Freebie Info - Surviving Mars [FINISHED]

[Chimpzy]

Fyi, this one's a repeat. Today, for you:

Surviving Mars

Surviving Mars will be free at Epic Games Store until March 18th at 5PM (your local time). As always, you can get the game through the link above, or straight from the Epic Games launcher. Either way, the game will be added directly to your Epic Games library. Keep in mind having 2FA active on your account is mandatory to nab giveaways on the Epic Store.

Spoiler: game description

The time has come to stake your claim on the Red Planet and build the first functioning human colonies on Mars! There will be challenges to overcome. Execute your strategy and improve your colony's chances of survival while unlocking the mysteries of this alien world.

Have a look if interested, and enjoy.

Next week's freebie at the Epic Game Store will be The Fall starting March 18th.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

This looks interesting, and being a freebie it would even fall under my “no new game purchases in 2021” pact.

A brief synopsis for the unaware -


Something more in depth -
Terraforming you say? Yay!


Now, for an altogether different kinda take -

Spoiler

Ah, the possibilities!

 

[meiam]

It's a fun game in a relaxing sense, there's very little pressure and it's easy enough to keep your colony sustainable forever. You can bump up the difficulty but it's mostly about adding annoyance and doesn't really add interesting challenge. The game as a few wonky stuff, like you can kill off all your elderly colonist (ie free loafer) for essentially no repercussion, so I usually make a dome for elderly and when it gets filled I just vent it to clear space.

I'd avoid the DLC, they don't really bring anything interesting, terraforming is a late game activity that almost doesn't change most of the game.

 

[Dalisclock]

The game as a few wonky stuff, like you can kill off all your elderly colonist (ie free loafer) for essentially no repercussion, so I usually make a dome for elderly and when it gets filled I just vent it to clear space.

Colonist 1: "I haven't seen grandma for awhile. Any idea where she went?"
Colonist 2: "Oh, she went to live in the Old Folks Dome. Anyway, try the meat loaf, it's pretty good"
Colonist 1: "I will. Where do they get beef on mars anyway? I don't see any pastu......"

 

[happyninja42]

I concur with the enjoyment of the game from other posters. I got this game....I guess around the time it was released? It's been in my library for a while but, yeah it's super fun if you like colony/city builder games, but with a nice scifi theme to them.

The biggest issue was population management, though they did patch it a bit as I recall. The AI would get confused about breeding, and you would end up with massive overpopulation issues. So they allowed some population control features, like banning reproduction (you can lift it when you want), if you are having a boom. It was really handy to divide the domes into a child care dome, and then a retirement dome, to help keep things from getting out of hand. It was actually a really fun metric to the city planning. Deciding which dome facilities will be in which ones, and having that inform the purpose of it going forward.

The music on the various radio channels are fun and chill, and provide good backdrop. The campaign challenges that you can add into the playthrough can be fun, and random (for example one challenge is an Elon Musk-y type business/science guy, is trying to put together a massive project, I think for interstellar travel? and you can try and help him by donating a significant amount of the various raw materials and refined products. But it's on a time limit, so you may/may not be able to pull it off).

It's a fun game to zone out to and watch everything buzz around.

The devs of that game, are the same ones that are making Surviving the Aftermath, a post-apocalypse version of Surviving Mars. It's got a few different features, but on a lot of fundamental levels, it's the same game. That's not a criticism mind you, as I think Surviving Mars is a good game, but it is something to consider if you feel like picking that one up.

But, if you enjoy SM, you'll probably enjoy StA too.

 

[gorfias]

Colonist 1: "I haven't seen grandma for awhile. Any idea where she went?"
Colonist 2: "Oh, she went to live in the Old Folks Dome. Anyway, try the meat loaf, it's pretty good"
Colonist 1: "I will. Where do they get beef on mars anyway? I don't see any pastu......"

Ulp. Might taste more like pork.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I concur with the enjoyment of the game from other posters. I got this game....I guess around the time it was released? It's been in my library for a while but, yeah it's super fun if you like colony/city builder games, but with a nice scifi theme to them.

The biggest issue was population management, though they did patch it a bit as I recall. The AI would get confused about breeding, and you would end up with massive overpopulation issues. So they allowed some population control features, like banning reproduction (you can lift it when you want), if you are having a boom. It was really handy to divide the domes into a child care dome, and then a retirement dome, to help keep things from getting out of hand. It was actually a really fun metric to the city planning. Deciding which dome facilities will be in which ones, and having that inform the purpose of it going forward.

