Colony architecture

[Pthigrivi]

So I thought we could talk about this image and what makes sense, what's missing, and what might make designing and building surface structures more fun. 



So from the outset we can see solar panels, the off-world VAB, some tanks of some kind, glass domes, a runway ramp, some kind of semi-procedural habitation block system, and maybe a starter colony hub in the center? Now, admittedly this is a very old image and we have seen much cooler looking reactors and fuel processors since then, so I'm personally hoping quite a bit of work has been put into this system and that it will continue to be refined before colonies are added to the game. 

First the good. The system looks relatively easy to implement, copying over landing strip tiles for instance (those need more thickness btw) and having support piers automatically plant underneath. Those piers should really have footings (more on that later) but otherwise a pretty doable implementation. And while the VAB and colony hub (maybe?) look like they're plucked out of a different universe I do like that we'll be able to play with larger masses and won't be in a purely modular design world. From an aesthetic standpoint I hope the procedural masses allow more visual definition--larger windows, no windows, alternate textures--rather than looking so generic.

Now some room for improvement. Again obviously this is early but what Im not seeing is how this behaves as an efficient machine, just the way design works for most other aspects of KSP. Aside from structural elements and connector tubes all of the major modules and design elements should have a gameplay function--increasing habitation space, production output, power, whathaveyou. We're not seeing production infrastructure, neither fuel processing or materials for rocket and colony parts. There are a couple of domes there for aesthetics but Im not seeing greenhouses capable of supporting the population that would live here. More importantly what is the purpose of the larger massing blocks? Are they living space? Working space? Purely aesthetic? I'll say out of the gate I hope it's not the latter. Even if we do have a lot of creative freedom over how these enclosed spaces are shaped I hope there's some simple gameplay element that increases max population caps and/or production based on overall size. 

Next let's talk about materials and the kit of parts. The concept of a kit of parts is an important idea in architecture and has obvious tie-ins to a parts-based game architecture like KSP. Right now we're seeing a few different procedural truss systems some with footings and some without, just a couple of the more modular parts from other renderings of inflatable habitation, and this fairly uniform hab-space massing system. I would love to see a few additions to this kit that would add more depth to structural and architectural design for colonies.

Web trusses - Web trusses are especially important in ground-based colony design where the loads are mostly vertical (while wind-loads and uplift would be cool, I doubt they're in scope.) This could open a lot of cool design space for bridges, cantilevers, and anything that's doing long spans between support piers. This could be a cool design mechanic depending how much these structures cost in terms of materials. Just as we learned there were tradeoffs between ISP and TWR there would be optimums for distance between piers and truss depth--ideally procedural with the ability to fine-tune.

Cable stays/ Tie-rods - This would open a whole world of design opportunity especially for spires and tensegrity structures that use much less material for the same load. This could be an incredible tool for orbital station design where the compression loads are very minimal and what you're really trying to achieve is maximum stability with minimum mass. Im particularly thinking about harmonic wobble resonance when you dock a 1kt interstellar vessel to a station without any tensile reinforcement. 

Concrete piers, footings, and structural shafts - Concrete is a great material for planetary surfaces. There are a few different options from more familiar water-based carbon silicate based cements to liquid sulfur options. For the purposes of the game I think we could simplify the ingredients to base materials like "volatiles" and "regolith". We've all probably seen the funky 3d printed concrete domes made by robots in mars colony animations but this is not particularly realistic. Concrete requires specific conditions for curing and more importantly rebar or other tensile reinforcement to be stable. Formwork is also at a premium, so precast units produced in conditioned space are much more likely. For the game that's a good thing, as you could have simple set of procedural or modular concrete forms from footings, piers, or hollow shafts with built in egress to support larger buildings. 

All told I think you could boil ingredients for colonies down to just a few ingredients: Metals, Plastics, Regolith, and volatiles like water or 02 if we're considering LS. There could be some cool evolution as your production increased from harvesting mostly fuels, perhaps converting them to inflatable habs mostly made from plastics, into more metallic structures and later more robust buildings made mostly from excess regolith agregate from larger scale mining operations. You might also see concrete storage casks for some materials, especially the more radioactive ones. 

