Main Focus

In this second part, we focus on making the underground and asteroids more beneficial for your main colony and build further upon the improvements of Merbold part 1.

• Buried Wonder Upgrades: each Buried Wonder has a new upgrade or building they unlock, which benefits your entire colony (Surface, Underground and Asteroids). The story of each Buried Wonder is also extended to include these upgrades.
  
  
  • Players that already (partially) completed buried wonder events still get access to these.


• Rare Anomalies: These are special anomalies that can be found throughout the Underground which each give you a choice between multiple powerful rewards.


• New Breakthrough Techs: 6 new breakthrough techs have been added that can be found on the Surface, in the Underground and on Asteroids.


• 2 New Commander Profiles, The Spelunker and The Space Miner: The Spelunker gives easier access to the Underground and makes colonists regain Sanity while in the Underground instead of losing sanity. The Space Miner has an easier time getting to asteroids.

Gameplay Improvements:

• Edit both sides of the Cargo UI: In the elevator cargo UI, you can now set requests or minimums for both sides of the elevator in the same screen. You no longer first have to switch maps to configure the other side.
• The Cargo UI shows an explanation on how auto mode works for Asteroid Landers and the Elevator.
• Waste Rock can now be transported.
• Truly Universal Depot: The Universal Depot now includes the DLC resources, depending on which DLCs you have; Seeds if you have Green Planet and Exotic Minerals if you have Below & Beyond.
• Asteroid Landers now visibly take off when they automatically launch at the very last second when an Asteroid goes out of range.
• Changed the Recon & Expansion tech tree order; Underground Domes and the Recon Center are unlocked earlier, while the Drone Hub Extender is unlocked later.
• Rovers and drones loaded into the Lander Rocket drop any resources they were still carrying.
• Tunnels, Wonders and Food and Mystery depots can no longer be refabbed.
• Added an asteroid specific skin for the RC Dozer.

Balance changes:

Asteroids:

• Greatly increase resources found on Asteroids.
• 2 bars guarantees resources are present, 1 bar guarantees water, metals and exotic minerals.
• Added metals to C-type asteroids (1 bar).
• Reduced Recon Center Maintenance 4 > 1 Electronics.
• Increase the odds of a Recon Center finding an asteroid, especially while you have no asteroids.
• Decrease the odds of Recon discovery events, and each event can only occur once.
• Generic Discoveries from the Recon Center now reward research progress.
• Reduce Asteroid Lander price.
• Slightly Increase Asteroid Lander cargo capacity.
• Greatly increase the cargo module upgrade cargo bonus.
• Increase polymer in the default Asteroid Lander loadout.
• Highly increase resource extraction of the Micro-G Mining Station (with colonists).
• Reduce maintenance frequency for Micro-G buildings (auto, water, station, habitat) and Electrolyzer.
• Reduce power consumption of the Micro-G Auto Extractor, Micro-G Water Extractor, Electrolyzer and Micro-G Habitat.
• Increase residence space in the Micro-G Habitat.

Underground:

