Surviving Mars
80 Achievements
0-1h
Building a Better Future
Play as Blue Sun Corporation and export 500 units of Rare Metals to Earth before Sol 100
2.2%
How to unlock the Building a Better Future achievement in Surviving Mars - Definitive Guide
Phase 1: Landing and the first dome
Phase 2: Exporting and the second dome
Phase 3: Plasma Cutters
Phase 1
To begin with you need to select a good landing site, it's critical that you have two rare mining zones close to each other I found one near a few concrete spots and some water. Blue sun start with quite a few orbital probes so scan around to find a good site. Don't be afraid to pause and restart the map till you find a good site. I spent quite a while finding the site.
Once you've found a good site land your rocket build power and the concrete extractor.
Drone hub in the centre, make sure you cover all essential areas.
Water extractor and a fuel refinery should be next.
Build a general, fuel and concrete storage area.
Now choose the first dome site make sure its area field covers the two rare material spots.
I built a small dome to speed things up.
Order a rocket with an explorer and more supplies include a machines parts factory.
Build the factory inside the dome and apartments to house people.
Build your oxygen and a farm, I also built a diner.
Finally build your two rare material extractors and set them to high priority.
Order up your first rocket ship of colonists.
Phase 2
Straight away you'll begin filling the rocket with fuel and rare goods (SET ALL ROCKETS TO HIGH PRIORITY), while that happens keep an eye on your dome make sure everything is settled. Add in some more housing and order more colonists (if there are jobs going). Also build an infirmary when you get a chance.
You need to work towards a second dome, this dome will need to be placed in reach of the rare materials (both domes staff the extractors). For the second dome I added in a new water extractor and a new fuel refinery. By now I needed a new concrete extractor, place more drone hubs to extend your reach.
I built a water reclamation tower in my first dome so water levels remained high.
By now you should have sent a few ships back and forth, so place your second dome (I placed a medium one) again make sure you cover the rare materials. Once you've added a farm, I added a polymer factory, gym and a bar as well as housing.
Order the next round of colonists and add them to the dome, now click on the rare materials extractors and make sure they both have three work shifts turned on. This should give you 5 or 6 materials a day and you can really start getting toward the achievement.
Phase 3
With two extractors on three shifts you'll be ticking along at a good pace there's one final step to really maximise your exporting. On the Engineering tree you'll find the plasma cutters tech. This will boost extraction by 50% and give you 9 or 10 rare materials a day. As soon as this appears research it to give you the final push to 500 exported.
Time line to track your progress:
SOL 26 – 20
SOL 35 – 30
SOL 41 – 26
SOL 44 – 24
Total - 100 Exported
SOL 52 – 30
SOL 54 – 30
SOL 60 – 30
SOL 63 – 30
SOL 66 – 30
Total -250 Exported
SOL 68 – 30
SOL 71 – 30
Total - 310 Exported
SOL 72 - 30
SOL 74 - 30
SOL 76 - 30
Total - 400 Exported
SOL 78 - 30
SOL 79 - 30
SOL 81 - 30
SOL 82 - 30
Achievement popped once the last rocket took off, it does not need to land on Earth.
Once done I recommend you continue playing to unlock
Pick Blue Sun Corporation as your mission sponsor when starting a new game. Blue Sun Corporation pays the highest for Rare Metal exports and has the Deep Metal Extraction technology unlocked from the start and its probes can Deep Scan so by combining the two, you’ll be able to discover rich deep Rare Metal deposits early on.
After setting up your Colony and ensuring you’ve got all the essentials covered through production (metals, food, polymers), start exploring the map and setting up domes where Rare Metals have been discovered.
Whatever Rare Metals that are not used for producing Electronics should be exported, and at this point it’ll be worthwhile buying an extra rocket or two. Each Rocket carries up to 30 Rare Metals, you need to make sure the export function is turned on (on by default) on each Rocket and you should utilize the cycle function to make them land and depart automatically at a location near to where your Rare Metal & Fuel stockpiles are for quick exports.