simmars-forum-threads Sim Mars, a SC4 Conversion

[Simguyuk 0]

can I set up a transportation group?

[GouRou 2]

alright, I'll do it this way...

 

R$ - low cost domes, boxes with dishes, hermit domes, clear plastic domes, huddles, hobbit holes, anything low cost

R$$ - more expansive, expensive domes and huddles, sat dishes, rovers parked outside, atriums

R$$$ - large, very expensive domes, glassed in atriums, sun decks, etc, more squared off look, or perhaps more shapely, more expensive to build and maintain

 

C$ - collections of domes, large lots with little on them but neon signs, minimal exposure, a single dome blowout will cause little loss.

C$$ - more expensive reinforced glass domes, perhaps ceramic for a better business, better signs, better care, perhaps with robot servants outside, hehe

C$$$ - fabulous buildings, of any shape imaginable, hardened against storms and impacts, strong looking, very expensive, high end retail here

 

I$ - simple jobs, creativity here folks, maybe creating robot arms, or rover carts, or mining offices

I$$ - more extensive manufacturing, extensive enough to create wasteful outgassings

I$$$ - the brunt of industry will happen here, unlike in sc4, this is how the technology will start, a lower income Industrial cant afford to stay in business, so here we will develop most of our buildings, these can be MANY things, such as teraforming gas factories but things such as this wont be explicitly required, tho they would make good industry

 

Cheers

[JAMiUs 9]

i must say, a lot of people have some good idea's! i'd love to contribute towards this but my exams are coming up soon and i need 2 study, maybe if i have time afterwards though? keep up the good work!

[guinea 31]

i cant help you with some of the BAT files for the buildings preferably the industry as ive got some good ideas for that

just tell me what you want and i can start making it this weekend

 

https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/8.gif>https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/8.gif> i need to logg off now : when i come on in the morning this is thread is going to be able 12 pages long https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/3.gif> 

 

 

 

 

[Hirachi_Dinavo 0]

Instead of providing power to buildings we should provide air. So instead of power plants, there could be different types of air purifiying devices. When we design the buildings, we should put solar panels on them so they will look powered.

[joerg 280]

Gourou im all for small buildings but for heaven sakes people lets get off this cartoonish plastic dome idea. Also doems mean that everything inside a building have to be modeled doubling the buildings production time. I think that we will still have skyscrapers i mean they will be a nessecity to make the cities interesting. Incfact i can see some very very large skyscrapers being needed. And i can also see in that same city expansive half underground buildings.

 

We need to keep 2 thigns in mind here when making these buildings first is this. We need to make sure that the buildings are realistic in nature and that they are physically possible by many current engineering standard therefore it wont make things to alien to us for them to be enjoyable. The other thing is we got to keep buildings very visbible and steal appealing to the eye. If we make an entire dome set or underground set we will get awfully tired of building cities becuase we will kepp seeing the same with with very little detial.

[Vlakhaas 13]

THis could be a start for the Food Production portion of the planned conversion ... obviously I will drop the tree and do some mods to to the base texture ... but this is a start ...

 

 

Let me know if you want it for the project.

 

[GouRou 2]

you can start creating buildings now if you like, I outlined some concepts for what our buildings for each stage will look like. I'm not sure how much of the existing things we can change, for instance if we can convert power to air thoroughly enough to have it work, that will require some research, and some debating. and this IS a week long think tank, if you have ideas, share them. we'll get this all worked out in time, and once everyone has an idea of the overal concept of what we're doing here, I imagine this will move along pretty quickly. I'm going to try to define areas that need worked on, and specific things that need done, but only so we know everything that will need done, what you do and dont do is compulsory, and things like the zoned lots will be open ended, we'll take as many of each of those buildings as we can get.

