NAM: Requests - 2nd Edition

[Tarkus 6,932]

It'd be problematic for a number of reasons.  The terrain engine likes having one tile for the slope downward.  There might be a very *slight* possibility that if one did funny things with slope mods, along the lines of the DBE (meaning that you'd have to do an in-and-out with temporary files), that one could create one that would cut a trench by activating the game's default retaining walls, but that is absolutely rampant speculation, and even if you could, it'd be another matter to try to get the overpasses to work, because of how the game will interpret the height level of the sunken network.

 

In short, it's not something I would anticipate coming true at this point.

 

-Tarkus

[cmdp123789 710]

Alright! thanks for the quick answer tarkus! Now, another question if you dont mind, would it be possible to have El rail over roads on diagonals?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Just a quick note:  Remember that the whole works is really 2D except for some building models that are 2.5D.  If you ask for something with depth involved it can only be some kind of optical illusion.

[Tarkus 6,932]

Alright! thanks for the quick answer tarkus! Now, another question if you dont mind, would it be possible to have El rail over roads on diagonals?

 

It's technically possible.  Diagonal stuff is harder to make, however (especially when models are involved, as they are here).

 

-Tarkus

[hey zeus 6]

I was wondering what if any further work is being made with the GLR portion of the NAM. There are a couple things in particular I've thought would be useful/aesthetically pleasing to have.

1. Sweeping curves:

     The existing orthogonal to diagonal glr transition is functional but not exactly realistic.  I don't know how many people use glr on its own or if most people use glr on road/avenue, but personally I like to build a lot of rail spurs off of multiple lines in young regions, then as they mature I'll replace the heavy rail with light rail in the suburbs.  Being able to keep the smooth 45* turns that are available with heavy rail would make the systems overall look better IMO.

 

2. GLR in one way road couplet:

     This may just be a pipe dream but is it possible or even practical to make glr couplets that can run on one way roads? It's a common occurrence in a lot of cities that have light rail and would certainly contribute a lot to the overall realism of cities.

 

That's all!  Keep up the excellent work NAM team! You all have kept this game fresh and fun to play regardless of its age!

[Tarkus 6,932]

GLR isn't receiving a lot of development at the moment, but I'd imagine it's eventually going to end up on the radar again fairly soon, as we improve the implementation of various NAM components.  We'll likely end up looking at wide-radius curves and switches as the rail-based networks get the FLEX treatment--I'd imagine that's something that could happen in parallel with the RealRailway (RRW) project once it picks up again, though that won't be until at least NAM 34.

 

The GLR-in-OWR idea is something that has been requested a few times over the years--especially among fellow Oregonians.  The original GLR-in-X Dual Networking development group was pretty much all German developers, and as they tend not to have GLR-in-OWR setups over there, that had been a lower priority for them, and it never got beyond a couple prototype textures, IIRC.  None of them are active at all right now, but as there are some promising implementation developments with dual networking (see the El Rail-over-Avenue system in NAM 32), and the plans to expand that to other dual networking options involving light rail, I suspect OWR will figure into those plans as well.

 

-Tarkus

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I suppose this means even more items in the RUL interpreter.  It is getting very cumbersome, even with the custom compile.

[hey zeus 6]

Thanks for the reply, Tarkus

Good to know glr isn't totally done with development. As a fellow Oregonian I'd like to be able to recreate the downtown portland transit mall and some of the streetcar lines.

The rhw, nwm, and rrw have really given this game a new lease on life. I've never played sc5 but from what I've seen and heard it sounds inferior to sc4. I've been a sim city addict since the original was around. Cities in motion is fun transit wise but it's not really a city builder game

Keep up the excellent work!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Would be neat.  However, there is no SC5.  The "reboot" is called SimCity sometimes with 2013 appended.

 

For Maxis Studio to make SC4.5 could be done easily with a slight rework to a 64-bit decor with the patches incorporated to run properly on Windows 8.  It would be a little more work to update to multiprocessing, and then I think it could be called SC5 without any other changes.  I would like to see access to the compiler for RULs to reduce them to executable code.  I'd pay for the game again if this were done and I am sure many of us would as well.