Thoughts? We've seen so little on this system so far. 

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[regex]

I understand the excitement some people have surrounding this but a lot of the discourse I see is about adding detail and little nitty-gritty gameplay things. I really hope there are colony prefabs I can slap somewhere and just forget they exist so I can satisfy whatever I need to build interstellar ships in the progression gameplay. What would be even better is if these colonies and habs are entirely optional within the progression gameplay (outside of an orbital construction yard, obviously).

Edited December 12, 2022 by regex

[Pthigrivi]

43 minutes ago, regex said:

I understand the excitement some people have surrounding this but a lot of the discourse I see is about adding detail and little nitty-gritty gameplay things. I really hope there are colony prefabs I can slap somewhere and just forget they exist so I can satisfy whatever I need to build interstellar ships in the progression gameplay. What would be even better is if these colonies and habs are entirely optional within the progression gameplay (outside of an orbital construction yard, obviously).

For this intro Im not even really delving into complex resource flows or population management or any of that, I'm just talking about structure. Nate has mentioned that these things will react to gravity and will fall down if you build something that's unrealistically spindly. That implies a certain amount of under-the-hood load calculation and deflection just like we would see if you made a rocket that was unrealistically long and skinny. The reason I bring up things like alternatives to box trusses, cable stays, and concrete is they could make this endeavor much easier to manage. Concrete for example has basically zero deflection, so anything that was anchored to it would behave as if it was anchored to the ground. Because its tensile strength is slow low however there would be limits to how tall you could go without other forms of lateral reinforcement.  Same with orbital stations. We already know that we're going to be able to build orbital construction platforms that might be half a km long. Having the ability increase the stability of huge metal structures with cable ties between compressive members would make this task much easier for players to deal with. 

[regex]

10 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

For this intro Im not even really delving into complex resource flows or population management or any of that, I'm just talking about structure.

I was too. I'm not here for the colony management or creating neat little towns or LOLKERBALPHYSICSLETSWATCHTHEMEXPLODE. Having to not only construct stable buildings but also potentially micromanage "colony things" is about the least interesting gameplay I can imagine for KSP.

[Pthigrivi]

11 minutes ago, regex said:

I was too. I'm not here for the colony management or creating neat little towns or LOLKERBALPHYSICSLETSWATCHTHEMEXPLODE. Having to not only construct stable buildings but also potentially micromanage "colony things" is about the least interesting gameplay I can imagine for KSP.

So IRL Im an architect/designer so this is 100% my jam, but I would personally say creating 'neat little towns' is more of a RP flex. I'm more interested in how colonies behave as machines--just like vessels do--with inputs and outputs and basic efficiencies that can be optimized. Just like the engineering challenge of a vessel is about power management, fuel management, heat management, colonies should be about how efficiently input resources result in bigger and better vessels. And in terms of structures I'm specifically talking about the difference between real physics and LOLphysics--helping players intuitively understand structural limits like deflection and compressive vs tensile strength in the same way we understand aerodynamic and dV limits. 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Drakenred65]

My understanding is that cements made from simulated Regolith currently are problematic in space. So far one of the problems with “mooncreet” is that at least on the samples cured on the ISS tended to have more micro bubbles  voids and pockets, because on earth the normal settling that does occurs here tends to cause gasses to escape while it cures and settles, creating more stress points in the concretion. I think there currently testing methods for working around this including testing what’s basicaly a “spun fiber”mix similar to fiberglass mixed into the concrete.

[Drakenred65]

Ok currently one of the mixed aqua and aero culture studies has what are basicaly 10 *10*50 containers that produce enough food and air per average human male for 1000 days.  They also have a yeast/Algae  tank that suposedly could do the same that’s aparently the size of a 200 gallon tank so that’s a second factor I guess.

 

the other end is that Biosphere project. Given the size and the somewhat odd nature of that project though…

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by [email protected]
Typoes

[Drakenred65]

Ok doing more digging.

