SimCity: Transit and Roading Networks

[grugor 60]

Yes it is just a 4 lane road.. I feel, with the transport features confirmed to be no more...this simcity is going to be a very lightweight city sim with minimal transport management.

How do you know this? guillaume has said that they haven't showed all roads types yet. they also haven't showed boats, ships or planes but they are confirmed. the only thing thats definitely out is subways

[MegaCitySim 68]

Transportation features confirmed to be no more, which are very important to me, are

-choosing where I want to place my city's external connections, rail, freeway

-building intercity rails and custom highways

-decide which pre-positioned tiles are rail/bridge enabled

-ability to build realistic local train network (won't look realistic on suburb size 2x2 tiles)

-ability to build Brooklyn bridge type of longer city bridges (tiles too small)

-using god mode to construct landscapes friendly for road/rail construction

All of these are not possible anymore in the new game. I'm really not trading all of these legacy transport features for the ability to watch sim pedestrians going back and forth. Very sad their new direction means this will not be a legacy Simcity anymore. I understand this is a 'sim' oriented kind of city sim, with transport sim, not a pure transport sim. And I did enjoy the mixture of sim elements that made Simcity unique in this genre. But the sim/trasnport games I play do come with sandbox mode or map editor. So I'm not going to feel deprived...just feeling disappointed with the loss of a legacy title in my most fav genre..

[grugor 60]

Transportation features confirmed to be no more, which are very important to me, are

-choosing where I want to place my city's external connections, rail, freeway

You can if the rail or highway is running through your city

-building intercity rails and custom highways

Not a major issue really as any road or rail beween cities will be just a straight line even if you could draw it.

-decide which pre-positioned tiles are rail/bridge enabled

This would break the balance in a multi-player game. Each city tile will have some benifits and drawbacks

-ability to build realistic local train network (won't look realistic on suburb size 2x2 tiles)

I agree. tile size should be bigger

-ability to build Brooklyn bridge type of longer city bridges (tiles too small)

I agree. tile size should be bigger

-using god mode to construct landscapes friendly for road/rail construction

Also wouldnt work in a multi-player region

All of these are not possible anymore in the new game. I'm really not trading all of these legacy transport features for the ability to watch sim pedestrians going back and forth. Very sad their new direction means this will not be a legacy Simcity anymore. I understand this is a 'sim' oriented kind of city sim, with transport sim, not a pure transport sim. And I did enjoy the mixture of sim elements that made Simcity unique in this genre. But the sim/trasnport games I play do come with sandbox mode or map editor. So I'm not going to feel deprived...just feeling disappointed with the loss of a legacy title in my most fav genre..

Its not simcity 5 as you know and new engine is a huge leap forward in city simulation. If the game is a success, perhaps most of the things we are looking for will come in expansions

[chrisnhl50 2]

Yes it is just a 4 lane road.. I feel, with the transport features confirmed to be no more...this simcity is going to be a very lightweight city sim with minimal transport management.

How do you know this? guillaume has said that they haven't showed all roads types yet. they also haven't showed boats, ships or planes but they are confirmed. the only thing thats definitely out is subways

Ia this not just the tail end of a bridge? Yep, that's what it is.

[Haljackey 17,385]

You mean we can't build our own city connection network or Golden Gate? I can't believe this. Sorry but this is not a SimCity if you can't build these.

Unconfirmed.

In fact, a lot of MegaCitySim's points are unconfirmed to my knowledge. Don't give your hopes up yet, there's still a few months to go.

[Machinimator 40]

I went back a few pages and confirmed we can't build or position connection points. The tiles are 2x2, Golden Gate is WAY longer than that. Sucks.

It troubles me there are only 3 months to go, but so many key SC4 items unaccounted for. I'm not giving up hopes yet. A lot can still happen. I will definitely campaign for the return of stripped customization ability.

[Jasoncw 11,941]

There has never been a SimCity where you can build realistically scaled suspension bridges.

[Machinimator 40]

There has never been a SimCity where you can build realistically scaled suspension bridges.

See bottom right. The yellow box is the big tile. You need a 4x4 tile to make a realistic scale suspension bridge WITH SHORES.

[Skyrunner27 23]

There has never been a SimCity where you can build realistically scaled suspension bridges.

See bottom right. The yellow box is the big tile. You need a 4x4 tile to make a realistic scale suspension bridge WITH SHORES.

{Pic of Bridge from region view}

Not very much area left so his point stands the same. Suspension bridges in Simcity are not realistic.

I realized for highways all Maxis needs to do is give us one way roads. then y=we can use over passes to created limited access roads. That way they can kill two birds with one stone. Give us Highways and One-Way roads.

