NAM General Discussion Thread

[Yuryu 0]

Hello

First, thank you for this great mod. This helps a lot to make interesting roads...

I found this mod is not popular among the Japanese, so can I translate the manual HTMLs (and possibly the mod itself) into Japanese and write an introduction webpage? This would help many Japanese players.

Thanks.

[Andreas Roth 607]

Well, I can't speak for the other contributors (mainly Tropod), but I'd say: Go ahead! Since I translated the mod into German, here are some hints: Open the NetworkAddonMod.dat and the NetworkAddonMod_Custom_Highway_Menu_Plugin_Optional.dat in DatGen or in the Reader and copy every LTEXT file into a blank DAT (in the Reader, there is already a template in the left column). Now, translate everything and save the file as NetworkAddonMod_Plugin_japanese.dat or something similar (it has to be below the other mod files alphabetical-wise). The game will read this file later in the startup process, so the Japanese captions will override the original ones. This procedure is very useful, since you don't need to translate everything again when a new version comes out.

[Thalassicus 33]

I have added a short tutorial to the Interchange Calculator download, to view it make sure you extract first (or the images can't reference the appropriate files )

Interchange Calculator.zip

[last updated 9/21/04 at 9:16pm GMT-6 US central]

The worksheet also includes information on the costs of the standard interchanges, and (on the second sheet) the basic networks. Most everything is done at this point, so anyone who's made (or making) an interchange can go ahead and figure out what it would cost. I'm going to work through all the game interchanges, where would this information (plop/monthly costs) be stored in the DAT files? I can probably go ahead and modify whatever's necessary and save it to a new DAT, to send to someone.

[Yuryu 0]

>Andreas

Thanks for the hints. I will start translating, for it would take a while to complete. If anyone have issues, please tell me.

I will also post a message when I finish it.

[ardecila 124]

To any head-modder: In the Preview_Effects_Dir template TXT file, there are two arrows that say 5E and 5F. What does this refer to?

Two more questions:

Do I enter the IID in reverse?

Do I convert the IID, whether forward or reversed, into ASCII?

Thanks. Other than the data entry portion of the EffDir step, this tutorial actually makes sense to me. Congrats to Redlotus for such a great, understandable guide!

[Tropod 144]

Yuryu;
If you have any questions, problems, concerns, with the html just send me a PM (or alternatively, contact Armandeus , our Official Japanese Liaison, a PM if you have any problems understanding any of the files). And I will try to help you as much as I can, where possible .




ardecila
Just ignore the <--5E & <--5F. Just be sure to delete <--5E & <--5F, but not the section/code that they point to. Do not change the code that these two arrows point to either. Just be sure they're there when you're done making the Effects Dir, & that all of the code is put together properly when entered into the Hex Editor.
The IID is entered in the opposite fashion to what it might ordinarily be displayed in the Reader, 2 digits at a time. So if an IID is displayed in the Reader as 0x87654321, then it needs to be entered in as 21 43 65 87 (& that's not a typo).
As for the ASCII: the only thing that should be as it reads in ASCII, are sections like preview_el_diag_par & preview_el_diag_par_red sections (for example). The IID in ASCII is irrelevant (in a manner of speaking), as the IID needs to be in pure hex form. I'd suggest taking a look at some of the existing Effects Dir files in the NAM. If this doesn't help or answer your question though, let me know.

[ardecila 124]

Thanks, Tropod. Maybe those 5E/5F things were remnants of the original template. So the IIDs are in reverse byte order? Okay, I get it now.

[Xurros 10]

I don't know if someone has already tried to do this....

 

A huge six way interchange...

 

and a different four way interchange...

[Speedy 0]

Nice interchange! what to download to have the opprtunity building one?

[Thunderman 30]

Date: 9/23/2004 6:36:43 PM
Author: Speedy

Nice interchange! what to download to have the opprtunity building one?

quote>

You need the NAM installed, and then select the right interchange using the TAB Button, It's the Y-Interchange and he had connecting several off these to get the above results!

[DuskTrooper 314]

Excuse me if I am nbeing ignorant, but how exactly do you plop the avenue interchange?

[Speedy 0]

Date:9/23/2004 6:44:11 PM
Author:thunderman

Date: 9/23/2004 6:36:43 PM
Author: Speedy

Nice interchange! what to download to have the opprtunity building one?

quote>

You need the NAM installed, and then select the right interchange using the TAB Button, It's the Y-Interchange and he had connecting several off these to get the above results!

quote>

Ok. Thanks..

