AragornJDL

I'm having a lot of issues with missing buildings or props. Brown boxes are everywhere! Are there special installation instructions that I'm missing because I can't read Japanese? I basically extracted all the files to the same subfolder, so everything should be there... Any help would be appreciated.

I haven't seen anyone request this yet, so I will start. The building is the Bellsouth Building in Nashville, TN. It is affectionately known as the Batman building for obvious reasons. It is also the tallest building in TN, standing 617 ft tall. for more info: http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=122957 Here it is (the one in the foreground, on the right): Another pic of the whole thing, including the base. The colors are a little off here, so go with the one above. I go to school in Atlanta, and have visited many other cities like Chicago, Dallas, and Minneapolis. While they all have great buildings, this remains my favorite, I guess because of the home-town connection, and the Batman look is so unique. In case you are wondering, the architects did not intend for it to look like Batman, in fact, it didn't even cross their mind until local Nashvillians had already renamed it! I could not find any night lighting (which is fantastic!) shots online, but if anyone decides to take this on, I can probably get you all the great photos you'd ever want. My dad works for the architecture firm that designed the building, although he didn't work on it himself. Just PM me or something. Thanks! AragornJDL

well as an aerospace engineering student currently working for NASA, i can probably shed some technically legit light on the subject. not that this has to be realisitc but if you want it to be, you might want to take these things into account. Domes: Mars has an atmosphere, but it is about 1% as thick as sea level on Earth, compared to the summit of Mt. Everest which is 30% of sea level. any habitat on Mars would have to maintain a much higher pressure than outside, so it would be a pressure vessel. Think balloon. The ISS of course has the same problem. For any pressure vessel, you must avoid sharp corners or you could have a disaster like the Comet aircraft back in the 50's (look it up if you're interested). That doesnt mean the exterior shell would have to be curved or dome-like, but it might be simpler to actually build like that. Concrete, etc: It's a fantastic, possibly even necessary, idea to build Mars habitats from natural materials for a few reasons. First is radiation. Mars' atmosphere, being much thinner, doesnt provide nearly as much protection from radiation as Earth's atmosphere. You would want to bury your habitats under a few feet of dirt as shielding. Also you could make Martian bricks or maybe concrete. If you've ever seen the movie Total Recall, the way the whole mining colony is built into a cliff might actually be a great idea. Power: solar power is pretty simple, and may be used a lot in a Mars colony. However, for large amounts of power, a nuclear reactor is almost certainly going to be what is used. You can get more energy per pound of stuff you have to launch than any solar panel. Although Mars' atmosphere is thin, it can have some fairly violent storms, which have a maximum dynamic pressure of a stiff breeze on Earth. High wind speeds somewhat counter the thinner air to produce noticeable effects. I dont think we know enough about Martian weather to say if wind power would be practical, but I think it's possible. If nothing else, it would be simple to build one if you had an electric motor and some metal; a lot easier than making another nuclear reactor. it may have it's uses. for various things you'd want to model, you might think of it like this: any item that is even somewhat advanced would be shipped from Earth and as light and high tech as possible. anything that you could get away with would be produced on Mars. if you are thinking this is a mining colony, this would include bricks, concrete, and even steel. By the way, with 1/3 of Earth's gravity, you could build much larger structures. these would certainly look a lot more low-tech and thrown together. architecture and efficiency would almost certainly give way to quick and dirty. hope that helps. if you have any specific questions i'd be more than happy to answer, i visit the site here daily.

Looking good so far. Are you going to try to develop the whole region (suburbs, etc) realistically? Right now there is just a hard boundary between city and wilderness. I've never been to Toronto, but I find it interesting how you've put dirty industry along the water right in downtown. There are lots of cities that have this because the old industry grew up where the people were -- downtown. It's only as commercial development takes over that the industry moves out, but still leaves its ugly remains to scar up the downtown area. Nashville, TN had this problem until a few years ago, when they tore most of the old industry out to put in the Titan's Coliseum. There's still a little old industry still there, but I'm not sure how much is functional versus abandoned. AragornJDL

Ok I figured this might be related enough to ask here: Would it be possible to allow bridges to be built over land, not just water? For instance, could you mod it such that you could build a bridge between two steep hills or over a gorge? I wonder if it could have a slope requirement, like the lots, beyond which it built a bridge instead of a road with a steep slope. Of course then you gotta wonder if you could build another road underneath it. I'm thinking of the Natchez Trace bridge near my house in the suburbs of Nashville, TN. Well, not that style of arched bridge, the the concept. The code might not allow for this type of thing without a complete rewrite, but I dont know so I thought I'd ask AragornJDL