 

average adult human for the greenhouse food box was assuming 85 kiloes, kind of high but eh.

 

average Kerbonaught was 45 kiloes including gear.

 

even if kerbals are photosynthetic, there need for at least Snax indicates there not self sufficient, ( at least when dressed) so assume the 10*10*50 would support 2.

[Luriss]

One thing I think has been somewhat neglected in favour of the engineering side of colony building is the social aspect. It's important to keep in mind that colonies aren't just machines with an input and output of resources but also a place where people (in this case kerbals) have to live.

As an illustration of this idea, imagine a small research outpost on Luna with some 5 - 10 people. All the crew would be specialists with a clearly defined role, living on the base for a temporary and predetermined period with extensive support from ground based teams on Earth.
Now imagine a lunar settlement consisting of some 5000 - 10000 people. All the methods that were used to manage the research base have gone out the window; in other words, you're no longer tasked with managing a space mission but rather a state building project.

In this context, how do you create a functional society on Duna?

Of course, all this is inherently political and hence very much outside the scope of KSP 2. I just hope there'll be some aspect represented in game (e.g. having a hard time finding colonists who want to live on Eeloo)

Edited December 12, 2022 by Luriss

[GoldForest]

13 minutes ago, Luriss said:

One thing I think has been somewhat neglected in favour of the engineering side of colony building is the social aspect. It's important to keep in mind that colonies aren't just machines with an input and output of resources but also a place where people (in this case kerbals) have to live.

As an illustration of this idea, imagine a small research outpost on Luna with some 5 - 10 people. All the crew would be specialists with a clearly defined role, living on the base for a temporary and predetermined period with extensive support from ground based teams on Earth.
Now imagine a lunar settlement consisting of some 5000 - 10000 people. All the methods that were used to manage the research base have gone out the window; in other words, you're no longer tasked with managing a space mission but rather a state building project.

In this context, how do you create a functional society on Duna?

Of course, all this is inherently political and hence very much outside the scope of KSP 2. I just hope there'll be some aspect represented in game (e.g. having a hard time finding colonists who want to live on Eeloo)

I doubt we'll see a social aspect to the colony system, not like what you're talking about. I also don't ever see "Jebidiah Kerman doesn't want to go to Eeloo because he thinks it is too cold." or anything like that. KSP 2 is going to be more about macro management rather than micromanagement. Frankly, I would not like to see any micromanagement stuff in KSP 2, like worrying about Jeb's 'home sickness' level or 'social interactions' level. Leave that up to the mods. The only real social aspect I would like to see is at bare minimum something like a 'friends' aspect. I.e., having other Kerbals in the colony that closely match Jeb's stupidity and bravery level within a certain percentage. (Something like 25% to make it more forgiving. A difficulty slider could bring it down to 10% or even 5%)

Edited December 12, 2022 by GoldForest

[Luriss]

5 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

I doubt we'll see a social aspect to the colony system, not like what you're talking about. I also don't ever see "Jebidiah Kerman doesn't want to go to Eeloo because he thinks it is too cold." or anything like that. KSP 2 is going to be more about macro management rather than micromanagement. Frankly, I would not like to see any micromanagement stuff in KSP 2, like worrying about Jeb's 'home sickness' level or 'social interactions' level. Leave that up to the mods. The only real social aspect I would like to see is at bare minimum something like a 'friends' aspect. I.e., having other Kerbals in the colony that closely match Jeb's stupidity and bravery level within a certain percentage. (Something like 25% to make it more forgiving. A difficulty slider could bring it down to 10% or even 5%)

Apologies, I should've been clearer

When I say social aspects I'm not saying you have to track how many friends your colonists have or anything like that, more things like avoiding overpopulation/crowding, or kerbals getting unhappy if you don't have enough food producing buildings/imports. Things you have to consider when building or expanding but not constantly monitor.

Of course, I'd personally love to create colonies with specific political systems and the like but that's just a me thing. I would be surprised to see it implemented in mod form let alone vanilla. 

