Building a small custom airport?

[Sxvijahe 0]

Hi everyone. I have used the default Maxis airports for a long time now because building custom airport always seemed so troublesome, but now I have decided to try and make a small airport with two runways for my region. However, I can't seem to find a overview on exactly which mods to use and so. I would very grateful if someone could point me in the right direction and maybe explain the basics of building a custom airport and which mods to use (or link a good tutorial.)?

 

Thanks in advance!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Good luck, and bearing in mind that airports are not transportation nodes related to getting to work and are eye candy.

[TekindusT 3,809]

I wrote some time ago a FAQ regarding this questions, you can take a look to it under the "spoiler" tag. It is a bit old and doesn't comprehend the latest releases by SCAG and the AC Teams, but it does the trick to begin with.

Custom Airports Building F.A.Q. by TekindusT

In all my time on Simtropolis forums, I’ve seen lots of users asking about different aspects of custom airports. They’re more or less the same questions, which we’ll be trying to answer on this article.

“What do I need to build this airports?”

Simply, lots of patience and custom content. You’re going to need a lot of custom content, but the time you spend downloading it will be worth.

Terminals, concourses and planes

We should begin first with the terminal buildings, there’s no airport without a terminal. The most popular pack right now is the ACB-VLT Terminals and Jets Series. This pack is named like this because was made by ace_bovenopdeberg and voltaire, which superceded an older pack you can also download just searching for “ace_bovenopdeberg” on the STEX.

 

• ACB-VLT Terminals and Jets Series (Part 1): https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=18477
• ACB-VLT Terminals and Jets Series (Part 2): https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=18479

 You may notice a few dependancies, they’re very easy to get and if you’ve downloaded stuff with dependancies you may already have them installed. But one of them is RMIP-2 SAE Vol 2. What?

Paved areas

I think RMIP stands for “Runway Markings Improvement Project” and it did this on its first edition, but later, the second version came out. SAE stands for Small Airport Edition. A Large Airport Edition is on the making at the time of writing this article. You’re going to need this in order to complete all your airports paved areas and believe me, you’re going to learn a lot of new things now.

 

On real life airports, not everything is “tarmac”. There exist the taxiways, the runways, the jetways (or gates), the apron areas... They all are on these RMIP-2 packs and we’ll see how they work and how to use them onwards on this article.

 

• RMIP-2 SAE Vol 1: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=15604
• RMIP-2 SAE Vol 2: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=16074 (This one is the main dependancy for the previous packs)

• RMIP-2 SAE Vol 3: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=17205
• RMIP-2 SAE Vol 4: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=18476

This packs are going to make your airports menu be VERY long. So I recommend also downloading the Menu Management Lots for this packs. They help control menu length by hiding menu icons while they're not needed.

 

• RMIP Menu Management Lots: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=16282

This are the basics. You can make a custom airport with this. But I always recommend, for the sake of realism, downloading some more stuff.

Extra airplanes

First of all, more airplanes. On the ACB-VLT packs you’ll find massive Boeing 737s and tiny CRJs. There has to be something on the middle, and you’ll find it on the next packs:

 

• ACB-VLT Series 2: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=21678
• XIZ-VLT Series (only available on the LEX): https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2146
• ATR-72 & ATR-42 Lotted Set^(*): https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=23439
• Searching for “josh6” on the STEX will show you a bunch of different packs of different size lotted planes.

Furthermore, if you’re too lazy to lot planes by yourself with the Lot Editor (like me), you can download the following pack, which will allow you to “plant” prop planes everywhere you want as if they were trees!

 

• SCAG Airbus A300 Mayor-Mode Plop & Taxiway Props: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=24268

Remember downloading all the dependancies! Plane props usually come in specific prop packs, so if you forget downloading these, you’ll only see empty gates in-game.

 

There are some more lotted planes on the STEX, feel free to download them too if you feel you need them!

Hangars

OK, we have a lot of planes now. We’re going to need some hangars to keep this planes... When you explore your airports menu, you’ll see that hangars coming with it are very small, only suitable for small aircrafts and general aviation. I recommend the following, but remember they’re not compulsory, but we all like to see realism.

 

• Modern Aircraft Hangar: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=16560
• Air New Zealand Hangar: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=24001
• Airport Hangar: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=17812

Cargo buildings and planes

You won’t find cargo stuff on the previous packs, this needs to be downloaded separately. Large airports have their own cargo terminals, which differ quite a lot of passenger terminals.

 

• SCAG Cargo Lots^(*): https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=23004

Control towers

You can build the most awesome airport ever, but without an ATCT (Airport Traffic Control Tower) it will be quite an useless structure. You can get some here:

 

• SCAG Modular ATCT Pack^(*): https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=20597
• Airport Control Tower: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=11308

Special terminal buildings

A couple of Japanese BATters have made some special modular terminal buildings based on the airports of Tokyo – Haneda and Osaka – Kansai. Both look very well and help making your airports “different”. You can download them here:

 

• Tokyo – Haneda Terminal Building: http://www.bripizza.net/sc4/hnd2/hnd2.html
• Osaka – Kansai Terminal Building: http://tadasu29.sakura.ne.jp/bat-ALLstyle.html

 Once you’ve downloaded all this stuff, which is going to take some time, you’re finally ready to go in-game and start building some airports.

