Bridge Height Modd

[Pegasus 2,814]

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On 12/1/2003 9:20:11 AM joerg wrote:

That is a wierd bug wiht the ferries. Hmm i wonder if this would have happened before. I will test this when i get home. But i suggest for now that if you need to have a ferry go under it you make sure and get it right the first time. Also make sure and save before you place the bridge. I always save before i use a mod of some kind in my cities when i first start usign the mod.----------------

Not to worry. It was saved beforehand & not afterward... and it was only in my River Tool Kit test-bed city.

We know that the mod does not affect bridges just by being installed. After installing the mod but before placing any new bridges, the river traffic ran fine. I'm going to run a test to ensure that the mod does not affect normal-height bridge building. Get back to ya in a few...

[Pegasus 2,814]

Houston... we (may) have a problem.


First, let me give you a visual clue of the bridge I am testing with. This bridge was added before installing the mod. It was built as low as it could be built and still allow Ferry passage.

In this new test, with the mod installed, I first demolished this bridge and left the inclined/footing terrain in place. I then replaced the bridge with the same type... at the exact same height as the original. Everything worked fine, ferries and water traffic ran normally.

I then leveled the footings and rebuilt the bridge (same style) as low as I could while still having enough clearance for the ferries (per the bridge dialog box). The new bridge was notably lower... and despite the fact that the bridge dialog box said it was high enough for ferries, it wasn't. Ferry and all water traffic ceased.

** Conclusion: The mod does affect more than just allowing the placement of bridges below the Ferry minimal height requirement. It seems to throw off the "height gauge" used in the bridge building dialog box that determines if a bridge is high enough for Ferries or not. This could be an issue for the player needs to build a bridge high enough for Ferry & watercraft passage.

** Suggestion: If you can't raise the bridge, lower the Ferry. In otherwords, I think you are gonna have to expand this mod to include modifiication of the Ferry's (and other water craft's) height requirement. In fact, that might be all thats required. Once that requirement is lowered, the need to override or modifiy the bridges minimal height property might not be nessessary.

[joerg 278]

Well perhaps the ferry isnt supposed to go through? Have you tested higher versions to see if it goes through. I will make a test city and see whats going on here though.

[Pegasus 2,814]

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On 12/1/2003 3:47:33 PM joerg wrote:

Well perhaps the ferry isnt supposed to go through? Have you tested higher versions to see if it goes through. I will make a test city and see whats going on here though.

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I wasn't testing to see if the ferry would visually go through. The "visual" aspects of the game don't always coincide with the 'statistical' side of the game. I tested to see if the lower bridge blocked it's passage between the two ferry terminals. Which it does...

The ferries require at least two accessable terminals to function. The lowered bridge blocked that accessability so they stopped functioning. The ferry terminal usage stat dropped to zero as soon as the lowered bridge was placed.

* Testing on a river makes its easier to test. On a larger body of water, such as a sea with an island, where there is a ferry terminal on the island and the mainland, the ferry might still be able to make the connection by going around the island. Not very economical or efficient, but I'm not sure the game takes that into account.

But for all intents and purposes, the ferries and other river traffic seem to treat the lowered bridges as land. I haven't tested this to see if it effects seaport efficientcy. I don't have a test city set up for that.

Hope that clarifies...

[joerg 278]

Ok i just did some testing of my own and found that everything Peg said is true. There is a simple solution though.Basically if you demolish a bridge that was to low for ferries the game wont allow ferries to go through the area where the bridge was even after its gone. Now to fix this simple edit the terrain where the bridge was and immediately the ferries will be able to through this area again. And the amount you edit the terrain doesnt even have to be very much infact you could simply use the mayor mod lower tool in that ara for like 2 clicks and it should refresh and unblock the ferry. I will test more on his latest findings aswell.

 

Oh and im a groupie now yea. Now if i can get another 133 posts in the next 3 days i will have in the last 6 months posted 1000 times here lol.

[AfroThunda 1]

HAHA good luck joerg on the posts... I have finally got myself over 100!

-Afro

[Pegasus 2,814]

That sounds like another annoying aspect of what I refer to as "Elephant Terrain"... it never forgets.

Bulldozing doesn't always clear everything away. Occasionally, some residual properties, a 'footprint' remain in game's/terrain memory. Dezoning the area often helps... ( I tried that with the bridges to no avail) but apparently sometimes it takes the Hand of God(mode) or a determined Mayor to terraform the landscape clean.

[joerg 278]

Peg i know what your saying i just dont understand the games logic.

 

But i have tested your last problem and i was incapable of duplicating it. I basically made a large lake for both of these tests built a bridge accross that was connected to nothign the only route form one side to the other was by ferry one side indy and the other side res.

 

The first test i did was to see what would happen if there was a brdige to low for ferries built. This cuased there to be no ferries.

 

The next test was what happens when i demolish it this should result in having ferries again but no it did not. Ferries were still blocked.

 

So i then edited the land under the crossing just a little this fixed the problem. Also note that tryign to place the bridge in just the same way as above and then demolishing it did not result in ferries being blocked after it was demolished so it seems the problem is removed all together after you fix it once by editing the terrain.

 

Next i tested the problem of a bridge built with the mod that says its high enough not allowing ferries through. I then could not with any bridge replicate this issue.

 

Note this picture the bridge was built with the mod installed and was as low as it could be still allowing a ferry. You can see the ferry still goes through.

