Demongornot

I could help since I'm French but...I'm Dyslexic...So this is not a good idea haha, actually I write a better English than French !

Yes : http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?160877-Localized-versions

Nice new, thanks for the info and for the work !

I don't remember the keys, i wait for the patch that will finally bring correct key binding before playing again to TOM, but in short you grab it, you move it and once you put it on the ground, you can use the action key to bring the printing menu and i'm sure you will easily figure out the rest !

I think you are looking for the 3D printer, the 3D printer permit to print all objects you need ! Or maybe your question is about creating your own mission with your own base ? In this case i have never try the editor so i can't help you sorry.

Once you are on the control center, you can click on the big screen in front of you, it will open the Mars map where you can choose a location and a rover adapted to this location and the mission from prebuilds ones or build your own Then you can click on the location map to change where the rover/lander/probe will land, then you launch it ! I hope i have answer your question !

I think i have not correctly explain, as i said the best is that the rover that the player actually perform the sequence writing for, actually do what the player write meanwhile, he just don't see it cause its not rendered, which will take less resources than actually render it in real time, when i said simulate i mean just doing it, exactly as the game will do in real time if the player control it, but its just in accelerated when needed, because with less resources taken thanks to the non rendering, it can permit with those supplementary resource to handle the scene the player see plus possibility to speed up the rover in case of the player put a waypoint 1Km away, the "background" running situation will speed up to quickly check any perturbation on the rover from the trip, and every others things like power drain, light sources and stuff like this are also calculated but not rendered, the player only see the same scene, in fact based on NASA and JPL tools, it better have to be static, but meanwhile the game calculate the exact copy of the rover and can even fake a light source based on where the sun will be at this time, the game don't need to render it for taking it into account, so the player keep only looking at the same scene static, frozen in the same time as it would in real life with a Nasa/JPL tool, but actually the game really do the inputs the players write for the rover sequence ! Since the rover actually really do it, its only not visible for the player, i won't be more difficult to "simulate" than actually doing it manually because except that the player only see a single static scene, where he can only move camera and place a low polygon count rover (as we see on the real NASA/JPL tools) while the "real" game just do what he write, after all on the 3D tools of the JPL the scene don't include visual representation of weather and sun when they input rover arm position. For the "replay like recording system", the goal is only if the player decide to connect to the rover while the rover actually perform the task, that the player can see what the rover actually doing, so this kind of replay file is only to put the rover in a certain condition, exactly like save files will do, but this is is based on the time, it will state what the rover do at this particular time, so the player will, once its loaded, have the game loading what the rover do at T minus signal delay which will just put the rover in a different time state, this can also permit to have both real time if we see rover from manned expedition and with delay from mission control ! After all we only need to know what possible effect the rover can have (arm/wheel broken, electricity level, stuck, course deviation even if i don't know how the real one react in this condition) previously encounter and where he is when we loading, and yes of course the science, all this data are gathered while the player input commands of what the rover will do since the game could perform it in the same time, its just a matter of recording those data relative to the time without creating a too big file that state the condition every microseconds and happen to have 100+Mb size for some minutes of rover moving straight. That's why i was talking about replay like system which are know to be light in size compare to what it will be to record the condition every given time, the car game Dirt and DCS World are good example if this kind if things that include persistent states/damages, the goal its only to know what will be the condition of the rover at the time the player will load it if he was doing something else meanwhile, but the game have already "simulate" it and already know the exact time he have perform every actions, its just a matter when/if the player load the scene while the rover perform his sequence to have him at the correct place at the correct attitude/speed/animation/state/movement/power level and others conditions based on the game time, and what the player get can simply be delayed based on the signal delay time, the game will load the state of the rover at game time minus time delay ! If the player simply put a waypoint, the game will move the invisible rover along this waypoint, the player will have no possibility to know that the game do it meanwhile, and it will be realistic, the player only have at his screen a static scene and a low polygon and physicless representation of the rover that will just teleport to this waypoint, so he could see based on the data of the terrain at this position, what the rover will be able to do, taking picture of objectives, using tools etc etc ! The goal is only to know what the rover will do and providing a useful and functional rover programming tool for the player ! My idea permit to have complex/advanced rover programming, possibility for the player to have (fake) rover activity on background from mission control/another rover, signal delay applied to this, rover programming tool that can show message of possible collision/path occlusion/rover damage/too angled slope and all at once !