One thing that I have to say because it is my biggest pet peeve relating Simcity 2013 is when some one says something like "This Simcity doesn't let us create our own Regional connection so it is not Simcity" That is wrong on so many levels, this game still has zoning, humor, and the basic functions of building a city.

[Moonraker0 193]

I don't really understand the whole "our simulator can't handle one-way roads" thing, to be honest. I mean, surely Maxis could figure it out if they tried.

[CXLMachine 17]

They just dont want to go through and rewrite how everything works in order to allow for a period of time through the simulation that a route would not be available with a return while the player constructs it. Im guessing you cant lay anything down without a road being present to it or the sim will crash. Thats just my imagination speaking

[Haljackey 17,385]

I don't really understand the whole "our simulator can't handle one-way roads" thing, to be honest. I mean, surely Maxis could figure it out if they tried.

It might have something to do with Glassbox. It's designed to have flow and contraflow. Example pipes deliver water one-way and water pollution in the other direction. Roads must be based on this system as well... Only time will tell.

While this may rule out OWRs, it doesn't rule out highways unless you do not want the travel lanes directly next to each-other similar to the RHW.

[Skyrunner27 23]

I don't really understand the whole "our simulator can't handle one-way roads" thing, to be honest. I mean, surely Maxis could figure it out if they tried.

I think that statement wasn't brought up by Maxis but by a non-Maxis Simtropolis forum user. I think that it would actually be easy to simulate a OWR. If they can't create a simple one direction path how do they stop roads from being destroyed messing up the simulation.

EDIT--

Check pages 10-12 for the One-way road statements.

  Edited November 21, 2012 by qwertyasdfpunc  

[Wiimeiser 452]

But then interchanges would have to be prefabricated. Can someone from Maxis give us just a bit more info?

[Machinimator 40]

Not very much area left so his point stands the same. Suspension bridges in Simcity are not realistic.

I realized for highways all Maxis needs to do is give us one way roads. then y=we can use over passes to created limited access roads. That way they can kill two birds with one stone. Give us Highways and One-Way roads.

One thing that I have to say because it is my biggest pet peeve relating Simcity 2013 is when some one says something like "This Simcity doesn't let us create our own Regional connection so it is not Simcity" That is wrong on so many levels, this game still has zoning, humor, and the basic functions of building a city.

What is UNrealistic, is TINY little train network LOOP inside a 2x2 tile.

Why fuss about nitty gritty items like one way roads, when the more important matter is a highway interchange will take up at least HALF A TILE?

They need to fix this transportation LITE problem if they want my money.

  Edited November 22, 2012 by CaptCity  
Removed off-topic comments. And let's not resort to hyperbole.

[Haljackey 17,385]

A good compromise would be to have pre-fab road and transport pieces as well as components in place that allow us to make them in a more realistic and creative way.

I would assume Maxis accepts that the SimCity is more of a hobby than a game. Everyone likes the 'game' option with budgets, social issues and disasters, but we also like a sandbox aspect that let us be more creative. As we've seen, SC2013 seems to appeal more to the game aspect but I am hoping as development gets further along we will see more of the hobbyist content and the creative side of the game, especially when it comes to transport.

[Dijego 66]

I guess they need to explain the glassbox engine a bit better for me to understand why we can't have OWR, because I feel like I am discovering more and more tiny things that annoy me about it. A thing I noticed was that when an industrial unit arrives at a commerical unit the truck that was carrying the goods just stays there, it disappears. I mean, if you're cutting corners on one side, make sure the other side is good enough to make up for that.

Meh, I want to know the agenda of Maxis, the features they are working on and the things they are aiming to improve before release. Because I feel like the game is not close to completion. We should call this: "SimCity: Rushed".

[MegaCitySim 68]

You mean we can't build our own city connection network or Golden Gate? I can't believe this. Sorry but this is not a SimCity if you can't build these.

Unconfirmed.

In fact, a lot of MegaCitySim's points are unconfirmed to my knowledge. Don't give your hopes up yet, there's still a few months to go.

Em can you tell me which of these confirmed-to-be-no-more points is unconfirmed?

-choosing where I want to place my city's external connections, rail, freeway

-building intercity rails and custom highways

-decide which pre-positioned tiles are rail/bridge enabled

-ability to build realistic local train network (won't look realistic on suburb size 2x2 tiles)

-ability to build Brooklyn bridge type of longer city bridges (tiles too small)

-using god mode to construct landscapes friendly for road/rail construction

[Vampirovibrio 43]

Rather than starting a new topic, I will use this topic to discuss the latest Insider blog posted which was a detailed explanation of roads and zone density. First of all, the article explain in detail what type of density housing would be supported by which type of road options. What is revealing in the article is that there are guides after laying down roads that will help determine how deep zones can be built. This is a rather clever way to minimize wastage of land. Also, it appears that the simulation is able to provide allowance for development of bigger buildings n the future by having zones that are surrounded by zones to be slightly deeper (at least that is what I interpret the article to be saying). This may account for the green spaces that some players have referred to between houses. This my interpretation is correct then I think that players that were concerned about the green spaces should feel relieved.

