Cydonia or Bust

[silencer_pl]

So Paradox recently released a game about colonizing mars. I've sort of had this idea about it once it was released. With as little knowledge I had I tried to make this challenge of making a colony in the region of Cydonia - because where else would a X-COM fan plant a colony on Mars. And the only hint the game tell us where that base is, is the so called human face rock, that eventually turned out it was not a face - but we really know that it hides tychon gun to awaken The Sleeper.

I'm not sure how this will end up - both the challenge and this story, since I do not record it and just use some images as points of reference. Additionally I did not train very much before starting this challenge so I mostly don't know the tricks about this game and will just play with whatever the game will throw at me.

 

 

Right so before we hit the red planet, first we must configure who will sponsor us, commander profile, our logo, and a thing called mistery which is a little story twist thrown into the game.

From the sponsor list we have:

 

-International Mars Mission: basically setting for a wuss. Loads of money, loads of would be colonists, 5 rockets ready to be launched, rockets auto refuel and few more

-USA: And here we start with down to earth bonuses - 8,000M funding, 3 rockets, 300 research per cycle and we get more money as game continues

-Blue Sun Corporation: It's more about harvesting resources: 10000M grand, deep metal extraction tech, 2 rockets

-China: 8000M funding, rockets carry more people, and colonists wannabes are generated faster

-India: Starts with bigger domes, and buildings are 20% cheaper - 3 rockets

-Europe: 5 free techs at start and funding for research, 400 research points per cycle.

-SpaceY: Cheaper advanced materials, 5 rockets

-Church of the New Ark: Everyone is religous and people like to breed procreate more. No bonus research points from Earth - I guess you survive on prayer.

-Soviet UninonRussia: Bonus tech that allows to boost extractors with fuel and this upgrade is free. Rockets however take twice as long to reach Mars and Earth

-Paradox Interactive: Gives more breakthrough anomalies, and people like when we research those. Rockets however need 66% more fuel to lift off from Mars.

 

I'll be choosing Russia for this mission - it's the easiest of the hardest sponsors. Now for the Commander profile:

 

-Inventor: Drones will work faster and faster per sol up to sol 100. Also Drone hubs don't require maintenance and power - this save a lot of advanced resources.

-Oligarchy: 25% faster fuel production and Archology tech - residential spire for domes.

-Hydro Engineer: Nearest starting water deposit is revealed, domes use 25% less water and a tech that unlocks dome spire that reduces water consumption

-Doctor: Encourages colonist to make babies, bonus tech for longer life span

-Psychologist: +5 for sanity from sleeping. Technology that cures colonist flaws

-Politician: All fundings are increased by 20%. Starts with technology that grants money (repeatable)

-Futurist: Brakethrough research is faster by 30% and starts with tech that allows scanner towers to work without power and maintenance.

-Ecologist: Decorations are better by 10 and has Hanging gardens tech.

-Astrogeologist: Nearest rare mineral is discovered, extracting resources is 10% faster, has deep scanning tech.

-Rocket Scientist: Bonus Rocket, CO2 Jet Propulsion tech.

 

Generally all the bonus techs can be gained by anyone it's the matter of what you think would suit you better. Personally I think that only inventor is the best pick. Save resources on a building that you will have lots of, saves some power, and dronse will eventually bet better at building and repairing. All other bonuses are so little that you barely see them.

For the mission logo, we will of course use the one and only, and as for mysteries... They don't say a lot except some quote from famous person. For this mission I think that Marsgate sounds appropriate, which is described as:

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science fiction gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom".

 

Having all set, let's prepare our rocket: The Space Voyager.

 

 

From Prefabricated buildings, we will take fuel refinery and moisture vaporator. The first one will transform water into fuel and the second one will create 1 unit of water from atmosphere. This combo allows us to refuel the rocket. From other stuff we take RC Rover for mobile drone center, RC explorer for analysing anomalies, 4 additional drones, 15 units of polymers, machine parts and electronics. That completely fills 30000kg of rocket space and leaves us with 3.200M of funding that will be used for delivering more stuff when needed.

