Soldato
Extend the range of the heater. It can cover quite a bit.
Surviving Mars
- Thread starter TheSwede
- Start date
Extend the range of the heater. It can cover quite a bit.
Soldato
Have already extended it to cover the core water things, in range of the heater I have 3 vaporators, 2 water tanks (+1 extra on new dome), polymer factory, moxie, and 2 domes. Going bigger means more power nommage though.
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 21 Nov 2004
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- 45,695
Agreed. Having to zoom out all the time is a pain. Tried setting up a second colony. Much quicker to start off this time know that I know what I am doing.
I'm loving this game at the moment, even though I don't particularly know what I'm doing! I think I need to be a bit more careful about how much I build and how I lay everything out. I almost wiped out my entire colony yesterday because the dome was running out of water and electricity because I put in a Polymer factory that was using all the resources. I need to be mindful about how things feed off of one another and try my best to get things into areas that they're relevant. I still haven't found any water underground on the patch of land that I started on, and I've surveyed loads of pockets around my starting area. Most of the parts of the grid have been revealed.
I also feel that I've been extremely lucky with where I've started. I've seen mention of cold waves and other disasters, but I've not had anything like that. I had a meteor shower but it wasn't anywhere near my colony, thankfully!
I have a question though. I scanned an area that's up on a ridge, that reckoned it had a high chance of having water deposits, but it came back with nothing. There is, however, a yellow icon with an eye on it, which my Explorer can scan, but it can't get up there. Will there be a way later that I can get them up to the top? I thought perhaps a tunnel might be possible at the bottom and then one linked up the top, but I didn't have the resources spare to try that. Can anyone confirm if that's possible? If not, do you get flying exploration vehicles through research?
Thanks!
I also feel that I've been extremely lucky with where I've started. I've seen mention of cold waves and other disasters, but I've not had anything like that. I had a meteor shower but it wasn't anywhere near my colony, thankfully!
I have a question though. I scanned an area that's up on a ridge, that reckoned it had a high chance of having water deposits, but it came back with nothing. There is, however, a yellow icon with an eye on it, which my Explorer can scan, but it can't get up there. Will there be a way later that I can get them up to the top? I thought perhaps a tunnel might be possible at the bottom and then one linked up the top, but I didn't have the resources spare to try that. Can anyone confirm if that's possible? If not, do you get flying exploration vehicles through research?
Thanks!
@CHokKA The tunnel is the only way. Just make sure the first one you put down is on your side ! The drones start with that end and the exit end is automaicly done.
Man of Honour
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- 21 Nov 2004
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The tunnel - not cheap to build though. You probably have an easier starting location like mine - dust storms are a pain though. You need large oxygen stores, but will also take a big hit to all building maintenance.
Awesome, thanks! Yeah don't worry, I put the first down on the accessible side, but they're just a blueprint at the moment. I can't afford to build it yet! I need to start micro-managing my colonists so that they work where they're specialised. I had someone get stressed out because she was a qualified Geologist but was working in the grocery store! I don't think it helped that after I built a new metal extractor that I then evicted her from her house to move her to the new dome! She spent a while trying to destress in a totally empty new dome, until I was nice and put down a diner and a gym for her!
Another question, I seem to have issues with drones. What do people do in terms of getting them to carry out tasks within workable areas? I only have one drone hub and an RC Rover (well, two now as I ended up bringing another from Earth to see if that helps!) but I still seem to have situations where drones are sitting around doing nothing when there is definitely stuff to do. Does overlapping the drone operating area work?
Soldato
If you have the cash you can spring for some water vaporators to cover all of your water needs, they don't run during dust storms but you can put in some water tanks that should cover you. For power, again if you have the cash stirling generators are amazing and can provide 10 power in all conditions with no maintenance. As water vaporators run on power put in enough stirlings and you can run plenty of vaporators practically for free.
You can get the upgrade for the vaporators to increase water from 1 to 1.5, which with enough of them makes a very big difference.
For fuel refining, you can have it in a seperate loop off your main grid, just needs a water vaporator, fuel refinery and some form of power (solar, wind, or stirling).
Same for concrete, I have started to keep that seperate as well, which means you can get concrete from almost anywhere. I sometimes combine my concrete and fuel operations into the same area. Just moving a rover to them when they need maintenance and using a transport to move the maintenance goods they need to them, and take away the fuel/concrete back to my main base.
I like to play the Paradox start as it's a challenge, but it's practically impossible without some form of ground water to start with, you simply don't have the cash to buy the vaporators early on.
