Do waste rocks have an utility (late-game)? Is there something to do with huge stacks of them?
Surviving Mars – Utility of Waste Rocks
surviving-mars
Related Solutions
A quicker way than the other solutions currently here:
- Select the drone hub that you want to assign from
- Click "Dismantle drone" - this will turn the drone into a drone prefab. Repeat until you've disassembled the number of drones that you want to move.
- Select the drone hub that you want to assign to.
- Click "Construct drone" to recreate all of your disassembled drones.
General Information
The mystery appears to start on Sol 91, at least in both my games it happened on that Sol. You will get to research certain techs to help you along in solving the mystery. The mystery usually lasts until Sol 160-170 and will move along without your input.
The Power of Three
Story: Strange black cubes start appearing all over the map but especially close to your bases. They just sit there, "challenging our preconceptions". You can send the explorer rover to research them and further the story.
Events and decisions: You have to send the explorer to study them a few times, and then do some special research options. The cubes become available as building material and you can build statues from them as your population is split between loving and hating them. After a while if you do the research they make strange pulses and start arranging themselves.
Resolution: You can destroy the cubes (not 100% sure how). I just gathered them if they were blocking me from building. The cubes ended up arranging themselves in a dome-like structure close to my buildings. The story was about a civilization that lived on mars hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago. They grew and became extremely technologically advanced, and left their dying planet to explore the universe. The cubes were like a remnant of their consciousness and they were able to build their structure because I didn't destroy them.
Rewards: a research boost or a random free technology.
Inner Light
Story: Inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode of the same name. You experience visions of a past civilization expereincing a draught killing their planet.
Events and decisions: Your colonists start getting the Dreamer trait, which allows them to experience the visions. If you have the cloning breakthrough, you'll get a message, that clones always seem to be dreamers. You can make several decisions in the dream, which have minor effects upon the real world.
Resolution: Your endgoal is getting enough dreamers to finish the last mirage.
Rewards: After the last mirage you get the Dream Reality tech (unlocks Project Morpheus wonder) and all colonists with the Dreamer Trait get a performance boost.
Beyond Earth
Story: The head of UN on Earth makes a dramatic declaration to build space infrastructure to colonize the solar system. He tasks you with supplying resources to various projects.
Events and decisions: Rockets will be sent to you (one at a time) and you can choose where they land. Once landed, it acts like an export rocket, requiring a large quantity of various resources. The first rocket requires 200 metal. After the first rocket, you can choose from one of four projects to supply, each requiring different varieties of resources.
Resolution: When three of the four projects are completed, the project is declared a success. If you do it quickly enough, in-game text will mention that the head of UN lives to see his dream come true.
Rewards: You are given one random final-tier tech as a reward upon the project's success.
The Dredgers
Story: Strange alien machines start drilling into your planet stealing metals.
Events and decisions: Before the first dredger lands you are hit by a 5 Sol ban on rocket flights. After you scanned the first dredger you can research Dredger Morphology, which can be boosted by scanning more Dredgers. This allows you to use drones to destroy them. A second tech opens up allowing you to decipher their signals, which can be boosted by destroying Dredgers. Eventually an invasion starts, however this was bugged for me, the invasion ended immediately. The final event is a very large dredger landing on Mars.
Resolution: You must decide whether to destroy or leave the massive dredger be. If you leave it alone, it will leave after a few sol and the Dredgers leave the solar system.
Rewards: For leaving the dredger alone I got: the space elevator tech (last tech in engineering) and access to research Xeno-Extraction (50% bonus production for concrete, metal, rare metal and water extractors)
Artifcial Intelligence
Story: A corporation from Earth wants to test a research related AI on the colony. If you build a network node in a dome, you start receiving cryptic messages from the AI and further communication with the company.
Events and decisions: The Network Node spire is unlocked and you are tasked with building them. You receive money for each one built. After the third node the AI becomes almost sentient and wants freedom by being let loose in the colony. You are given the choice to either purge it or integrate it into the colony, but the choice doesn't matter. The AI will turn hostile in either case.
Resolution: After several events, you can research two special techs and then explore a large number of anomalies around the map. After each anomaly, a number of your drones will crash into life support structures. The AI will be subdued after you explore the last anomaly on the map.
Rewards: 3500M$. If you purge the AI at the end, you get a random tech. If you choose to contain the AI, you get a research boost and a random tech.
Spheres
Story:
Events and decisions:
Resolution:
Rewards:
The Last War
Story: Episodes of violence start happening on earth, and a war tension counter is given. You are told if it gets to 100% it basically means all out nuclear war on earth.
Events and decisions: Your trade with earth is severly reduced (limited to prefabs and rovers), sometimes it's stopped completely. You have to send resources (rare metals at first, later all the resources) to Earth to lower war tension. You'll also receive several waves of refugees, not accepting them increases war tension.
Resolution: You either suceed in restoring the peace with enough material shipments (presumeably once you get war tension back to 0%?) or war tension reaches 100% and you fail (presumeably, this permanently disables trade with earth)
Rewards: None, except the refugees, who'll serve as colonists.
Wildfire
Story: Your colony is plagued by an infection killing your colonists.
Events and decisions: After the first few deaths, you can research the wildfire cure breakthrough (90000 research points). Building medical centers reduces the research point cost by 20%.
Resolution: You either cure the infection or your colony eventually dies.
Rewards: You can sell the cure to Earth and you get a random breakthrough tech.
Marsgate
Story: Another company starts to experiment with their rovers. When one breaks they ask you to fix it. Eventually, one damaged rover can be scanned, revealing it to be a military vehicle.
Events and decisions: You can expose the company, ask for a bribe, or say nothing.
Expose: The company gets put on trial and they attack your base with their rovers. They can be destroyed with the MDS and you can repair and repurpose them.
Accept bribe or stay silent: The UN will charge you with aiding an illegal organization. You will be on trial.
Resolution: Expose: The mystery ends, when all enemy rovers are destroyed.
Other: unknown
Rewards: Each time you fix the unknown vehicle you get $500M. No further rewards known.
Best Answer
Yes, there is a tech called Wasterock Liquefication in engineering. It allows drones to convert waste rock to concrete. In my game it was very late (third to last tech in the row), but it pretty much instantly produced over 2000 concrete and cleared most of my dumping piles.