The music on the various radio channels are fun and chill, and provide good backdrop. The campaign challenges that you can add into the playthrough can be fun, and random (for example one challenge is an Elon Musk-y type business/science guy, is trying to put together a massive project, I think for interstellar travel? and you can try and help him by donating a significant amount of the various raw materials and refined products. But it's on a time limit, so you may/may not be able to pull it off).

It's a fun game to zone out to and watch everything buzz around.

The devs of that game, are the same ones that are making Surviving the Aftermath, a post-apocalypse version of Surviving Mars. It's got a few different features, but on a lot of fundamental levels, it's the same game. That's not a criticism mind you, as I think Surviving Mars is a good game, but it is something to consider if you feel like picking that one up.

But, if you enjoy SM, you'll probably enjoy StA too.

That’s the impression I got from playing a bit of the tutorials too. I definitely want to get into it at some point, as it feels like the kind of game that’s fun to chill out with a bit to implement and observe a variety of cause and effect scenarios. Perfect for when I want a break from the “Kill your enemies to advance the story” type games, and an alternative strategy game to the RTS field which I could ever really get into much.

My biggest complaint with the mechanics early on would be that deleting things you messed up on seems to be nearly impossible at worst or a big inconvenience at best. Like putting an extra piece of pipe or cable in the wrong place, there should be an easy way to just Control+Z it but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

ps can I also say how pleasantly surprised I was with the delivery process for a modern game? Apparently this huge sim is only 6GB, and the whole thing took less than five minutes from acquisition to title screen.

 

[happyninja42]

That’s the impression I got from playing a bit of the tutorials too. I definitely want to get into it at some point, as it feels like the kind of game that’s fun to chill out with a bit to implement and observe a variety of cause and effect scenarios. Perfect for when I want a break from the “Kill your enemies to advance the story” type games, and an alternative strategy game to the RTS field which I could ever really get into much.

My biggest complaint with the mechanics early on would be that deleting things you messed up on seems to be nearly impossible at worst or a big inconvenience at best. Like putting an extra piece of pipe or cable in the wrong place, there should be an easy way to just Control+Z it but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

ps can I also say how pleasantly surprised I was with the delivery process for a modern game? Apparently this huge sim is only 6GB, and the whole thing took less than five minutes from acquisition to title screen.

I don't remember having a big issue with removing extraneous stuff? To clarify you are referring to stuff actually built and on surface yes? Not just a case of "oops, I went too far laying down pipe (giggity) but still haven't actually built anything." Because I build everything during the pause screen, so errors don't really happen much.

But yeah, it's a fun game if you like games like, well I guess it's like City Skylines (haven't played it myself, but I've watched people do let's plays of it). You build the overall structure, but the little people do their own things based on needs/wants, so you are basically just managing various flows of things, power/food/people/etc.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I don't remember having a big issue with removing extraneous stuff? To clarify you are referring to stuff actually built and on surface yes? Not just a case of "oops, I went too far laying down pipe (giggity) but still haven't actually built anything." Because I build everything during the pause screen, so errors don't really happen much.

But yeah, it's a fun game if you like games like, well I guess it's like City Skylines (haven't played it myself, but I've watched people do let's plays of it). You build the overall structure, but the little people do their own things based on needs/wants, so you are basically just managing various flows of things, power/food/people/etc.

Maybe it’s just in the tutorial, but yeah it told me to connect some pipe for the fuel and evaporator I think, and I ended up with a tangled knot of them because my path was obscured between the two and the highlights for how they connect to each unit weren’t very clear. Then I read on Steam that others were complaining about the unnecessary complexity for removing stuff too, but I didn’t see that salvage option to do so in the tutorial. Guessing it’s there in the actual game though.

 

[happyninja42]

Maybe it’s just in the tutorial, but yeah it told me to connect some pipe for the fuel and evaporator I think, and I ended up with a tangled knot of them because my path was obscured between the two and the highlights for how they connect to each unit weren’t very clear. Then I read on Steam that others were complaining about the unnecessary complexity for removing stuff too, but I didn’t see that salvage option to do so in the tutorial. Guessing it’s there in the actual game though.

yeah you can salvage pretty much anything you've built, as best as I can recall. It's been over a year since I last played it. I will say that the connection points for various systems, and how the AI chooses to path to there as you click/drag can be a bit....puzzling to say the least. I usually found that the longer the single line you lay down is, the more confused the AI gets. So I started doing things in short segments, which usually let you have way more fine control over placing. Many of the dome connection points are at specific radii so you have to think "Ok so this is a water/power system I'm putting down, those only link up at the 45/135/225/315 degree points, so let me put the actual components down along that angle, so it's a straight bit of piping. Less hassle. And I need to remember living tubes between domes for humans to traverse, those are 90/180/270/00 degrees, so consider that when placing." Which was a fun layer to the strategy of placement.

