Wireless Portable Video-Camera
(http://www.airaya.com/images/WirelessGRID_WPTZx10-Example.jpg)
The idea is to add portable surveilance video-cameras to the areas of interest.
They are wireless, with their own antenna, which sends the data directly to habitat.
There anyone could see what it sees, using a special console.
Players would use it mainly to see what's going on near mining point and what's the activity near the garage.
It could also be set-up on the top of the hill to see the whole area.
If the map was HUGE and a camera would be set off very far away, than you could propably see the upcomming storm quicker.
The only requirement for the video-camera to work is that it should be in the range of a Communication Tower.
The antena might look soo big that it will make the video-camera fall becouse of the wind - that is not the issue on the Mars.
http://www.holoscience.com/news/img/mars_dust-devils.jpg (http://www.holoscience.com/news/img/mars_dust-devils.jpg)
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/123624main_dust_devil_mars_web.jpg (http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/123624main_dust_devil_mars_web.jpg)
Here you can see what the surveilance camera could have recorded that would save lives on Mars.
A dust devil is near one of them. The controler that sees this, reports that all colonists should avoid that area.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YoCIFkM3GQ8/SwvvMWWck9I/AAAAAAAAFk4/ASasloiiAus/s400/Astrobiotic-Excavators-NASA-20091123-400x300.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YoCIFkM3GQ8/SwvvMWWck9I/AAAAAAAAFk4/ASasloiiAus/s400/Astrobiotic-Excavators-NASA-20091123-400x300.jpg)
Another example. Players are constructing something (a new module maybe?).
The mission commander instead of walking all the way to it, sets off a video-camera, and looks whats the progress.
In the movie "Race to Mars" the team was stranded for a while in the dust storm.
They used the cameras to observe if all the equipment they left outside was ok (including the habitat and ERV module aswell).
On one of the cameras they noticed that the drill had sparks. It turned out that it had a static-discharge and the electronics had to be replaced.