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Below and Beyond released recently as the new expansion for Surviving Mars now that Paradox Interactive has decided to pick up development again but it has been problematic.

Not just the DLC release but the game as a whole since the update and DLC being quite unstable. Currently sat with a Very Negative rating on Steam, Paradox and newer developer Abstraction have their work cut out for them to get it back into the positive.

Today they have released a hotfix to address some of the most pressing issues. Here's what's changed:

Patch notes, click me
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.

For the Linux version, I can confirm it has fixed the constant debug error messages that got in the way of the gameplay. So now hopefully you can go back to enjoying it.

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If you don't own Surviving Mars it's available for Linux from Humble Store, GOG, Paradox and Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
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3 comments

Bogomips Sep 13, 2021
Here no debug window anymore but the game is still not displayed, only sounds in the background, even with the fullscreen parameter set to 0 in the .lua file.
TheSHEEEP Sep 14, 2021
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Wow... the reviews for that DLC...

What the hell were they thinking releasing a DLC with that little useful content (there is ZERO reason to actually go underground/on asteroids beyond novelty) and that many bugs, not only breaking the main game but also all mods - you know, the things that kept the game alive for as long as they did?

I am honestly amazed and would love to be a fly on their walls to even get an idea on how this all happened.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 14 September 2021 at 6:33 am UTC
Philadelphus Sep 14, 2021
Well, as a first release from a new set of developers taking over someone else's code base I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt once regarding bugs (which happen in every release, after all)…but let's hope they get this cleaned up and do better going forwards.
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