[Thalassicus 33]

Date: 9/23/2004 6:49:20 PM
Author: DuskTrooper
Excuse me if I am nbeing ignorant, but how exactly do you plop the avenue interchange?

quote>
Highway menu, custom interchanges, first one. You can't plop it over existing avenues.

[+Guest]

omg Xurros, thats amazing! Oh, and to to whoever who said there was a kind of workaround to the 16x16 interchange thing.....I'm guessing that the workaround is to just divide the interchange into several pieces and plop them all separately?

[Sabretooth78 808]

Date:9/24/2004 7:03:13 AM
Author:iamrobk

omg Xurros, thats amazing!  Oh, and to to whoever who said there was a kind of workaround to the 16x16 interchange thing.....I'm guessing that the workaround is to just divide the interchange into several pieces and plop them all separately?

quote>

That would definitely inspire more creativity (and workload ) and it would definitely be worth it.  It would definitely help with some of the ones I'm envisioning.

Is it a possibility?

-Chris

[the7trumpets 10]

I would discourage this, except in certain situations.

For instance, plopping 1/4 of a clover interchange at a time could be done relatively reliably, as long as you also use the tile pattern verifiers in the network ini file to ensure that whichever freeway went above the other was preserved if they were both ground or both elevated. However, in non-symetrical interchanges, where a pice of the interchange could not function by itself, it would be highly user unfriendly.

A MUCH better option would be to use the tile pattern verifiers in the ini RUL to ensure that there is enough straight freeway past the edge of the 16x16 boundry, and use the RUL overrides to replace the tiles outside of the 16x16 area. This has the advantage of being much more fool-proof. The only real disadvantage I can think of (other than the mind bending RUL coding) is that it may not be possible to use a preview image which extends farther than the 16 tiles. However, this has not been proven to my knowledge, so it may indeed be possible to use a larger than 16x16 preview image, it's just that nobody has tried it.

Using this method, the IIDs of the tiles outside of the 16x16 grid really wouldn't matter, although we should come up with a method for IIDs in this case, if anyone wants to do this. Everything in the interchange tutorial would be done the same, with the addition of editing the network ini and RUL overrides file. Again, if an interchange can be done without this, I would HIGHLY advise keeping it within 16x16 tiles. However, with the above method, it may be possible to stretch that, just know it's not for certain until we try.

[dominohobbes 27]

That's a cool 4 avenue interchange, Xurros, but I think it would be a heck of a lot easier to just make a 4 way intersection with avenues or convert the avenues to highways and make a cloverleaf.

[Tropod 144]

Date: 9/23/2004 10:14:24 PM
Author: Thalassicus

Date: 9/23/2004 6:49:20 PM

Author: DuskTrooper

Excuse me if I am nbeing ignorant, but how exactly do you plop the avenue interchange?

quote>

Highway menu, custom interchanges, first one. You can't plop it over existing avenues.

quote>



If folk are going to post/reply to others, could please try do so accurately, & not just 'guess' stuff thanks. It only makes you look silly when corrected.



As for the 16x16 limitation: As I said, it is theoretically possible to go beyond this limit. Since no one has really tried doing anything over this though, properly, can't really say for sure how well something bigger than 16x16 would actually go in-game. Anything over the 16x16 limit would most likely complicate things significantly for end-users, since chances are the interchange would have to be broken up into pieces (based on the whole thing) in order for this to work. It'd also require extra Preview files, Effects DIR files & whatever else that goes with them as well. As T7T, it would be user-unfriendly. I think perhaps this is something we could visit, but down the track though, but for now perhaps just stick with working within the 16x16 limitation. The only reason I mentioned going beyond the limit a [theoretical] possibility, was just to let you guys know it wasn't/isn't completely beyond our realms of doing. We

[Duke87 1,070]

Date:9/20/2004 12:54:49 PM
Author:Thalassicus

quote>

 

You're forgetting that there are 4 types of the T interchange:

-Elevated ending on Elevated

-Ground ending on Ground

-Ground ending on Elevated

-Elevated ending on Ground

 

You'll need your 'accurate' costs for the other two types as well....

[+Guest]

Date: 9/24/2004 4:10:58 PM
Author: the7trumpets
I would discourage this, except in certain situations.