• Increased resource nodes in the underground.
• Increased the buried wonder research costs.
• Reduced maintenance costs of buried wonders.
• Changed maintenance costs of the Support Strut to Metals (instead of Exotic Minerals).
• Farms can no longer be built in the underground.
• Fungal Farms can now be built in the underground.
• Increased food production for Fungal Farm.
• Slightly increased Sanity benefit of Psych Studies.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed the lander rocket having the status “not enough full” even when the tank is full
• Fixed fuel filling the lander rocket resetting to 0 when editing the payload
• Fixed Micro-G mining buildings not taking resource grade into account
• Fixed MDS lasers not working if the player is on another map
• Fixed "Rocket can't land during dust storms" warning showing on Asteroids for Landers in orbit
• Fixed cargo rockets duplicating if they are sent on an expedition and the launch is cancelled
• Fixed cave-ins spawning on walls
• Fixed cave-ins spawning at the same angle so that the player sees the pattern
• Fixed cave-ins disappearing when cancelling the clear operation using the RC Dozer
• Fixed colonists having the wrong group label (martian/earth born) when transported to another map
• Fixed drones getting stuck on the Bottomless Pit after the Bottomless Pit Lab is salvaged
• Fixed freezing when the Underground Marsquake is occurring in the mid and late-game stage
• Fixed Colonist and Tourism top bar tooltip defining colonists as "stored"
• Fixed the bottom textures of a Dome remaining after prefabbing
• Fixed the Exotic Minerals icon not showing in the Production tab for the asteroid's extractors
• Fixed Underground Domes not changing color when changing building colors
• Fixed cave-ins falling on Buried Wonders and becoming unremovable
• Fixed the "Signs of Organic Matter" event becoming blocked if another Asteroid goes out of range
• Fixed colonists suffocating when a rocket returns from the Covert Ops (Space Race) and lands
• Fixed earthsick colonists losing their earthsick status from getting sent to another Asteroid
• Fixed uneven terrain blocking rovers in the underground
• Fixed Bottomless Pit: "The Pit: Experiment requirements" event checking only the nearest Dumping Site
• Fixed the RC Explorer and Elevator building appearing in different places in the Underground through the same Underground Entrance
• Fixed colonists/tourists occasionally teleporting away from the elevator when using auto mode causing colonists to suffocate.
• Fixed screen freeze when pressing the “tab” button while switching to another map
• Fixed the RC Explorer not being able to reach a specific Anomaly in a Underground map
• Fixed the bonus from the Stirling Generator Fault event not applying to the underground
• Fixed the Buried Wonder Log not being able to close for the second time if optional tasks were completed after the main ones
• Fixed the bottom rock asset emerging when a player makes a ramp over the Asteroid's pit in the donut shaped map
• Fixed elevator's Auto Mode duplicating the request of objects
• Fixed notifications from the recon center appearing in the underground map
• Fixed hunger game rule disabling food transport for the elevator and lander rockets
• Fixed the second anomaly in the Bottomless Pit event chain not reappearing if the requirements haven't been met
• Fixed the Astrogeologist commander profile extractor production bonus not applying to the Asteroid's extractors
• Fixed the elevator malfunction event being able to be bypassed by turning the elevator on or off or through a regular malfunction
• Fixed save screenshot missing in load game on Mac and Linux
• Fixed salvaging the bottomless Pit Research Center breaking the drones’ route
• Fixed asteroid extractors still extracting a large number of resources if the breakthrough Nona Refinement is researched
• Fixed a drone making one extra unnecessary move when repairing the elevator
• Fixed rovers and buildings researched with the Global Support Breakthrough not being added to the Cargo lists
• Fixed drones assigned to the malfunctioned elevator not being able to deliver resources while trying to repair the elevator.
• Fixed Lander rocket being able to take off during Dust storms when using the Depart Now
• Fixed requested Drones not departing with the Lander rocket if they were assigned to the a requested RC Commander
• Fixed drones assigned to the RC Commander being reassigned to the command centers from the surface map after being transported to the underground
• Fixed temporary anomalies appearing in unreachable places in the Underground with Mystery Metatron active
• Fixed the Lander rocket occasionally getting a 'waiting for maintenance' status after a request and but being able to return to Mars if the asteroid goes out of range

Known issues:

• If the performance of the Recon Centre building is below 86, it does not contribute to the Recon Progress or help with Asteroid discoveries.

Main Focus

In this first part, we focus on making it easier to explore and expand into the underground earlier on while also making the Asteroid Lander and Elevator easier to use. We also start making Below and Beyond content more beneficial for your main colony by introducing a few upgrades that cost Exotic Minerals.

• Elevator Grid resource transfer: The elevator now transfers excess power, water, and oxygen between the Martian Surface and Underground. This enables you to start expanding in the underground while relying on your production on the surface.


• Elevator Auto mode: You can now set a minimum amount of resources you want on the Surface and Underground. While the elevator is in auto mode it will automatically request resources when under this minimum. You can also still manually request resources.
  
  
  • Requesting resources for the Elevator is now done on the side where you need the resources, instead of where you send them from. With arrows indicating from where to where the resources will be transported.


• Reworked cave-ins: Cave-ins no longer require a specific tech to clear, and blocked tunnels that required the landscaping tool are also removed. To still maintain an element of gradual exploration, we introduce the new Collapsed Tunnels which do still require the tech to be cleared.
  
  
  • Increased room for exploration in the underground, greatly reduced the number of tunnels blocked while the new Collapsed tunnels are placed such that they lead to larger new areas to explore or extra anomalies to find. We also increased the number of anomalies in the underground.