 

Once we've decided what will be taken on the first trip, now we select where to land. As you can see there are predetermined locations, but we can land almost anywhere on mars. So by looking at wikipedia I believe that this is the spot closest to the "martian face" rock and closest to the alien base on Cydonia. The exact coordinates on wikipedia are 40,75°N 9,46°W, but in game we can only move 1 degree at a time so I figure the maps are strechting 50 minutes left/right/up/down. Sectors are not generated, if you chose same sector again and again, you will have same layout, same spots for resources, the only thing that is random is tech tree, disasters, anomalies and would be colonists.

 

 

The place is chosen and we move to the region map.

 

The game gives you I think predefined spot that is good for starting colonies and provides a scan, revealing nearby resources. Our basic construction materials are concrete and metal. The first resource you get from the ground sulfur patches, that you scrub from the ground. Metal you get from lots of debris scattered around the map and from ground deposits. At start deposits can only be harvested by colonists - but there is tech that can replace the usage of human workforce. In any case our landing spot has decent amount of concrete and metal. In order to advance to other sectors we need to scan them. We can queue up to 5 sectors, which will be scanned one by one. Scanning speed can be increased by building scanner antenna, but it's range is just few sectors.

Next let's look at our available technology. Technology is divided into 5 main areas and 6th special breakethrough area. Breakethroughs are only received from anomalies. The 5 main areas are as follow:

 

-Biotech

-Engineering

-Robotics

-Physics

-Social

 

You can sort of guess which area will provide what type of research. The 5 starting techs game gave us are:

 

-Soil Adaptation - allows construction of farms. This is good as starting tech, without this you rely on meager Hydroponics farm, which produce very little food,

-Decommission Protocol - allows removal of salvaged/destroyed buildings.

-Low-G drive - faster drones and rovers by 25%

-Low-G turbines - Upgrade for wind turbines that increases production by 33%

-Productivity training - Engineers and Geologists work better.

 

Overall I find this pretty much decent starting tech tree. Decommission Protocal and Low-G turbines not that great at start but having this early on will help soon.

The best choice I think as first research would be Low-G drive - it will be quite a while since we get first colonists, so improving our drones that practically do everything - build, deliver materials, repair - so the faster they will deliver stuff, the faster everything will gets build.

 

Our starting location got an anomaly that granted 1000 research points, which means we almost instantly got those Low-G drives. This unlocked transport optimization, that improves our RC Transport, with faster load/unload and capacity.

 

But now for the basic base. First we need to gather some metals and build our first electricity buildings we have few choices.

 

-Small solar panel

-Large solar panel

-Wind turbine

-Sterling reactor.

 

Solar panels work only give power during day obviously they only require metal for production and metal for maintenance. Next is wind turbine - because it requires concrete you will probably never build it as first electricity generator unless you bring concrete from Earth on the first rocket. Wind turbines have elevation bonus and are more effective during sand storm. Our map is mostly above sea level and the majority of buildable area gives ~36% of bonus with base of 5 that gives almost 2 additional power - however maintenance requires machine parts, which we cannot produce so I think it's wise not to use wind turbines untill building a dome and puttting machine factory.

Sterling reactor is a little dome that hides sterling reactor - it can be deployed to provide 10 power, but is uses polymers as maintenance - another material that you will take from Earth for a while. Not only that, you can olny get them from prefabs or building after technology is gained. Solar panels also don't like dust storms.

 

So because most of the basic stuff requires 5 power, more than 1 large solar panel could be built. The final result of the first basic setup is like this:

 

 

Few solar panels, concrete extractor, moisture vaporiser, fuel refinery, scanning antenna and a battery or two, to keep those machines working during the night. We've also maanged to scan neighboring region revealing another layer of concrete, some metal deposit and rare metals. Rare metals are used for selling back on Earth and for producing electronic parts. Looks like a good spot for first dome to get those rare metals and get some money. Now we only have to find a water source.

