Building Bridges With Ennedi's Slope Mod

[Evil.Iguana 4]

So I picked up SC4 during the Steam Summer sale and I've added a few mods to make the game more to my liking. I got NAM/RHW almost immediately because it came highly recommended. Today I picked up Ennedi's slope mod so that my road and rail networks have more realistic inclines. I've run into a problem, however, in that I cannot place bridges with the slope mod enabled.

Here's an example of me attempting to build an avenue across a river:

https://dl.dropbox.c...08-24_00003.jpg

No dice. It's not just the avenue. Attempting the same thing with a road yielded the same result. Undeterred, I tried using the ground lifter mod to create some pre-built embankments:

https://dl.dropbox.c...08-24_00004.jpg

Looks promising. Will it work?

https://dl.dropbox.c...08-24_00005.jpg

Nope.

Can anyone offer any suggestions for how to proceed? I'm sure there is some technique I'm unfamiliar with or perhaps I need to pick up another mod to help. Right?

*note: The existing bridges were built before I installed the slope mod. I suppose I could uninstall to build each bridge then reinstall to fix each slope but I figure there has to be a better way.

  Edited August 24, 2012 by Evil.Iguana  

[Yarahi 1,816]

You could just remove the slope mod from your plugins folder temporarily.. build the bridge.. and put the mod back in.

[Magneto 316]

There a 3 versions of Ennedi slope mod: smooth, medium & mountain. I've tested extensively all three but finally gave up on smooth & medium versions because of your problem: bridges becomes very hard to build, especially avenues and highways bridges (road is quite flexible).

Still it is possible to build bridges, but you'll need to do some terraforming. Your bridge will always build if the 2 edges are on same level. To check the tile height, hit Ctrl + X and type this command: TerrainQuery. You'll be able to have all coordinates by pressing the query button and hovering your pointer over land tiles. Height is the y value.

The trick is to level your edges (either manually or with terraforming lots). If they are at exactly same level, you'll be able to build the bridge. If there's a difference, then it will depend of the total length of the bridge: the longer it is, the more you can afford differences in height between your edges.

A slope mod sets a limit for gradient change: 1% gradient means you can have 1 m of elevation difference over 100 m. A tile in SC4 is 16 m long, so if you try to build a 6 tiles long bridge it will be 96m, thus with a slope mod tolerating 1% gradient change you would have slighty less than 1 m difference between your edges.

Below is a table with the gradient values (named here "max slope change")

Pick the value according to your slope mod and the network you try to build, do some basic maths and you'll know exactly what elevation difference the bridge will tolerate.

Judging by your pics my guess is you're using either smooth or medium...Try the mountain version if you didn't already, the slopes are still very nice and it won't be such a pain to build bridges... Or alternatively just remove the slope mod as Yahari said

Cheers

[blazerzr2003 1]

Try using a bridge height modd, I've been using this one along with a slope modd and haven't had any problems........you still have to play with the height so boats can still pass under but from your photo's it's looks like you won't have any problem figuring it out.....hope it helps....

  Edited August 24, 2012 by blazerzr2003  

[Evil.Iguana 4]

Thanks for the replies folks. I'm gonna give blazerzr2003's mod a try and see if that does the trick, otherwise I think I'll just end up building the bridges sans mod then loading it up to build my nice gradual inclines. I tried to make it work just by terraforming but I was never able to get the opposing ramps to exactly the correct height and still have them be shaped adequately.

Magneto is correct that I am using the medium version of the mod. I am curious about that data on the chart from the readme that he reproduced. The first value is obvious enough, but what does "Max Slope Along Network" determine?

[Spinmaster 75]

1. That bridge height mod is the key - it's an essential, to me. Slope mods don't override or include it, at least none that I've tried (I use Ennedi's now, too).
   
   
2. Build a road bridge first. The road bridge is much more forgiving when you raise or lower it. You don't want a road bridge? Build one anyway - the bridge isn't the point of this. Keep reading.
   
   
3. Now plop a road tile next to either end of the bridge. The two road tiles you just plopped will be at the exact same height. There might be a foundation under the real ends of the bridge, meaning the land under them is sloped, not flat. You'll deal with that next.
   
   
4. Demolish the bridge - don't demolish those two extra road tiles you just plopped.
   
   
5. Now plop road tiles where the bridge ends were. Yes - next to the other two tiles you just plopped and were extra-careful to not demolish. Now you have a two-tile-wide embankment on either end of your waterway, and they're both at the exact same height, and both perfectly flat. You can build any bridge you want across it.
   
   
6. But don't build the bridge yet - there's still some tidying to do. Plop (do not drag) road tiles towards the water. I find the best result is to stop when you have one land tile completely out of the water - but still sloped - and the next partially in it - don't plop a tile on that last dry square. That is where you want the bridge "foundations" to go, and most of them blend into the slope nicely there.*
   
   
7. No! Don't build the bridge yet!! One more thing - drag (yes, this time you do drag) some rails or an avenue away from the waterway - to smooth the slopes UP the embankments. I always use rails, myself. Just make sure they're the same length - as if it's an "avenue of rails". Take care to not include the ends of the embankments in this - you want that last tile or two before the actual bridge to stay perfectly flat. Now you can demolish those road tiles where the bridge ends will go.
   
   
8. Yes, now you can build that bridge. Any bridge - road, rail, highway... any. It'll be the right height (the road bridge did this), the same height at both ends (plopping tiles next to the ends - and then next to those after demolishing the road bridge did this), have nice smooth slopes (dragging rails away from the waterway did this), and the bridge foundations will look right (plopping road tiles towards the waterway did this).
   

* On some occasions I do get extremely steep - as in nearly vertical - drops where the bridge foundations would go. Sometimes it happens even before then, enough that even road tiles won't plop. No matter - use the mayor-mode "raise/lower terrain" tools. Why that one? Because it doesn't have a radius - it's a point, and you can raise/lower corners of squares with it. With a little practice even the sharpest edge can be made to look like a nice, natural slope. Just use quick clicks of that tool, if you hold it down it'll make a mess.

  Edited August 25, 2012 by Spinmaster