NAM and other transit mods

[BirdofPrey 0]

OK, so I know about the NAM, it improves sim pathing and adds some transit options like roundabouts and ground light rail (which is an extension of elevated rail) .  I'm sure I missed some stuff there though.

What I am not so sure about is some other transit mods that add on to it.  The first is the turn lane extension mod that adds turn lanes and slip lanes and is included with the NAM.  I've seen that it automatically adds turn lanes and has puzzle pieces so I can add slip lanes, but just what do they do?  Do they improve pathing? Do they increase road capacity, or are they just eye-candy to make more realistic looking cities?

Second, the Network widening mod; it says it adds variable width surface networks, 5 lane turning lane avenues, and curves.  Now I can see the benefit from curve, since they can allow fitting roads in a bit better without unsightly zig-zagging, but I'm not sure about the rest.  Taking a shot in the dark, I would hazard to guess that wider road surfaces means more volume (always a good thing), but by how much?  Once again, though, I have no idea what to think about turn lanes, could someone explain them to me?

Lastly, is the Real/Rural/whatever Highway Mod.  Is this just a way of making custom interchanges, or is this something that can allow me to make wider and thinner highways, or even potentially emulate realistic 5 freeway stacks (like you see in the western US) where lanes split off and do wierd stuff like that?  (also does it have double decker highways?)   From the old name, I would also assume that it would let me create split lane highways like you see in BFE on the interstate, but, once again, I'm not sure, and as one of my old teachers always told me "assuming makes an ass out of u and me."

Sorry if this was asked before, but I don't like downloading stuff that I don't know what it does, and these mods contain laundry lists of what they include and have threads on how to do something, but I am coming up dry on what the actually DO, and what benefit they have.  Most of the threads I have found relating to these stuff are tips and tricks, release notes, and troubleshooting, so I'd appreciate someone with more brains than a search engine could elucidate here.

(also if there's any other transit mods of note that I missed, feel free to point them out to me, I'll take anything I can get to make the traffic advisor stop nagging me about gridlock in downtown sim city)

[joshriddle 29]

Some concepts of it are just eyecandy I think. The turning lanes are eyecandy I think. And I can never get NWM or RHW to work due to conflicting plugins. So really I don't know what they do.

[Vahr 341]

TuLEPs have some capacity effect to them, marginal, but they can help with traffic situations (ie slip lanes will take load off of the main intersection tiles)

NWM basically is for the allowance of crossable medians on avenues, wider network solutions (= more capacity), and the like.

RHW has a broad usage.

More realisticly scaled interchanges

Custom Interchanges

Higher capacities with the wider RHW networks

Variable width medians (except for the C networks - RHW-6C and RHW-8C, but they already have +133% the capacity of a maxis highway (overall) or 200% the capacity of a single side of the maxis highway compared to a single side of an RHW-6C/8C)

Stack ability will be fully implemented when RHW v5.0 rolls out, however you can still build psedo-stack and cloverstack interchanges with v4.0

Double Decker highways are in experiementation.

I reccomend looking at a few CJ's that use it a lot, for instance my own CJ Devlin (see my signature) or Deathtopumpkin's Virgin Shores. My CJ also showcases NWM and TuLEP.

[BirdofPrey 0]

Ah thanks for the info, but old answers raise new questions (or more I though of more questions to ask since I posted the thread)

edit: 

Originally posted by: Blue Lightning

TuLEPs have some capacity effect to them, marginal, but they can help with traffic situations (ie slip lanes will take load off of the main intersection tiles)quote>

I suppose every little bit helps, once your population starts getting to a decent level, the transit advisor becomes my least favorite person, subways are too expensive for medium sized cities, and the other options take up space. (so far I haven't bother with GLR yet, having to build an in road network piece by piece is far to tedious for my tastes)  Busses only remove so many cars from the road.  Is the load reduction slipways give at all worth the rid square they take up?

