A small step for this mod...

Faustmouse

Deity
Joined
Jan 31, 2012
Messages
3,524
... but a huge leap for me!

Since I really want to have some space stuff in this mod, and preferably before multimaps so it is already tested when they are introduced, I now go and try to make it a project which I plan and develope by myself - as good as I can.
I want this side project to be as helpful for the mod as possible. Therefore, I'll skip the stuff like space travel and things with advanced missions that I don't really know anything about and that will alter greatly with the introduction of multimaps, but instead focus on the things that actually happen ON the moon. So this all about will be about Lunar Colonization. This is quite nice for me because the main thing here will be buildings and resources which I am most confident with. Of course, I will need help from others with units, graphics, missions and such - but I try to make this happen.
Oh, and don't expect this to be out (or even playable) anytime soon - I'm quite busy the next time.
I am also not very experienced with project planning - this is the first one for me. So any suggestions when I do something completly backwards or something similar are very welcome.
That said, let me tell you how my plan actually looks like:


Getting to the Moon
At first, we need to go TO the Moon. This is the part I try to make as simple as possible when I develope it. In the beginning, the answer to "how do we get to the moon?" is simply: Worldbuilder. Later, when I feel the need to do it, I think the Airlift / Paradrop/Rebase mission is suitable. Since there will be no AI in my developing phase and it will really be just a demo, it is ok when your spaceships can jump everywhere. If we want to have this playable, we can clone the paradrop/airlift/rebase mission, add some (a lot) :gold: costs and make it only target lunar terrain.


Colonize the Moon
Ok, now we made it to the Moon. What next? My goal is it to prevent the first civ that can go to the moon to take full control of it, but to give civs that invest a lot in lunar infrastructure to get a bonus to colonize the Moon. Therefore I'd like to simulate slow growing colonies that are strongly depending on supply from earth and take a while to actually pay off.
To achieve this, I want to have a slow way with improvements until you can actually found your first city. Therefore, I'd like to have a new Improvement: The Lunar Base (Line). It will be outlined in detail in the Improvement section further down, but here is what it does:

Lunar Base:
  • A Constructor Ship (epensive!) can build it and is consumed in the progress.
  • Similar to a Fort, this gives culture.
  • It upgrades very slow, 100 turns or more are required.
  • A "Supply Ship" can upgrade it instandly and is consumed in the progress. Therefore, this is basically the only way to upgrade it.
  • Upgrade Path: Lunar Base -> Lunar Outpost -> Lunar Habitation Complex
  • Later, you can build Supply Trucks in your cities on the Moon, which will speed up / make it cheaper to have more cities.
  • Maybe we need some Nomadic Start mechanics here, because otherwise it won't have any benefits. Or can we use the Natural Wonders code as base and make these improvements generate +X :science: every turn?
  • Cities can ONLY be found on a Lunar Habitation Complex. They need a Colonization Ship.
  • All three types of Ships are somewhat expensive to build and especially to launch. They need to be balanced in a way that you can't just spam the improvements.

So for a city you need to build at least 1 Moon Base Ship, 2 Supply Ships and 1 Colonization Ship. Is it actually possible that the first two improvements of this chain don't produce culture but the last one does?


Your first city
Congratulations, you just found your first lunar city. What now? The city already has some basic infrastructure from the Habitation Complex. Here comes the problem: What do we need first: Electrical Power to extract materials from the Moon, or these materials to produce solar panels to produce power? I'm a little bit on the fence. But I tend to say that basis has enough electrical power to develope basic manufacturing facilities and to grow, but later we need more solar panels. A full outline of buildings will be in the building section further down.

Your first "city" will be very very poor. There are no Traderoutes to earth, you have no improvements around it and there are virtually no buildings in this city. Bringing material for buildings from earth is costly. But hey, we have plenty of Moon Rocks here! Also, everything you need to make Concrete can be found on the Moon as well. So we use mainly Moon Materials to construct buildings. We still need supply from earth to grow and build things, but not in such huge quantities if we'd transported everything from there. Later, we can extract some materials from the Moon Rocks and/or produce them directly on the Moon. (A full list of resources can be seen in the resource section further down.)
Your city will also grow very slow, which is quite realistic if you keep in mind that a pop 1 city has only 50 people and your turns are only a few months now. An Immigration Ship (or just a Shuttle with Immigrants) can bring food to our new found city. Once it hit a certain population, the grow will be faster.
More or less the only thing your city can do in the beginning is: Generate :science:, cost :gold: and can build very basic buildings which takes a long time - no grow, no culture, no espionage, no units. Building "Culture" should be somehow prohibited, as well as Espionage and Wealth. Only Science should be producable if the city is idle.
When you fulfill the basic needs of the city, it can develope more and more - if you have the right techs. Later, you can produce units, have space tourtists, have traderoutes to earth, improve the land around your city and even construct space ships here for a fraction of the costs at earth. You can build powerful labs with high :science: output (and cost :mischief: ) and extract precious resources like Helium3. You will have other cities as well and can connect them via routes to have your own lunar imperium!



That was the general idea of my project. The improvement line with graphics, the ships with graphics and the mission to upgrade the improvements need to be developed. Also, we need a new tag that makes cities on lunar terrain only buildable when you have the correct improvement - like they need to have freshwater/coast in the desert.
Also, I haven't figured out how to prevent lunar cities from building earth buildings. I can thing of either have an autobuilding (Lunar Base) that replaces all earth buildings or that can't be build in the same city as any earth building. Both ways are crappy :sad:

Nevertheless, since this is just a non-AI demo version, I can just ignore all earth buildings and test my lunar building trees anyways. I just have to be carefull about free buildings from wonders, since I think you can't delete them.
I will actually start with buildings first. If Sparth/0100010 could help me with improvments and graphics for them and Yudishtira with the ships, that would be awesome :goodjob: Feedback is also very appreciated.
 
This will give a little bit more detail about resources and buildings in your early colony. First let me give you a tech overview about the most important techs here.


