surviving-mars game sourced
Surviving Mars
A Mars colony city builder in which drones build power, water, and oxygen networks before colonists with traits arrive in domes, while research, Earth sponsors, and dust storms, meteors, and cold waves shape survival.
parts
16 mechanics, as Surviving Mars does themcore · 4
Fluid pipe networks
Water and oxygen travel by pipe from extractors and producers to domes.
Hauling jobs
Drones within a hub's range carry resources, build, and maintain buildings.
Power grid
Generators and batteries feed cable networks to domes and buildings; a dome without power, water, or oxygen cannot sustain colonists.
Tech tree
Research spans physics, engineering, social, biotechnology, and robotics fields.
supporting · 12
Building placement
Modding API
An official mod editor with Lua scripting.
Mood and breakdowns
Unhappy colonists may become Earthsick or rebels.
Needs decay
Comfort, sanity, health, and morale change with services and events.
Pause and speed control
Personality traits
Colonists have traits, flaws, and specializations that suit them to jobs.
Planetary climate
Green Planet (2019) adds terraforming of atmosphere, temperature, and water.
Random disasters
Dust storms, meteor storms, cold waves, and dust devils.
Resource extraction
Metals, rare metals, concrete, and water are extracted; rare metal exports fund imports.
Service coverage
Drone hubs and dome services serve within a range.
Triggered event chains
Mysteries run storylines such as plagues, rival corporations, AI revolts, and alien contact.
Wear and breakdown
Buildings need drone maintenance to keep working.
watch
1 short with this record on screen
play · 0:38short 8 0:38
City builders don't tell stories
transcript
Only one game in our catalog lets you place buildings and also runs chains of story events: 77 games do the first, 17 the second.
In Cities: Skylines, a district built all at once grows old all at once. Decades later its residents die in a wave, and the hearses back up. The game treats it as a services problem. Nothing tells you a story about any of them.
The exception is Surviving Mars, which lays authored mysteries like plagues and AI revolts over a colony you lay out yourself. Even there, the mysteries are layered on top of the colony.
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core loop
land rockets with drones and prefabs -> drones build power, water, and oxygen infrastructure -> build domes and bring colonists from Earth -> colonists' traits, comfort, and sanity drive work and stability -> research and export rare metals for funding -> weather disasters and Mysteries
design notes
Surviving Mars splits construction from population: drones working within range of hubs build and maintain everything, and colonists arrive only after domes have power, water, and oxygen. Colonists carry traits, flaws, and specializations and track morale, comfort, sanity, and health, so dome services decide whether they work, turn Earthsick, or rebel. Mysteries layer authored storylines (plagues, rival corporations, AI revolts, alien contact) on top of disasters such as dust storms, meteors, and cold waves.