Surviving Mars is the latest city-builder from Haemimont Games, the talented developers behind Tropico 3-5. Surviving Mars swaps the lush, vibrant islands of Tropico - now also available on Android - for the dusty, desolate landscape of Mars. this Surviving Mars guide will outline some crucial tips that all players, new and old, should keep in mind when trying to conquer the new Martian frontier.

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As with any city-builder, it can be hard to know where to start, the best mission setup, what to build first. The limited resources, frequent meteor showers, and vast tech-tree can make Surviving Mars overwhelming at first. Our Surviving Mars tips will have your colony up and running in no time.

Updated April 22nd, 2021 by Issy van der Velde: Haemimont Games keeps providing updates, so we need to make sure our Surviving Mars tips are up to date. The newest game update adds more in-dome buildings and has completely overhauled the Tourist system, so you can now fund your colony in new ways.

12 Pick The Right Mission Sponsor And Commander

the mission sponsor and commander profile page in surviving mars

Who you choose as a mission sponsor will affect each playthrough hugely. While the game presents all of them with a handy difficulty ranking — from easy to hard — it is worth learning the specifics of each. Each sponsor offers different starting technologies, research, and rare metal prices — a resource you mine and sell to fund your colony. Your mission commander also offers different bonus tech or perks, such as increased building durability or an extra rocket. Picking Europe and the rocket scientist should provide a good level of challenge without being too hard or niche, so go for that if you're trying the game out for the first time.

11 The Colony Sites Are Not Randomized

the colony selection orbital map of mars in surviving mars

Given the sheer number of possible landing sites (50,901), you’d be forgiven for assuming they’re all random, as it’s unlikely you’ll pick the same location twice. However, each location and its breakthrough technologies are predetermined. They do sometimes change when Haemimont rolls out an update though. This means if you’re playing for one specific breakthrough and you don’t find it, you’ll have to try another map. Only enabling the randomized technology rule will alter breakthroughs on identical coordinates. If you want to use Surviving Mars' best mission setup, you'll have to work out what site has the most relevant breakthroughs for your chosen mission.

10 Organize Resources Early

an example of a very early colony in surviving mars, consisting of a rocket, some solar panels, and a concrete extractor

This might sound obvious, but certain systems in Surviving Mars interact in very damaging ways. All extractors emit dust, something that will degrade all surrounding buildings. What's even worse is that they also lower the productivity of any air-based systems, such as MOXIE filters and moisture vaporators.

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Because of this, it's best to ensure your solar farms and domes aren’t right next to your water extractors. Also, moisture vaporators should be kept apart, otherwise, they lower each others’ efficiency.

9 Overlap Drone Hubs And Resource Piles

a drone hub in surviving mars overlapping another, with a resource stockpile in the middle

If you’ve ever found yourself staring at an incomplete building and screaming at your incompetent drones who, for some reason, just won’t gather the necessary resources, it’s probably actually your fault. Drones can only work within range of their hubs, so if you build hubs with no cross-over, you’re essentially creating isolated clusters rather than a unified colony. Overlap each edge of a Hub’s area with the next, and create resource piles in these overlaps. Set each resource to a minimum of five and you should never have construction issues again.

8 Start Terraforming Early

a lake surrounded by trees in surviving mars
Surviving Mars_20210102145300

Anyone currently watching The Expanse will know that terraforming Mars is no easy task. It is a long, generational process. As such, it's best to start as soon as possible. You should be building a fuel refinery for your rockets pretty early on, so also consider building GHG factories to use your fuel stores and warm up the planet. This will allow you to create lakes sooner, which in turn allow for more advanced forms of vegetation. Atmosphere is trickier, and something best left to the mid-game, but temperature can be started almost immediately. Your colonists will thank you for it, as higher temperatures will lead to less cold snaps.  If you want a game all about temperature management, check out the latest DLC for Frostpunk.

7 Get Shuttles

two shuttles flying past each other over forrested terrain in surviving mars

Everyone loves the cute little drones. They certainly try their best, bumbling along, resources held high above their little heads- but, they aren’t that fast, and will quickly cause delays once your colony spans more than a few sectors.

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Shuttles quickly fly resources and people any distance, making Martian traffic jams a thing of the past. To unlock shuttles, you’ll need to build a shuttle hub, available after you’ve researched the CO2 Jet Propulsion tech in the engineering tree.

6 Connect One Residential Dome To Two Work Domes

a medium sized colony in surviving mars, consisting of three interconnected domes and a life support system

Colonists in Surviving Mars are somewhat lazy. Not what you’d expect from people destined to expand the reach of the human empire out into the unknown. As a result, you have to ensure they don’t need to travel too far for work or services. All colonists will travel one dome away, no more. A good Surviving Mars tip is to have as large a dome as possible designated for living and recreational space, with one dome attached to either side purely for work. This way, even if you need more workers in the outer domes, they’ll be willing to travel to the inner dome to grab a drink or hit the gym.  If you want the best farming setup, check out this guide.

5 Leave Heaters And Lasers Off To Save Power

an MDS laser outside of a dome in surviving mars

Heaters and lasers are necessary for staving off cold waves and meteor showers respectively. The drawback is, they require a lot of water and power to function, which can cripple other systems. Only activating them during their relevant crisis will help you to manage your resources more efficiently, and should help keep precious battery reserves up. The game comes with the option to turn all buildings of the same type on or off with just one button, so it’s nice and easy. Turn the buildings on a day or so before the disasters hit though, as they’ll often break when switched off for long periods and it'll take a day for your drones to repair them.

4 Build Multiple Extractors Per Deposit

four rare metal extractors near one deposit in surviving mars

Unlike other city-builders, where resource deposits can only be gathered with one building at a time, Surviving Mars allows you to stack as many extractors as you can over the same resource. This is essential for all budding Martian tycoons.  Stacking extractors is a great way to get large stores of water or concrete quickly and good for giving jobs to any unemployed colonists. This does mean more power, waste, and resources to move, so ensure all your extractor clusters have good drone coverage. This is the best setup for resource deposits, even if it is a bit expensive to start.

3 Buy Research

buying research on the resource screen of surviving mars

Research is almost a hidden resource in the game. Technologies start at 1,000 research but end up costing over 10,000 in the late-game. There are a few things you can do to increase the amount of research you get above the base your sponsor provides. Investing in Explorer AI in the robotics tree will provide bonus research based on how many explorer rovers you have. If you have the cash to spare though, consider just outsourcing your research. $1 billion will net you an extra 1,000 research per day for five days. Having Science Labs and Hawking Institutes will also massively boost your research.

2 Use Features Added In New Updates

a tv studio in a dome

Haemimont is constantly offering DLC and updates for Surviving Mars. The most recent update focuses on tourism but also adds some new in-dome buildings for you to try out. If you're trying to increase your population size, use the new Large Nursery. Want some more entertainment that doesn't lead to drinking or gambling? Add a TV Studio Workshop — NASA played the Surviving Mars theme song during the Perseverance stream, maybe your Martians heard it too? Now, you can even make rover safaris that can take people around your colony's most interesting sights. Check out DLC and updates often and make the most of the new things on offer, they often help make old game mechanics more user-friendly or easier.

1 Build Tourist Domes

a dome under cnstruction

Building space in Surviving Mars can be limited, especially inside the domes. If you want a great Surviving Mars tip, build a dome specifically for tourists. Fill it with hotels, bars, zero-G amusement parks, everything a Martian tourist could possibly desire. This will help you maximize the amount of space available for hotels while only needing one apartment building for service staff. This should help your tourism rating, and the bonuses that come with it.

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