• Exotic Minerals upgrades: We introduced a few upgrades to surface buildings that cost Exotic Minerals;
  
  
  • Improved Photovoltaics; doubles power production for solar panels
  
  
  • Exotic Mineral Treatment; greatly increases health and sanity recovery from Infirmaries (and Medical Posts if you have In-dome Building Pack).

Gameplay Improvements:

• Added clear warnings to the lander rocket for why it cannot depart yet, so you can take action.
• Added a "Depart Now" button to the Asteroid Lander, which allows you to launch the lander before the requested payload is loaded, as long as it has enough fuel.
• Disabled the “visit asteroid” button, if there is no Asteroid to go to.
• Removed the Micro-G Vehicles tech, RC Vehicles can now always be brought to Asteroids.
• Elevators can now recharge drones, just like drone hubs.
• Improve requested payload feedback on the elevator.
• Added 1 drone to terraforming initiative default loadout to fill out the cargo space.
• After map switching once, all switches afterwards have a fade instead of a loading screen, which shortens the loading times significantly.

Balance changes:

• Halved research costs for the Recon & Expansion tech tree.
• Reduced Exotic Minerals costs for underground domes.
• Added an anomaly close to elevators which gives some Exotic Minerals, to get you started.
• Rebalanced Drone Hub Extender to cost less Exotic Minerals.
• Increased success chance of Jumbo Cave events.
• Increased time players have on asteroids.
• Adjusted the tech tree order; moving Low-G Excavation Permits and Low-G Tunnel Supports down while moving Underground Dome Construction and Micro-G Mining up.

Bug Fixes:

• Asteroid Lander now gives correct feedback when requiring maintenance.
• Fixed an issue with lander rocket showing payload when landing, instead of requested payload.
• Fixed an issue with the elevator panel not removing colonists already transported to the other side.
• Fixed the lander info panel showing an incorrect status when there aren't enough prefabs.
• Fixed the lander showing an incorrect status after canceling the trip.
• Fixed the First Rainfall milestone not being achieved after reaching all requirements.
• Fixed disasters running back to back.
• Fixed Lander rocket not taking off if RC Vehicles required for take-off are in the cargo of another rocket.
• Fixed Mirror Sphere mystery never-ending, the counter however remains on screen in existing saves.
• Fixed an issue with suffocating colonists continuing to suffocate when they get out of the Elevator.
• Fixed an issue with colonists suffocating while trying to reach micro-g habitat.
• Fixed an issue with drones needing several takes on a single cave-in to clear it.
• Fixed an issue with vehicle navigation when collapsed tunnels are cleared.
• Fixed Electrolyzer continuing to consume water when turned off.
• Fixed Drone Hub Extenders not receiving the extra range of 15 hexes.
• Fixed Drone Hub Extender active range not being redrawn immediately after researching the Signal Boosters.
• Fixed an issue with the “Unknown” status of drones and rovers while using the Elevator.
• Fixed empty tooltip and building panel of the Forestation plant when the language is set to Turkish.
• Fixed drones facing the wrong side while gathering Metals or Exotic Minerals.
• Fixed an issue with the lander rocket’s color being different before and after construction for some sponsors.
• Fixed an issue with colonists not occupying the last (14th) slot of the Micro-G Habitat.
• Fixed tooltip for the Micro-G Habitat colonist filter referring to a dome instead of habitat.
• Fixed the Jumbo Cave experiment pop-ups showing incorrect cost cuts.
• Fixed Cave-ins and Collapsed Tunnels not having a texture in the quick bar.

New game only bug fixes:

• Fixed Alien Artifact Anomalies spawning underground in the Dredgers Mystery.
• Fixed an issue with Mystery3Counter notification triggered by Countdown Sphere Unknown Event being stuck.
• Fixed an issue with numbers going into the negative on countdown timers.

