First off, I am liking the game so far. I just think that it could benefit by giving us players another option to tweak difficulty.
TL;DR I would like to be able to adjust just how true-to-life the simulation is.
I am a big fan of science and space exploration so this game is right up my alley. The base game is entertaining but, in reality, offers little way in the actual challenges that life on Mars would present.
1. Recycling
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. As the game is now, all resources are destroyed when they are used. For instance, metal is destroyed when used for maintenance which is unrealistic when put up against physics. In all reality, the only resources that can be eliminated should be water, oxygen, and rocket fuel. To increase realism, repairs should use metal and output scrap which would need to be processed back into usable metal. This could be applied to machine parts and electronics as well. Even plastics should be recyclable. With the base game colonies will eventually run out of material an that's why wonders that provide unlimited resources were added which feels gamey.
2. Waste
Your colonists eat and drink but, unrealistically, produce no waste. What to do with that waste would be one of the biggest challenges of colonizing Mars. Adding in sanitation would increase complexity and overall challenge.
3. Flight Time
It should not take a day-and-a-half to fly from Earth to Mars. To increase difficulty, there should be launch schedules as part of mission planning and long flight times. Such as: in planning, you set up how long after your first rocket or two departs to set up the infrastructure before your first passenger flight takes off. This is a clock that does not stop ticking giving us a limited amount of time before our colonists arrive to get things up and running. Basically, the mission starts months before your first rocket touches down and the colonists are already on their way, ready or not. All sorts of variables here to adjust to make things more realistic.
4. Extra Resource Types
I would think that resources like aluminum and silicon would be important in building a colony. I understand that these resources are being abstracted to metals and concrete to decrease the learning curve but I think that adding them in would make things a bit more interesting. There are a lot of avenues to increase complexity available here.
5. Facilities Decay
All things wear down and break but the rate that structures decay now is quite rapid. Furthermore, how does a solar panel need metal to repair when it should need a good dusting? There is a lot that can be done here to increase realism.
If I really thought about it, I probably could come up with a lot more realism improvements. Surviving Mars has huge potential. It just has a real arcade feel to it now. I know that making it easier increases the amount of initial players but, to make this game last and stand out, I think that it could benefit from the ability to increase the realism factor. To me, surviving life on Mars is quite trivial once you understand the game's mechanics. There really isn't much depth otherwise.
BTW, Surviving Mars is visually fantastic. Good job to the graphic design team.
TL;DR I would like to be able to adjust just how true-to-life the simulation is.
I am a big fan of science and space exploration so this game is right up my alley. The base game is entertaining but, in reality, offers little way in the actual challenges that life on Mars would present.
1. Recycling
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. As the game is now, all resources are destroyed when they are used. For instance, metal is destroyed when used for maintenance which is unrealistic when put up against physics. In all reality, the only resources that can be eliminated should be water, oxygen, and rocket fuel. To increase realism, repairs should use metal and output scrap which would need to be processed back into usable metal. This could be applied to machine parts and electronics as well. Even plastics should be recyclable. With the base game colonies will eventually run out of material an that's why wonders that provide unlimited resources were added which feels gamey.
2. Waste
Your colonists eat and drink but, unrealistically, produce no waste. What to do with that waste would be one of the biggest challenges of colonizing Mars. Adding in sanitation would increase complexity and overall challenge.
3. Flight Time
It should not take a day-and-a-half to fly from Earth to Mars. To increase difficulty, there should be launch schedules as part of mission planning and long flight times. Such as: in planning, you set up how long after your first rocket or two departs to set up the infrastructure before your first passenger flight takes off. This is a clock that does not stop ticking giving us a limited amount of time before our colonists arrive to get things up and running. Basically, the mission starts months before your first rocket touches down and the colonists are already on their way, ready or not. All sorts of variables here to adjust to make things more realistic.
4. Extra Resource Types
I would think that resources like aluminum and silicon would be important in building a colony. I understand that these resources are being abstracted to metals and concrete to decrease the learning curve but I think that adding them in would make things a bit more interesting. There are a lot of avenues to increase complexity available here.
5. Facilities Decay
All things wear down and break but the rate that structures decay now is quite rapid. Furthermore, how does a solar panel need metal to repair when it should need a good dusting? There is a lot that can be done here to increase realism.
If I really thought about it, I probably could come up with a lot more realism improvements. Surviving Mars has huge potential. It just has a real arcade feel to it now. I know that making it easier increases the amount of initial players but, to make this game last and stand out, I think that it could benefit from the ability to increase the realism factor. To me, surviving life on Mars is quite trivial once you understand the game's mechanics. There really isn't much depth otherwise.
BTW, Surviving Mars is visually fantastic. Good job to the graphic design team.
