GouRou

mars has gravity, it's not in orbit, it's simply 1/3 what your used to, stuff wont just float away. I have proposed a system for dealing with trash that is high tech, it's called Thermal Depolymerization. landfills on mars make no sense, as you'd have to take your trash through an airlock, it's much more logical to have a plant that processes it with little wasted but heat. Also, if I remember right, mars is not geothermally active, there is no actual proof that mons is a true volcano, this objection was raised because there are no true volcanos anywhere else. I was going to make a great jump of assumption that there is water underneath the surface of mars in acquifers, some might be liquid, most will probably be ice, through the ingenious process of deep drilling, we can extract the ice and melt it, any other solutions to getting it out will help, seein as that's my only one. mars isnt earth, we cant just dump our waste, it will have to be processed, so the buildings will have to conform to that concept, we cant afford to waste.

Peg, it's a nice idea about the tubes, I hadnt thought of that actually, those would make some nice high speed avenues, perhaps covered highways as well? standard roads should remain, because of cost realism, but I didnt know what to do about avenues and highways in particular, that is a good idea /emoticons/1.gif border=0> I was thinking more of pedestrian tube, or subway tube, that wouldnt work right, but what you got is a good idea.

your worrying too much Peg, I gave it a year so it wouldnt do exactly what your talking about. I also think your overestimating how much has to be done in the areas where things are already being done. I know it will take a lot of buildings, but most sc4 buildings are small, not large, also, few people do transportation modds when it comes to vehicles, I will simply soak up talent that isnt be used anywhere else. Also, a lot of buildings could be used in sc4 as it is now, greenhouses, etc, the buildings can go both places. btw, this is day 3, that leaves 362 days to go, try to not rain on the parade before the first step is taken.

Carpman is in charge of any and all sounds, but be patient, he's only one person.

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/Proteus/Small/EC03-0089-3.jpg border=0> http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/Perseus/Small/EC98-44585-3.jpg border=0> http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/Morph/Small/ED01-0348-1.jpg border=0> http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/Mini-Sniffer/Small/EC76-6242.jpg border=0> A few ideas for you all /emoticons/2.gif>

no, anything posted here I am compiling personally.

I personally have a pretty good idea of what can and cant, will and wont be done, but I wont say any of it yet, there is no point in putting a crimp in anyone's dreams. you'll just have to wait and see what makes the cut.

good thinkin, I'll start a mars texture thread. organization of discussion and design will help smooth things out.

if you build it, they will come. we will need aircraft even on mars, I need very creative people to come up with air vehicles that will work on mars, remember lower gravity, 1/3 the norm, but near vacuum, planes will work, but they require 10 times the wing area for the same lift, even with the reduced gravity, see what you can come up with.

you cant teleport matter, the best you can do is hope to teleport information. I'm not against someone designing a telecommunications, where tele is teleport, for C$$$. if teleportation can be made (tho it would defy a lot of laws) then I wouldnt mind a few of those as I$$$, but it wont change the transportation system, because the system is still a sc4 system, it still wants roads for cars to drive on, and sidewalks for people to walk on, just the people will be in space suits, or at least mars suits, and the cars will look a lil funny.

mrvegetable, there is water on mars, in the poles, you just have to know how to get to it, same as with the oil on earth, oil doesnt pool at your feet for you to reach down, scoop up, and put in your car, you gotta get to it. for utilites water - small: deep drilling rigs to extract ice, and purify it water - big: condensors on the deep drilling rigs. water - huge: an icy comet insertion program to smash ice into mars, expensive, tens of thousands of simoleans a month power: heh, you tell me, we have solar, we have nuclear, hydrogen, coal and oil we cant have, seein as there wont be any, but everything else is up for grabs, btw, windmills will need to be 10 times larger. air: this will take some thinking, but I think a standalone plant can be created, for people to simply go and pick up the air, I dont think we can make it a requirement, but we can use it to defeat polution, aka, fouled interior air trash will be recycled, and then processed back into air and goods for selling, there will be no landfill as there is today, that will be reworked in the months to come. fire, police, hospitals, schools, will all be marsenised, it will take time, but we have lots of creativity here seaports will stay sea ports, we will change the boats to hovercrafts that use the ice to speed up transportation across mars. all of that is what I have come up with, things can be bent, but those are the guidelines I'd like us to all follow for right now. we arent doing a sim mars, new game, we are doing a facelift, we have to bend the game a bit to make it work, but that's as far as this is going.

