Mars Railway?

[Benzhexol]

Not sure has anyone posted similar ideas, if yes then this post can be ignored.

I think building a railway network on Mars would be a pretty cool idea. Just propose some details here, some of them are inspired by Cities Skyline:

• You need to build railway stations and use tracks to connect these stations.
• The train needs power to run, and railway tracks can also deliver power.
• Railway can transport both cargo and passengers.
• Passenger train allow colonists to work in or use service of remote domes or facilities.
• Cargo train can transport large amount of resources between stations. These should solve the transportation problem.
• You need to manually set up the routes for both cargo and passenger trains, which makes this system can not completely replace the more autonomous shuttles.
• The mine extractors (metal or rare metal) can only build within the range of domes. Now the rail stations should also have such a range that allows these extractors to be built within, and colonist can take train to come to work. This would allow player to exploit remote mine deposits without building new domes groups.
• This can come as a late-game technology and be relatively expensive to build.

What do you guys think?

 

[Renver]

Yes, there was plenty of people who told idea about railway on Mars.
And yes, everyone agree, that it is good idea.

 

[samthecy]

I think this is quite a neat idea. Reminds me of the moon monorail depicted in Andy Weir’s latest fiction, The Artemis.

 

[Deaghaidh]

The Cydonia Western Railway Company! Now offering nonstop service from Bradbury to Lowelltown and Schiaparelli City. Friendly biorobot porters and fine Elysian whiskey available in the Club Car.

As a practical matter, the main thing would be is this different enough from shuttles to justify the extra work. I suspect it might be, especially if the rails double as power cables. It'd be a fun way to connect distant domes throughout the region into a single grid (which could be good or bad). If trains have a much higher capacity than shuttles and run on electricity as opposed to fuel, they could fill a valuable niche.

 

[OxfordNik]

Agree that this could be a cool late-game feature to connect different domes/areas of the map. I imagine something like this could also be added in a future expansion to connect different areas of Mars (i.e. different maps) - something that Space Race appears to be opening a door to, though I guess we'll have to see just how that works?

 

[Cetarael]

That idea was upped many times, and is possibly exceptionally good, as shuttles are just infinitely useless.

 

[Nero616]

Shuttles transport small amounts of resources in between depots across the entire map. they are quite useful if you want to expand the colony past the boundaries of your drone hubs and need to get resources to places far from where they are produced. Manually ordering rovers simply doesn't do the job in the long run.
they also transport colonists between domes, but only when they move. Not for work or services. On long ways, it saves many lives, as they can't walk half the map without suffocating.

Work and services are covered by passages, but those have such low ranges, the domes practically have to be right next to each other.

trains, as suggested, would offer all the benefits of both with none of the mentioned downsides.
Drawbacks would be having to place all the rails and the stations and the trains are limited to them.
A Railway net big enough would make the shuttles obsolete, as Shuttles only transport resources one by one, but shuttles would still be needed to create and sustain any new outpost that isn't included in the railway net yet.

 

[Cetarael]

The main problem with shuttles - their AI sucks, and trains are simpler to do. Their downsides are needed infrastructure and probably lower speed. And initial cost can be a factor as well.

 

[battlemage111]

honestly, outside of the power and pseudo-dome stuff, this sounds like how shuttles are supposed to work. too bad they're near useless

 

[Nero616]

honestly, outside of the power and pseudo-dome stuff, this sounds like how shuttles are supposed to work. too bad they're near useless

Trains would act as long range passages. Shuttles only transport Colonists who are moving, not to work and to services.
Shuttles only transport small amounts of resources at a time to all depots, delaying large building projects like wonders but work wonders for maintenece if they actually get the priorities right. Trains could transport much more resources at a time and do so in a semi-automatic way, good for building expensive buildings fast, but for maintenence flights, well...

If the Shuttle AI gets improved and Trains get added, they would be good at different things.