For instance, plopping 1/4 of a clover interchange at a time could be done relatively reliably, as long as you also use the tile pattern verifiers in the network ini file to ensure that whichever freeway went above the other was preserved if they were both ground or both elevated. However, in non-symetrical interchanges, where a pice of the interchange could not function by itself, it would be highly user unfriendly.


A MUCH better option would be to use the tile pattern verifiers in the ini RUL to ensure that there is enough straight freeway past the edge of the 16x16 boundry, and use the RUL overrides to replace the tiles outside of the 16x16 area. This has the advantage of being much more fool-proof. The only real disadvantage I can think of (other than the mind bending RUL coding) is that it may not be possible to use a preview image which extends farther than the 16 tiles. However, this has not been proven to my knowledge, so it may indeed be possible to use a larger than 16x16 preview image, it's just that nobody has tried it.


Using this method, the IIDs of the tiles outside of the 16x16 grid really wouldn't matter, although we should come up with a method for IIDs in this case, if anyone wants to do this. Everything in the interchange tutorial would be done the same, with the addition of editing the network ini and RUL overrides file. Again, if an interchange can be done without this, I would HIGHLY advise keeping it within 16x16 tiles. However, with the above method, it may be possible to stretch that, just know it's not for certain until we try.

quote>


T7T's, I wasn't trying to suggest anything, i was just taking a simple guess, no need to get all technical.

[FireSka 20]

Hey, here is a 8-way interchange I created that wouldn't be possible without the network addon mod.  tell me what you think.

 

[Thalassicus 33]

Tropod: Sorry...I had tried that with the partial cloverleafs and diagonal/ortho interchange, and thought it was just a problem with all custom interchanges

  

Duke87: I've calculated those, I was just pointing out those specific ones as examples

If you don't think the costs are accurate enough, I am more than welcome to any suggestions on how to improve the formula! It currently closely matches 12 of the major highway, avenue, and road interchanges/overpasses, in addition to the standard network tiles. The only two I am yet aware of where the cost significantly differs are the avenue/ground highway overpass and elevated cloverleaf, as mentioned above.

The basic formula is broken down as follows:
Cost = B + CL + [a + b(c^h)(L^l)]

B : Base cost for a highway piece. This represents the cost of hiring the labor and equipment necessary to construct a highway.

C: Cost per lane of roadbed. This represents the basic cost for the volume of concrete used to lay the highway's roadbed, which is essentially the same for both ground and elevated highways.

L: Number of lanes in that tile.

[ ] : These values are only used when the highway tile is elevated.

a : Base cost to build an elevated segment. This represents the cost of hiring additional equipment, such as cranes, to construct an elevated highway/flyway.

b : Plyon cost. This represents a base multiplier for the cost of the elevated highway/flyway pylons.

c^h : Represents the cost of building an elevated flyway as a function of height, h.

L^l : Represents the cost of building an elevated flyway as a function of the number of lanes, L.

c and l are assigned constants.

The final value is then multiplied by the number of tiles of that type in the interchange, and an overall scaler for the type of network they represent. A refund is then deducted for the tiles that already exist when the interchange is plopped (the game automatically adds this back in if they havn't been built yet). If more than one type of network is present in the interchange/overpass, a seperate calculation is made for each with the appropriate scaler, and the results added together for the final overall cost.

[dominohobbes 27]

Fireska: That's the coolest interchange I've ever seen! I'll try and make some of those in my cities. Thanks for sharing that!

[Alkaola 18]

Dominohobbes heres another interchange that you might interest , and the other people

 

[subedei 3]

Ak, that end result of the interchange looks awsome.

 

 

Subedei

[FireSka 20]

I really like that tree texture...I'll have to see if I can find it somewhere online. Cool interchange as well, but I like mine better cause theres no traffic lights or stops... but both are cool.

[Tropod 144]

Just thought I would make mention;

It has been bought to my attention, that for those of you with WindowsXP SP2 installed, some of the Links in the documentation that comes with the NAM may not work. So if this occurs for you, you will need to navigate & locate the file(s) manually. Apparently the non-functional links return a Page Not Found error message; but the file(s) are there.

 

Edit: opps........thanks to greyveil for bringing this to my attention.

[thatmonkeysim 8]

i might be very nobish for asking this but did ypu plop all of those trees??

[Alkaola 18]

yeah i plopped it (not in a lot ) just in the normal 'treeplanting'

 

 

EDIT : Thanks Subedei for the nice comment

[pansarkatt 2]

Wow Alkaola, that interchange i beautiful!!!