Lunar Technologies

Lunar Exploration (X88)
Commercial Spaceflight (X94)
Lunar Colonization (X99)...............These three can be researched one after the other,
Lunar Manufacturing (X100)..........no additional prereqs required.
Lunar Tourism (X101)...................They come to fast after each other IMO.
Lunar Trade (X107)
Lunar Megastructures (X118)
Extraterristical Agriculture (X119)

My suggestion here:
Add Lunar Bases at X91, make it require Space Stations and Lunar Explorations.

Change requirements for Lunar Colonization from Lunar Exploration and Ubiquitinous Computing and Advanced Enviromental Systems to Lunar Bases and Commercial Spaceflight and Meta Materials.

Move Lunar Colonization to X96. It should be a prereq for Marine Architecture and Lunar Manufacturing.

Advanced Enviromental Systems should lead to Jovian Exploration and Lunar Manufacturing.

Ubiquitinous Computing has enough sucessor Techs, even without Lunar Colonization.

Add Megacorporations as prereq for Lunar Tourism.

This will spread them out a bit more.

Resources
What is needed for a Lunar Colony and how can we get it? There are no normal Traderoutes from earth yet, so our lunar cities starts with nothing.
Here are some resources I found essentiell for having a developing colony on the Moon:

  • Rubber - Mainly two ingredients: Styrene, which is produced in small amounts in certain plants. Therefore, the enzymaic apparatus exists and if you want to could produce it in Algae. The other ingredient is 1,3-Butadiene which could be produced from Butanol, which is also possible to produce in algae. Therefore, it is ok to say in C2C, that Rubber can be produced from Algae.
  • Aluminium - Frequent on the Moon, iE in Basalt there is over 20% Aluminium Oxide.
  • Silicon - From Moon Rocks, basically everywhere if you have enough electrical power.
  • Copper - Doesn't exist on the Moon. So we need Plastic Electronics here as replacement.
  • Plastic - From Algae, like Rubber.
  • Algae - Can be grown on the moon, is the basic for Plastics, Rubber and suitable as food.
  • Hydrogen - Electric Power + Water produces Hydrogen and Oxygen.
  • CO2 - For a basic atmosphere and for plants to grow. There is CO2 Ice on the Moon that can be used. Also, one of the scare carbon sources on the Moon.
  • Water - More a Property I think. Would work nicely on earth as well.
  • Robots - From the Robot Factory.
  • Glass - Silicon (everywhere) + Na2O (Highlands) + CaO (everywhere). Not much procession is needed since you want the oxides, not the pure elements anyways. Glass can be replaced by plastics.
  • Steel - Moon has Iron, you can use Carbon from plant waste or excrements to produce Steel.
  • Titanium - The percentage of Titaniumoxide is around 4%, which is quite a lot.
  • Fuel - This can be collected either as Biofuels from Algae or Hydrogen and Oxygen in Fuel Cells can be used, or simply solar power.
  • Drugs - Can be produced in Algae.
  • Concrete - Consists basically of different minerals that can all be found frequently on the Moon.
  • Nitrogen - For our atmosphere. Ok, any inert gas will do. We want to have a Helium 3 extraction Facility there, too, so you'd have plenty of Helium as "waste" anyways. Argon and Neon are also quite frequent on the Moon. And in the beginnnig, we can use the Nitrogen in the Air that was brought there in the Habitation Complex anyways since it is not consumed.

Resources that are not needed in BIG quantities, like Clothes, medicine, Flash Drives... could be shipped from earth. Therefore, we could give the Supply Ship an additional mission that it can also build a building that is not buildable otherwise: The Storage. This building would produce all the low quantity resources. If possible this building disappears after X turns.

Enriched ores, represented by map resources like Iron or Bauxite shouldn't exist on the moon at all. Due a lack of athmosphere, liquid water and tectonics, there aren't any concentrated ores. A KREEP layer (K=Potassium, Rare Earth Elements, Phosphate) can be found in ~70-150 km dept. Eventhou the general concentration is higher than in the earth, there are no concentrated ores which makes it more difficult to extract.

Buildings
Now the fun part: What can we actually build here? I don't want to have any terrestrial buildings up here. At least at this stage of the developing process. Some are somewhat usefull thou. What I really want to see is special lunar buildings. They might be compareably cheap for the tech level, but keep in mind that our cities don't have: Traderoutes, any buildings, improvements around them, more then 1 population, specialists (that would be good if we could achieve this). In other words, our production will really suck. Maybe supply ships from earth can speed this up, but they would be somewhat expensive - this is up for discussion in a later development stage.
So, what buildings do I want to have on the Moon?

