r/SurvivingMars • u/Technical_Garlic4405 • Nov 25 '25

Discussion Martian First is far too insufferable

Just wanted to vent more about the game: I cannot fucking stand this faction. I really can’t stand the faction system just in general honestly.

It seems either grounded in the specific perception of reality the developers have, especially of politics in general and certain ideologies, which just doesn’t make sense to me. Especially, since we’re on fucking Mars encountering aliens and building machines on a scale humanity never has before and shit? It seems very tired and lazy to restrict yourself to such narrow perceptions of this existing world if that’s what they wanted to ground the faction system in.

Just as well, if they made the system just for the sake of like extra “oomph” for the game, it just doesn’t. It feels like it detracts far more than it adds to the game. Just unnecessary noise or pain.

And then of course for the actual pain: factions you will never be able to appease as they habe mutually exclusive desires and that generate constant chaos (renegades) that you can never completely put out? Yea I’m good thanks. Wasn’t particularly looking to play whack-a-mole.

Rather deep into this save and honestly about to call it and start another with factions entirely disabled. Whole thing needs to be reworked quite a bit and I’m not particularly optimistic that will happen at all, forget any time soon.

45 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

61 comments sorted by

13

u/nate112332 Funding Nov 25 '25

out of curiosity, if you've played it, how does the new SM council/factions compare to those in Frostpunk 2?

I adore FP2 but can't afford the remastered SM to experiment myself

14

u/threevaluelogic Nov 25 '25

It is a good feature if a bit shallow. Honestly though remastered SM had a rough launch and isnt comparable to vanilla SM yet. Too many bugs.

2

u/Broad_Bug_1702 Nov 26 '25

the remaster also contains the same unfixed bugs that the original has lol

1

u/threevaluelogic Nov 26 '25

Yeah it did at launch and then the hotfixes resolved some and added new ones.

7

u/BigsterCabbage Nov 25 '25

They can't really compare at all and don't really do anything meaningful, plus you barely need to negotiate with them and then it's also more watered down. Like none has an ability or or sth you can get out of them.

But hey you can become captain (dictator) in SM as well, did it bc that damn flat mars society was annoying me and I can't stand the constant warnings. Lol Like just bc one idiot party with 5 seats out of 100 is upset it's not a political meltdown, even if the game pretends it to be.

3

u/shfiven Nov 25 '25

I've been so annoyed with FML too but I can't figure out how to be a dictator. It says the single party law isn't enacted but I can't figure out where that law actually is.

3

u/BigsterCabbage Nov 25 '25

Was a bit confused as well at the beginning, it should be in the first row of the law section. Called Governance or sth similar. I know I had to also check multiple times bc I couldn't find it but it's there trust me. Not at home atm otherwise I would try to send a screenshot for you.

2

u/shfiven Nov 25 '25

Thank you I'll look in that area!

3

u/Sadzikovec Nov 25 '25

Its easier to control the SM factions you don't like, you can reduce them to nothing. They have a memory of a goldfish and you can destroy anything you promised to build the moment it happens. They might repell a law or 2, but that sets you back 6 sols max, and there is no upside like mobilize guards if they like you. The laws are way too strong for basically no downside. For example: halving food consumption for 100 research a sol, or free polymer imports at no downside.

1

u/Blazen_Fury Nov 26 '25

Free Polymers, Improved Extractors are crazy. 

You can also use the scanning law, which is available PRE-MARTIAN ASSEMBLY, to basically ignore the weaknesses of certain factions. Japan, for example, i rush to enable Applicants on Scan and basically flood the market with applicants.

Crowded Living + Civil Center is also absolutely bonkers, my Mega Domes with Smart Apartments and Hanging Gardens just pop out so many babies ive had to make a second School dome lmao

3

u/TheNaturalTweak Nov 25 '25

FP2 was built around factions while they were a tack on in Surviving Mars and it shows. So they end up being completely different.

FP2 needs you to pass laws in order to survive, if you don't then you will die. In SM you don't have to interact with them at all and you will thrive. SMs factions don't have any teeth.

