simmars-forum-threads Sim Mars, a SC4 Conversion

[SimMaster 17]

SM Idea #1: Martain Dust Storms!

[DuskTrooper 316]

Another Idea:  Constantly being bombarded by useless spae rovers from other countries!

( as a matter of fact, most mars rover type vehicles, such as the Beagle have failed )

[Zhatt 0]

Airports (if used) will be very intresting. Here are some quotes from the X-Plane page. It's an FAA certified flight simulator that lets you fly on earth and mars.

Landings are impossible without arresting gear. If you can work the flare out right (it IS possible with advance planning) then you will touch down doing about 400 mph. Now how do you stop?

->PARACHUTE? NOPE!!!! 400 mph is only 40 mph worth of drag due to the thin air. You will run off the end of the runway going 100 mph with the chute only seeing 10 mph: USELESS for slowing down

->BRAKES? NOPE!!! You only have one-third gravity, so only 1/3 of your weight on the wheels. NO TRACTION!

->Reverse thrust? NOPE!!!! With only 1% atmosphere, jet or prop engines can put out basically no thrust... just barely enough to keep the airplane in flight at mach-0.85.. the jet plane needs a JATO to take off!

So how do you stop? I finally went with ARRESTING GEAR. I know of no other way to avoid blasting off the end of the runway at 200 knots with the chute uselessy deployed and brakes uselessly locked.

If you don't know Arresting gear is, it's what they use on aircraft carriers. It's a wire that goes across the runway that the plane grabs onto with a hook on the bottom.

So what sort of planes can fly on Mars? Not anything from Earth, that's for sure. Not enough lift or thrust. A Cessna or Boeing will just sit there on the ground without even moving. Put them in the air and they drop like beveled bricks with no wings. Both of my Mars-plane concepts are much like the U-2 Spyplane (designed to operate at around 100,000 ft, in simlar density air) one with a HUGE high-bypass jet engine built AROUND THE FUSELAGE, and another with a smaller rocket engine in the tail, like the X-15. The rocket plane has a lower-thrust engine, with plenty of fuel, for about 30 minutes of flight or so... the JET plane can fly for hours!

By the way, if anyone is intrested, you can find X-plane here:
http://x-plane.com/default.html

[Arphaxad Locus 0]

Also, remember the space junk disaster in SC3KU?  That would be good to have in here...given that it's on Mars...

[GouRou 2]

that would be hilarious, and maybe even doable, I dont know how controllable the disasters are, if they are at all. for sure we need some hardcore modders to figure out what is and isnt possible. I will eventually close this thread and open a new one, I will archive this as an ideas thread, and keep it around. perhaps when it gets to 10 pages.

[+Guest]

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On 3/3/2004 8:23:18 PM Arphaxad Locus wrote:

Also, remember the space junk disaster in SC3KU?  That would be good to have in here...given that it's on Mars...

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Umm, meteors can be a good alternate.

[Yellowlab 11]

Wait, you're saying the timeframe for the completion of SimMars is one year?  Let's be realistic here.  A SimMars SC4 conversion would be an enormous challenge.  It took Maxis, a team of professional game engineers, years to make SimCity 4.  How long will it take a group of 10-20 amateurs, skilled or not?  If you're talking about having all new features like looking through the ground and other stuff, you're talking gobs of programming.  It'll take years.  If you're talking about basically SimCity with new buildings, it'll still take more than a year if you want Maxis-caliber buildings.

 

I'm not trying to pop the bubble, but this just doesn't seem like a feasible idea to me.  Who knows, perhaps I'm just overly pessimistic.

[RalphaelNinja 244]

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On 3/3/2004 8:35:33 PM Yellowlab wrote:

 Who knows, perhaps I'm just overly pessimistic.

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overly pessimistic https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/22.gif>

Lets just start with gathering modds, buildings, props, pictures.... etc.... we will add to it as it goes.... The batt exchnage opened not too long ago and now it has almost 200 buildings....

Once everyone gets the hang of gMax, it takes veritually seconds to model a prop.... especially general concept art. https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/9.gif> Dusktrooper himself could do a 100 buildings in a week https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/9.gif>

Ralphael

[GouRou 2]

I have no intention of recreating sc4, for starters, we dont have a gaming engine to code, we just have a lot of 3d models to make. A year is the outside time frame for completion, regardless of the overall state of how much we actually have. a year from now it WILL be out, and I think in a year we will have an impressive amount, maybe not 500+ buildings, 50+ vehicles, etc, but we will have enough for a conversion. things like looking through the ground can be done with optical illusions btw, the same way the hydrogen plant does it. Also, I am not expecting maxis quality buildings everywhere, to be realistic, it's just not possible. and it's not 10 to 20 actually, as time goes on it will probably reach into the hundreds, you just wont realize all of the behind the scenes additions.

