 3D modeling of the buildings. I had a very precise idea in my mind of the general design of my models.
Once the 3D was finished, I created the textures, respecting the graphic style of the game. Then again on Blender, I had to configure the scene for export to the game, i.e. configure the materials, the lights, and the collision boxes, as well as indicate the position of some decorative objects (benches, trees, etc.), the access paths to the building for the settlers and the door animations.
Once everything was set up correctly, I exported my asset so that it could be used by the game. I still have to create the templates and some programming to make the buildings playable for the players.
I would like to close by thanking Paradox for the trust they put in me to create this Content Pack Creator. Its a great experience for a modder, and its an excellent approach by Paradox to want to promote modding for their games and reward the most active creators.
See you soon in the Surviving games!
Silva
fixes some crashes and other things that affect PDX and internally
This update should fix stability issues that have been reported
Go to Mars and support the fight against COVID-19! In an effort to support WHO in their efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic, Paradox is holding a fundraiser sale on Steam!
Surviving Mars is included in this sale, together with Hearts of Iron IV, Cities Skylines, Age of Wonders Planetfall, BATTLETECH, Shadowrun, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, and Knights of Pen and Paper 2.
The sale ends on April 3rd, 7 PM CEST, and all of the proceeds will go to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO.
Check it out here: Paradox Interactive Covid-19 Fundraiser
We just deployed the Evans Update, which brings fixes for some of the reported issues for both Surviving Mars and Green Planet. It will also solve issues in Space Race and Project Laika.
Surviving Mars:
Hello fellow survivors!
Were back with another dev diary for Green Planet. Today we will be discussing the awesome free update, which is going to be released together with Green Planet and Project Laika DLCs. Weve added a bunch of new content and Quality of Life improvements in this update, the most notable new feature being landscaping. All owners of Surviving Mars will get new Special Projects, events, research UI, multiselect, rover orders queue, and new buildings as well.
The Armstrong update is going to add a new section in your Build Menu: Landscaping. This new section contains the following new tools Flatten terrain, create Ramp, Change Surface texture and an option to construct Small Rock Formation or bigger Rock Formation.
The Flatten terrain tool allows you to select a flat surface on Mars and protrude it, leveling the terrain where it passes. It allows you to fill craters, extend plateaus or clear rough terrain for construction. Once you select an area to flatten, the tool will create a new landscaping project which is visualized with a construction hologram on your display. Each landscaping project evaluates the underlying terrain and calculates how much soil is needed and if excess soil is present. Then your drones will deliver or remove the Waste Rock as needed to complete the project.
The Ramp tool works similar to the Flatten tool but it allows you to connect two flat surfaces with different elevations, creating walkable ground between them.
The Change Surface tool marks an area, which will be gradually reworked by your Drones. They will break the rocks to make sand, or replace sand with rocks.
Additionally, you can use your excess Waste Rock to construct various Rock Formations. These are purely decorative combinations of rocks, which can be placed on flat surface. They were created for those moments when you have made Mars too Earth-like and want to bring back some natural Martian landscape.
The Armstrong update comes with 3 free Special Projects: Capture Meteors, launch High-Speed Comm Satellite and Launch SETI Satellite. Theyre marked on the Planetary View with blue icons and become available as soon as the first batch of Planetary Anomalies gets discovered. Usually, this happens at Sol 10-15.
The Capture Meteors mission tasks one Rocket to go and divert meteors towards Mars. The Meteors then fall as Meteor Storm, leaving Metals and Polymers deposits. Just bear in mind that the storm may hit your colony.
You can construct orbitals by sending a rocket loaded with resources to deploy either a High-Speed Comm Satellite or SETI Satellite. HSC Satellites grant you daily sponsor research, while SETI Satellites grant additional funding.
The Armstrong update comes with 20 new events, scripted specifically for the early days of your colony and will grant you various benefits that will boost your expansion early on.
Weve added 2 new buildings in the Build Menu as well: Large Dumping Site and Rocket Construction Site. The Large Dumping Site allows you to store more Waste Rock in a tight area and you can now construct Rockets the same way you construct Rovers. But youll need to research Advanced Rocketry to construct Rockets.
As part of our on-going efforts to redesign Surviving Mars UI, the Armstrong update comes with a flashy new Research UI, better suited for our everlasting modding community.
Last but not least, the Armstrong update is going to introduce 2 long-since wanted features: multi-selection and rover orders queue.
You can now drag select colonists, drones or rovers and then assign them the same task. Relocating all colonists of a Dome to another one has never been quicker!
To queue orders, select a Rover and then hold Shift while clicking on various points of interest. You can now task your Explorer to scan all anomalies on the map in a given order and then return back to the safety of the colony.
The Armstrong update is coming with a long list of QoL improvements, optimizations, balance changes and bug fixes. Stay tuned for our next dev diary, which is dedicated to the ultimate goal of the terraforming initiative, making Mars hospitable for life outside of the dome.
Ivan Grozev,
Lead Designer,
Green Planet
https://store.steampowered.com/app/952890/Surviving_Mars_Green_Planet/
Hi Everyone!
Were back with another dev diary for Green Planet. Today's topic is disasters, how to avoid them and how to cause them. We'll be discussing the new Special Projects in more detail, as well.
In Green Planet the climate gradually changes as you improve the atmosphere, temperature, and water levels of Mars. The raising global temperatures make the cold waves shorter and less likely to occur, the denser atmosphere burns more meteors before they hit the ground. Eventually, the once severe disasters become a thing of the past, but other ones arise.
In Green Planet your actions have global consequences, remember this the next time when you schedule a rocket to nuke the North Pole! As you pump greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and increase its temperature, you're creating the perfect conditions for ice to liquefy, evaporate, and then fall back to the ground as toxic rain.
Initially, toxic rains will pour for multiple sols, erode the soils, and potentially cause lichen and other wild plants to wither and die. Wide toxic pools form on the ground which will kill all vegetation and render the local soils unstable for construction of new buildings. Once the rains have ended you can send drones to clean the area. Making Mars' atmosphere, temperature, and water levels more Earth-like will result in less toxic rains and more normal rains. The clean water will improve the soils and it helps for the spreading of wild vegetation throughout the colony.
Occasional marsquakes will tremble the ground and destroy buildings near their epicenters. Marsquakes are direct consequence of the colony's efforts to create stronger magnetic field and they strike near Magnetic Field Generators. Endure the marsquake and then send your drones to fix the damaged buildings. Keep your Magnetic Field Generators away from vital infrastructure and remember that more MFGs equals more marsquakes.
Recurring toxic rains and marsquakes will happen as direct consequence of the on-going terraforming of Mars, but there're other ways to trigger them, like the Import Greenhouse Gases special project.