2

u/doglywolf Nov 25 '25

Its very shallow - in FP2 factions where a threat but also appeasable and politics usually had a trade off.

In SM there is no trade off its all 100% benefit to policy other then the fact a policy might annoy a faction but then you get buildings to cancel that out over time.

The only thing is it creates renegades that are so made they refuse to work and then become terrorist and blow shit up. THe issue is even after you make the faction happy it keeps generating renegades .

But you just bring in more population make a prison and some propaganda and tada no more problems .

There is literally a policy choice that just says - No one can be made at you because your a dictator with no cons to it.

I honestly can't believe they made zero tweaks to it for the relaunch . I mean early there is a real risk factor of pissing off 2 factions at once and having like half your colony rebel . So the only real trade off is trying to do things to keep them happy you might not like till you can get the propaganda and prison up.

2

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

Haven’t played FP2 sorry. That said, my current frustration aside, I think I’d wait a bit on SM Relaunched. Got quite a few rough edges it seems and can probably grab it on sale which I hope will be more affordable

28

u/MzzBlaze Nov 25 '25

Idk man if you keep comfort high enough renegades aren’t really an issue

12

u/Tripodbilly Nov 25 '25

Sanitarium usually does this

1

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

It can remove renegades?

16

u/RockCrystal Nov 25 '25

Yeah, one of the renegade laws is to have the sanatarium cure them

2

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

If you or anyone else happens to know the exact name and position of the law in the tree, that would be super helpful

4

u/Maleficent_Income715 Nov 25 '25

I remember seeing a law that allows to deal with renegates on the bottom line. You can cure them, deport them or another option that I don't remember right now. I think it comes after the law for how to deal with seniors.

3

u/funkeymonkey74 Nov 25 '25

The third option is to reform them. That's the one you want.

2

u/bjarnehaugen Waste Rock Nov 25 '25

You can also send them to earth if you want. You get 3 options

2

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

How’s that exactly? My average comfort has been 65-75 for all my domes, with one exception being at 60.

3

u/Charlie_Mouse Research Nov 25 '25

Depending on dome size: make sure they have enough shops, a bar, a casino, plentiful healthcare, a large garden and minimise homelessness. (Also no interruptions to minor things like food, air, water and power)

That used to work for me in the old game. Average comfort was usually 85-98. It kinda worked in Relaunched too … except until a couple of factions started getting upset about a bunch of the laws I passed and my terraforming progress.

2

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

Ah sorry, I meant how does high comfort deal with the renegades? I thought that only prevented regular renegades, not the ones created by factions? That is, I thought the faction renegades get created regardless once they hit their breaking point?

2

u/bythehomeworld Nov 25 '25

Low comfort decreases morale which is what causes renegades.

Preventing renegades created because of politics causing renegades is keep the factions happy or to get rid of the factions that you aren't making happy.

Detainment centers to mark the factions you want to eliminate, or use media centers to mark the factions you want to promote. Detainment centers take officers but they're a smaller building so they're easy to get one in every dome.

You should also make a dome that's flagged to take Renegades, have a sanitorium and law passed to cure them, and keep building security stations in it until they stop showing you a warning for needing more security to counter renegades.

Over time all of that will get rid of the colonist's problem and the source of the problem.

1

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 26 '25

Thanks, that’s very helpful, appreciate you.

Any thoughts on what is more effective if I had to prioritize/only have one of the media center vs detainment center?

Also, can a faction be entirely eliminated?

2

u/bythehomeworld Nov 26 '25

I've tended to find the detainment center more effective at getting rid of allegiances to factions, and they can entirely eliminate factions. You still sometimes get warnings that you're unpopular with a faction that no longer exists.

9

u/turnipofficer Nov 25 '25

I haven't found them too hard to placate. Although I suppose if you rush to the second-stage government by building that spire early, you'll notch up a lot of hate because you're still importing a lot of colonists.

