Goals and timer

Five goal picks fire on a rising schedule (Sols 3, 6, 12, 20, 30); each draws three of six candidates (one timed, two untimed) and you keep one, with difficulty and reward climbing every step.

The goal pool

Step	Objective	Kind	Reward
Goal 1 Sol 3 timed: by end of Sol 6	Create a Dome	Timed	4,000 research points
	Research 3 technologies	Timed	+200 Research per Sol
	Produce 50  in a single Sol	Untimed	a Supply Pod with 30
	Discover 8 Deposits (Metal, Rare Metal or Water)	Untimed	2 Stirling Generators
	Have 6 Sensor Towers	Untimed	$500 M
	Analyze 5 map Anomalies	Untimed	reveal the next 3 Physics techs
Goal 2 Sol 6 timed: by end of Sol 12	Land a Colonist on Mars	Timed	6,000 research points
	Analyze 5 map Anomalies	Timed	+300 Research per Sol
	Produce 50	Untimed	a Supply Pod with 60
	Produce 50	Untimed	1 Medium Dome
	Research 10 technologies	Untimed	$750 M
	Have a total of 30 buildings	Untimed	30 Engineer applicants
Goal 3 Sol 12 timed: by end of Sol 20	Research 2 Breakthrough technologies	Timed	8,000 research points
	Have 50 Colonists (Tourists count)	Timed	+400 Research per Sol
	Generate 1,000 Research per Sol	Untimed	a Supply Pod with 40
	Build a Machine Parts, Polymer and Electronics Factory	Untimed	2 Triboelectric Scrubbers
	Have a total of 50 buildings	Untimed	$1,000 M
	Have 5 Smart Homes	Untimed	a deep Rare Metal deposit (1,300)
Goal 4 Sol 20 timed: by end of Sol 30	Welcome 10 Tourists to Mars (cumulative)	Timed	10,000 research points
	Extract 50	Timed	+500 Research per Sol
	Have 20 Martianborn specialists	Untimed	a Supply Pod with 20 , 20  and 20
	Generate 2,000 Research per Sol	Untimed	1 MDS Laser and 1 Fusion Reactor
	Research 4 Breakthrough technologies	Untimed	$1,250 M
	Have 40 Colonists with all needs above 70	Untimed	a deep Rare Metal deposit (1,700)
Goal 5 Sol 30 timed: by end of Sol 42	Produce 100 advanced resources	Timed	12,000 research points
	Have a Dome with 100 Colonists	Timed	+600 Research per Sol
	Generate 4,000 Research per Sol	Untimed	a Supply Pod with 25 , 25  and 25
	Have 120 Colonists with all needs above 80	Untimed	1 Mega Trigon Dome
	Research 6 Breakthrough technologies	Untimed	$1,500 M
	Have 8 operational Domes	Untimed	a deep Rare Metal deposit (2,000)

Legend

• Step is the goal slot (1 to 5), the Sol its pick fires, and - for its two timed goals - the absolute Sol they are due by. The deadline is stated as an end-of-Sol, not "within N Sols".
• Kind. Each step's pool holds two Timed goals and four Untimed. The pick offers one timed and two untimed; you choose one. A timed goal must be finished before its deadline Sol ends or it fails; an untimed goal has no deadline.
• Reward is granted the moment the goal completes: Funding, a permanent research-rate bump, one-time research points, a supply pod carrying advanced resources, applicants, a tech reveal, a finished prefab building, or an underground deposit.

The six reward slots

Every step's six goals carry one each of a fixed set of reward kinds, so a pick never offers two of the same kind, and each specific prefab building is a reward in only one goal across the whole run:

1. Research points - a flat one-time grant.
2. Research per Sol - a permanent research-rate bump. This and the research-points reward are the step's two timed goals; since the pick draws exactly one timed goal, the two research rewards can never be offered together.
3. Advanced resources - a supply pod carrying advanced resources (the high steps carry an even mix of Machine Parts, Electronics and Polymers).
4. A prefab building - sometimes two: 2 Stirling Generators, 2 Triboelectric Scrubbers, or an MDS Laser plus a Fusion Reactor.
5. Money - Funding.
6. A flex slot - specialist applicants, a tech reveal, or a Rare Metal deposit. Never a Water deposit: Water deposits are banned as a reward.

How the pool is built

• Six per step, offer three. Each step defines six candidate goals; the pick shows three - one timed and two untimed, drawn at random - and you choose one. The rest, and any step you never reach, never appear, so the sequence differs every run.
• Two timed, four untimed. Two thirds of every step's pool is untimed.
• Objectives are real game goals. Nearly every objective is a stock Mission-Goal type the game already tracks to completion (dome built, colonists on Mars, buildings, research rate, deposits, breakthroughs, operational domes, and so on), so completion and payout use the game's own goal machinery.
• Welcome 10 Tourists is cumulative. The one custom objective. The stock tourist goal counts colonists with the Tourist trait present at one moment; tourists come and leave, so this Goal 4 objective instead counts each Tourist who lands, cumulatively - it completes once 10 distinct tourists have arrived by rocket over the run, no matter how many are on Mars at once.

Timed goals and failure

A timed goal carries a deadline Sol, shown as by the end of Sol X. Finish the objective before that Sol ends and the reward is granted; let it pass and the goal fails - no reward, and the slot shows as missed the end of Sol X. An untimed goal simply waits until the objective is met, then pays out.

The timer chain

The chain is the Sol 1 survey reward (one research field, its next two technologies), then the five goals above, then a Mystery on Sol 50 drawn from three offered. The Sol 1 survey and the Sol 50 Mystery each show a clickable countdown notification that explains the pick that is coming. The five goal picks show no notification: each simply fires its choice popup when its Sol arrives, and its countdown is read on the Mission Profile page instead (next section).

The choice popup lists each offered goal with its kind, deadline and reward. Because the popup carries no countdown of its own and the player may not have the current Sol in mind, a timed goal states its deadline both ways - the absolute by the end of Sol X and the relative (in N sols and M hours). When a goal later completes, the mod pops its own Goal Completed! card naming the chosen goal's reward. The vanilla per-sponsor goal tracking that would otherwise pop a card with the sponsor's own reward is switched off, so this is the only goal-completion card.

The goals page

The sponsor's Mission Profile page lists the five goal slots. A slot not yet picked reads Decision on Sol X (in Y sols and Z hours) - the parenthetical a countdown to that pick, recomputed every time the page is opened, so it is current on each open. It counts in whole Sols and clock hours (singular and plural handled, a zero part dropped) and is floored at in 1 hour: the pick fires at that hour, so the countdown never reads "in 0 hours". Once picked the slot shows the chosen goal, its reward, whether it is done or failed, and - for a timed goal - its deadline Sol (by the end of Sol X, or missed the end of Sol X once failed).

Baseline

In vanilla, each sponsor has five fixed Mission Goals, each with a set completion reward. This redesign replaces that fixed per-sponsor structure with the single timer chain and shared pool above.

Sources

Part of the Survive the Storm mod.