The Special Projects are new points of interest on various locations throughout the planet. They are visualized with special green or blue symbols on the Planetary View. The green ones are special terraforming projects and directly affect the overall progress of the terraforming initiative. There are 7 Terraforming Special Projects, listed below:
The Capture Ice Asteroids project dedicates one rocket to find and pull ice asteroids towards Mars. The melting ice increases the water levels of the planet.
As long as Mars can support liquid water and normal rains, the Cloud Seeding project triggers massive rainfalls, which improve the local soil quality and help plants to grow.
During the Import Greenhouse Gases mission, one rocket gets refurbished and sent back to Earth to collect greenhouse gases from its atmosphere. The compressed GHGs are then released on Mars, which can cause severe toxic rains.
The Launch Space Mirror project requires one rocket to be dismantled in orbit and turned into a highly reflective surface. The mirror focuses sunlight on the face of Mars and increases its temperature.
The Launch Magnetic Shield mission installs an artificial shield between the Sun and Mars, which counteracts the solar winds and decreases the loss of Atmosphere over time.
When Melting the Polar Caps, remember that this may cause prolonged Dust Storms. You can nuke the polar caps as many time as you wish, adding water vapors and greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. But each successive nuking of the shrinking polar caps will grant less terraforming progress. The release of heat during this special project will temporarily stop the cold waves.
Finally, when feeling ready to make Mars green, send Rockets full of Seeds to Seed Vegetation. They will carefully spread their cargo in the atmosphere and increase the vegetation coverage of the planet.
To enable the 7 Special Terraforming Projects on the Planetary View, research the related techs in the Terraforming field of the Research UI.
There are another 3 Special Projects, visualized with blue icons on the Planetary View, which do not require research and will be available when the first planetary anomalies are discovered on Mars. They are part of the free update and we will be talking about them in the next dev diary, which is dedicated to all the cool stuff we're giving away for free.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/952890/Surviving_Mars_Green_Planet/
Hi Everyone!
Were back with another dev diary for Green Planet, this time focusing on the greener aspects of the expansion plant life. So far we talked about global vegetation and the need to import, produce and spread huge amounts of seeds to cover the planet in flora. We briefly mentioned the Forestation Plant as the main way to engage with local forestation and the Open Farm as a way to produce food and seeds by planting various crops on a larger scale. Its time to dig deeper into vegetation!
If I was to summarize what we did to make Mars green, I would have to use the phrase we went crazy!
The original vision for the surface of Mars was a silent, barren place, where the only objects that dotted the landscape were old, eroded rocks with otherworldly appearance. We imagined that the rocket you land and the vehicles that scurry around it would be the only thing that moves aside from the occasional dust devil. Later you would construct domes that vastly contrast with the reddish sands with their lush green and bright lights during the night, which would appear as if someone placed a piece of Earth on the planet.
Then the ideas behind Green Mars came forth. We envisioned a completely different planet at the end of the process, a place where the previously contrasting borders between the lush-green domes and the outside world are blurred or non-existing. Dense forests dominate the horizon and lush-green grass spreads everywhere, with only the largest of rocks still remaining as an effigy of an age past.
And we wanted you to do all of this without melting your GPU Praises to great programmers and their magic!
We started with a bunch of statements like each hex of the colony could be populated with wild plant life, or plants should grow and wither according to terraforming progress and soils are important, and then we worked on them until, finally, we had a working forestation system.
In the beginning there were the soils We were inspired by The Martian and the possibility to sustain Earth vegetation on the seemingly barren sand. We did our research and designed the system. The soil quality of the original Martian soil is set to 0%, and the most fertile soil you can create is denoted as 100%, a rich Earth-like soil. This calculation is made for each hex of the colony every hour and is displayed on the screen as a Soil Quality overlay - the greener the hex the better the soil.
Now that we had the concept of soil, we needed to add factors that change its quality. So, the idea of rains and toxic rains was born. Of course, we all want rains to spread nutrients and meliorate the soil, but unless the planet has stable atmosphere, the falling rains would be toxic. They reduce the soils quality and create toxic pools that harm the growth of nearby plants.
As you add more water to the atmosphere, the toxic rains gradually end and clear water rains begin. They increase the local soil quality via erosion, create subterranean waters and water the plants. Additionally, artificially constructed Lakes leak water into their surrounding ground, improving significantly the local soils.
So, what can you plant on Mars?
Initially the soil quality is so low that you can only grow lichen. Lichen are famous for being very resistant and able to survive almost anywhere on Earth. Youll be able to plant lichen pretty much from the start of the game. They do not require terraforming progress or soil quality and they improve the local soil quality over time. However, they will easily die during toxic rains.
As the terraforming initiative progresses, you will unlock other types of vegetation: grass, bushes, pine trees and mixed trees. Grass grows quick and also improves the soil quality, but its not as efficient as lichen and trees. However, itll spread on its-own over time, so it does some of your work on its own. Bushes grow slower but can be harvested for seeds, while Trees grow the slowest, provide the most seeds, and stabilize the local soils a lot.
Grass, trees, and bushes will spread on their own over time. The speed with which they spread is directly affected by the amount of vegetation around the colony and the global Vegetation coverage. The spread is initially slow but speeds up over time.
Vegetation booms will occur at certain terraforming thresholds. During vegetation booms, a lot of seeds are carried away by the winds and wild plants get seeded around the colony.
Youll also be able to plant various crops in the Open Farm. These require good terraforming conditions, a lot of water, and high soil quality, but yield huge amounts of Food. Most crops significantly decrease the local soil quality, while others increase it. These crops do not spread on their own and are harvested by Drones to free space for new plants.
As mentioned, planting of crops or wild plants require some seeds to be spread around. The Seeds are a new resource in the game, which is initially imported from Earth and later produced in farms on Mars. Theyre measured in tons and used as base material for the creation of substantial plant life on Mars.
This pretty much summarizes the basic principles of the vegetation system in Green Planet. See you next week, when well be discussing the new Special Projects and disasters in more details.
We're also presenting Part 2 of our Feature Breakdown video, where you'll be able to hear from Haemimont and Paradox employees about the upcoming expansion: Green Planet!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bkzCLJb8yQ
Mark your calendars for the release of Green Planet on...
PDXCON2019 is coming and we couldnt be more excited to meet our community at the event - which takes place on October 18th - 20th, 2019. Tickets go on sale on May 7th, but weve got a secret to tell you
If you head over to the PDXCON 2019 website at https://pdxcon.paradoxplaza.com/ you can sign up to the mailing list. Anyone that signs up will be given 8 HOURS early access before the public availability of the tickets to buy before everyone else! Sign up now and keep your eyes on the news well be sending out because tickets will sell out.
