Plausibility

[bumbro07]

I'm not sure where the information for geothermal vents has come from. If you are referring to this screenshot - https://twitter.com/Surviving_Mars/status/933611299602292736 - that's actually a metal mine which extracts underground metal deposits. We do have dust geysers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geysers_on_Mars) as terrain features which erupt seasonally but those mostly cause dust contamination and are rather rare.



Waste rock does tend to accumulate and take space (more waste rock is generated from mining metals however). Part of the gameplay here is to plan where to position your waste rock dump sites. Drones can move waste rock but you don't want to do that too often as they have a lot of work to do so good planning is important when managing waste rock. Late game, however, there is a way to convert waste rock to concrete.



We experimented a lot with the travel time of rockets between Earth and Mars. On the one hand we do want to represent how remote your colony is from the rest of humanity. On the other there is the question of pacing and game balance. We don't want you to have to wait 30-40 minutes without anything to do because - being stuck without resources. We want you to be able to get help from Earth when you are in a pinch, but not too quickly. So it's a multifaceted problem and ultimately gameplay and pacing do weigh a bit more.

Having said that it would be very interesting to see hard sci-fi mods that explore such questions more thoroughly.

1.) The geothermic vents I was referring to were the vents that appear in the gameplay videos that have been posted on youtube. In those videos, the surface of Mars features cracks that periodically outgas what looks like a large amount of material. The Geysers on Mars, from the very first sentence of the wikipedia entry, are not only seasonal, but also restricted to the extreme latitudes at the south pole. The vents in the gameplay videos outgased multiple times and was just kind of weird to see.

2.) As long as there's a way to get rid of the waste rock and make sure that the map doesn't clutter in the late game, I'm happy!

3.) I will concede the solid game mechanic choice. While i think a large amount of down-time while waiting for resources because the player did not plan things out correctly is a good thing in moderation, I have to agree that you're right about gameplay and pacing taking precedence.

Thanks for replying! I'm so excited for this game and I think you guys are doing great!