Lack of Late-Game

[EsoEs]

First off, I have to say that I am enjoying this game quite a bit. While there are a few UI improvements which would be nice (multi-transferring drones, tech history), I don't really have an issue with the AI as many others seem to have. When people walk out into the dessert and die, its for a reason (check your dome settings, are you allowing for your pop to grow and then enter the workforce, do you need to quarentine a far away dome that doesnt have shuttle service yet?)

On the other hand, I'm really disappointed with the late game, as in, it doesn't exist. My most recent playthrough I did the "Mars Gate" mystery, and defeated the mystery by ~Sol 100 (at which point I was not even quite self sufficient, and only had 5 domes up, 2 medium 3 small).

My colony still had a number of problems to conquer, such as securing more reliable water supply, securing new mineral deposits as my minerals and rare minerals were either depleted or close to depleting.

When I watched the preview streams for this game, they sold it as "play however you want, cover the map if you want". However, what I have since realized is that this isn't really possible.

In order to continue building out your domes, you need minerals, water, concrete etc. These resources are finite, and eventually you will grow to a point where your electronics/machine part maintenance requires too much base production demand, demand which you cannot meet simply because resources will deplete.

While depleting resources do provide a real sense of urgency early, i.e. I NEED to expand otherwise I will run out of water/metal/rare, it also creates this scenario where the game is about surviving the early challenges, and then it no longer becomes feasonable to continue to grow.

-MY POINT is that if this game is not about pure city-building (which it cannot be due to depleting resources), then the challenge phase is too short. Need to either add more filler techs so late-game tech isn't reached by mid-game, expand mysteries, or just have them play out over a longer time-frame, or do something which makes it so the game isn't "over" before I have even built or researched Mega Domes.

 

[Calvax]

I don't really have an issue with the AI as many others seem to have. When people walk out into the dessert and die, its for a reason

Unless that reason is suicide it's still a stupid issue. I would be fine if it happened to colonists with the stupid trait, but everyone else should be able to do the simple maths of figuring out that if they have two hours of oxygen and the journey is more than two hours then they probably shouldn't attempt the journey.

Other than that yeah I agree. It seems like the early game got the most attention and then after that things just fizzle out with the mysteries the only non-mechanical thing to happen. Not having an end goal, or having to set your own end goals, is all well and good except for the fact that every colony progresses pretty much the exact same way. There's no way to theme your colonies and doesn't appear to be much meaningfully different gameplay depending on where you are or even what technologies you get. It doesn't really feel like a sandbox so much as building the same set of lego over and over again.

And yeah you are completely correct, there is no way to make a stable, self-sufficient colony unless it's really small. It would take a long time (though given how the colonists breed like bunnies probably not that long) but eventually every resource deposit on the map can be completely tapped dry. At which point you're reliant on your infinite supply buildings which is fine for energy, water, oxygen and fuel but concrete, metals and rare metals can only be infinitely mined from wonders. Which you can only build one of, and the numbers they give you are quite low. I've not got to the stage where this is a problem but with city builder games I tend not to feel finished until I have a thriving, map filling city that I can walk away from knowing that if I was to leave the game running everything would keep ticking over. There's an oddly sad and hollow feeling knowing that if that happened with Surviving Mars as the deposits were whittled down until the last source of metals and concrete were gone the severe bottleneck of wonders everything would start to collapse as things break with no materials to fix them. A thriving city would be reduced to ruin with just a few small domes huddled around the wonders, surviving on a limited drip feed of critical material.

I wish recycling was a mechanic in the game given how important it would be for a closed-system ecology. When something breaks it should create a block of "scrap" that has to be carted to a dumping site. Better technologies should reduce maintenance, recycling plants should turn scrap back into materials finally leading up to some sort of super recycling wonder that 100% efficiently recycles scrap to make a fully self sufficient colony.

 

[EsoEs]

Other than that yeah I agree. It seems like the early game got the most attention and then after that things just fizzle out with the mysteries the only non-mechanical thing to happen. Not having an end goal, or having to set your own end goals, is all well and good except for the fact that every colony progresses pretty much the exact same way. There's no way to theme your colonies and doesn't appear to be much meaningfully different gameplay depending on where you are or even what technologies you get. It doesn't really feel like a sandbox so much as building the same set of lego over and over again.