[Simguyuk 0]

I agree with joerg, if we want this done, we do not have enough time to go about designing domes.
Now, we really need to seaprate ourselves into groups so we can concentrate on things, or this will never be done! I think GouRou should sort out GRoups. OF course we can all make suggestions and help with other things, but we all need to concentrate on certain things, like Trolca could definitely help with transport if he wants to, and Joerg could work on building concepts. (obviously these are just examples and might not be what you will end up doing)

Another Idea is that we should ask that guy from Maxis who is on this site for help, what is his name?

[RalphaelNinja 244]

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On 3/3/2004 4:45:42 PM Simguyuk wrote:

Another Idea is that we should ask that guy from Maxis who is on this site for help, what is his name?

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MaxisMartian???https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/22.gif>https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/21.gif>

[GouRou 2]

Joerg, pressure on mars is 1/10th of 1 percent of on earth, it's near vacuum, a standard skyscraper would explode unless reinforced, I stuck with the dome concept because it's the easiest to build, like a ramshackle house, which are pretty darn common. as the wealth grows, so will the buildings. they will be able to afford thick glass or plastic, and heavy construction, think wealth.

[USA_Pride 49]

Someone please correct or confirm my logic:

One could create a seperate XP user name just for MARS and put the plugins into that user's plugin folder and you could go in and out of MARS mode???

[Simguyuk 0]

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On 3/3/2004 4:47:58 PM RalphaelNinja wrote:

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On 3/3/2004 4:45:42 PM Simguyuk wrote:

what is his name?

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MaxisMartian???----------------

Maxis Max?
Oh and BTW, what are we agreeing on for buildings?
Anyone responding to my idea about groups?

[Vatt3 8]

I think that it may be quite expensive to get to Mars so maybe most sims would be rich. Just a thought though. Now of course there will need to be spaceports or docking ports or something. I had the same thought about air replacing power. The power plants would be air plants which converted Carbon Dioxide to Oxygen (or whatever) in mass quantities. Of course the buildings would still need power...

[Trolca 15]

If I understand Joerg correctly, he's not against dome buildings but wants to stay away from putting earth like buildings inside of large domes.

[Simguyuk 0]

Hey Trolca, thought about the Hover transport? any ideas?

RESPONSE TO ORGANISING THINGS?????!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!?!?

[Trolca 15]

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On 3/3/2004 4:58:18 PM Simguyuk wrote:Hey Trolca, thought about the Hover transport? any ideas?

RESPONSE TO ORGANISING THINGS?????!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!?!?

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I'm thinking that tracks would be replaced with simple smooth paths for the hovering train like devices to follow.

As for buildings, I thought the simplest way would be to convert all strutures of one building set like the Chicago set for example. It would cut down on the number of building replacements. People using this mod set would turn off the other three sets.

[Zhatt 0]

I agree with domes for the lower class buildings. Not all the domes will look the same as in-game they'll be made by sepreate companys and in reality, they'll be made by differnt modders, so some will be glass, some plastic, some stuctured, some build like tents. Also, not all the domes have to be clear with the insides showing. Maybe only green-house like buildings would be that way. Some would have windows and some would have no glass/plastic at all. If a dome is made out of glass, not much of the inside will show anyways as the dust on mars would slowly turn it red. Or at least when it becomes abandoned.

[Simguyuk 0]

Trolca: Yeah, i think were on the right 'track' here.(sorry about the cheesy joke) How long and how much work do you think a hover transport system will take? What about stations?

[Zhatt 0]

Anouther idea:
I've been thinking about the roads and trains. At first I'm thinking that all roads would be coverd so people could walk on them without a suit, as suits are dangerous, or at the very least, unefficiant. Even if all perdestrians were removed it wouldnt make much sence for someone to get in their spacesuit, go outside to get to their car, and remove the suit as soon as they're in the're car. Same with the trains. Not all of the traintracks would have to be enclsed, but at least the stations.
I'm not too sure where I was going with this. just throwing out ideas.

Edit:
I always thought hovering cars and trains is a silly idea. It's unrealistic as it would be almost imposible to control and it has no real advantages. With mars having 1/3 the garvity and 1/10 the atmoshpher of earth, the real problem would be keeping cars ON the road. I think the farthest we should go is Mag-Lev trains. Altho with no friction from the track and almost none from the air, it could easly go the speed of sound and beyond. Think of the commute times!