Patch notes

Gameplay Improvements

• Elevator colonist cap has been increased to 250
• New warning notifications when trying to launch a lander with colonists while not having a ‘habitat’ on the asteroid or when the habitat does not have enough resident slots

Bug Fixes

• Fixed ‘no disasters’ rule not working
• Fixed ‘no terraforming’ rule not working
• Fixed disabling ‘no Below and Beyond content’ rule awarding ‘Space Explorers’ achievement
• Fixed a crash on starting a new game on macOS
• Fixed a crash when sending a planetary expedition that requires an RC vehicle
• Fixed a crash when a lander rocket returns to mars with cargo containing a transporter that carries resources
• Fixed a crash when requesting colonists from an asteroid
• Fixed a crash after the event ‘rough touchdown’ when drones unload the payload
• Fixed a rounding error on resources prevent the lander rocket from launching
• Fixed a Waste Rock value being incorrect during landscaping
• Fixed event anomalies spawning under resource deposits
• Fixed the amount of surface polymers being very high
• Fixed ‘The last War’ event preventing the loading of cargo onto asteroid landers
• Fixed not being able to send multiple drones through the elevator by right clicking
• Fixed the lander rocket request payload tooltip showing the ready status for prefabs that the player does not have
• Fixed the issue where the number of requested colonists gets reset to 0 in the lander rocket cargo menu
• Fixed where one drone gets transported through the elevator when assigning multiple drones to the elevator as drone controller
• Fixed maintenance getting stuck on certain buildings (fusion reactor and electronics factory)
• Fixed where drones were active in drone hub extender range while the extender wasn’t powered
• Fixed the effect ranges remaining visible after refabbing a building
• Fixed rovers leaving the lander rocket twice
• Fixed the issue where multiple capital cities could be built after terraforming (Old saves will continue to contain multiple capital cities, but the option to build more is now restricted)
• Fixed the RC explorer continuing to scan queued surface anomalies while the RC explorer has been transported to the underground
• Fixed incorrect landing angle of the supply pod on a landing pad
• Fixed the asteroid banner not working without the Space Race DLC
• Fixed the issue where landscape cursor does not show
• Fixed the colony being automatically renamed to ‘missing text’ in the planetary view
• Fixed the concrete extractor not being able to build underground at specific coordinates
• Fixed domes not being built underground because drones stop delivering resources

Patch notes

Notes

• The in-game bug reporting tool has been removed in favour of an automatic system
• Playstation 4 and 5 now have Turkish translations

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the game crash after loading a save game with invalidated drones.
• Fixed the game crash when a player selects the Rock Formation object on an old retail save.
• Fixed missing Terraforming tech tree in the old saves.
• Fixed the "Advanced Martian Engines" tech adding 20 fuel to Cargo Rockets.
• Fixed the “Transport Optimization” tech not adding extra cargo space.
• Fixed the description of the "Banner" mentioning Mars while on an asteroid map.
• Fixed the Cave of Wonders description.
• Fixed the Lander rocket disappearing when the “Rough Touchdown” event occurs.
• Improved feedback when the Asteroid Lander requires maintenance.
• Fixed ramps being instantly built.
• Fixed the progress bar of “Required Waste Rock” not changing while flattening.
• Fixed the problem when a fired worker immediately returns to work.

And several other underlying code fixes that were presumably causing bugs, especially to save games from before the update.

Known issues

• Incorrect value of Excess Waste Rock is displayed when Flatten in progress.
• The limit for colonists being allowed through the elevator is too low.
• Crash on certain Mac versions.

Patch notes

Gameplay Improvements

• Remove the Micro-G Auto Extractor prefab from the default loadout for Asteroid Landers, so you don't accidentally include a prefab without having one.
• Visual improvement to the base of asteroids (mostly for photo mode).

Bug Fixes

• Fixed dome birth controls.
• Fixed the same anomaly event appearing multiple times.
• Fixed dust storms, cold waves, and meteor storms not triggering.
• Fixed the martian surface filling with water after connecting a lake to a water producer.
• Fixed asteroid landers sometimes not properly showing their status when returning from an asteroid at the very last second.
• Fixed drone control fix for broken food storages.
• Fixed a crash that sometimes happened when landing an Asteroid Lander with drones on an Asteroid.
• Fixed a crash when Asteroid Landers departed with drones.
• Fixed not being able to order seeds from the earth for old saves without B&B.
• Fixed cold waves not vanishing after they end, in old saves.
• Fixed the “must include” filter for seniors.
• Fixed missing images for anomalies.
• Fixed smart complexes not receiving electricity after loading old saves.
• Fixed the "Winter is Coming" rule not being selectable in the game rules screen.
• Fixed the RC Safari's missing UI panel (the one showing visitors).
• Fixed lamps of the elevator floating in the air in some cases.
• Fixed incorrect ground texture after refabbing buildings within a Mega Dome.
• Fixed missing warning when launching a rocket back to earth while still unloading cargo
• Fixed sponsor-specific rovers' weight being counted twice for Lander/Elevator/Resupply cargo.
• Fixed the asteroid lander not loading more than one rover of each type.
• Fixed the asteroid hopping achievement unlocking after visiting 10 asteroids, instead of 11.
• Fixed wasp drones in colony always showing 0 in the resupply menu
• Fixed the camera zooming into the wrong sector in the underground.
• Fixed Philosophers Stones Mystery that couldn't be completed after destroying a stone.
• Fixed a crash related to the Inner Light Mystery on old save games.
• Fixed landing pads being unusable after canceling the construction of a rocket.
• Fixed an empty B&B tech tree showing for old saves.
• Fixed drones facing the wrong direction while gathering Metals or Exotic Minerals.
• Fixed the Fast Radio Burst turning several colonists into Geniuses.

