Light rail modding help

[the7trumpets 10]

Date: 8/18/2004 2:27:17 PM
Author: Daeley

...I was also thinking it would be nice to have some sort of transition lot... uhm... network piece that would connect eltrain and tram together...

quote>

Network piece is right I also think it would be nice to have a tram (eltrains on rail network) to subway interface. That would need to be a lot, and to keep it consistant, we should have color coded lots for those as well since they basically are stations which convert one type of traffic to another, and spawn trains.

I suppose you're right, it is a lot less work for about the same bang. I'll start looking at what intersections are and are not possible, and see if I can dig up a list of any textures we need to allow crossings of these carriageways with train tracks in the middle and oneways on either side.

[baldy 0]

Alright, I'm going to join in on this.  I don't really think the tram to elevated rail is realistic.  Maybe, I'm wrong, and I'm sure someone will tell me, but as far as the game I think it would fit better with the monorail.  I know it's not realistic, but entertain the thought.  Also, I keep on hearing that this should be treated like an elevated rail on normal tracks, why not use the monorail logic on street level instead?

 

Yeah, I know I sound like the guy from the Simpsons, monorail, monorail, but hey, I'm just trying to throw in a different view point.

[Daeley 46]

actually, from a game poin of view, that's not such a good idea... simply because the tracks of elevated rail are very close to those of ground rail, while monorail tracks look totally different.

I'm sure there might be a possibility to create monorail-rail intersection, but I think it would look really weird as the tracks totally don't match...

[the7trumpets 10]

Hmm.. monorail trams. Can't say I've ever seen or heard of them, but you never know...

I think the main reason monorai tracks are not used at ground level is that cars would have a rough time getting over them. There are usualy large gaps beside the track where the huge electromagnets go near the bottom of the cars. Honestly, I'm seeing this tram thing as more of a rapid transit style tram. It will probably be primarily as its own network, but we may integrate it into road networks in the future, depending on how much time we have.

Ultimately, I hope we can create something that is modular enough for most people to find something about it they like. Unfortunately we're not going to get everyone to agree on the same thing

But I could be wrong. Has anyone else seen or heard of monorail style transit at ground level, crossing and going along roads?

[edit]
Daley brings up a good point. Since we're going to have to use the rail network, having something which uses rails is prefferable, since a monorail car wouldn't use the same type of rails.
[/edit]


Meanwhile, I'll start copying all the passenger train paths and duplicating them for use with eltrains, unless this monorail idea is better.


Just to let you know, I haven't been able to find any intersections which are likely and completely impossible. There are a coupple that are tricky to build, and if people have really big problems I may spend some time figuring out how to make some of the draws easier. However, for now I'm going to concentrate on a coupple more pressing things. I'm assuming that you guys would like to have diagonal stations as well, right?

Well, if someone with BAT/lot editor knowhow can load the building used as the station into the BAT and manage to rotate it 45 degrees, I'll make some transit enabled lots symilar to Tropod's diagonal tollbooth lots, which we can put a station on. My first idea will be a train track through the middle with oneway roads going through the corners, like a diagonal version of what was shown on page one of this thread. If there are any other ideas, let me know.

[Daeley 46]

well some good news: elevated trains have no problems traveling at ground level.

I changed the trams class id from normal trains to elevated trains and this had two interesting effects... now the trams stop at each station for a little while, before they'd just race through at maximum speed.

Secondly, the trams stations now produce some elevated train station sounds... a bit weird, but it's kinda fun. Anyway, I really agree now it was a good idea to make them elevated trains.

 

secondly, I've never heard or seen any ground level monorail and I personlally don't think we should focous on it... after all, it's a monorail, and trams obviously use two rails...

 

the idea of a diagonal station sounds really nice... since Mike made those stations I suppose he could also rotate them 45 degrees? I'm not too good with BAT... I'm also fascinated by that diagonal lot Tropod made... I never thought it would be possible

[Member19922 0]

This is an awesome idea!!!

now on to my gripes if you want call them that.

1st the trams should stick to rails (as some other big mods *cough* NAM *cough* cough*) uses them and implementing the trams on them would not allow the two to coexist.

2nd monorails are a no-no. simply because these would normally be implemented in say theme parks and areas where you want to transport people relatively small distances.

3rd and lastly, one problem with connecting ground rails with el rails is the fact that people can make the el rails turn into subways (which could be problematic for people trying to do UDI)

well thats my opinion... oh yeah... release a beta (if only to those in who read the thread) then when its more stable you can release it to the masses.

