Mars Bases Plan Advice Wanted (Spoilers)

[BanDHMO]

So, I made it to Mars, and looks like I oversaved boost, which is a good problem to have. In current planet position and with my tech, it costs about 11 Boost to send a Hab to Mars.

I can potentially put down 3-5 more habs to block competitors, or focus on fewer bases to bring them online and producing sooner.

I'm also not sure what proportions of space resources I should be looking for.

What would you do? Which sites would you try to grab?

PS: I already have a hab on Luna with 10 Basic Metal and 12 Fissiles.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2878644156

[Calv]

I'd definitely consider grabbing any high resource sites if you have the spare boost and mission control, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. Can always capture them later with marines.

I tried not to have too many bases on Mars, didn't want all my eggs in one basket if someone decides to attack. Think I have two on there, plus an orbital and then spread the rest of my mining around the nearby asteroids and then later into the belt.

[ArcticISAF]

Promethei and Tyrrhena seems to stick out to me. Fissiles at one and noble metal/metal at the other, though up to you. Make sure you have at least one mining complex/power set up at one base, as you can build more outposts from just the mining complex - drastically shorter time. Downside is others may claim in that timespan… but can just send the outpost part from earth after you ship the mining parts.

Edit: changed acadalia to promethei, just a little bit less fissiles with promethei but I think better

[Soylent_Greene]

I have built my mine on Olympus Mons in my game.

Have the Tier III base center, and just finished building 2x Nanotechnology Habs (Tier III), so I am using MARS to build up my 2 Orbitals at LaGrange 1 & 2 above MARS for ship build/repair/resupply.
I also grabbed up Deimos & Phobos mines (made the mistake of using early automated mines, you cannot upgrade them, so I am using the Olympus FABS to built entirely new Outpost HABS),
Have been using my councilors to run around busting CP sites, weakening the enemy humans.

Wondering if I am doing it wrong.

[Barleyman]

You're hemorrhaging water and volatiles and thats something you will always need.

I'd recommend Promethena and Tyrrhena as well. So I'd start with that and get water if you can afterwards. Game has soft cap on mining, you have to start paying extra MC after dozen locations but "Mars" counts as one location, so..

Mercury is also a priority, crazy solar power and metals you can sell for money.

[Mistfox]

Block your enemies first, you can develop the sites later or do low level production. A single mine mining a little bit of all resources will help a lot later when you have a decent stockpile so it's not all or nothing. So have one mine that is a jack of all trades, then use the rest of the Boost to block your enemies for future production.

Tyrrahena is a good option for your production base, a mine there would be enough to sustain a low level presence for years.

Or if you really want to be a real ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, build a construction module there and use the resources to build habs on ALL the sites instead of using boost lol.

[BanDHMO]

Thank you all for the responses. Tyrrahena it is for the first mine, then.

What I'm not following is whether it's a good idea or not to try to dominate the good locations on Mars.

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Or if you really want to be a real ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, build a construction module there and use the resources to build habs on ALL the sites instead of using boost lol.

Do I want to, though? As the Initiative, I'd have no problem pulling a fast one on the other factions, but on some level it doesn't seem to be worth it. There's no way build a construction module will be fast enough to stop all others from grabbing some Mars sites, so we are not talking about completely excluding them, just keeping them from the best sites. The asteroid missions should eventually open up many more locations for them, so I'm sure ultimately everybody will be in space and there's nothing I can do about it short of burning down Earth.

On the other hand, trying to keep others out will delay my first jack-of-all trades mine (135 Boost, dang!).

And then there's this mysterious warning I've heard time and time again about "not putting your eggs in one basket". Short of planet-killing weapons, I'm not sure how it's safer to have your mines scattered among a bunch of asteroids versus all being on Mars, but maybe I should take your guys' word on it and try not to be too Mars-heavy. It's pretty hard to justify that, at least compared to Luna, the Mars yields are very nice.

[ArcticISAF]

I personally do not think spreading all your mines is necessary. Outposts on Mars I left naked, settlements I stuck two layered defences on but still no attacks have ever come (2046 now and aliens are boned). I own 15/16 of the sites, left the resistance to own one (my buddies as HF). I did capture a couple asteroids, but that's because of the great noble metal income at one (like 60 or something) and maybe a couple others were decent enough.

If the aliens did come, you can set up a small garrison fleet to shoo away light attacks, defences should also help in dissuading them. They only bugged me at Earth (normal difficulty).

