Boston Central Artery/Tunnel Project (Big Dig)

[Haljackey 17,398]

This... Is... GREAT! Awsome Job people! Once again, the the game's restrictive berriers are being taken down!

[blahdy 21]

Andreas: lol... yea. if there is one thing the real-world Big Dig and this BAT project have in common, this is it: not enough Q&A time spent to inspect everything thanks for the catch!

update to vent bldg #5:

1. Installing the other side through X-axis mirror.  Wouldn't it be nice if constructing a real building was that easy?

2.  Building is far from being done and it already looks realistic... thanks to mathematically calculated structure dimensions:

3.  Building superstructure: now 60% complete.  Need to complete the last remaining side (right side), then details and roof structures can go up.

[blahdy 21]

alright, here is a new update to the Vent Building situation:

1. Constructing the last remaining side's superstructure.  Real-life picture depicts the real bulding during the construction, on the same side that's being modelled here.

2.  Last remaining side is completed:  This marks 100% completion of all building superstructures, meaning this model is now in overall, 50% complete.  The remaining 50% of work left to do are details, such as installing remaining windows, vents shafts, constructing the lobby/entrance area, building the roof structures and installing equipments that go on the roof, etc, etc.  Fun fun...

3. Low quality, zoomed-out preview render shots of the building at its 50% completion stage:

[ardecila 125]

Andreas - the double images, I'm not sure. I'm good at figuring out stuff, but I'd only done a custom query once before. The images that Maxis uses for its queries are also doubled like this, so I followed suit. I examined the Maxis UI files and found that they only used one of the two (they used the one whose GID was NOT 0x1abe787d). But, having encountered problems with queries before, I decided to follow Maxis' example.

What do you mean when you say that the background image is tiled? Did I make the dimensions larger than I should have?

As for the buses and freight trucks going through the tunnel - I'm not sure freight trucks can be converted to subway. Subway carries commuters (who can also take cars) so they are compatible. I do not believe freight trucks can be converted to anything except freight rail, or vice versa. I originally tested the buses, but I had undesirable effects (large numbers of buses would spew from the end).

The problem with multifunction lots like this is that, once you convert both bus AND autos to subway, when the people come out of the subway, how do they know whether to take the bus or hop in a car to continue moving? In my testing, they usually preferred buses, so these lots ended up converting most of the cars going into the tunnel into buses on the way out. I'm not sure why, but maybe the buses offered a quicker way from the tunnel boat to the industry.

Bus traffic on highways is kind of unrealistic anyway, since buses are very large and they go short distances, making regular stops.

However -  I've been pondering this for about an hour, and I think it could work - a BRT tunnel boat.  BRT is bus rapid transit - that is, dedicated bus lanes, which are seperated from the main road.  blahdy could model this, or I could simply use the Marrast models, since those are set up for roads, which are bidirectional.  This way, bus traffic could be integrated into people's underground tunnels.

EDIT - 1600 posts, w00t! 

[blahdy 21]

ardecila: There are actually dedicated HOV lane tunnel portals in South Boston -- used heavily by MBTA Bus-Rapid-Transit Silver Line service. I can model that for BRT tunnels.

[Yoman3 5]

Very nice work here looks perfect!

[TommyMayor 0]

Thanks for your help guys. @blahdy 1. I hope plans are underway to set the "Transit Switch Traffic Capacity" property to 0 REPs on the final version (PLEASE GOD) so I can take advantage of this wonderful advance on the Mac version of SC4! 2. I did read the pdf, I read it and scanned the pictures but as I said in the earlier post even when zooming in on them in adobe acrobat reader they are small too small and lack enough detail to understand what the exact placement of the lots are. 3. However since I have the transit switch bug to deal with I have just ploughed up my region for nought! HA lol

[Andreas Roth 626]

Originally posted by: ardecila Andreas - the double images, I'm not sure. I'm good at figuring out stuff, but I'd only done a custom query once before. The images that Maxis uses for its queries are also doubled like this, so I followed suit. I examined the Maxis UI files and found that they only used one of the two (they used the one whose GID was NOT 0x1abe787d). But, having encountered problems with queries before, I decided to follow Maxis' example.

