Mars Colony thread

[merijn_v1]

The thread for developing the Mars colony viewer.

I consider this release as an alpha/development release. I wanted to give you the opportunity to view the current model and hopefully give me suggestions on how to improve it. If you do this, please be as descriptive as possible. Just saying "add more detail" is not very useful for me. It would be great if you can find images of elements I can use for detailing. (Think of tubing, air vents etc.) If you have a model it would be nice to provide a link or mention the mod it is used in.

Right now, the model is a combination of more detailed existing models and new models made by me. It is quite easy to see what components I made myself, as they are the ones which do not have much detail (yet). I wanted to release the models to give an general idea of how it will look like first. Subsequent commits will include updates to make the models more detailed/better.

Components
Main building
The main building consists of a hexagon building with the telescope of the observatory. It is present when the colony viewer becomes available, which is when the Mission to Mars project is completed.

Framing
As I made all components basically having there own framing, there wasn't much framing I could include. Instead, the components of the Mars framing are now various utility components.
- Air Lock
- Communication antenna
- Storage cells
- Landing pad
- Mars Vehicle

Power Source
I used the Solar Panels improvement for this. Level 1 contains 3 arrays (of 18 panels each) and level 2 has 2 additional arrays. I want to improve it by adding some wiring between the panel arrays and the main building.

Extractor
I use the Final Frontier's Extraction Facility for the Mars extractor. Currently it only has 1 extractor, but I think I will make it an array of 2 or 3 extractors.

Habitat
The habitats are models I made myself. I quite like the general idea I had for them, although I'm open to suggestions. The models are currently still very plain. I want to improve that by giving them more elements in the texture and possibly some small structural elements as well.

Hydroponics
The component I created first (besides the main base). I really like how it turned out. The plants inside are plain squire beams. Although very basic, I think it represents plants well enough (for now). The exterior still need more detailed texture and some structural elements.

Laboratory
I used the Next War's Biological Warfare Laboratory model for this, which are connected to the main base with some corridors. I'm planning to reskin them a little to make the more "general" laboratories and less "biological" ones. The corridors connecting them to the main building are not finished yet and use some random parts of the Biological Warfare Laboratory skin.

I played with the idea of having 3 unique laboratory models, but I decided against it. (Or at least for now) Mainly because I couldn't find 3 models I liked. But also because they are all now easily recognizable as the laboratories of the colony.

Control Center
Again a Next War building, this time the Mind Control Center. It is also connected to the main base and similarly to the Laboratory, the corridors use placeholder skin for now.

Space ship
When you currently launch the space ship, it is just an empty frame. This is because the old space ship has been removed from the game, so you cannot add components (like the thrusters, cockpit, docking bay) to the frame. I want to create a script that adds all component to the frame so you get a completed space ship model. I made an attempt before but didn't succeed yet.

 

[Leoreth]

Looking forward to this. Your plans sound good so far, let's have a look at the models once you have them. I mostly envisioned the framing as the connective parts between the other components and additional armoured casing for all modules that improves with every framing that you complete. If I had more time I would aid in the model research but I trust that you could do as well as I could.

 

[merijn_v1]

I made a PR with the current model. My idea was to release an early version to give a general idea of the model and to let people comment on it. Subsequent PR will make the base better over time.
EDIT: I closed the PR for now. I want to do the reorganisation first. I think its easier if the initial PR already has the final files/folders organisation.

I guessed that the framing was supposed to be the parts between the components. My concern is that it looks a bit weird if you have some connecting parts leading to nowhere. Or even worse, connecting parts in the middle of nowhere. (Like having only the connecting parts between the habitats, without the habitats itself.)

It is possible to make all connecting parts individual components and place it only if the framing component and the other component are build. But I prefer not to do that and not to have too many individual components.

Additional armour is also possible, but that would require 5 models of each component, or multiple files for the framing.

Typing this post did change my mind. Maybe it isn't that bad to have more files. Even more, the more I think about it, the more I think about it, the more I like it and some ideas started appearing in my mind how it could look like. So don't really bother with the concerns I described above.

I just need the following things:
- A bit more time to finish it. (But I have a nice project to work on for a while)
- Organize the files (The current folder that contains the files is a mess)
- Coffee!!!

 

[merijn_v1]

It turns out that adding the components to the space ship so it isn't just a frame when you launch it is easier then I thought. I just had to find the nif file and remove the controllers that made the parts invisible.

 

[merijn_v1]

Just because I wanted to show some WIP, a screenshot.

 

[merijn_v1]

I think I have to revise the colony a bit.

 

[Ani Taneen]

I think I have to revise the colony a bit.

I told you it was a death trap. Lord I still think that we need to genetically engineer the humans. At least to naturally produce excess Fluoxetine, serotonin syndrome be damned and all.

In all seriousness, maybe changing the solar panels to nuclear reactors?

 

[hnrysml]

Maybe the colony should be a floating city in Venus' cloud layer, temperature and gravity are alike to earth,there

 

[Ani Taneen]

Maybe the colony should be a floating city in Venus' cloud layer, temperature and gravity are alike to earth,there

It's nice to know I'm not alone with this thought.

 

[ozqar]

Well maybe both options (Mars & Venus) should be available to colonize, with different tech and building requirements, and providing different benefits? Perhaps some mining (ie, provide rare earth metals?) in Mars and some power in Venus (more sun), just to something out there?

 

[Publicola]

Found this via reddit:

@merijn_v1, any chance you or @Leoreth could incorporate that sort of design into the mod? There's obviously a lot of flaws with the specific proposal (magic-bots! Now with infinite energy, and adorable WALL-E appearance!) but the concept behind it (overhanging radiation shield make of dirt, modular reconfigurable habitat within, power plant kept separate from living area) seems really solid. There's a reason NASA was willing to put its label on the video.

EDIT: here was the winning design in the competition that NASA ran. (The one above is a runner up). This one seems to have a more realistic blueprint, but much worse design aesthetics, and I'm not wild about the apparent lack of modularity. Still worth a look: