Welcome to Mars, Commander!
You’ve made touchdown, so I assume you’re ready to face the challenges that the Red Planet has prepared for you. I am Lina – the lead QA and assistant game designer for Surviving Mars: Relaunched – I am definitely a human person (wink wink) and I will tell you all about your most valuable mechanical (co)workers. Hold on to your oxygen tank and let’s dive in the red sands!
I, Drone
Your goal may be to make Mars hospitable for us humans, but that can’t be achieved overnight – there are a lot of preparations that you need to make before you can call in the first passenger rocket.
Your most valuable resource in the first phase of colonisation are the drones – these cute mechanical critters are the ones who will be collecting basic resources from surface deposits, moving them around where they’re needed and constructing buildings. Not to worry though – you won’t need to manage them all on your own. Drones receive their orders from drone commanders, such as an RC Commander rover or a Drone Hub building. Your rockets also have the necessary systems to take on this function.
Drone commanders efficiently (we hope) pass down tasks to individual drones and send them where they’re needed, but only in a certain range – a service area, which you can tweak from the info panel of the commanders. Anything outside of that area will be out of drones’ reach, so be mindful of where you place constructions. You can also reassign drones between different commanders, or pack them as prefabs in order to unpack them in a more distant place.
While you can move RC Commanders around where they’re needed, they have a smaller range of operations, whilst the Drone Hubs are stationary buildings with significantly bigger ranges and the caveat that they require power. Power is a key resource that is produced by a variety of buildings and is moved around through good old cables (that are definitely not prone to faults or any other issues).
Lights, camera, action!
To start rolling this colony biz for real, you'll need power – a key resource that is produced by a variety of buildings and is moved around through good old cables (that are definitely not prone to faults or any other issues). You can store excess power in accumulators and use it in case of emergencies – for example, during a cold wave when all buildings require more electricity in order not to freeze.
Similarly to creating a robust power grid, you’re going to need to set up a life support network to move water and oxygen around, not only to sustain future human life, but also to provide some production buildings with these precious resources. For this, you will need pipes that attach to some buildings though designated spots.
As already mentioned, your drones are your main workers, but they are not equipped with the tools needed for extracting all resources on the Red Planet – in fact, they can only gather metals and polymers from surface deposits left behind by meteors. Concrete, which is another basic resource used in a lot of constructions, is obtained by an automated extractor, placed over a concrete deposit – your starting sector has been chosen with that in mind. The extractor, like the Drone Hub, will need power in order to operate.
Resources are stored in depots – the height of human ingenuity, they come completely free for instant placement and are sure to protect your precious resources from the harsh Martian environment. How? I don’t know, I’m not an engineer. I only know that they work. You can set some basic preferences, like the number of desired resources, for each depot – that way, you can make sure that you have all the right resources exactly where they’re needed.
So what about all those other thingies that you see up in the resource bar? The production of advanced resources, such as machine parts and electronics, is a job better suited for the gentle hands of your human sl— colonists. It’s crucial to be spending them cautiously in the early days of the colony when the only source of resupply is Earth.
We have lift-off! And touchdown!?
Resupply, you say? Well, yes, Mother Earth has not left you on your own (yet) and your sponsor will gladly help you obtain more resources… for the right price. You can use cargo rockets and supply pods to order more resources, drones, rovers and even building prefabs. A sponsor like the USA will make sure that you receive regular funding to fuel those shopping sprees, but most others will close their wallets after the initial investment and let you deal with the acquisition of more money however you can.
The main way to earn additional funding is to export rare metals to Earth, which usually comes at a later time, when you have colonists who can work the more delicate machinery in the specialised extractors. (Unless you’ve picked Brazil as your sponsor, in which case you can go right ahead and perform some alchemy, turning waste rock from the concrete extractor into rare metals.)
But wait, I’ve gotten ahead of myself. In order for any of this to happen, you’ll need to refuel your rockets, which is where the Fuel Refinery comes into play. It works its magic, turning water into fuel (don’t ask me how, I’m not a rocket scientist), which is then loaded onto the rockets by drones. Fuel is also used in the production of polymers and is needed for shuttles (drones’ cousins which I’ll introduce to you at the end).
To recap, in your early days on Mars, you will use drones and automated extractors to collect resources in depots and stockpile them for future use. You can also buy additional resources from Earth by supplying your rockets with fuel for the trips. Most of your buildings will require power, which is distributed around via cables.
