I wonder how many other people dream of that ?
It’s one reason why I have enjoyed the Expanse books and series so far. There is a lot of science fiction in there that has a very solid foundation in science fact. Including how they apply real world physics, chemistry and biochemistry to the moon bases, planets and space ships in that world. The technology is quite far in advance to what we have now but … it’s set a few hundred years in the future. I think that allows them to factor in a few innovations along the way and most of those are extensions of what we have now.
Why moon bases ?
Could be Planetbases too and that’s a game I reopened today for a little while before feeling a bit too much of the tireds, closing it again and turning on the videos. I’m really looking forward to a new one coming called Surviving Mars. But first … Planetbase.
You start with a basic lander, which after it lands isn’t going to go anywhere. The lander has a few crew with specific jobs and a very limited amount of resources. This lets you build a starter base :
And your starter base will have power generation, batteries, water collectors, oxygen generators, a farm, a small factory, a dorm and a canteen. I’ve put bits of graffiti in the picture above that might need a click to make it big enough to read.
The idea is to manage the production chains so that your colony prospers and grows. The production chains are things like :
Everything needs power which comes from Solar, Wind or Lightning. The planetoid above is an airless moon so it has solar power only, no wind. Other planetoids have dense atmosphere which limits solar or storms that damage domes and any colonists outside who are hit by them.
Planets become food and starch for building.
Mines (hidden behind the smaller solar panel) provide ore with the ore and starch being turned into bioplastic and metal for use elsewhere.
Colonists need sleep and food so there’s a dorm and a canteen.
Not in the above but there are labs that make medicine and more production facilities that make robots and you can add in a gym to make colonists and visitors happy and a bar that will actually kill the colony.
I’ll also build a special spaceport area with lots of landing pads and many airlocks so that the people don’t have to queue up (this is a major problem when trading).
I hadn’t got to that stage in the colony above (spot the lazy worker watching the telly instead of working on making ore into metal – grr) but the depth keeps going a little more than the above.
I found it an interesting game to play. If I continued the game above, I’d need to build a lab quite quickly in order to make fake meat for burgers. Yep. A colonist who dines on Mars Burgers is a happy colonist. There aren’t enough biologists to make that happen though, the farm dome there is the smallest available and the one supplied biologist can’t maintain all the plants in it if it’s full.
I could go into it more, I’ve actually completed all of the available achievements in this game. There are issues with it, like the colonists prioritising everything else over making medicine. Not good if all of your workers have broken bones from the mines or you have an outbreak of Fork Disease (malnutrition) if your people aren’t getting their Mars Burgers.
If you hang in there through to the end stage, this is what the colony can end up like :
Lots of people. And yes they’re having a bit of an overcrowding related oxygen crisis. It models how the air moves around. Even if you have extra oxygen generation capacity for the colony overall, too many people in one place will take up all of the oxygen. It’s part of the challenge.
Anyway. The next game is Surviving Mars, which I’m looking forward to. It looks like a very nicely developed construct of a game and Nikki and Susie of the ParadoxExtra developer streams (youtube playlist link) show it off extremely well. It’s out tomorrow.
(not-an-ad, honest !)
(you have to put these disclosure notes in occasionally)
(but I am honestly hyped for it)
I sense I’ll actually maybe hold off until the weekend before diving into a Surviving Mars playthrough. After doing other things for the last couple of nights (and being tired after the weekend) I probably need to actually do supplies shopping tomorrow. And Friday is quite possibly an afternoon in town. Definitely for lunch. Maybe for a film. And popcorn.
Popcorn is good. Dunno what film it might be though.
Maybe it should be a dvd/bluray instead ! I have the perfect one.
It stars Matt Damon. Can you guess what it is ?