[Arphaxad Locus 0]

There would be many shortcuts in making the game take a shorter time to produce.  Think about it.  If when SC4 came out, you asked some random member here how hard it would be to make some of the modds that are here today, they'd say it was impossible.  There are still many things that will lighten the load within the game's production time that will be discovered.

[Hirachi_Dinavo 0]

Here are my ideas:

 

Utilities

1. Have air instead of power. Forget the domed city approach and provide air to self concealed buildings. Instead of power plants there could be air purifiers that convert CO2 into breathable air. Instaed of power there could just be self contained power in each building, which is possible in space, especially since only the solar, fission, and hydrogen plants that we have now would even work on Mars.

2. For water, probably defrosting plants that are built on a shaft dug down to the permafrost layer. These could melt the ice and pump it out for water. These would have to have greatly increased cost and low capacity because this is not efficient. Also it would be good if maintainance increased with altitude, because the shaft would become deeper and harder to pump through.

3. For garbage, landfill and incinerator.

Transportation - Streets & Roads

1. Streets should be low capacity, unpaved access roads for driving dune -buggy like enclosed vehicles. They would have to be red, of course to match the soil. Transparent would also work so the base texture shows through.

2. Roads should be paved with reddish cement to match the soil on Mars, because the cement would have to be made out of that soil.

3. Avenues should be the same as roads with the same color and texture, but the median strip should have rocks in it instead of plants.

4. Ground Hiways should be the normal gray color, but stained reddish from the windswept soil. They should stay grayish because more time and money goes into their construction, probably cement from Earth to make the pavement better.

5. Elevated hiways should look like ground hiwas but the supports sould be made of rusted metal becuase there is a lot of metalon mars.

Mass Transit

1. Busses would probably still work. They would have to be large dune-buggy type things, bigger than the ones used for cars.

2. Rail could be replaced with Maglev Trains.It would need to be very expensive and very fast.It would be cool and futuristic, though.

3. As someone said earlier, have the tracks for elevated rail made invisible so the trains can hover. Maybe the same can be done for monorail and we could have anexpress line that is a hovertrain and travels faster with higher maintainance.

Buildings

All buildings will have to be self- contained, and highrises should be made smaller and wider. A tall, narrow builing won't look as realistic on mars but maybe a pyramid made of glass would work well.

 

 

I hope these are useful/good.

[GouRou 2]

for trash I have one for you all, it's called Thermal Depolymerization, for short, hehe, I'm sure we can come up with a better name! but it's better known as 'anything into oil', it's a proven, very real system that recycles, through a very contorted process, anything, literally, back into it's constituant ingredients, sometimes it combines some, and you get stuff like heating oil and methane where before there was none. but that's my solution. this is a non-poluting system, but I'm sure it's not perfect, and it might leak a bit, but there is my high tech solution https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/9.gif>

[Hirachi_Dinavo 0]

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On 3/3/2004 8:58:20 PM GouRou wrote:

for trash I have one for you all, it's called Thermal Depolymerization, for short, hehe, I'm sure we can come up with a better name! but it's better known as 'anything into oil', it's a proven, very real system that recycles, through a very contorted process, anything, literally, back into it's constituant ingredients, sometimes it combines some, and you get stuff like heating oil and methane where before there was none. but that's my solution. this is a non-poluting system, but I'm sure it's not perfect, and it might leak a bit, but there is my high tech solution

https://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/9.gif>

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Sounds good. It's a lot more high tech than incinerators and landfills.

[GouRou 2]

actually, high rises on mars could in theory be 3 times taller than on earth, with the same construction techniques, they neednt be wide, they could be more spindly and top heavy, so there is actually leeway for creativity.

[Hirachi_Dinavo 0]

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On 3/3/2004 9:00:43 PM GouRou wrote:

actually, high rises on mars could in theory be 3 times taller than on earth, with the same construction techniques, they neednt be wide, they could be more spindly and top heavy, so there is actually leeway for creativity.

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Someone on this thread said highrises on Mars aren't possible at all.

[Vatt3 8]

I came up with a list of my ideas for the project. Some may change and I will update it when they do.

Here are some Highlights...

-Subways are the underground high speed transport system for most citizens. These could be special cars which speed through ultra fast tubes
-Roads are the main surface hover-way where those owning hovercrafts may drive
-Streets are made of martian dirt for the back roads
-Highways are the faster road. These are now depressurized tubes which send the vehicles speeding toward their destination
-Rail is the primary industral mover. I'm thinking a specialized freight vehicle that travels on a specialized track
-Elevated rails are the primary surface transportation. They could be very fast moving cars in a tube.
-Monorails are just that, monorails
-Airports will be Spaceports where all shuttles depart and land from earth and other martian cities
-Power could either be power, or if all the buildings produce their own power, it could be special air transfer tubes from a specail air production facilities.
-Water will remain as water from a special water recovery building where water is extracted from beneath the surface
-Parks could be the place to make large glass structures where sims can get out of the cramped space
-Fire stations seem a little out of place to me. I guess there could be a fire, but it seems a little less likely to me. Maybe they could be some sort of maintenance crew in case a building ruptures or something like that. If the building ruptures, then oxygen is lost, people die, and the building may collapse because of lack of pressure
Also certain buildings may have tubes (if possible) which extend off the lot and attatch to other buildings.

