NAM: Development

[AsimPika3172 1,129]

My dream was comes true!!! 🤩 RHW 12S forever!

[justforfun 7,778]

10 hours ago, Flann said:

you can't round the other corner without introducing a discrepancy with the adjacent tile in the T-intersection scenario.  That would have to be resolved with an entirely new piece.  Right now, the piece cares not whether there is an intersection on the next tile or not.

Oh, this explains it. Diagonal streets don't have separate textures for Ts and Xs, and yes, rounding only a pair of corners would look a bit odd. Got it.

9 hours ago, Tarkus said:

No one has specifically and intensively dedicated themselves to the Street network/SAM for an extended period since the SAM's original developer (jplumbley) and texturist (Diggis) were last truly active . . . in the late-00s.

Thank you, this explains it too. I am still using NAM 30, which I think dates back from 2011 or so, and this many NAMs later diagonal streets have indeed remained the same. My point is that personally I would have given these unrealistic intersections a slightly higher priority over other, even more complex, features. But, as you mention, what gets developed is obviously what's close to the developer's heart. Nothing I can do there.

[Tarkus 6,932]

13 hours ago, justforfun said:

Thank you, this explains it too. I am still using NAM 30, which I think dates back from 2011 or so, and this many NAMs later diagonal streets have indeed remained the same.

While Street improvements haven't been a headline feature in any of the NAM releases since NAM 30, some of those "side projects" did make some noticeable improvements and expansions. 

• The aforementioned Diagonal x Diagonal Street intersection was found to have a pathing bug that completely prevented left turns, which was fixed with NAM 37 (July 2020).
• The texture improvements that @rsc204 showed (which were done by Jiwoahn) arrived with NAM 42 (August 2021).  Before that, we also merged in the previously-separate "NAM Retexture and Cosmetic Mod" by superhands before that, with NAM 31 (March 2013), which included a number of Street texture improvements.
• SAM Sets 6 (Klinker Streets) and 10 (Japanese Streets) were added in NAM 31 (March 2013), and SAM Set 11 (IndustrieSAM Streets) came online in NAM 36 (September 2017).
• Paths to allow for a direct connection between Streets (and pretty much every other surface network) with the PedMalls, without using a transit station as a go-between, were added with NAM 33 (November 2015), and have been undergoing gradual expansion to cover other setups, particularly as the Pedestrian Revolution Mod has become a major area of development in the past year.
• Wide Radius Curve support was added in NAM 36 (September 2017).
• Transitions to allow orthogonal transitions between two SAM sets (or between a SAM set and the base Street network) were added in NAM 38 (September 2020), and improved in NAM 41 (April 2021).
• Smooth Diagonal S-Curves for the Street network were added in NAM 42 (August 2021), and expanded to cover most SAM sets in NAM 44 (March 2022).

-Tarkus

[Lucario Boricua 7,027]

Other street features added in recent times:

• NAM 39 got some cosmetic viaduct network options for several Street / SAM networks.
• On NAM 40, the Network Widening Mod also got Street Addon Mod orthogonal intersection support (4-way and T intersections), and the addition of the diverter curves--a special configuration in which two 2x2 90° curves in opposite directions to replace 4-way intersections, allowing to reduce through car traffic while still allowing pedestrian traffic. The Street also got support for OXD slip lanes, along with Road, One-way and Avenue.
• NAM 41 added a special piece to support two short-T intersections of streets into Avenues, without them auto-connecting to form a 4-way intersection. This piece also supports different SAM networks connecting
• NAM 42 got some additional street configurations supported in the Road Roundabouts expansion, and added an option to do a Road/Street transition on certain intersections with Road, Avenue and FTL-110 to form rural (stop-controlled) intersections.
• NAM 45 and 46 got a revision to the code required to form 3x3 street circles, along with several SAM bridges.

The streets, while they don't have a dedicated  NAM team lead developer, have gotten plenty of features over the last 5 years.     

[justforfun 7,778]

10 hours ago, Tarkus said:

While Street improvements haven't been a headline feature in any of the NAM releases since NAM 30, some of those "side projects" did make some noticeable improvements and expansions. 