[silencer_pl]

So right now we are a turtling stage. In order to expand, a drone hubs are required and those right now can only be brought back from Earth. We have second rocket waiting for orders, but right now, we have no right spot for expansion.

In the meantime our scans revealed few more anomalies. One that again boosted our research by 1000 points, meaning we get another free tech. Since it was from social tech tree - the one that provides +10 proficiency for Engineers and geologists, the next one in line provides more applicants on Earth.

The other anomaly just straight up provided 30 rare metals. Our rockets can carry back exactly that number, so when SV returns home, he will provides some additional funding. In addition to that, in the same area we found small deposit of polymers - that will come in handy

 

 

Our continues scans, reveal yet another anomaly. This one gave us a choice:

 

 

Both of them are long term reward, but as for now, we do not have the technology to mine deep resources, and faster research is always nice.

 

Two more Sols have passed, and there she blows:

 

 

We have found water, and it's relatively close. So let's prepare a second rocket named Zombie:

 

 

Zombie will bring 3 drone hubs, machine parts factory, a RC transporter, few drones, and some advanced materials as few polymers, electronics and more machine parts.

Meanwhile we've got the farms tech and a new anomaly for more research points got us that demolition protocol. This opens new tech: Hygroscopic Vaporators - increases effectiveness of vaporator by 50% and Low-G High-rise, allowing us to build apartments. The initial housing provides space for 14 colonists, Apartments provide housing for 24 colonists for the same area, at a reduced comfort, so that would be great to have before first colonists arrive.

 

 

Here be the place where our first dome will be built. Unfortunately small dome does not cover all the resources, so we get only 2 out of 3 deposists. However with the amount of people we can house and what we need, we will be able to only mine one deposit at a time, unless we have a tech nearby that allows automation of the extractors.

On Sol 8, we have launched SV back home and scanned another anomaly. This one gave us a very interesting breakthrough project: Project pheonix. It provides a 50% chance for a rebirth of dead colonist. The colonist will reborn as a new 18 year old person, with same traits. That's sort of pretty neat and should be also researched before senior colonists start to appear. Also after researching Low-G turbines, the next project in Phsyics department is Extractor amplification - +25% efficiency for 10 more power usage.

 

 

A little overview as we stand after 10 sols. Also as you noticed SV returned back to Earth earning as the profit of $660M. A chump change. Right now it is a race, who will bring the first colonists, but as it stand right now, we need more parts. That water deposit is in such a crater, that although it looks fairly accessible, we cannot create a direct pipeline to the spot where the first dome will be placed. So in order to construct it, we need more machine parts and a lot of them. 30 units in fact. Our Mars storage contains only 20, and we need spares fore new buildings and maintenance, so SV is once again tasked to deliver materials.

 

 

As you can see, our budget is mostly depleted - and if you thought that $3.000M is a lot of money - well guess again.

While we await new stuff our research finishes those new apartments. The next project in line in this tree is fuel compression. This allows us to carry 10,000kg of stuff. Considering our current budget, you can see that it's a 'meh' tech right now.

We are also now encountering our first "disaster"

 

 

As you probably saw on the description of landing site, we are in area, where cold waves will be pretty often. The effect of this disaster is that everything gets frozen - all electrical stuff will consume much more energy - drones will use 100% more power, buildings will use 66% more energy, our water tanks will freeze. That is unless we put a underground heater (which we do not have). The heater consumes 1 unit of water, and some electricity. The "fun" part of it, is that the bigger area it needs to heat up, the more and more power it needs to consume - the rise I believe is expotential - this might get a problem later on for machines that are human operated as not working machines will get frozen and can only start to work when cold wave passes and are repaired.

 

 

 

[silencer_pl]

Right now, we are currently not much affected by the cold wave. There is enough power to support extra drain, but just in case, let's build few wind turbines.

Again we are in waiting process. The place for dome is designated, and drones are now very hard working to deliver materials and we await for more materials to build that tunnel. In the meantime more research is done, thanks to the anomalies.

