Building cities and other stuctures

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Forum » SpaceEngine » Gameplay Discussions » Building cities and other stuctures (some ideas)

Building cities and other stuctures

EleSigma

Date: Thursday, 15.12.2011, 03:19 | Message # 1

Observer

Group: Users

United States

Messages: 11

Status: Offline

So city building will be added into the game eventually, and considering the scale of the game I think planet building should be addressed.

My idea is to have building tiers that will unlock relative to the population level of the planet and as the population in the settlements increase and more people migrate to the planet or moon, more and larger structures can be built.

Say you colonize an airless moon, first you would launch and deploy a small habitat base on the surface. This would hold maybe 5 or 6 people. Then you can add and connect structures to the base like inflatable hab buildings for more people, solar panels or a reactor for power, small mine, and a lab to study the moon, and maybe a landing area to make

After the population expands past a certain point you now unlock the second tier, this will allow you to place fully constructed bases on the moon instead of having to place one building at a time like before. larger mines, labs, power plants and the like will also be available.

When tier three is unlocked it allows you to place entire pre-made lunar towns. By now it can be assumed that the residents are living in these towns are permanent and the cities from here on will expand automatically. New towns will begin to appear automatically across the surface as well. The structure placement and city building by this point will be done entirely by the game.

Tier four has your towns becoming domed cities, you now have the option to start terraforming (or attempting to terraform) the moon. You can place huge structures that release gasses (maybe a separate structure for each kind of gas?) and mirrors to reflect away or focus light on the moon. To keep things realistic and for our more trial and error oriented players, I think there should be no limitations to the size or what kind of moon you can place terraforming devices on or around.

This would allow for disasters and challenges to happen. Examples being getting the atmospheric composition and pressure just right. Placing a gas releasing structure on a moon or planet that is too small and or too close to the parent star without orbital mirrors would just shoot gasses into space and the planet not capturing any of the gasses and you using up your resources. Also natural events can cause you some problems, solar flares burning off the atmosphere of your planet lacking a magnetic field, asteroids knocking out some of your mirrors, a large asteroid penetrating the weak atmosphere in progress, crashing into the planet and filling the atmosphere with dust, ruining your attempts.

Edit: Also this is just an example, what kind of cities would would be able to build would depend on the planet type. I hope that you could eventually build a Courasant like city planets but risk affecting the planet in adverse and devastating ways. A major choice to make whether you want massive cityscapes that could hold large populations and be a production powerhouse at the expense of the planet's atmosphere?

Edited by EleSigma - Thursday, 15.12.2011, 05:08

curiousepic

Date: Saturday, 17.12.2011, 18:09 | Message # 2

Space Pilot

Group: SE team

United States

Messages: 141

Status: Offline

SpaceEngineer has mentioned that humanity is in a post-scarcity state. Nano-assemblers can build virtually anything if you have the material. For this reason, I don't think tiers are necessary. My proposal:

The habitations of this time have come to an optimal design for multiple environments. Inspired by the floating Saturn habitats in Accelerando (another novel that can be read for free - the writing can be very annoying but some great ideas and it gives a great sense of the possible coming acceleration of technology), I envision them as semi-spherical, domed with a metamaterial that can selectively reflect light (on very bright worlds, the dome would produce an opaque circle in the direction of the sun(s)), with a beautiful Terran environment within, and living and working spaces underground in the bottom half. They can rest on land, but also float on water and even, with the aid of gas manipulation, float in the atmosphere of gas giants at an altitude where the gravity is suitable. They would be modular and able to cluster together with others in a hexagonal pattern. For some variety, they could be scalable to multiple sizes, and have interesting interior designs and decorative towers, etc. They would be built by dropping "nano-eggs", as SpaceEngineer calls them, containers with the raw materials with built-in nano-assemblers.

It is easy to make domed cities look derivative and boring, however. Its very important to have a good design for them.

The player could also rebuild asteroids into orbital space habitats simply by melting and molding them. Kalpana One is the latest study on optimal rotating habitat design (a modern habitat in the game would be altered to account for more advanced material technology). Architecture within a rotating space colony has yet to really be explored - traditional skyscraper cities within them just look silly. Such a place would emphasize greenery and fully integrate the living spaces within the structure itself.

My ideal preferences for visual design of the mothership and technology in SE
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Edited by curiousepic - Sunday, 18.12.2011, 15:36

SpaceEngineer

Date: Sunday, 18.12.2011, 08:45 | Message # 3

Author of Space Engine

Group: Administrators

Russian Federation

Messages: 4800

Status: Offline

Quote (curiousepic)

I envision them as semi-spherical, domed with a metamaterial that can selectively reflect light (on very bright worlds, the dome would produce an opaque circle in the direction of the sun(s)), with a beautiful Terran environment with, and living and working spaces underground in the bottom half.

Good idea. The space should be economized in the cosmic habitats. The "City" should be placed underground and designed as a single huge building with built-in transport system (Arcology). In the "roof" of the "city" there is a recreation zone - artifical landscape with parks, rivers, lakes, and an opaque dome that allows one to observe the sun(s) and sky. Landscape probably may be morphed sometimes. The space habitats should be designed for rotation, like in A. Clarke's "Rama".

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