Multi User Mars Simulation Game

John Creighton · 2005-04-29 10:22:07

I was thinking of developing an initially text based multiplayer game similar to http://www.kingsofchaos.com/recruit.php … j597]Kings of Chaos but about settling mars. Maybe, I could even throw the moon in there. The idea is you would pick a location on the red planet. You can choose either to land near a player that is already there or you can land away from everyone else. You would initially start with a small crew and you would be allocated so much each year for resuplies and additional crew. The amount of money you get each year will depend on the successes of previous years. You can allocate crew to science, construction, agriculture, maintenance. You can trade with your neighbors or you can start a war or to try and steel there resources.

The game would give me an excuse to lean more about mars and it would be fun. Although perhaps early mars settlement might be fairly peaceful the ability to attack your neighbors or steel there supplies some how makes it seem more fun. Any thoughts?

srmeaney · 2005-04-29 10:43:38

The game would give me an excuse to lean more about mars and it would be fun. Although perhaps early mars settlement might be fairly peaceful the ability to attack your neighbors or steel there supplies some how makes it seem more fun. Any thoughts?

About as popular as any other game. You need to factor in crew radiation exposure, the prospect of "Cops" being sent from earth to dispose of "the criminal element", the advantages and disadvantages of mining resources and then living in the mine as opposed to the idea of importing equipment to manufacture habitat components from local resources or import the final product from earth.
You might as well be writing a game for 1066: The Norman invasion of England.

John Creighton · 2005-04-29 10:59:55

About as popular as any other game.

?

You need to factor in crew radiation exposure,

Well, I don’t have to do everything at once. The idea is to start simple and build on that. I think radiation is something I would consider later but it could effect the mortality and the birth rate. Deferent types of shelters could provide different protection against radiation.

the prospect of "Cops" being sent from earth to dispose of "the criminal element",

I kind of like this option. Generally I would think colonists should be peaceful. The option for war is to increase amusement value. Perhaps survivors could use some of the next years budget for either orbital bombardment or weapon imorts. I think you should not be able to initially take weapons with you. You should have to fashion them from the tool lying around. So initial weapons might take the form of a bamboo pole or a nail gun. Also I don’t think earth would generally support colony wars so if a group starts a war they should lose there earth budget and have to make up for it with institute production and plundering. Earth might not have accurate information about the attacks so there might be some form of world court. Anyway, this is already sounding too complicated. I would like to start simple.

the advantages and disadvantages of mining resources and then living in the mine as opposed to the idea of importing equipment to manufacture habitat components from local resources or import the final product from earth.

This would be the most import thing in the game to get right. My motivation for doing this would be to learn myself and teach others about resource utilization. Robert I think is into learning about alot of the chemical processes.

You might as well be writing a game for 1066: The Norman invasion of England.

Why? If I was making a game about the Norman invasion I wouldn’t get to learn anything about mars doing it.

srmeaney · 2005-04-29 11:36:48

Robert I think is into learning about alot of the chemical processes.

I take it that is robert Zubrin you refer to? He seems focussed on small colonization and machine-heavy materials processing. The truth is that Materials processing on Mars may come down to a hand cranked industrial mill, lever-pulled ceramic-alloy die press molds, and a lot of physical labour.

Why? If I was making a game about the Norman invasion I wouldn’t get to learn anything about mars doing it.

I was thinking game engine...

As to food production. Livestock are going to drop dead from radiation poisoning before they can produce young. Better off getting your produce in final form minus the bits you dont eat.
Then there is the Donner Party case. If food runs out, what is the rate of canibalism amongst Mars colonists?

John Creighton · 2005-04-29 11:46:37

Robert I think is into learning about alot of the chemical processes.
I take it that is robert Zubrin you refer to? He seems focussed on small colonization and machine-heavy materials processing. The truth is that Materials processing on Mars may come down to a hand cranked industrial mill, lever-pulled ceramic-alloy die press molds, and a lot of physical labour.