Unless it's been changed, you can build outposts/mining complexes on-site if you have a mining complex on that solar body operating. Construction modules aren't necessary until later.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by ArcticISAF:

I personally do not think spreading all your mines is necessary. Outposts on Mars I left naked, settlements I stuck two layered defences on but still no attacks have ever come (2046 now and aliens are boned). I own 15/16 of the sites, left the resistance to own one (my buddies as HF). I did capture a couple asteroids, but that's because of the great noble metal income at one (like 60 or something) and maybe a couple others were decent enough.

If the aliens did come, you can set up a small garrison fleet to shoo away light attacks, defences should also help in dissuading them. They only bugged me at Earth (normal difficulty).

Unless it's been changed, you can build outposts/mining complexes on-site if you have a mining complex on that solar body operating. Construction modules aren't necessary until later.

The module method is for if you are short of boost. If you are nose deep in boost, then sure, send them straight out from Earth. And it's habs I mean. By "claiming" all the sites with habs even if you don't use them, all other factions are locked out of your own private planet. You can build mines later, but you can't claim later if someone snatches it from you.

If I'm going to be the only one defending Earth, I damn well am not sharing my resources with a bunch of leeches.

[ArcticISAF]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

The module method is for if you are short of boost. If you are nose deep in boost, then sure, send them straight out from Earth. And it's habs I mean. By "claiming" all the sites with habs even if you don't use them, all other factions are locked out of your own private planet. You can build mines later, but you can't claim later if someone snatches it from you.

Yeah for sure, as outposts are pretty cheap to send by boost and they won't take that long to make it there. And then they'll reserve the spot. If there is a spot taken, could always send a cheeky marine boat over to steal it later on (slow boat it over or build at Mars, probably faster at Mars)

That's how I felt about the Initiative - stole all their mines on Mercury (not sure why I let them set up there, I guess didn't need the metal yet), and basically everyone's getting assassinated and dunked on. Except the resistance, everything's 100% cool with them. I'm really surprised the resistance is not picking a fight with me at all.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by ArcticISAF:

I'm really surprised the resistance is not picking a fight with me at all.

They're busy with their "Death Star" project. When they sh-t on you, they want it to count!

"If you don't surrender and accept us as your overlords we'll destroy your planet!"
"..... you guys know you're on the same planet as us right? You'll blow yourself up too."
"...... wait one, I'll have to consult my council on this... *psst, why didn't anyone pick this up at the design stage??!!* *we have a council made of scientists and movie stars, they thought it was a good idea!*"

[ArcticISAF]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

They're busy with their "Death Star" project. When they sh-t on you, they want it to count! :steamlaughcry:

"If you don't surrender and accept us as your overlords we'll destroy your planet!"
"..... you guys know you're on the same planet as us right? You'll blow yourself up too."
"...... wait one, I'll have to consult my council on this... *psst, why didn't anyone pick this up at the design stage??!!* *we have a council made of scientists and movie stars, they thought it was a good idea!*"

:steamlaughcry:

"Alright, alright, now everyone calm down and let's think on how to shut this thing down. Anybody know where the 'Off' button is?"
"Oh it's probably this big red one, with the glowing triangle and exclamation mark!"
*Exodus quickly flees the planet*

[BanDHMO]

It appears the plan is coming together:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2878698701

It will take a couple of years until I can build enough boost to shoot that first mine to Mars, but when it comes, there will soon be some excellent output from all those sites.

I do think that Isidis rather than Tyrrhena should be my first mine, though. 0.2 Fissiles will bottleneck me otherwise.

[Barleyman]

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

And then there's this mysterious warning I've heard time and time again about "not putting your eggs in one basket". Short of planet-killing weapons, I'm not sure how it's safer to have your mines scattered among a bunch of asteroids versus all being on Mars, but maybe I should take your guys' word on it and try not to be too Mars-heavy. It's pretty hard to justify that, at least compared to Luna, the Mars yields are very nice.

Don't forget what I said about soft cap one mined objects. Going for asteroids will run you into that pretty quickly.

You don't want all of Mars, that's crazy talk. Now all of Mercurius on the other hand.. Just aim for good sources over "meh". 20 water and steel is not worth it but 50 water may be. And grab anything with non-trivial amounts of fissile, as in more than five or so. Ten is a motherlode.

The other place you will want to corner is Ceres, all that juicy water.. People also need volatiles so until you got level 2 farms going, everyone up there will drain water and volatiles and it adds up.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by Ohramies:

You don't want all of Mars, that's crazy talk.

Is it, now? *pets cat and laughs maniacally*

But, seriously, yeah, I read about the weird soft limit mechanic that counts an entire planet as one, thanks for bringing that up. It's one of the reasons why I wouldn't mind cornering the whole planet.

[Barleyman]

Oh yes and speaking of water, many drives use that as a reaction mass so one "fill 'er up" can be more than 1k for one ship..