[the7trumpets 10]

1st the trams should stick to rails (as some other big mods *cough* NAM *cough* cough*) uses them and implementing the trams on them would not allow the two to coexist.

 

What do you mean?  It would not allow the two mods to coexist?  That's why on my post near the bottom of page 3 I wrote this:

Because this would involve changing properties in the traffic exemplar and network RUL files, it would need to be bundled with the NAM (network addon modd).

Actually, what would make the two mods incompatable is changes necissary to the traffic properties exemplar.  We would need to ammend that if we chose to use eltrains instead of passenger trains as the vehicle.  It really doesn't matter whether they can drive on rails and eltrain tracks or not.

 

3rd and lastly, one problem with connecting ground rails with el rails is the fact that people can make the el rails turn into subways (which could be problematic for people trying to do UDI)

 

 

True, but this is a problem with UDI on el rail regaurdless.  I fail to see why we should not offer it as an option.  After all, if someone doesn't want to connect them, they don't have to.  Like I said, not everyone will agree, but hopefully the advantages will outweigh the downsides.

 

So, getting to the tasks on hand, here is a list of the things we've set out to do:

Orthagonal color coded stations (already done)
diagonal color coded stations
rail to elrail transition as a transit network item (will require custom paths, Batting and slicing, hopefully redlotus can give us a hand)
rail to subway transition  LOT, as a station.  Will require BATting and a custom path to make it look right.

 

Once all of this is done, we can start experimenting with integrating rail into other networks, but that's a little ways off. 

 

Mikeseith, let me know if you can do the transit enabling of the diagonal lots, or if you want to make the lots and let me enable them.  I just don't know how long you need the station, whether it needs to be a 3x3 tile lot or if it can be a 2x3 tile lot.

There is one other limitation I should point out to you guys about the rail networks.  Unfortunately, there is a bug in the pathfinding engine when dealing with tile side number 32, like the North (top) border of the following tile:

 

The problem is that even though the trains should not be able to switch tracks, they do.  This causes some pathfinding errors, and may occasionally cause one color trams to go onto another line.  The occurence of such 32 type tiles is rather low, however, so I think we should go ahead and move on the idea.  Again, this is just a bug in the game which they couldn't get to before the Rush Hour patch was released, and I guess it hasn't been a large enough priority to constitute another patch.

 

Anyway, I'm excited about the possibilities, let's go!

[Andreas Roth 639]

I think using the el-train/subway network is a great idea! Both trams and el-trains/subways can be considered as light rail, and I don't see why light rail shouldn't be able to use underground, ground level and elevated tracks as well. It's true these old-fashioned tram models mikeseith created may look a bit odd when going up or down to another level, but looking at the pictures of modern trams some people posted here, these would make some great el-train/subways, too.

I'd love to see diagonal stations, since it's kinda annoying to make some twists into your el-train line whenever you want to put down a station. Regarding the rail-to-el and rail-to-subway transitions, I think you may already know these were made by a Japanese BATter some time ago; they can be found here .

[the7trumpets 10]

Wow, those transitions that guy did look great. Could someone ask him if we could have permission to use them in this modd? (with acknowledgement, of course)

Sorry, I never heard about those, I've been away for a while

[smoncrie 44]

Several months ago I did a lot of work on diagonal road and rail transit enabled lots. A quick look at Tropod's and they look just like mine.

 

I discovered a major problem with these lots.  The problem is with larger lots (3x3 and up).   Although they work at first they usually end up crashing the game.   I am not sure why, but I suspect the problem is in routing.  Traffic is routed all over the lot (the Transit switch point permits movement in all directions) and does not stay on the road/rail.  Even sc4paths do not change this.  My guess is that the game crashes when too many paths crossing the lot are discovered.  Note that this cannot happen to small lots like Tropod's.

 

smoncrie

[the7trumpets 10]

Intresting. You say this happens even when you write custom path files for everything?

We could do it with a 2x3, perhaps, but I'm curious...I may try some myself, with custom path files. Did you do it with custom path files even with path files for pedestrians?


Thanks for the heads up anyway, its VERY good to know that.

[ardecila 125]

Well, is it possible to add new Transit I/O directional values? I strongly suspect not, but . .

[theyeti2001 0]

Firstly let me say thanks to everyone who has or is still putting work into this, especially mikeseith, Daeley and The7Trumpets. This is really shaping up to be a  great modd.