[GoldForest]

12 minutes ago, Luriss said:

Apologies, I should've been clearer

When I say social aspects I'm not saying you have to track how many friends your colonists have or anything like that, more things like avoiding overpopulation/crowding, or kerbals getting unhappy if you don't have enough food producing buildings/imports. Things you have to consider when building or expanding but not constantly monitor.

Of course, I'd personally love to create colonies with specific political systems and the like but that's just a me thing. I would be surprised to see it implemented in mod form let alone vanilla. 

Ah, well, even then, I say leave it to the mods. KSP isn't about micro-management imo, it would take so much of the fun away from the space exploration aspect, having to deal with all that. 

I say the only thing you should have to worry about is the life support aspect, if life support is in game. Oxygen and Snacks. And of course, making sure everyone has their own room, or at least a bed, but not that Kerbals get unhappy if they don't. 

Of course, now that I think about it, micromanagement might be in game. We do have refineries, so Kerbals might be assigned 'jobs'. Jobs would more than likely require kerbals at least have a bed or their own room, otherwise they might be considered 'homeless' and won't go do their job.... gosh, I hope it's not that micro managey. 

[Luriss]

2 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Of course, now that I think about it, micromanagement might be in game. We do have refineries, so Kerbals might be assigned 'jobs'. Jobs would more than likely require kerbals at least have a bed or their own room, otherwise they might be considered 'homeless' and won't go do their job.... gosh, I hope it's not that micro managey. 

I'd expect a certain amount of abstraction. I'd imagine it'd probably be a case of your population being represented by a number x, and then you'd have y and z number of job positions. Something along those lines.

[GoldForest]

4 minutes ago, Laikanaut said:

I have mixed feelings about it, city builders are one of my favorite genres, but I'm concerned that a space program simulator wouldn't handle city building as a side mechanic very well. It's not something I've seen in any game as a side mechanic, that I can recall, and the points that have been made about micromanagement are considerable. On the one hand, I see potential to turn this into a full-on colony management game, where the rockets are just there to supply the colonies, but on the other side they could just be empty entities that you plop down for the sole purpose of launching rockets.

This is also straying heavily into theoretical territory, considering we've barely made our first few orbital structures as humans. KSP has always been grounded in technologies that either already exist or have been developed and tested. We don't know what kinds of structures are sustainable in alien environments, but I would suspect that, given risks such as radiation exposure and meteor impacts, such structures in reality would not be made above ground. Surviving Mars offers a reasonable simulation of most of these considerations, and in that context, the best solution seems to be subterranean structures that are shielded from most potential disasters.

Space Architecture would be a very interesting new field in the future, but I think the amount of research needed to do it justice in KSP (remaining grounded at least in realistic projections) will make this mechanic quite troublesome.

KSP 2 has been advertised as a near future game, and it shows. Most if not all of what we've seen has been either conceptualized or is being researched right now. Colonies on other planets are one of them. There are projects out in the desert right now that are looking into how humans would deal with the martian environment. They are all above ground structures. The only underground structures I've seen for Mars is technically a above ground structure that is simply buried or has a hill built on top it. This is the SpaceX 3D Martian ground printer. 

As for protection from radiation and asteroids. The radiation can easily be dealt with by making the walls out of lead or filling them with water. Asteroids/meteorites can be dealt with by tracking systems designed to detect a meteor shower and for people to get to a hardened bunker, possibly underground. It's not too farfetched to have an above ground colony. In fact, above ground colonies would be the way to go for anything over 100 people. Digging out enough space for a colony in the 1000s is just not economically sound. At some point, you would need to go back to the surface and start building conventional buildings. 

There's also the possibility of using anti-missile technology against asteroids/meteors. Now, KSP won't get this, I'm just saying it's a possibility for IRL.

Back to KSP, there's not a lot of meteors that fall to the planet. Usuaully they just end up in a orbit around the planet, so I don't see a lot of need for protection against them.

