> I would love someone with more knowledge to fully explore what a similar sized space station could achieve compared to the arduous task of going down martian gravity well that has half the solar energy and on top of that a night cycle which halves your solar output again.
Issues:
First, the solar energy at the surface is much the same as it is in orbit, because of Mars' very thin atmosphere -- unless a dust storm kicks in. This means there's no justification to use orbital solar with the attendant high capital costs and conversion losses.
Second, being able to live below the surface in any of the existing lava tubes as protection against high surface radiation levels and wide temperature extremes, thus eliminating all the complexities of an orbital presence, makes the orbital option a non-starter.
Third, an orbital presence would require generating artificial gravity to prevent known and serious health issues, less true for a surface colony (Mars' surface gravity is 38% that of Earth).
Fourth, a carefully chosen lava tube site would have much better control over environmental temperatures than a surface or orbital colony. Remember that Mars surface temperatures regularly drop to -100F overnight. Temperature extremes would also be an issue in a lava tube, but with less severity if the site were carefully chosen.
I think a Mars colonization project at scale will choose a surface colony over an orbital presence on multiple grounds.
> I just dont see any scenario where a mars base would outperform a space station above mars/earth/moon/lagrange point with the ability to recover asteroids of a few metric tons.
If the mission is to collect or mine asteroids, that would change everything. All the above assumes some other purpose -- for example, Mars surface mining.