 

I agree with designating the cars as el rail.I also agree that using rail instead of the ANT is the way to go and will offer us more diversity in the end as some folk will want this for trams while others will want it for light rail.

 

The other result of using el rail is that we can then reserve normal rail for intercity travel or major transport lines. 

 

T7T: is it possible to make ground el rail puzzle pieces with different base textures (concrete, grass, cobbles.etc as in the bad photo manip below) for the ground pieces of the network?

 

 

this was from my original tram thread I was trying to find modding help to change normal train tracks to have a concrete base texture as in the real pics below. 

 

 

 

Or would it be possible to turn the ANT into a ground el rail network instead of a road or would this conflict with the way the NAM uses the ANT?

 

Anway what we have sofar is far more than I ever hoped for. I just wish there was something I could do to help .

 

Yeti.

[smoncrie 44]

Hummm.. I do not remember if I included pedestrians.  However I tried it with road, rail and monorail.  The behavior was the same with and without the path files. When I used path files, I used them on all the tiles on the road or rail. My test lots had only the one diagonal road or rail crossing them.

 

When first plopped the traffic would mostly stay on the road, and automata would cross the lot. But over time less and less traffic would show up in the central tiles, and automata might show up on the connected edge tiles, but would disappear before crossing.  Transit enabling a tile that was near the road but not adjacent to any other transit enabled tile would show increasing traffic.  The tile that was on the same column as one connected edge tile and the same row as the other connected edge tile would show a lot of traffic.

 

Edit:  UDI worked even when the automata could not get through.

 

I am not sure if the game crashed with a 3x3 lot, but a 4x4 lot could make it crash.

 

I am reasonably certain the path files were correct.  To check them, I put in a small bump. I could see the automata on the path going over the bump, as expected.

 

I had put in a lot of time working on this. I did not like the traffic leaving the road, but the crashing problem was too much, so I dropped it.  However, I recently had an idea, but I have not tested it.  Transit enabling the off-road tiles and giving them a path with a stop in all 4 directions might restrict traffic to the proper tiles.  The path I am thinking of would be like 0x03003d00 with the other two directions added.

smoncrie

 

[theyeti2001 0]

I found these textures here http://www1.megaegg.ne.jp/~tokitoko/lot.htm#Train

 

 

If anyone can convert the ANT to an el rail network and the ANT can turn 90 degrees then these textures could be used for intersections, Is converting the ANT simply a matter of changing textures and specifying what tansport type can use it or is there more to it than that?

 

Yeti.

[mikeseith 469]

I just spent the last fourty minutes catching up on all the posts.

From what I've read, it seem that El rail is the best option with interesting possibilities. To keep things manageable, lets drop the monorail from any consideration. Someone else can do a monorail project...sorry Baldy

I'm happy that this has become a seperate mass transit option. We'll be able to use the trams along with the original modes.

Simpler is better most of the time so, I'm with Daeley on using the games rail and not the ANT.

The good thing about a tram station is that it doesen't have to be too large, so I could whip up a small 45 degree station for you t7t. Those rail lengths and stations are the first transit enabled lot I've made. I wouldn't know how to transit enable a 45 degree lot. So you can have it to enable, tweek and genrally bend to your will.

I'm off work Friday so I should be able to do it then. I'll let you know here when I'm done.

[Tunafish 48]

OK, so your saying that your going to make the trams a different el-rail car, which means that all the sub to el, and el- to the tram will be possible. second, if you do this the sub cars and el cars will be the same.

e the

Also about the rail, they won't look like the regular rail textures right, they'll be the thin single rails with no wood between?

 

for the turns, you could fit it in a tile couldn't you?

 

finally, wouldn't it be a good idea to color the light rail, so you don't have the lines combining. so you could have a blue el line red el line ect ( and subways to ). is there a way to make a junction so that a yellow and blue line could merge into one, but when the go the other way only the blue can go back to blue and the yellow can only go back to yellow.

 

like this

[Daeley 46]

Unfortunatly Tunafish, what you are asking would require having to block (for example) a red tram and not block a yellow tram.

As I've explained above, this is not possible. The color of the trams is something purely cosmetically, however the blocking of traffic has a certain impact on the game. Likewise, only the categories viewable with the route query tool can be blocked: peds, cars, trucks, buses, commuter rail, freight rail, el rail and monorail.

 

update: here's a little scoop for you all

UDI trams!

