Arido Mesa

Arido Mesa is a mission in Aven Colony.

Description
A desperate situation has developed on the Colony Ship. One of our three major life-support units has failed, and you will need to quickly construct a new colony and accommodate all of the incoming refugees. You must accept all of the immigrants within a fixed time limit, and your mission will be deemed a failure if you do not rescue them all in time.

Map
This is a large, desert map with limited access to arable land. At the same time, you're expected to be able to establish a metropolis and accommodate a thousand people. You will have plentiful minerals, however, so get building.

Strategies

 * This is essentially a race against time. All that matters is building the city up and getting enough space to get the people down from orbit. Ready for a challenge? Good. Your first point of order is, as usual, to establish mines, energy, and agriculture. Pick up that cargo pod to get a head start.
 * It's important to start receiving immigrants right away. Start by building two immigration hubs and staff them to the max using the employment panel. The steady stream of immigrants will also help man every facility you have. One dropship trip takes about a season. One trip in a fully-manned immigration center will bring back 9 colonists. As such, you'll need at least 112 flights to bring back all the refugees. With 40 seasons (10 sols) to go, you'll need three immigration centers working around the clock to get all the colonists in.
 * The biggest challenge is to ensure you have enough support among your colonists to make it to the end of the mission. As such, maximize the impact of every non-habitation and non-producing structure by clustering the residential blocks together and placing them where as many colonists as possible can benefit from them. Also, choose buildings that give you the most bang for your buck resource-wise: Skyscrapers are expensive, but work best.
 * Unemployment will hound you throughout the mission. You'll need to keep pace with the population boom and build enough buildings to keep them occupied.

Trade

 * Permanent
 * 20 nanites for 100 ration packs
 * Once only
 * 250 quinoa for 80 copper (Vanaar)
 * 250 rice for 450 potash (Azara Falls)