As Surviving Mars—Paradox Interactive and Haemimont Games’ smart turn to the city building game – celebrates its three-year existence today, it gets new life in the form of a new developer (Abstraction Games), a new extension comes later this year, and two new updates fall today (a free tourism update and a paid buildings suit). And did I mention that the game itself is free?
Go to the Epic Games Store, where you can find the basic version of Surviving Mars for the low price of nothing. You have until Thursday 18 March 08:00 ET to take advantage of the deal, after which the price is likely to rise to its normal $ 30. to transform a habitable environment, and I feel like I did not even scratch the surface of the game.
And if you really sink into the game every now and then, you can also pick up its expansion packs at a discount:
However, you do not need them to get started. You will spend a lot of time figuring out how Mars infrastructure works in your few plays. Consider grabbing the extensions once you have optimized a plan and are ready to tackle more twists and challenges; otherwise, if you give up because Mars is a fairly hostile environment, you will have no cash.
The first mods you want for Mars
Speaking of, Surviving Mars support modding, and there are a few that you can consider picking up, even for your first time. This is very easy to do if you buy the game on Steam; otherwise you want to use the mod driver in the game or grab Nexus’ Vortex mod manager to keep track of everything as the Epic Games store does not support mods for the game.
G / O Media can get a commission
Was I playing again – and I probably will, if the new expansion falls first, or if I ever get tired of Dyson Sphere program – here are the mods I would use on Mars:
Most of ChoGGi se QoL mods: ChoGGi has a ton of different mods for Surviving Mars, and some of them will not make sense to you unless you play the game a little. Once you are ready to get started with modding, I first go to the quality of life collection; mods that will enhance your gaming experience without you being able to cheat. You still want some kind of Mars challenge, right?
However, you can start with that this one, which is the annoying “Welcome to Mars!” disable voice-over when you start a new game. And this one, which lets you fly a small drone near you to keep you company. Mars can become lonely (at least at first).
The Wait for load mod is also great if you want to start the game and go away for a coffee or a bio break while it loads. I also like the Better zoom distance mod, with which you can, well, zoom out much more than the game allows you by default. It is ideal for basic planning or if you just want to sit back and admire your work. While you are busy, grab the NASA logo mod so you can beautify your rockets with a fire-safe image.
If you really want to transform your game, go check it out Silva’s mod collection. Some of these new buildings and adaptations feel a bit cheat-y, so I recommend checking them out after you have had some ‘hard’ plays – otherwise known as ‘the suffering from your first few attempts to Mars’ survive if you have no idea what you are doing. Once you get past that point and you really start to care about your stats, a mod like More information can help you really optimize your Spartan Mars life.
Drone balancing with drone is a great way to automatically assign your mechanical helpers in areas that need more help, and away from those that do not. (You will understand what I mean once you have played the game a bit and dealt with the tedious printing like this by hand.) And while you are busy, grab Less clicks for mass supplyalso live the easy life on Mars. Reminds me, you will want better Mars radio stations to listen to as well.