Supported
About This File
This set of files provides SimCity 4 players with additional choices for the slope parameters of surface transportation networks in the game. This collection of slope mods was designed by @Lucario Boricua, author of the Earthworks Tutorials series. Extensive research was conducted for both other slope mods and the findings of previous precision terraforming pioneers, most notably BigRedFish and Ennedi, as well as geometric design characteristics of real transportation networks, to best harmonize playability and realism. As these are beta versions, players are strongly encouraged to provide their feedback, to fine-tune later beta versions and eventually complete an official set of NAM tunnel and slope mods!
Make sure to read the provided ReadMe file for installation instructions, and to get detailed information on the slope parameters of each variant.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PROVIDED SLOPE MODS
This modpack is provided in six (6) additional flavors in decreasing steepness, such that steeper settings are termed as easier to use, along with a small modification of the Maxis default settings. Aside from the Maxis Default options, all the others are provided as both a single file with all the surface networks and separate files to mix and match different settings. Certain properties are universally shared by all these slope mods, including the adjustment of the height of the RealRailway tunnel portal, increased from 7.25m to 7.50m (including the Maxis Default settings). The other slope mods also share these other properties:
NEW! NAM DLL Compatibility for Street Tunnels: the street network tuning parameters were modified to enable compatibility with street tunnel functionality introduced by the NAM DLL (found here). When using the NAM tunnel and slope mod, make sure to remove the street slope mod file included in the NAM-dll-supplemental-files folder. The NAM Tunnel and Slope Mod, on its own, does not enable street tunnels!
NEW! Modified Subway and Water Pipe Depth parameters: the modified parameters enable players to build the Subway and Water Pipe networks regardless of steep changes in topography (ex. cliffs, mountains or canyons), using parameters adapted from the Underground Depth Mod by Thalassicus.
Construction animations: all construction animations have been sped-up by a factor of 6, reducing the wait time from first drawing/dragging a network, until the construction animation concludes.
Smoothing progression steps: all surface networks have their smoothing progression steps increased to 4096 steps, in 1-cell increments. This ensures the game calculates the network’s slope conformance to a much greater degree than the game default settings.
Realistic relative steepness by base network: all the steeper variants (Very Easy/Very Steep, Easy/Steep, and Moderate Vanilla) have decreasing steepness in the following order:
- Street
- Road, One-way, Avenue and Tram dual networks
- Elevated Highway, Ground Highway, RealHighway and El-Rail/Ground Light Rail
- Rail and Monorail
The flatter variants (Moderate NAM, Strict / Flat, and Realistic / Very Flat) instead use this flatness and vertical curvature sequence, more closely approximating the relationship between real transportation network geometries:
- Street
- Road and One-way
- Avenue (same max slope but smoother vertical curvature compared to Road and One-way)
- Elevated Rail / Ground Light Rail
- Elevated Highway, Ground Highway and RealHighway
- Monorail
- Rail / Hybrid Railway
Integer numbers of cells for key height differences: SimCity 4 slope parameters are inputted in degrees (°), rather than the height change per cell (m per cell, or ft per cell), percent (%, typical of roadways) or permille (‰, typical of railways) grades. The values in degrees were selected such that the runs required to cover 7.5m (all networks), 15.0m (road networks) or 15.5m (rail networks) are whole numbers of cells, allowing players to get an intuitive visual estimation of the network slopes for a given segment’s length.
This set of files contains 6 additional slope mod variants, and a small modification of the Maxis default slope parameters. In decreasing steepness, here they are:
00 – Maxis Default: The Maxis Default slope mod settings do not alter any property of the slope parameters of any transportation network, apart from the height of the RealRailway tunnel portal. Players who do not wish to install any flatter slope mod options are advised to use this one, to ensure the terrain correctly matches the railway tunnel portal heights.