Hi everyone! Last time we talked about the terraforming process and what it means to turn the Red Planet Green, today well take a look at two new tools to achieve this tremendous goal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ieYJrZuISk Haemimont and Paradox Interactive present a feature breakdown about some of the new features, mechanics, and missions within Surviving Mars' upcoming expansion: Green Planet!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtijP5PltXQ
https://www.facebook.com/SurvivingMarsGame/videos/2566622680032356/ You heard right! Animals are coming to Mars. Not just farm animals, which will serve useful functions in your Mars colony, but also cute and fuzzy pets to keep your space-faring colonists company! But what to name such a pack?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-E0w5xL8uA
Last week we invited modders and asset creators to help us with a special project that is coming to Surviving Mars soon - and we have not been disappointed by our amazing community members! We have approximately 50 interested modders at this time (with 23 prizes to give out, that's good odds to win something!).
The deadline to participate in this project and contest is February 5th. So if you're interested in making any kind of mod/asset/UX/whatever please message us directly on Facebook or Twitter! The deadline for completion will be February 20th, when we announce the project to the world!
Haemimont Games and Paradox Interactive have been hard at work to bring you a fresh set of fixes, updates, and helpful additions! One big thing you'll notice is a series of hint messages and helpful encyclopedia entries to assist you in Surviving Mars.
Space Race is out now! And if you don't have it already you can buy it here.
PATCH NOTES:
Reimagined Mission Sponsors - Each sponsor in Space Race has a new unique building and a unique new vehicle that may be a Rocket, Rover, Drone or even new type of Probe. All of these dramatically change the way the individual sponsor plays and develops their strategy.
New Sponsors - Brazil and Japan have entered the competition to carve a new home on the red planet! They come with their unique buildings and vehicles, sponsor goals and challenges for the colonization of Mars.
Rival Colonies other Sponsors now set up their own Colonies and compete with the player for anomalies and events, engage in trade, covert ops and answer distress calls
You are no longer alone on Mars. With Space Race you have the option to start a new game with 1 to 3 rival colonies which will land on other coordinates on Mars.
You can contact other colonies and exchange technologies or open trade routes. You can also request help or provide aid to another colony.
All colonies on Mars compete with each other for milestones and planetary Anomalies and only the first colony will reap the benefits.
You can steal their Drones and Tech, sabotage their buildings and even attract their best Colonists to your own colony! Be warned - your standing with the rival colony will plummet and as they tighten security measures, you might lose the covert ops team and even the Rocket!
Events, related to Space Race - Events are story elements that depict different situations arising in the colony and will play out randomly as your colony grows. Sometimes there will be difficult decisions to make, and sometimes your choice of Commander Profile and Mission Sponsor will affect the decision options you have.
There is a unique set of events that can unfold only if the Rival Colonies are present, and they require the Space Race add on to happen.
6 new Challenges A set of 3 new challenges for each of the new sponsors, Japan and Brazil
New Decoration set a set of out-of-dome decorations including flags and monuments
New Dome skins a set of skins to add variety to your new colony
10 new Achievements:
Space Shopping - Play as USA and have a Geoscape Dome with a Megamall before Sol 100
Tao - Play as China and have Tai-chi Gardens in 10 Domes before Sol 100
Space Capitalism - Play as Blue Sun Corporation and produce $100,000 M Funding before Sol 100
Europa Universalis - Play as Europe and reach daily production of 10,000 Research before Sol 100
Waste Not, Want Not - Play as India and convert 3000 Waste Rock to useful materials before Sol 100
The Pace of Progress - Play as SpaceY and complete all Sponsor Goals on challenge rating 500% or higher
No Pain, No Gain - Play as Russia and have 500 colonists on challenge rating 500% or higher
The Garden of Eden - Play as Church of the new Ark and have 250 Colonists at 70+ Comfort before Sol 100
Bushido - Play as Japan and train 200 specialists before Sol 100
Gold Rush - Play as Brazil and convert 2000 Waste Rock to Rare Metals before Sol 100
New Features:
New UI The user interface of Surviving Mars has been completely updated to a new visual style
Sponsor Goals - Each sponsor now provides a set of five unique goals. Completing those goals awards various rewards from Funding and Applicants to free prefabs of Domes and even free Rockets.
The five goals have varying difficulty and can push you to play in a specific direction if you want to get their reward quickly. The more difficult sponsors have tougher goals which sometimes even have a time limit.
Sponsor goals are an improvement and an overhaul of the current Mission Evaluation mechanic which is retired with the update.
Events Events are story elements that depict different situations arising in the colony and will play out randomly as your colony grows. Sometimes there will be difficult decisions to make, and sometimes your choice of Commander Profile and Mission Sponsor will affect the decision options you have.
There are more than a hundred Event chains, each telling a different story of life on Mars, with more than 250 individual Events. Perhaps a Dust Storm caused a major malfunction in a Fusion Reactor, or a Renegade sabotaged the launch of a Rocket returning to Earth... Once in a while its just interesting to see how people may relax and have fun on the red planet.
Planetary Anomalies and Expeditions Martian Anomalies are no longer found only in your sector now you can discover them all over the planet. To analyze such a planetary anomaly, you will need to send a rocket to its coordinates on Mars. You will also need Drones, Rovers or Colonists for the expedition. Planetary Anomalies can yield research points, new Techs and Breakthroughs as well as resources and offer bigger rewards than Anomalies in the immediate vicinity of your colony.
Supply Pods - You may need an urgent delivery from Earth every now and then, and your rockets can be on the far side of Mars now. Supply Pods are one-use delivery space vehicles that can transport a limited payload from Earth. They are faster than Rockets and can land in any conditions, even during Dust Storms, but incur $100 M extra cost on launch. Also, they can be salvaged after crash-landing.
