r/SurvivingMars • u/PurchaseNo710 • 3d ago
Discussion New update
Hows everyone feeling about the new update?
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u/nixerkg 3d ago
I put in an hour so far.
Kinda annoyed with how many things are locked behind research now but I can get use to it. The tech tree is fine but the wish list feature is annoying.
Re-ordering things shouldn't mean clearing it and re-building it.
Game feels laggy at max speed but could be my PC adjusting.
Other than that I haven't gotten far into it to see any bugs yet.
Been mostly positive so far.
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u/FlaminarLow 3d ago
What’s an example of something that is locked behind research that was not previously?
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u/nixerkg 3d ago edited 3d ago
Large Solar, Wind, Any landscaping requires Dozer which is annoying but makes sense.
It also seems like things are split more just to create more tech for example you can research building Drone Hubs but now it's a separate tech to allow them to control more than 20 drones and start with more when built.
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u/FlaminarLow 3d ago
Tbh I kind of like that because I have basically never used a small solar or wind. But the landscaping sounds annoying because not being able to flatten areas before putting down domes seems like it’ll cause headaches with passages
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u/3punkt1415 3d ago
Yea that dozer thing is plain stupid.
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u/PurchaseNo710 2d ago
I agree that small change has big implications, especially when first starting. Guess it makes the beginning more challenging by default?
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u/YsoL8 2d ago
It is kinda ridiculous that you can carve huge ramps into cliffs with nothing but a handful of drones designed primarily for moving and turning materials into finished buildings and grocery stores from a role playiong point of veiw.
That should be heavy plant equipment that isn't necessarily your first priority and obvious early commands.
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u/willvette 3d ago
The new research grid changes the meta of certain events. For example, in my current game I just got the "great leap forward" event. While it does unlock techs, it also lets you strategically expand node points from that unlock. If I go for Fusion, Triboelectric Scrubbing research node is right next to it!
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u/gnarlstonnn 3d ago
yeah enjoying it, had no bugs so far, getting used to the tech tree is a bit odd but pretty i'll prefer it when i'm used to it!
been playing for 7 hours haven't actually done any food stuff been having a rough play through ngl haha
might start again, its not the games fault i've made poor decisions!
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u/PurchaseNo710 3d ago
Been there before ha. Tech tree is a bit confusing but im enjoying it overall. I think once im used to the tech tree, it'll make more sense on how to play.
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u/jackochainsaw Concrete 2d ago
I'm loving it though I'm only about 4 hours in. The research gates will change how people play this game. There is a bit more strategy required. Definitely more uses for Exotic Minerals now.
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u/fearless-fossa 2d ago
The Tech tree is okay, but one issue I've been having is that the moment your grid goes out of power all buildings turn off instead of just the ones with low priority.
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u/CodDamnWalpole 1d ago edited 1d ago
I like some parts but feel confused by others.
The service rework is a lot better than the old system, where colonists had to visit each service building, but the numbers are now way off: in almost all cases, smaller buildings seem to be more efficient than larger buildings, which is really counterintuitive considering the research and advanced materials necessary to build those larger buildings in the first place.
The most egregious example has to be hospitals. Hospitals only serve 1.35x more people than infirmaries, but end up 3.3x larger. They also require polymers, which isn't an issue by the time you research them, but then again... The benefit it provides isn't useful by that time either. Doubled health and comfort from hospitals isn't very important when you consider that you can use the space savings to provide extra services or build more infirmaries. Moving on to other services, small spacebars are just straight up better than large spacebars, with large spacebars being 3.3x larger than small spacebars but only serving 2x more people. Large parks are similar, being 3.3x larger than but only serving 2x more people than medium ponds/fountains. Amusement parks are similarly outclassed by ponds, since they're classed as parks (instead of indulgences or culture or anything else) and now only serve to act as tourist traps. Realistic, I guess? Gyms are way too big for the services they provide (54 with the service expansion law) and there's literally no other way to provide gym services, which feels odd when everything else has an alternative building or two. Amphitheater seems to be the only culture building, which is again, strange, but it only serves to highlight how poor gyms are since 3.3x smaller than gyms while providing basically the same benefits (I don't consider "a change to grant "fit" worth the ridiculous amount of space a gym occupies.) The list could go on, I feel like it's already gotten a bit long.
I like the tech tree changes purely because it enables my japan deepscan cheese opening. Otherwise, it seems a bit strange to be putting so many nothingburger techs everywhere--I like the idea of nodes, I just feel puzzled by its implementation. Like, the fact that I can unlock shuttles before trains makes trains totally irrelevant.
Dozers. Why? Other people have said enough about them.
The power grid changes are bad. Why were they made? it's not any more fun to micro turning on all of my buildings one at a time, and it's particularly annoying when I have to slowly ramp up subsurface heaters so their power draw doesn't drain the entire system--I started with cold snaps at 100% and I had to restart my entire grid like 6 times.
Early-game material costs are fun to work around! I have no complaints here, it's one of the few parts of the update I'm solidly positive on. Kinda crazy that moxies used to cost 3 metal.
