• 3 variations of a 300m diameter biodome will be available in the exchange, as soon as I post them. They can be built in all environments. One leaves the interior terrain and plants alone; another levels the interior terrain but leaves plants alone; the third levels the terrain, fills with mowed grass, and removes shrubs, leaving a parklike setting of grass and trees.
  
• .SoH files of the 3 sample biodomes are distributed in the Programs/Blueprints folder. It contains a growing list of spacecraft and building blueprints.
  
• A new Environment Void part type was added for biodomes. It is a hull void that maintains a habitable environment inside. All biodomes must have at least one environment void.
  
• Biodome design limits are much larger than regular buildings. A biodome hull can be 1000m across and up to 1200m tall.
  
• As with any other building, a biodome may not stick up out of the atmosphere and an under sea biodome may not stick up through the sea surface.
  
• Designer helper that shows building design limits is now influenced by the building structure in the design properties.
  
• Behavior at the bottom of the environment void is weird if the terrain continues to fall away beneath it. For that reason, the voids in the sample biodomes go far into the ground. (This is unnecessary in the two biodomes that level the interior terrain.) Picture number 5 shows what happens when the environment void does not reach the bottom of a crater. I do not intend to improve this. You are instead encouraged to avoid the situation or give it some sci-fi rationale and live with it.
  
• Biodomes built on land may contain seas of water, lava or supercooled liquid. Land placement only requires the insertion point to be on land, the rest of the biodome can encompass water or land in any proportion. Treatment plants can be placed inside biodomes.
  
• Biodomes built under the sea will exclude all liquid from their environment voids. Below the bottom of the environment voids, the liquid will exist though it will not be visible and it will have no visible surface. Under sea placement requires that the entire biodome fit below the sea surface.
  
• Life support is optional in a biodome design. Without life support, the environment void does not create a habitable environment. Biodome life support never fails, regardless of damage or power to the structure.
  
• Biodomes with life support create vegetation and trees on terrain in their environment voids. This can be used by farms and logging camps. Atmosphere cannot be harvested inside a biodome, however.
  
• Buildings of any construction can be built inside a biodome in harsh environments. So, a regular house can be built inside a biodome on the moon or under the sea.
  
• Airports and Base Air Terminals cannot be built inside biodomes.
  
• The box extents of a building design must fit inside the environment void of a biodome to permit construction inside.
  
• Construction window typically lists only blueprints that can be built in the current environment. If the current world has a biodome anywhere, blueprints will also be listed that could be put inside, based on environment, not physical dimensions.
  
• When a biodome is destroyed, buildings that were inside are destroyed if their construction is not sufficient for their domeless environment.
  

• The biodome is formed of a circular wall with a domed roof. An archway is cut out of each of the four cardinal directions.
  
• To give a solid foundation, the wall sits on a narrow (10m wide) site mesh that forms a large 300m diameter circle. The foundation site mesh raises terrain but does not lower it, to the base of the wall. This allows the dome wall to merge into hills.
  
• A band of site mesh 10m wide, both inside and outside the wall foundation, blends with the natural terrain by applying red glow to the innermost and outermost vertices.
  
• The interior terrain of the biodome has no site mesh at all, leaving the internal terrain completely natural. Site meshes can be used to modify terrain leveling, rocks and plants, as is done in the Biodome 300m Level.SoH and Biodome 300m Level Lawn.SoH variations.
  
• The interior space is one large environment void that extends 100m down into the terrain, as discussed above. It is not necessary to make it using one big void. Multiple environment voids can be used.
  
• Environment voids are hull voids. The archways each have a small environment void to cut out the opening. This allows the environment void of one dome to overlap the environment void of an adjacent dome, so people can walk from one to the other without environment suits. This also has the effect of causing plants and breathable air to spill out of the archways a little. If you didn't want that, you could use hull voids instead, or even make functional doors.
  
• Due to the foundation site mesh, the dome has a solid wall of terrain around the base. This can be lowered by using a road or landscaper. It looks better if you put roads and waterways through the archways but that's up to you.
  
• If you didn't want/need the appearance of a tightly sealed environment, nothing stops you from making a biodome that is open to the environment. I could imagine a biodome on a coast with a huge opening for ships to enter/exit.
  

(05-06-2019, 09:59 PM)Haxus Wrote: Buildings of any construction can be built inside a biodome in harsh environments. So, a regular house can be built inside a biodome on the moon or under the sea.

(05-06-2019, 10:37 PM)Haxus Wrote: The next one will add something new. I will work on platforms now: floating, flying, land-based. These will provide artificial terrain for construction of buildings. You'll finally be able to build a harvester city that flies in the atmosphere of a gas giant, like the home of Lando Calrissian.