[+Guest]

Thanks for this. Now I got the kind of bridges we should have had back in Simcity3000.  The difference is astounding - From this:

 

To This:

 

 

Gotta go change all my bridges now.  CU.

 

Douwe.

[joerg 278]

Wow that looks like a nice little bit of city you have there Douwe you should make a journal your work looks nice.

[Stardog13 44]

I didn't really do much, just open the .dat and find the property. Anyway, now we need to find where the information for the minimum ferry height is and hope they didn't hard code it.

[Pegasus 2,814]

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On 12/2/2003 2:28:35 PM Stardog13 wrote:

I didn't really do much, just open the .dat and find the property. Anyway, now we need to find where the information for the minimum ferry height is and hope they didn't hard code it.

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I made a run at that last night and went through all the LUAs hoping it was there. We can adjust the Ferry's speed and even its turning radius from those, but I didn't find anything on its minimum height requirement. That doesn't mean its not there... just that I didn't find it.

Doesn't look to be in the path files either... nor the ferry exemplar(s). But again, I may have missed it.

I doubt it would be hardcoded... but you never know.

[joerg 278]

My guess after looking around abit is that its not the ferries height that needs changing but the bridge literally dams the river with an invisble wall when the simulator detects it to be a certain height above the river and this height probably is in the exe. Cant prove that but it seems quite logical.

[SimMaster 17]

This is looking good so far. I was going to post this mod in the mods section but......how do you post mods?

[joerg 278]

I think we need to wait for someone like DM Karybdis or Ralpheal Ninja to come in here and decide it is fit for the mods section then add it. We are still trying to make a few things work better and the bridges can cause some minor ferry problems but i guess its ready to go if i or someone else makes a better readme that documents a few of the problems and how to overcome them. But basically if someone wants to post it just ask and i will make a readme or something real quick.

[AragornJDL 1]

Ok I figured this might be related enough to ask here:

Would it be possible to allow bridges to be built over land, not just water? For instance, could you mod it such that you could build a bridge between two steep hills or over a gorge? I wonder if it could have a slope requirement, like the lots, beyond which it built a bridge instead of a road with a steep slope.

Of course then you gotta wonder if you could build another road underneath it. I'm thinking of the Natchez Trace bridge near my house in the suburbs of Nashville, TN. Well, not that style of arched bridge, the the concept.

The code might not allow for this type of thing without a complete rewrite, but I dont know so I thought I'd ask

AragornJDL

[joerg 278]

Acctually birdges can be built over land now its just that it takes some really exact conditions the land needs t be fairly steep. But unfortunetly you can not build a road under it. And a mod to make a road go under a bridge would take a long time and alot of very very hard work.

[frogface 352]

yes take a look at my city journal and you can see i made a viaduct. how? first you need the rain mod

well make a tiny canyon. then fill it with the raintool. build a bridge over it . exit the city and save then enter the city again and voila! the water is gone and you have a land bridge.

[NFX 0]

Haha thats hilarious.

So is there a version of this mod that ignores ferry height restrictions?

[corryzahn 0]

I'm trying to download this, but it keeps saying that the page is unavailable....

 

Has it been moved?  Is there maintenance going on today, and I should just try later?

 

Thanks, this looks so great!

[Auz 0]

Thankyou! Thankyou! Thankyou! I would kiss your feet but that would just be gross
Also may i suggest this be put in the mod section

[Karybdis 34]

So sorry I missed this guys. Its been uploaded.

Authors may feel free to send me a PM if they think its ready to be posted, though it has to be tested and approved by people to be placed there.

[Tropod 144]

Just thought I'd pop in here..............

 

The "Bridge Height" [0x482CB441] property in the dats is not exactly the actual bridge height, it is the ends of the bridges that it controls. Because of this, it's rather quite possible that the "Ok for Ferries" requirement is based on this [the ends of the bridges, and not the actual height of the bridge itself] in some way. There's possibly [& probably] another property [or two/more] that influences/controls this in some way, as I doubt something such as this would be defined in the exe.

[joerg 278]

Yes i caught that too tropod however im still trying to grasp how the game is interpreting this. Im guessing maxis screwed up here and there is no measurment for the height of the birdge form the water. But im very unsure of all of this. Anyway thanks for putitng it in the mods section Kary

[Jim 6]

Nice mod.My bridges are no longer like driving up mt everest.

[brutus44 0]

I still having trouble with 0 ht.on bridge,I only get the raised road bridge to work.Does anyone know what I may be doing wrong-I have installed the modd 3-4 times still does not working-thank you

[builderman 3]

It looks like this mod is dead. I don't think anyone will be able to help you.

Sorry.

And welcome to Simtropolis.

-BM

[Equinox 1,209]

Brutus, are you using the rain tool?  That might be what you need to get it to work.

[joerg 278]

Hmm well the thread may be dead but the mod isnt. Hmm Brutus im guessing you may not be installing it correctly or there is another mod causing some problems. Also just to clarify this mod only make it possible to have a flat lead up to a bridge rather than the steep ramps maxis provided. So if you are still gettings steep ramps on all the bridges brutus and you have the mod in your simcity 4/plugins directory then im not sure what the problem could be.

 

And Equinox why might he need the rain tool? I take it you are unframiliar with this mod.

[Skippydam73 0]

Joerg,
Just out of curiosity, I wonder if there is a slope conform to that ramp. The idea, when building the bridge, the land slopes at a certain percentage as compared to the height. Of course that would make it more realistic. Maybe Ill download the new reader and try to find something in relation to that....