New Points of Interest in your sector new "Research site" and "Vista" locations can be now discovered in your sector map. They boost comfort and research (respectively) in nearby buildings and domes; they are revealed when a sector is scanned; those locations are randomly placed but depend on visible terrain features
Sponsor Logos a set of new sponsor logos, based on the national flags of the sponsors
Important changes:
Completed Milestones now grant Research Points as reward
Added a new building - Waste Rock Processor - unlocked by Waste Rock Liquefaction tech
Unused research points now go to the cheapest tech if no assigned research exists
Shuttles can transport waste rock
Updated sensor tower infopanel UI to include information about working units and disaster early warning
Added ability to enable/disable shuttle service for storage depots
Black Cubes Mystery: Black cubes can no longer destroy passages or appear over deposits
Buildings locked behind technologies will now list the tech field and name in their description
Added new functionality to Shuttle Hub - switch transportation modes between "people", "cargo", and "everything"
Removed Fuelled Extractor's upgrade from Concrete Plants
Wildfire Mystery: fix for long-term consequences of not researching the Cure
Mission Evaluation removed (replaced by Sponsor goals)
Other fixes:
Fix for factories to update Production per sol in real time
Fix for "Charge" hint for RC Generator (fixed both description and controller shortcut)
Fix for closed solar panels to not accumulate dust
Fix for the timer of completed challenges - in-game
Fix for RC Transport route creation when using overview map
Fixes for manual control over a Drone for cable/pipe construction, RC Transport unloading, construction site clearance
Fix for misleading text for pause/unpause
Fix for game freeze when packing numerous drones over short period of time
Fix for colonists migration and job allocation between connected domes - colonists now check if working in connected domes is forbidden when searching for a new dome
Fix for load/unload functionality of RC Transport
Fix for construction process to properly clear construction site when construction is on the edge of construction range
Fix for occasional overlap of buildings
Fix for passage placement to limit some invalid passage positions
Fix for cable placement when outside of drone hub range, which shows cable lines in unbuildable places
Fix for auto-pin option for exceptional colonists
Fixed controller button info when using rename feature
Fix for Crystals in Philosopher's stone mystery, to no longer spawn with a dome base
Fix for Waste Rock Processor model, now does not intersect with pipes
Fix for metal deposits placement to avoid inaccessible locations
Fix for rocket launch failing because of disembarking transport
Fix to keep new deposit positions fixed to map seed
Living Quarters renamed to Living Complex to reflect building sizes naming convention
Fix to remove concrete terrain once a concrete deposit has been depleted
Fix to prevent drones being assigned to destroyed commanders
Fix for drones idle movement while waiting to recharge
Fix for Research screen tooltip to update cost for repeatable techs in queue
Fix to allow sending an empty passenger rocket from Earth (also added a warning)
Added on-screen notification for destroyed buildings
Updated upgrade rollover text to show available resources
Fix for scaling of particle of anomaly scanning
Fix for construction rover to properly utilize/deal with resources on construction site
Fix for loss of control when performing quick actions in the build menu with a controller
Fix for Dome infopanel to better communicate comfort issues
Fix for follow-up camera when units disappear
Fix for setting traits in School/Sanatorium
Fix for pathfinder, reported as automated rover not responding
Removed old mission evaluation system and related notifications when loading pre-Gagarin saves
Tutorial 3: added shield against player spending all money and unable to continue a tutorial step
Various performance optimizations
PC specific fixes:
[OSX] Fix for window resize and occasional crash after using Command+Tab
[Linux] Fix for switch between Full screen and Windowed mode
Hello, fellow Martians! I am Boyan Ivanov and today Im here to share some juicy details about the cool new features coming in Space Race - the first expansion for Surviving Mars.
New and Improved Sponsors (paid feature)
With Space Race, we wanted to improve upon the variety of each playthrough and make the choice of sponsor matter even more. Each sponsor in Space Race has a new unique building and a unique new vehicle that may be a Rocket, Rover, Drone or even new type of Probe. All of these dramatically change the way the individual sponsor plays and develops their strategy.
Instead of spoiling all the changes to existing sponsors, Im going to showcase my favorite sponsor the Blue Sun Corporation.
The Blue Sun Corporation is all about making money and having additional uses for Funding. Their new unique building is the Corporate Office which generates funding each Sol based on the number of workers in the office. This provides a good alternative to mining Rare Metals, however working in an office is not really the life colonists imagined on Mars and they take Comfort penalties when stationed there. Of course, you can offset the Comfort loss with additional services.
You can read the dev diary in full here.
***ALSO*** Join us for the Space Race Launch stream tomorrow at 17:00 CET. Susie and Niki will be joined by Haemimont on stream to take a good look at the expansion and celebrate its release (it will release at 18:00 CET and we have an awesome release trailer which we will also show off on the stream! You can watch the stream here: https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive
Join us for a special stream featuring Mixer streamers FieldersChoice, Pfeiffer and ChaosMole
Which colony will survive? Who will win the race to space?
Watch it this Wednesday 7 November at 17:00 CET (08:00 PDT)
https://mixer.com/ParadoxInteractive
We are happy to announce that the Surviving Mars: Space Race DLC will be released on November 15th!
Are you ready to take part in the race to Space? Delve into the details right now with the Feature Breakdown Trailer.
https://youtu.be/stznAOwFaCw
Hello everyone!
Take part in the Dome Design Contest and win an official Surviving Mars poster!
To participate do the following:
Create the coolest looking dome you can and take its picture with the games photo mode.
Below is a video summing up the free content so far:
https://youtu.be/ZDz51Do8rY4
In other news, expect a feature stream for Space Race on the 1 November!
And the closed beta for the DLC ends today - it went well and we are already incorporating the feedback we got from the beta into the DLC. So thanks to all of you that participated.
Just a quick clarification for the Season Pass/First Colony Edition holders as we have had a few questions.
1. You are, of course, getting all 3 pieces of DLC announced together as a part of your Season Pass.
2. There is more content left in the Season Pass. :)
We are super happy to announce our first expansion Space Race!
Space Race focuses on rival colonies and mission sponsors. It pits Earth’s greatest countries and most powerful companies against each other as they compete for the limited resources available on Mars. Whether it’s stealing key colonists or monopolizing crucial discoveries, be sure not to let your comrades in colonizing get the upper hand!
Space Race releases later this year.
Save 10% by pre-ordering it here: Space Race
EDIT: Just to clarify if you have the Season Pass you automatically get this content.
Hey! We are currently running a closed beta testing the new paid DLC and a few new updates to the game. If you are a Surviving Mars modder we would love for you to be involved. There are 20 spots open - with the criteria that you have to have modded Surviving Mars. If you would like to join the beta please email susan.mcbeth@paradoxplaza.com. We will then send you an NDA which you will sign and return and after that, we will send you details on how to join the beta. The beta is open until 14th! Thanks Susie Senior Community Manager
What key stats about your colony, in extension to the information presented in the infobar, would you like to easily access and view? For example, in the Command Center screen (Z).
We are currently addressing the Command Centre UI and would like player feedback to know where to aim.
Please let us know your thoughts so we can make the game the best it can be and give you what you want :D
Hey everyone. Just a quick heads-up - we have just released a hot fix patch to address a couple of minor performance issues originating from the source code. As always, if you find any bugs, please report them on the Surviving Mars bug forum: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/surviving-mars-bug-reports.1003/
Tomorrow, at 5p.m. CEST Stockholm time, we'll host a Q&A stream! Come by, ask us questions about the "Sagan" update, the game's future, present and stick around for some unexpected news later! :D
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
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.
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
Greetings from the red planet! Our Dev Diaries are back, and we have a new free update coming out hot from the pipeline for you. Codename: Da Vinci. That's right - we changed our naming convention because we were starting to run out of Mars missions and we are planning to support Surviving Mars for a good long while. From now on we are naming updates after great persons such as scientists and space explorers. The reason we chose Leonardo as our patron is that he seems like the best fit for the major feature of this patch - Creative Mode.
You can read the full Dev Diary here.
What it fixes: - 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!
Hey everyone, If you, unfortunately, happen to encounter any bugs in the game, please report your bug on the Surviving Mars bug forum. This way we can get the devs to deal with it as quickly and efficiently as possible. It also helps give us an idea of how many people are affected. The bug forum can be found here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/surviving-mars-bug-reports.1003/ Thanks!