  • Lunar Base - Autobuild, represents the Habitation Complex, prereq for all other buildings, produces power. Also, produces quite a lot :science: to make the city viable.
  • Lunar Rock Mine - The main production booster for buildings. What would make more sense to build your citiy with stuff that is already ON the moon?
  • Lunar Cement Mill - Another early production booster and required for many other buildings.
  • Lunar Water Extraction Facility - Required to grow (indirectly). You only have so much water with you and even perfect recycling won't create any more.
  • Lunar Aluminium Extraction Facility - This can be a normal building since there aren't any concentrated ores on the Moon.
  • Lunar Iron Extraction Facility - Produces Iron Ingots.
  • Lunar Steel Mill - Requires Iron and Algae OR CO2 Ice. Produces Steel.
  • Lunar Silicon Extraction Facility - Extracs Silicon. It will be required for the Robotic Complex and the Solar Array Wonder.
  • Lunar Titanium Extraction Facility - Produces Titatnium.
  • Lunar Manganese Extraction Facility - Produces Manganese.
  • Lunar Magnesium Extraction Facility - Produces Magnesium.
  • Lunar Greenhouse - Produces Food, requires Glass and Water Extraction Facility.
  • Lunar Greenhouse Complex - Bigger version of the Greenhouse, comes later in the Building- and Tech-Tree.
  • Lunar Robotic Complex - Another production booster. Required for building Worker Units.
  • Lunar Algae Farm - Produces Algae, Food, required for the Algae Lab and Chemical Plant.
  • Lunar Algae Lab - Produces Drugs and :science:.
  • Lunar Organic Polymere Plant - Produces Rubber and Plastic and gives a little production boost at the cost of :food:.
  • Lunar Manufacturing Plant - Produces Parts and gives a nice production boost.
  • Lunar Glass Factory - Produces Glass.
  • CO2 Ice Extraction Facility - Enables Greenhouse Complexes and Arcology Parks. Requires Organic Polymere Plant and Chemicals.
  • Lunar Arcology Park - Reduces the rare air/water Pollution, + :), produces Wood.
  • Lunar Luxury Hotel - Requires the Greenhouse, Habitat and the Manufacturing Plant. Produces a lot of Money.
  • Lunar Research Lab - A lot :hammers: are needed for this baby, and it's maintenace would be incredible - but so would be it's :science: output.
  • Lunar Assembly Plant - Produces "cars", required to build Rovers, Bulldozer (only Roads) and Supply Trucks.
  • Lunar Ship Yard - One of the main reasons to go on the moon in the first place - constructing ships here is somewhat easier since the moon has no atmosphere and the gravitation is much lower then on the earth.
  • Lunar Launch Site - Like these on earth, they unlock the launch mission, just with much lower cost.
  • Lunar Space Port - Replaces Launch Site, increases Trade routes.
  • Lunar Solar Array - A HUGE Array of Solar Panels. I'd love to have it place an Improvement on the Map like Manchu Picchu. This is a Worldwonder and Provides Power to all cities on the Moon.
  • Helium3 Extraction Facility - Produces Helium 3. Later, I could imagine to have a Fusion Power Plant on the Moon as well. But not before Lunar Megastructures (X118).
  • Lunar Deep Mine - Reaches in the KREEP layer. Produces Rare Earth Elements and is required to produce Fertilizers (Phosphate) on the Moon. (Required later for terraforming the Moon).
  • Lunar Habitation Complex - Your people need to live somewhere.
  • Lunar Storage - Can't be normally build. Instead, your Supply Ship can construct it. It produces all kinds of low quantity resources - Clothes, Flash Memory, Chemicals...
  • Lunar Archology - Very expensive, allows the construction of normal "earth" buildings on the moon. But comes very late (at Colony Arcology, X120). <- Not sure about this, probably ignore it.

I already have a detailed Building Tree with requirements. If you are interested in it, I can upload a picture (I have no scanner...). In short: Your first Colony will struggle and has a building chain with (currently) 7 Level. This is because you have no resources up there. After you developed an infrastructure in your first city and connect it to the second, this city's longest chain would be 3 Level. So your first city needs a lot of attention and "helps" the player to fully get into the lunar stuff. It's like your first city in PH era: Everything is new and you start from scratch. When you have more and more cities on the Moon, you don't want to much micro-management and prefer longer building queues. A good thing that it works out with realism as well!
Specific stats are yet to be made. I still shuffle around one or two buildings since I can't decide were to put them. I will post them soon.


Small buildings like a Fire Station or a Hospital are included in the Habitation Complex, so there is no need for them.
I have further ideas for later lunar buildings. I want huge areas covered with Arcologies that can grow a Forest and slowly turn the Moons surface in a living world. However, this requires Megastructures, astroid extraction (for more water) and tons of energy (Fusion) to produce Oxygen and the Glass for the Arcologies.
 
You have to move around the moon and you have to improve your land around your new city to make use of all the unique features and resources the moon offers. How should units behave on the Moon? One approach was it to simply not allow most units to walk on lunar terrain. My approach would be to give all lunar terrain Terrain Damage between 50 and 99%. We assume here that all your units on the Moon wear Space Suits. But they can't store unlimited Oxygen. It is enough to walk one tile out of your save Colony, and then back in in the next turn. But if they stay there for more then one turn, they will die. Units like Robots are immune to this Terrain Damage of course. Maybe give it 100% damage, since 1 turn is at least a few weeks.



Units

I need a few new units for this project. Yudishtira, if you'd take over this part, I'd be very happy! Since this is a demo, I don't really care about graphics. Just copy any space ship if you are lazy, that's fine. At some point, if Sparth finds the time, we can retexture the models and make them nicer, but for be it doesn't matter if they all look the same.
But first, we need two new missions and I hope they are easily programmable.

Missions

"Launch Moon" or "LaunchToMoon": This will be a mission that requires the Launch Site (a building yet to be made) and Rocket Fuel in a city. It substracts quite a lot of money, lets say 50.000 in the beginning. Then, it allows you to place your unit anywhere. If possible, only allow lunar terrain as landing area. Also, if possible, only allow Lunar Bases or lunar cities as target. Maybe the Rebase mission would be a better template then the Paradrop mission. Also, can the landing be delayed? Like, you perform the mission and 10 turns later your ship arrives?

"Upgrade Improvement": This will upgrade one Lunar Base according to the line and kills the unit. But only if all conditions are met. Do we need a seperate mission here for every Improvement of the Line?



Moon Base Ship - This ship is basically a Gatherer. It can build the Lunar Base Improvement and is consumed by doing so. It simply becomes the Base on arrival.
Stats:
Spoiler :
Name: Moon Base Ship
Cost:
Requires:
Strenght:
Movement:
Special: Can perform the Missions "Launch Moon" and can only construct the Moon Base.
Strategy text: Use this Ship to found your first Bases on the Moon.
Pedia text: Launching payload into space is very expensive. Therefore this ship was constructed to stay on the Moon and become the core of the new found base. It includes a simple Habitat, Solar Panels and lang term live support systems. [Note: If you don't like my sentences, feel free to edit/change or replace them. I just want to help you here a bit.]