I mean Robert Dyke. He shows up here every once in a while. He seems to memorize a lot of technical facts, like chemical reactions and such. I just mentioned him as one person around here that could give some good feed back. The game could even be part of this form. http://www.trap17.com]Trap17 had an army game as part of its form and everyone talked a about it in the shot box. Unfortunately they shut it down because the game put to much load on the server. This was due to a lot of people playing and I don’t think the game was that well written. We should get a shout box for new mars. I like them.

srmeaney · 2005-04-29 11:52:12

I mean Robert Dyke. He shows up here every once in a while. He seems to memorize a lot of technical facts, like chemical reactions and such. I just mentioned him as one person around here that could give some good feed back.

Like Acetelyle being the cheapest Terraforming gas a colony could produce? Or would that be methane?

John Creighton · 2005-04-29 12:30:08

I mean Robert Dyke. He shows up here every once in a while. He seems to memorize a lot of technical facts, like chemical reactions and such. I just mentioned him as one person around here that could give some good feed back.
Like Acetelyle being the cheapest Terraforming gas a colony could produce? Or would that be methane?

I suppose later on terreforming could be included in the game. Groups could attempt to terreformed or subvert others efforts to terreform. The waste of each colony could even be considered. Probably an individual wouldn’t attempt it on his/her own because it that individual paid all the cost, they would probably lose the game. A ranking scheme would need to be devised based on the science return, the population terreformed, the land occupied etcetera. If people were competing to be the best eventually the competition would probably lead to some conflict. At least on a computer game there would be because there is no moral dellema.

srmeaney · 2005-04-29 13:09:42

Methane and Acetylene surface early in the colony. they are critical for cooking foods, welding/smelting metals, rocket fuels produced not by just design but as waste products in other industry. I was thinking terraforming as a side effect rather than active pursuit. Basicly everything we do is established to be as CO2 polluting as possible when on Mars. If we can free vast quantities from mined resources as a consequence, the end result is the melting of the polar caps.

Ian Flint · 2005-04-29 14:54:05

I would love to see a game like Civilization done for Mars. Its sequel, Alpha Centauri, is close but a little too far future/sci-fi.

Fledi · 2005-04-29 17:54:32

I've been searching the web recently for colonization games and found one, where you could design a space station or a colony on Mars. You have to pay a yearly fee to download the latest version though. Here the http://www.shorthike.com/download.php]link
I've been thinking about setting up a free simulation one day, so this idea sounds very good to me. Computer games are a great way to learn about these things, even more with trying out all the different possibilities.
I'm currently in the early stages of developing a tether simulation that I'm planning to upgrade to an interplanetary transport simulation later on.
So if you do a colony simulator I will probably be able to deliver the Earth-Mars part some day.

I liked civ and alpha centauri a lot, though I think an approach like that moonbase simulation http://www.ecuadors.net/astronomy/astrogame.htm]link
might be better for this one. Or maybe even some synthesis between the two concepts.

srmeaney · 2005-07-13 05:54:22

Ok John,

Iv'e loged a price list in 'The Cost of going to Mars'
That should give you something to Work with. Stick for now with Mining Ice (CO2 and H2O) - The Manufacture of C2H2 critical to smelting metals (even an electric arc tool manufacturing system requires a gas to burn for the plasma) and powering the gas engines. and you can focus productivity. Random Exotic object deposits will ad to that equipment quota through systems required to exploit the reserves. If you find a good nickle orebody you get a mining tools and a hand powered mill sent to your Site in a cargo deorbit (and four points to the colony rating. Five hundred and the power cable running from a 30 kwh solar array is directed through your colony site. if you reach ten thousand points your site is selected as a major colony site and you get acess to the nearest ten megawatt reactor-but so does anything in the power access corridor-something that can benifit your opponent team).

Fledi · 2005-08-20 14:20:53

Just found the Marsbase game the French chapter of the MS is developing.
Interesting game, definitely worth a look.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/salotti/marsbase.htm

Rxke · 2005-08-20 16:41:23

Hmmm.

There is another one, I was involved in i a bit, for brainstorming, but my computer is bad at JAVAStuff, so i stopped trying it...

it is less graphical, but interesting, wait a minute.

Rxke · 2005-08-20 16:45:56

http://mars-sim.sourceforge.net/

"The Mars Simulation Project is a free software Java project to create a simulation of future human settlement of Mars.

The simulation is a multi-agent artificial society set in a detailed virtual world.

XML configuration files allow the user to modify the simulation properties.

The current version of the project is 2.77, updated 10/3/04."