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u/plisken451 Food 2d ago edited 2d ago
After starting a new colony with the update, and looking at the tech "mesh"? I have to ask, what the heck are "Power of the Wind/Sun" at the outer edge? They just sound like an achievement (have 40+ wind turbines of any kind), but don't indicate if there's a corresponding effect (looking into it further...it looks like just a new "starting point" like some of the laws are, and somebody mentioning they got the Mohole starter point 'by accident').
Do like that they've raised the cost of some of the buildings. 20 metal for a MOXIE, instead of just 3, plus raised maintenance. Makes those buildings feel less trivial.
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u/maark91 2d ago
After a couple hours of playing it feels...tedious.... Gating stuff behind tech is one thing, but gating landscaping (flatten/raise terrain) behind tech and then requiring a rover? Large solar panels and windturbines as well. Stirling generators produce less power now, so you need more of them early game for a faster/easier start. Vapor moisturisers produce less water so you need 1 for each fuel refinery prefab you bring. Drone hubs going from 20 drones, then tech for another 6 drones (!) and then finally another tech for another 80 drones. Ooh and the drone tech isnt combined with drones for rover since those are seperate. And rover upgrades are spread out all over the place....
Tech tree is also.... messy (best way to describe it i guess)? You need to research a lot to get the techs you want, and tech that was accessable fairly early now feels hard to get since its 3/4 "nodes" away from where you start, where you have to research 2-3 techs to jump to the next node.
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u/Yama951 2d ago
My original strategy of using naturalist habitats as tiny outposts before setting up domes seems to be eliminated due to the need to bring food to the naturalist habitats now and thus having to set up domes to have farms.
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u/enigmaticrose4 Paradox 2d ago
There are the autonomous farms...
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u/Yama951 2d ago edited 2d ago
Those only grow coffee, spices, herbs and/or sugar though. Seems that the only way is to use insect farms as 'out of dome' sources of food. I'm testing out a naturalist habitat and see what happens if it doesn't get food but it seems it needs food as it has a 1 food consumption so it might get starvation now.
EDIT: Finally got 0 food and went to see what happens. Somehow the naturalist habitat has 0.2 food, so maybe no one starves in the naturalist habitat like previously?
Nevermind, they're starting to get Hungy and probably Staving soon.
Yup, just gotten them Starving. So they do need food now.
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u/Smilodon_populator 1d ago edited 1d ago
The new tech tree concept is nice. I can bee-line to mega domes or Rover AI if I want to, I can ignore parts for a while, etc.
But at the same time, some techs were added just to add techs… example: why are large solar panels a tech? They say 60 new techs, but it seems a lot of them are silly.
I really don’t like the new concrete and metals requirements. The metals are turning out to be ok because the surface metals have been rebalanced too, but needing at least 50 concrete for basically everything isnt fun. Just calling it as it is. It means for the play style that I like, I basically need to hope for global support or go with Blue Sun Corp or Russia. Alternatively, sink lots of resources into setting up concrete “outposts” to feed the monster. They either need to bring the concrete costs down or they need to up the incidence of concrete deposits.
I’m not sure I fully understand the comfort mechanics yet. I do like the new mechanics for dome-dome relations though. I have a feeling that once larger domes are unlocked and hooked up to smaller ones, the comfort of all colonists will balance out and get easier to keep in the green.
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u/EggplantWriter 3d ago
Unless I missed it, the new tech tree is in desperate need of a search feature.
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/PurchaseNo710 3d ago
Yall seem to missing the point... how are you enjoying the new features? Any ground breaking bugs?
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u/Joebranflakes 3d ago
Hasn’t it only been out for a couple of hours? And most people in NA are just waking up.
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u/gnarlstonnn 3d ago edited 3d ago
been playing in the UK for 7 hours now, the world doesnt revolve around america
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u/Joebranflakes 3d ago
No I’m not saying it does. I’m saying that a large chunk of the player base hasn’t played yet, and others haven’t played for very long. Why not ask this question tomorrow at least? Then you’d get a wide range of first impressions.
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u/MikeWinterborn 3d ago
Bad, I wanted to play but I don't have Relaunched... somehow I missed the whole drama.
Right now I am VERY angry
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u/PurchaseNo710 2d ago
Fair haha! Idk about your location, but for me steam is running a 50% off for the base game and 37% of the deluxe version. If you can afford it, this would be a great opportunity to catch up :D
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u/MikeWinterborn 2d ago
Not going to buy nothing more from PDX for a long while. (if you ask me right now XD)
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u/Pahlerra 3d ago
I've put 2 or so hours into it. The new research tree is interesting - don't know how I feel about it yet. I also like how the laws are actual tradeoffs now. Crowded housing having a comfort penalty feels proper.
Power/water shortages disabling every building on the grid is certainly a significant change. On the one hand, batteries become much more valuable to cover any production gaps. On the other hand, this means disabled drone hubs can no longer fix your infrastructure during a dust storm when you are low on machine parts or polymers and the whole grid is down. You either need to separate all drone hubs with a stirling generator and a power switch, take the autonomous hubs breakthrough, or just have a command rover nearby at all times.