Sarg

I had to reinstall the game just to test this Good job, André and Lynks, you finally managed to put forward some of what we worked on so hard! I can't believe it has been 3 years since we BATted some of those buildings. I wish I remembered 3DS to do some more BATs. Is there a Maya to SC4 available these days?

Time to undust my SC4 disc and install it again Andy, AWESOME JOB!!!!!!

I can't believe this is still going on! Hey, put some of my buildings in the screenshots

This one, too, though I have no idea what is inside, and I sincerely hope it is not porn

Yeah, I have been away from a while. Almost forgot ST until I bumped upon it at random Take a look at the attached file to see if the road textures are there. I can't open dats now since I haven't even got the game installed

This is just awesome! I hope the mod gets released after all, even though it has certainly been a long, long time. Good job, André!

Looking fine, Prepo. Keep up that good work! The space shuttle is just wonderful, I love it [:0]

Sorry, no SimMars content in this last update, only some cute images to help advance the plot Some credits: the COOL buildings in the alien planets are some of Somy's archologies. The terrain, both ground and seas, are part of I like to fish's terrain packs. The roads between the buildings are indeed SimMars ones, but ou will see them closer later on The third image is part of one of my cute European mountain towns, and contains custom material from several community members. To Everyone: Thanks for the positive reaction! To MayorTim: I feel I should tell you that the current SimMars beta is in a very early beta stage. Making this screenshots has been possible because, being part of the team, I have access to all the resources that have been created till now. To Everyone again: I must also remind you that any of you are invited to contribute to the project, either as a regular member or making a couple of contributions. We need people in almost all aspects of the mod, so don't be afraid if you can only BAT / mod / texture / create lots, etc. Everybody is invited to participate in the current BATing in the Mars BAT Building Thread on ST and try and showcase some projects!

As I said, our home planet orbits the star you call Tau Ceti. You can call the planet however you wish, since you wouldn't be able to sing its real name. It is a small but beautiful planet. Blue ground and blue vegetation expanding in all directions. Pure oceans, shining red by reflecting the light of the reddish atmosphere... It is a paradise for us. The alien shifts in his strange seat, as if trying to organize his thoughts. Our culture formed millennia ago. Unlike human beings, we are herbivores, and we tended towards monoculturalism. Our intelligence made it possible for us to get rid of every carnivore in the planet who would be a threat for our survival. That dtruggle kept our communities alive. However, when all our natural predators were eliminated, our cultures stopped growing, and we began a period of stagnation. Saying it simply: we were bored. And when did this all happen, in human years?, asks Neil. More or less during the Classical Ages on SimEarth. We frantically began searching for something to keep our cultures alive, and we found the answer on space flight. Crews of thirty to forty individuals left our planet in spaceships, trying to find something to fill our sad lives in the vastness of space. The first years were disheartening: there was no complex life, or even life whatsoever, near our system. But one day we found SimEarth. Humans are a fascinating species for us. Your cultures are varied and self-sustained. You have given our culture ideas, motivation and a great desire to keep going, basically saving our society without knowing you were doing so. We have been studying you for centuries, trying to interfere as few times as possible... So, you are responsible for all those reports about UFOs and abductions and stuff, right? asks the man accusingly. Well.. Yes, and no. We never made ourselves known to humans, except for one, tragic time. Two, actually. The rest was a creation of human imagination... The first one was near the mountain town of Nebendorf, in the modern nation in Egurea, around 1920. One of my colleages, thrilled by the prospect of meeting human beings, stole a dropship from the mother ship and tried a stealth landing. Of course, the humans in the village treated him like a monster, and we arrived before much damage could be done. But we remained in the memory of human beings... Wait, you just said you were there, right? How old are you? More or less, a hundred and twenty human years. We are not so concerned by age. Anyway, the second contact was a crashed probe in a region of Egurea you know as 'Rose Veldt'. That was our greatest disaster, since the government recovered the wreckage of the probe and tried to investigate our advanced technology. You are here partly thanks to that discovery... Of course, we were greatly interested in your advances in space flight, and we have been carefully watching this mission. The rest I already told you: the same thing that downed the Charon also attacked our ship, bringing it down... We decided that it was inevitable now to make us known to humans. Neil stands in deep thought, deciding whether he should trust the little alien. Would he be telling the truth? Probably not, or at least not entirely. If he has learned something in life, it is that no one tells the whole truth, ever. But he loses nothing by going along with the creature, at least until he is sure of its real intentions. As calmly as he can, he speaks again: Allright. Now that we have exchanged our tales, let me introduce you to the rest of the crew... An image of the alien planet The alien ships leave the planet to find something to live for in the vastness of space The peaceful town of Nebendorf gets to be the scenery of an unwanted First Contact, and gives origin to the thousands of urban legends about UFOs

