MARSTEAD is a colony sim about building a settlement on Mars with the survivors of a crashed transport ship. Start with three colonists and three escape pods, establish the essentials and assign work to suit their skills. Grow crops, manufacture equipment, trade with visitors and prepare for hostile raids.

A demo covering your first 10 sols

The demo covers your colony's first 10 sols (Martian days), with saving, loading and the option to start again. Establish shelter, life support and food production, and work toward radio contact. The full game continues beyond this limit into the research and long-term projects described below.

Pressurized rooms and reliable power

Build enclosed rooms with walls, doors and airlocks, then supply them with oxygen. Water supports drinking, oxygen production, farming and cooking. Start a power grid with solar panels and batteries, and expand generation as the settlement grows. Keep reserves for cold snaps and dust storms, and send colonists to repair leaks and broken equipment before essential services come to a halt.

From growing beds to the kitchen

Plant rice, wheat and potatoes, and assign colonists to sow, water and harvest. Set up a kitchen to turn crops into porridge, rice, bread, baked potatoes and stew. Order just enough meals or maintain a target stock. Watch your remaining food and the next harvest before expanding the colony. You can also grow medicinal herbs to supply future medicine production.

Work, relationships and medical care

Each colonist has a profession, traits and skills. Set individual priorities for construction, mining, farming, cooking and research, and watch their skills improve through work. Friendships, romances and rivalries develop as people live together, affecting their moods. Illness and injuries require rest, medical beds and someone to provide care. Manufacture medicine for treatment, or help an injured visitor recover before they leave.

Mining, storage and manufacturing

Mined resources and harvested crops remain on the ground until colonists carry them to storage or a workplace. Place shelves and storage zones, and leave routes to construction sites and production facilities. Smelt and process materials into parts and equipment, then research precision manufacturing. Set production quantities and stock targets; orders proceed when materials, power and a worker are available.

Radio contact and visiting traders

Power a radio transmitter to contact Earth and prepare for supply ships. Meet traders, government troops, deserters and other factions; trade and your responses to them affect your relationships. Alien visitors belong to five species, each with different specialties and preferred purchases. Sell surplus resources to buy food, medicine, parts or new equipment, taking account of what each trader has in stock.

Armed colonists and base defenses

Equip colonists with weapons and place turrets to defend against escaped convicts and hostile factions. Watch firing ranges, obstacles and friendly positions, and treat the wounded afterward. Further research unlocks security robots that need charging and repairs, and mortars that need ammunition and an operator. You can also take incapacitated human enemies into custody and work toward recruiting them through conversation. Later in the full game, you can build missile launchers and supply them with power and ammunition to strike hostile faction bases.

Research, suit modules and rovers

Research life support, industry, power, defense, suits, planetary environment and space technology. Make suit modules for different jobs and unlock new facilities. Later in the full game, scanners locate buried ruins and mining rovers work at assigned deposits or discovered sites. Rovers return to their docks with the cargo. Use recovered ancient documents to support research, or sell treasures to traders.

Long-term projects in the full game

Gather materials for advanced research and large construction projects while keeping the colony supplied. Terraforming facilities improve atmospheric, temperature, oxygen, water and biomass conditions. You can also prepare a return to Earth or a journey to another planet. Each project requires materials and operating facilities across several stages. Complete the preparations, then choose when to take the final step and end your settlement's journey.

• Seed-based maps and faction placement
  
• Three difficulty settings: Calm, Standard and Harsh