And several other underlying code fixes that were presumably causing bugs, especially to save games from before the update.

Known issues

• The crash related to food storages has been fixed for the majority of saves but can still occur occasionally, investigation is in progress.

Patch notes

Gameplay Improvements

• The lander rocket now loads items in increments of 1 instead of 5.
• Moved the cave-in clearing tech earlier in the tech tree, now appearing between position 5 and 8, instead of as the 13th tech.
• Change the order in the cargo screens, grouping buildings of the same type together.
• Rebalance rewards for recurring Recon Center discovery events.

Bug fixes

• Fixed colonists and drones getting stuck in food stockpiles. Attention: the fix requires the rebuilding of depots and food production buildings that display broken behaviour!
• Show the Lander Rocket immediately amongst the pinned items on Mars when it does its last second launch as an Asteroid goes out of range.
• Lander Rocket now properly loads all drones when launching at the last second as an asteroid goes out of range.
• Lander rocket now only starts loading drones, rovers, crew and prefabs if everything is available.
• The “died in orbit” trigger will activate only if the crew actually dies.
• Removed colonists that died in orbit.
• Cave-ins can be reached more easily by drones to clear.
• Fixed issue where elevator cargo could get lost if both sides of the elevator requested the same resource.
• Fixed issue where elevator cargo could not be updated after the initial request.
• Fixed vehicles cannot be transferred through the elevator using right-click.
• Ancient Artifact spawns the correct amount of drones.
• Auto explore of the RC Explorer no longer reveals hidden anomalies.
• Added missing icons for pinned surface passage and underground passage.
• Correctly updated pin dialog when transporting RCRover.
• Fixed incorrect game over condition when colonists died on Asteroids while there were still alive colonists on Mars or the Underground.
• Fixed issue where cables and pipes were created on the wrong map.
• Workshifts now properly update while on another map.
• Prevented refabbing landing and trade pads while they're in use.
• DLC buildings will be accessible on a new game after loading an old save.
• Fixed missing Passenger Rocket UI in the resupply menu on old retail save.
• Cheat panel improvements (available in creative mode only on Windows, Mac, Linux).

And several other underlying code fixes that were presumably causing bugs, especially to save games from before the update.

Platform-specific fixes

• Fixed startup crash on certain Windows 7 installs.
• Removed the assert window on Linux.
• Disconnecting controller issue.

Known issues

• Dome births cannot be controlled.
• The game crashes when a lander rocket is departing with drones in cargo while the asteroid moves out of range.
• Youths, adults, and seniors occupy child-only buildings.
• Same anomaly events are found multiple times on the surface, breaking the game balance.
• There is no warning about an unloaded cargo when launching a rocket back to Earth.
• Crash related to Inner Light Mystery on old retail saves.

Welcome back, Commander!

Good to have you with us one last time, we've got one more update for you about the development of the new Below and Beyond project. It's me again, Bart Vossen, design lead on the Below and Beyond planning and development team. Previously we went into the development of what lies below [link to previous article?] and what to find beyond [link to previous article?]. Today's briefing will focus on how to actually get there and some things we did to make life easier for all commanders.