I've not got to the stage where this is a problem but with city builder games I tend not to feel finished until I have a thriving, map filling city that I can walk away from knowing that if I was to leave the game running everything would keep ticking over. There's an oddly sad and hollow feeling knowing that if that happened with Surviving Mars as the deposits were whittled down until the last source of metals and concrete were from the severe bottleneck of wonders everything would start to collapse as things break with no materials to fix them. A thriving city would be reduced to ruin with just a few small domes huddled around the wonders, surviving on a limited drip feed of critical material.

Yea, I think you have helped me better pinpoint my exact point which is that this game atm is torn between survival, and city builder, with no clear direction one way or the other.

If its supposed to be survival, then stuff needs to be rebalanced so it takes longer to "survive" (I dont think I should "win" by Sol 150).

If its supposed to be a city builder, then make city building more diverse (different homes, services, buildings, etc), and dont make it so my city will implode if its stable now but I leave it running overnight and all my resources are gone and all my buildings don't work and everyone is dead.

Feels like devs need to make up their mind which way to take this game.

 

[Louella]

Just a quick comment, I'm not sure about the mineral deposits running out. I've put mines on all the rare metal deposits and when one ran out I suddenly saw a new rare metal deposit that I could mine. So I think they might respawn. Not 100% sure though, not yet.

 

[EsoEs]

There's a decent chance you either scanned a deep deposit, or researched the tech which reveals new regular deposits.

 

[Ri0Rdian]

There's that tech or breakthrough (sorry, bad memory) that gives you a small amount of resources once the deposit runs out. However I have no idea how much and it is likely very low to the point that I would be surprised if at max resource location and having tapped all deposits it would equal one wonder in production.

So totally agreed, there is a point when you are so big that resources are gone and the wonders only provide enough to keep the existing things running (and even that can easily be surpassed), not further expanding.

I wonder whether it will be possible to mod the deposits to make them infinite or so big number that they are almost infinite. Add in some techs and it could work.

 

[Lordban]

There is a non-wonder option to be able to mine indefinitely, but it requires some luck - a lot of luck, really, since it's a breakthrough.

 

[RpTheHotrod]

I agree. Essentially, there is no surviving Mars. Inevitably, you'll run out of resources, and that society would crumble. There's generally no point in Earth (in this game) to send people out to Mars. The only thing you're sending back is just rare minerals, and your colony would inevitably die at some point. It just sort of makes the game feel like it's all futile.

 

[Nats]

Well I guess the whole point is just to make a self-sufficient colony that can exist should anything happen to the Earth. But I agree that there should be an 'end game'. Maybe a certain point at which you have created a viable colony that has effectively endless resources - that might be by having deep scanned massive metal concrete and water deposits or maybe expanded to a certain population. Or perhaps been able to create a second separate colony. Or had the last of your original colonists replaced with all Mars born. Or perhaps eradicated longing for Earth from all your colonist. there surely must be loads of victory conditions that could be employed to 'end the game' if one desires and therefore provide that satisfaction that you have 'won'.

 

[Dinges]

There's that tech or breakthrough (sorry, bad memory) that gives you a small amount of resources once the deposit runs out. However I have no idea how much and it is likely very low to the point that I would be surprised if at max resource location and having tapped all deposits it would equal one wonder in production.

I haven't got the numbers anymore since the buildings are gone, but that tech is near worthless in my opinion. Both water and metal extractors produced extremely low amounts, and you still can't build any new ones where there isn't any deposit (or I had been doing something wrong, not entirely impossible) .

It did work with concrete for some reason, or the numbers are a lot higher there. In my case it produced a lot. Somehow, it seemed to think the resource was still there, even though it was definitely depleted (and even said so), it was just that the overall resource on that spot had not run out yet. Nor did it decrease any more.
I'm guessing that it's a bug though, and that the numbers I got weren't intended.

 

[EsoEs]

Well I guess the whole point is just to make a self-sufficient colony that can exist should anything happen to the Earth. But I agree that there should be an 'end game'. Maybe a certain point at which you have created a viable colony that has effectively endless resources - that might be by having deep scanned massive metal concrete and water deposits or maybe expanded to a certain population. Or perhaps been able to create a second separate colony. Or had the last of your original colonists replaced with all Mars born. Or perhaps eradicated longing for Earth from all your colonist. there surely must be loads of victory conditions that could be employed to 'end the game' if one desires and therefore provide that satisfaction that you have 'won'.