DISASTERS!
-Fires could become Ruptures which could happen to buildings not within the maintence zone
-Tornadoes become dust storms

[Dereko 0]

So are all the buildings, mods, etc. etc. going to be released all at once at the end or are they going to be released as they are completed? I's a justa vonderin'

[JoshuaC 8]

It will defenity be interesting to see if we could get a Llama on Mars

[+Guest]

You know, I just had this theory, since this is a new experement, it might be doomed to fail. Let's go back to summer '03, remember when someone taught of SCR, a multiplayer region game that launched on August 1st and then it ended because people were uninterested or had more things to do in life. Now in 2004, this is another experement that could be dommed to fail if you don't choose the right people who really wants to participate in the conversion. In other words, be very careful on who you choose or the Sim Mars conversion will be doomed like SCR was last year.

[GouRou 2]

scr also had no patience, this isnt a real time 'live' project, people can do things on their own time tables. some things will have a deadline, but that's a months away deadline, more to ensure that it gets done at some point. I dont expect everyone will stay on, people will come and go, but the project will still be here.

[GouRou 2]

some things will stay part of just this modd, unless someone rips them out at a later time, but many things will be released just in general for anyone to use. this wont be pieces that people will have to get, it will be a cohesive whole by the time it's done, a single dat file.

[cswen 1]

First off I think this is a great idea, and any way I can help I am totally willing. I'm currently in school taking planetary geology, so this is very intresting for me. As for ideas, considering this is going to take time, and time we have plenty of, I want to suggest that anyone who wants an idea of mars colonization in the next 50years, should read Kim Stanley Robinsons' Mars Quadriliogy. Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars and the Martians. They are great books with lots of ideas and examples that span from present day up to 2 centuries in the future(domes and terraforming included). I should also warn you that they are big books however, each of them roughly 500-600 pages.
As for what I can do, I'm willing to learn, have read just about every mars based book out there, and I'm trying with the whole BAT/Gmax thing.
Cswen.

[+Guest]

Let me explain

 

When SCR launched, there was a promise for everyone who joined to make cities before the deadline. Some people could not meet the deadline because they had a lot of things to do than just make a city. Now in 2004, a new experement comes months after SCR. I know there will be lots of people who will join but in a matter of days, there will be people that cannot meet the deadlines because of things in their life that are more important than participating in the Sim Mars project even though you say they can work in their own time tables. I know this is not a live project like SCR was but just keep in mind about who you choose.

[Arphaxad Locus 0]

We have more movitation, genius, work ethic, brains, abilities, modds, and capabilities that the people making SCR ever had (at the time) ((don't want to offend anyone)).

 

And dark child, you sure seem pescemistic.

[GouRou 2]

I have read those books, they are part of my inspiration, some very ingenious ideas too, I remember the windmills, those would be wicked in simmars, HUGE windmills, ahhh, all sorts of good ideas.....

[cswen 1]

Kewl, they totally rock. My faves. Anyways as I said b4, lemme know what I can help with.

[GouRou 2]

cswen, sign up if you havent in the roster log thread, I will be compiling that tomorrow and dont want anyone forgotten! I'm hoping to make a proper db with catagories and all that people can sign up into, that would sure make things a lot easier, especially with people curious with what they can do, I can assign people pairs, and if a pair doesnt work, we can just switch people around. there are always complementary skills to every job, like a trio consisting of a thinker, who is good at design, a sketch artist, then a modeler, that trio could create marvelous work. patience everyone, we got time, hehe. I wont set a countdown, as when that happens, for some reason people slow down, and this isnt that kind of project, it's just meant to give everyone a goal, ableit an ambitious one. but keep in mind, we got time, if you wont be available for 2 months, 4 months, that's ok, in fact, this will still be goin by the school is out, and still going after school is back in. the more that gets done, the bigger the expansion, simple as that, if we only get 200 buildings, then that's what we got, we will work with what we get.

[JoshuaC 8]

Whats this SCR i have been hearing about?

 

I dont think Changing the ground textures will be that hard look at PEG's rock textures we just need the Grass to be a reddish color and we have our Martian landscapehttps://community.simtropolis.com/assets/emoticons/1.gif>

[GouRou 2]

new terrain textures, water into ice (done btw), lot textures, both base and transparent, new foundations in mars style.

[JoshuaC 8]

I have an idea Change the Texture of the fire into a white color and you could almost say it looks like air leaking out That could be a good disaster Air ruptures and leaks.