Hazards in Surviving Mars Surviving Mars Guide & Walkthrough
Last update: 21 March 2018
In this section, you will learn about hazards that your colony will face. Find out how these hazards work to prepare your colony for the worst.
Sand Storm
Sand Storms will stop your shuttles and completely shut down MOXIES and Moisture Vaporators. They come in different variations - normal, large sand storms and electrostatic sand storms. Electrostatic sand storms occur rarely. Lightning can temporarily shut down buildings or use batteries in your RC Rovers and drones. Furthermore, it can decrease productivity of your Solar Panels. On the other hand, sand storms increase productivity of your Wind Turbines.
Meteor Strikes
Meteor strikes occur quite often. Until you have the right buildings (SOP Laser, defense towers), all you can do is pray for the best. To protect yourself against the disaster during the early stages of the gameplay, you will need redundancy - multiply the most important facilities (water and oxygen networks). SOP Laser and defense towers can destroy meteors in sight. There are different variations of meteor strikes: a single meteor (the game will not notify you about the incoming meteor), multiple meteors (multiple meteors at once, the game will notify you) and meteor storm (the game will notify you).
Cold Waves
Weather phenomenon
Which rapidly decreases temperature. Cold waves immobilize all water extractors, water containers and fuel refineries. You can build Subsurface Heaters to protect buildings from cold. Buildings outside domes will require more power (about 60%, drones will require 100% more power).
Dust Devil
In other words, they are tornados. They slow down drones by 60% and cause damage immediately. A building affected by a Dust Devil will require maintenance. They come in two versions: smaller and larger.
Earthsick
Your colonists will become Earthsick only when you don't care about them. Those affected will want to get back to Earth at the first available opportunity. This does not include colonists with Martian feature - children born on Mars won't become Earthsick.
Renegades
This threat may occur if you don't keep your colonists' morale high. Morale depends on other parameters: health, sanity, and comfort. In order to keep renegades at bay, you will need officers and Security Stations. Renegades will not want to work and can cause problems in your colony. If renegades appear inside a dome, you should improve living conditions.
Sphere
The only way to protect yourself is to build energy traps. Every trap can catch only one sphere. They can replicate and cause local Cold Waves. They can effectively harm your colony. Spheres are one of the available mysteries that you select before a map.
Failure of cables & pipes
This occurs quite frequently - looks negligible, but malfunctions result in drops in energy supplies and leakages. In connection with other threats, e.g. waves of cold, this is a critical situation. You will be receiving information about the malfunction. By clicking on the damaged part, you can directly look up how much resources you lose. The larger the infrastructure and the circuit, the more frequent the probability of malfunction. This cannot be avoided and the only solution are technologies from Breakthrough tree - Superior pipes and Superior cables.