 

9 hours ago, Lucario Boricua said:

The streets, while they don't have a dedicated  NAM team lead developer, have gotten plenty of features over the last 5 years.

Of course, and thanks for the lists, yet those pesky corners have been left square! Has it been done on purpose to bug the people like me? 

Most importantly, I cannot use all those improvements because I never know which files I should add/overrun without upsetting the rest. If I just add the street folder of the latest NAM to my NAM 30, will it work? I guess it won't unless I also update the RUL files etc. which will surely mess up my old turning lanes and more. I totally understand if there are technical needs that require NAM to be redesigned as a block, I just wish it was still possible to pick just a few features separately, in modular fashion. 

10 hours ago, Tarkus said:

The aforementioned Diagonal x Diagonal Street intersection was found to have a pathing bug that completely prevented left turns, which was fixed with NAM 37 (July 2020).

I didn't know that, and cannot even fix it unless I can update my streets and only the streets.

10 hours ago, Tarkus said:

Wide Radius Curve support was added in NAM 36 (September 2017).

Is this really so? As the NAM 30 I use already has 45 and 90 degrees wide curves for streets. 

[Tyberius06 12,184]

18 minutes ago, justforfun said:

I cannot use all those improvements because I never know which files I should add/overrun without upsetting the rest.

Honestly, not to offend you, but these are cheap excuses. You don't need to upset anything. You download the latest NAM, start a brand new test region with empty plugins. You install the NAM and then you test what features you got and what changed (a lot). Mixing the old city tiles with the newer NAM would require a bunch of rebuilding maybe. The most significant changes which would require massive redesigns of network and city layouts are the rail network parts. However the rail network with the RRW received some awesome and realistic features which were not available before that.

Also what you can do. Make a back-up of your region. Then move out the old NAM, old RHW, old whatever you use and install the new NAM. And give it a try what would you loose, what would you gain. Play around with the changes, with the new features, you might loose a little time, but you still have the Back-up...

If you are not willing to go down on that road, you can still start a new city tile in that region, which using the new NAM. The only thing what you need to keep in mind that for the old city tiles you need to swap back the old NAM. 

But again. I for one, love to rebuild part of my cities with newer features. Over the years I keep getting new ideas, so that's always a good excuse to bulldoze and rebuild some areas...

[justforfun 7,778]

8 minutes ago, Tyberius06 said:

Honestly, not to offend you, but these are cheap excuses.

Not to offend you, but this is a shallow proposition. I have many solid reasons for not updating to the latest NAM, 99% of which is unnecessary or even undesirable in the old cities I am building. I have no use whatsover for RHW, RRW, NWM, underground rail, new turning lanes, fractional angle curves, and all those features that no doubt add value and realism to contemporary environs. All I would want to add to the NAM I'm using is 7.5m viaducts, perhaps a few bridges, and the aforementioned diagonal-street bug fix. However, if in order to get these I have to upset or rebuild my networks, I'll gladly pass it. See, I am the type of player who spends years painstakingly developing the same maps, not the kind who likes to casually experiment. Not a chance that I will demolish carefully-crafted scenes just because old features are no longer supported. I will be happy to add, not to replace. 

[Tyberius06 12,184]

13 minutes ago, justforfun said:

Not to offend you, but this is a shallow proposition. I have many solid reasons for not updating to the latest NAM, 99% of which is unnecessary or even undesirable in the old cities I am building. I have no use whatsover for RHW, RRW, NWM, underground rail, new turning lanes, fractional angle curves, and all those features that no doubt add value and realism to contemporary environs. All I would want to add to the NAM I'm using is 7.5m viaducts, perhaps a few bridges, and the aforementioned diagonal-street bug fix. However, if in order to get these I have to upset or rebuild my networks, I'll gladly pass it. See, I am the type of player who spends years painstakingly developing the same maps, not the kind who likes to casually experiment. Not a chance that I will demolish carefully-crafted scenes just because old features are no longer supported. I will be happy to add, not to replace. 

