My Experiment in tunneling

[csq246 20]

Since Sc2000 I always had my railroad tracks bypassed, as in I would have it tunnel under roads or over in my attempt to create a grade seperation. One thing I missed about this in 3000 was the easy to make tunnels that you could literally put on any hillside. Last night I messed around with my Ilive, and found the file for Avenue tunnels. Well ladies and gentlemen my tweaking was a success...with this number fudging only a couple of clicks with raise terrain, and I made a tunnel.

http://home.earthlink.net/~kokomo50/Manc.jpg>

Here's something else it let me do

http://home.earthlink.net/~kokomo50/Manc2.jpg>

Neato huh? https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/3.gif' border='0>

[xcalbier 43]

you are saying you made a tweek that makes tunnels building simpler?
If so please tell use what you changed so as we can as well.
wile making tunnels isent to bad making them without all the extrea teraforming would be nice.

[+Guest]

Was the file in ILive or EA ?.

[Equinox 1,211]

What is EA?
As for the mod, give us some more info, it looks promising.

[Daeley 46]

you can already cross tunnels without problem... check out my thread on highways for some cloverleafs using tunnels

 

I am curious as to know what exactly you changed

 

[csq246 20]

I merely changed the minimum slope to start figure from 40 to 5. I searched for the ones for road and rail tunnels too, but either I missed them or they aren't in the Dat files, but hard coded to the execute.


Enjoy the gift attached to my post

[Equinox 1,211]

Awesome job.  This is pretty cool, but can you build roads that go up hills now?  https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/5.gif> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/6.gif>

[csq246 20]

This doesn't change road values, just avenues.

[rik85fr 34]

It's very silly that we cannot do Road OverBridge on Avenue whereas on Groud Highway we can...

[Slabrankle 4]

If u can, can u make it for roads and highways?

[Trolca 15]

I merely changed the minimum slope to start figure from 40 to 5. I searched for the ones for road and rail tunnels too, but either I missed them or they aren't in the Dat files, but hard coded to the execute.

 

Hopefully the same can be found for roads and rail tunnels.

 

One thing about this mod is it wouldn't have to be left in the plugin folder all the time. Place it when you want to tunnel on a shallow slope then remove it when you're done. At least it seems like it'd work.

[villarule 2]

im looking forward to hearing more!!

[csq246 20]

Trolca you are right...it can be interchanged in and out of the plugin folder.

I can't find the ones for road's and rails...I suspect they are locked in the exe. I am very new to this so don't expect this very often. I did however tweak with it more, and reduced it from 5 to 3, and it works great! Maybe the mod squad can find a way to unlock the road and rail ones from the exe?

[Trolca 15]

 I am very new to this so don't expect this very often. I did however tweak with it more, and reduced it from 5 to 3, and it works great!

----------------

Then you're in about the same place I was when I started. I'm still lost with anything beyond Exempler, S3D and FSH files.

[csq246 20]

I have so far made a few mods...mostly with just buildings, and such for my personal use, but this was just my first real mission. I always in sim city make my Avenues either go over or underpass my rail tracks, but in 4 you have to mess the terrain too damn much for tunnels, so I figured there has to be a value in there, and sure enough the value was called 'MinTerrainSlopeForTunnelStart'so it was very simple for a newbie like me.

[wraith90 1]

He thanks, I'm going to test this out right away, but where were you 10 minutes ago, I could have really used this.  Thank'shttps://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/2.gif>

[redlotus 16]

If your still looking for this property for road and rail, it's pretty simple to find it if you know how.  In the Reader, open SimCity_1.dat, click the 'Analyzer' button, click 'Search', click the 'Prop.' button (there are two, so click the one on the left), find the property in the drop-down list and click 'find'.  You'll have the exemplars that you are looking for in a few seconds.

 

-red

[+Guest]

Wow, this is a great discovery, and I can't wait until this becomes a mod. 

 

Now, to make sure I understand this, it makes the minimum necessary slope for a tunnel be only 5 degrees (or 3 or whatever you are having it).  With this mod, the game would always make a tunnel whenever you encountered a slope of that much or more.  But then taking the mod out would make the necessary slope for tunnels go back to 45 degrees.

  If I am understanding this right, it will mean putting the mod in, starting the game and making my tunnels, and then quitting to take the mod out so I could make normal avenues again.  Maybe if it will work and does not harm the game, you could minimize the game and take the mod out then and not need the restart. 

 

Hope I made sense and congratulations on this discovery.

[Chinaabc 1]

That is so awesome, can't wait to try it!

[woelfwynde 20]

Skittles: sorry, this game seems to be possessively jealous of any plugins...in other words, if you use a modd or lot or dat in a game session, if that session is still running (minimized), it will NOT allow you to remove any plugins/modds/dats/lots etc. (I know, I've already tried.) Best thing to do then, is to use the modd, save and quit the game, remove the modd, restart the game.

 

Good luck.

[ragnarocks 35]

Outstanding. I think the reason that streets and rouads can not be found is that they were pre RH. I own deluxe so I never had a pre RH copy. If this is true monorails should also be accessable for moding as their Data (exemplars...?) may not be hardcoded. This would be a very good thing as I am sick of the effort it takes to sink a monorail under water for a tunnel . Again Bravo Zulu on a job well done!

