litlgrnman83

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.

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!