100% Achievement Guide for Tharsis

A small guide to help you get to 100% completion on Tharsis.

Introduction

A lot of people will not think that they really need a guide. However, for the achievement hunters among us that just got the game and want the achievements as fast as possible, I feel like a little help would be appreciated. So here is my first take on trying to make one of these guides! Feel free to leave some feedback in the comments.
A small note before we begin: for a lot of people that got the game some time ago, there was no easy mode. This does exist now though, and I assume in this guide that you play in easy mode. Not because I think normal or hard are impossible, but because if you want all the achievements, why would you make things harder on yourself?

Amount of achievements: 12
Aproximate time required for 100% completion: 13 hours
Amount of players with 100% as of 4-3-2018: 71

Achievements you'll get while getting others

Some of the achievements are so easy to get that you'll just get them while playing. Here I've listed them with a little note.

Risk Management Professional

Take no hull damage for 4 turns
This one is pretty easy to get. Just play the game, at some point you'll get a good enough hang of it to get this one. It isn't the most common achievement for no reason.

Contact Light

Reach Mars
I mean, it's pretty self explanatory. Just reach Mars. This is pretty easy, if you can't get it just watch a couple of let's-plays on YouTube. Also remember to play it on easy first.

Locally Grown

Harvest 20 food
You'll get this one just by playing the game for a little bit, especially of you're also going for the harder achievements.

I'm Going To Science The Snot Out Of This

Earn 300 research
This one might take a while, but if you're going for the other achievements as well it shouldn't be a problem. If you really want to get this one as fast as possible, I suggest just putting as much dice into the research bar[static1.squarespace.com] (the bar at the bottom that takes one of every die to give you additional advantages) and spend them as fast as possible to make room for new ones.

Ethical Threshold

Reach Mars without cannibalizing
This one might be a bit hard in the beginning, but trust me, as you get better at the game this will get super easy. Just remember to make good use of the research bar and everything should be okay.

Work Ethic

Perform 2800 repairs
This might seem a bit overwhelming at first, but 2800 is not every individual repair. This number is the sum of the numbers that you need to reach to resolve an event, meaning you'll get this one while getting the other achievements as well.

Safe Passage

Reach Mars with 3 or more crew alive.
You should be able to get this achievement somewhere around being able to get the Ethical Threshold achievement. Just play the game a little and you'll get this one by just trying your best. Again, if you can't figure it out, just watch some let's-plays and tutorials and play on easy.

10.75 AU

Travel 1 billion miles
There has been a bit of confusion about this achievement, as it's not entirely known after how many games exactly you get this. It is thought that unfinished and lost games also count here, but any calculations by the community have been futile as it's just not known at what distance you start. The playtimes can, however, be thought of as goals. I got this achievement after apr. 12,5 hours of playing. As I find more data on this, I'll try to add it here. The point is, really, that if you try to get all the achievements, you won't have to do anything extra here.
Here's the average time to get to this achievement, by the comments. If you'd like to contribute, just comment your info.
Game played: 30
Games won: 9
Total Play Time: about 8 hours 15 min

Achievements that require some action

Okay, so now on to the ones you actually have to try to get. As mentioned before, if you just try to get these four, you'll get the others along the way.

I'm Hit, But Not Bad

Survive a turn with 9 or more incoming damage.
This one also confused some players, as when you start trying to get this one, you'll quickly discover that your ship only has eight health. What this achievement requires, then, is getting damage that would completely destroy your ship and is therefore impossible? No. What the achievement wants, is that you start a turn with 9 or more incoming damage, resove as many of the events as possible, and then survive, meaning you don't actually have to take 9 damage.
My advice to get this one is to get a game with the mechanic and start an easy game. Then, get your crew to as healthy and many dice as you can. Do this by getting health, food and dice during maybe two turns. In those turns, don't resolve any events that damage your hull. "But that'll kill me", I hear you say. Instead of resolving the events, just keep repairing your hull with the mechanic and Maintenance[static1.squarespace.com]. Also while doing this, pump up the health and dice of the astronauts that aren't repairing the hull. Eventually, you'll get to a point where there are so many events that you'll have 9 or more incoming damage. When you get to this point, just repair the hull as much as you can again and also resolve as many events that damage the hull as possible. Your astronauts don't all have to survive this turn, as long as there is one remaining you will get the achievement.

To Serve Mankind

Eat 120 human meals.
The description of this one speaks for itself, eat 120 human meals. This requires a lot of grinding, and I hate grinding, but it is what it is. The tactic I have found works best (but feel free to leave other ones in the comments and if I think they're better I'll put them in here) is to just start an easy game with the four first classes. In the first two turns, play like you normally would and resolve stuff and pump up the stats of your astronauts. Don't, however, have full food bars by the end of the second turn. Because then you will get the option to eat human meat. Do this as much as you can (eat all three) and start the next turn. After that one, kill off one astronaut and eat him completely. Start the next turn again and start the entire process all over. You don't have to finish a game for it to count the human meat you've eaten, so don't worry about that.

All Present And Accounted For

Get all crew classes to Mars.
This one will only be possible after you get the To Serve Mankind achievement, as this also unlocks the Cannibal[static1.squarespace.com]. Before you get the Cannibal, try getting the other classes. This should be pretty easy. When you have them all, just get the classes you haven't gotten to Mars yet to Mars, and you should get it.
If you've forgotten which classes you've gotten to Mars, next to the picture of the class there should be a star and a skull with numbers next to them. The number next to the star is how often you've gotten them to Mars.

