Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[PTTG??]

I've been considering a mod which would simulate a martian colony, like what we've been doing with the Ares III project. This would, definitely, require the new version at least, but I think there's a lot of potential.
It would require:
-An inhospitable environment: unprotected units die quickly on the surface. This could be done in a few ways, probably by making a world map by hand that is mostly tundra and wastelands and making humans freeze at normal temperatures. That said, in some areas of mars, at  summer, the temperature can reach as high as  68^o. Also, make most soil and rock types red.
Eliminate plants, and make sure that any bodies of water will be frozen and near the poles.
-Environment Suits: Layering values to protect against the cold. We can assume that air is somehow kept pure by technology, though if it ever becomes possible to have air needs, that should be implemented. If you don't have a segment of suit, that body part should freeze/decompress.
-Crafting: Colonists should have a number of crafting materials available, some from new sources: plants that can have carbon extracted, bars of plastic can be extruded, and stones can have silicon processed from them.
-Farming: Seeds can be bought for plants that can be grown in underground chambers, though they should give very low yields compared to DF plants.
-Inside the base: Should find a way for children to be born without instantly freezing to death. Similarly, build a habitable area aboveground.

[MagicJuggler]

Another item of interest: Replace wagons with drop pods. 

[woose1]

Another item of interest: Replace wagons with drop pods. 

I likey.

[Boksi]

Make space suits armor that gives high coverage and normal clothes that don't so that you can venture outside if you're wearing them.

Traders might be problematic though.

[diefortheswarm]

You could make the traders only able to wear space suits.  They don't show up naked after all.

Underground rivers could even be part of this since it is widely believed that liquid water might flow under the surface of Mars.  Magma would have to go though.

[Orange Drink]

You could make the traders only able to wear space suits.  They don't show up naked after all.

Underground rivers could even be part of this since it is widely believed that liquid water might flow under the surface of Mars.  Magma would have to go though.

replace all subterranean creatures with MARTIANS!
that's where they should be, due to a lack of surface water.

[diefortheswarm]

I just had a brainstorm.

Instead of trading back and forth with earth which would be incredibly expensive, you could trade with other colonies on Mars.  If one colony has extra food then it would be highly sought after by everyone else.  Wagons could simply be renamed Mars Rovers.  Pack animals can be personal rover or something.

Instead of different races, you could have humans from different countries (USA, Russia, China, Japan, India).  Each race has unique ways of living on Mars and makes unique items they can trade.

Life on Mars is where we can really have some fun.  The creatures would be found inside underground rivers.  We could even have pits left behind by a long lost alien civilization.

Armor could be like spacesuits that protect colonists from the cold of the surface of Mars.  If any part of the body is unarmored, it freezes.

Agriculture would be a major function of your colony.  In order to grow anything you need water which you get by tapping an underground river.  All plants would be underground plants with very low yields.  You could raise livestock for food but it will cost you resources and they die if they go outside.  Trees could be grown from seeds for wood production.  They would take forever to mature making wood more valuable then most metals.  Wood could have as many uses as it does in vanilla DF.

Mining is straightforward.  Mod the geology and minerals to what is likely to be found on Mars.  Aluminum could be mass produced form the appropriate ores.  Iron would be very plentiful since the surface of Mars is red with iron oxide.  Steel and aluminum will be your major building materials.  Other metals will be there too with their own individual ores and uses.

The glass industry will become a silicon industry.  You can use it to make glass as well as computer chips.  The details of this process will depend on how much we can mod the new version.  What types of Martian soils will yield silicon?

War is probably going to be an iffy subject.  Maybe make 2 version, one with wars and one without them.

In the war version there could be a race of raiders / thieves that ambush and steal from you regardless of who you are.  Melee weapons would actually be quite effective against a person in a spacesuit.  Crossbows can become guns.  Lasers are also a possibility.  Siege weapons could be artillery if we can make them out of metal instead of wood.

[Skynet 2.0]

For the air problem, make there be all the normal clothing, but with no layering. Set the temperature cold enough to damage dwarves, and make a new clothing item named space-suit or such, with 50 layering, so dwarves would have to wear those to go outside. Although there would be an issue with dwarves wearing space suits indoors. Also, traders/enemies would die soon after they appeared on the map, unless you made that the only item of clothing they could have.

[Aqizzar]

The return of the {!!-<<+Iron Dwarven Spaceship+>>-!!}

There's quite a few hurdles to overcome.  For one, the problem with tracking inside and outside tiles, and the temperatures there in.

You also can't really control what your dwarves wear beyond telling soldiers to equip armor, and they can do jobs for you, as one would expect people in spacesuits to do.