As usual, let's start with an overview. The Below and Beyond project introduces a variety of new buildings, updates to existing tech, and a few new things that will help us explore the underground and exploit asteroids. This is a lot, and we don't want to overload our scientists with all this work. So, all these things are combined in the new Recon and Expansion tech tree. We recognize that managing a colony on Mars is a massive undertaking. For that reason, we also added a few new things for all players to enjoy, without having to be a part of the Below and Beyond project. These are primarily improvements to your UI and some extra control options, to help you build the exact colony you want and ensure you don't miss anything. Additionally, we made adjustments to a few buildings as some of them were being made obsolete. And in the process, we even found a blueprint for a completely new structure!

You will gradually unlock most Below and Beyond content through the Recon and Expansion tech tree. At first, we focus on getting access to both the Underground and Asteroids, giving you the basic tools you need to venture into these new environments. Underground, and especially Asteroids can be dangerous for colonists at first, so we thought it important to only introduce them after you've grown a bit more familiar with these locales. We'd want to avoid any unfortunate deaths, right Commander? In the later stages of the tech tree, we'll find techs that expand our options and opportunities, both on Asteroids and in the Underground. These advanced techs allow us to mine on multiple asteroids at the same time and possibly, under your well-orchestrated command, extract all possible resources from them.

That said, we didn't want the Below and Beyond project to be a completely separated experience. Several old techs will also improve our abilities to visit asteroids and explore the underground, such as the Advanced Martian Engines tech, which now also reduces fuel requirements for our new Asteroid Landers. This also goes the other way around. The discovery of Exotic Minerals has led to a few new options on the Martian surface. Especially the Drone Hub Extenders will prove useful when an additional Drone Hub would add unnecessary resource management.

But I bet by now you are itching to learn more about these plans to make your life easier since they are completely free for everyone! Below and Beyond adds more places to manage in parallel with your main colony, so we wanted to focus on improvements that help all commanders manage their colonies. We launched an internal investigation to find some of the biggest pain points; cable and pipe leaks being hard to spot, no easy way to quickly have a look at all your separate power and pipe grids, and having trouble placing buildings outside the dust range of others were the biggest. It was most important for us to give you the tools to better handle these; clear feedback where leaks are, an easy way to quickly cycle through your different grids, an option to show dust ranges during construction as well as other relevant ranges based on the building you are constructing, and more information in the resource tooltips. It is important to understand what is going on in your colony so you can prepare and avoid future disasters.

Besides giving you a better overview of your colony, we also made improvements to let you manage your colony the way you want. There were again a few major points we wanted to address. Have you ever been frustrated with reordering your tech tree? Are you tired of colonists still making babies while all domes are already overpopulated? Do you also find it difficult to find that one celebrity on the resupply screen? We say - no more! We added new controls for you to reorder the tech tree, set a new birth limit policy, and added the "must include" filter option. In addition, we had a long and hard discussion with all the different sponsors and persuaded them to give commanders the rights to name their own colony. Please use this power responsibly.

We also heard the many comments about too many geniuses coming from the School Spire and putting Research Labs and Hawking institutes across all colonies out of business. We had another good look at various buildings and their purposes and decided to make a few changes. We reduced the chance that School Spires generated geniuses to ensure your scientists and research buildings are still viable options. We changed smart apartments to function as a bigger version of smart homes, while still keeping apartments relevant in case you want to house as many people as possible. The medical post now helps fewer colonists but gives more comfort, making it a smaller alternative to the infirmary. Lastly, the Door to Summer event just gave bad rewards for all the effort you had to put into it, so we made that one much more lucrative.

Lastly, we know you love to add even more unique buildings to your colonies. That’s why we’re happy to introduce the Amphitheatre. A building where both colonists and tourists can relax after a long day of work. It gives you an early game alternative for colonists with the luxury interest and more diversity in buildings that increase tourists' satisfaction.

It has been a real pleasure giving you these tours, Commander! Unfortunately, it’s the last one we can offer you for now, but the launch of Below and Beyond is just around the corner. In the meantime, we've got one more instructional video for you to watch. Now, if you'll excuse me, I could use a vacation after all this. I’ve heard that Asteroids are all the rage these days. Maybe I'll see you up there. Until we meet again.

Welcome back, Commander!

We've prepared another update for you on how we developed the new Below and Beyond project. My name is Bart Vossen, design lead on the Below and Beyond planning and development team. Nice to meet you! As my colleague already informed you about what lies beyond, today's tour is all about exploring what's below; the Underground!