[Drakenred65]

Part of the reason why they went with a 10*10*50  footprint in the one study I found was they were looking at dietary diversity, and the need for redundancy.  After all the algie tank system took up less space while creating what was described as protein sludge pudding,, while the diversity tank closet mix was feeding fish, chicken and a person a mix of grain, veggies, nuts and tubers, and fiber useful for clothing.

 

the problem with both systems was they needed maintenance and parts,  as one study pointed out you needed at least double the footprint to provide some redundancy, and some way to store / absorb surplus O2, And Excess CO2 until the plants or people could catch up, and excess biomaterial/food, ( until it could be composted or consumed, ) as many plants needed a minimum concentration of CO2 to properly grow, and getting the balance right was a full time job, even with the ability to control growth rates. Apparently they ended up storing significantly more food/ biomass than they expected, leading them to wonder where the surplus CO2 was coming from.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

16 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

So I thought we could talk about this image and what makes sense

I look at the three little structures ('little') down in the little valley at the front of the Colony.  Those look like resource extraction.  Moving up from there, we see the dark cylinders on stilts.  Those look like ore containers.  So to me, the broad cylinder (grey) with the darker gray spheres on top is likely a fuel conversion facility; take ore make fuel.  Atop that I see a crane with what looks like an excavator bucket on a track; perhaps that means we will get some 'automation' animation as that pulls stuff from one part of the 'unit' (likely the 'hopper' looking thing between the two spheres) and dumps it into another (maybe the light gray cylinder on top).  Now - this WHOLE thing might be an old version of a Colony Fuel factory (see link below).  If you look at the large one - there are design elements shared between what we see on this image and the large fuel factory.  The only problem with this is the cylinder supporting the spheres looks to be exactly the same cylinder seen in the central tower.

Similarly, I first thought the conical building on the right of the image was familiar; it looks kind of like one of the New Power Generation Modules (see second link).  But on further review - it's just the same 'unit' as the tower on the left... just flipped.  

 

The domes are hab/greenhouses.  We've seen those before.  What the purpose of the hexagonal segments on either side are, one can only guess.  I'm thinking 'Generic Colony Part # 3'.

VAB already identified.

 

Now... having looked at all of this...  I'm wondering if any of this stuff will make the core game.  I think that given how we've seen it, they're likely to use it; but in reality these images are quite old.  The team may have gone a completely different route with Colonies since these were built.  The 'large prefab units' (links below) came out well after this image.  While I think it would be fun to be able to build whatever wacky colony structure I might like (which is a very Kerbal thing to do - see how far you can extend something until it breaks) - we might have quite limited options of planting 'seed parts' for pre-fab structures that effectively build themselves on site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pthigrivi]

7 hours ago, Laikanaut said:

 It's not something I've seen in any game as a side mechanic, that I can recall, and the points that have been made about micromanagement are considerable.

I think this is THE question about colony mechanics for KSP2. Its true its unusual to have a mini-city builder as a side mechanic, and I know Nate has agreed that they want KSP to have colonies relatively low-maintenance, serving the rocketry rather than the other way around. There are some advantages here though. Most city builders are designed to run in a state of constant instability so you always have something to do--more roads, more houses, more production, supplementary infrastructure, etc. You don't want players to be sitting watching things run smoothly with their hands folded behind their heads. For KSP you want just the opposite, which is actually much easier. After a boom event you'll get a population boost which will in theory open up more production. You'll have a chance to add more resource gathering and processing, upgrade power output and storage, etc. But once you get your outputs in the black you really want the thing to be set it and forget it so you can time-warp another mission months or even years without having to go back and constantly tweak things. Even that little period of expansion should be as much as possible about building and engineering and not about endlessly sifting through crew rosters. That to me means just simplifying and streamlining worker management as much as humanly possible. I think @Luriss might be right it could be as simple as a pair of numbers in the top corner of the BAE--required jobs and available crew. Maybe it would be nice to right click on a given production facility and increase or decrease the number of workers if you wanted to fine tune, but the positions should be filled automatically rather than manually assigning hundreds of individual kerbals. The same could be true for for habitation. Each hab module has a hab rating and the total combined is your population cap. So long as thats all handled in pools and doesn't require individual management all you're really doing is adding habitation wherever/however you like to meet the population size you need. 