I love the idea of the other races being replaced by nations.  "The Liaison from New Beijing has arrived."

"We've struck a peculiar chamber..."
"Horror!  Martians from the caves!"

[TettyNullus]

Hm, well, if surface wildlives are extinict or inaccessible, I don't see why not setting them to hunting (IIRC, those allows dwarves to use armors and weapons even while doing other jobs, though a bit impractical in some areas )

[Granite26]

finding starting locations would be a lot harder....  (especially if you took out the aquifers and relied on rivers....

[Pickerel]

I have said in the past that a non-civ-contact tundra fort is itself already a good simulation for a mars colony.

As far as trade, I imagine you mean a very early mars colony, no?  The sort of thing where, if they DO get resources, it is a resupply from Earth that takes 2-3 years to get to you, and hopefully manages to land within a few miles of you?  After all, they aren't great at targetting rovers yet...

For making things low-yield, I recommend just giving the plants a longer growdur, such as around 2000 or so (half a year).  I have my fort subsisting on lichens that I made which have between 1500 and 3500 growdur.  Needless to say, you have to think ahead to make sure you have enough food...

I love to see conjectures on what sorts of things will be used on beginning martian colonies, and it's fun to see all sorts of such ideas.  As a long-time member of the Mars Society, I solute you!

[SeamanStaines]

Exposure
The exposure time should be afew minutes, long enough to get started on a fort and for immigrants to get inside. Justify this with the fact they are all wearing emergany oxygen tanks or something.
The only people that can be outside for long periods of time are people that can equip armour, such as military and hunters. It's kind of conveniant due to lack of trees. Cave adaption isn't really a problem if your colonists are inside all of the time anyway. It will be funny to see them take trade items up to the depot and then puke everywhere though. 

There should still be war, from other pissed off factions.
Weapons
Hammers = Wrenches
Swords = Plasma cutters
Axes = Drills
Crossbows = Guns
Shields = Large Riot Shields
Bucklers = Small Riot Shields
Ballistas = Siege lasers (produced with cut gems)
Catapults = Artillery Cannons

Obviously a space suit that has been shot up isn't much good, so make them different sizes. Or use different plugs or something to avoid the player massing loads of sets of space suits.

Crops
Space Helmets = Plump helmets
Hogtail = Pig tail
Spaceweed = Cave wheat
Spacepods = Sweetpods
Redweed = Dimple cup (but red dye)
Martian Fungi (Processed into wood, for charcoal and building)

Add advanced and high yeild crops, Algae that grows in 1/7 water.
Yellow Algae = Rocket Fuel (Booze)
Red Algae = Algae wafers (After being dried(milled) and cooked)
Green Algae = High Strength Cloth (silk) Not high yeild, but an interesting method of obtaining silk.

Trade
2 types of trade.
Rovers. Like a normal trade depot for trading with colonies around the place.
Spaceships. Come enter from the edge of the map several z levels up and come down. The spaceships need atleast 3 z levels above them and 3 wide. Haulers shouldn't die, since they have these "emergancy oxygen tanks". Used for trading items back to Earth. One one of these should come a year, or even less, and it should be an event. Crafts sell for lots of money, and other things exotic to earth. They sell stuff like seeds and animals more often. If the trade depot is inaccessable they will pass you by, so you need to put some effort into digging a hanger. In order to make spaceships require just a little development, only allow trade depots to be placed underground.

Food, alchohol, wood, metals, gems, cloth, clothes, dye, armour, weapons are all trade commodities. Pretty much the same except for the fact bone crafts are a little rarer, unless you decided to bring breeding animals along.

Creatures
Earth livestock, cats, dogs
Martian cave creatures
Monster cave and surface creatures

[diefortheswarm]

I have said in the past that a non-civ-contact tundra fort is itself already a good simulation for a mars colony.

As far as trade, I imagine you mean a very early mars colony, no?  The sort of thing where, if they DO get resources, it is a resupply from Earth that takes 2-3 years to get to you, and hopefully manages to land within a few miles of you?  After all, they aren't great at targetting rovers yet...

For making things low-yield, I recommend just giving the plants a longer growdur, such as around 2000 or so (half a year).  I have my fort subsisting on lichens that I made which have between 1500 and 3500 growdur.  Needless to say, you have to think ahead to make sure you have enough food...

I love to see conjectures on what sorts of things will be used on beginning martian colonies, and it's fun to see all sorts of such ideas.  As a long-time member of the Mars Society, I solute you!

I sent you my contact info in a private message.  Please contact me.

[Orkel]

I had a similar idea a while ago, too! A space version of DF would be awesome indeed. Someone should really start working on this