And that, indeed, was her last entry, says the man. She died in the sandstorm, along with other six people. There were only eighteen survivors. I was one of the lucky ones, if you can call this luck: the injuries I suffered during the mine's contruction forced me to stay strapped to my bed. The strange little figure nods thoughtfully, as if digesting the huge amount of information. So, here we are now, a few people striving to survive in a planet that doesn't want us to stay. And now, three days after the storm ends, a little martian knocks in our metaphorical door and demands to hear our tale... The little alien speaks again, a high frequency sound coming out of non-human lips. We are sorry if our... contact created any inconvenience for you. In our culture, any deal must be preceeded by an exchange of information. Well, I told you everything I know. It seems to be your turn now. Are you a Martian? How come you can understand and speak human language? The alien blinks twice and frowns in a strange way. An expression of fun? Or discomfort? Hard to tell in such a strange face. The thing starts intoning in the same singing voice. A Martian? That would be impossible. There are no Martians, this place is a barren desert, devoid of all life. No, my species comes from the stars. We are natives of the star you call Tau Ceti. You may call us Cetans, if you want. We were on the Sol system as observers, investigating humankind. We have been doing so for centuries. We are admirers of your rich cultures, in fact. Then why did you destroy our ship? The alien blinks again, but very slowly this time, as if mentally ensambling the pieces of a puzzle. Oh, you think we destroyed the Charon... That's why the rest of the surviving crew is so wary of us... No. The same thing that killed everyone aboard the Charon also attacked us. Our ship crashlanded near the water mine, in the crater. The sandstorm hid us from both you and the attacker... Only five of us survived. Using a human expression, we are both in the same boat, and it is sinking fast... The man, Neil, remains silent, shocked. When he and his companions had seen the little aliens coming behind a sand dune and walking confidently among the wreckage, they had been sure that they were responsible for the attack. If there were no Martians, who destroyed the Charon? And were did these strange aliens fit into the disaster? I see you are confused... Here, let me tell you my tale... The alien starts talking about his past... The colony lies in ruins after the passing of the sandstorm The water mine is completely destroyed by a falling fragment of the downed alien The destroyed alien ship lies inside the martian crater

I must confess I made the little astronauts with Photoshop They could only be in the final SimMars if someone with enough skill dares to convert them into real pedestrians.

Thanks! This is just the start. I have told more or less thesame story as the older CJ, but I've changed it subtly to accomodate the new storyline. Stay tuned! Oh, I almost forgot. These are the credits so far: the mars terrain is Thalassicus' mars map, the spaceship has been made with Nexis' props (the silos) and r3b00t's tank props, the antenna at the top of the ship is CSX's, as well as all contruction props, some props in the Phobian outpost and the dome at the hydroponic farm. All the tubes you can see around are from Nexis' Dam Pack. As for the 3D spaceship, it has been created with DOGA-L1 and coloured with Photoshop. The martian canion landscape has been created with Terragen, a wonderful and free fractal landscape generator. The rest of the material comes directly from the SimMars mod.

