simmars-forum-threads Transportation Ideas

[SIMpleton 2]

Date: 1/8/2005 8:54:31 AM
Author: organicsabre
Will the sim mars project be on a mars that has an atmosphere or one where bio domes are required, as this does determine the type of structures you would require for a trnasport system.

quote>

The mod is based on the bare surface of Mars, so each building contains it's own atmosphere. It does not take place within a giant air filled dome.

Mars does have a graviy of 0.38 (earth is ) this is taken from a website on mars. Having a lower gravity this means that materials are lighter including the objects being used or shall we say run along them. This means that we can have less bulky structures, including bridges, say cut the thickness of some mebers down by half. This also allows you to be more adventurous with building shapes and form.

quote>

Yep, go nuts. Just don't try to kill the BATters with some massively detailed sketches.

A personal transport system would be a good idea. Feed roads with automatic 4 seater electronic mag lev style vehicles with special stops that the vehicle can move sideways to outside buildings. each building has a call point to summon a vehicle, and you can have sevice roads linked to Highway style main routes. All this computer controlled so it prevents accidents. I did see earlier in this CJ some cars similar to what I described but for a monorial, I'll try and sketch up some ideas if I have time.

quote>

Good ideas, there might be some issues with implementation though...

Maglevs for longdistance. In some areas yopu can have a shopping area with the above call system for vehicles and have it covered with a small bi-dome with moving walkways to trasnsport the shoppers between the different shops.

quote>

I don't believe we have much in terms of working transit systems yet, so sketches are welcome.


I hope that answered your questions, and welcome aboard!

[+Guest]

I haven't read all the posts, but from looking at the pictures this is what I have gathered:

1. Road's will be maglev flats encased in tunnels (the yellow glass)

2. Highways will be open topped maglev flats.

Off of that information, here are my thoughts:

1. Tunnels should be designed to keep out dust stroms, not create vacums. My thinking here is that the mars atmosphere is so incredibly thin already, there would be little point in making it more void. The roads look good how they are. Streets would probably be safe left uncovered, because, like previously stated, they would probably be sheldered by dense buildings. Highways should have a wind gaurd, but the extreme car speed should keep it pretty clear.

2. Highway and avenue speeds should be increaed due to maglev and light atmosphere. For safety purposes, I think the speeds for roads and streets should be left the same.

3. I think railroads should be completely redone. In my ideal world, they would be like this: double spaced Avenue railroads would be the standard. They would carry enourmous, three story, house-width cars that rumbled down in-city tracks, and raced at phenominal speeds on four-tile-wide super tracks across the countryside.

These are all my thoughts, I hope they're worth something.

[AndisArt 2,066]

Date: 2/7/2005 11:41:27 PM
Author: Greyleaf

2. Highway and avenue speeds should be increaed due to maglev and light atmosphere. For safety purposes, I think the speeds for roads and streets should be left the same.

That's a good point, it really makes sense to increase the speed on Highways and Avenues.

[Expressway 0]

I Like the closed in Road Networks . I suggest we make NAM Puzzle Pieces for the One Way Roads, Roads and Avenues. I hope one of you modders can do this if we wan SimMars Network Addon Mod (SMNAM)?

[fartboy 17]

I think as long as the cars are aerodynamic, there would be little need for tunnels and shields. The magnets could be extremely strong and the cars could change their charge on one or more of 5 magnetic panels underneath. (the center being almost always on to stay on the road). There could also be a negative magnet on the front and back bumpers to prevent collisions. And, even better, you could use ionic or molecular bonding to attract or repel the road surface (Not sure if that would actually work. I just understand the basic (gr 9) principles of Ionic bonding). One complication with maglev tho is people with metal would have a pretty hard time (maybe ban iron, copper , nickel and the other magnetic metals). Hopefully this opens a few doors on the transportation.

[Rymac91 15]

oh and they have teliporters if they make a wrong turn(thats one way to explain why cars dissapear and reapear).

[Arabia 0]

When is simmars final coming out!?

[chapmanclam 3]

Date: 2/15/2005 8:55:43 PM
Author: Arabia
When is simmars final coming out!?

In a long while, due to the amount of work that is still remaining to be done.

[Arabia 0]

Dang i hope when Ash gets back the project will be back going. I knew that they couldnt get that done in 1 year. Because the purposed deadline for the release date is almost here. No offense what i just said. I understand the 2 leaders are busy and cant do anything about the project right now.

[Boris225 1]

We all are waiting for Ash to return, but we are trying to keep on track while he is gone.

Let's try to keep this conversation on track though, shall we?

I don't think we will be using any tunnels for our road networks, or at least not for the next update to come out. Right now we are having enough problems just getting all the retexturing done.

[Arabia 0]

Well i cant wait for SimMars Final to be out.