<pic removed... look post below for better pics>

 

I'm obviously gonna change the panels a bit... but I'm glad I got the mecanic right Also need to change the sounds, but you can't really make them out well on this picture

 

[Daeley 46]

here are a few more teaser pictures

 

 

 

pretty goodlooking huh?

 

I also noticed something else... I said the trams now stop at every station, well they appear to stop at every transit enabled lot they cross... Now this isn't that much of a preoblem for straight pieces, as you'll probably put road in between them, but I can imagine it being a bit silly for cornered pieces... I don't really know how to stop it though...

[the7trumpets 10]

Date: 8/19/2004 8:13:41 AM
Author: Daeley

I also noticed something else... I said the trams now stop at every station, well they appear to stop at every transit enabled lot they cross... Now this isn't that much of a preoblem for straight pieces, as you'll probably put road in between them, but I can imagine it being a bit silly for cornered pieces... I don't really know how to stop it though...

quote>

Hmm... using transit enabled lots? Why?



Date: 8/18/2004 9:33:26 PM
Author: theyeti2001

T7T: is it possible to make ground el rail puzzle pieces with different base textures (concrete, grass, cobbles.etc as in the bad photo manip below) for the ground pieces of the network?

quote>


Daeley
I'm assuming that you're using transit enabled lots to get the different looking straight track pieces with asphalt around the tracks instead of railroad ties and gravel. Is that correct?


theyeti2001
I assume you are reffering to the puzzle pieces like are included in the network addon modd. The answer is a resounding yes . The only downside to this option is that we would likely only be able to do straight and diagonal pieces, leaving any turns or intersections looking like the stock railway.

It 'may' be possible to create rail textures which conform to the road method of wealth class diversification, so that when the rail lines are next to urban commercial/medium and high wealth residential it shows one background and when the rail lines are in the open or near low wealth industrial, it still shows the original texture. I stress this as a remote possibility though, because I haven't tested it, and there's no way to differentiate between different types of zones, only different types of wealth classes, plus I'm not sure how far the bleed goes from a high wealth lot to the surrounding transit pieces. I'll try to do some testing and get back to you guys.

As a footnote, one reason I'm so excited about doing this with rail is that it will allow us to move much more quickly to release the first version, but work the quirks out so that if we eventually learn how to use the ANT well enough, and it offers enough advantages, we can easily transition to it. The only things that would need to change are one property in the 0x00000007 lotconfig lines (from rail network to dirtroad{ANT}), and we would be set. The ANT would definately allow us more customization over how the textures look and what type of concrete or asphalt base the tracks have. However, I kid you not when I say it would take 3 or 4 of us about 1.5-2 months of working at it to finish just the basic ANT tiles, and that doesn't include any intersections with other networks.

So, I'm glad we're all on the same page here. I'll do some testing to see what we can do to make the base of the tracks look different in urban areas, as well as finish up all the modifications to the rail paths that are necissary.


By the way, has anyone tried to contact that japanese guy to ask permission to use his rail to subway lot and the model for rail to eltrain? I looked, but couldn't find any link on that site to contact him.

[Daeley 46]

yeah, I'm using the TE lots Mike made for now... puzzle pieces does sound a lot better, but I have no idea what the mechanic behind them is so I'm afraid I can't help much there...

 

for now I'm pretty much finished with UDI-ing the blue tram... I'll try doing the same for the other three now. I also tried changing vehicle behavior to see if I could affect them to not stop on every lot, but that didn't do anything... oh well, if we're gonna work with puzzle pieces, they'll onlt stop at stations which is pretty good anyhow

 

oh and I don't really think it's a problem that intersections look like normal rail... most of intersections with road areembedded in asphalt, which is pretty good anyway  Intersections without road or turns looking the old way is a pity, but oh well nobody's perfect  

 

 

edit: just thought of something, is there anybody interested in tram UDI missions? I could try cooking up a few...

[baldy 0]

Alright, I see where I stand.  There's a reason I'm not on the modd squad.  LOL! 

 

I know monorails don't run on street level, but it was just a thought for the game because then wouldn't be using the passenger train, or EL/Subway lines.  The other things, that by looking at great Daely's work are not an issue, were the tracks (they look perfect), and that I think as EL demand increases, so does the length of the train.  With a Tram type system, you'd want to keep them short.  Plus, I also thought the cars for the monorail also looked like tram cars and would save some work. 

 

It looks like you guys have everything figured out and I'll just sit back and wait for this well need mod to be released.   Keep up the good work and the updates!