Let me give you a quick overview before we dive deeper. Our RC Explorers recently started running into surprisingly deep holes, which, after some further inspection, uncovered an entire underground network of tunnels beneath our colony. You should be able to drop an RC Explorer down there for initial reconnaissance. We've also developed a new building, the Elevator, which will be able to transport everything we need between our surface colony and the underground. Reports tell us the underground contains more resources and should provide protection against all hazards from the surface. Though the darkness and any local quakes, caused by our expansion efforts, may pose their own challenges. To this end, we've developed several buildings to keep our colonists safe. Lastly, those who came back also rambled on about something they called buried wonders, which we'd advise you to investigate further.

Now you might be wondering, why the underground? Well, 99.9% of Mars's mass lies underground, and it gives us a network of tunnels to explore and expand into with completely new challenges. But mostly because Mars's underground has eluded us for centuries. As we got closer and closer to Mars, we were still only looking at its surface. Even after we landed, we were only able to scan the top layer. Now, we have an opportunity to fully discover what secrets Mars has been hiding from us.

Expansion into the underground will get us closer to resource veins and provide shelter from meteors, dust storms, and even cold waves. Though it may destabilize the area and cause local, underground quakes with occasional cave-ins. To better protect our buildings, our scientists came up with a nifty solution involving Exotic Minerals. This should make exploring and expanding into the underground a worthwhile endeavor to do while our surface colony is gradually expanding.

To realize this vision of an enigmatic yet dangerous underground, we started development on an explorable network of underground lava tubes. They should feel dark, cramped, and mysterious while you're exploring, but also have enough room to build and expand your colony. We created a network of interconnected tunnels, with rooms spread around to provide building space. But we left it in darkness to give the underground a real cramped and mysterious feel to it as if you're spelunking and placing lights along the way. Don't worry, we also equipped all buildings, RC Vehicles, and drones with plenty of lights and some emergency lights in case they break down. To really emphasize the exploration, we equipped our RC vehicles with scanning technology that will reveal any anomalies or resources they pass by. Unfortunately, these tunnels are placed at depths our orbital scanning technology is not yet able to analyze at any meaningful level.

Our goal is for players to explore the underground in parallel with expanding their colony on Mars. So we did some early simulations with test commanders to see if our underground maps worked with this goal in mind. Unfortunately, we found them going through the underground at lightning speed, losing the sense of exploration and discovery. To this end, we sprinkled some cave-ins and blocked tunnels throughout the underground. These give commanders natural moments to check up on their surface colony and Asteroid outposts. Blocked tunnels can be cleared with a new landscaping tool and unlock access to new rooms and tunnels. Cave-ins require a better understanding of the underground to remove, as the area is clearly unstable. But once you obtain that technology, you'll be able to clear cave-ins to find shortcuts between chambers and many discoveries hidden by the darkness.

The real treasure hidden in these depths are the buried wonders; ancient natural, and some unnatural, features long covered up by Mars's soil. Each with its own secrets to reveal and benefits to acquire. Once fully unlocked with Exotic Minerals, they are just as powerful as the wonders our technology can accomplish. Though not all of Mars is equal, besides different tunnel layouts and entrance locations, not all wonders can be found on each landing site. It will always be a surprise what we will find down there in the darkness.

Most buildings from the surface are still buildable in the underground, while we also have a few new ones to deal with the unique challenges found down there. While they're protected from the hazards of the surface, underground marsquakes, caused by our elevators and expansion, pose a real risk of burying our buildings beneath cave-ins. We've engineered support struts that should be able to take the bulk of the impact, and reinforced domes to at least keep our colonists safe in the underground.

Once we had this up and running, we had a series of test commanders run various simulations. This gave us many different results that allowed us to better adjust the underground layouts and risks and rewards. Though the biggest problem proved to be drone command. Our simulations showed placing a drone hub within a larger room worked perfectly, however connecting it required several drone hubs within the tunnels. To solve this problem, our engineers went playing with some Exotic Minerals and came up with Drone Hub Extenders. These buildings are able to extend a Drone Hub's signal through the entire tunnel. And theoretically, it should also work on the surface and on Asteroids.

My favourite part of the underground? After a long day, I like to just sit on the back of an RC Explorer and look around as it drives through the underground. Or maybe an RC Safari, if the tourists aren't making too much noise. There's something about the calm darkness as if you'll find a new treasure any second.