Supply Ship - This ship helps to upgrade your moon base. Like the first ship, it stays on the Moon and becomes part of the base, thus is consumed during it's mission. It can also deliver Resources to your lunar city later in the game.
Stats:
Spoiler :
Name: Supply Ship
Cost:
Requires:
Strenght:
Movement:
Special: Can perform the Missions "Launch Moon" and "Upgrade Improvement".
Strategy text: Use this Ship to develope your Moon Bases and to supply your new founded Lunar Cities.
Pedia text: Launching payload into space is very expensive. Therefore this ship was constructed to stay on the Moon and become a part of the base. It brings some colonists there, has life supporting systems and also carries resources for important buildings in the developing base.



Colonist Ship - This Ship brings a lot of colonists and many resources to the Moon to upgrade your Base to a small city. Upon arrival, it is dissembled and used as material source for the new city. I think this is already in game!
Stats:
Spoiler :
Name: Colonist Ship
Cost:
Requires:
Strenght:
Movement:
Special: Can perform the Missions "Launch Moon". Can found cities.
Strategy text: Use this Ship to found cities on the Moon.
Pedia text: Lunar Bases kept growing and technology reached a point, were lunar cities became possible. Soon, a ship was developed that could transport daring scientists and engineers to the Moon. Upon arrival, it was dissembled and recycled in the new founded city.


Lunar Worker - This is the basic Worker unit for the Moon.
Stats:
Spoiler :
Name: Lunar Worker
Cost:
Requires:
Strenght:
Movement:
Special: Can build the follwing Improvements:
Strategy text: the basic worker to improve lunar tiles.
Pedia text: Lunar cities quickly expanded over the safety of the arcology to the surrounding area. Soon the first tracks were built and shortly after, this Robot was developed to improve the region near the city.



Supply Truck - Like the Supply Ship, this Truck can upgrade your Bases.
Stats:
Spoiler :
Name: Supply Truck
Cost:
Requires:
Strenght:
Movement:
Special: Can perform the "Upgrade Improvement" mission
Strategy text: A cheaper version of the Supply Ship to upgrade Moon Bases.
Pedia text: Once Lunar Facturing was mastered, most of the resources needed to expand Moon Bases could be produced on the Moon itself. This allows Bases to grow faster and at a lower cost.



Bulldozer - Not sure about this one. I want it to build only Roads, nothing more. But it would come earlier than the other worker and costs much less. I need to see ingame how big the gap between Worker and Bulldozer really is to see if this unit is usefull or not.

These are the necessary units for this project. Later, I'd like to see research units like Buggies, Lunar Transporters and Mobile Lab Units that can gather data for XP and then be killed in a city to generate :science: based on their promotions, but this comes later.


Improvements

What Improvements can be build on the Moon? There may be many, but I think I'll leave it to just a few, at least at first. We might need some graphics here if we cannot recycle the graphics from earth buildings. I'd really appreciate the help of 0100010 here.

Lunar Base: The single most important Improvement here. This will grow and eventually become a city. Ideally, it would give some :science: each turn.
Upgrade Path:
Lunar Base, Lunar Bases (X91) Upgrades after 100 turns.
Lunar Outpost, Commercial Spaceflight (X94) Upgrades after 250 turns.
Lunar Habitation Complex, Lunar Colonization (X96)


Routes: The Track, the "Mud Path" and the Road makes sense here. We have Concrete here as well so Paved Roads and Highways would be possible. We also have Iron, Steel and a Fuel (at least solar power), so Railroads were also possible. But would they make sense? There is no wind nor rain on the moon. Your paths can't be washed away or overgrow. Later in the colonization process you might need bigger roads, but only when your cities are growing more and more and you produce large quantities of resources. At this point, Railroads become feasable. But before that they might be an overkill. Is there a way to restrict roads on certain terrain and give them a second tech to unlock? Like: Railroads on lunar terrain can't be build before Lunar Manufacturing?

Habitat - We already have it. But population on the moon is very low in the beginning. Thus they can't grow very fast. +:commerce:


Lunar Mine - generates some :hammers: and a lot of :commerce:. Small chance (really small, if any) of discover Iron, Bauxite or Titanium.
+ 5 :hammers:, requires Lunar Manufacturing.
Tech Bonus:
Nanomining: +2 :hammers:


Lunar Quarry - generates a lot :hammers: as well, but somehow these :hammers: should count mainly towards buildings. We need a vicinity building here to simulate this I think.
+ 3 :hammers:, +3 :commerce:, requires Lunar Manufacturing.
Tech Bonus:
Nanomining: +1 :hammers: + 2:commerce:


Lunar Greenhouse - Somehow you have to generate :food: on the moon. They can't discover any resources.
+ 3:food:, require Glass, reqires Lunar Manufacturing and Gene Enhancement.
Tech Bonus:
Vertical Farming: +6 :food:


Solar Panel - they should generate electricity on the moon when this property is implented. Until then, they are mostly useless but generate :hammers: and :commerce:. Also, they are a requirement for some buildings (maybe).
+ 2 :commerce:, +2 :hammers:, require Lunar Manufacturing.
Tech Bonus:
Artificial Photosynthesis: +3 :hammers:, +2 :commerce:


Lunar He3 Extraction Facility - to get He3 in your trade network. Lots of :commerce: here.
+3 :commerce:, requires Lunar Manufacturing
Tech Bonus: +10 :commerce: with Lunar Trade
 
@Faustmouse

There are already some Lunar/Space stuff made ...