“Is there any way to make all this functional?”

Unfortunately, all these packs are absolutely eye-candy; which means that they won’t have any effects on your game and you’ll still need Maxis airport to satisfy your demands and relieve your caps. Or...

 

Or you can say goodbye to all these ugly and undersized airports with one more plugin:

 

• RH Airport Pack: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=1864

With this pack, come some very old (year 2003) airports relotted and modded trying to make them more realistic. You won’t need them and you can delete all except one of the lots coming with this pack, which is a 1x1 airport lot. It looks like a plaza and pretends to be a Maxis airport which you can plop wherever you want in your city. Then, you simply can get rid of your Maxis airports.

“Why do I need so many pavements?”

Every pavement is used for a different thing. The only ideas I have about airport building is what I’ve played on SC4 and what I’ve seen on the Show Us Your Airports threads; but I think I can sum up all my knowledge with the next explanation:

 

 

1. Runways: where the planes take off and land. They follow specific painting schemes which mean different things for plane pilots. As I know a very little about them, I always recommend taking a look to different airports with a Google Earth (or similar programs) to see how this markings are laid and try to copy them in-game; or you can use one of the links provided at the bottom of this FAQ.

2. Taxiways: they are like the “roads” for planes, they need them to go from one point to another in an airport. You’ll identify taxiway tiles because they’re made of big floor tiles.

3. Ramps: it is like a main pavement for airplanes and it is generally well-cared. The plane gates have ramp textures, so you’re going to use this kind of pavements to make your main open zones. You’ll identify ramp tiles because they’re made of small floor tiles.

4. Aprons: like ramp pavement but less well-cared, used for general aviation zones, and places where planes are kept and repaired. You’ll identify apron tiles because they’re made of simple cracked concrete.

 

5. Grass: it’s not a pavement, but in some cases you’re going to need a ton of airport grass to complete your airport precinct. Some pieces, like taxiway corners, have a bit of grass texture to help making the piece an squared lot and not having overhanging props and this kind of things. This grass doesn’t match well with any terrain mod nor the default Maxis terrain texture, so this grass is useful to make everything look to be part of the same thing. This grass lots aren’t placed on the airports menu, they must be near the end of your parks menu.

 

As I’ve said above, with some practice, you’ll be able to identify this four different types of pavements on real life airports. Investigate and learn about how real airports are laid and apply this new knowledges on your airport; you’ll be on the way of making great airports.

“Suggestions for begginners?”

This is a difficult question, but I’ll try to answer it making to emphasize on some aspects:

a)      Know your pieces: if you feel this is necessary necessary, plop ALL your airport lots in an empty city, just to test them. See how they interact with the others. Try to make diagonal-to-orthogonal and diagonal-to-diagonal transitions using the pieces available and don’t frustrate if it takes ten minutes the first time. Once you’ve mastered the mechanics and understood how to plop the pieces; you’ll build really fast and you’ll use pieces you had never used before, adding variety and realism to your airports.

b)      Start small: I generally recommend making small airports before making JFK recreations. Small and civil aviation airports have the bases for the big ones. Remember, the bigger isn’t necessarily the better. I’ve seen amazingly realistic civil aviation airports and horrible and unrealistic airports taking up an entire large city tile.

c)      Trial and Error: I know it is a quite lame suggestion, but this is it. Most of the pieces don’t have “pre-plopping arrows” to orientate the users before plopping them, so often you’ll plop the correct piece but in a wrong orientation. Just bulldoze it and plop it on the proper rotation. This will happen thousands of times (and keeps happening to experimented builders) until you know very well the pieces and have memorized how to plop them.

d)      Explore: I know I’ve said this before, but it is one of the big concepts of this article. Google Maps, Bing Maps or similars are your friends and real life airports have the concepts you have to “imitate” in your game. Also, checking out the “Show Us Your Airports” threads, will inmediately inspire you with some new concepts you hadn’t tried before and new ideas will come up.

e)      Have fun: I guess this is the most important suggestion on this article. Building custom airports can sometimes be quite boring and repetitive (specially on the pavement plopping phase), if you don’t feel you’re having fun or whatever, give yourself a second chance and wait until you’ve completed the airport. If you don’t feel like “whoa, I made this by myself!” and you think you have been bored, just give it up. SC4 is such a great game because it explores many things about city-building, and you’ll have fun making something else. I’m horrible and I don’t enjoy making rural enviroments and nothing happens...

A final note on realism

Under my point of view: Realism = good. Unrealism = bad.