[hey zeus 6]

I had no idea what they were calling the latest sim city iteration. I don't need no new fangled internet based city 'Simulator'! Lol

64 bit sc4 with the ability to use multiple processing cores would be excellent though. Getting it to run properly on my laptop with windows 8 took some tweaking and I can only use a small fraction of my ram and processing capabilities at that.

I dual boot with ubuntu (been considering switching to Debian) and have thought of running sc4 on that partition with an emulator... Moving my colossal plugin folder would be a pain

[Brockist 15]

Not sure if this has been discussed...
But what about smooth curved GLR pieces? Is that going to be a thing?

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

Not sure if this has been discussed...

But what about smooth curved GLR pieces? Is that going to be a thing?

 

Read the last post by Tarkus.  

[Brockist 15]

Oh! LOL Sorry :S Didn't see that

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I had no idea what they were calling the latest sim city iteration. I don't need no new fangled internet based city 'Simulator'! Lol

64 bit sc4 with the ability to use multiple processing cores would be excellent though. Getting it to run properly on my laptop with windows 8 took some tweaking and I can only use a small fraction of my ram and processing capabilities at that.

I dual boot with ubuntu (been considering switching to Debian) and have thought of running sc4 on that partition with an emulator... Moving my colossal plugin folder would be a pain

SC4 works fine with Ubuntu/wine.  Look

 

I am currently running 14.04 with wine-1.7.20

[Belfastsocrates 1,753]

This is sort of a request and a general query, depending on the answer. 

 

Is the option available to edit the GLR draggable starter piece so that it uses a different base texture to the basic Maxis light grey? I'd ideally like it to be the brick texture I use. 

 

If that's not possible is that something that's being considered as part of the aforementioned GLR work?

 

 

I can always lot edit eye-candy GLR but obviously draggable would be a lot easier.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Is the option available to edit the GLR draggable starter piece so that it uses a different base texture to the basic Maxis light grey? I'd ideally like it to be the brick texture I use.

The long way would be to edit every single GLR texture yourself, or the alternative would be to use this:

If that's still unsatisfactory, the "GLR equivalent of the SAM" is actually far easier to modify since you only have to modify one texture.

[Tarkus 6,932]

That's what the GLR Draggable Extension Plugin is for.  It adds two additional styles of Draggable GLR, which are model-based rather than texture-based--the tracks are one layer, and then there's a single base layer that's used throughout.  The defaults are a grass base and a sandstone base.  If you want to switch out the bases, the IID for the grass base is 0x5f888104, and the IID for the sandstone base is 0x5f88c104.  Just replacing that single texture will make the entire set conform to whatever replacement you've used.

 

-Tarkus

[Belfastsocrates 1,753]

Thank you Ganaram Inukshuk and Tarkus. I didn't know about the alternate GLR draggable. It was buried deep in the transport options and didn't know it existed. The sandstone texture is absolutely fine, it does the job. 

 

How do you go about replacing the base texture to something different though? What program do I need to use?

[a.panda 10]

Not sure if it has been asked before, but would it be possible to have orthogonal avenue over diagonal rhw? I think currently the overpass option is only available for ortho-ortho option

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

Thank you Ganaram Inukshuk and Tarkus. I didn't know about the alternate GLR draggable. It was buried deep in the transport options and didn't know it existed. The sandstone texture is absolutely fine, it does the job. 

 

How do you go about replacing the base texture to something different though? What program do I need to use?

The Reader tool is one possibility. It's considered the all-around modding program. You would simply need to open the GLR files and replace the texture IDs. They will be hard to find as they are not labeled "base texture," but if you look up the ID of the normal sidewalk texture, you'll know what to look for. I'm away from home, so I can't help you with detailed info or screenshots. :/

Not sure if it has been asked before, but would it be possible to have orthogonal avenue over diagonal rhw? I think currently the overpass option is only available for ortho-ortho option

Part of the plan for draggable viaducts. Soon the puzzle pieces will be completely replaced.

[JessiLaurn 183]

Odd item request for the day:

 

OnSlope Subway-to-GLR.  Basic idea here being for the GLR to enter subway by driving straight into a tunnel-like portal (rather than having to use one of the Subway-Tram transition lots with the GLR "diving down" to the subway).  Among other things, this would be handy as hell for situations where a subway system needs to transit a deep river (with the associated slope problems); you could emerge from one bank, cross the river on a GLR bridge, then go straight into the other bank to continue as subway, all while visually appearing to stay on the level.  As with other GLR-subway connections, it'd require the usual underground subway-connector box for the actual transition.