What do you mean when you say that the background image is tiled? Did I make the dimensions larger than I should have?

quote>

As far as I'm aware of, only one image is needed. I guess there's a lot of unused stuff in the SimCity_1.dat, so probably Maxis changed the group ID scheme during the development, but forgot to remove the doubled files. All custom queries I know work perfectly with only one PNG image included.

By "tiling", I meant that there's a small horizontal and vertical line throught the query window that cuts the background graphic in four parts.  I don't know exactly why, but I remembered that I have read somewhere that you can fix the issue by reducing the UI size by 1 pixel. Just try for yourself, and you'll see what I mean.

[SC4BOY 21]

Originally posted by: HandsOff ... the main H-Way to S-Way Tunnel entrance disappeard. The blank, blue placement rectangle is there, and all on/off ramps are normal, but the surface structure disappeared completely. I suspect it to have something to do with my installation of the new Hi-Speed ELR -haven't been back to the PC yet to test this, nut its the only BAT I installed since installing the Boston Dig..quote>

Hmm I have had this same problem with a "underpass for roads and highways" on the STEX (it works the same way this one does) and at the same time THIS BIG DIG model is fine. You mention in a later post that it was a "ground level mod" that caused it. What was it? I am not aware that I have anything like that installed.

Originally posted by: TommyMayor ... running sim city 4 RH on a Mac and I am getting the capacity of "1" in all of the query boxes when I am placing this highway system in my region. (is this the same bug I have read of in the forums regarding custom stations?) Can anything be done about this? ...quote>

 

Andreas already answered this, but there is a thread in the MAC forum on this issue. If you are a MAC user, you should frequently read what is posted there..

[StylinLancer 0]

So how do you go about using the BIG DIG lots? From a previous post, I understood you need to create subway lines and connect them to the lots? I haven't downloaded them yet but wanted to get familiar with them before exploring this once in a life time creation by blahdy.

So in reality the subway lines act like a tunnel?

[Andreas Roth 626]

Yes, basically every Big Dig lot looks like a tunnel entrance, but acts as a subway station. It accepts car traffic, converts it to subway passengers and then back to car passengers at the other end of the subway tube. Compared with regular highway or road tunnels, the advantage is that you can place them virtually everywhere, and you can also make curved tunnels, tunnel intersections etc.

[StylinLancer 0]

Awww very nicely done. I was hoping you were going to say that. I think I'll mark this for a download tonight.

Hey blahdy, well done dude! Look forward to using these.

[TommyMayor 0]

After, several looks at the MAC station capacity bug thread (Which if you had actually read my last post you would have been aware that I do read often!) I found this:

Originally posted by: T Wrecks In fact, you owe cogeo a beverage of his choice for finding the bug. I might have found it myself after some digging into the original files, but then again that's easy to say once you have seen the solution, and his tip saved me much precious time at the very least. I will send some adjusted files to jasoncw so that the entire STEX upload can be updated.

How good to be awae of this bug in future! quote>

I know I am a $%&^!, but I feel that at times, and this is only my 3rd post, some of the more seasoned members/players do not read what newer people post and assume complete ignorance in the new members. I am a very shy person online. I have been a member of simtropolis for a month tomorrow and I only started posting and chatting here after I saw the brilliant work that blahdy has made possible for highways. A few things that should be taken as read: 1 I do read the mac threads 2 I read readme's 3 I download dependancies 4 I am not looking for pc user attitude. I choose to use a mac because they suit me. I am not one of those mac users that think all other computer are crap, they are just my choice. What I am looking for, and I feel I have been asking for politely, is advice from seasoned users as to how or if I can incorporate blahdy's new advancement in highways in my new region that I am planning to make into my first CJ (Working title) Superior Marain. I posted on sunday knowing that the stations probably were exhibiting instances of the mac specific capacity bug that is due to the transit switch capacity being set to 1, and that this on mac's makes the custom stations that are set this way have low, and I mean very low capacities, the capacities on blahdy's big dig lots are all 1! I was asking, if there were any plans to release the lots in the final version with mac friendly, switch capacities. Just a question, and that was not answered. Thanks for the help, just treat me like a human Thanks

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Sorry if I interrupt...