Units
- Lunar Rover (Lunar Exploration)
- Spacecraft Settler (Lunar Colonization)
- Terraformer (Not Working yet)
- Seedship (Interstellar Colonization)

Improvements
- Colony Habitat (Small) (Lunar Colonization)
- Colony Habitat (Medium) (Lunar Manufacturing)
- Colony Habitat (Large) (Planetary Colonization)
- Colony Habitat (Small) (Planetary Manufacturing)
- Colony Extraction Facility (Lunar Colonization)
- Colony Manufacturing (Lunar Manufacturing)
- Colony Hydroponics (Lunar Colonization)
- Colony Solar Array (Lunar Colonization)

Resources
- Carbon Dioxide Ice (Lunar Exploration)
- Helium 3 (Astrogeology)
- Moon Rocks (Lunar Exploration)
- Mars Rocks (Planetary Exploration)
- Rocket Fuel (Advanced Rocketry)

Terrain
- Lunar Barren
- Lunar Basalt
- Lunar Desert
- Lunar Plains
- Lunar Rocky
- Martian Barren
- Martian Desert
- Martian Dunes
- Martian Ice
- Martian Permifrost
- Martian Plains
- Martian Rocky
- Orbit (For the many maps on one map)
- Space (For the Solar System Maps)
- Deep Space (For Galactic Maps)

Terrain Features
- Asteroids
- Black Hole
- Large Crater (For Lunar Terrain)
- Medium Crater (For Lunar Terrain)
- Small Crater (For Lunar Terrain)
- Radiation Cloud

Buildings
- Commercial Spaceport
- Military Spaceport
- Interstellar Speedway
- Commercial Satellite
- Military Satellite
- Orbital Factory
- Orbital Hotel
- Orbital Labs
- Propaganda Satellites
- Solar Power Satellite
- Space Lab
- Zero G Medical Lab
- Zero G Sports Arena
- Astrobiology Lab
- Meteorite Lab

National Wonders
- National Aerospace Agency
- Orbital Hotel

Wonders
- Various Mars Colonies
- The Space Elevator
- SETI Program

Projects
- Apollo Program
- Hubble Space Telescope
- International Space Station
- Space Ship (Now a "Multiverse Ship")

There is more info in the various space threads. Here are the main ones ...

- C2C - Galactic Era
- C2C - Space Terrain
 
My :hatsoff: to you for doing something like this, this is what makes this MODMOD a step ahead of everyone/everything else, people just dedicated to "themselves" striving to make things better on their own :eek:

Way to make people see, that its YOU the people, that are the ambitious person(s) that are really the manufacturer of this MODMOD:goodjob:
 
@Faustmouse

I have a few questions for you ....

1. Do we need a separate type of Mine improvement for the moon? What would make it different from a normal mine other than workers would be wearing spacesuits?

2. For building won't there be a pint when the colony can support terrestrial buildings? If so will the lunar wont upgrade to their terrestrial equivalents?

My suggestion here:
Add Lunar Bases at X91, make it require Space Stations and Lunar Explorations.

3. Why at X91? If you want it with those requirements than say at X89 Y3 would be better.

Change requirements for Lunar Colonization from Lunar Exploration and Ubiquitinous Computing and Advanced Enviromental Systems to Lunar Bases and Commercial Spaceflight and Meta Materials.

4. That seems reasonable if you adding Lunar Bases first.

Move Lunar Colonization to X96. It should be a prereq for Marine Architecture and Lunar Manufacturing.

5. I don't know if it should be needed for Marine Architecture. Once could theorize that one could develop marine stuff without needing to go to the moon.

Advanced Environmental Systems should lead to Jovian Exploration and Lunar Manufacturing.

6. The requirements for Jovian Exploration seems a little messed up to begin with. We may need to rework its requirements anyways.

Ubiquitinous Computing has enough successor Techs, even without Lunar Colonization.

7. But Ubiquitinous Computing is kind of important since it has become a catch all for a bunch of smaller techs we removed from MrAzure's larger tech tree list.

Add Megacorporations as prereq for Lunar Tourism.

8. I suppose that makes sense.

What is needed for a Lunar Colony and how can we get it? There are no normal Traderoutes from earth yet, so our lunar cities starts with nothing.
Here are some resources I found essentiell for having a developing colony on the Moon:

9. Unlike say Mars, shipments of supplies could be sent initially. Its only when Lunar Colonies can trade something back that true "Lunar Trade" would happen.

Lunar Rock Mine - The main production booster for buildings. What would make more sense to build your citiy with stuff that is already ON the moon?

10. I would rename this "Lunar Rock Quarry".

I already have a detailed Building Tree with requirements. If you are interested in it, I can upload a picture (I have no scanner...).

11. Yes I would like to see what you have in mind.

12. What I would like to do for both the Moon and Mars is have a set of Wonders that have specific locations. These would require both terrain type and/or terrain features and/or latitude. It would also have them where they cannot be built in the same city as each other.

"Launch Moon" or "LaunchToMoon": This will be a mission that requires the Launch Site (a building yet to be made) and Rocket Fuel in a city. It substracts quite a lot of money, lets say 50.000 in the beginning. Then, it allows you to place your unit anywhere. If possible, only allow lunar terrain as landing area. Also, if possible, only allow Lunar Bases or lunar cities as target. Maybe the Rebase mission would be a better template then the Paradrop mission. Also, can the landing be delayed? Like, you perform the mission and 10 turns later your ship arrives?

13. I am not sure if its already in the mod or not but there is a graphic of the Lunar Lander. This would be the first unit on the moon and can carry Lunar Rovers (exploration units). The unit itself is immobile but can re-base from the moon and back to Earth. How you get it to the moon in the First place I am not sure of. Note that the Lunar Rover is actually worse than its Earth counterpart but it can survive on the moon. Likewise it can be loaded into Lunar Landers while other Earth exploration vehicles cannot.
 
I will tackle your posts one after the other.

@Faustmouse

There are already some Lunar/Space stuff made ...

Units
- Lunar Rover (Lunar Exploration) This will be used in the 2nd or 3rd stage of developement. But very useful!
- Spacecraft Settler (Lunar Colonization) This can be used as it is I think :goodjob:
- Terraformer (Not Working yet) Much later in the techtree. I will only cover the TH era at first.
- Seedship (Interstellar Colonization) this has nothing to do with lunar colonization

Improvements
- Colony Habitat (Small) (Lunar Colonization)
- Colony Habitat (Medium) (Lunar Manufacturing)
- Colony Habitat (Large) (Planetary Colonization)
- Colony Habitat (Small) (Planetary Manufacturing)
- Colony Extraction Facility (Lunar Colonization)
- Colony Manufacturing (Lunar Manufacturing)
- Colony Hydroponics (Lunar Colonization)
- Colony Solar Array (Lunar Colonization)

They are all usefull. I will rename my Greenhouse Improvement to Colony Hydroponics. The Extraction facility can be used for both He3 and CO2.