[simmax 0]

This is VERY interesting.... Maybe we'll have a mod? In 1 month? tomorrow? in 1 year? Anyway, I'll hope that these files will be found....

[couchpotato 8]

Really appreciate the easier tunnel.   See if this helps you find the other transportation stuff

In the reader:
1. Open up simcity1.dat and open the exemplar analyser.
2. Load the exemplars by clicking Search
3. Click the tree icon
4. Find Terraform
5. Find GodValleyRain, rightclick it and click add to patch.
6. Close Analyser and click Patch icon in main window
7. click create dat ... and save like a normal file
8. Open this file in reader - you can use the windows open with feature to do this or just click open in the reader.
9. when loaded, click Fill the List
10. Click on the exemplar file in the list
11. Right click in some of the white space on the right where all the properties are.
12. Click add property
13. Put 0xEA33D694 in the value box in the resulting dialog.
14. Change the type to unit32
15. click the add button. A value will appear in the list: this must be set to 0x00000000. (Thanx Tropod.)
16. Click apply and save file. Leave in the plugin folder and load simcity.
A new icon should appear at the top of the rivers, valleys etc submenu --- it can be identified only by the name it gives itself as you didn't change the icon in the steps above.

DP
Note:  this came from a forum thread on Rain and following these instructions shows the location of all street, highway, roads & rail

[qwerty697 2]

I found the properties and edited them for Roads, Rails, Avenues, Freeways, Monorail, And Elevated Rail.  I Edited the Streets, but when I Built the tunnel, there was no tunnel entrance, or tunnel exit, so I decided not to change it.

 

Here are some pictures

 

 

 

As You can see the elevated freeway tunnel Didn't seem to change.

 

The mod Is attached to the end of the post.  Remember to take the mod out of the Plugins folder when You're not gonna build a tunnel.

[Minotaur420 2]

awesome job, and th reason streets didn't work is because there's no such thing as a street tunnel. maxis didn't create one. so there's no 3ds file or whatever for what the entrance would look like.

[Tropod 144]

I'm surprised this hasn't been covered/moved in the Open Modding forum.

Actually, if I remember correctly [going by what I can remember as I don't have my computer at present to be able to look at it], the Streets Exemplar does have a Property referencing a 3Ds file, I think. But even if it didn't, adding a 3Ds referencing property to it didn't make it possible to create a proper tunnel entrance/exit for a street tunnel. This was something I had actually done some time ago, I just wish I tested it out in terms of functionality, even without the entrance/exit, just to see if it still functioned like a normal tunnel. There's probably more to it than meets the eye, either within another file [like the Effects file, most likely I would think] or the exe.

 

p.s. and for the love of, the program is not called Ilive [nor EA for that matter], it's the Reader, hence why it's called Ilive's Reader, for those of you who keep referring to it otherwise.

[psteverific 8]

I love this mod... I downloaded it awhile back and have used it ever since. But, I have not, as has been sugested, been taking it out of the plug-ins folder when not in use. No problems yet, just sometimes I have to lay roads in shorter sections to get over a hill.
Maybe it's just a matter of playing style... or is there some situation I haven't come accross yet?

[BigRedFish 24]

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/24.gif> You rule. https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/24.gif>

[the_new_simman 5]

That is pretty cool! https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/2.gif>

[BigRedFish 24]

First off, having experimented with the Tunnel Mod a bit, I think there's no reason to ever remove it.  If you want to build over a hill rather than use a tunnel, draw the road to the top of the hill, release the mouse button, then draw the road down the other side separately.  No problem.

 

After loading the (excellent) Tunnel Mod into iLive The Reader to see what was in there, I found another interesting, somewhat related set of exemplars:

 

MaxSlopeAlongNetwork, and MaxTunnelSlope.

 

These control the maximum allowable grade on a network.  I tried setting them to the following numbers to roughly mimic the maximum grade percentages I've seen on real networks:

 

Rail: 2

Street: 20

Road/OneWay: 15

Avenue: 10 (could go to 12 in mountainous areas, I suppose)

Highway/Ground Highway: 6 (could conceivably go to 8, as above)

Elevated/Monorail: 5

 

The result was realistic grades!  No more rails running up hills at a 25-degree angle (making the train cars look really goofy at the transitions).  

 

This makes it a little harder to place networks, obviously, as you have to really follow the map contours laying rail through.  Sometimes crossings can require a little manual levelling. 

 

On the plus side, no more wavy rails, it lets you really start using land bridges and tunnels, and making cuts through hills, just like real-life railroads and highways departments have to.  The highways look spectacularly real with these numbers.  And it'll save you a fortune in terraforming costs.

 

The elevated-subway and ground-elevated highway transitions look a bit silly in comparison, but they did already... hopefully someone who can run the FiSH-file tools will make longer versions of those pieces...

 

Try it for yourself, and tweak to suit your eye.  It's pretty cool for realism freaks.  If it's OK, I'll post my modded tunnel mod for those who want to do it the easy way.  If not, it's easy enough to change with iLive's Reader, only takes a few minutes, and then you can mod it YOUR way.