Upgraded transports are done, this provides with new tech: Drone Swarms. New hubs get +2 drones and can control 80 more - that would be total of 100 with this upgrade. Pretty neat but right now it's 'meh'. Also Live from Mars is finished which opens Mars Crowdfunding. A flat grant of $1.000M funding.

Some anomalies also open new avenues without the need of researching previous tech:

 

 

Here we get 2 techs. Explorer AI provides 100 research points per RC Explorer but with more explorers, the bonus is lower. I'm not sure how much, because I never needed more than 1 explorer. Pretty good stuff early in the game, this will boost our 200 points per sol to 300. So a 50% boost. The other tech reduces the amount of fuel rockets and shuttles require. Rockets need 20 less fuel. That's a lot.

 

 

And on sol 18, we have our first dome. It's empty right now, but once we get connection to water source, we can start bringing those colonists.

 

 

We also get another anomaly with a choice. A flat bonus of 1000 research points, or another 10% discount on Engineering. Long term research gain I think is a better option.

 

 

At sol 20, everything is set up. Water connection + water tanks, oxygen production via MOXIE and some air tanks. Let's construct some dome buildings for first colonists.

 

 

At sol 22, we have dome fitted with first basic stuff needed. Apartments, machine factory, farm, bar, grocer, and a park. So let's bring some people.

 

 

So this is the first set of colonists I've ordered. Engineers for the factory, geologists for the extractor, botanists for the farm. Of course we sure don't need lazy people, alcoholics, idiots and people that will die of poor health. Loners don't like population of 30+. Right now we are safe from that number, but still... we need people that are enthusiastic enough to work with other people.

 

 

And there we have it, on Sol 25 - first humans to set foot on Mars, starting the founder stage. This stage will last 10 Sols and until then no more colonists can be recruited from Earth. This is to validate is the colony sufficient enough to sustain human life. This of course can be boosted by getting the first Martian born. This can be achieved only if people are comfortable enough to procreate.

So again it's waiting time. More so, that we do not have cash for more stuff. However Mars crowdfunding soon will be performed, so soon a new supplies will be ordered. We need to have polymer and electronics factory to be more or less self sufficient.

During this wait, we have a special kind of anomaly:

 

 

A genius you say... Unfortunately the future says that this genius probably has a flaw that we currently don't like. The people filter back on Earth is not very friendly at finding that correct person, so we will probably not get that genius, or get him much later, because the way I see it, aplicatns on Earth don't age , while the people on Mars age quite fast. Algothough they say 1 sol = 25 Earth hours, it sort of looks like 1 Sol is also 1 colonist year, so I think a fresh Martian born colonists will last ~70 sols ?

In any case, more research is done. Explorer AI is done, that opens Drone Hubs. Instead of carrying prefabs from Earth we can now build our own, meaning we can expand faster and faster. The downside is, we need electronics to build those hubs, and since we cannot build electronics of our own right now, this tech will be postponed for later.

 

 

I think that the recruiters on Earth are a sloppy bunch. Quit whining people. I know that conditions are not great and there are not much of luxuries, but it's you who get to build a better life on Mars. That is unless the cold wave will not get you, or the meteor shower!

 

 

The first barrage of meteors landed slightly to the east of our electricity production area. I thought: "Ok, here you can strike as long as you like", but soon it happened:

 

 

First strike, directly at our solar panels and a battery. Well as long as it's one strike we can repair stuff. It requires two consecutive hits to completely destroy a building.

 

 

Then came another hit, and another and another, and one directly at the storage where fuel was, blowing that storage and few of our precious materials to kingdom come.

 

 

The final result of the meteor shower was completly destroyed solar panels and batteries, 2 improved wind turbines, fuel refinery, precious materials and a Drone called Jimmy. A minute of silence for Jimmy, he died trying to repair broken solar panel. And on top of that, someone cracked.

 

 

I was like, FU game - I know I'm playing on hard mode, but really... Anyway, it's a shame that because of that we don't get "foreign aid" like in Tropico. Fortunate I had enough spare materials to rebuild.