Incidentally this is also a reason I might even ditch classes entirely, because it would mean you didn't need to worry about running out of engineers or scientists or manually retraining them to get the balance right. There's no real need. 
 

10 hours ago, Luriss said:

When I say social aspects I'm not saying you have to track how many friends your colonists have or anything like that, more things like avoiding overpopulation/crowding, or kerbals getting unhappy if you don't have enough food producing buildings/imports. Things you have to consider when building or expanding but not constantly monitor.

This is one of those instances where adding a mechanic could actually make things much easier. The nice thing about a colony or vessel-wide happiness rating would be it could capture a number of minor factors like access to snacks, radiation and habitation and boil them down into one easy to understand number that would effect productivity in mining, processing, and science collection. If for instance your kerbals had enough food and habitation but had just passed through a big radiation belt or you'd let off an antimatter engine 100m away their happiness might temporarily dip. If it they were 90% happy they'd be 90% productive and so on. If you had a vessel that ran out of snacks and your Kerbals became really miserable you could deliver more and over a few days their mood and productivity would bounce back. This would be a really soft way of adding incentives for this kind of thing without creating gnarly punishments for failure. 

 

 

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Drakenred65]

Well they also have disasters based on observations of Mars climate. 
 

invidentaly meteor strikes turned out to be more common than they originally thought.
 

https://www.space.com/21198-mars-asteroid-strikes-common.html

[GoldForest]

One thing I've been wondering about is if the placement of the VAB matters. Obviously, it does in the grand scheme of things, but I mean like, will we have to worry about the launching rocket's thrust damaging or toppling nearby towers, or if they forewent that challenge. It would probably be a difficulty slider if it was implemented. 

Also, anyone else notice that they have damaged support pillars in the picture there? The charred support pillars sitting in front of, what I presume are, the battery/capacitors? I wonder if/how that would affect everything. Like obviously, if bottom module gets destroyed, the upper ones will fall. But will it affect the neighboring tower?

Edited December 13, 2022 by GoldForest

[Drakenred65]

We have the example from the trailer, but how seriously are we suposed to take it… I mean didn’t they show what looks suspiciously like a jump ramp at a location…

[GoldForest]

Just now, [email protected] said:

We have the example from the trailer, but how seriously are we suposed to take it… I mean didn’t they show what looks suspiciously like a jump ramp at a location…

A prerendered cinematic trailer is not indicative of gameplay, so it's not supposed to be taken seriously at all. I mean, they showed a kerbal fall on to the landing gear and it broke the landing gear. I doubt that will happen in KSP 2. If it does, I'd be actually both pleasantly surprised and disappointed. 

And the jump ramp can be seen in the photo in the OP. it's for planes/spaceplanes. Or are you talking about the big cargo truck jumping the ravine? 

[Drakenred65]

14 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

 

And the jump ramp can be seen in the photo in the OP. it's for planes/spaceplanes. Or are you talking about the big cargo truck jumping the ravine? 

I’m probably conflating the two. But then given its Kerbals, I almost suspect that the ramp is for Kerbals, who may or may not use it as intended…. After all I’m fairly sure I’m not the only one to put rockets on a rover.

[Pthigrivi]

On 12/12/2022 at 5:30 AM, GoldForest said:

KSP 2 has been advertised as a near future game, and it shows. Most if not all of what we've seen has been either conceptualized or is being researched right now. Colonies on other planets are one of them. There are projects out in the desert right now that are looking into how humans would deal with the martian environment. They are all above ground structures. The only underground structures I've seen for Mars is technically a above ground structure that is simply buried or has a hill built on top it. This is the SpaceX 3D Martian ground printer. 

As for protection from radiation and asteroids. The radiation can easily be dealt with by making the walls out of lead or filling them with water. Asteroids/meteorites can be dealt with by tracking systems designed to detect a meteor shower and for people to get to a hardened bunker, possibly underground. It's not too farfetched to have an above ground colony. In fact, above ground colonies would be the way to go for anything over 100 people. Digging out enough space for a colony in the 1000s is just not economically sound. At some point, you would need to go back to the surface and start building conventional buildings. 