I have been doing my own thinking, I have come up with a few more ground rules, and I've decided on a few undecideds. We will have teraforming machines, they will be moral boosters, but they will be the costliest buildings in the game, their building cost will be low, but their monthly cost will be exceptional, and they will pollute in the old sense, sims wont like them, because they will make their windows dirty, foul the air, etc, but overall morale will go up, even if people dont want to live near them. streets will be dirt paths, they will be the cheapest, and will have NO monthly cost, none, zero. roads will be paved, and will have only a tiny monthly cost, as they wont get eroded by rain and ice on mars, but will have better traction, so will allow higher speeds and congestion. one way roads will stay one way roads, but avenues need to be upgraded.. to something, not sure what, not tubes! it would make little sense for a vehicle to enter a tube like that. trains will be mag lev, it's a beutiful idea, the monorails will stay monorails, but maybe can be given a more high speed facelift, bullet trains on a tiny rail, the rail can be slimmed down because it has less weight to support we will have subways, we will recreate them mars style, they will be cool, fear not. airports become spaceports, simple as that, we'll find a way. we are starting in the year 2050, all R$, C$, I$, stage 1, will be 2050's era, such as the plain dirt roads, and simple domes, it will be low cost construction, survival. as time goes on, we'll move up to 2100, our resources for R$$, C$$, I$$ will have grown, and we'll be up to stage 3 and 4, larger buildings, so we can be more fancy, we can have flights of fancy 2150, we will have a huge technology base, we will be propserous, we can do R$$$, C$$$, and I$$$, and stage 8's of anything we can image, if it can be physically built on mars, we can have it. follow those guidelines to make anything you wish. keep in mind the economics of what we're doing. the lowliest buildings of the R$ will be shipped from earth, or made with very crude machines, be very cheap, just think. this isnt futurama, if you create something very stylish, very exotic, make it very expensive, and very late in the gaming experience. survival comes first, once things prosper, than they get the goodies, but I wont put a cap on the goodies. if someone wants to make tube roads, you are welcome to, I will try to find a way to have it an addon expansion mod for this conversion, but be warned, it wont be in there by default.

Carpman, if your good with music, see what you can do, maybe a few mars tracks mixed in, would give everything a good theme. We also need to sort through all of the sounds, as not all of them will be appropriate, cars probably wont have horns on mars, as sound barely carries, so we'll need to come up with some radio gear sounds, suit to suit communications mostly.

they would be little more than pixelated blurs, hehe. flamesrock and... YOU are our region specialists, so do what you think best.

We gotta keep focused guys, I've layed down what will be what, we're going for a graphical change, not a complete overhaul. to change the roads to tubes wouldnt be much fun, where would our traffic go?! we'd have to remove all of the vehicles, not much fun there. there wont be any showstoppers pegasus, anything that is out of the ordinary will just have to stay a problem, the overall project itself will continue. I've outlined the direction we need to go in, I know a few of you have your own ideas, but they arent realistic. I dont want to make a fantasy sim mars! I want to make a realistic one. that's why maxis never released a futuristic tile set, they are trying to keep it in reality, that's what I want also. as for the domes, be creative, it doesnt have to be a dome, any simple to construct building will work as well. mars is dim, you need a much larger window to get the same amount of light, therefore a dome is optimum, but not required, anything else that looks good, and looks proper can be built too.

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

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.

I'm curious to see if we can change the hue of the day light in the game, the way it changes the night. perhaps if we are creative, we can get it from pinkish towards blue at sunset, then straight to whatever mars is at night, hehe.

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.....

mmm, oranges, reminds me of florida, also of pumpkins, here in indiana, can you squash the domes, but bulge them, so they are less tall at the peak, but have steep sides? and, put one in the center, so there are no tubes, just a bunch of open air domes connected by central struts. can you make a small version, say a 2 dome, that could be deflated, and fit in a pack that could be carried? we need to be very creative here, as I have an idea for a growable zone that should be possible with help of certain modders.

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.

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.

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.

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 /emoticons/9.gif>

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.