Hello again! I'm Lyubo the lead designer of Surviving Mars: Relaunched and I'm here to talk about the endgame of your colonies.
Surviving Mars at its core is a sandbox game and does not have a clear final objective and you are free to pursue your own goals. However, during the years, we have added challenges for those who have mastered the game.
The Dream of a Completionist
Let's talk about the more obvious goals at the end of the game - scanning all sectors and exhausting the tech tree. At the end of the game, you will be able to unlock many breakthrough technologies through scanning. One thing we changed is that now, when exploring anomalies, you have a choice of three possible breakthroughs that can be unlocked. These technologies will greatly change the way you play the game and will offer unique bonuses.
Apart from that, at the end of the tech tree you will unlock a lot of Wonder buildings that solve some the problems you have had since sol 1 of your colony. Tired of searching for new concrete deposits? Build an Excavator or melt waste rock produced in your other mines to make it into concrete. Need metal (both normal and rare)? Build a Mohole Mine. Need additional research to finalize the tech tree? The Omega telescope is your friend (it also unlocks more of those sweet breakthroughs). Need a huge dome? The Geoscape dome is your solution (or if you have terraformed Mars, the Capital City is an excellent choice as well).
Each of these wonders solves a huge problem you may have had up until this point and make your colony that much better. But there are new ways to solve problems as well - some of the final laws offer you new ways to solve problems as well. There is a set of laws that will allow you to never run out of exotic minerals (if you also have an Asteroid Catcher to keep those pesky asteroids in orbit).
The Dream Of Independence
Sooner or later, your sponsor will no longer be as beneficial as they were in the beginning. As the colony grows, you will get a different set of challenges to complete that eventually lead to Independence. But what does Independence mean?
Surviving Mars: Relaunched is not a military game. You cannot force a conflict to gain your independence so we opted for a more bureaucratic approach to Independence (as outlined by real-life events like Brexit). When your colony is stable and large enough and you have completed the goals set by your own people, you will be able to proclaim Independence from your sponsor through a law.
Simply enacting a law does not make you independent. Your sponsor will be most displeased and will immediately penalize you for your audacity by limiting imports and rockets, withholding research and applicants. Since they cannot force you to remain with them, they will first ask for most of their Mission Goals to be completed and then will start a new colony on Mars (which you will be able to see in the planetary view).
The sponsor will then ask you to essentially buy your independence (much like Haiti did when revolting against the French). The cost will be very high but can be lowered by sending resources to the new sponsor colony. The cost and how much it can be reduced are based on the sponsor - some will have a very high price that can be reduced greatly while others will not bargain and the price will remain fixed.
In order to pay for your independence, you may turn to the other colonies on Mars and enact the Black Market law that will allow you to trade resources for funding. With the decreased export prices this may be the solution that finally gets you free from your sponsor.
Once you have bought your freedom, you become free of your sponsor. This unlocks new techs on dealing with the Independence, as well as new Mission goals. These techs and goals will allow your colony to fully deal with the absence of a sponsor but will take a lot of work to accomplish.
The Dream of a Green Mars
If politics are not your thing, you may turn to loftier goals like terraforming Mars. There are four parameters you must improve in order to make Mars green - Temperature, Atmosphere, Water, and Vegetation. Each parameter is increased in its own way - you need to plant seeds to improve vegetation, for example, but you have to convert waste rocks into CO2 and create a working magnetic field for Mars to have an atmosphere.
Terraforming is a long process and there are some goals that once reached will change how the planet functions - in order to have water on Mars at all, the temperature needs to be high enough for it not to be in a permanently frozen state. There is a new law that will allow you to benefit from each completed terraforming goal.
At the end of the day (or at the end of the sol), terraforming is hard and you will need to start planet-wide projects like building a space mirror or melting the polar caps give the terraforming parameters that final push. Once the planet is green enough, however, you will be able to open the domes and even build a Capital City.
The Dream of the Mole People
Making a colony is hard but making one underground is even harder. With the changes to the underground, bigger underground colonies are now possible. With the new laws, you will be also be able to exploit the caverns below the surface like never before - unlimited water and deposits, for example.
Some factions like the Preservation Movement do not like the surface of Mars blemished by human hands and will push you to move your colonists underground. Having a sizeable population of mole people may also be a colony goal that leads to Independence.
The Dream of Growth
No matter how hard we try, we are sure that you will eventually overcome every hurdle that we throw at you. Even the hardest of goals will get crushed by determined players. We expanded our modding tools to allow you to create more interesting content that challenges in ways we could not even envision in our wildest dreams.
Everyone's imagination stretches in different directions. We can't wait and see what kind of challenges our community will come up with.
The Dream of the Future
This is the final dev diary for now. I cannot wait for Surviving Mars: Relaunched to be released and see your perspective on the changes and additions we have made. We have great plans for this game. I hope with your help we can make this game the ultimate Mars experience.
See you soon!