May 3rd, 2030 Meanwhile, the ISS Charon hasn't been iddle. The 32 astronauts who remained aboard the ship have been scanning the entire surface of the planet in search of minerals, more water and any other thing that might in the future be of some use to the colony. One of the many projects of the mission involved the establishment of a communications relay on SimPhobos, one of SimMars two little moons. After all, it isn't safe to have only one relay: The ISS Charon is only a spaceship, and accidents happen. So, the spaceship has been slowly approaching the irregular moon. The cracked and barren surface of SimPhobos. SimPhobos orbits very closely to SimMars, rotating around the planet faster than the planet rotates around itself. Even though it had some unpleasant characteristics (such as surface gravity varying a 450% due to tidal forces and its elipsoidal shape and a total lack of atmosphere), the fact that it crossed the Martian sky twice per day made it perfect for a communications outpost. May 5th, 2030 One of the craters in SimPhobos has been deemed perfect to build the communications outpost. It won't take much time. The building has been already pre-built at the ISS Charon. The crew will only have to apply gravity grapples to the structure, securing it to the surface of the irregular moon. After that, it will need no supervision whatsoever. The entire operation will take less than five hours. The finished communications outpost at SimPhobos May 5th, 2030 Something weird is happening... As soon as the outpost was built and all its systems were turned on, the ISS Charon detected a disrupting signal coming from a nearby crater. The spurious signal looked like an echo. The geological shape of the crater must be echoing the signal in a very strange way, negating any communication between the colony and the outpost. The crew of the ISS Charon is using one of the ship's launches, loaded with explosives, to try to level the echoing crater. Location of the outpost spot and the disrupting signal at SimPhobos' surface May 5th, 2030 Gods! The ISS Charon has been destroyed! We saw a flash of light in the satellite, and we thought at first it was the exploding crater. However, a few seconds later we received the last words from the Charon's pilot! Something fired at them... For all we know, the ship, the entire crew of 32 astronauts and the communications outpost were destroyed, since we haven't been able to contact them yet... What will we do? We are trapped in the planet, with no way to leave or contact home! Mission control will probably send another ship sooner or later, but it will take months to reach SimMars! May 5th, 2030 Making things worse, the sand storm is much bigger than we thought. It will probably make some serious damage here. We are gonna die in this red, barren planet. I'm unlocking my diary in case someone finds it here, among the ruins of the base. This is my la

April 29th, 2030 The construction of a water mine in the crater is a critical stage of the project. The ISS Charon can provide food and water to the crew and the people working at the colony for another four weeks. If the mine couldn't be completed in that period, we have orders to use the emergency water and food supply, abort the mission, and come back to SimEarth. This will be one of my main tasks in the project. Phew! All of this trip could be cancelled if I do something wrong! What a responsability! However, I'm confident that we'll do it fine. My team, and the guys taking care of hydroponics have been working on simulations for months. It should be a piece of cake. The geologist Mariia Kozlov surveys the terrain in a canion near the crater, looking for a suitable spot to build the mine entrance. May 2nd, 2030 Contrary to what I thought, building the water mines hasn't been an easy task. The drills and rock disintegrators helped us finish the job in time, but several small accidents happened (luckily, none of them ended with casualties, although my friend the engineer Neil Griese suffered some serious wounds when one of the tunnels collapsed). Once finished, the mine will be almost automatic, needing little Sim supervision. Once the water mines were finished, they were connected with the colony with strong and weather resistant water tubes With a stable water supply, the colony only needs hydroponic food to be completely self-suficient. All the deadlines of the mission are being fulfilled without a significant delay. The guys at home tell us that people are marvelled at the images and video coming from here. An image of the finished Martian colony on Ares Planitia. On these early days, the colony was still unnamed. May 3rd, 2030 Apparently, a quite big sand storm is coming this way. Sand storms are unpredictable in SimMars, and very strong. However, the colony is well prepared to face such an event.

March 3rd, 2030 The plans for the mission had been settled on SimEarth months ago. Each of us knew exactly what to do, how to do it, and what to expect in case of failure. The ISS Charon's pilot, a young man of Chinese ancestry called Xie Biao Ling, has been training for this moment for thousands of hours. The SimMartian landscape far surpassed our wildest dreams. Strange reddish geological formations crossed under our astonished stares. When the spaceship entered the outer layer of SimMars thin and sparse atmosphere, several drop pods were deployed to descend to the surface, carrying the neccessary materials to build a small base. Up to half of the crew will remain in the ISS Charon, orbiting the planet for a year to serve as a communications link with the Egurean spaceport. The rest of the crew will descend on the pods to the surface, carrying with them all the necessary materials to build a small, self-sustained base. I'm proud to say I've been one of the lucky ones. Once in the surface, three portable habitats and an atmosphere recycler have been put together by the astronauts. Those structures are essential for our survival, so they had the higgest priority. Once they were assembled, the construction of a solar energy power plant and a satellite dish to communicate with the ship started. A view of the new colony, with the portable structures and both construction sites. April 27th, 2030 Several weeks have passed. With all this work, I don't have much time to write a diary. Everything looks promising for the colony. The solar power plant was finished, and the first communication between the colony and SimEarth (using the ship as a signal relay) was a true success. However, to be truly self-suficient, the colony needs a hydroponic farm and a water supply. Luckily, the scientists had already scanned the region's craters in search of water ice. The first colony completes all the necessary buildings