Save 30% on Surviving Mars during this week's Midweek Madness*!
*Offer ends Friday at 10AM Pacific Time
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!
We hope you have fun unravelling them.
New Features:
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
Opportunity changelog
New Features and Buildings:
Passages
You are now able to connect your domes together by constructing Passages. These transportation tunnels allows colonists
to move freely into adjacent domes and utilizing the workplaces and services available there.
- If one Dome has no power, oxygen or water for over a Sol, all passages leading to it are disabled until the problem is
resolved. This will cause workers being fired from their workplaces as if the passage has been destroyed.
- These passages are fragile, and your Colonists may die if hit by a meteor while in the Passage
New Buildings & Related Changes
- New high-end automated storage building which can take over 4,000 units of separate resource is available for your
Colony.
- Added 3 new workshop buildings. Workshops allow colonists to work their vocation providing more employment for the late
game.
- A new Landing pad makes sure the Rocket lands at the designated spot and eliminates the dusting effect of the
surrounding structures
- A new Large Water Tank, storing up to 1,000 units of Water is available to suit the needs of your developing colony
- Added new Milestone related to workshop buildings to reflect achieving post-scarcity vocation-oriented society
- Added new Technologies, which allow construction of Workshops, Automated Storage and Large Water Tank
Game Rules
You can now choose brand new options during game setup to activate additional rule-sets for the mission that will impact the
difficulty, making the mission easier or harder.
Available Game Rules:
- Prefab Colony: Begin with free prefabs for all buildings necessary for a small colony.
- No Disasters: Disables all disasters (excluding those coming from mysteries).
- Hunger: Can't import food from Earth.
- Inflation: Import prices increase over time.
- Long Ride: Rocket travel time to and from Mars is three times longer.
- The Last Ark: Can call a Passenger Rocket only once.
- Amateurs: No specialist applicants.
- Rebel Yell: Colonists periodically become renegades. Crime is more severe.
- Chaos Theory: Tech fields are fully randomized.
- Winter is coming: Cold Wave rating set to a new Max level for all locations on Mars. Cold waves increase power
consumption even more.
- Armageddon: Meteor rating set to a new Max level for all locations on Mars.
- Dust in the Wind: Dust Storm rating set to a new Max level for all locations on Mars.
- Twister: Dust Devil rating set to a new Max level for all locations on Mars.
Other fixes and improvements:
Balance:
- Added upgrades to the Mohole Mine and the Excavator to increase production
UI:
- 3 new notifications: for busy drone hubs, busy shuttle hubs, out of fuel shuttle hubs
- Better alignment for traits in school
- Added on-screen notification for split Power/Life support networks (by player actions or meteorites)
- Colonists with special traits, coming from a rocket, will no longer be pinned for colonies with over 100 colonists
- Fixed overlapping of deposits (from random map generation and anomalies)
- Storages and Depots are divided in subcategories of the Build Menu
- " Milestone failed" message alignment fix
General Fixes:
- Fixed air producers (wrong) production in some cases
- Fixed calculation of challenge bonus in milestones
- Fixed Triboelectric Scrubber not rotating after first clean
- Fixed TOS to no longer reappear when changing language
- Fixed a bug where more than the maximum number of colonists in a Dome can have homes and/or work
- Fixed an issue with unemployed statistics in Dome not updated when moving a Colonist
- Fixed a bug where turned off/malfunctioned supply storages (incl. Batteries) would reconnect to grid after modifying any of their storage props
- Fixed upside-down positioning of shuttles
- Fixed an issue where colonists became starving from eating uncooked meals
- Androids now have no initial specialization
- Marsgate Mystery: Fixed Rover Command AI tech to not affects hostile rovers
- Marsgate Mystery: Fixes for hostile rovers to prevent them from salvage after battery drain
- Fix for Autonomous sensors to not show "outside drone control" icon after Autonomous Sensors tech is researched if sensors are build prior research completion
- Beyond Earth Mystery: Fix for saves swarmed by trade rockets, causing infinite loop from pinned rockets
- Fixes on Polymer Factory production (now depends on its workers)
- Fix for some edge cases of automated routes for Transport Rover
- Fix for chance for crime prevention (capped at 50% when Security Officers outnumber renegades 3 to 1)
- Fix for Waste Rock production to now properly depend on the grade of Concrete, Metals and Rare Metals deposit used
- Fix for colonists and drones to stop going through Spires
- Improved estimation of the load of the drone controllers (Hub, Rover, Rocket)
- Buildings are now considered to be in dome range if one of their hexes is inside dome range
- Updated University description
- Clarified immigration policy texts
- Various performance optimizations
- Various stability improvements
- Various sound FX tweaks
Mods:
- Documentation for Effects - building blocks for Mission Sponsor, Commander Profile and Game Rule mod items
- Added "GlobalEffects" mod item
- Default mod preview image format is set to PNG
- Kept backward compatibility with mods that use the old tags system
The new frontier... The perils of the unknown... The great difficulties and the great hope for the next generation? No, I'm not talking about colonizing Mars. I'm talking about the greatest technical risk we took on with Surviving Mars: building the game for modding support.
Haemimont Games has shipped a cool 15 games on various platforms, but not one of them has had official modding support. And modding was something Paradox wanted from the very beginning of the project. Games that welcome the players to join in the creation are loved more, played more, and live more, they said. What's the point of partnering with a well-respected experienced publisher if you don't heed what they say?
The bad news was that over the previous several games, the data loading process of our engine had been optimized in the opposite direction, to be as monolithic and economical as possible, to allow for minimal loading times. This had to be reversed, and many types of data can now be loaded in pieces, or late after the game has started, to allow for asset authoring and tested.
The good and much more important news was that our games are written in a mixture of two programming languages: C++ to handle the low-level stuff like graphics, audio and talking to the underlying hardware; Lua. Which allowed us to implement virtually everything you think of as "game", from the simulation logic of the colonists on Mars to the user interface that allows the player to control them. And Lua is not only much easier for modders to learn - it's also easy to be loaded from different places, even when the game is running. We knew that we needed to give modders this ultimate power, to modify and add new Lua code to the game.
The overarching goal of the mod support is, in the words of Alan Kay, simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible. For the simple part, we identified a handful of small but impactful changes to the game that can be implemented by anyone who's not afraid of their computer. Mission Logos, for example, let you leave your imprint on every building of your colony. You only need to supply a simple, transparent PNG file
You can read the full dev diary here
New fixes! Check out the full patch notes below. And as ever, please keep reporting your bugs in the Surviving Mars bug forum.
