Incredibly thorough game, well-balanced, and very pleasing to watch the little dudes run around doing your bidding. There are a few problems I found, but I went through the entire game and still enjoyed replaying a level just to see how big of a colony I can create.
1. There's no free-build! D:
2. Some levels can take up to an hour or more, and there's no save feature. WTF!
3. Very rarely, a colonist will "get some rest" but just stand outside the personal building... until he just quits. (bug)
4. Storage buildings don't store oxygen resource.
5. Research buildings don't store any resources.
6. Hiring choices can be extremely lopsided (see below)
Strategy for this game is pretty complex, and wrong choices can just set you back a looong time. If you hire a slow person who does weak damage and has myopia (basically can't fight worth a crap), he's next to useless. Fast workers are necessary - who cares if they suck at any type of work (aside from fighting), speed counts for every action done in the game.
The most devastating combo for a fighter I found is one with the extra damage bonus, accuracy bonus, and is slow. Why slow? With the slow pace, he almost never misses and can take on several enemies at once. Always try to hire men who have the accuracy and damage bonuses in later levels, as they can easily defend and attack enemies just by themselves. Two of these guys can take on a raider HQ alone (hardest guys in the game, both were rank 3).
In later levels, if you need 10+ more workers, it's extremely useful to hire one or two fast runners (cheap 40 science if possible) and set them to only carry goods, then order every other guy not to do that. It makes it so you don't have "headless chicken mode" workers running around changing their duties constantly.
Knowing the hiring procedures, the only difficulty that I can't predict is the stupid wandering enemies, dust storms, and seismic quakes that happen. While not disastrous on their own, sometimes all three happen at once and I was like OMFG WTF T_T. At the very beginning of a mission, the lowest value resource is usually what I aim to gather first. I build power plants first and then a metal gatherer and water thing. Oxygen factories come last because just one of those makes enough oxygen for nearly 10 workers (it produces it fast and it's used pretty slowly). Sometimes I have to destroy one or two buildings to get back enough resources to make something and then rebuild them later, which is the case for component factories.
Now the worst case scenario I came across was I think mission 5, where every dude I had was slow, blind, and weak (low damage). They couldn't shoot a damn thing and a raider pod thing came in and it was a slaughter. They were too slow to even make it to the diner/health building thing. The random factor of starting workers really impacts how fast/slow gameplay can go.
A huge thank you to game speed increase... didn't notice it at first, but after I learned it I never slowed game speed.
In all, a really good game. I wish there were more missions or a larger map or something. It has a huge potential. The bonus mission was a breeze, though. Managed to hire two guys who had the right stuff and them alone conquered the lands. THE TERRIBLE TWO, I CALL THEM. MARS SHALL BE STAINED WITH BLOOD... WHICH OF COURSE CAN'T BE SEEN VERY WELL BECAUSE IT'S RED TOO.