Thanks Dahun and thanks Dram ! And nice to hear ! For those issues the way my idea work solve the issue itself, since rovers are not autonomous and only do what sequence we program them, the time we skip is not a problem, my idea consist of simulating what the rover will do (including the weather at the time he will do it of course) while the player do the rover programming sequence, which mean, longer will be the sequence, longer the player will need to do it and longer the game can meanwhile simulate with accuracy what the rover will do when the player will send the sequence to the rover ! As i state it should work like a replay files, which mean, don't matter how many time the player will skip, if he skip a single hours in a sequence that will need 3 hours to be accomplish, the rover will appear as it already simulate he have to be one hours latter ! And if the player skip 4 hours, well the rover will be on its final state as he have simulate he will be 3 hours after the program sequence start ! I think no one will ever make a 1 year sequence ! But with my idea, even if he does, since the rover simulate what will happen while the player program the sequence, well, it will still be okay, at worst the player will have a big file which is the rover "replay" ! So if we skip 1 year anyway, even with a 2 or 3 days long program sequence which is already really long and will probably took a while to do for the player, the rover will stay where he is for 1 year minus 3 days without doing anything, like the actual game where rovers are not simulated in background, after he finish his sequence, the rover will stay inactive and since my idea don't consisting of simulating what the rover do in real time, there is no issue with both signal delay and time skipping ! For the signal delay, the sort of "replay files" like that the game could use for this can simply be relative to the time of reception, if for example Mars is 9 minutes light speed away in its actual position, the sequence will be relative to the hours of the transmission + the signal delay, and it can also give the to player the possibility to start the sequence at a given time ! The only relation the rover will have compare to the game time will be when in the sort of "replay track" the rover will be if the player decide to load the rover before he have completed his sequence or stop it in the middle of his task (stop will be actual time + time delay), if the player look at the rover after loading it, the rover will simply execute in real time the sequence, and if he send a stop order, the rover will keep perform the task until he receive the signal ! The only possible issue will be if the player is too fast to do the sequence and the game don't have the time to simulate it enough, that's why i have in first place talk about first pass of simulation which is simplified, at worst he will not have a 100% realistic sequence but still have it ! Unfinished sequence simulation could also keep ruining on control center !

But if you can create a really advanced and complete vehicle programming, i see some few tricks to help having vehicles running in background and signal delay, or in fact giving the illusion to do it ! You agree that when we use the programming system for a rover, if we could hide the rover the game could run every physic simulation he want about that rover since it is the focused vehicle, well the idea will be that the rover already do everything in the same time as the player input commands (but in this state damage are simulated but not activated until we finish the program sequence, if we do a bad move but don't send the signal it will make no senses to get the rover broken), if we ask the rover to travel a long distance, he can, only during the programming sequence "time warp (not jump to)" to this location, a little like we have in some games with time acceleration in real time, Kerbal in one example, but DCS World is a way better example based one how fast we can accelerate without getting strange physic. Anyway during the sequence programming we don't need any visual render for what the rover actually do in background since he is not supposed to do it, the game can focus at 100% on physic simulation (but with accelerated time if/when needed) and on rendering visual only for the "programming software" which can be visually simplified. The game record while we programming what happen to the rover, as a playback file for example, since programming even trough simple script sequence can be long, the rover will get all the time he need to simulate this, and then if we switch to another vessel or to a human or what ever else, when we comeback to this rover, the game just load and render the playback based on the time, if we do a programming for the rover that is supposed to last 3h and we comeback 2h latter to see how he is doing, we will get the playback rendering for 2h after his sequence start Minus the signal delay, for the player it won't make any difference between this and having it in real time running in background. But a lot of things can be done with this trick, including the possibility to see a fake 3D software for the program sequence which is in fact the real rover that we manipulate. While travelling on flat terrain, the rover won't care about simulate it while we programming it, but he will simulate encounter with objects, and an error message can be show in case of damage as a collision prevention by the programming software for example which is in fact the rover simulating the encounter and the game interpreting damage without rendering them, the idea can also be to make the game re-rendering (but without time warp this time) physical encounter while the basic simulation is finish, in short, the game could simply pre-computed the physical simulation first during the programming from the player, and then, if the rover finish this and the player have not finish, well the game will take his time to finishing and polishing the physic simulation for the "playback", it will be a multipass physic simulation rendering. The idea is, while the player input command for travel, stop at a location and use robot arm, the game will simply during this make a simplified simulation of what the command sequence make the rover doing, and the time the player finish the command sequence, the rover can make another physic simulation pass where he have strong interaction with the terrain, the idea is if the rover loose a wheels that the simulation know it soon as possible to avoid the need to rerendering a third time the physic for everything else with a broken wheels this time based on if you prefer the player to be or not informed in case of damages on the trip. Two physic rover will be great, one for simulating terrain moving which is invisible, a travel one that will run even while the other also run, and the to simulate robot arm and/or sensors/mast etc (mainly robot arm) which can render arm in the fake programming software to having a NASA/JPL like programming capability, like this : with all the tools such as where the robot arm have to go and at which angle and stuff like this.And the rendering (trough this second rover) could be something like this http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1171 Another trick for getting a little more time for finishing this should be a fake transmission display, a progression bar with a "Please wait, sending command data to the rover" And finally if the player is really quick, the game can simply finish the rendering just after the loading, it will be a little longer to load but the result will still be at least here ! I hope my idea have help you !

