15 Best Surviving Mars Mods You Can’t Play Without

Info Bar

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

Novelty mods are fun and all, but occasionally you just want something to serve a purpose without all of the frills and excitement of, say, turning all of the residents into dinosaurs. Info Bar has proven to fit just that qualification, as it does exactly what it says: giving you a bar with important information on things like your resources, research, and funding. It is incredibly useful, though it perhaps would look flashier if the interface featured a collection of, say, dinosaurs riding skateboards. Just spitballing here.

Better Zoom Distance (30K)

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

When trying to micromanage your interplanetary community (or when you are looking at someone very ugly) in Surviving Mars, you may wish to move further away from the action. Though Surviving Mars does have a native zoom function, using this mod increases the zoom distance even further, allowing you to survey the selected sector from afar.

If you can’t handle all that zoom, there is also a half-distance 15K version available.

Show Research Progress on HUD

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

If it wasn’t apparent from the snappy title, this here mod graces you with a progress bar for current research on your HUD. Its default setting is to turn to a malicious shade of red when there is no research currently being undertaken, but can be adjusted to disappear off the screen instead.

It’s the kind of thing that Surviving Mars could really benefit from having as a native feature, perhaps in a future update they’ll take a cue and give us the goods?

Smarter Worker AI

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

As the old adage goes: work smarter, not harder.

With the use of this mod, specialists will only work outside of their respective field if there are no free slots available for their specialization. And you know what? That sounds like a great idea to me. We all dare to dream big, dabble in other fields, perhaps pursue other interests, but we’re trying to build a society here, guys. Aces in their places.

At the present moment, there are a few niggling compatibility issues with some other mods that also adjust the AI of residents, so keep that in mind, lest you have hordes of people just milling about and deciding that their specialty is in actual fact unemployment.

AutoGatherTransport

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

Getting sick of your RC Transports slacking about when there’s nothing to do? Apply this mod and idle units will gather resources scattered around the surface, bring them to the closest Universal Storage location, and even automatically recharge from a nearby Power Cable. The diligent efforts of these autonomous RC Transports will not only save time on moving resources, but they will also surface scan to check for hidden deposits. We truly live in the age of the future.

Drones Fix Leaks Faster

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

Alright, so this one errs a little on the side of cheating, but sometimes a little bit of rebalancing is required to make a game feel more fair. Using this mod will speed up the time it takes for drones to repair leaks from 180 seconds down to 30. Obviously, this makes things a lot easier for you, freeing up your drones from spending inordinate periods of time playing the role of plumber. For the purists out there who like their drones inefficient, you’d best look elsewhere.

Cemetery

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

If your dome wasn’t already feeling quite so morose, here’s a mod that introduces a new building type to your arsenal – the cemetery. Its features aren’t merely aesthetic, as it will reduce penalties suffered by colonists’ deaths, and newborn colonists will gain positive traits from buried colonists.

It’s the circle of life, though a recent comment from one user raises some eyebrows: “This mod was fun until I had a child born with the Sexy trait. Now I’m not so sure.”

Nurseries Limit Births

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

Sick of your domes being overrun with sexy babies? Apply this mod and you’ll be able to limit the number of births to the number of available slots in the dome nurseries. Designate certain domes as Birth Domes to be able to concentrate your population influx into one particular area, and watch as your tightly controlled society thrives. It’s a bit autocratic, but it’s worth it.

Paradox Radio

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

Mars can be a lonely place, even with a society of underlings to do your bidding. Tuning into Paradox Radio will treat you to a range of tracks from Paradox Interactive titles, including familiar favorites from Crusader Kings II, Europa Universalis IV, Hearts of Iron IV and the Cities Radio station from Cities Skylines. As an aside, this Surviving Mars mod has official approval from Paradox Interactive, so you won’t have to be concerned about it being removed for copyright infringement.

Synthetic Meat

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

Not every mod need adhere to the mandate of function over form. Many of the mods on this list will provide tangible benefits that will make your life easier. This one, on the other hand, puts meat into your colonists’ diets – and that’s fine, too.

It’s a neat little touch for those who want to embrace their carnivorous side in Surviving Mars, and even if it’s not your cup of tea, you may get a kick out of the ongoing heated debate in the comments section, where the merits of veganism are being argued. See? This is the mod that keeps on giving!

Smarter Migration AI

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

From the person who brought you smarter employees and controlled breeding, comes this nifty mod that will clue your colonists into a better life next door. Should a specialist be working in a mismatched profession when a relevant opportunity emerges in another dome, they will automatically migrate there with all of the enthusiasm of Homer Simpson joining the Globex Corporation. Additionally, if a job in their specialization is being undertaken by non-specialists in other domes, they will head that way to ensure the job is done right. They’ve studied too hard to let just any regular yokel fill the job, and they’ve got the college fees to prove it!

Martian Economy

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

It may sound like a B-side track from Oasis, but Martian Economy is your handy tool to rendering Mars into the ultimate capitalist machine. It’s also recommended when using the Smarter Migration AI mod, so we would be remiss to exclude it.

This Surviving Mars mod assigns workplaces a wage level, while residences have a rent level and service buildings have a price level. In other words, only the hard-working leaders of society will be able to sample the finer things in life, while the ne’er-do-wells will be relegated to the less prestigious facilities on offer. No more handouts on Mars, boys and girls – if they want that coveted Smart Home, they’ll have to either work for it, or else they’ll hit the dusty red bricks.

Cover Art Style Shading

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

There is an understated elegance to the Surviving Mars cover art that is quite attractive, but unfortunately that aesthetic is lost to a degree in-game. With this mod, however, a filter will be added to the Photo Mode that renders the visuals in a beautiful cel-shaded aesthetic.

Though this doesn’t improve your quality of life (unless you have a very specific series of requirements to your wellbeing centered around optics), it can be compelling rediscovering Mars in a new perspective. The mod did have some hiccups wherein rocks would be permanently shaded in neon colors after its use, but a recent patch has removed that glitch. Which is a shame, if you’re into fancy rocks.

More Dome Buildings

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

It was the wise Dr. Frasier Crane who once suggested that “if less is more, then just think how much more, more will be,” and this mod fully embraces that notion, adding a bevy of fun buildings of delightful excess to your arsenal.

From a spacepub to a pachinko parlor, from a first-class diner to a shopping center, each with their own little quirks and benefits, your dwellings will go from drab dome to fab home in no time. For the truly decadent, you can even go a step further and construct more elaborate buildings like a mega mall to truly set your people abuzz. Such a benevolent overlord you are, the filthy masses will clamor to kiss your ring.

Mass Waste Rock Dump

15 Best Surviving Mars Mods

We hate Waste Rocks. You hate Waste Rocks. Your cousin that you never talk to anymore hates Waste Rocks. Just trust us, we totally asked him.

There’s no better solution to this pesky byproduct than to brush it aside, but the standard dumping sites only have enough room to hold 70 of them. By building the mass dumping site, that number skyrockets to an unfathomable 5,000 units. At long last, your days of scrambling to sweep Waste Rocks under the rug will be a thing of the past, as you can plonk them all away, ready to be liquefied into something tangible at a later date. The only mystery is how the dump site can hold such an enormous quantity – our theories are that they are either sent through a temporal rift between space and time, shrunken to minuscule proportions by a space wizard, or stored neatly within Tupperware containers.