But that's why I'm telling you to install the new NAM into a test region. You can deselect the RHW and NWM and many-many other options what you don't need. The only thing what you can NOT deselect at this point is the RRW. We are still working on making the Maxis Rail Legacy pack available again. So you could experiment in a test region, which install options would work best for you. As I said you can mostly cherry pick what you want to install to get a very light weighted NAM with advanced/fixed features. 

[rsc204 21,806]

I think what this ultimately comes down to is which do you want, updated features and support or to avoid change, everyone gets to choose.

One of the reasons for the NAM's existence is that you can only have one of each 'file' containing RUL0/1/2 code. So if someone released a snippet of code, it would override everything else, so for interoperability it really has to remain part of a central release. Some fixes, for example the path being mentioned, is simply just a bug fix of a Path file, it's simply impractical to release these as separate files. Such fixes are compiled with every new release of NAM, if you want them then you must update or find your own way around it. As it happens, I actually extracted the path because I've an old region or two still using out of date NAM versions, only to find I didn't need it, but I rescued it from the recycle bin and will upload it here.

0x5F500600_FixedPath.dat

However I need to be explicit here that normally we would not do things like this, for example it's a RHD path and I didn't bother with the LHD one, so its no use to you as a fix if you are playing a LHD game. Of course, nothing to stop you downloading the latest NAM, extracting the LHD path (starts with a 7 instead of 5) and integrating that into an old NAM install. But if you want to do such things and have chosen the unsupported route, then you are on your own in terms of such tasks. I'll add as a big LHD contributor myself, from NAM 33 to 37 i personally got many minor LHD issues fixed, all of which you won't have either. Others have taken on this mantle more recently too.

In these situations I feel the need to point out that the NAM is iterative in its releases, as a rule we do not drop legacy support, a few exceptions for technical reasons aside. Personally I've not been around long enough to ever use NAM 30, I started with 31 and by 33 was developing NAM content myself. Given i'm the third longest (semi) active team member at this point, how on earth can we offer support for such legacy versions?

Each new version adds new features, but also includes fixes and patches that aren't always significant enough to shout about. For the most part, nothing is likely to stop working in existing regions, but you'd be surprised how many things will be better even if you don't use any of the newer features.

RRW is kinda an exception and mandatory since NAM 37, but aside from needing a bit more space for curves, it's ultimately just a case of refreshing 're-clicking' rail networks to update it. In return though you'll have a much better rail system with more possibilities and dragable E-RRW at L1/L2 heights. The other two big exceptions are RHW, which doesn't affect you and the Avenue Auto-Turn lanes, although this is more than compensated for by the FTL/QuickTurn functionality. Road Turn Lanes to this day remain a legacy feature, but require you click with the OWR tool on intersections to make them. I know of a lot of folks didn't like the decision to stop them being automatic, but I can assure you too a lot of us appreciate the choice of whether to have them on a given intersection too. I'll add, their removal was necessary because it was preventing us further developing anything intersection related, in other words with hindsight we'd never have made them that way to begin with.

As has been stated, you don't have to install every new feature, your install (feature-wise) could be much the same as before I suspect. But for example draggable E-RRW at L1 (7.5m), is a RRW only function, if you won't switch from Maxis rail, you don't have the codebase to utilise them. Draggable WRCs for Streets and SAM are a godsend, yes puzzle pieces exist by they are frankly crap by comparison. I literally stopped using SAM for years because I couldn't stand not being able to have the freedom to free-form streets together with combinations of these WRCs, it is a game changer. Hence I was so glad that they finally got added, just in time for me to include them in my SAM 11 mod for NAM 36.

But for the second time in 24h I am forced to conclude you can drag a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. However much you want that diagxdiag street intersection curved, if you refuse to update your version of NAM, you'll never have that fix even if we made it. As mentioned, it requires a new set of code to allow it to work, you can't just drag an updated texture.

I really think you may have over-assumed the amount of changes required to update NAM, and maybe surprised to see you can update with a minimal of change needed. But the only way to truly find out is to simply try it, if you don't like it, well keep your old NAM folder around and go back. Whatever has convinced you it's not even worth trying I don't know, but some of the arguments here suggest a misunderstanding could be a part of that. We're really only encouraging you to actually try it out for yourself because who knows, maybe it does bring some things that you'd ultimately be glad of.

