Choosing your sponsor in Surviving Mars Surviving Mars Guide & Walkthrough
Last update: 20 March 2018
In this section, you will find out more about sponsors and their unique traits. Selecting your sponsor will greatly affect the difficulty level. Apart from bonus Techs, sponsors offer additional funding and can differ in terms of starting rockets.
Which sponsor should I choose?
The easiest pick is the International Mars Mission. You won't have to worry about fuel or that your colonists become Earthsick. Blue Sky Corporation or India are also good options due to their bonus techs (technologies that you start the game with). Basically, selecting your sponsor depends on how much you want to make the game easy or hard. Church of the New Ark seems like an interesting choice, but you will have to overcome their flaw - hydroponic farm penalty. This flaw will not matter later on in the game.
Sponsors
Sponsors | Description |
International Mars Mission | Starting rockets - 5, Difficulty - Very Easy, Funding - $30 000 M, Research per sol - 300, Starting applicants - 200. Unique traits: Rockets can carry +70,000 kg more cargo, colonists will never become Earthsick, food carried by Passenger Rockets is multiplied x10, rockets will slowly synthesize fuel while on Mars. |
USA | Starting rockets - 3, Difficulty - Easy, Funding - $8 000 M, Research per sol - 300, Starting applicants - 100. Unique traits: Rockets can carry +70,000 kg more cargo, periodic additional funding. |
Blue Sky Corporation | Starting rockets - 2, Difficulty - Easy, Funding - $10 000 M, Research per sol - 100, Starting applicants - 100. Unique traits: Can buy applicants with funding, additional rockets are cheaper, probes can discover deep Rare Metals Deposits, bonus technology - Rare Metals Extractors (can exploit deep deposits). |
China | Starting rockets - 3, Difficulty - Easy, Funding - $8 000 M, Research per sol - 200, Starting applicants - 200. Unique traits: Passenger rockets carry an additional 10 colonists, applicants are generated twice as fast. |
India | Starting rockets - 3, Difficulty - Normal, Funding - $7 000 M, Research per sol - 100, Starting applicants - 150. Unique traits: All building costs reduced by 20%, bonus technology - Microgravity Engineering (Starts with Medium Dome unlocked). |
Europe | Starting rockets - 2, Difficulty - Normal, Funding - $6 000 M, Research per sol - 400, Starting applicants - 100. Unique traits: 5 extra starting technologies, player gains funding every time a technology is researched. Gains double if it's a breakthrough. |
SpaceY | Starting rockets - 5, Difficulty - Normal, Funding - $6 000 M, Research per sol - 200, Starting applicants - 75. Unique traits: Drone hubs start with additional drones, advanced resources are 50% cheaper. |
Church of the New Ark | Starting rockets - 1, Difficulty - Hard, Funding - $4 000 M, Research per sol - 0, Starting applicants - 120. Unique traits: All colonists have the Religious trait, birthrate is doubled, farms produce 50% less (disadvantage). |
Russia | Starting rockets - 2, Difficulty - Hard, Funding - $5 000 M, Research per sol - 200, Starting applicants - 100. Unique traits: Starts with Fueled Extractors technology researched (improves efficiency at the cost of fuel), Fuel Refinery Prefab costs 50% less, rockets arrive slower (disadvantage). |