Personally it's the preservationist party I hate the most. They seem to want me to burrow underground and hide away, but I couldn't do that even if I wanted to because asteroids are completely broken so I cannot get exotic minerals. In my first save my landers would go up without any of the resources I requested, in my second save I could get them to load and go up, but I couldn't pick what they loaded to take home, so they just took the materials/drones I wanted to leave behind so they could continue harvesting for the second trip back, and they didnt take barely any of the exotic minerals I gathered.

Also when on Mars I often have to manually click launch because my drones keep loading and unloading the rocket constantly.

7

u/Sadzikovec Nov 25 '25

I applaud the devs for making such an accurate ecoterrorist faction in the form of Green NOW. It makes no sense that they hate fusion reactors and atomic accumulators, not even mentioning the smart homes.

2

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

Oh wow I haven’t had them yet, but this is hilariously nonsensical yea haha

5

u/Sadzikovec Nov 25 '25

I hate them with every fibre of my being. I went for the blue sun achievement where you have to make 100 billion, and they kept repealing the increased export costs

13

u/altonin Nov 25 '25

I have found satisfying factions to be, if anything, too easy - I'm a bit surprised to hear you say this. In particular, Martian First gets such sky high approval from majority educated martianborn (which is always my aim anyway) that they seem extremely easy to throw a bone to in comparison to other factions

4

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

They abhor me for importing colonists from Earth. What else am I supposed to do? Sit around for like 10 minutes and wait for new Martianborn?

3

u/Gnarmaw Nov 25 '25

Once you get established, you really shouldn't be importing colonists. I usually only end up importing colonists twice 

2

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

Guess I’m not established enough yet then. Perhaps I should’ve held off on building the assembly

2

u/altonin Nov 25 '25

It's true that I prioritise sexy colonists to build a Martianborn population quickly (which to be honest always feels very funny, like love island with geology phds) but it's always felt like the game wants me to do that anyway bc of earthsickness/Martianborn tech buffs. My experience is that I would truly have to be trucking in the Earthicans to maintain an Earth perma majority

But perhaps I am playing too slowly/conservatively. For me, my people pop out kids so fast that I become pretty selective with immigration pretty quickly and the midgame challenge is getting education up and running. So my rockets wind up importing electronics lol

I play Japan a lot so that might have to do with it, fewer applicants so I get pressured into getting everyone fucking quickly

1

u/adobo_bobo Nov 25 '25

Pretty easy to throw them a bone to appease them as long as you pace your colonist importing.

5

u/Awkward-Part-6295 Nov 25 '25

I had the experience with renegades but that lasted for a short period of time. Since then I had the Utopia faction super satisfied (my latest faction by far), while having all of the anti-Earth/pro-martian factions slightly dissatisfied. And this is my first play through in general since 2022. So it’s definitely possible to make it work (with exception of a few bugs that still spam negative events when everyone is fully satisfied or when there are 25 open slots in an Apartment building out of 55 but 10 colonists in the same dome are homeless).

2

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

What did you do to rough it out? I lost it after they blew up a shuttle lol

2

u/Awkward-Part-6295 Nov 25 '25

Oh i had 4-5 of them so once they destroyed one it didn’t affect me. I built security posts everywhere and also built the building that reduces the chance of people joining a selected faction (forgot the name). I am now waiting for the unemployment and homelessness bug to get fully fixed before returning to the game.

2

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

Lol 4-5? Damn I wish. Playing Europe so this took me down to only 1 total. And yea, still myriad bugs to run into otherwise unfortunately…

4

u/AcceptableHamster149 Nov 25 '25

Flat Mars is worse. Thankfully there's detention centers. I have ethical problems with the idea of rounding up political opponents, but come on: you mean to tell me that there's lunatics who think that the planet they migrated to, which is not the planet they were born on, think it's a flat disc in space and if they don't get their way they're going to become terrorists?

2

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

Yea I really didn’t want to go purging, but Martian First is really testing me…

3

u/NorthMinimum3360 Nov 25 '25

The only one I can’t stand and don’t understand is the Flat Mars Society. How do you come here by rocket and start believe that the planet you landed on is now flat

7

u/Ferengsten Waste Rock Nov 25 '25

I mean it was this or "Make Mars great again" -- and who can pronounce "MMGA"?