@ blahdy: You wouldn't happen to have posted your stuff on the Maxis exchange under the nick "timman93"? Otherwise, some supposedly 13-year-old parasite has just pirated all your recently published Big Dig entrances and released them under his name without giving you any credit. I am currently reporting all the lots because I think that the latter possibility, while being the sadder one, is also the more realistic one. Just FYI...

Oh, and TommyMayor is absolutely right: When you make a station, better change the rep in question to zero to avoid this Mac bug.

Holy cow... I just remembered that I forgot to do the same for the HK MTR station! Jeez! Dang, it's so easy to forget that... Hrmph. I'll send an updated file to bixel tonight. Thanks for reminding me, TommyMayor. And you'd better not d/l the station before the update...

[kant01 5]

great updates on your work blahdy!!! I still love everything!  I hadn't realized that you were going to do the ventilation buildings as well! Very nice work there.

Keep up the amazing work!

[blahdy 21]

T Wrecks: Thank you for the notice. No, I did not release any more Big Dig lots since the official release on 22nd. Your assertion that someone pirated and plagiarized this product without giving credit is definitely true and this is a clear violation of the End User License Agreement included in the User Guide as well as EA/Maxis guidelines for uploading work. I'll investigate this, and thanks again for the reporting!

[joost.ueffing 0]

Hi there...

First, the highway connections are working great. I'm getting traffic going through it and everything. Will definately use it in more cities

A couple of questions:

- there is only one subway connector for the highway entrance / exit. Is that deliberate?

- Because of that, I'm getting traffic flowing both ways in one of my two tunnels because I've connected both to the connector, and flowing in one direction (the way it's supposed to) in the other. Is that the incorrect way to do it and if so, what is the proper way to do it?

[joost.ueffing 0]

Originally posted by: T Wrecks Sorry if I interrupt...

@ blahdy: You wouldn't happen to have posted your stuff on the Maxis exchange under the nick "timman93"? Otherwise, some supposedly 13-year-old parasite has just pirated all your recently published Big Dig entrances and released them under his name without giving you any credit. I am currently reporting all the lots because I think that the latter possibility, while being the sadder one, is also the more realistic one. Just FYI...quote>

 

Looks like this "timman93" has also swiped the Hole Digger lots for sunken highways and uploaded it as his own as well.  May want to report that one as well.

[Swamper77 90]

I already have.

-Swamper77

[hamsterTK 93]

weird..i didnt know that place still existed

too bad he didnt give credit or say they were from ST...

the last of the heathens over at the maxis exchange need to be converted....

[WeirdOne 0]

Originally posted by: joost.ueffing Hi there...

First, the highway connections are working great. I'm getting traffic going through it and everything. Will definately use it in more cities

A couple of questions:

- there is only one subway connector for the highway entrance / exit. Is that deliberate?

- Because of that, I'm getting traffic flowing both ways in one of my two tunnels because I've connected both to the connector, and flowing in one direction (the way it's supposed to) in the other. Is that the incorrect way to do it and if so, what is the proper way to do it?quote>

 

To add to his post, I am testing these lots in highly dense residental areas (i've been non-stop testing and monitoring since the release), and here are my *small* areas of constructive criticism:

1) the subway connector should ideally be at the "end/tunnel" portion of the lot. Currently it variates somewhere in the middle and is a pain the you know what to connect and get to function correctly. I spent a good hour trying to figure out why sims weren't using the lots despite the fact that they were connected on the ENTIRE lot by subway. It should ideally be at the "end/tunnel" portion for easy finding and easier deleting if you mess up placing the subway tiles.

2) As joost.ueffing stated, traffic flows in both directions and is EVEN more messed up if you happened to connect across several subway tiles. See diagram below:

xxx|x|xxx

xx|-|-|-|xx

xxx|x|xxx

vs.

xxx|x|xxx

xx|-|x|-|xx

xxx|x|xxx

The x's are just to make the spacing correct. The | are vertical and the - are horizontal subway tiles. When the ramps connect accross two subway lines or more (1st above diagram), they will create all sorts of crazy "driving patterns" to reach the shortest commute time instead of following the direction the single direction of the subway line. Therefore users have to be *REALLY* careful to connect only to one side of a dual/triple/quadruple+ "main artery line" (2nd above diagram).