 

NWM basically is for the allowance of crossable medians on avenues, wider network solutions (= more capacity), and the like.quote>

I saw a picture with an avenue with stripes instead of a median, does that by itself give a capacity increase, or just building roads with more lanes?  The other picture has a road with a full length bidirectional turn lane down the middle, is that like the turn lanes on the intersections above (more candy than effect), or is that extra lane actually worth a fair amount of capacity.  Also are there roads wider than 2 tiles, and fancy stuff like reversable lanes (or even fully reversable roads) that would let me increase the capacity of areas that usually only have traffic flowing one direction in the morning and the other in the evening and save space (like the real thing)?

Also are there bridges for these larger and smaller roads, due to cost and space issues you can only have so many bridges so they become natural chokepoints, anything to increase the capacity of bridges is a plus.

 

RHW has a broad usage.

More realisticly scaled interchanges

Custom Interchanges

Higher capacities with the wider RHW networks

Variable width medians (except for the C networks - RHW-6C and RHW-8C, but they already have +133% the capacity of a maxis highway (overall) or 200% the capacity of a single side of the maxis highway compared to a single side of an RHW-6C/8C)

Stack ability will be fully implemented when RHW v5.0 rolls out, however you can still build psedo-stack and cloverstack interchanges with v4.0

Double Decker highways are in experiementation.

   quote>

I think I'm already sold.  Highways don't seem to be of much use for intra-city travel, but I do regional play, so most of my clogs happen on the routes to and from the city (I'm using the regions that came with the game, so no large cities that need an intra-city highway for me, once I find a region that I like, that might change, any suggestions here would be fantastic) meaning inter-city highways are something that I like very much.  Higher capacity anything is a no brainer, but the main thing I wanted to know is if highways can be split, in many real highways certain stretches have each direction of travel being a fair distance apart, and approaching multi highway interchanges multiple lanes get peeled off, o I was mainly wondering if RHW adds that kind of functionality.  (basically, are there pieces that let lane groupings converge and diverge as opposed to the monolithic block SC4 comes with).  Also what are my prospects for bulding express lanes

Bummer about the double deckers not being in though.  I hope they make it in eventually.  Sometimes you need more capacity but don't have more space.

Edit:  I was looking at some of the tutorials and it looks like all of the RHW is ground based.  Is this true, or are there also elevated highway pieces?

 

I reccomend looking at a few CJ's that use it a lot, for instance my own CJ Devlin (see my signature) or Deathtopumpkin's Virgin Shores. My CJ also showcases NWM and TuLEP.

quote>

I will indeed look at those.

On a side note, something that would be interesting to see: bus lanes on surface streets that increase the effieciency of buses, and HOV lanes on highways that encourge carpooling 

[peppo 0]

I Have ALL Of The Mods You Are Talking About, That Has 0% Eye-Candy.

[CaptCity 4,695]

Originally posted by: peppo

I Have ALL Of The Mods You Are Talking About, That Has 0% Eye-Candy.quote>

Is there an issue or question you wanted to raise? Otherwise, "bumping" older threads (this one was 6 months old) is not recommended unless something new is brought up...

[His Divine Hand 244]

Originally posted by: BirdofPrey

 

NWM basically is for the allowance of crossable medians on avenues, wider network solutions (= more capacity), and the like.quote>

I saw a picture with an avenue with stripes instead of a median, does that by itself give a capacity increase, or just building roads with more lanes? 

Edit:  I was looking at some of the tutorials and it looks like all of the RHW is ground based.  Is this true, or are there also elevated highway pieces?

quote>

The original avenues that are in the game do not allow traffic to cross the center line unless there is an intersection.  Now, with the NWM's avenue with turning lanes, traffic can make left turns.  This can help in commute times, since sims may have to travel down an avenue for a bit to do a u-turn to get to their destination with the Maxis avenues. 

Yes, the RHW does include elevated highway pieces in the most recent release.  Also, GLR has a drag-able option, so you do not have to place piece by piece.

[CaptCity 4,695]

As mentioned, "bumping" of threads is not recommended - particularly concerning NAM, where things change with each release. Feel free to start a new topic or post in the NAM thread if problems exist. This one will be closed...