Solitary Confinement

Survive 3 turns with only one crew member.
This one is pretty hard and often the last one that players will get. Ironically, it's not really that they can't survive for three turns with just one crew member, but that they can't kill off the three they start with. Steam user Pinback made sort of a tutorial for it that I used to get it. Note: This way has been confirmed by four players, so not that much, one of them at the time of making this guide.

Originally posted by Pinback:

Go with Pilot, Mechanic, Cannibal, and Commander. The thinking here is, you want to do three things as fast as you can:

1. Gain ship HP.
2. Fix any bad events you get on the first two turns.
3. Kill everyone off by turn three.

So, in the first couple of turns, here are their jobs:

Commander: Fix any ship damage events. You don't care about health/food/dice, because you want everyone but the Pilot to die as fast as possible. Although a -2 health event is also good to fix, because that'll kill off the Pilot as well.
Mechanic: Fix stuff, but mainly use his ability to repair the ship. We need the ship at pretty much full health before turn 3.
Pilot: Get to maintenance, start fixing the ship, and rabbit hunting through the research deck for health and ship cards, but mainly health. The idea is, once everyone's dead, you're gonna be pumping out repairs from maintenance, so you'll need those cards to stay alive one the health events pile up.
Cannibal: Eat/kill yourself, preferably while helping to solve stuff in the meantime.

Make sure the Pilot is the last one alive. You might be tempted to use the Mechanic, for extra ship-fixing ability, but if something really nasty comes up, it's nice for the Pilot to be able to go wherever he's needed immediately.
And of course, ignore all dice/food stuff, since you'll be chowing on teammates bigtime.
At any rate, if things go as planned, health events and/or cannibalism will kill off everyone but the pilot on turn 3, at which point hopefully you're at full ship health and full Pilot health, and only have the two "easy" turns, 4 and 5, to get through.
That's the theory, anyway. Good luck!

So, that's pretty much it! I wish you the best of luck trying to get the game to 100% completion, and have fun with the game.

[Alex]

Thanks for the guide!

10.75 AU for me:

Games played: 31
Games won: 7
Total play time: 07:57:00

[iwansquall]

All done, Solitary Confinement wasnt too bad. Just need RNG with the events.
Here my observation.

1. If you have low health member, just move around so they will take that 1 damage when moving through room with hazard. You cant suicide this way though.
2. Keep -1 health event to kill other crew members quickly. Pilot can refill health easily via research that give +health.
3. Same goes for +1 or +2 hull research, will be crutch to survive last turn.
4. Look out for in between turn event that reduce health, will make killing off member faster.
5. Lastly, you can use same previous trick, by lowering number on 1 event before killing all other members so the pilot can resolve the event easily by 1 person.

Overall thanks for the guide, i thought i will have to grind the game alot to get 100% but seem you can just do everything on easy difficulty.

[iwansquall]

As for I'm Hit, But Not Bad achievement, here are the tips from my observations

1. Use mechanic, doctor & captain, all hide in 1 room (maintenance probably)
2. Resolved all non damage event as usual
3. Once all done, try to stock up health & dice on everyone
4. If you saw 2 damage event, reduce the number (so it can be repaired by 1 person later)
5. Reroll your research until you get +1 or +2 hull
6. Survive until you see 9 damage event (probably 3x1 & 3x2 damage events)
7. Try to resolve all 2 damage event + use maintenance

I almost failed earlier, but i was lucky to get +1 hull research at the end.
The hard part wasnt the 9 damage turn, but you might take like 6 damage in previous turn.
Thus you need like +7 just to break even (8 max hull - 6 damage = 2, then survive -9)

[iwansquall]

Good news! I found a way to skip grind for To Serve Mankind achievement

1. Play as normal until turn 2
2. Solve all events if possible (unless it is -1 dice)
3. Save & quit when every crews have completed their action except the last one
4. Load the game again
5. Resolve the last crew member action
6. You will get offered to cannibalize at the end of turn 2
7. Use 3 meats to refill their dice
8. Sacrifice one person with full dice
9. Use leftover meats
10. Alt + F4 immediately after you finish eating
11. Repeat step 4 until 10
12. Achievement will trigger when you give meat

If you done correctly, it will take about 1 minute per cycle and I managed to eat 5 meats every cycle. Try to take choice that reduce everyone dice, dont refill their dice at end of turn 2 and tried to resolve all events (since taking ship damage also have small delay).

I managed to grind from 40 to 120 meats within 15 minutes only.

[fentonnet]

Solitary Confinement strategy worked on the first go, I used the Technician instead of the Cannibal, just make sure to pass through a few events to lower health fast.

[tugamix666]

Got 10.75 AU just now with:

Games Played: 37
Games Won: 4
Total Play Time 6:07:13

[Moon Flower]

I got 10.75 AU now.

Games Played: 23
Games Won: 15
Total Play Time: 06:11:43

[jganger]

I got 10.75 AU

Games Played : 28
Games Won : 6
Total Play Time : 07:10:14 (in-game stats)

[oku]

Hey thank you for this. I played when this first came out and I needed your guidance on "All present and Accounted for" and also "I'm hit but not bad" to understand how to finish. Finally made 100% today : )

[Marco Filippini 1994 Ⓐ ✠ ✞]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2072221085 100% in 19 hours last achievement it is sufficient to keep the compartments with low damage and low loss of life in stand-by (without repairing them (hoping that the damage will not increase), and repair the ship, keeping the pilot with high life