[Andreas Roth 639]

Date: 8/19/2004 8:41:46 AM
Author: the7trumpets
By the way, has anyone tried to contact that japanese guy to ask permission to use his rail to subway lot and the model for rail to eltrain? I looked, but couldn't find any link on that site to contact him.

quote>
I suggest contacting Armadeus, since he's the man when it comes to all the Japanese stuff.

[Tunafish 48]

If you can alter all this stuff, couldn't you make wider roads two, for ex. make an avenue with 4 lanes on one side and 4 lanes on the other. or an avenue without the median right?

[baldy 0]

You can reallistically only make transit things 2 tiles wide, otherwise everything grows exponentially out of control like the number pieces that need to made and such.  I'm sure someone else could go more into details, but this has been discussed many of times before and even addressed by Maxis.

 

On a simular note, 4 lane (2 tile wide) one way roads could be made.  This would give you the extra wide boulevards by placing them side by side, or with your own median in the middle.  To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't been address yet, and would most likely belong in the NAM thread.  Speaking of which, I'm going to go over there right now with this!

[the7trumpets 10]

Man oh man. I was sure that this would be easy as pie, but it has turned out to be anything but. To make a REALLY long story short, it seems like there's a gnome in my computer running SC4 who knows what network tool I used to draw the lot, and refuses to allow el train paths to work.

I've tried everything I can think of, but my brain is officially fried. I was sure this would work, and I'm still very hopefull, but right now I just can't think straight.


What I think is happening is that the game is not allowing eltrains to travel along the network even though there is a valid path and the traffic exemplar is set correctly because it's not classified as the eltrain network. I know that it does keep track of which network tool has drawn what networks where, that's what you see when you hover over a network tile in querry mode. I just never thought it would have any bearing on what type of paths are allowed or not, because I never ran into this problem before.

Like I said, I'm still hopeful. I just need some sleep and a fresh start. Just wanted to give you an update.

[Daeley 46]

ah don't worry, happens to me all the time

watch a good movie, sleep over it and look at it tomorrow with a fresh head... I give it a 50% chance you'll look at something and say crap, why didn't I think of this before...

 

 have a nice sleep  

[+Guest]

Is it possible to make standard train tracks do the full 90-degree curve, and then retexture it for the high/medium wealth areas with concrete, and then in low/undeveloped areas, have it be your ordinary gravel-n-ties?

Or is the 90-degree curve a pipe dream?

I know the other two are possible...


EDITIFORKATION:

You'd also need to make all the road intersections concrete, JIC. And we'd still need puzzle pieces for the cases when it's in between two roads, like in the above screenie.

[theyeti2001 0]

I don't think using wealth level will work T7T.

 

It was brought up in my old tram thread. I assume that it would work the same as a road does for wealth determination. If this is true you will get this:

 

 

As you can see, no footpath on the middle road. I presume that the network piece needs to border a lot to attain a wealth status. So while it will work for light rail running between buildings and park lots etc, it won't for trams that run between two roads. Actually this is annoying as a lot of road interchanges I've built look just a little hotrrible due to little missing bits of footpath. like below:

 

 

Notice all the missing peices of footpath that make the interchange look incomplete.

 

Although if we made puzzle pieces for all those places where wealth determined paving would not appear, then applied the wealth level base texture modd to the rail network and threw in a few transit enabled lots we might be able to achieve the desired result.

 

Yeti.

[the7trumpets 10]

Thanks for the tip yeti. Unfortunately, that's the least of our problems right now.



After Extensive testing, the only thing I can figure is that the type of traffic allowed on which networks is much more restrictive than I thought. I have tried everything I know how, and I simply cannot get eltrains to drive on rail or any other non-elevated rail network. I also cannot get trains to drive on elevated rail tracks, or any other non-ground rail network.

I don't have a clue why this is happening, but unless a miracle happens, I don't think my original concept will work. My only hope is you, Daeley. You said you changed the trains to eltrains, and it worked. What was your setup? Were you only using transit enabled lots? Or were you using some rail pieces, or rail crossings over other networks (roads, for example)? Just wondering what your setup was, because it might shed some light on a method I haven't yet thought of.

One other question Daeley, how do you assign the cars to be part of one network or another? This might give me some more ideas, but I'm not really sure.



Thanks for all the support. I will reasure you guys a little bit, that at the very least, we know we can still assign these trams as trains, and get them to use the normal train track. It just may not be possible to have a smooth tram on rail network transition to eltrain tracks.