OSX,Linux: Added OpenGL mods' shaders support
Linux: fixed occasional crash when loading savegames
Window: fixed white borders on some UI elements
UI: Research dialog now scrollable with mouse wheel and camera controls, saves last position on close
UI: Colonists with special traits are pinned to the menu bar, only when there are less than 100 colonists in the colony
UI: Voice notification for Pipe leaks/Cable faults disabled for colonies with over 100 colonists
UI: Tourist trait shown in "Review Applicants" UI
UI: Fix for cancelation of change of display settings
UI: Fix for senior colonists workplace display after the research of "Forever Young" tech
UI: Fix for Automation Upgrade Icon (displayed inconsistently in Fungal Farms)
UI: Fix for Custom anomaly icon disappearing from time to time
UI: Fixed missing sounds when some Mods are active
UI: Martian University infopanel now does not show colonists which are not part of the workforce (senior, child, tourist, stressed, etc.)
UI: Rockets have correct (default) skin on game start
Gameplay: Removed exploit for endless export from the Space Elevator
Gameplay: Refugees are now immune to Earthsick condition
Gameplay: New dome fractures should be repaired properly (this unfortunately does not affect already fractured domes from previous saves)
Gameplay: "Vocation-Oriented Society" tech performance bonus now works as intended
Gameplay: Fix for drones not to be abandoned by RC Rover
Gameplay: Fix for maximum drones allowed to work on trade rocket
Gameplay: Resource stockpiles now properly marked as 1-hex large object - should fix drone behavior to move stockpiles adjacent to construction sites rather then underneath them
Gameplay: RP cost of repeatable techs now increase after each research
Gameplay: "Alien Imprints" tech effect reduced
Gameplay: Fix for Fuel Extractor upgrade effect in the Concrete Extractor building (now 30% increase instead of 50%)
Gameplay: Fix for stuck drones when picking up resources from destroyed farm
Gameplay: Fix for resource count when interrupting drone after picking up resource cube from RC Transport
Gameplay: Fix for RC Transport when changing skin while loading resources
Gameplay: Fix to properly treat RC Transport as resource depot when adding new drone controller (Rover/Hub/Rocket) or changing active radius of drone controller
Gameplay: Fix for Rocket take-off in some cases
Gameplay: Fix for RP calculation to allow modifiers to have effect in cases of little RP production
Gameplay: Workers properly select workplace based on their specialty
Gameplay: Fix for workplace and training buildings requiring maintenance when turned off
Gameplay: Easy start now always starts with a Mystery
Gameplay: Scanning que increased
Gameplay: Shielded combination of incompatible traits (e.g. Genius/Idiot combo)
Gameplay: Biorobot gurus no longer create biorobots
Gameplay: Fix for replacing existing techs by using mods
Visuals: Dome glass has correct self illumination
Visuals: Meteorite craters no longer appear over and next to objects
Visuals: NVIDIA 1050s family now loads "High" setting preset
Visuals: Fix for proper positioning of newborn child colonist at spawn
We have made some changes to the MAC build, we hope this improves some of the issues reported by the community: - Bug addressed: missing huge pieces of the interface on mac OS - Bug addressed: orange blocky terrain on Windows + pre-GCN Radeons (5700, 5800, etc.) - Bug addressed: corrupted terrain issues - Bug addressed: tourists stay on Mars at least 10 sols Known issues we are currently working on: Quitting the game causes a hang Flickering shadows. Also, just to note, we will have proper names for the patch notes going forward, we are just deciding on the naming order :) As always, if you come across any bugs or issues - please report it in the Surviving Mars Bug Forum.
Surviving Mars is now out & we have been looking at all your feedback on social, Steam and our Forums! We know you have questions & we want to give you the answers. Join us for a special Q&A stream this Wednesday 21, 17:00 CET: https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive - We will also be live streaming on Steam as well.
Given that there are a few pitfalls when trying to get into the game, I thought it might be a good idea to give some basic advice for beginners.
(1) Decide how you want to play the game!
The way I look at it, there are two main ways to experience the game. One is to survive and play through the story, taking as much time as you want. The other way is to play score-attack style and trying to get as many points as possible by completing objectives as quickly as possible on as high of a difficulty as possible. Both are perfectly viable ways to play the game, but they require very different strategies. If you are looking for a challenge: My best game so far was ~70k points within 120 Sols at 250% difficulty.
(2) You can build cables and pipes on the same tile!
This might be super obvious to most people, but is actually a thing I didn't immediately realize on my first game - and it caused some major headache when I tried to find a good base layout. So don't make the same mistake - stack them.
(3) Don't create large cable and pipe networks!
The larger a network becomes, the higher the chance for cable and pipe faults. Creating a massive single network for everything will cause frequent leaks, costing you resources and keeping drones needlessly busy. Don't use more cables or pipes than necessary. Also, *I think* you can use buildings and domes to separate your networks by connecting on one side and continuing on another access point.
(4) Make sure to bring a Transport Rover!
There are plenty of surface deposits for Iron (and sometimes Polymers) on the map. They are revealed after scanning a sector and can be collected by a Transport Rover. If you use the CREATE TRANSPORTE ROUTE button (or however it is called now), the rover will even automatically go back and forth between the two selected points and gather all surface deposits within range (until there are none left). Given that manpower is in short supply throughout the early game, this is an excellent method to gather iron during the early game.
(5) A Science Rover will be quite useful!
When scanning sectors you will find plenty of anomalies. Analyzing them will give you extra tech options, free research or other random benefits. Try to bring at least one science rover along if you can - it will make the early game a lot easier.
(6) Build enough depots!
Make sure that you have enough depots to store goods, and make sure that they are spread out through your colony to reduce transport distances. If you have multiple drone hubs, you can place a depot in their overlapping range - this will allow your drones to more evenly distribute materials across the colony.
(7) Make sure you have enough drones!
Once you have your basic infrastructure in place and start to expand your colony, you will need additional drone hubs - and more drones at existing ones.Some indicators for a lack of drones are: goods piling up, extractors stopping to work because stone isn't hauled away, rockets taking a long time to load, unload or refuel and maintenance or repairs taking longer than expected.
(8) You do not have to build dumping sites!
If you do not have any designated dumping sites, your drones will just drop the stones next to the extractors. From what I noticed, this didn't seem to have any effect on performance. So if you hate the site of piles of waste rock - you don't have to suffer through that.
(9) Only build things you actually need!
Buildings deteriorate and require maintenance goods, even when they are disabled or not used. So be VERY careful with what you construct during the early days of your colony - an unnecessary battery during the early game might cost you 5+ Polymers by Sol 20. Build in moderation and do not exceed your requirements (too much).Don't build that Moxxie several Sols before you ferry in first your colonists.
(10) Stirling Generators are awesome!
If you play as a rich sponsor, consider bringing a few Stirling Generators. They are very costly, but a great long-term investment. While closed, they do NOT deteriorate, which means they have no maintenance cost. If you have an energy shortage, you can temporarily open them if necessary. If you are desperately short of maintenance materials, you can also cycle through them before any generator deteriorates to the point where it actually requires maintenance. Later in the game, you will acquire a technology that unlocks a building that removes maintenance cost from anything within range - with that, you can keep your Stirlings open permanently for a massive permanent energy increase.