01 – Very Easy or Very Steep: The Very Easy or Very Steep slope mod settings provide a minimal reduction of the maximum slopes of the networks, providing a minor smoothness improvement compared to the game default properties. Players who do not want transportation networks to interfere with their gameplay, but who still want a visual improvement of their transportation networks, are advised to use this variant. This one does not use vertical curvature settings, and as such is not subject to the rollercoasting effect, the phenomenon in which wavy networks when transitioning from a steep slope into a flat terrain.
02 – Easy or Steep: The Easy or Steep slope mod settings provide a small but significant reduction of the maximum slopes of the networks, providing somewhat more of a smoothness improvement compared to the game default properties. Players who want good-looking transportation networks and get properly introduced to slope mods in their gameplay are advised to use this variant. Players who regularly play on rugged topography with minimal precision terraforming are also advised to use this variant. This one does not use vertical curvature settings, and as such is not subject to the rollercoasting effect.
03a – Moderate, Vanilla Style: The Moderate, Vanilla Style slope mod settings provide an intermediate reduction of the maximum slopes of the networks, providing a clear smoothing of the networks, achieving a balance between ease of gameplay and realism. Players who have some experience with slope mods are advised to use this variant, unless they are using it on existing cities built over rugged terrain and numerous parallel networks. This one does not have vertical curvature, and as a result will look slightly steeper than the smooth height transitions and FLUP portals provided as part of the Network Addon Mod. This one is the flattest option in which both Rail and Monorail share the same slope, for ease of gameplay purposes.
03b – Moderate, NAM Style: The Moderate, NAM Style slope mod settings provide an intermediate reduction of the maximum slopes of the networks, providing a clear smoothing of the networks, achieving a balance between ease of gameplay and realism. Contrary to its Vanilla counterpart, this one does feature vertical curvature, on all networks except for Street, Road and One-way. The result is that network slopes will be identical to the smooth height transitions. Players who have some experience with slope mods are advised to use this variant, unless they are using it on existing cities built over rugged terrain and numerous parallel networks. Given that this one does feature vertical curvature, the rollercoasting effect does occur. It can be mitigated by anchoring the ends of a network segment by placing road or rail squares, the network won’t build until the distance is sufficient to accommodate the maximum slope and the vertical curvature.
This option is the steepest which features a flatter Rail slope and a steeper Monorail slope, for realism purposes. Both monorail and dedicated high speed railway networks support steeper gradients compared to conventional railways, owing to the weight of trains (heavy freight trains require flatter grades) and propulsion systems. Monorail and HSR trainsets generally feature Electrical Multiple Unit designs, in which each bogie (set of wheels) has its own separate motor for distributed propulsion and greater acceleration/braking capacity.
04 – Strict or Flat: The Strict or Flat slope mod settings trend towards realism, with slopes flatter than the equivalent smooth height transitions and FLUP portals provided with the Network Addon Mod. This is also the steepest slope mod setting in which nearly all the networks feature vertical curvature, excluding the street. Faster networks will have smoother vertical curvature, which correlates with required sight distances (faster travel requires greater visibility for vehicle operators to react safely). These slope mod settings are recommended for players who want highly realistic network designs and greater challenge in building across rugged terrain, with flatter networks forcing them to choose their alignments more carefully. Novice transportation players are advised not to use this slope mod if they want to avoid frustration. They are advised to use it if wanting to learn how to use them to their best potential!
05 – Realistic or Very Flat: The Realistic or Very Flat slope mod settings use values nearly identical to those found in real transportation network geometric design, resulting in really flat networks. Transportation power players and players accustomed to precision terraforming will likely find these settings to be challenging, even for flatter terrains. A more advisable option would be to select a few network-specific slope mod files for those cases in which realism is desired, otherwise general gameplay may be impaired by requiring long stretches to climb even small elevation differences. The NAM team does not assume responsibility for players who choose this setting and complain about the inability to build networks!
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
Download the provided compressed .zip folder and unpack the contents. Inside the folder, you'll find the different steepness variants in their respective folders, alongside the ReadMe file. Each steepness variant folder contains the sample screenshot of the slope mods, and two sub-folders: one for the full set of slope mod values, and another for the slope parameters separated by base network. Depending on the preference, follow the instructions depending on whether you want to install all slopes of a single variant, or if you want to mix-and-match different slope settings by base network.