And with the crowdfunding done, I can order new materials and plan new dome. New tech available from social tree is: Earth-Mars initiative, which means +100 research points from the sponsor, which will up my daily points gain to 400.

 

 

So let's use those new funds, and bring more materials for the expansion.

 

 

Soon after the storm, our founder evaluation came to an end. The colony is now declared safe for human life.

[silencer_pl]

So, we finally have a foothold on Mars, more people can come, and we have sufficient enough resources to keep going and our research goes pretty steady. So before we continue let me explain how life on Mars works.

It all goes around work (obviously). Each building that can be manned is mostly divided into three 8h shifts: 8-14, 14-22, 22-6. Right now the only building that has 1 shift per Sol is farm. No one likes to work night shift.

During give shift, colonists eagerly work and each colonist can work only 1 shift. After they do their job, they do whatever they enjoy, so for example if engineers work from 6-14, then from 14-6 they eat, drink, sleep, exercise, shop, gamble, socialize. Each building has their own default productivity based on shift. For example Machine factory can produce 3 spare parts per shift providing that in current shift all slots are assigned and all workers work at 100% efficiency.

To get at least 100% you need to assign colonist with the right specialty. Then you calculate all the bonuses from tech, perks, flaws, morale. Morale I gather is the average of all other stats: Health, Sanity, Comfort. A morale of 50 is considered base line, so a moral of above 50 will yield bonus to performance while morale below 50 will provide perfomance loss. So a whole shift of right person with standard moral will yield 100% effectiveness of production. Additionaly we can set the current shift to heavy load which grants additional productivity. But only workaholics don't mind this.

 

 

Here we have example of my poor management on the geologists. At the time I was not aware, that the initial medical building helps restore sanity. Generally working outside the dome generates penalty of sanity of -10, while sleeping restores only 5. The initial building is called infirmaray which sort of I thought that it only takes care of physical problems, not mental. So right now, the geologists that work outside will suffer from mental breakdowns, untill I will fix this issue.

 

 

Other way to lose sanity is for example being a Gambler and going to the casino. The description says, that there is a chance, that gambler will lose 20 points of sanity when visiting the casino. Considering that I have no gambling structures I wonder how they managed to get this trait.

But such is life and we need to continue. More anomalies are explored.

 

 

Low-G Hydrosynthesis will allows us to build our own refinery and polymer factory a nice tech to grab, considering that we can boost our extractors with fuel, we could use more fuel production other than our single refinery for refueling rockets.

3D machining will allow us to build Machine factory.

 

 

At sol 38, we are provided yet with another mission task. Deliver 100 rare metals before Sol 100. Thanks to that previous anomaly we are sort of ahead. Not sure what happens if we fail, but we are slowly extracting some rare metals.

We also had that bonus research points from our sponsor and next in line is: Systematic Training - +10 performance for Scientists and Botanist. Our next dome will have some scientists and we already have botanists so this will be good thing to grab.

 

 

I didn't know Curiosity crashed in Cydonia

 

 

More tech to research. One allows deep scanning using orbital probes - it's a meh project right now and I think ever. Batteries improve drones working time before the need of recharging.

Also having finished Systematic Training, provides us with new tech: Martian Education - allows building universities to train Martians in desired specialization.

 

 

And speaking of Martians - on Sol 43, we have our first Martian. Martians will later become the true working force of Mars. Mars will then declare independence, Russia, USA and China, will not like this, and will stage an assault on Mars! Soon we will have our first Star Wars

Joking aside, our second dome is ready for new colonists.

 

 

Bring them to their new home Zombie. We also got new tech to research: Water Reclamation - a unique building that you build in the middle of the dome. This one will reduce usage of water. And we get another Breakethroug: Factory Automation - factories can be upgraded to reduce the needed workforce by 2.

 

 

However right now this upgrade is a bit costly - considering that it requires resources we have to order. And speaking of resources.

