NAM General Discussion Thread

[Andreas Roth 607]

@JoeMeister: smoncrie added some on slope puzzle pieces in the ground light rail mod, they appear in the overpass puzzle piece menu buttons. Press TAB until they show up.

[marszewczak 0]

Where can I find light train mod???

[JayStimson 211]

Andreas Roth: Which dat file are the on-slope pieces in ? I downloaded the GLR full package and placed the ZGLR.dat file in the same directory (mydocs/plugins) with the latest NAM files (3/8/05) and I don't see the on-slope pieces in any of the transportation menus. I looked in and installed the other .dat files (brenda,morifari,ndex) too and didn't see the puzzle pieces in those either. And also, with all the files installed, the light rail (misc menu) can be selected but is invisible and doesn't lay any rail on the ground or through either of the new LR stations. :-( Sorry to bother you, but there's no readme in the zip file to help me. Thanks.

[Ryan B 35]

The on-slope puzzle pieces are in the respective buttons.

For example:  Road On-Slope Puzzle Pieces are in the Road Puzzle Pieces button - just hit TAB a few times until you get around to them.

[JoeMeister 1]

@ Andreas Roth: Thanks a lot! You made my cities a much better place

[Swamper77 90]

Date: 4/3/2005 10:46:03 AM Author: JayStimson Andreas Roth: Which dat file are the on-slope pieces in ? I downloaded the GLR full package and placed the ZGLR.dat file in the same directory (mydocs/plugins) with the latest NAM files (3/8/05) and I don't see the on-slope pieces in any of the transportation menus. I looked in and installed the other .dat files (brenda,morifari,ndex) too and didn't see the puzzle pieces in those either. And also, with all the files installed, the light rail (misc menu) can be selected but is invisible and doesn't lay any rail on the ground or through either of the new LR stations. :-( Sorry to bother you, but there's no readme in the zip file to help me. Thanks.

quote>

Jay, try placing the ZGLR.dat file in a subfolder inside the folder where you have the NAM and see if that helps when placing the GLR pieces. The game loads each folder first and then the subfolders.
To access the on-slope pieces quicker, try using the SHIFT-TAB key combination. The on-slope pieces are at the end of the rotation cycle of the respective pieces. SHIFT-TAB cycles through the pieces in reverse.

-Swamper77

[GoaSkin 2]

Hello,

I began to create mountain trail puzzle pieces and started with a straight one piece. There is a bug to be solved: Commercial buildings may grow up along the trail and provide jobs. But if you use the transportation query tool, it shows 0 commuters. It shows the trail as completely unused while animated pedestrians still walk on the trail.

The PATH file looks like this:


SC4PATHS
1.1
2
0
0
-- Sims_3_1
2
0
3
1
2
2.5,-8.0,0.0
2.5,8.0,0.0
-- Sims_1_3
2
0
1
3
2
-2.5,8.0,0.0
-2.5,-8.0,0.0


and the RUL configuration:

CellLayout =.........
CellLayout =....a...<
CellLayout =.........
CellLayout =....^....

CheckType = a - road: 0x00000000

ConsLayout =.........
ConsLayout =....+...<
ConsLayout =.........
ConsLayout =....^....

What is wrong there?

[Swamper77 90]

GoaSkin, do you have a Mass Transit lot at each end. The peds can only access the Ped Mall tiles through mass transit lots or lots that have a Transit Switch Property that allows the peds through the lot.

-Swamper77

[JayStimson 211]

Swamper77: I got to the pieces in the menu. Don't ask how ... let's just agree I'm an idiot. Thanks for helping with that problem.

Now I have a different problem. I found the straight road on-slope puzzle piece to connect to the road over-ground highway piece and that all works perfectly. The ground highway is sunken of course. However, I can't seem to find the equivalent piece for the avenue. I found the avenue piece that goes on (over) the highway but not the piece that goes on slope to connect to the avenue on higher ground. Am i missing a dat file or something ? Also, Same is true for the oneway road.

[Swamper77 90]

Jay,

Smoncrie is still working on the avenue and one-way pieces. Apparently they have some major problems that need to be worked out before release. The only on-slope pieces that are available are road, rail, and ped foot bridges. Hopefully, he will get the bugs worked out.

-Swamper77

[JayStimson 211]

Thanks Swamper. For a minute there I thought I was losing my mind. I anxiously await these pieces.

[GoaSkin 2]

I have another problem since smoncrie implemented the onslope pieces but not with these pieces itself:

If I place any ramp for the raised puzzle pieces and there is no other raised puzzle piece placed beside, it digs a very deep hole into the terrain and you see the street disappearing vertically into water.