A) Single set of slope mod values
Players who wish to use a slope mod set as provided should copy the corresponding full set folder into their Plugins folder, that is, the file named zNAM_TunnelSlope_##_SlopeDescription_FullSet. The file is named such as to supersede both the game’s default slope mod settings, and if installed, the RealRailway slope parameters provided as part of NAM installations. Players should make sure to remove other slope mods, to ensure they don’t load after this mod.
B) Mix-and-match of various slope mod values
Players who wish to combine different slope settings for each network should create a folder in Plugins, zNAM_TunnelSlope_Custom. To it, copy one steepness setting for each network. Any network without a slope mod file will behave like the game default, or like any other slope mod loading first in the file order. To ensure completeness, this is the list of supported networks, in alphabetical order:
- AVENUE: Affects the Avenue, Avenue-based override networks (ex. Avenue elevated viaducts) and tram dual networks containing Avenue, such as Tram-Avenue and El-Rail over Avenue. This one also affects the Avenue-based overrides of the FLEX Turn Lanes (FTL).
- ELEV_HWY: Affects the Elevated Highway, either Maxis or Maxis Highway Override.
- EL-RAIL: Affects the Elevated Rail network, and the Ground Light Rail network.
- GROUND_HWY: Affects the Ground Highway network, either Maxis or Maxis Highway Override.
- MONORAIL: affects the Monorail network, and Monorail-based override networks, including the High-Speed Rail Project (HSRP) and the Bullet Train Mod (BTM), but not the Hybrid Railway (HRW).
- ONEWAY: affects the One-way Road and the OWR-based override networks, including OWR-1, OWR-3, OWR-4 and OWR-5, which are part of the Network Widening Mod.
- RAIL: affects the Rail network, be it the game’s default railway, the RealRailway, and the Hybrid Railway (Rail-Monorail dual network).
- RHW: affects the RealHighway network, in all width and height variants. Players doing mix-andmatch are advised to use a steeper RHW setting to accommodate the ramps, and to smooth the mainline alignment with a flatter network, for a smoother appearance and easier construction.
- ROAD: affects the Road and Road-based override networks, including the Elevated Road viaducts and the bidirectional Network Widening Mod networks (AVE-2, TLA-3, ARD-3, NRD-4, RD-4, TLA-5, RD-6, AVE-6 and TLA-7). It also affects road-based tram dual networks (El-Rail over Road, Tram-in-Road, Tram-on-Road). This one also affects the Road-based overrides of the FLEX Turn Lanes.
- STREET: affects the Street and Street-based override networks, including all the Street Addon Mod (SAM) options, and street-based tram dual networks (tram-on-street).
LICENSING
Users download, install, and run this mod completely and solely at their own risk. Electronic Arts (EA), the creators, and its individual contributors, are not responsible for any errors, crashes, problems, or any other issue that you may have if you have downloaded and applied this mod file to your game. The use of this document, the information within, and the Network Addon Mod is conditional upon the acceptance of this disclaimer and all that is within this document.
This mod is provided as free content to SimCity 4 players, who are free to modify it for their use. Considering this is a beta version, users are strongly encouraged to provide their feedback to the NAM team, and specifically to Lucario Boricua, for the further improvement of later beta versions, and the eventual creation of official versions of this mod.
What's New 0.3.1 View Changelog
Released
- Reduced vertical curvature requirements for Rail and Monorail networks in the Strict - Flat and Realistic - Very Flat variants of the slope mod
- Modified street network tuning parameters to enable compatibility with NAM DLL street tunnel support
- Added Subway and Pipe depth fix to allow players to freely build these networks, regardless of depth
- Updated documentation to reflect changes introduced
- Version 0.31: updated file set due to missing the Road slope parameters for the Moderate NAM Style variant.
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