On 12/11/2022 at 10:45 PM, [email protected] said:

My understanding is that cements made from simulated Regolith currently are problematic in space. So far one of the problems with “mooncreet” is that at least on the samples cured on the ISS tended to have more micro bubbles  voids and pockets, because on earth the normal settling that does occurs here tends to cause gasses to escape while it cures and settles, creating more stress points in the concretion. I think there currently testing methods for working around this including testing what’s basicaly a “spun fiber”mix similar to fiberglass mixed into the concrete.

Both these comments bring up something important not just for concrete, but for any kind of in-situ construction off-world--you really want to do as much as you can in the shop. I guess we don't know to what degree the design of colony systems has progressed (though Im sure with Nertea's help it could go a long way  ) but the general description has been that colonies come in two phases--the landing stage and the self-sustaining stage. In the first stage you have self-contained modules that are produced first on Kerbin and assembled on-site. These would be like the inflatable habitation pods we see in the trailer. As things progress and you gain access to in-situ construction there's probably a hybrid stage where you can produce simple box trusses, solar panels, reactors, or replicate the same kinds of modular pods in an onsite workshop. It sounds like (wisely) this will be pretty straight-forward for players in practice. Once they have access to the BAE interface they'll be able to add and move and reassemble colony parts just like we do in the VAB. 

From a pure art-design standpoint though I think its worth considering what construction in space or on other planets might actually look like. Ideally you'd prefer not to have actual people doing huge amounts of field-welding or setting up concrete formwork. It's time consuming and dangerous to work in a suit thats vulnerable to punctures. Robots would certainly help, but I never really took the 3d printing mars concrete pouring robots seriously. Even the best robots require maintenance, and both time and spare parts are incredibly precious resources. You want your machines to be as few and as simple as possible so you're not spending all your time repairing them or chiseling off all the molten sulfur from hundreds of robots. Both factors would lead to one thing--as much as possible you want to manufacture mass produced, pre-fabricated systems in a pressurized, climate controlled space. That means repeatable structural elements and enclosure systems with build in seals and common mechanical fastening systems. Concrete is great because its so strong and durable and most of its mass is composed of local aggregate rather than metals or plastics which require lots of refinement. Again the best technique would be pre-cast, pretensioned columns, coffers and tubes with forms that get reused without modification over and over. 



Now the sort of colony-block system we've seen does certainly share some of those qualities but its a little too generic looking for me. I like that it gives a lot of freedom to make different shapes, but the fact that every wall section is the same could lead to some pretty bland looking results. I'd love if there was some more variation that allowed us to make glass verandas or more hardened looking industrial enclosures even if it was just for "cosplaying" purposes, as they've called it. 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Vl3d]

What I would love to see is a lot of rovers coming and going, a lot of rockets or planes taking off - all of them controlled by the delivery routes system. And of course that means.. tracks on the ground and roads.

[Drakenred65]

From what I understand, building for example on the moon runs into a number of problems.

 

1 vacuum. Any concrete like process has to deal curing in a vacume, any outgassing during curing will create voids that just don’t happen on earth.

2 thermal extremes, causing uneven expansion and contraction,  some rebar and fiber stressed samples failed mechanically after only  a few months of simulated cycles.

3 lower gravity may cause concretions to stratify unexpectedly. As it is finding out that concrete  Stratifies as it cures on earth was apparently something of a revelation.

4 Various Concretes are known for there ability to capture water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide and form acidic compounds, this issue caused issues like unplanned CO2 loss during Biosphere 2 mission, structural issues in older Buildings, and  the acidic corrosion of iron structures like battleship Mikasa 

however some of the solutions are already fairly obvious.

use of tents/sun shield or simply burying structures under lunar Regolith will negate some of   Thermal issues.

Use of inflated tents will negate issues with  vacuum induced outgassing. 
 

and the simple reality is experience will eventually teach us what not to do.