This is kind of the point I'm trying to make, currently the "I win" moment is imo defeating the mystery, and having a self sufficient economy which no longer needs imports from earth to survive.

The problem is this moment comes quite soon into your map, even on harder difficulties (my last run was 270% I believe). I achieved this stabilization with literally 6 domes, and had researched about 80% of the tech tree by Sol 160 or so.

If I wanted to afterwards put down mega domes and some of the cooler wonders which I don't really need I guess I could, but considering how little variation there is between domes, and the lack of any kind of stated goal or purpose, this just feels pointless to me atm.

 

[DominusNovus]

Got to agree. My second real playthrough is pretty much just me tinkering around with my base now, playing Martian urban planner. I built nothing but Mega Domes, after the research aligned so that Patents and Copyrights were able to net me around 30k research/sol. I researched everything by Sol ~120, built all the wonders (except the geodome, just out of laziness). The map difficulty was around 230% or so, so kind of middle of the road. Really, all I'm doing is trying to move as many of my automated buildings away from my domes.

The only challenge I'm facing is trying to keep up with the housing demands of my colonists. I'm pretty sure I'm earning enough with Copyrights now that I could just build nothing but apartments, import all my food from Earth on the Space Elevator, and let my colonists chill out and enjoy post-scarcity life and the ennui that comes with it.

Other than seeing new mysteries, I'm not feeling much enthusiasm for playthrough #3.

 

[FunkyBigodon]

I would love to see the possibility to set winning conditions yourself, like the Anno series does. Cheers!

 

[Nats]

The main issue is that the game already features all the typical win conditions I can think of as milestones. In order to win the game then it would have to be something much larger than the milestones. Cant think what though - maybe constructing your own colony spaceship and sending it off to one of Jupiter's moons (cue sequel!) or perhaps becoming completely self-sufficient or perhaps making it rain on Mars or something?

 

[Ri0Rdian]

I originally dismissed the idea of allowing us to terraform Mars as nonsense out of scope of this game. Thinking about it, it could actually be done as the Ultimate endgame goal by pouring countless resources (and time) into it. Would need to be a DLC too. After you are done you are showed a nice planet with the victory screen.

 

[sterrius]

@EsoEs
Ways to go infinite, or pretty close to it.

1-> There is a wonder that gives 50 metal + 20 rare minerals day = 20 rare minerals/day is not super but its no joke either, you will need 3 rockets to export all of that and a ton of buildings to demand 20 eletronics/day of maintance. (Just avoid a eltronic shop, that thing is a eletronic chip eater).

also you will likely need a ton of factorys or solar panels to waste all that metal so the mine don´t stop working ^^.

2-> Water you have evaporators. 1,5 per moisture is not much but it will do the job. In fact after my second dome i don´t even bother going for water extractors. Per 200M each moisture there is no point after you have a constant amount of money. you will find out this will also take quite a good amount of space per dome as a megadome can demand 6 to 10 moisture evaporators to become 100% safe form disasters.

3-> That leaves concrete. With already 1 wonder in use and taking concrete from rocks you will have this for quite a while, later you can have some of those rare minerals from 1 to import tons and tons of concrete as they cost only 30M per 5.

4-> If you are really really luck you will find a Breaktrough (55 options , 13 chances to find it) that make everymine still work even at 0 resources. With this you build multiple mines on deposits that are about to run out and keep a steady flow of resources. And use the concrete wonder to have a infinite supply of the stuff.


While i don´t think you can go forever. Getting to something like 5 to 10k colonists should be possible and still make some profit to go beyond.


About the other topic.
Some endgame ideas and milestones i can think off. Some might need new buildings but half can be made already ^^.

1-> Become a base to launch a mission to titan! (that will demand a ton of resources and new buildings).
2-> Build a space station (so it can help the mission above) .
3-> Reach 10k colonists. (mostly for score but hey, its a challenge) .
4-> terraform phase 1 - > Make the map mostly or all flat. You can choose the height and will need research + resources. This enable 5.
5-> Build first city ldome -> A Dome bigger than a megadome, it will be like 1/3 size of the map and will be the size of a city. Impossible to build without doing mission 5.
6-> Fill citydome with 5000 colonists.
7-> Make product X and export to earth. (Would need new buildings for that but i can see a thing or two that can be made on mars and sold on earth for profit, not going to be a middle class item but hey, lots of millionaires would pay for stupid things as long its made on mars ^^) .