3) Your lots are amazingly good at convincing RICH sims to use the tunnels as and avoid the surface roads for some reason. I surrouned 4 (5000+) $$$ residentals with a few tunnels and thousands of rich sims flock to them. I don't know if it's intended or not, but works great! Also, if bus traffic, etc was incorporated, I imagine tunnel usuage might skyrockets. I'm getting ready to top out the 10,000 limit in one particular tunnel. I'm hoping to replace it with some of your new lots when they come out.

4) I was hoping I might make some suggestions for future lots that you might consider (THE FIRST SET IS AMAZING!) I'm sure most of these are already in the works, but, I'd like to place them forward incase they weren't planned:

a) "Y-Shaped" lot where one branch is exit and the other entrance and also additional entrance only and exit only ones. (3 possible lots)

b) "Avenue To Tunnel" lot (thought I already saw a screenshot, so not biggie)

c) "Subway To Elevated Rail" lot in order to help those of us with EXTENSIVE subway networks. I have an extensive subway network and would GREATLY appreciate a subway to elevated rail lot in order to help with subway track re-routing for the underground portions. Since the current subway to el-rail transfers are 3 tiles, they take up precious space that some condensed portions of my city don't have space for, so, such a transfer would help greatly.

d) "Tunnel To Surface To Tunnel" lot because I noticed portions of the real Big Dig surface only to submerge again without an exit and would LOVE such a connector piece. Putting two of them together takes up 8(!!!) tiles, therefore a more condensed version would be awesome. Maybe a 6-tile lot for oneway, regular road, avenue, and highway? (even instead of the "Subway To El-Rail" lot as the subway could continue uninterupted below the small "surface" portion, thus creating a really simle work-around to dividing a city into TWO separate subway networks.)

ONCE AGAIN, thanks for the the amazing work so far. These above things were only meant as constructive criticism, so please feel free to tell me that it's not possible (I HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF BAT, LOT, etc abilities). 

Amazing work, and I *EAGERLY* look forward to the next installment. And I'll continue testing them to see how they function in these big areas.

[ardecila 125]

Andreas: Oh, that error.  I didn't know what the cause of it was, but I assumed it had something to do with the formatting of the PNG.  Thanks for clearing this up.

WeirdOne: I cannot control the placement of the subway foundation.  Maxis designed the subway foundation to appear on their 1x1 subway station only.  It was not designed for larger-sized lots, and there is nothing I can do to change the location.

Traffic flow concerns - We were lucky that the tunnels maintained their direction coming out of the lots, but there is nothing I can do to control routing underground.  The subway tool is very limited, and many aspects of it are controlled by the game.  If I could, I'd reconfigure it so that subway trains could not transfer at 4-way crossings (you'd have to build transfer tracks).  This is what happens on the railroad network.  But alas, there is no way (that I know of) to control subway rules.  What you can do, though, is seperate your directional subway tubes by 1 tile.  This way, when you lay out your track, the directional tubes will not intersect.

I will fix the fixable bugs (query and Mac property bug) and send the updated files to blahdy to re-up.

[TommyMayor 0]

Thanks for noticing me and understanding my post t wrecks! Still no answer to my questions from anyone else though!

[TommyMayor 0]

Thanks ardecila!

[joost.ueffing 0]

Originally posted by: ardecila

Traffic flow concerns - We were lucky that the tunnels maintained their direction coming out of the lots, but there is nothing I can do to control routing underground.  The subway tool is very limited, and many aspects of it are controlled by the game.  If I could, I'd reconfigure it so that subway trains could not transfer at 4-way crossings (you'd have to build transfer tracks).  This is what happens on the railroad network.  But alas, there is no way (that I know of) to control subway rules.  What you can do, though, is seperate your directional subway tubes by 1 tile.  This way, when you lay out your track, the directional tubes will not intersect.quote>

 

Is it possible to actually place two subwayconnectors on the ground highway connectors so that you can connect one tunnel to one enterance/exit connector and the other tunnel to a 2nd enterance/exit connector?  Would that solve any problems at all?