 

 

We need more, specially polymers which we right are at dangerous low levels - thanks to that meteor storm. We need that third dome, where we will be able to build our own polymers. The second dome will be building electronics, once I get some engineers there. As it stands now, Engineers are THE most needed colonist.

 

 

As time progresses, more anomalies yield more techs to uncover. Low-G fungi allows to build Fungi farm outside of the dome - pretty useless now since we have farms, unless it's those fungi that goes on Pizza - hmmm Martian Pizza...

The other tech decreases the amount of maintenance needed for in-dome buildings. Less resources spent is always nice.

 

 

More people on Mars!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[silencer_pl]

With new people on Mars and couple of scientists our research is now producing additional 306 science points per sol. It's not much but it's something. In addition to that we have found a brakethrough research: Zero-Space Computing that will further boost our research effort

On Sol 55 we yet again get a reminder of our mission evaluation. Already we have exported 81 rare minerals, so it's safe to say that we are safe with our mission goals.

Our development goes slowly but steady. New supplies are being order from Earth.

 

 

And also new tech is developed and with that new things come up, like Low-G engineering that allows to build medium sized domes, twice as large as standard, and twice as expensive - specially in the polymers numbers. We also are able to research smart homes. A super comfy housing with low power requirement comes in small and large size. Houses only 12 colonists though and consumes electronics on maintenance. Additionaly new anomalies yield to few other tech like Stirling generator. A generator that by default generates 10 power, but can generate 20 at a risk of higher maintenance - uses polymers. Other tech is subsurface heating.

 

At sol 72 we have our first death in colony, but this is that kind of death that everyone understands. One of the founder colonist dies out of old age.

 

 

But soon after that, a milestone is reached. 100 colonists are now on Mars.

 

 

Although it's a happy thing, the reality is more troubling. We are getting more people faster, than we have available space for them to live. However the plans for the medium dome are in motion.

 

On sol 85 our mystery quest has begun

 

 

Etherals they are coming for us :/ Let's hope some of the colonists smuggled some plasma weapons

It took them 5 sols to land on Mars:

 

 

And the even could be observed from the overmap.

 

 

It landend on opposite side of our colony and just peacefully roamed about.

 

 

However it looks like this is was just a scouting unit, as more soon are discovered:

 

 

Well now, if this isn't a silent act of war, then I don't know what it is.

 

 

I can't say no to more money, as our colony has some issues with material issues, sure we are producing our own, but we need constantly more and more and $500M for just a quick fix is quite a large sum. So right now we will go along. But just you wait...

 

In any case we are now past Sol 100, and as of that we are no longer in any obligation to Earth.

 

 

With that out of our way, we can now focus on our other problem.

 

 

If you had your doubts previously, now there should be none. A military vessel on a civilian project - that looks bad. We are of course going to fight them! Expose the Etherals!!!

 

 

It took Earth quite a while...

 

 

However this is not yet the end, because as we know, where diplomacy ends...

 

 

The missile turret costs only 1000 research points, so it's just 1 Sol to complete, however our material situation at that time was bad. Specially in electronics department, and those are required to build some towers. Additionally the turret can survive only 1 hit and needs to build rebuild. Their rovers on the other hand need a serious beating. Fortunately the AI was probably made on purpose bad.

 

 

The first attack came 2 Sols after our discovery of the Defense Turret however, all the enemy rovers landed on the opposite side, and it took them soooo long to get to our colony, and their priority 1 mission was to destroy our explorer rover and transport rover, which sort of gave our turrets free reign.

 

 

So we destroyed the first wave - the rovers that were destroyed beyond our drones reached were salvaged. They were good source of electronics. The ones that died in our base were repaired and served as additional fire power. They could also double act as a meteor defense. However the second wave has arrived. But soon it also failed.

 

 

Thus ending the mystery. Which I sort of was disappointed. I was personally hoping a mystery that was more related to Stargate rather then Watergate. But in any case, the colony survived Mars, survived evaluation and survived hostile takeover. To commemorate this achievement we have build a mega dome: Garden of Thorondor: