Mars Colonization not working. Am I missing something?

[CaptainUseless21]

Somewhat early into the game, I have secured a significant amount of boost, and am rushing to gain a headstart on the other factions by rushing to set up a basic outpost on Mars' most rich area. However, despite having probed the planet, got the Mission to Mars tech, and even set up a space station in orbit, there is no button letting me set up an outpost or even see how much I need to do so. I'm clearly missing something, but a look through the tech tree hasn't given any clues. Are there other requirements besides the tech? Or is my game bugged?

[ulzgoroth]

Do you have the outpost technology developed? That's the obvious thing you could be missing (assuming you haven't already outposted the Moon.)

[Cloudhunter]

Regarding the source you need:


Mission to Space
Outpost Habs (Outpost Core)
Advanced Electromagnetism
Mass Drivers
Space Mining and Refining (Outpost Mining Complex)
Platform Core
Nuclear Fission in Space (Fission Pile, unlocked by this tech and Platform core), to mine on Mars.

https://steamah.com/terra-invicta-how-to-get-started-with-mining-in-space/

follow this guide and it should work.
(At least i did in my case.)

[ulzgoroth]

You'd be able to build the outpost without having platform core (though you've got that), or nuclear fission in space.

It wouldn't be possible to power the mine with only solar power on mars though. Not with an outpost only having room for three solar panels.

[CaptainUseless21]

Originally posted by Cloudhunter:

Regarding the source you need:


Mission to Space
Outpost Habs (Outpost Core)
Advanced Electromagnetism
Mass Drivers
Space Mining and Refining (Outpost Mining Complex)
Platform Core
Nuclear Fission in Space (Fission Pile, unlocked by this tech and Platform core), to mine on Mars.

https://steamah.com/terra-invicta-how-to-get-started-with-mining-in-space/

follow this guide and it should work.
(At least i did in my case.)

Huh. All that tech in complete. I'm looking at the tree right now. Only thing I have not completed is the Fission Pile project, but that shouldn't prevent me from setting up an outpost, especially when I have one on the moon already.

[Lovecraft]

Silly question: has the probe actually reached Mars?

[CaptainUseless21]

Originally posted by Lovecraft:

Silly question: has the probe actually reached Mars?

Well. Turns out that was the problem. I launched the probe a few months back, and when looking at Mars, saw that it had estimates available. That lead me to the mistaken conclusion that it was done, but upon farther examination, it says the survey is not yet finished, so that must have been the problem all along. Sorry for wasting anyone's time, it looks like my dumbassery is to blame here. There's a reason my username is Captain Useless lol.

[Lovecraft]

I've seen other posts with the same issue. That button should always be visible, just disabled.

[wmslone]

Originally posted by Lovecraft:

I've seen other posts with the same issue. That button should always be visible, just disabled.

This is one major way they could make the ui more user friendly. A lot of the time when you can't do something you're given no indication why, and it can be quite confusing and will lead some people down a rabbit hole trying to figure it out when it's usually something very simple like this. Another example is when your agent can't perform a certain mission in a country, and it won't even let you select the country to view missions. Turns out this is usually due to certain traits and the relations of the nations from which the agent originates, or something along those lines, but it's not at all intuitive. Far simpler would be to allow the user to select the country, have all the missions grayed out and a tool tip pop up detailing why that agent can't perform missions there. Same thing with establishing outposts or anything in space, keep the ui uniform (core function buttons should always be there) but tell the player when and how they can and can't use them. I think this would be a quick way to clear up a lot of peoples frustrations with the ui without requiring any kind of major redesign (which I don't think it needs).