"Is Your 15mm SF Mars Terraformed, Semi Or Not At All?" Topic

A) In other words, are the 15mm figures that you're using on the surface wearing full space suits, or simple breathers, or breathing open air?

B) Are your 15mm SF surface buildings and their doors and fixtures consistent with your surface atmosphere choice?

C) Or are you making all the action take place below ground to avoid the whole atmosphere issue?

D) What's your Mars like? Please tell us your history and timeline of the colonization process.

Thanks,

Dan
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I always saw it as barely habitable. Enough terraforming to make it a decent mining out post but not enough for civies to live there. Possible a major space port city like in B5 with the dome stuff.

Even with the tech to convert it to earth-like, It's just not worth the cost. Some corporation will invent the tech and run out there to strip mine the crap out of it. No EPA or OSHA to worry about. Just smash and grab as much raw material as possible for transfer back to earth and leave it a dead rock. Then it's time to work on acid proof buildings to do the same to Venus :)

I always saw it as barely habitable. Enough terraforming to make it a decent mining out post but not enough for civies to live there. Possible a major space port city like in B5 with the dome stuff.

I always thought B5 had a nice balance with breathers and cold weather gear but not fully suited up.

Quite 'playable' and a nice half way house between the completely livable and the hard vacuum. But then I always thought that B5 did pretty much everything well, so I'm biased!

John T

I didn't have a Mars so much as I had a Red Planet. I could use full-suited figures for near future tech or plunk down blue alien flora to make it more pulpy and Barsoomish.

The first episode of cowboy beebop is how I envision mars. That whole universe is well done. It even has crusty old timers complaing about when they terraformed the planet the 1st episode takes place on.

Outlaw star being the other great anime not so far future.

I enjoyed Outlaw Star a lot more then Beebop. If only the Serenity had giant gripper arms to wrestle with other ships… :)

Both Outlaw Star and Beebop have their place in the 'Verse.

Personally, I go with the Jovian Chronicles "partially-terraformed" look. Domed cities, but the O2 levels are high enough that you don't need a pressure suit if you're outside. Just an oxygen mask, like what the climbers of Mt Everest wear. This also means that a leak in the dome is still significant, so no heavy weapons in the cities!

Treadway: "I always thought B5 had a nice balance with breathers and cold weather gear but not fully suited up."

Lion: "Domed cities, but the O2 levels are high enough that you don't need a pressure suit if you're outside. Just an oxygen mask, like what the climbers of Mt Everest wear. "

So, if partially terraformed, would these be your miners and troops, if given appropriate masks?

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Dan

For our VSF games the atmosphere is earth like.

For Sci Fi it will depend on what figures I have painted and ready to go. So far earth type atmosphere.

This thread has sparked the urge to paint up some figures for a vacuum based game.

CC

Despite looking I can't find an image to hand but the B5 look that I'd go for is hooded parkers and other warm clothing over combats with breathers to keep the O2 levels up/keep the noxious gasses out.

John T

Generally the same as John and Lion; cold and lower pressure outside, but with some protective gear you're ok. The radiation is a bigger problem if you're out for awhile.

In my setting the terra-forming was actually further along but Mars took a couple of redirected asteroid hits during the Final War that wrecked Earth and lost some ground as a consequence. Also Mars is currently unified so there isn't any fighting on Mars itself at the current time, though human-colonized space has plenty of other cold dustballs that are fought over….

-Will

U could have a nerdgasm with these thought provoking exercises.

I know I did. Yuck

6mm Terraformed … I think … link … link

So, if partially terraformed, would these be your miners and troops, if given appropriate masks?

Those, or troops in greatcoats and gasmasks.

With a bit of paint-conversion, chem-suited troops would work, too.

I use a kind of 1950-1960 Hollywood type Mars: cold, breathable but somewhat thin atmosphere. There are north and south poles of ice and snowy tundra; then bands of arid desert and rocky badlands as you move toward the equator; the equator is a narrow band of heavily forested land with some swamps and lakes inhabited by some nasty critters (who haven't been fully thought out yet).

There are also pockets of carbon dioxide hiding in the hollows and low areas which can be lethal to the careless and dust storms in the desert areas. Olympus Mons is honeycombed with tunnels (purpose-built)and natural volcanic vents (inactive). There are also ruins scattered about needing exploring.

I have the geography and geology worked out but the flora and fauna are still brewing in that stew-pot of ideas I call my mind. The architecture of the ruins needs some serious thinking, too.

I will be using the Khurasan cold weather figures and will build the vehicles and landers to resemble the style of the 1950's (ie. a pop can with legs for the lander and Quonset huts for the buildings.)

SloppyPainter,

Your description reminds me of the film Robinson Crusoe on Mars!

Dan

Like some of the others, it depends on the Mars I'm gaming at the time. Generally, though I use breathers, helmets, and radiation suits like soliders' helmets. That is, generic figures (troopers, general civvy pop) end up suited out to the max where as special figures (NCO's, officers, leaders, and characters) don't follow those rules.

Haven't played there, but I'd probably 'depends on who's playing', as in, near or far future.

Terraforming, by all accounts isn't just expensive, but a job for the long term. Near future, resource rape, but a part goes to habitat building.

I'm fond of the pressure for lebensraum tempering loot-n-scoot, and improving tech making it possible. Not QUITE the pessimist Jonathan is.

Ultra-high-tech, it's been shaked-n-baked, and the process refined on many other places, until we meet folk forming to an non-Terran standard.

Doug

I wouldn't know I have been busy with Venus….. 8)

Or a while ago I did a setting where all three inner planets were terraformed to some extent or another. Mad Science and genetics projects and all….

Semi transformed, air is depending on altitude, really low areas filled with Co 2, and as you come up somewhat normal air, then it starts to thin out as you go up in altitude, then the really high elevations almost no air, most of the planet is arid except for some pockets of vegetation like oasis, there you may find the colonies and what nots, and beccause air has been brought back to the planet new things have developed, some not found as of yet, ruins are still in the planning

WM,

If you need a little inspiration for those Martian ruins …

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Dan

Oh I have been checking those pictures out and have ideas is just getting them to paper and then panning them out

And, if you are thinking of making your Mars as an "abandoned" Earth colony …

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Dan

I have always thought about a "Failed Colony" one of Earth's greatest failed attempt from a long time ago in a sector of mars that no other colonies venture into :)