(11) Scanners stack!
Every scanner provides a massive boost to scan speed for nearby sectors, but on top of that, there are additional stackable effects: Each scanner gives a base +10% scan speed anywhere on the map and it also increases the ahead-of-time warning for disasters. If you are playing on maps with high disaster risk, consider building multiple scanners to get warnings several Sols ahead of time.
(12) Build Clinics!
A clinic reduces the comfort requirement fo childbirth, which is very important in the early game since your domes usually won't be able to provide all services requested by your colonists. They are especially important if you play a sponsor that have a low amount of applicants (e.g. Europe), but even those with lots of colonists would usually prefer to ferry goods instead of people.
(13) Specialize your domes!
In the early game space within the domes is scarce. Most of the time a dome will only provide enough living space for a farm and one, maybe two production buildings. A good early game layout for Small Domes in my games was: Living Quarters x3, Farm, Clinic, Grocer, Small Park, 1 production building inside + 1 production building/mine outside. If you use a small production building like the Research Lab you can add an extra Grocer and Diner.
(14) Do not use high maintenance service buildings in the early game!
Buildings like the Casino, Art Workshop and Electronics Store will require a lot of advanced materials to maintain. I highly recommend to NOT use them until you have a steady production of these goods.
(15) Make sure to fully staff your production facilities!
Production facilities have high upkeep - make sure you fill them to capacity to get the most out of your inputs. I had some cases where an electronic factory was actually so unproductive that it used more electronics than it produced. If your average sanity is good, feel free to also assign a night shift.
(16) Make use of the Heavy Workload option!
By clicking on the little clock icon next to a shift you can set it has a HEAVY WORKLOAD shift. Workers on heavy duty will slowly lose health (restored by the clinic) and sanity (recovered by sleeping), but on the flipside, their productivity will increase significantly. Early on manpower will be your most limiting factor, and this option allows you to get the most out of your workers when you need it the most.
(17) Inhabitants from different domes can work in the same outdoor building!
While people cannot use services of nearby domes, they can work collaboratively in outdoor buildings. So if you build two domes within range of a Mine, that mine can be staffed by colonists from both domes.
(18) Mines can access multiple deposits and deposits can support multiple mines!
You can have 2 Rare Material Extractors for a single Rare Deposit, and you can have 1 Rare Material Extractor that draws from 2 deposits within range.
(19) Do not hire Idiots if you can avoid it!
No, really. If a colonist with the Idiot trait is working in a factory, they have a chance to cause a breakdown, which will require full maintenance by a drone. Needless to say, that can be VERY costly on a lot of buildings. The trait should be filtered out by default, but double check just to be safe.
(20) Spread out production shifts on your production buildings!
Most production buildings require a lot of electricity and/or water. If you are not planning on running 3 shifts, make sure you spread them out over the day to even out electricity/water demands to match your production - solar panels only work during the day, after all. This is particularly useful for farms since they only have a single shift per day.
(21) Many buildings have multiple skins!
By clicking on the little brush icon on the right-hand side of the UI you can switch freely between these skins, even after construction. That does include domes.
(22) People can migrate between domes!
If a dome becomes overcrowded, colonists can migrate to other domes. If another dome with living space is available in proximity they will go on foot, while long-distance migration requires Shuttles.
(23) The map view shows hints for potential deposits!
When you are zoomed out to the map grid, hovering over a sector will show a tooltip that mentions which resources you are likely to find in said sector. It is not a guarantee, but a good hint where to scan first. You can even try and search for a better initial landing site by scanning a few sectors that show promises of everything if you have brought a few probes.
One of the things that were decided from the get-go with this game, was that modding would be highly encouraged and if you look at the store page you will see that even the devs have been creating a few.
Have you tried any? And if so, what did you think?
Will you be making any of your own?
One of my personal favourites is the Synthetic meat - this will probably be my favourite until someone (or maybe me, as I intend to learn how) does a farm mod so the colonists can eat the real deal!
And just to clarify, in case you are wondering - the mods won't disable achievements :)
Hey everyone,
Quill18 worked together with us to create a video tutorial series for Surviving Mars and I wanted to make sure you all got to see it!
You can watch the first episode below and the rest of the series on his YouTube channel.
https://youtu.be/mUKDzg4_MbQ
An update has been pushed. Check out the fixes by reading the patch notes here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-fixes-patch-notes.1080383/
Surviving Mars is Now Available on Steam!
There will be challenges to overcome. Execute your strategy and improve your colony’s chances of survival while unlocking the mysteries of this alien world. Are you ready? Mars is waiting for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJyw-cyynQE
We survived March - Now, you can Survive Mars!
The time to make the red planet your home is here.
Surviving Mars is available to buy right now!
Hello everyone, my name is Boyan Ivanov and I'm another lead designer of Surviving Mars. With only a day to release I want to take the time to talk to you about the research in Surviving Mars and how it allows us to make every playthrough feel and play differently.
The Basics
Some of you have already seen our research screen in previews and let's plays. There are 5 tech fields - Biotech, Engineering, Robotics, Physics and Social as well as a secret field that contains the most awesome techs in the game, but more on that a bit later... You can queue up techs from the fields for research. Each tech has a cost in research points which are generated gradually from different sources. Every time you research a tech in a given field a new one will be unlocked in that field. You can start researching and planning your progress through the tech tree the moment you arrive on Mars. Your sponsor will provide you with a basic research point production back on Earth (unless you are playing the Church of the New Ark) and you can even outsource additional research by spending some funding. However, the main way to generate research points is by building research buildings on Mars.
Eureka!
Exploring the Martian environment plays an important role in research, especially early on. As you scan the surface of Mars you will find anomalies which can be analyzed by Explorer rovers. There are different types of anomalies to find - some will provide research points and help you research techs faster; others will unlock new techs providing you with a wider choice of techs to research; some will trigger events where you'll have to make a choice.
You can read the full dev diary here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-diary-7-for-science-by-boyan-ivanov-from-haemimont-games.1079418/
It is live right now: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/84cft2/we_are_haemimont_games_developers_of_tropico_and/ The devs are around and happy to answer questions all day!
This is a quick look at the day one Yogscast mod for Surviving Mars. The game is fully moddable and we are super curious as to what other mods will be created once the game is released. Any modding plans or ideas, please share - we'd love to know! https://youtu.be/TIPFRsKrmBo
Plus, check out these sweet new buildings that are a part of the new Surviving Mars-themed DLC for Cities!
In anticipation of release - we asked Quill to put together a tutorial series, this is the first in that series! https://youtu.be/mUKDzg4_MbQ
Hey everyone! We are streaming again today! This time we will be joined by our colleague Shams and we are hoping we can show one of the Mysteries! If you missed any of the last streams you can catch them below (if you have youTube autoplay on it should play the full series). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUNAiYO_LPY Or if you want to watch today's stream live - you can catch it at 17:00 CET here
If you have any ideas, I would love to pass these suggestions on to the Devs!