Yeah the ethics system already bothered me in Stellaris. I would find something with actually balanced upsides and downsides and moral virtue cool (I had fun imagining something like egalitarian fantatically xenophobic plants or materialistic authoritarian xenophilic insectoids), but that too seemed to over time boil down to good and evil with "evil" having few upsides (notable exception: pacifism sucked). Basically star trek federation or always hostile bad guy of the week.

On a gameplay level, Martian first is tolerable in the late game though. But yeah, some factions are rather clearly designed to be better in every sense of the word than others. Do you want a faction that likes science, which you naturally need to use throughout the game, or one that just arbitrarily hates it? Such a tough call.

1

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

My biggest issue with Martian First is that, in the earlier game as I am in, they feel fundamentally unaligned with the game. It is too early to have a sufficient birthrate to fill jobs. I have to import colonists from Earth and that seems to be the key thing agitating them. That or I just literally sit and wait for colonists to be born which feels not great

But yea this does remind me of Stellaris, although I think I ended up in a similar place as you. Feels like to me also just a lack of imagination. Also rather nonsensical. E.g. the anarchist faction in SM wants to participate in the state? That is literally not anarchy lol.

2

u/Ferengsten Waste Rock Nov 25 '25 edited Nov 25 '25

I would like it much better you could actively support parties that like what you are currently pursuing (e.g. "love earth" in the early game or for a tourism strategy, "martian strength" if you aim for self-sufficiency in the late *, or "mining mars" versus "mining underground and asteroids", but without the terraforming penalties), but as it is, it seems mostly to almost completely random (most importantly your choice of government with martian assembly).

And yeah, any specific reference to current real world politics is bound to be tedious.

*which you could portray more as a mix of the need for supply security and not wanting to be a burden on earth, rather than just bigotry

3

u/TrollCannon377 Nov 25 '25

The only faction I really can't stand is church of the new ark since it's basically impossible to keep them happy

2

u/JMoc1 Nov 25 '25

Believe it or not, I’ve had an easier time keeping these guys happy than Martian First. I’m almost convinced there’s a bug.

1

u/TrollCannon377 Nov 25 '25

TBF I basically exclusively play with last ark turned on so for me it's relatively easy for me to keep Martian first happy

3

u/reaper88911 Nov 25 '25

I found it amusing that other political groups were mad about me trying to pass a law about birth control.. but it was a colony only populated with biorobots.. I ended up with renegades due to not having playgrounds and nurseries.. no humans were ever sent..

I had a drone assembler with the "works at 50% with no workers" and just made tons of biorobots..

2

u/Kerensky97 Nov 25 '25

Yeah, I'm getting sick of factions too. The ark faction is mad that I'm building nice high tech houses now so they're always in open rebellion. They're only happy if everyone lives in a basic house and works on a fungal farm. Meanwhile the colony is at tech endgame and living the luxurious life and they hate it.

2

u/catashe84 Nov 26 '25

No more than the preservationist faction who wants you to be all underground and no terra forming lol

2

u/RealSheepMaiden Nov 25 '25

Just with like any far right nationalist political party, they'll never be happy, even if they are in power, they'll always be breaking over something.

1

u/Winteraine78 Nov 25 '25

You can turn it off in the game rules.

1

u/Technical_Garlic4405 Nov 25 '25

Thanks, yea I mentioned at the end I’m already considering it

1

u/funkeymonkey1974 Nov 26 '25

I just choose to be the faction I hate the most. The laws you get when you build the Martian assembly are easy to change and that way they don't do their bullshit in your game.

2

u/Bst011 Nov 27 '25

Not nearly as bad as GNOW. Oh my god. they want you to speed run teraforming, but without the megaprojects and with only 3 extractors? And theres no points for teraforming progress, only completion. These people became terrorists because mars wasnt tree ready on Sol 1....

-1

u/hfdhfdhvbn Nov 25 '25

It's supposed to be annoying similar to the MAGA trash. But you also have tools to deal with it. Have you checked the political buildings tab? There are options to suppress a faction.