[litlgrnman83 0]

Hello all,
I just discovered these boards by pure luck and wish to add some input. if this has been already posted, i appologize; i know how some posters get when topics get two identical posts. if these comments are clones, take it as support for the original author. I know this is still in development and all; i came into this mod discussion a bit too late.

if, and when, Sim Mars uses tunneled mag-tubes, the glass covering should not be a single color. Mars is dusty and windy, any glass covering along with any bottom area of a building would have been dusted with Martian dust. a tube that has been skinned with a picture of a real matian landscape would not work if buildings line a segement of road. Dust works in that case as wind blows around structures and hits the tube... an obstruction in the wind.

For industrial freight transportation: a while ago, there was a game called Outpost(the first) that had a facility that would rocket materials to an orbiting shipyard. that was called something to the effect of Mag-Rail. yet, Outpost used this system in a vertical purpose. Here, if it hasnt already been done, could be us to the same effect. But of course be on a flat surface. imagine a hanging roller coaster at a themepark just flying down a railsystem.

for air transportation: NASA, according to the Science Channel, wants to use light and very thin ships. why? the atmosphere is thinner and a heavy ship would be difficult to keep in the air by using clean propulsion. that is why, in the first page of the thread, you see these thin, long winged aircraft... but they in reality served a different purpose. Commercial air transportation should not be aircraft at all if the atmosphere is bigger. fuel and the effort to keep the craft in the air would not seem cost efficent. if it hasnt been done already, lean towards Star Trek-ish shuttlecraft... just not that streamlined. Houston Space Center has a Mars Mission sim where you get to create your rocket and stock it with helicopters, mining equipment, and such over water and food. anyone over enthusiastic(me too) would have taken a helicopter for the only reason of expoloring the planet easier. yet the sim says after you land and use up your resources, due to the thin atmosphere, a helicopter would not work at all.

site-to-site transportation (Star Trek Beaming) would not widely used by 2050. According to BBC news (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2049048.stm) says that Australian Scientists have teleported a beam of light. a beam of light is quite different than a human being or a crate of produce. by 2050, those scienticts should be able to transport small things, if at all.

anways, here are some bits and i hope they help or at least support someone else argument. from what i have seen, all the prototypes and research you guys have done, Sim Mars will be great!

[Arabia 0]

Well i would like to see the glass covers in my game

[Rymac91 15]

I was thinking about NAM and what would happen to it and I got a Idea of what to do with the ped bridges.Why not make them tube things so people zip though the city city over highways in Mag tubes or suction tubes.

[dsi1 0]

what about a road for the cars to drive on (i didnt read all post so if its been posted srry ) like a elecromagnitic feld there would be electricyity jumping across the road area

 

oh and rymac91 did u get that last idea from futurerama

[majorpain 0]

How abouts all the cars hover and the roads have lights that go on the sides like runway lights and when they go off road the kick up dust. 

 

 instead of water there is lava and the ships can withstand lava or float above it.

 

 also supportless bridges with that hover in the air

 

there could be the low-med-high wealth system for cars too. low would be old and rustic and high would be all streamlined

 

also there should be llamas

[litlgrnman83 0]

Well i would like to see the glass covers in my game
-Arabia

No. you misunderstand me... if you were replying to my post. im not saying taht glass covered tubes are a bad idea. im just saying that if glass is used, dont skin the matian landscape.

WHY?

for example, if you have a stretch of road(glass tubes and it has the martian skin) and also have buildings around this road, the real factor will go down. there will be no reflection of the buildings on the glass. see what im saying? to be safe, just stick with transparent cover for roads... some what like The Great Chozo did on page 2 and 4 of this thread. just dont forget to dust the lower parts of these structures with martian dust.

[TheDancinZerg 0]

What I was thinking was instead of sidewalks make walls on the road to have elivated tubes for pepole, which would eliminate dangerous maglev crosswalks. Why dangeros? All bodies contain a good amount of iron and that iron can well cause some nasty mess ups. Sure would get you from point a to b, regardless how dangerous it is.

Below: a rough diagram of what it would look like, cross section style

|\ /|
|_| |_| |/ \|
| |
|______|
edit: made the diagram look better

[toddpnewton 0]

A quick note on Martian aircraft...

Unless Mars is to be terraformed (SimEarth!), aircraft flying in the Martian atmosphere will have to have huge wingspans to get enough lift to carry a significant amount of weight. The faster your craft, the less of a requirement this becomes.

 

Dirigibles might be a good solution. If I'm not mistaken, CO2 is relatively denser than the air mixture in earth's atmosphere. IF that's correct, helium or hydrogen will be 'relatively' lighter in the martian atmosphere and therfore reasonably effective? Hydrogen-filled blimps could lend themselves to some outstanding disasters with all those other hydrogen generating plants scatterd throughout the landscape.  whhhooOOOOOOOOSSSHHHH!

 

 

[vandyl 0]

Just change the water transportation into super-high-capacity cargo/people mover networks.

[vandyl 0]

Date: 5/17/2005 9:14:21 PM
Author: toddpnewton

A quick note on Martian aircraft...

Unless Mars is to be terraformed (SimEarth!), aircraft flying in the Martian atmosphere will have to have huge wingspans to get enough lift to carry a significant amount of weight. The faster your craft, the less of a requirement this becomes.

