Call Andy Weir and Fox for the rights to "The Martian"

[thewabbit 0]

This is a no-brainer. Call Andy Weir and Fox to get the rights to make "The Martian" in TOM. Let the players play Mark Watney in SP and add MP for other players on the Hermes as they try to save him. Another mode could have the players recreate the Ares 1 and 2 missions (and even the first few days of Ares 3).

Edited June 10, 2015 by TheWabbit

[wesleybruce 1]

This is a no-brainer. Call Andy Weir and Fox to get the rights to make "The Martian" in TOM. Let the players play Mark Watney in SP and add MP for other players on the Hermes as they try to save him. Another mode could have the players recreate the Ares 1 and 2 missions (and even the first few days of Ares 3).

No no no that will cost money and Take on mars is older than his script. Make him call us and then he can pay the devs here for saving him all the trouble of making a game of it.

No one will leave mars without leaving a dozen backup communication systems and two of everything else. No one will go there without a way to cope with the giant, slow motion dust storms. The pressure from a 50 mph wind on mars would be a light breeze. Wind force is mass times velocity. In an atmosphere so thin the air + dust mass is tiny. 

[dragon01 902]

This sort of thing is best left to mods. Take On Mars is not a licensed game and should stay that way. That said, I think it should feature as many elements as it can without bothering with a license. For example, an emergency poptent attachable to the Mobile Lab airlock and an inflatable hab (would be a nice alternative to the rather tedious assembly from individual pieces). MAV is probably planned already, seeing as the landers don't look like something that could lift off from Mars. Solar panels like the ones in the Martian will likely appear along with actual power requirements (which are planned). Our Mobile Lab is a dead ringer for The Martian's rovers, save for being a bit bigger, meant for two people and having a handy crane (which likely wouldn't have helped Watney all that much).

 

Really, the biggest problem with making The Martian-style campaign right now (barring unfinished features) is that Take On Mars hardware seems to be running on Methane+Oxygen. A smaller Mobile Lab running on electric power could be done, of course (Science Buggy might end up being battery powered, seeing as it lacks an obvious place for canisters), but it seems that either a mod or even an official addition could take care of that. RTG tomfoolery would be able to be reduced a bit, too, since TKoM's MDV has a couple. Dunno how likely this design is, given the widespread fear of anything nuclear, but I assume they've got over it by the time they got around to sending men to Mars.

 

Oh, and the trouble Ares 3 ended up in is perfectly plausible. Remember that the MAV was very tall (20m, IIRC) and likely slender like a rocket. Making it cope with wind costs mass, and rockets on Earth can be tipped by much slower winds. Also, backup comm systems cost mass as well. They had three, which would have been enough... had they all not been dependent on the MAV. Spaceflight (and not only spaceflight) history is rife with that sort of things, which only seem obvious in the hindsight. Every gram counts when you're sending payloads that far using chemical propulsion. This is also why the whole ISRU business in TKoM is so vital. If you grow your own food and extract water from the soil, you don't need to bring it with you.

[RaptorM60 45]

Not that we didn't think about it, but ultimately, this is out of the scope of this project sir. That would really need the manpower of the entire company, plus we doubt that 20th Century Fox would actually want to negotiate with us ;)