Resources
- Carbon Dioxide Ice (Lunar Exploration)
- Helium 3 (Astrogeology)
- Moon Rocks (Lunar Exploration)
- Mars Rocks (Planetary Exploration)
- Rocket Fuel (Advanced Rocketry)

Except from the Mars Rocks, these are the ones that I wanted to use in my lunar module anyways.

Terrain
- Lunar Barren
- Lunar Basalt
- Lunar Desert
- Lunar Plains
- Lunar Rocky
- Martian Barren
- Martian Desert
- Martian Dunes
- Martian Ice
- Martian Permifrost
- Martian Plains
- Martian Rocky
- Orbit (For the many maps on one map)
- Space (For the Solar System Maps)
- Deep Space (For Galactic Maps)

The Lunar stuff an the Orbit / Space are the terrains I'm gonna use. I will make a very small 2 Plantes map for testing.

Terrain Features
- Asteroids
- Black Hole
- Large Crater (For Lunar Terrain)
- Medium Crater (For Lunar Terrain)
- Small Crater (For Lunar Terrain)
- Radiation Cloud

The Craters are somewhat usefull, the rest is more for deep space.

Buildings
- Commercial Spaceport
- Military Spaceport
- Interstellar Speedway
- Commercial Satellite
- Military Satellite
- Orbital Factory
- Orbital Hotel
- Orbital Labs
- Propaganda Satellites
- Solar Power Satellite
- Space Lab
- Zero G Medical Lab
- Zero G Sports Arena
- Astrobiology Lab
- Meteorite Lab

Non of these will interfere with my module (at first). They are all Earth or Orbit based. Later we can have certain earth buildings like the labs or the spaceports on the moon as well.

National Wonders
- National Aerospace Agency
- Orbital Hotel

The National Aerospace Agency could be a prereq for the Base Ship and the others.

Wonders
- Various Mars Colonies
- The Space Elevator
- SETI Program

The Space Elevator will be usefull since it reduces launching costs to the moon. This can be represented by a 2nd mission that requires the elevator but with much reduced costs.
SETI and your colonies won't interfere with the moon.


Projects
- Apollo Program
- Hubble Space Telescope
- International Space Station
- Space Ship (Now a "Multiverse Ship")

The Apollo Program would be a prereq for the Bases. Maybe we should rename it to be more specific. After all, other nations aiming for the moon don't call their programms Apollo... But it is the most known one of course!
The other three are not important for me.


There is more info in the various space threads. Here are the main ones ...

- C2C - Galactic Era
- C2C - Space Terrain

Thanks I'll have a look! :goodjob:
 
@Faustmouse

I have a few questions for you ....

1. Do we need a separate type of Mine improvement for the moon? What would make it different from a normal mine other than workers would be wearing spacesuits?

Sadly yes. On the Moon, there is no Copper for example. Our Mine can find that. It can also find various Gems and at least with Diamonds, Im 100% sure they can't be found there.`So that's the main reasons why we need a 2nd one.

2. For building won't there be a pint when the colony can support terrestrial buildings? If so will the lunar wont upgrade to their terrestrial equivalents?

There will be. Some, like Labs earlier, others, like Football Stadium etc much later. I can imagine having farms/pastures on the moon (under a dome of course), but since we have the Tech Extraterrestrial Agriculture (Galactic Era), we might want to hold on with these. Maybe later, as I said, but not in this early stage.

3. Why at X91? If you want it with those requirements than say at X89 Y3 would be better.

I thought it would make sense to not come that early. After all, you are way more experienced with tech adjustments than I am, so I'll leave this up to you.


4. That seems reasonable if you adding Lunar Bases first.

Ok.

5. I don't know if it should be needed for Marine Architecture. Once could theorize that one could develop marine stuff without needing to go to the moon.

We have A LOT situation were you COULD deveolpe something without the precourser. IE: Why would you need Lunar Colonization to research Solar Sails?
I just wanted to make sure that every tech has a prereq then, but if you don't think it's necessary then I'm ok with that.

6. The requirements for Jovian Exploration seems a little messed up to begin with. We may need to rework its requirements anyways.

Why not`before you needed Lunar Colonization for the Jovian Exploration I think. So we just go from AES to Jovian Exploration without the step in between.

7. But Ubiquitinous Computing is kind of important since it has become a catch all for a bunch of smaller techs we removed from MrAzure's larger tech tree list.

It has like 6 techs that require Ubiquitinous Computing. Would it really hurt if one of these go away?

8. I suppose that makes sense.

Good.

9. Unlike say Mars, shipments of supplies could be sent initially. Its only when Lunar Colonies can trade something back that true "Lunar Trade" would happen.

Getting to the Mars is actually not THAT much more difficult then getting to the Moon. The main difference is: The Mars is not always in a good position. Launch Windows for the Hohmann Transfer, which is the most energy efficient transfer occour roughly every 25 Months. That's not to bad. A trip to the Mars takes also longer with 7 Months compared to a few days, but that's not a big problem if you transport mainly materials.
If you stay at your destination, you don't need fuel for the return mission. This is a point where the main difference in fuel usage between Moon and Mars is: To escape the Mars, you need much more fuel then to escape the Moon, thus you need much more fuel for it, making your ship heavier. ALL the way, so as well on the ascension to Low Earth orbit as well as the transfer to mars. This makes Mars return missions much more expensive then moon return.