[GouRou 2]

mmmm, tasty ideas *nibbles on one*

give us variety, if you were on mars, tell me what you would do if you were R$, if you were R$$, and if you were R$$$, keep in mind cost, and you will see why we will have everything all at once, from skyscrapers, to bubbles, to domes of gardens, to domes with earth buildings, buildings that are american, europena, asian, etc, etc, etc. human diversity makes for variety, it will happen on mars, the buildings wont conform.

[GouRou 2]

btw, your thinking earth car, think mars car, why would they get out of their suit once they get in a car? why should it even be covered? I was thinking a dune buggy is an excellent mars vehicle. no rain, no dirt, got rocks, but your in a suit....

[Dargor 17]

I love the idea of a Sim City 4 in medieval times, but the Mars-project looks unrealistic to me... There is so much that can be done, right, but it would affect a lot that makes SC4 such a cool game. But the idea to make a conversion is cool, I agree immediately.

 

 

[GouRou 2]

alright, I want to make a few things clear

first, if you have an idea, share it, keep in mind that not all ideas will work, and many of them might never be gotten to, but you just might be harboring a great idea.

second, there is no way to please everyone, it cant be done. I have layed out the boundaries pretty well, but let me lay them out a bit better. the R$, C$, I$ will be primarily earthly constructs, shipped up from earth, they will be the cheapest to build, and the cheapest to maintain, but they wont give you all that much in return. R$$, C$$, I$$ will be the first of the mars constructs, built from mar's own kids, raised on mars, with mars ideas, a bit of earth influence for guidance, but primarily mars constructs, but still within the boundaries of their cost, R$$$, C$$$, and I$$$ will be pure mars, flights of fancy, notions of excess, just like some of the buildings on earth that are more style than purpose. the smallest of each wealth will conform to the rules simcity uses for growth, the boundaries will be blurred, because a R$$$ in a single tile space is gonna look a lot like a R$, but try to make them look wealthy. Keep this in mind tho, there will be NO poverty on mars, there will be no drunks, no homeless, mars cant afford it, everyone will be good at what they do, so there is a minimum level of wealth. try to balance your buildings the same as they are in sc4 to not mess up the game dynamics, we'll work on things as we come to them, but hopefully keep the play style the same. All we're doing here is giving the game a facelift, a themechange.

third, most important. this entire project will HAVE TO BE guided, it may take a turn you dont like, that's fine, stick with an area you do like. I have to decide what goes in and what does, BUT, I will try to keep an open mind, because I know when we do go to mars, and grow and propser, there will be a very diverse culture up there, with very diverse wants and desires. but they will also conform to the rules of survival in a harsh enviroment, they will conform to what they can afford. the only time that will change is when there is a change in overall income of the people themselves, when they can afford excessive desires.

[Yumaddar 0]

I have a few ideas. I'm not sure if all or any of these ideas can really be used, but I would like yer opinions.

(attaches file)

[jbbry232 87]

Sounds like a good project, i'd love to help but don't think i can really be a fully functioning cog in the wheel of this project.   I am getting skilled w/ the BAT/gmax programs and if i find that i really can help, then i will add a follow up post to this one.   If not, then i will try to help a bit bye doing some 3rd party stuff ( making buidlings for the fun of it like i already do https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/2.gif border=0> ) and if i make something that i think you can use then i will get it too you somehow.

 

.....I will finish this post a bit later today if i think of anything else i wanna add.

[GouRou 2]

hah, believe it or not, I dont want cogs. as I have said over and over, I am setting boundaries, nothing more. I would still like to have some exotic buildings, yes, but the time it takes to do them is exceptional, the time it takes to do anything is exceptional, so it's all voluntary, all I'm saying is we'll need new marsish buildings, from there, the rest is up to you if you want to do it. I do have one specific request however, but it has no specific details. I want a park, a singular, or set of parks, that are open air parks, not earth open air parks, but mars open air parks, for doing things outside, that you might want to do on mars... like fly....be creative, keep in mind that these arent open air breathing parks, but open air for people in suits, no domes, no buildings over their heads, see what you can come up with.