@Swamper77: You were right. Since I placed a bus stop on the beginning of the path, it is used.
Somehow, if you create a foot bridge, it works without a transit enabled lot at the beginning too but not the ped mall tiles and my trails (based on pegasus pine trails textures).

[smoncrie 43]

@JayStimson, I have almost finished working on the one-way road OnSlope puzzle pieces, so they will be in the next GLR release.   One of the reasons for the delay is that it takes much more time to make the pieces for one-way and avenue.

@Goaskin, the problem that a NAM ramp may dig a hole has been there since the NAM was released.  I think that the latest version of the NAM actually makes it less likely (My guess is that this is why I had to rework my OnSlope pieces).  You can always prevent the hole by placing the ramp on the end of a pre-existing road (or whatever).

 

smoncrie

[lakeyboy 12]

I have done some sketches on what I think 6 Lane Avenue Puzzle Pieces would look like. I would like to actually do some work on this to make it happen but it involes BAT so I can only test. I hope a modder or modders can take this on. (The following is 2 pictures. Not 1. Right click on the picture and click properties for proof.)


It might not be that clear but I had to shrink it to fit 800 Pixels wide. Basicly, there will be:
* start/end piece that can be flipped (3x2)
* straight piece (1x3) (3x3 & 5x3 can also be made to cure frustration in some users)
* road intersection piece (Made up of 2 pieces. (see picture above) A 1x5 piece & a 2x3 piece which gets used on each 6 lane avenue side of the intersection.)
* street & one way road intersection piece (same concept as text above)
* Railway Crossing piece (not shown but it will be 3x1 with boom gates on both sides of the carrageway which equals 4 altogether)
* 6 Lane Avenue intersection piece (Made up of 2 pieces. (same concept as road intersection picture above) A 3x3 piece & a 2x3 piece which  gets used on each 6 lane avenue side of the intersection.)
* 4 Lane Avenue intersection piece (Made up of 3 pieces. (same concept as road intersection picture above) A 2x5 piece & a 2x3 piece which  gets used on each 6 lane avenue side of the intersection.)
* Right Angle / 90 Degree Turn piece (3x3)
* Straight to Diagonal to left & to right pieces (3x4)
* Diagonal Pieces. 1 for the outer and 1 for the inner (see picture).
* Diagonal Intersections (haven't figured them out yet but the lowest on priority list.)

Priority & To Do List (1 = First to do)

1: Start / End & Straght
2: Turn Piece
3: Straight Intersections
4: Straight to Diagonal & Diagonal
5: Diagonal Intersections

Heaps of other intersections are possible but these are the basic ones for now. Don't even think about elevated 6 lane avenues yet.
Any thoughts on this at all (And also a big welcome back for THE 7 TRUMPETS.)

[mr.v 40]

Can i zone beside of this 6 lanes avenue?[:0]
(i need 10 or 12 lanes more..., but 6 is good )

[MavTheMaster 0]

Hey all,

 

Just downloaded the latest version of the NAM..and so far it looks awesome...

 

My wife is gonna kill you guys since i now spend all my time prettying up my cities with puzzle pieces...

 

One questions though:  The Pedestrian mall overpass end pieces appear in my game as red, blue and green boxes stacked on top of each other? Is this correct or am i missing some dependencies..??

 

Anyway...thank you for all your hard work...

 

Note sure where to give props for all the lightrail modding, but those guys are freaking geniusses (did i spell that right?? obvisously i am not a geniussessesesesses).

 

 

[MavTheMaster 0]

Another quick questions:

 

I like to make sunken highways through my cities and then have road (usually oneway) passing over (not intersecting) these sunken highways.  I have been ussing the puzzle pieces for incline and decline and placing them on sloped land to make them appear flat, this works functionally, but graphically it ends up looking a bit rough.

 

I noticed the pedestrian overpass on sloped land puzzle pieces and was wondering is similar pieces are available (i could not find them in the latest NAM) or could be developed.

 

Anybody else big into sunken highways?? I would like to exchange though regarding intersection/onramps etc...

[Pkmnrulz240 11]

One questions though: The Pedestrian mall overpass end pieces appear in my game as red, blue and green boxes stacked on top of each other? Is this correct or am i missing some dependencies..??

quote>

Yes, this is correct. No elevator could be BAT'd at the time, so the creators of the puzzle pieces improvised. :-P

[JessiLaurn 184]

With regard to double-decker road-el tiles, what is really needed is an integrated station piece, so that roads can continue for the length of an urban el line without foregoing stations.