[justforfun 7,778]

6 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

But that's why I'm telling you to install the new NAM into a test region.

I did it about a week ago, basically selecting only the core features. I found out that I prefer the old turning lanes which are quicker and can also be just one tile long, rather than the 2-tiles minimum of the new ones. So I tried some mix match and unsurprisingly it wouldn't work as my intersections were messed up (no worries, I always have backups).

The problem with RRW is not so much the texture, for which there is a great patch available, but the lack of double diagonal and the stricter terrain requirements. Since I am perfectly happy with my current railways why should I change?

Plus I was finally able to upgrade to NAM 35, so I can now use the fab 7.5m networks and the new bridges. Bliss!

7 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

We are still working on making the Maxis Rail Legacy pack available again

I wholeheartedly approve of this! Great job guys!

 

[justforfun 7,778]

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

As it happens, I actually extracted the path because I've an old region or two still using out of date NAM versions, only to find I didn't need it, but I rescued it from the recycle bin and will upload it here.

Thank you, most appreciated! 

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Personally I've not been around long enough to ever use NAM 30

I only downloaded it a few years ago from the German website, because it was the only version available over there.

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

how on earth can we offer support for such legacy versions?

Have I ever asked that? My point was different: I wish the NAM was more about adding than about replacing. RRW is an important exception to the iterative character of the NAM, but not the only one. I mentioned turning lanes as another one. And there is no way one can convince me the newer ones are better.

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Road Turn Lanes to this day remain a legacy feature, but require you click with the OWR tool on intersections to make them.

Wait, when I tried the latest NAM last week I missed this one. So if I click with the OWR tool on road intersections I will get the same old turning lanes? That can also be 1-tile long? Or minimum 2?

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

RRW is kinda an exception and mandatory since NAM 37, but aside from needing a bit more space for curves,

Not a minor issue, in dense European cities! Plus stricter slope requirements, if I got it right. Plus they don't allow for double diagonal tracks, which is a serious limitation when you have already designed your network that way.

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

draggable E-RRW at L1 (7.5m), is a RRW only function, if you won't switch from Maxis rail, you don't have the codebase to utilise them

Yes, I know. Luckily the rail puzzle pieces allow me to do everything I need without draggables. 

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

yes puzzle pieces exist by they are frankly crap by comparison

That's your personal estimation. I would surely be happy to use additional draggables IF that didn't imply giving up compact turning lanes and Maxis rail.

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

However much you want that diagxdiag street intersection curved, if you refuse to update your version of NAM, you'll never have that fix even if we made it.

Isn't it lucky that I know you won't make it? 

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

We're really only encouraging you to actually try it out for yourself because who knows, maybe it does bring some things that you'd ultimately be glad of.

And I thank you for your encouragement, I actually learnt a lot from these exchanges. The fun fact is, I did try the latest NAM one week ago, although admittedly the trial lasted very little -RRW and turning lanes really are a deal breaker for me. Even if the new ones were compact, having to replop hundreds of intersections would still be a no-go.

I hope this doesn't sound demotivating in any way. You guys have been doing fantastic work, and without the NAM I wouldn't even be playing SimCity. Gosh what would this game be without over- and underpasses, diagonal streets, or new simulators. It just happens that much of the latest developments, focused on RHW, RRW, and fractional-angle networks, don't comport much with the style of my cities. And I certainly don't expect my niche priorities to become the priorities of most players. So keep up the good work and yes, if I may ask for something, that would be the option of keeping all the stuff that works rather than forcing change -again, more adding than replacing, where feasible.

[Lucario Boricua 7,027]

To clarify some things concerning the changes in more recent NAM versions related to @justforfun's points, read this post.