That should cover everything, so I'm going to find myself an RC Explorer right now and I'll see you around. Do make sure you come back, there'll be another tour soon. The next one will dive into our new tech tree that will make all this possible and look at a few ways we managed to improve your life. Still here? Then you might as well watch our instructional video on underground exploration. It might help give you a better bearing once you start exploring the underground yourself.

Until next time Commander, and I hope I'll see you exploring down here soon!

Welcome, Commander!

It appears you requested an update on how we developed the new Below and Beyond project. The name’s Elmer Lexmond designer on the Below and Beyond planning and development team, nice to meet you! I’m here to give you a peek behind the curtain. On the agenda today is Mining Asteroids! Let me start you off with a quick summary. We have developed a new building, the Recon Center which lets us track Asteroids that pass in close proximity to Mars. You can visit these tracked asteroids with our brand-new Asteroid Landers, rockets designed to land in conditions that would be impossible for our standard Supply Rockets. Once there, we have a limited amount of time to mine as many resources as possible and leave the asteroids before it is too far away from Mars to make the return trip. We will need specialized Micro-G Auto Extractors at first, but we can eventually get permits to send the personnel that can populate our more efficient Micro-G Mining Stations.

Why the asteroids you ask? First off, because 86% of colonists think asteroids are “very cool”, and secondly because creating these short-term mining bases in an isolated location is a completely different challenge from anything we have done on the surface of Mars so far. You will have to work with limited resources, irregular building space, and a specific time window, but the reward is also different. You invest resources on a mission to get access to an abundance of materials, such as the newly discovered Exotic Minerals that are exclusive to asteroids. This makes visiting asteroids a perfect opportunity for when you are developing a project on the Martian surface that requires some time to finish.

To make our vision come true, we started by developing the asteroids themselves. Our goal was to make each asteroid feel unique. We created various asteroid types based on existing classifications of asteroids. Each type has a different spread of resources available and a different rate at which they can appear. A C-type asteroid for instance is much more common than the elusive X-Type. We also created different looks for the asteroids based on the main resources available on them. Combine this with various pre-authored maps to get a diverse mix of asteroids that require different strategies each time around.

But an asteroid on its own doesn’t get us very far. We needed to decide what new buildings we needed and which existing ones we could reuse. For new buildings, we focused on the ones with specialized functions such as extractors and small-scale living space for colonists that wouldn’t require a full dome. For the existing ones we eliminated the buildings that wouldn’t function in the micro-G environment, this meant that we had to introduce a substitute for the MOXIE if we wanted our colonists to be able to breathe, which led to the new Electrolyzer.

With all this in place, we called upon our test commanders to run simulated missions. We got a wide range of results, but most prominent of all was the sentiment that managing multiple locations at the same time was quite taxing for most commanders. After investigating further, we learned that one of the biggest problems was setting up the Asteroid Landers for their trip back to Mars. To be successful our commanders needed to update the cargo request on the Asteroid Lander frequently to get it loaded before the time on the asteroid ran out. To remedy this, we created an AutoLoad function where commanders can set their preferences and let the rocket AI update the cargo request continuously based on the specifications and what is available on the asteroid. The second problem was the need to launch the rocket manually. To relieve some of the stress of trying to launch the rocket at the perfect moment, we gave the rocket an AI subroutine to launch automatically when the time limit on the asteroid was reached, regardless of whether the current cargo request was fully completed. You should thank our testers, commander, they saved you a lot of stress by running these simulations before we rolled the project out to you!

Do you want to know what was my favourite part of creating the asteroids? I must say I had a lot of fun working on the naming convention for them! We took cues from how they are named and classified on earth and tailored them to be more appropriate for our purposes. You will find that our team added some creative new names to the vast list of existing asteroid names already out there!

Well, I’m sure I’ve covered pretty much everything, not to mention I’m in dire need of a coffee break.

But worry not, there are more dev diaries on the horizon! According to the schedule, the next one will delve deeper into the development of the Martian Underground. I highly recommend you’ll join us again for that one, there will be some very interesting things explained there. It’ll go into further detail on why Exotic Minerals are worth all this trouble. In the meantime, please watch our instructional video on Asteroid Mining, it might help you to not lose some of that pricy new equipment to the dark void of space.

Until next time Commander and I hope to see you on our first real asteroid mission soon!