Dirigibles might be a good solution. If I'm not mistaken, CO2 is relatively denser than the air mixture in earth's atmosphere. IF that's correct, helium or hydrogen will be 'relatively' lighter in the martian atmosphere and therfore reasonably effective? Hydrogen-filled blimps could lend themselves to some outstanding disasters with all those other hydrogen generating plants scatterd throughout the landscape. whhhooOOOOOOOOSSSHHHH!

quote>

Actually, Mars exerts a lesser force of gravity as compared to earth (in fact, acceleration due to gravity on Mars is roughly 3 m/s vs the standard 9.81 m/s here on Earth) - this is the force that lift on an aircraft must overcome. However, due to the thinner atmoshere on Mars (approx 1/150th the density found on Earth), flight as we know it cannot really exist in any practical form. The hover idea that's been thrown around is the best bet - granted, any fanciful idea is applicable as this is a fantasy land - if you want X-Wings, by all means, put em in the game!

But from a standpoint firmly grounded in modern physics and extraterrestrial geography, flight is an impractical method for transportation on Mars.

[Aphid 5]

There are many persons here that have designed hovercrafts, bridges, and other transportation forms on water.  But since there is no water on mars, they won't be used that much. It's sad that there is no such thing there. But maybe there is a solution, what if you would use quicksand(not with water but other fluids, for example oil) or dust instead of water? (For the latter bit of this post I presume you are using Quicksand.) Quicksand would be very dangerous to build on, so no building on it. There would be hovercraft ferries, bridges, or special floating roads (roads lined with long wings/pads/gas bubbles) needed to cross quicksand. This would likely replace water. You could even design boats to move across quicksand. Because of the large amounts of dust and sand on mars, something like Quicksand is likely to occur.

 

[MooMix1 2]

As soon as I saw this I saw how I could help.... Air Travel

 

I went through every page to see your work on it, I saw there wasnt much development and I just happen to looove airplanes

 

So, lemme show you some high-tech and future planes

 

The Aurora (Possible Experimental Aircraft)

 

 

Some believe this aircraft has flown secret missions to Mars already, yet, we dont even know if it even exists. It supposedly goes to Mach 20. The fastest manned aircraft goes Mach 3.6 or so.

 

The SR-71 Blackbird (Fastest Manned Aircraft)

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/sr-71-ec97-43933-4.jpg

http://images.abovetopsecret.com/sr71a.jpg

http://www.jessanderson.org/img/sr0478.jpg

 

Up until the 80's or 90's it was running fine and misteriously was retired. Possibly replaced by the Aurora? More reason to use the Aurora in SimMars

 

The X-43 (AKA: Hyper X)

http://www.testpilot.ru/usa/mc/x/43/img/x43_5.jpg

 

Looks suspiciously like some Aurora discriptions lol

 

The X-45 UCAV

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/x-45/images/DVD-685-243.jpg

 

The X-47

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/x47/images/X -

 

I surpirised this flies [:0]

 

 

Any questions or anythign just ask. Or if you want more on other planes and pics just ask.

 

PS. I would love to be on the transportation team

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

I have been working on some transportation stuff and I have finally came up with a model...

We will need landing pads for this one...

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Shuttle_Craft.jpg align=baseline>

 

I am calling this a Shuttle Craft. Will hold about 6 to 10 people. We will need to get around Mars and this is one feasable idea.

 

lynks

 

[dtrcity 0]

why not have 2+ carrage busses. call them road trams what run in their own lane

[pokesmot91 0]

i saw on descovery channel they wanted to put a vacume sealed magnetic train across the alantic. because there is no air in the tunnel there is no friction for the train so it is possible to get the train going thousands of miles an hour in the tube jus a thought to use it as a subway transite

[dtrcity 0]

2 second trip to america! or if your american to brittan.

 

that'd be good

 

[Chaoswizkid 0]

Alright, alright. You guys are all going about this wrong in my opinion. Good thinking, but wrong. You say you can use 2d models and not s3ds or something, right? IDEA! Mars isnt gonna be using underground stuff unless you want it to. So... just modify the game to where underground appears as above ground. Make the subway models into tubing models, etc, that send cars ABOVEGROUND (oooh, ahhs are heard) by replacing the subway train models. This will probably set back a lot of progress if you use it, but it should be alot faster to do.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files/Tubed%20Roads2.jpg align=baseline>

 

what I would like to know is what happened to this mod. Was it cancled does anyone have the files.....

 

Lynks

 

[V3N0M 0]

I'm not sure if anyone has thought about this before, but early in that game, I think it would be nice to have simple dirt roads (tire tracks with flashing beacons to keep drivers from getting lost). The vehicles on these roads would be jeeps, buggies, and trucks, probably with solar panels for power. Also, why build bridges on a planet that has no liquid water? I can imagine there being a need to bridge over chasms, but thos would look different than the ones I've seen here.

Just some ideas, keep up the good work