A lot more than originally expected was added, that true, but, even if i really like the type of the new content, i'm very concern about this ! Of course this both for make player happy which is a nice move and also try to get more customers cause everyone can agree, even if this is a incredibly promising game, it only aim to a very limited kind of players and in a such small community i'm sure everyone can understand why you have prefer to create the manned scenario that early (their is also some technical reason cause we can't add everything we want after a certain state on a game for those who don't know) ! But my concern is about the fact that such a great effort to make things originally not planed such as the manned scenario was done even before some really critical others things, rover are left unfinished by now, even proper key binding was not done left, and even if you have already state that you will do it, well i actually have difficulty to imagine now that we will have great originally planed feature such as rover programming at 100%, NASA/JPL like software for rover programming, cartography, realistic delay and stuff like this ! Anyway, as a suggestion, since with the manned expedition Take On Mars have now getting into futuristic not-yet-done technology/missions, will it be possible to get the planned future rover ? Such as this one http://www.wired.com/2010/09/auto-mars-rover/ Others rovers here : http://www.electronicsweekly.com/embedded-live/general/european-mars-rover-to-explore-embedded-live-2010-09/ Their is also the Sample Return mission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_sample_return_mission But their is not only rover, their is also plane already planned : http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/platform.html And two new improvement that are important, the Orion capsule that have been very successfully tested recently by NASA which will lead the expedition to Mars ! A journey to Mars have two possible path, no return, which mean a single and huge ship that will in one piece land on Mars with everything needed, which is close to what the actual Manned Expedition on TOM actually do, but their is also a mission with return possibility which will be done with a huge ship that will stay on Orbit and a decent module that will have everything needed for several month/almost a year on Mars and an ascent stage but the majority of the ship will stay on orbit and it will probably look like this design : http://www.arcadiastreet.com/cgvistas/spacexp/images/mars_cycler_intro_1280.jpg (not a official NASA design but visually realistic IMHO) But the second important improvement is on Heatshield, two different technology are possible and almost vital for a manned Martial expedition ! Inflatable Heatshield which was actually tested http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/game_changing_development/HIAD/irve3-success.html#.VJVq2CHAs a nice animation here and more details here and even more details here : And the ADEPT heatshield : http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/orgs/exploration-tech/projects/adept.html also another info here http://gsfctechnology.gsfc.nasa.gov/Umbrella.html And a video here that show way better how it work : I would really like to see a combination of all those technology on Take On Mars ! Huge ship coming and doping the decent vehicle, see the reentry phase which is by far the best part, impressive, look cool and very important ! And in the game see inflatable or deployable heat shield, then land with habitable module that will inflate on the ground if the technology is unlocked, which will permit to improve living space, reducing weight and adding more and more advantages ! Both heatshield have advantages and should be at almost the same tech level but with different advantage each, but of course you can decide to make one of them having more advantage and getting higher on the tech tree, it will be nice to have configuration possibility of the living module we send on Mars, like the rover, assembling the decent module and pack it with what we want to, depending of returning or not mission, possibility to send better vehicle, like the actual ingame mobile lab but with for example inflatable lateral structure as habitation module that rest on foldable lateral structure which will permit to take more resources, have more experiments/lab/sensors on board and permit to stay longer on exploration mission with this vehicle etc... When the planetary alignment are done, for the returning mission having them to leave Mars but the material and everything that was used on the ground, such as the mobile lab for example will stay on place and can be used by another team ! Resupply mission for both resources/consumables and upgraded/replacement equipment for long duration mission ! Also Mars plane, advanced rover with "deep" drilling capability : http://www.universetoday.com/104516/wheres-the-best-place-to-drill-for-history-on-mars/ And others stuff like this will be fun and nice to have !

I hope this will mean that you prefer to focus onto ultra realistic and really oriented simulation rather than global but only half realistic aspect !

I have not play yet (i wait the patch that will fix the keys binding issue) and i have only see the VTOL craft from the trailer of the surviving update video, but i think that the VTOL need way more than a technical redesign, it look TOO MUCH unrealistic and arcade, it is not at all a realistic looking thing ! THIS is a real VTOL vehicle design for the moon : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/LLRV_2.jpg Except the jet engine that is only installed for simulate moon gravity on Earth. The one in TOM is too much aggressive/Sci fi looking and not even really aerodynamic, which count on mars, mars unmanned aircraft are planed by NASA : http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/platform.html And they are not really compact, you will need so much food/water and consumable reserve while going to Mars that you will want your VTOL aircraft if you take one to be really compact, even deployable ! But the one in the Trailer is not legit looking at all ! Even those http://media2.s-nbcnews.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/070907/070907_flyingCar_hmed11a.grid-6x2.jpg (with rocket rather than propeller) are more legit design ! Please devs reconsider the VTOL appearance !

Great new ! Thanks for the info, and your welcome, please to help ;)

No new about Keybinding ? And by the way i have find a video on the NASA's youtube channel that may interest you since they talk about some technology for manned expedition on Mars IRL :

Thanks for the informations, good to know ! No more info on when keymapping will be improved ? I still have the issue that make me unable to rebind any key : I can't rebind the same key for move rover forward and astronaut walk forward for example, and since i use a Logitech G-13 keyboard and i never use defaults keys on any game, i can't really play/test Take on Mars yet... I hope a updated key binding will come soon !