(and this is coming from someone who doesn't have BAT or LOT experience, so forgive me if I sound a little naive)

[Andreas Roth 626]

No, unfortunately the subway connector will show up somewhere on the lot, but you can't control the position at all. As far as I have seen, the position even varies on two of the same lots that are plopped in different directions! When I placed two ground highway transitions for my straight highway, both connectors showed up on the same row of tiles, although they should have been shifted by one tile, considering that the lot is two tiles wide. For the pure functionality, you don't need to draw two tubes at all, only one will do the trick as well, since all subway tubes are bi-directional. The layout of your underground tunnels is merely eye-candy - as long as all subway connectors are attached to subway tubes somehow, it will work.

[blahdy 21]

Originally posted by: Andreas Roth No, unfortunately the subway connector will show up somewhere on the lot, but you can't control the position at all. As far as I have seen, the position even varies on two of the same lots that are plopped in different directions! When I placed two ground highway transitions for my straight highway, both connectors showed up on the same row of tiles, although they should have been shifted by one tile, considering that the lot is two tiles wide. For the pure functionality, you don't need to draw two tubes at all, only one will do the trick as well, since all subway tubes are bi-directional. The layout of your underground tunnels is merely eye-candy - as long as all subway connectors are attached to subway tubes somehow, it will work.quote>

Yup, agree.. From my test on SC4, if you do do your on/off-ramp setup properly, and make sure at least one tile of one-way segment is present on each ramp with proper direction heading, SC4 seems to do proper path calculations (i.e. i never saw traffic taking an on-ramp to get off of highway after going thru highway transition lot, which is what i want). 

I think that if you do the network with good planning and care, it should work with reasonably acceptable traffic patterns.

But all in all, at the end of the day, this whole project is really an experimental technology for SC4 environment.  While there were lots released before that does road<->subway conversion, I think the Big Dig platform is the first to pioneer use of subway to create a whole new environment for highway infrastructure in a scale never done before.  So we'll probably see more bugs, etc.  One thing I would like to ask users is, if you see strange traffic behaviours that you can't figure it out after testing for long time, post us some screenshots of traffic-query results, so we can see how traffic is flowing in your particular installation.  This should help us in figuring out how to better improve future updates.

[WeirdOne 0]

Originally posted by: blahdyYup, agree.. From my test on SC4, if you do do your on/off-ramp setup properly, and make sure at least one tile of one-way segment is present on each ramp with proper direction heading, SC4 seems to do proper path calculations (i.e. i never saw traffic taking an on-ramp to get off of highway after going thru highway transition lot, which is what i want). 

I think that if you do the network with good planning and care, it should work with reasonably acceptable traffic patterns.quote>

 

I'll post a screenshot of my problem then, I guess it's not conveying on text. I have cars entering off-ramps and exiting on-ramps. I have people from a nearby subway transfering tracks from midline into the on-ramp (when there is no connection between the two present).

I will try to get a screenshot up tomorrow, but it's definately acting funny on my computer and I'm not too sure why. Everything is connected properly as far as I can tell. I'll post it tomorrow.

Oh, and thanks ardecila for the fast reply. Not knowing anything about the SimCity structure and functions, any information is pretty much new to me and so I definately had no idea about the placement of the subway foundation lot. Thanks again for your hard work in the modding process as well, it's all highly appreciated!

[blahdy 21]

@WeirdOne:  yea, a screenshot would help.

From what you are saying though, it sounds like to me, that you did not configure one-way connections properly to the ramps, but i guess the only way we can be sure is to see a screenshot of your setup.

Make sure that there is at least one tile of one-way that connects your ramp to its nearest connecting intersection.  And the one-way should point to proper direction: the arrows on one-way must be facing toward the ramp if it is on-ramp, facing to the opposite direction of the ramp if it is off-ramp.

[blahdy 21]

and a small update to the vent building...

Roof elevation has been corrected. 

I am now ready to construct the front lobby/main building entrance, which will be built in the red encircled area below.  Windows have been installed on this side of the building as well, as you can see.

Also, probably in a week or two, I have some killer brand new on/off-ramps that will be developed.  So stay tuned   Zakim bridge work schedule will be announced then as well.