Airport planning

Realism depends on how things are made on real life and common sense. Just think a little bit when you face planning situations like:

 

- If I plant this trees so near the runway, would the planes have trouble to take off and land?

- If I place this terminal near the end of the runway, what would happen if an airplane has problems on its breaks when it’s landing?

- Could a large airplane reach it’s gate without breaking its wings if there are this smaller airplanes parked here?
- Could the pedestrians on this zone be run down by a plane passing by?

 

You know what I mean. Don’t make anything that would look strange on a real life airport and everything will be OK.

Anyways, we won’t bite you if you show off something which isn’t as realistic as we would like... Airport planning and building is actually a subject on aeronautical engineering degrees, so this must be a difficult topic. Like we're just playing SC4, just follow the Common Sense Rule and everything will be fine.

Airlines

Again, common sense.

 

Would a Singapore Airlines Airbus 380 (the largest commercial aircraft in the world) land in my municipal airport? No, it wouldn’t.

Would a Frontier Airlines airplane land in my airport, which is supposed to be on Southern Europe? No, it wouldn’t.

 

With this I mean that you have to be consequent with your airport size and geographic situation (in case it is placed somewhere). If necessary, try to make some searches on Wikipedia looking where does an airline fly to/from before plopping its airplane on your airport. Frontier Airlines would never reach Southern Europe as it is an airline that flies mainly west of the Mississippi River and has its hubs on Denver, Kansas City and Milwakee.

 
Useful non-download links and interesting concepts
Airport terminal designs: pier, satellite terminal, semicircular terminal, other.
Airport access and internal traffic
Sections of a runway and Runway markings


Hope you've found this FAQ useful. Please, have a great time building your airports!
 

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*  Files marked with an asterisc mean that they have Crash To Desktop issues when its lots are queried in-game. This is a problem all SCAG-made lots have and that hasn’t been solved yet and will happen to everybody, it’s not your fault.

 

[Sxvijahe 0]

Ok, thank you very much guys, that FAQ was especially helpful. Just wondering, does the latest RMIP version (Vol 4) contain all the things in the previous versions, or do you have to download all four?

[TekindusT 3,809]

To have the most of the airport building experience you should have all four RMIP-2 SAE packs. The Vol 2 is a compulsory dependency for the terminals and all, but I'd really recommend to have all volumes installed.

[Sxvijahe 0]

Ok, I think I understand most of the things now, just experimenting with building airports. Thanks.

[Shortsonfire 67]

“Is there any way to make all this functional?”

Unfortunately, all these packs are absolutely eye-candy; which means that they won’t have any effects on your game and you’ll still need Maxis airport to satisfy your demands and relieve your caps. Or...

 

Or you can say goodbye to all these ugly and undersized airports with one more plugin:

 

• RH Airport Pack: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=1864

With this pack, come some very old (year 2003) airports relotted and modded trying to make them more realistic. You won’t need them and you can delete all except one of the lots coming with this pack, which is a 1x1 airport lot. It looks like a plaza and pretends to be a Maxis airport which you can plop wherever you want in your city. Then, you simply can get rid of your Maxis airports.

 

 

Great question.  I had the exact same a couple days ago and found myself looking at some of the stuff that Tekindus posted, but I'm glad you have this thread because Tekindus summed it all up in one post.  I also found is quite helpful.  I spend a couple days looking at some of the pictures and figuring out what is common amongst every airport and I'll incorporate the common things in my own.  Make sure when you start looking at your files, you know exactly what you're downloading.  I went on a spree and got tons of different plane packs.  Landed ones, ones taxiing, others taking off, etc.  I found myself overwhelmed with the sheer volume of stuff that I had in a short time (something like 1500 files in a short hour of downloading) so I had to go back and figure out what I had and what I wanted, which took extra time.

 

Thank you Tekindus for posting the link to the 1x1 airport lot.  Nonny Moose had referred me to it just the other day in my own thread but I had no idea what to search for.

[Cob92 360]

If you ever get tired of plopping all the parts for custom airports, search "Regional Airport V.1" on the STEX. It's an easier to build airport; with just 8 big chunks to place and assembly instructions included.

[Adjiebrotot 94]

TekindusT already give a tutorial
a Custom Airport is little hard on the first time, but, at last it will be easier... and you will like the custom airport beside the unrealistic maxis airport

[Titanor 0]

I can't find the grass! Where is it?

[Shortsonfire 67]

I can't find the grass! Where is it?

 

Its at the bottom of either the airport tab or the parks tab.  I can't remember.  There should be 1x1, 2x2, 3x3 and 4x4.

[Epicbuilder333 3]

If you ever get tired of plopping all the parts for custom airports, search "Regional Airport V.1" on the STEX. It's an easier to build airport; with just 8 big chunks to place and assembly instructions included.

But all of the dependinces 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ pain in the tokus, but if you really want an airport ....