[andreharv 1,197]

Amen to that

[Swamper77 90]

Date: 4/17/2005 3:15:13 PM Author: JessiLaurn With regard to double-decker road-el tiles, what is really needed is an integrated station piece, so that roads can continue for the length of an urban el line without foregoing stations.

quote>

JessiLaurn, I'm currently creating one in BAT for this purpose. I'm a little tied up with the work that I have been doing for the Avenue Turn Lane Project and the Ground Light Rail Mod. It's almost done, I just need to find some better metal and glass textures for the station. Then I need to do the night lighting, render, build the lot, and mod it to work. Give me a few weeks....

-Swamper77

[oroen 0]

the7trumpets: I'd like to add to where I would like to see priorities in development. I must say that I don't know how important double-decker highways are. I know many people seem to be asking for them, but they are not that prevalent in real life, so the need for them would seem to be very narrow.

I would say that definitely the ability to vary the number of lanes on a highway is the primary development that I would like to see. It would give us much more variety in designing a complete and realistic highway network. A way to seamlessly transfer from eight lanes to six (for example, and vice versa) would be ideal (e.g., lane merging, exit only, etc.), but I can appreciate the difficulty of it.

Also, an improved way to have a real express/local setup (dual/dual) would be welcome. Lakeyboy's superhighways are a nice way to deal with the networks that we currently have, but we could always use new networks.

Now that we have the 4-way stack interchange, I don't know how many more common interchanges we need. The trumpet would be a nice addition, of course. There is also something called a single-point urban interchange (SPUI) that you come across here and there, but it might be kinda tricky to design.

The only other thing I could think of is perhaps the ability to have an exit only, a network piece that decreases by one lane at the off-ramp and then picks it up at the following on-ramp. But I defintely see the difficulty in designing that. It would probably have to be an entire interchange, rather than individual exits, from what I can surmise.

I'm not much on rail, so I leave others to comment on that.

[oroen 0]

And as a separate point (and a separate post), could someone point me in the direction of the interchange tutorial that the7trumpets mentioned? I'd like to check it out and see if I have the ability to work with it. Thanks.

[the7trumpets 10]

By all means! The more people working on these things the better. It's a sticky thread in this forum at the top titled Interchange Tutorial Thread

[JessiLaurn 184]

Date: 4/17/2005 11:59:03 PM Author: Swamper77

Date: 4/17/2005 3:15:13 PM Author: JessiLaurn With regard to double-decker road-el tiles, what is really needed is an integrated station piece, so that roads can continue for the length of an urban el line without foregoing stations.

quote> JessiLaurn, I'm currently creating one in BAT for this purpose. I'm a little tied up with the work that I have been doing for the Avenue Turn Lane Project and the Ground Light Rail Mod. It's almost done, I just need to find some better metal and glass textures for the station. Then I need to do the night lighting, render, build the lot, and mod it to work. Give me a few weeks.... -Swamper77

quote>

Thanks for the good news, Swamper77; that will be one city retrofit that I will be all too happy to undertake! 

[kenkne 0]

I really enjoy have NAM!   Except for one thing, my game keeps crashing.  Whenever I open one of the NAM puzzle pieces, if I don't keep the menu bar open, the game crashes.  This has happened to me four times now, usually after doing an hour or so of changes and forgetting to save.  I have had to redo everything all over again.  This is very frustrating.

Please, anyone with a solution, please help.

[JessiLaurn 184]

It's a known problem, and occurs if you hover the cursor over an existing lot (such as an el station, which is all too easy to do when using the double-stack pieces).  While a fix would be nice, I suspect that the core of the problem is buried so deep in SimCity's programming that it would be either very difficult or impossible to implement.  The best thing to do is to simply save before working with puzzle pieces, and to be very, very careful about where you point your cursor.

[lakeyboy 12]

This is a issue that has sometimes just stopped me playing for a few days even. I love the nam & i am willing to use it even though the game can crash. Even though the game already did crash heaps without the nam (it could be from other mods i don't know), the nam just makes it worse but i heard it was instance number related in the puzzle piece + transit enabled lot = crash thread or something and that there was a number or range that didn't cause this or something

[kenkne 0]

At least I know why NAM is crashing.  Thanks for the advice, I'll be sure to save before using NAM.  I couldn't figure out what was causing the crashes and I'm not going crazy thinking it was just me.

[GoaSkin 2]

If you hover a puzzle piece over anything carrying vehicles, the game compares the RUL entries of both items to find out matching tracks (or if it impossible to put the puzzle piece over another network item). This is because the game wants to find out how the puzzle piece has to be rotated to place it over. So, if you choose a highway exit (the only original puzzle pieces) and hover it over a highway, it rotates automaticly so that it can be dropped on the highway without rotating it using the keyboard. The game tries to rotate it by 90