8-> Become a tourist attraction and bring X tourists. (would like some new buildings ^^, making tropico in space is fun too hehe).

9-> "declare independence" -> stay X sols without imports of resources or colonists. Only export allowed.

 

[Thorin]

The strange part of this is the lack of any recycling tech, the metal you put into the maintenance don't disappear, just replaces broken metal parts, why not get waste metal and later you could build recycler to convert it into normal metal (it even should be more efficient than mining and smelting it.) Same for concrete, we can turn rocks into concrete, but broken concrete is gone forever...
Machine part maintenance should also give back waste metal, and electronic maintenance electric waste which should be recycled into rare metal (this one is work and energy heavy, but lategame you can afford it.) Since polymer can be done infinitely you can waste it but even that should be recyclable.
And of course the same should be true for the water, you mine or condense it with hard and inefficient ways, than just dumps somewhere after use, since its gone forever from our closed system.

 

[DominusNovus]

@EsoEs 5-> Build first city ldome -> A Dome bigger than a megadome, it will be like 1/3 size of the map and will be the size of a city. Impossible to build without doing mission 5.

Actually, it would be more plausible to dome over a canyon, so you would not want a flat map for that.

 

[Xavori]

First off, I have to say that I am enjoying this game quite a bit. While there are a few UI improvements which would be nice (multi-transferring drones, tech history), I don't really have an issue with the AI as many others seem to have. When people walk out into the dessert and die, its for a reason (check your dome settings, are you allowing for your pop to grow and then enter the workforce, do you need to quarentine a far away dome that doesnt have shuttle service yet?)

On the other hand, I'm really disappointed with the late game, as in, it doesn't exist. My most recent playthrough I did the "Mars Gate" mystery, and defeated the mystery by ~Sol 100 (at which point I was not even quite self sufficient, and only had 5 domes up, 2 medium 3 small).

My colony still had a number of problems to conquer, such as securing more reliable water supply, securing new mineral deposits as my minerals and rare minerals were either depleted or close to depleting.

When I watched the preview streams for this game, they sold it as "play however you want, cover the map if you want". However, what I have since realized is that this isn't really possible.

In order to continue building out your domes, you need minerals, water, concrete etc. These resources are finite, and eventually you will grow to a point where your electronics/machine part maintenance requires too much base production demand, demand which you cannot meet simply because resources will deplete.

While depleting resources do provide a real sense of urgency early, i.e. I NEED to expand otherwise I will run out of water/metal/rare, it also creates this scenario where the game is about surviving the early challenges, and then it no longer becomes feasonable to continue to grow.

-MY POINT is that if this game is not about pure city-building (which it cannot be due to depleting resources), then the challenge phase is too short. Need to either add more filler techs so late-game tech isn't reached by mid-game, expand mysteries, or just have them play out over a longer time-frame, or do something which makes it so the game isn't "over" before I have even built or researched Mega Domes.

There is nothing at all finite in this game. I'm still playing my very first colony which admittedly I mostly played at 1x speed the first 40 hours while I was learning how to micro everything for max efficiency before letting go and going double speed and just building.

You have unlimited water. Water vaporators for miles. You have unlimited everything else via the two everyone gets wonders that produce concrete, metal, and rare metals, and then the repeating funding research which lets you buy stuffs from Earth. And with the space elevator, stuff from Earth is pretty cheap.

I plan on running this colony to 100k colonists (unless the game engine falls apart before then...a very real possibility since it's already getting choppy at 4k colonists). After that, I'm thinking of trying an absolute max difficulty game. But again, there is unlimited everything if you want to build.

 

[EsoEs]

Yea I have to change my opening thoughts a bit after playing out my game a bit more. Have gotten to about 4k colonists and between the tech that gives you the thing which reduces dust in nearby buildings (pizio something?) - meaning you only pay maintenance on that building and none of the surrounding buildings, +space elevator and mars patents, you can definitely go infinite, altho the amount of time it has taken me to get to 4k I probably wouldn't

Still think my original point that early/mid-game challenges go by way too quick, and late game is not really that interesting still stands