Hollie B will be attempting to build a functioning colony on Mars in her PlayStation Access live stream for 'Surviving Mars' at 2pm GMT tomorrow! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_YScuEIlGI&feature=youtu.be
Hi folks! With the release looming closer we are picking up the pace with the Dev Diaries. Today I plan to talk about the Wonders in Surviving Mars. But first, let's take a quick trip down memory lane, back to 1999 when, in the words of Douglas Adams, games were real games, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
I adore sci-fi games of all kinds, but my single favorite of all times is Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. I remember fondly so many things about this game, but in the context of today's dev diary I want to talk about the so-called "secret projects". They were an inspiring and very thematic adaptation of the Wonders of Civilization, that proved to me that the concept could work very well in a sci-fi setting.
With Surviving Mars belonging to a totally different genre, our Wonders ended up nothing like the secret projects in Alpha Centauri, yet for me, that was the very first inspiration for them. We wanted to create a set of special late-game buildings that evoke a sense of grandeur and epic scale, each of which feels like both an achievement and a reward on its own.
You can read the full dev diary here
Are you ready to make the red planet your own? I am happy to tell you that you can pre-order your copy of Surviving Mars now! https://youtu.be/7Js-9zMQ1oQ
We are super excited to announce that Surviving Mars will be released on March 15, 2018! Not too long to go! While you wait, why not delve into some of the mysteries that await you on Mars! https://youtu.be/u3swV4JJKAc
Hey guys,
Last time Boian Spasov of Haemimont (Blizzard_Haemimont), Eternal Designer, Second of his Name and Protector of Game Mechanics, promised you guys a Dev Diary that will be… mysterious. And while that Dev Diary indeed is being crafted as we speak - we’d like to wet your appetite with one in-between. And this one is about Cold Waves, their consequences and how you can protect yourself. The game is called Surviving Mars, after all, not Takin’ A Sunday Stroll On Mars.
So class, please have a seat and let’s get started. This information may well save your life one day.
What can we expect when hit by a Cold Wave?
While we don’t want to completely ‘spoil the surprise’ by talking in-depth about all of the disasters that could decimate your beautiful colony, you may safely assume that the environment on Mars is a harsh mistress. Sure, them rocks and that red sand may be looking pretty peaceful, beautiful even. But don’t be fooled. All of a sudden your Sensor Towers may be reporting an incoming Cold Wave that freezes everything in its path, turning the Red Planet white from extreme frost.
you can read the Dev Diary in full here
This year is nearly up and we are counting down until our Spring release! Looking forward to sharing more with you all in the New Year! Hope you all have a happy holiday season. Here's to colonising Mars together next year!
Hi everyone!
Niki (Surviving Mars, Producer) and me (Senior Community Manager) will be starting our Let's Plays of Surviving Mars on Jan 4th. These will take place weekly on a Thursday at 17:00 CET.
If you haven't seen them already, we recently did a couple of one-off streams focusing on Resources and Domes - these can be found on the Paradox Extra YouTube channel.
We hope you will join us Jan 4th - come get a better look at the game :)
Hi, folks!
I am back with the final dev diary for you this year, this time focusing on the human habitats and the lives of the colonists in Surviving Mars.
While setting up an automated colony staffed by the little drone guys can be a fun experience by itself, it also serves a larger purpose - paving the road for the first human settlements on the red planet.
But why would you need humans in your colony at all?
Thank you for the excellent question, Mr Skynet. The human colonists are required to perform many complicated tasks such as producing most of the advanced resources, managing complex underground mining endeavours and doing research. There are over 100 technologies, all unlocking new benefits for your colony. So, plenty of research to keep you busy!
You can read the full Dev Diary here
Hi everyone!
Boian Spasov from Haemimont here (@Blizzard_Haemimont here on the forum) with another dev diary on Surviving Mars. While I focused on the high-level vision in my previous diary, this time, I plan to dive in the nitty-gritty gameplay details, talking about the many resources relevant to your bold colonization mission.
Design Goals
When creating the resource system, we had three major design goals in mind
Resources are very different from one another - we didn't want to create a system where resources are differentiated by their icons on the user interface and nothing more. Quite the opposite - we made a concentrated effort to make them very different in terms of acquisition, production and/or purpose. This created a somewhat steeper learning curve compared to the typical city-builder, but opened the potential for much deeper gameplay.
Resources feel scarce - Surviving Mars is a city-builder, but it has a strong survival element. It felt right to make resource depletion and scarcity a constant problem that you will face. The decisions where to land your first rocket and where to expand require some careful planning. Scanning for new resources is important. Finding a rich deposit is a cause for celebration. Failure to secure a certain resource is a much bigger problem than in the typical game of the genre - it can even spell out the end of the entire colony. As a last-ditch effort, buildings and vehicles may be salvaged to reuse some of their construction resources in order to survive a critical situation.
Becoming self-sufficient and independent from supply with resources from Earth is an admirable long-term goal.
Resources are positional - transporting a resource to the place where it is needed is just as important as getting it produced in the first place. The bulk of the resource transportation happens automatically once set up, but a specific delivery can be manually ordered in case of an emergency.
Power cables and pipe infrastructure is present in the entire colony. Drone workers and larger vehicles carry most of the other resources here they are needed. Rocket ships land occasionally to deliver emergency supplies from Earth. Getting resources to the places where they are needed should not be trivial - underground tunnels may be required to reach isolated parts of the map and the transportation vehicles usually require resources to perform their function, threatening to shut down your carefully planned systems in case of a Power or Fuel shortage.
You can read the rest of the Dev Diary here
Hi everyone!
My name is Boian Spasov, and I've been working as a designer at Haemimont Games for more than ten years now. I have been a long time avid reader of the Paradox dev diaries, so I feel very excited to write the first dev diary for Surviving Mars. We've been teamed up with Paradox on this project for a while, but it was very hush-hush until a few months ago, so it feels really good to finally be able to talk openly about our baby.
The survival city builder in space
Coming from the Tropico series we wanted to create something really different both in terms of theme and gameplay and I can confidently say that Surviving Mars ended up unique. Your task in Surviving Mars is to create a beautiful and functional colony on the surface of the red planet. The game is undoubtedly a city builder, but not your average city builder. It is an intimate experience focused on creating interconnected systems and testing them against the threats of the harsh environment.
Read the Dev Diary in full Website link
We have some new content. PC Gamer is showcasing our first video Dev Diary and a fantastic interview with Gabi. To watch the video and read the interview - click here Also, we have more new content tomorrow!
New content will soon be coming out and just to give you a taste, here are a couple of screenshots from within the game. Just a couple of drones making their way to the surface from their rocket ship and a beauty shot of the red planet's surface.
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