Ive had a admittedly quick look on surviving mars wiki and i don't see any mention of androids? I see clones though.
EDIT: Just see its the "The Positronic Brain" breakthrough.
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Man of Honour
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- 21 Nov 2004
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What are they not doing? Mine seem pretty active.
@CHokKA Is all the resources that the drones need for their work within the area that the drone station covers ?
Awesome man, thanks so much for the tips! As mentioned, I'm still finding my feet. I think that, as you say, separating stuff from the main grid is definitely the way to go. As with all games of this type (even though this is very different!), it's just finding what works and what doesn't.
Well, they're taking care of things in the area that they fall under, but I wasn't sure whether you could extend the range by using more hubs or RC rovers and then overlapping them. At the moment I'm finding that things closer to my dome aren't being dealt with because the resources needed fall outside of the direct area that the drones are in. Is it possible to get the transport rovers to automatically shift resources from one depot to another, or at least set up some sort of waypoint system?
@CHokKA Yes, you can set up your transport rover to deliver from A to B automaticly if you need lots of resources shifted. Later on you will get a research which you can make flying transport drones.
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Nov 2005
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Switches really do help I've now got 2 pipe/leccy lines going round my colony with switches along the way so I'm able to efficiently block the drain penalty.
Game is great fun though and very challenging even on ez modes, needs some quality of life adjustments though
I'd like to be able to drag and select a bunch of drones to assign them to a hub from a rocket instead of doing it 1by1 or at least a button from the rocket that lets you assign them to a hub
Would be nice if we could create sectors too so you could monitor resources per sector instead of as a whole for slightly less micro managing as it gets a bit annoying have to manually select each warehouse to see how much of each resource you have at specific areas on the map.
Or setup some kind of resupply system where your hauler will supply various hubs from a main hub only if those hubs go below a set threshold maybe ? Or have it as a research option
Game is great fun though and very challenging even on ez modes, needs some quality of life adjustments though
I'd like to be able to drag and select a bunch of drones to assign them to a hub from a rocket instead of doing it 1by1 or at least a button from the rocket that lets you assign them to a hub
Would be nice if we could create sectors too so you could monitor resources per sector instead of as a whole for slightly less micro managing as it gets a bit annoying have to manually select each warehouse to see how much of each resource you have at specific areas on the map.
Or setup some kind of resupply system where your hauler will supply various hubs from a main hub only if those hubs go below a set threshold maybe ? Or have it as a research option
Soldato
Said earlier that I was going to work on a mod.
However atm, working on adding shift patterns on the wind turbines.
However atm, working on adding shift patterns on the wind turbines.
Completed the first play through, in the sense that I done the Objective you got and the Mystery. I had the Mystery on random and game was nice enough to give me the hardest one, Marsgate. 
But as I mentioned earlier, I seen what that was about but if I hadn't I might been wiped out. As it was I lost ALL my vehicles, loads of other structures that needed to be rebuild, including a Fusion Reactor and some people suffocated due to that. 
And if you wonder why they suffocated, I also lost my drone station that was covering that particular Fusion Reactor, hence wasn't able to rebuild it in time. Next time I will make sure more then one drone station covering it. Learning experience I guess there. 
Now thinking if I should continue to get the milestones finished, which is 500 and 1000 colonists, Construct a Mega Dome and a Wonder. Or start over somewhere else and maybe do it there. The area I am on now is all flat, and found that a bit boring.
But as I mentioned earlier, I seen what that was about but if I hadn't I might been wiped out. As it was I lost ALL my vehicles, loads of other structures that needed to be rebuild, including a Fusion Reactor and some people suffocated due to that. And if you wonder why they suffocated, I also lost my drone station that was covering that particular Fusion Reactor, hence wasn't able to rebuild it in time. Next time I will make sure more then one drone station covering it. Learning experience I guess there. Now thinking if I should continue to get the milestones finished, which is 500 and 1000 colonists, Construct a Mega Dome and a Wonder. Or start over somewhere else and maybe do it there. The area I am on now is all flat, and found that a bit boring.
Man of Honour
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- 21 Nov 2004
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It is worth having a small overlap between drone controllers and sticking some resource storage in the overlap space - the drones are pretty good at sharing resources out. Shuttles help too, but they are quite costly to run.
What I find annoying is that you can't seem to set up a self sustaining colony in the long term without mods. Eventually all of the resources run out and the techs that enable you to gain a few extra resources don't provide enough without having to also ship more in from Earth.
Associate
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- 20 Apr 2008
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I found it annoying having to reassign drones manually till I realised that when you launch the rocket the drones automatically get assigned to the nearest hub