"Hardest" Starting Locations - find anything over 410%?

[rightfn]

I was wondering if anyone found any really "hard" ones, as rated by the game. I found that 3S 83W (near the giant canyon, the one that is famous...) gives me a 410% difficulty rating

[The_Pastmaster]

Skye Storme is playing a 485% game and someone else (HotTips!), with the Paradox Interactive sponsor, is playing a 535% game.

[rightfn]

I was wondering if they say how to get those difficulty ratings (how they set up their game, etc)

[Nomad]

Watch the first episode or just pick the hardest sponsor and then look for the worst location on the map... Skye is at Mons Olympus ...

[ExavierMacbeth]

Mons Olympus seems to be the highest difficulty area of the map that I have seen. The rest of the abnoxiously high difficulty modifierrs come from the other options you chose.

I think Skye's game is:
- Russia Sponser
- Futurist
- Marsgate Mystery
- Mons Olympus start (at least the hardest one he could find at the time of the stream, there are several spots in the general area that might be higher since the difficulty changes with the coordinates)

[Slayer]

There are some harder positions at the top (north) of Mars. Skye even runs his mouse over one but chooses to ignore it and label his game as hardest difficulty.

[Griggers]

44N 112W for a 535% diffficuly map

[The_Pastmaster]

Originally posted by Slayer:

There are some harder positions at the top (north) of Mars. Skye even runs his mouse over one but chooses to ignore it and label his game as hardest difficulty.

TBF he was randomly clicking around and missed it. :P

[Sir Crashalot]

I have to wonder where exactly this percentage comes from.

On Skys game, he is at 485% difficulty which is "almost" the highest, yet Meteors are at one bar and cold is only at two. Dust devils and storms are both at 4.

The 535% game has Dust devils and storms at 3, Meteors at 2 and cold at 4.

So, while there are both playing on what seems, by the numbers to be the hardest difficulties, neither one of them is in danger of being flattened by a concentrated meteor storm directly on top of them.

[D_A_Rcz]

Originally posted by Sir Crashalot:

So, while there are both playing on what seems, by the numbers to be the hardest difficulties, neither one of them is in danger of being flattened by a concentrated meteor storm directly on top of them.

Well meteors are those crash-smash f*** but I found cold ways and storms (I have one area which have mostly electric dust storms and its pain in the ass. 3storms in a row 3times all fuel reservs destroyed - and I have placed them all around my 2bases....and cold ways - there is the research thing for heat building but in my game that came way to late. First storm take my fuel then cold wave all the water and rest of power - booom domino effect and some colonist end up dead....

So meteors are actually not that bad since they mostly bombard other areas and dont tentd to affect your entire base....

[Wantoomany]

From what I can tell the difficuty percentage seems to be fairly meaningless. It's only function seem to be to pad your score. RNG seems to be a much larger factor to actual difficulty.

In Skys case, he got seriously lucky. Getting alien artifacts really early and getting martian copyrights early as well. A rare combination that easily could make any difficulty trival. And as if he wasnt lucky enough, he got core water deposits near his starting location. And the tech to fully automate metal extractors.

To me, those factors alter the difficulty far more then any of the ransom disasters like cold snaps and dust storms.

[Aieonae]

40N114W

Sponsor: Paradox Interactive
Mystery: Marsgate

You should be able to hit 530%

[Emmote]

Originally posted by Sir Crashalot:

I have to wonder where exactly this percentage comes from.

On Skys game, he is at 485% difficulty which is "almost" the highest, yet Meteors are at one bar and cold is only at two. Dust devils and storms are both at 4.

The 535% game has Dust devils and storms at 3, Meteors at 2 and cold at 4.

So, while there are both playing on what seems, by the numbers to be the hardest difficulties, neither one of them is in danger of being flattened by a concentrated meteor storm directly on top of them.

Most of the difficulty comes from the "Mountainous" topography. You get a huge leap from Steep to Mountainous in difficulty even with worse threats on the Steep map.

[rightfn]

When I posted this I had not yet realized that the terrain does NOT appear to be auto-generated but rather there are a number of maps that get selected from :) The game sort of hides this fact!

[Pegasus]

Originally posted by rightfn:

When I posted this I had not yet realized that the terrain does NOT appear to be auto-generated but rather there are a number of maps that get selected from :) The game sort of hides this fact!

Did not know this.

I started on a 4 bar meteor map and the rate they came down made me restart lol.

[VayneVerso]

Yeah, difficulty rating should be taken with a grain of salt, I think. I watched the first few episodes of Skye Storme's series, and it really didn't seem like he had it that bad.

By comparison, I started a game earlier on a map that was only something like 410% (accounting for hardest settings with everything else), and it was absolutely terrible. I think a 4 rating for cold waves and the starting location was on Cold Terrain (can't build there without your stuff freezing all the time). Oh, and this is where the only water source and rich metals deposit was. I stuck around long enough to scan everything in the area plus some spots around the map, and the whole thing was bad. Surface metals basically nonexistent. Little buildable area with any resources whatsoever. Etc.

Way worse than what Skye had.