 

Is this making any sense at all?

 

- Jess
              

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

OnSlope Subway-to-GLR.

 

Is this making any sense at all?

Yes, but that wouldn't be a puzzle piece since Subway and ELR/GLR are two completely different networks. It would be better fulfilled as a transit station, but that's technically beyond the NAM's department.

There was, however, a transit lot that fits your exact description (I don't have the link, though), but given the general nature of transit stations found on the STEX (and just about almost everywhere), I'm highly doubtful it'd be NAM compatible. However, you're welcome to try to make it NAM compatible. There's already recommend values.

[JessiLaurn 183]

That is completely fair, G.I.  And yes, it would indeed be a station (albeit with the only transfer being from subway to GLR/el, like the existing subway-to-GLR and subway-to-el transitions).

 

EDIT:  and voila, found the one you referenced:  "Hillside GLR to subway transition by morifari", still on the STEX from 2006.  I'll have to poke at it a bit....

 

2nd EDIT:  ....and dear sweet gods, it actually works!  Went really nuts with it, and went sub-to-glr-to-el-to-bridge (mainly because I like the look of said bridge.  And it works!


 

- Jess

[jmdude1 20]

That's what the GLR Draggable Extension Plugin is for.  It adds two additional styles of Draggable GLR, which are model-based rather than texture-based--the tracks are one layer, and then there's a single base layer that's used throughout.  The defaults are a grass base and a sandstone base.  If you want to switch out the bases, the IID for the grass base is 0x5f888104, and the IID for the sandstone base is 0x5f88c104.  Just replacing that single texture will make the entire set conform to whatever replacement you've used.

 

-Tarkus

 

I'm just wondering if somebody could go into more detail about this. I found the sandstone texture IID above in the GroundLightRailDrag dat file. Do I edit the S3D file? The only option I saw to replace the texture was under the MATS tab. Or am I way off track? I want to replace it with a concrete texture (0x25f61000).

 

Any help is appreciated.

[rsc204 21,808]

How do you go about replacing the base texture to something different though? What program do I need to use?

 

Create your new texture as a 128x128 png file, then use something like SC4 tools to create a dat with your new texture. Then open the reader and give it one of the ID's Tarkus mentioned above, ensure this file loads after the z___NAM folder and it will replace any of these pieces you have in-game.

 

You only need to find the original texture if you are going to use that as a template for the new texture, again this is simple - load the DAT containing the GLR texture in SC4 tools and you can export it as an editable PNG from there. :edit: I just checked the file myself and the image is literally only a grass base texture, the rails and everything else is handled by the NAM. So just make your texture and give it the same ID as the one you wish to replace, you don't need the original.

[cmdp123789 710]

Hey! I was thinking, is it possible to have EL Rail over one way roads?

[Tarkus 6,932]

Hey! I was thinking, is it possible to have EL Rail over one way roads?

 

It is physically possible.  I don't think it's been on our radar screen, though.  The models could, however, be taken directly from the Road version, so that would take care of one big aspect of it.

 

-Tarkus

[cmdp123789 710]

Hi again team!

 

Well I was wondering, and its just a thought, but would it be possible to create roads that are sunken? you know, like canals, roads that create the illusion that they are sunken, so that we dont have to ue 3 tiles in order to make a sunken road.. Is that even possible? Maybe for a NAM 34 release?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Some players do it all the time.  Just use the hole digging lots that come with NAM 32 to sink your right of way.  You can then place whatever road you want in there.  The fun comes when you want to have intersections at different levels.  You might want a good slope mod.

[APSMS 1,892]

Hi again team!

<snip>

 

1. Hi!

 

<snip>.

 

No, not currently. I don't think there are any plans either. Bipin has been working on a lot set of retaining walls that will make it appear to be filled space (though obviously the 1 tile slope will still be present. I think this is his MSEL retaining wall project. A similar idea has been done for rails (somewhere on the STEX, I think). The question was discussed earlier in the thread I think regarding the DBE and the game's default retaining walls, but the implementation is ultimately unsatsifactory and not worth the effort to make or use.

 

Only other option is to use the BAT and LE to make eye-candy roads; this is of course outside of the purview of the NAM.