Surviving Mars

Welcome to Mars. It is up to you to create the first colony here with all the challenges that come with it. Is it meteor showers? Cold waves? Strange mysteries? No! It’s managing your colonists. Surviving Mars is a base building simulation game that, of course, takes place on Mars.

Find it on Steam.

There is a lot of options for Surviving Mars, so you can play it at a pace you like. For my first playthrough, I decided to go with an easier setting. This ended up quite easy, so I didn’t really struggle much. Still, it was a fun experience to just build the base you want.

To start off with, your main work force are automated drones and drone commanders. The drones gather surface materials, move materials around and build things. Without them, your colony isn’t getting off the ground.

Starting off, your options are limited to mostly basic things. And you’ll probably need a lot of help and resupplies from Earth to make things work. In normal mode, there’s no real ultimate goal. The game does have milestones, but it’s up to you if you want to do them or not. So how you want to play is up to you. There’s no other competitors out there (without the DLC) so it’s just your colony. Playing through the basic tutorial is a good idea, though they don’t give the most efficient advice.

To start a colony, you’re going to need domes for the colonists as well as air and water. Water can be created by harvesters or drilled for. Then you need materials to build things. Drones can only gather surface materials. To get to the real deposits, you’re going to need extractors and colonists to work them. There are three basic materials that you can mine on Mars: Concrete, Metal and Rare Metals. Then there’s food, which your colonists need of course.

Once you have the basics set up, you start with colonists.

I think the game is mostly accurate to current scientific theory and knowledge of Mars. The only real big departure are people living in domes. Current suggested living would be underground in lava tubes to protect against radiation. But domes are just cooler. Dome space is limited, though, at least until you get bigger domes, so you’ll need to figure out how to best place your buildings inside. I am not a good planner, so my domes are a mishmash of different goals.

Then once you really start rolling, it’s time to start making advanced materials from the stuff you mine on Mars. Of course, if you really need it, you can ship more from Earth, but that costs money. There are two main ways of making money. First is shipping back rare metals that you mine. Second is inviting tourists over! Yes, you can turn Mars into a tourist destination.

Don’t think everything is going to go smoothly though. Once per game (I think) there will be a major event that happens which shakes things up and requires you to actively try to achieve goals. It is different every time. Then there are disasters that can happen which tests how well you have prepared. If you haven’t, you might find a lot of dead colonists or renegade colonists.

For my first playthrough, taking it nice and easy is fun. It is a good way to experience the game, slowly building up your many domes. Maybe next time, I’ll try something harder. There is also a challenge mode for people that want concrete goals to shoot for. The game will work with many different play paces. Each playthrough will be a bit different since you can get random “Breakthrough” technologies, and not all of them are available each game.

One thing that is annoying is trying to manage the colonists. Trying to get the most efficient people to the right domes can be annoying. The most you have is dome filters, but then that sometimes causes domes to be overcrowded because everyone of the filter goes there regardless of space. I mostly just leave the colonists alone to do their thing and don’t worry about efficiency. As long as they’re happy enough not to cause trouble, that’s fine with me.

Another annoyance is connecting different domes together with passages. For some reason, passages can’t connect to the airlock. They have to start inside the dome and thus, take up building space.

So do you want to start a colony on Mars? Then Surviving Mars will be a solid fun experience that you can customize for your fit. Find it on Steam.

Here are some random tips I’ve learned to get you started. Power lines and supply pipes can occupy the same space. Certain short buildings can also fit under supply pipes. Buildings can connect to each other automatically. You don’t need a power line to every building. So you can have large solar panels places next to each other and only one cable to connect it elsewhere. Also, pipes can share water and air, which is great. There are some other stuff, too, that you can discover as you play.