Hello everyone, After the release of Surviving Mars: Relaunched, we made a choice to focus on the base game first — listening to your feedback and delivering a series of updates to make sure the foundation was as strong as possible. Lots of patches have happened (and you can read a summary of all of them here), with the latest one being 1.0.7, which included major changes.
That focus has meant shifting our attention to post-launch content a little later than originally planned. As a result, after many discussions, we are shifting the Feeding the Future content pack release to Q3 instead of Q2, which will let us stay focused on development and make sure that we provide a good experience for you. It was a hard decision to make, but we're confident it was the right call — and now we're fully focused on making Feeding the Future something you'll truly love.
To make sure you are in the loop and know what’s happening, we have prepared a Dev Diary with a sneak peek of what is to come, and you can read it below!
However, we also want to make sure that you will have a great time playing both the base game and our upcoming DLC, and for that, we want to let you shape the content with us - with the help of the Closed Beta program. If you want to help us get some feedback on the upcoming content, feel free to sign up, and you may become one of the participants!
Additionally, we want to assure you that we will continue working on the free patches to keep improving your experience and quality of life in the game. All the feedback you provide is highly appreciated and makes Surviving Mars: Relaunched better.
The changes planned for the free update and the “Feeding the Future” DLC are substantial, to put it mildly. There are drastic changes to research, services, and needs.
You will hear more about the changes to Food in a future dev diary.
The game has outgrown the old research system. We are building a larger system that supports more technologies and new choices. Expect a large number of new research techs as well.
The new system supports different research builds, and you can access some advanced technologies relatively early if you pursue them. To balance this, you will need to spend tech points, which are awarded when you reach ever-increasing research point thresholds. Getting all of the technologies is very expensive. Research is now about deciding which technologies you want to get first, and which ones to give up entirely in this playthrough.
Here is a teaser for the new system:
We weren’t satisfied with the service system or the amount of information you needed to track to keep your colonists happy. We have shifted to a different system in which services directly affect colonists’ stats.
The new system does not rely on visits. Each service type counts the number of colonists serviced, then averages the building effect across the entire population. As a result, both the quality of the service and the quantity (accessibility) are important.
For example, Parks improve colonists’ Sanity and Comfort. Gyms improve their Health and Comfort. Some buildings, like the Spacebar, reduce a colonist’s Sanity while greatly increasing their Comfort.
Different professions also affect which stats are lost: people working in extractors will lose Health every day, while colonists in research buildings will lose Sanity.
Colonists can use services in Domes directly connected to their own, but only if those services have excess capacity after colonists in that Dome have been serviced.
This change has significantly affected my gameplay, as I am more strategic about what I put into Domes, and the game feels new and unknown again.
Again, here is a teaser for you:
The changes to food come mostly from the DLC. In addition to the basic food, you will be able to produce Food Ingredients that flavor the food in the food service buildings. They are an optional way for your food to also give you stat bonuses to Health, Comfort, and Morale. Some of the Food Ingredients are produced directly as crops, some are a by-product of a crop (or an animal breed), and some can only be received from processing in a new building.
Having a lot of Food Ingredients will allow you to stack up quite hefty bonuses to your stats but will require a lot of production of these resources.
Additionally, expect new Food Service buildings, laws, and techs.
The changes in Politics feel much more subtle by comparison, but they are still impactful. You will now be able to vote on laws whenever you want, but you will still need to wait for new laws to be prepared. This will allow you to change your political system quickly while still slowly exploring its laws.
Big changes are coming to the game, and I hope you are ready for them. We are just getting started.
Keep your colonists safe and your colonies growing until you hear from us again!
The Haemimont Team
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