[Arphaxad Locus 0]

Here are all of my ideas for this.  I was so excited about Sim Mars at the time, and dreaming about possible features, I have quite a few ideas.

 

1. Elevated transportation networks.  Ideally, there would be traffic patters and networks in place much like the roller coasters created in roller coaster tycoon, with the abilities to go up and down, along with turning.  Track might be nessecary here, or perhaps you could have floating cars that have to stick to a track (invisible track?)  However, this would be extremely hard to make; new transportation networks would have to be in place and a new program entirely would be written to launch within the game.  One idea would be for a very simple track texture, so not many textures are nessecary.  Perhaps just gray squares, so only one texture is nessecary (at different angles of course).  This is probably the hardest and most far-fetched of all my ideas and it would probably involve days or months of work and would be way over my head.
2. Underground cities.  Mars contains trenches hundreds of miles deep and cities might develop within them.  However, it would be hard to see these obviously, so there would need to be a view to see through the ground.  Also, just having cities entirley underground would be nice too.  The best way to do this I guess would be to get a terrain tool that could hollow out areas and get tunnels going into the ground.  Again, I have no idea how to do this.
3. Realistic time frame.  Obviously this game would take place hundreds if not thousands of years in the future.  At this time, many changes will have taken place on earth.  There should be no coal power plants or anything that will have become completley obsolete by then; we should imagine what will be invented, such as Complex Spaceports, Air Converting Plants (to a breathable atmosphere), new kinds of power plants along the line as hydrogen, tubes that carry pedestrians (ever seen Fururama?), and extremely efficient water treatment plants, perhaps converting pollution into water, or air into water, or water into air etc.  Also, keep in mind how long a day, month, and year is on Mars and adjust the times accordingly.  I think it's quite a bit longer.......
4. Realistic terrain, wildlife, and parks. Nothing would be green unless domes with livable atmospheres within them are created.  As for wildlife, how about native Martians and animals on the land?  As for the terrain, obviously it's red, but keep in mind that there would be NO WATER.  Except for maybe ice way down underneath the surface.  Plants and factories would have to convert other things to water, so perhaps instead of water pumps, a similiar small building could be made called a hydrogen to water converter (when hydrogen is used as fuel the only byproduct is water).  And sorry that I've gotten off the topic, but the more hydrogen energy your city uses, the more water should be available.
5. Realistic buildings.  Keep in mind the resources on Mars, and build accordingly.  The reason that buildings are made out of what they're made out of on Earth is not only because they are good building materials, but also because they're economically efficient.  I doubt that any materials or resources would be flown from Earth to Mars (because of the cost) so all of the buildings would have to be reworked to consider Mars's resources.  The only one I know offhand is iron, which it has one heck of a lot of.  So maybe most of the buildings could be made out of iron.

[GouRou 2]

I think the aim all around will probably be a 50 years hence tech, but if anything, if they try to recreate it, they will go down before they go up in tech, so I leave it mainly to the batters to decide which way the technology of their building went.

[falcon5018 21]

I'm going to start posting pics for ideas.

 

here is a picture from nasa of some agriculture buildings for mars colonies.

 

i'm thinking along the lines of this.  forget a city in a bubble.

 

i think we should transit enable all lots for subways, and someone can make a new texture for subway lines and subways... maybe turn them into walkways.  all the buildings are connected through this underground system.  buildings can have docking ports like helepads for cars, which can all be changed to look like 10 different hover-car looking things. 

 

elevated trains like someone said could have the tracks make invisible, maybe change the tracks to be something like a yellow pipeline or something along the ground.  the trains will still hover hopefully, so it will look like they are flying above the surface.  same can be done with monorails.