Still, little fiddly bits with the interface aside, it's a solid game in my opinion. I can't recall a single game breaking, fun killing bug in my multiple playthroughs of it. The closest being the population thingy, but that was like RIGHT at launch, and it became way more manageable very quickly with patches, and advice to do things like segregate your domes based on age brackets. But I've yet to see a single city planner game that didn't have some janky bits with the AI from time to time.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

yeah you can salvage pretty much anything you've built, as best as I can recall. It's been over a year since I last played it. I will say that the connection points for various systems, and how the AI chooses to path to there as you click/drag can be a bit....puzzling to say the least. I usually found that the longer the single line you lay down is, the more confused the AI gets. So I started doing things in short segments, which usually let you have way more fine control over placing. Many of the dome connection points are at specific radii so you have to think "Ok so this is a water/power system I'm putting down, those only link up at the 45/135/225/315 degree points, so let me put the actual components down along that angle, so it's a straight bit of piping. Less hassle. And I need to remember living tubes between domes for humans to traverse, those are 90/180/270/00 degrees, so consider that when placing." Which was a fun layer to the strategy of placement.

Still, little fiddly bits with the interface aside, it's a solid game in my opinion. I can't recall a single game breaking, fun killing bug in my multiple playthroughs of it. The closest being the population thingy, but that was like RIGHT at launch, and it became way more manageable very quickly with patches, and advice to do things like segregate your domes based on age brackets. But I've yet to see a single city planner game that didn't have some janky bits with the AI from time to time.

I like your idea of how to build stuff off of radii, and connecting with smaller segments. Assuming it wouldn’t cost any more or less in resources or $ to build a bunch of smaller vs a few longer ones, since it would seem to be generally the same amount used in either case.

I wonder if any bits of terrain variance might play a part in AI path finding getting wonky, and the more key points they have to follow the better.

 

[happyninja42]

I like your idea of how to build stuff off of radii, and connecting with smaller segments. Assuming it wouldn’t cost any more or less in resources or $ to build a bunch of smaller vs a few longer ones, since it would seem to be generally the same amount used in either case.

I wonder if any bits of terrain variance might play a part in AI path finding getting wonky, and the more key points they have to follow the better.

My suggestion of smaller segments per build session is mainly to circumvent the AI pathing for where the pipes should go. Terrain probably did have something to do with the calculations as well yes.

Let's say, you are trying to run a power line to a new dome, that's far off. For whatever reason you aren't just building an independent power supply for that dome (my preferred method, isolated power/lifesupport meant less power maintenance, and less risk of total blackout if you have a cascade failure), and instead just run a long line there. Like, let's say 20 segments. YOU try and path it down at a 45deg angle for say, 15 of those segments, and then turn right and run at 90deg for the last bit. For some reason, even though YOU said "this is the path I want to put the pipe down" sometimes the AI would go "Oh, he's trying to connect A to B, let me path it over HERE." and will just realign your pipes, sometimes making more bends and turns into it, so it looks like a Z instead of L . And I've never understood why it does that ? Perhaps it's actually the shortest path, so it's prioritizing resource usage, over terrain and simplicity of pathing? But I've noticed that this problem most often comes up when you try and click/drag that entire 20 segment power line, in one click of the mouse. But if you do it little bits, of say, 5-9 or so segements a pop, it's WAY more willing to just follow the route you chose without "helping". It's still ultimately one long pipe, it just isn't trying to do the math of the entire line as one job, and instead of a few different ones. Which seems to be less confusing for it *shrugs*

 

[Dalisclock]

Ulp. Might taste more like pork.

Likely but I'd already committed to the meatloaf joke by the time I realized that.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Likely but I'd already committed to the meatloaf joke by the time I realized that.

I myself love meatloaf. So much so that I would do anything for meatloaf (but I won’t do that).

 

[happyninja42]

I myself love meatloaf. So much so that I would do anything for meatloaf (but I won’t do that).

*angry cat hissing noises*

 

[CriticalGaming]

I myself love meatloaf. So much so that I would do anything for meatloaf (but I won’t do that).

Go to your room!

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Go to your room!