Row, row, row your rover
Drones’ big mommies and daddies are the rovers, which come in not so various colours but are equipped for a variety of tasks. The recommended starting trio consists of an RC Commander, RC Transport and RC Explorer. You’re already familiar with the job of the RC Commander, and the RC Explorer will get its spotlight in the next dev diary, so let’s take a brief look at the RC Transport.
As its name cleverly suggests, it’s a rover used to move resources around. But wait! It can also gather them from surface deposits. If you set a transport route from a faraway metals deposit to the colony, the rover will make rounds until the deposit is depleted. Eventually, you’ll research an automated mode, allowing it to look for and work on deposits on its own. Surely, nothing will go wrong with that!
Wanna get fancy? Well, check out some of the sponsor-unique transport type rovers, like Blue Sun’s RC Harvester that can extract concrete in addition to its normal functions. Or India’s RC Constructor which can use the resources loaded on it to construct buildings instead of the drones. My favourite one, however, has to be Russia’s RC Driller – a heavy-duty rover that can extract resources from underground deposits. Yes, it’s a bit crude and ruins some of the output, but you can send it anywhere on the map to dig out metals or rare metals, and then transport them back to the colony.
Speaking of favourites, I personally have a preference towards Japan’s drones – these adorable hard workers defy gravity and zoom speedily (but respectfully) around the colony. A true marvel of engineering – and you can trust me on this one, ‘cause I’m an inventor!
Dev’s pets aside, I highly recommend you take a closer look at the unique vehicles of the sponsors – it’s certain that you’ll find something there that you won’t be able to imagine playing without.
Engine, engine, number nine!
What I can imagine playing without, however, are the trains. My definitely organic brain suffered so much through their testing and redesign that I still can’t look at them as something that I want to use in my colonies. However, I was given the task to talk about them, and being the yes human that I am, here is the sell:
Realise your wildest train simulation fantasies! On the Red Planet! Right now! Build stations, connect them with tracks, make loops, construct trains, move resources and colonists, date the trains! Or the colonists! Or— I’ll be right back, HR is calling.
So, basically, we took the train system and polished the hell out of it, in hopes of giving you an easier time building and managing the network of stations and tracks.
Seasoned players will notice that the stations and trains received a complete visual redesign, in order to fit better in the aesthetic of the game. We’ve also made some fundamental changes to how resources are stored and moved through trains, including them in the global resource management logic (don’t ask me for details – I’m not a transport tycoon).
The info panels of stations were streamlined for easier use, and trains are now constructed as prefabs that can be assigned to available tracks.
Tracks can be placed freely – even over bumpy terrain and on slopes! – and it’s now possible to create a line that passes through several stations and loops back where it started. Tracks also conduct power, so you don’t need to place additional cables between stations and adjacent buildings in order to connect them to the grid.
Another change, which may be a bit of a controversial decision, is the removal of fluid transportation – some of you will remember that trains could be converted to transport water and oxygen. Well, now they can’t. It worked like some black magic and we thought that adding pipes connecting to the stations would be too much for a system designed to move colonists and physical units of resources around. I’m sure that you’ll let us know what you think about that.
Nevertheless, we’re excited to see where you’ll take the new train system!
Vector, locked in
Lastly, I promised to talk about the cousins – our lovely shuttles return in Surviving Mars: Relaunched to make your life on the Red Planet easier. We’ve already established that I’m not a rocket scientist, but if you choose to be one at the start of your game, congrats – you can make use of the shuttles right from the start. Otherwise, you’ll have to research your way through the Physics tech tree to unlock them.
Once you’ve built a Shuttle Hub and supplied it with power and fuel, the busy bees will take care of resource management on a global scale, moving supplies and colonists around the map where needed. They will not gather resources, construct buildings or yield to your direct command, but you can be sure that what they can do will be done most efficiently and timely. Unless there’s a dust storm… but that might be a story for another dev diary.
So here it is – your metal army of drones, rovers, rockets, trains, and shuttles may look overwhelming at first, but these will be your most trusted companions in the colonisation and survival on Mars.
Good luck out there, Commander!
If you want to see more, make sure you don't miss our first Dev Stream tomorrow - 15:00 CEST!
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