2019-05-03 Biodomes

[Haxus]

Biodomes
Biodomes are not implemented using the new building system.

Biodomes are ready for use.

• 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.
  

Here are some pictures:
http://hazeron.com/splash/Biodome1.png
http://hazeron.com/splash/Biodome2.png
http://hazeron.com/splash/Biodome3.png
http://hazeron.com/splash/Biodome4.png
http://hazeron.com/splash/Biodome5.png

Here are some notes about Biodome 300m Natural.SoH.

• 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.
  

Round Site
Biodomes don't have to be circles or domes. The geometry is up to you. However, while making the circular sample biodomes, I wished for a way to draw round site meshes.

Site mesh draw function now has an option to make a round site.

Void Spindle
While making the circular sample biodomes, I wished for a way to draw the environment void using a spindle. That would also have been handy when drawing the room voids inside the domes on the Atlantis.

Environment void and room void spindle draw functions added.

Undersea Buildings Invisible
In top down view, new style buildings cannot be seen through the sea surface. You have to lower the camera below the sea surface to see the buildings.

Changed the way the sea aperture works in top down view, when your avatar is under the sea. The transparency falls off more quickly at the edges, giving a bigger view into the sea. The new style buildings can be seen there.

Landscaper Bug
When I place a road through an archway on a biodome, the terrain is pulled down to the road as I would expect. When I do the same thing using a landscaper, to make a water channel, the terrain is not pulled down. It works if I use an underwater dirt road.

Fixed terrain adjustment bug that only affected landscapers. Their terrain will be automatically corrected the next time they appear in your scene. No cached information needs clearing.

Building Placement Bug
When placing a building, the site is not level when the insertion point is at the edge. This becomes very apparent with large sites, such as a biodome.

A building site can be level with respect to gravity at only one point. Instead of using the insertion point, the point of levelness is now the center of the building site.

This means that a flat building site on a globe is acually downhill to its center from the edges. Likewise, straight vertical walls actually lean inward.

Building Clipping Bug.
Sometimes buildings seem to clip away too readily, disappearing when they should still be visible.

Made some adjustements to the building clipper.

[Vooker525]

Will we get any warning message if we are about to demolish biodome with non hev buildings inside?
Black holes disappear too readily too due to their size and if you are close

[Deantwo]

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.

Yesssss!!

[Haxus]

There is no warning. I added it to my to-do list.

I also added the note about blackhole clipping.

[Haxus]

That may have been the last feature of old cities to be implemented in new cities.

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.

Site meshes will not modify the floor of a platform.

Platforms should permit environment voids, so they can create an environment like a biodome. Since no natural terrain will exist in the environment void, rocks, trees and shrubs will not appear there.

Treatment plants and wells should be able to be placed on floating platforms.

Wells and mines should be able to be placed on land-based platforms. I'm not sure what these would be good for, other than to achieve a desired appearance.

Refineries could be placed on all platforms, just not inside an environment void.

Destroyed platforms will immediately destroy everything built on them.

[DFDelta]

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.

I think I just emitted such a loud and high pitched fangirl squeeeee~ing that I woke up all the dogs in a two mile radius.
And I'm a guy.

[Vectorus]

Platforms Observations:
Could we have the option to let natural objects such as trees appear on platforms? Either through the building's site mesh or as a setting for the platform itself?

Can we think of any way to easily link platforms by a kind of extensible, procedural bridge so people can walk or drive between them? Or perhaps the bridge building type is allowed to lean off the edge of a platform?

When you say "flies", do you mean hovers, or will they be mobile? A city eternally chasing the rosy sunset through the coloured winds of a gas giant's top layer...

Perhaps instead of wells and mines, we could have a prospector bay type building for platform cities, so they can harvest liquids and solids as ships do, at a loss to efficiency but unrestricted by node placement? That would incidentally be helpful for those situations where the planet theoretically has a resource but no node can actually be found.

Platforms you can build in space, with moon-style HEV requirements (+ grav couplings for gravity?) would be lots of fun.

This is all very exciting.

Biodome questions:

Being able to destroy a civilian city by blowing up its dome would seem to violate warfare rules, unless biodomes are protected by the Military HQ. If biodomes are protected by the Military HQ, then, since they allow buildings to be built fully inside them, a civilian biodome could theoretically protect a Military HQ from destruction, using its obstruction model. This would create a loop where nothing is destructible - at least not by ships. Perhaps military buildings can only be built inside a special military biodome, or not in biodomes at all?

Platforms will presumably require similar rules. Dedicated, destructible military sub-platforms are the obvious solution.

[AnrDaemon]

I think craters are cool as is.

[jakbruce2012]

Maybe divert all damage done to a biodome to the military shields and HQ that protect it? Whether they are inside or out?