I'm hoping that we will get the second gameplay video soon as I'm hoping to see more of how the simulation works and how multiplayer works before making any final decisions.

[wtfboar 6]

Right. The blog said roads will be upgradable now from the same type. So if you build a tier 1 avenue and later traffic becomes to heavy for the road, instead of destroying the avenue and building a wider road you can now just upgrade the avenue to tier 2

[Haljackey 17,385]

Yup, makes sense to me. Allocating enough right of way for road widening has always been a pet peeve for me. Nice to see they're addressing the issue for this game.

I wonder if we can eventually make left turn lanes, roundabouts and slip lanes...

[mapboy 106]

It's good that they are incorporating road upgrading, but I can see myself being very frustrated when I want to turn a 4 lane road into an avenue. I'd have to demolish the street and all its buildings since one relies on the other in this game, and then the space left over would only allow one side of properties.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I think that they should allow players to build divided avenues with large sidewalks and 2 lanes of traffic each direction that could be upgraded to triple lane avenues and avenues with trams.

--Ocram

[MaxisGuillaume 289]

I think that they should allow players to build divided avenues with large sidewalks and 2 lanes of traffic each direction that could be upgraded to triple lane avenues and avenues with trams.

--Ocram

Yeah that's the "boulevard"

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Thank you! That is good news! So that means that the lowest capacity of the wider road tier has the same capacity as the highest capacity of the narrower road? Also, thank you for taking your time and clearing confusion. Keep up the great work in SimCity! I can hardly wait for the first Origin Sale after SimCity's release.

On a side note, I managed to buy a new graphics card and (overpowered) Power Supply Unit on Black Friday so I will be able to run SimCity, Anno 2070, The Sims 3, etc on high settings though my CPU is 0.1 GHz slow for Cities XL's recommendations.

--Ocram

[mapboy 106]

I think that they should allow players to build divided avenues with large sidewalks and 2 lanes of traffic each direction that could be upgraded to triple lane avenues and avenues with trams.

--Ocram

Yeah that's the "boulevard"

Ooh, that's the first I've heard of this road type.

[MaxisGuillaume 289]

Thank you! That is good news! So that means that the lowest capacity of the wider road tier has the same capacity as the highest capacity of the narrower road? Also, thank you for taking your time and clearing confusion. Keep up the great work in SimCity! I can hardly wait for the first Origin Sale after SimCity's release.

Functionally it's somewhere between the (narrow) 4-lane road with stops and (narrow) 4-lane road with lights: it has 4 lanes, traffic lights, but can only support up to medium density buildings.

[mapboy 106]

Thank you! That is good news! So that means that the lowest capacity of the wider road tier has the same capacity as the highest capacity of the narrower road? Also, thank you for taking your time and clearing confusion. Keep up the great work in SimCity! I can hardly wait for the first Origin Sale after SimCity's release.

Functionally it's somewhere between the (narrow) 4-lane road with stops and (narrow) 4-lane road with lights: it has 4 lanes, traffic lights, but can only support up to medium density buildings.

If a narrow street can only support up to medium density buildings, why have I seen high density buildings on narrow streets in screenshots, such as this one: http://www.thesimshub.com/~thesimsh/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/680448_10151268880309866_2003405795_o.jpg

[Frode789 70]

Thank you! That is good news! So that means that the lowest capacity of the wider road tier has the same capacity as the highest capacity of the narrower road? Also, thank you for taking your time and clearing confusion. Keep up the great work in SimCity! I can hardly wait for the first Origin Sale after SimCity's release.

Functionally it's somewhere between the (narrow) 4-lane road with stops and (narrow) 4-lane road with lights: it has 4 lanes, traffic lights, but can only support up to medium density buildings.

If a narrow street can only support up to medium density buildings, why have I seen high density buildings on narrow streets in screenshots, such as this one: http://www.thesimshu...003405795_o.jpg

Narrow? Look closer, they are 2 x 2 lane roads..

[MaxisGuillaume 289]

If a narrow street can only support up to medium density buildings, why have I seen high density buildings on narrow streets in screenshots, such as this one: http://www.thesimshu...003405795_o.jpg

That's because the (narrow) 4-lane road with lights supports high density buildings.