So when we are going to those celestial bodies, we need to know how much energy is required. There, delta-V-maps are used. These tell you, how much you have to change your velocity to reach a target destination (in km/s). Of course, changing the velocity is strongly depending on your mass, and when you fly in atmosphere also by drag. So on this map we see, that ascending from earth to a Low Earth Orbit, we need around 10 km/s delta-V. To the Moon, we need another 6.7 km/s or 5.7 km/s if we go over a Geostationary Orbit and to land on the mars 3.8 km/s. That's not 100% true as I asumed aerobreaking as completely free, which is not the case if you want to reach a stable orbit. But the amount of fuel you have to spend on these maneuvers to adjust your orbit are somewhat low. So there is not much difference in fuel usage. The fact you need air supply etc for manned ships make mars journey much more difficult due their length. But fully unmannded supply ships that deliver goods don't need that.
The main reason you want to have your colonies as indepenend as possible are the high launch costs from earth. So it IS a bit easier to supply your lunar colony, but it is something you don't really want since it costs A LOT. The best rocket we have so far can bring 10t payload in the low earth orbit for 54million $. As you saw in the Delta-v map, getting to the moon also requires fuel, which is increased when your rocket gets heavier. And how much 10 t Launches you need to actually build your colony?
We CAN have Supply Ships support the colony, that was intended, but we can't do that to much.

10. I would rename this "Lunar Rock Quarry".

Yeah, that's better.

11. Yes I would like to see what you have in mind.

Ok, let me try to draw it nicely :p

12. What I would like to do for both the Moon and Mars is have a set of Wonders that have specific locations. These would require both terrain type and/or terrain features and/or latitude. It would also have them where they cannot be built in the same city as each other.

That sounds good. No veto from me, just save it for a later stage ok?

13. I am not sure if its already in the mod or not but there is a graphic of the Lunar Lander. This would be the first unit on the moon and can carry Lunar Rovers (exploration units). The unit itself is immobile but can re-base from the moon and back to Earth. How you get it to the moon in the First place I am not sure of. Note that the Lunar Rover is actually worse than its Earth counterpart but it can survive on the moon. Likewise it can be loaded into Lunar Landers while other Earth exploration vehicles cannot.

I haven't really worked out how rover and lander interact with my ideas. i think they come somewhat earlier and maybe you need a few missions as prereqs for the lunar colony.
 
Sadly yes. On the Moon, there is no Copper for example. Our Mine can find that. It can also find various Gems and at least with Diamonds, Im 100% sure they can't be found there.`So that's the main reasons why we need a 2nd one.

Oh I totally forgot about mines finding resources. Ok that makes sense.

I thought it would make sense to not come that early. After all, you are way more experienced with tech adjustments than I am, so I'll leave this up to you.

its not about being early its about the tech requirements. Not matter where you place it at X89 or X91 you can still research it just as fast. I think it should be at X89 since it will not make the tech jump ahead on the tree so much. Since both Lunar Exploration and Space Stations are at X88. The only reason it would be at X91 is if it required a tech from X90. Understand what I mean?

We have A LOT situation were you COULD deveolpe something without the precourser. IE: Why would you need Lunar Colonization to research Solar Sails?
I just wanted to make sure that every tech has a prereq then, but if you don't think it's necessary then I'm ok with that.

I did not know Solar Sails were required. That's yet another thing moved when MrAzure redid the Transhuman era. *grumble* :gripe:

Why not`before you needed Lunar Colonization for the Jovian Exploration I think. So we just go from AES to Jovian Exploration without the step in between.

Sounds ok, but I have not looked closer to see if it messes up any other techs that should require techs Jovian Exploration required but don't because they have Jovian Exploration.

It has like 6 techs that require Ubiquitinous Computing. Would it really hurt if one of these go away?

It depends upon what Lunar Colonization leads to. If they needed stuff from Ubiquitinous Computing then Ubiquitinous Computing could then be neede for them and thus more techs that require it.

That sounds good. No veto from me, just save it for a later stage ok?

Well the Mars one are semi already done, they just don't have the terrain requirements on them yet.

I haven't really worked out how rover and lander interact with my ideas. i think they come somewhat earlier and maybe you need a few missions as prereqs for the lunar colony.

Well both the Moon and Mars should have exploration rovers. The Moon having manned ones and Mars having unmanned ones. This would allow players to explore the surface of the planet before they could colonize it. Also I am not sure how we can work out Satellite Observers.
 
Also I am not sure how we can work out Satellite Observers.

Currently satellites on the Earth part of the game only show the terrain, features and improvements at the time you built them. They do not update the map if improvements are done or features changed nor does it show unit movements. Which is strange since unit movements is one of the things that the RL military would use them for.
 
its not about being early its about the tech requirements. Not matter where you place it at X89 or X91 you can still research it just as fast. I think it should be at X89 since it will not make the tech jump ahead on the tree so much. Since both Lunar Exploration and Space Stations are at X88. The only reason it would be at X91 is if it required a tech from X90. Understand what I mean?

Ah sure, makes totally sense then. Actually, I think the earlier we could have them the better, at least for my purposes. And they should be technically possible right now, since they are not THAT much different from Space Stations.


I did not know Solar Sails were required. That's yet another thing moved when MrAzure redid the Transhuman era. *grumble* :gripe:
:sad:
I guess we have to redo the TH era then anyways?

Sounds ok, but I have not looked closer to see if it messes up any other techs that should require techs Jovian Exploration required but don't because they have Jovian Exploration.
Sure. I did it quite quick and I don't have your insights on the tree. I trust your judgement here.


It depends upon what Lunar Colonization leads to. If they needed stuff from Ubiquitinous Computing then Ubiquitinous Computing could then be neede for them and thus more techs that require it.

It leads to Lunar Manufacturing and Jovian Exploration. I'd appreciate if you help me with tech adjustments.

That sounds good. No veto from me, just save it for a later stage ok?

What excactly?

Well both the Moon and Mars should have exploration rovers. The Moon having manned ones and Mars having unmanned ones. This would allow players to explore the surface of the planet before they could colonize it. Also I am not sure how we can work out Satellite Observers.

Yeah, exploration like reveal tiles on the moon is somewhat strange to simulate, since you have satellites and telescopes. They could take surface samples to find He3 for example.
What are your thoughts on having no Metal resources on the moon at all, instead take them as "everywhere" and allow buildings to generate the Ingots / Wares without the need of ore in vicinity? It would take a lot strategy from the moon, but it is sadlymore realistic. Note that my building tree will work with or without ores on the moon.
 
