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Alex Reeser edited this page Feb 13, 2017 · 7 revisions

Use F1 to bring up the Help menu at any time.

See here for the keyboard/mouse bindings.

#Starting a New Game Red Homestead plans to have a very customizable start game, with the ability to select perks and starter equipment. Currently, Quickstart is the only option available.

After starting a new game, the player's new Martian colonist is started on Mars with a habitat, starter solar farm and hydrogen tank, and a rover.

#Survival Red Homestead is a survival base-building game set on the hostile surface of Mars. The five basic needs are, in decreasing order of importance:

  1. Oxygen

  2. Power

  3. Water

  4. Food

  5. Shelter

Generally speaking, the strategy in Red Homestead is to build up the home base with the industrial capacity to produce enough oxygen, power, water, and food to be self-sufficient.

##Income

Building a colony on Mars takes a lot of money. Each week, a lump sum of cash will be deposited in your colony's bank account. Players are free to decide what to spend the money on, but should be very careful! If the colony runs out of money, emergency purchases of materials cannot happen!

##Market In the habitat, colonists may purchase resources to be delivered to the colony. There are several suppliers on Mars, and each has a different location, resource price and resource stock-on-hand.

###Shipping Resources bought must be shipped to the colony. Three methods are available, with costs and delivery times varying wildly between them:

  1. Rover: costs per mile, with a slow delivery time

  2. Aerospace Lander: costs a fraction per mile and a fraction per kilogram, with a medium delivery time

  3. Drop Pod: costs per kilogram, with a very fast delivery time

Resource prices are subject to market forces, but shipping methods are subject to the laws of physics. Each shipping method has constraints on weight and volume. Heavier and bulkier items are more expensive to ship. This is very important to note: if the colony's foodstock is getting low, plan ahead and ship it using cheaper methods instead of paying more to have it arrive quickly. Foolish colonists ignore this strategy and may find themselves with enough money to buy life-saving resources, but without enough money to have it shipped in time to their remote outpost!

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