Currently, it is not possible to interact during play, the developer, Scott Davis is working on and off on it, depending on feedback from other people, so it seems... Just recently there is again more activity, so I suggest to read the stuff in the mailinglists section.

(EDIT:) oh, the game runs by itself, in essence, the settlers are AI driven... doctors, geologists , learning, etc Lots of graps re: production/consumption, accidents, deaths, relations...

Stuff is easily added, there's already a lot inside, take a look at the buildings, for example

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/m … iew=markup

Fledi · 2005-08-20 18:08:33

Hmm very interseting simulation there, too, looks quite detailed. But is there really no way to interact in the game? I mean it's useful to have the AI take over micromanagement of the colony, but it would be interesting to try out different infrastructures and see which performs better.
Are there any resupply missions from Earth? This is another issue where one could think of endless variations.

Anyways it must have been a tough job to make the AI completely independent on this scale, that's impressive. Congratulations for the people who developed it to this degree, always good to see others working on space related projects, keep up the good work.

edit: Lol, the job chart reminds me of the upcoming election, was already figuring out which coalitions would get a majority.

Rxke · 2005-08-20 18:17:05

but it would be interesting to try out different infrastructures and see which performs better.
Are there any resupply missions from Earth? This is another issue where one could think of endless variations.

possible, with a 'but'

you can define the missions yourself, but that's through XML editing... There are resupply missions, it's fairly close to a Mars Direct scenario, those missions you can enter also ...is lots of fun, if you have the patience to let it run several hours...

The AI is interesting indeed. While the game is... pretty non-interactive, the idea is to set up initial parameters and look how thing work out.

say a small pary, initially, when one of their rovers breaks down, and they die (this CAN and WILL happen, dying, breaking bones, even getting depressed... ) the rest of the crew gets overworked, etc... Sometimes, just in nick of time another party lands (resupply etc) and they survive, sometimes things just turn out real uglly.

Main objective for next version is to make it possible to change parameters during the simulation.

John Creighton · 2005-08-21 15:07:29

but it would be interesting to try out different infrastructures and see which performs better.
Are there any resupply missions from Earth? This is another issue where one could think of endless variations.
possible, with a 'but'
you can define the missions yourself, but that's through XML editing... There are resupply missions, it's fairly close to a Mars Direct scenario, those missions you can enter also ...is lots of fun, if you have the patience to let it run several hours...
The AI is interesting indeed. While the game is... pretty non-interactive, the idea is to set up initial parameters and look how thing work out.
say a small pary, initially, when one of their rovers breaks down, and they die (this CAN and WILL happen, dying, breaking bones, even getting depressed... ) the rest of the crew gets overworked, etc... Sometimes, just in nick of time another party lands (resupply etc) and they survive, sometimes things just turn out real uglly.
Main objective for next version is to make it possible to change parameters during the simulation.

It would be kind of fun to try to interface this software with php so we could interact with it though the web. However, I don't think our web server would let us do this.

Fledi · 2005-08-22 19:01:33

Maybe it would be useful to cooperate with the other program's design team.
It could work like this: When you click on one of the bases in the simulation you get a close up view with the other program's graphics where you can view the base and set up construction projects like building a new greenhouse for example.

It could become difficult to connect the two programs however, since yours is in Java while the other one is written in Delphi.

SpaceNut · 2016-01-10 19:32:59

Fixed topic shifting and artifacts...

while searching for HIAD information I came across the game..... http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/hiadweb/index.html

have fun.....

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#1 2005-04-29 10:22:07

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#2 2005-04-29 10:43:38

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#3 2005-04-29 10:59:55

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#4 2005-04-29 11:36:48

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#5 2005-04-29 11:46:37

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#6 2005-04-29 11:52:12

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#7 2005-04-29 12:30:08

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#8 2005-04-29 13:09:42

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#9 2005-04-29 14:54:05

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#10 2005-04-29 17:54:32

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#11 2005-07-13 05:54:22

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#12 2005-08-20 14:20:53

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#13 2005-08-20 16:41:23

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#14 2005-08-20 16:45:56

Re: Multi User Mars Simulation Game

#15 2005-08-20 18:08:33

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#16 2005-08-20 18:17:05

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#17 2005-08-21 15:07:29

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#18 2005-08-22 19:01:33

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