I guess we have to redo the TH era then anyways?

Only in situations that are messed up. For the techs he made he did a good job linking them to each other. Its when he encounters stuff from the AtoM mod and RoM/AND techs that sometimes he has problems.

Sure. I did it quite quick and I don't have your insights on the tree. I trust your judgement here.

Looking closer its Lunar Manufacturing that is needed for Jovian Exploration. Here are the requirements ...

Jovian Exploration
Req Tech: Lunar Manufacturing AND Media Hivemind AND Fusion AND Mainstream Cloning AND Asteroid Belt Probes
Location: X102 Y5

Here is MrAzures post about it ...

I am thinking of moving Jovian Exploration from x88 to x93 because it is right next to Asteroid Probes (x87). I don't know what tech Jovian Exploration originally was, but it is way to early, in its current place.

Also I want the Tech Jovian Exploration to have access to Fusion, Cloning, Megacoporations, Mass Driver, Droids, Holographics, Solar Propulsion, Media Hivemind, and Gene Jurisprudence buildings and technology influences.

The only building is Holographic Solar System, but Holographics is at x91 (or 4 places away, which is an error.)

Jovian Exploration
Requires: Lunar Manufacturing AND Megacorporations AND Mass Driver AND Fusion

Required For: Orbital Flight, Antigrav.

I will move it to x93, Y5.

Path
Planetary Exploration x81
Asteroid Probes x87
Jovian Exploration x93
Oort Cloud Probes is at x100.

Thoughts?

Before he changed it it was ...

Jovian Exploration
Requires: Asteroid Belt Probes

And was right near Asteroid Mining.

Seems to me that it should not need so many requirements. I mean if we are just exploring the Outer Planets with probes and rovers then it should not even need Fission or cloning etc.

What excactly?

I was just saying that there are already some Mars Wonders already in the game. However they do not have terrain requirements yet. See in the pedia for their details.

Yeah, exploration like reveal tiles on the moon is somewhat strange to simulate, since you have satellites and telescopes. They could take surface samples to find He3 for example.
What are your thoughts on having no Metal resources on the moon at all, instead take them as "everywhere" and allow buildings to generate the Ingots / Wares without the need of ore in vicinity? It would take a lot strategy from the moon, but it is sadlymore realistic. Note that my building tree will work with or without ores on the moon.

Well DH and I planned to have Crashed Probes as "Goodie Huts" in space. That would be something that the rovers would want to find. We could give the outcomes special things like maybe lost cargo or extra rover, etc.
 
Ok just quick: Jovian Exploration is something that could be done today. Main problems here are that it's quite expensive. So moving it closer to now is ok I guess.
Ok, most tech seem pretty good, it's just the lunar stuff I stumbled about. I'd really like to spread it out more and I'm glad you are with me here.

We will find a use for the rover. If you want to join me with this project, be my guest. I have not too much time and it's something I really like to see implented. Even if this means I have to take sacrifices. But please understand that I thought a long time about it so I might be a bit stubborn about it ;) And neither you or me or everybody else has seen it ingame. If it doesn't work, I'm totally ok with change things.

I need to do some stuff now but I hope I can upload my building path later this day.
 
*nods* :yup:

Well just know a lot of stuff from Accent of Mankind Mod (AtoM) made by Civ Fuehrer and I was put in C2C from the beginning. Even before we knew about multimaps. So there are some thing I want to make sure get in and other rules that don't get broken either such as the spacecraft propulsion methods. Overall our ideas were just a skeleton of what to do. Your ideas seem for the most part in synergy with our ideas.
 
What Hydro said. Instead of having 2 Europe and America seperated by water for example, we have Earth and Moon seperated by Space. You NEED your cities on the earth for the science output and supply, but the only thing I really add is stuff ON the moon. So in theory, this module can be turned on in any game without causing any harm, it is just useless since normal maps don't have lunar terrains.

And yes, sadly this will mess up animal spawns and buildings depending on lantitude.


And sure Hydro, the ideas from ATOM should not be thrown away and if there is something you want to see implented which is not in synergy, I'm more then happy to discuss it.
Oh and for your propulsion systems: Solid Rockets are somewhat impractical for going to the Moon. They can't be turned off nor throttled down, which is more or less required to reach the moon and land of it. It COULD be done I think, which very exact timing when a solid booster runs out of fuel, but it is very very risky and impractical.
 
Here is a raw sketch of the building tree you wanted Hydro. Names in boxes means resources that are required. So for the Greenhouse you'd need the Water Extraction Facility but not the Glass Factory, only Glass. Since you don't have a traderoute to earth and it's your first city, you actually need the Glass Factory to build it. But for your second lunar City, when you have connected it with a route to the first one, you can directly build the Greenhouse without the Glass Factory. This will speed up city growth greatly, as you can see with the manufacturing buildings.

Note that the names are not the final names. The resources can be the same as on earth, but I think for the moon we need new buildings.

I'm unsure with some buildings:
Metal Extraction Facility: We could leave it as ONE building that produce all the named metals or have one for each. Actually, for Iron extraction you need a lot of heat (maybe from burning Plant Waste, but this consumes a lot of Oxygen as well...) and for Aluminium you need A LOT of electrical Power. At least when make it in a larger scale.

Silicon: The moon is full of this stuff. But again, we need a lot electrical power here, so I have no idea what the prereq could be. Maybe a Fusion Generator? A huge Solar Array (requires Silicon)? Hen / Egg problem...

Lunar Habitat: I tend to have a Citysize 3 req and the Greenhouse.

Robots need electronic parts. Since there is virtually no copper on the moon, we can stick to plastic electronics. This could be covered by the Manufacturer or come as it's own building somewhere after the Organic Polymere Factory.


Well, have a look at it and give me feedback. When we have something to agree with, I will start to think about stats in detail.
 

Attachments

  • P1080384.jpg
    P1080384.jpg
    494.9 KB · Views: 212
Top Bottom