 

On the Turning Lanes:

• Starting with NAM 36, and expanding substantially from NAM 43 to 46, we have migrated fully to the FLEX Turning Lanes (FTLs). This is a system of FLEX-based intersections, featuring both separate components (FTL starter pieces, intersection pieces for larger configurations, and traffic signal support for OWR and RHW = SITAP) and pre-fabricated intersection assemblies (QuickTurn).
• The QuickTurn pre-assembled intersections, by default, feature turning lane approaches which are 2 cells long, along with the turning lane taper (where the roadways widen for the turn lane), which adds 1-tile for single turn lanes (FTL-110, 120, 130) and 2 tiles for double turn lanes (FTL-220, FTL-230 in the near future). Being FLEX items, you could demolish some of the approaches if you want to modify the set-up, and place an FTL starter at a different position (closer or further away from the intersection). 
• To still accommodate automatic turn lane users, players have the option to select the Semi-Automated Turning Lane configuration, where they can convert Road and Avenue intersections into the old automated turning lanes by overclicking with the One-Way network tool. This is almost as quick as the older automated system, plus it gives players the option to skip using turning lanes should they choose to. You do have the select this option in the installer, as it's disabled by default.
• The old puzzle piece option, the Turning Lane Extension Pieces (TuLEPs) are perhaps the single puzzle piece item I hate the most, those things are a nightmare to build and correct when you make errors. If this is your impression of what the NAM's turning lane capabilities provide, you haven't been paying attention to our latest developments.

 

On the RealRailway slope tolerance and slope mods for the NAM:

• The (now resolved) slope tolerance problem of the RealRailway (RRW) has to do with the Hybrid Rail (introduced in NAM 38), a dual network between monorail and rail, equivalent to conventional rail lines which also provide high-speed rail services. Due to how this network is designed, its slope parameters are those of the Rail network, rather than the Monorail. We had a problem concerning on-slope height transitions (OSTs), which was provisionally solved with a rather convoluted set of slope mods, in which the RRW's max network slope was really steep (to match the on-slope cliff), but the vertical curvature and adherence to the existing terrain shape were really strict. This made the slope mod completely unusable.
• To resolve this problem, we made the only exception ever to the moratorium on puzzle pieces in more than 10 NAM versions. NAM 46 re-designed the Hybrid Rail OSTs to provide the required slope tolerance parameters without interfering with the Rail slope settings.
• On top of that, after resolving that issue, I personally re-designed the RRW Tunnel and Slope Parameters, which is still an optional installation option. This one uses user-friendly slope parameters which both look realistic and are easy to build. They were a test bed for my ongoing NAM Tunnel and Slope Mod package, which already has its first prototype available for all players. If you find the RRW Tunnel and Slope Parameter settings too strict / flat for your liking, give a look to the NAM Tunnel and Slope mod package and use one of the steeper / easier variants.

 

On future development of rail content and RRW/Maxis Rail differences:

• For a multitude of reasons I won't explain in this post, the NAM team has been short on members specializing on rail network development, for a number of years. Right now, the only full-time rail content developer is Eggman121, with select support from Rivit (models and cosmetic options), rsc204 (models, cosmetic support, and legacy support), Flann (some of the latest features are his doing), Tyberius06 (transit stations) and Ulisse Wolf (transit stations, and aspiring to full involvement in the near future).
• We have actually re-evaluated restoring some of the configurations in the game's default railway switches / track junctions. We have other ongoing rail projects in the works, so it may take some more time to add some of the last remaining ones, so long as they make sense in the RealRailway ecosystem. Since I'm not among the members in charge of rail development, I can't speak on behalf of those who are, about what specifically these changes would involve, let alone when they'd roll out.

 

On adding rounded corners to diagonal street intersections:

• The reason why I brought up the Road and One-way diagonal intersections in an earlier post is because the Road and One-way diagonal intersections did not feature proper intersection geometry until NAM 46, that is, they also had sharp corners and no semblance of intersection design elements!  Singling out the streets over this is, IMO, unfair and fails to consider the full picture..
• Making that change broke some other features of the NAM, which I already mentioned in that same previous post. We're aware of this and have resolved it for the upcoming NAM 47.
• As for why programming the street network is more complicated, don't forget that the base game, SimCity 4 Rush Hour / Deluxe Edition, does not support diagonal streets by default. Programming diagonal streets involves two methods: using the FLEX diagonal street helper pieces (programmed as true diagonals), and overriding the zig-zag patterns of orthogonal corners. We would need to program a new set of diagonal intersection configurations for the street in both systems, and only then would it be possible to also address SAM diagonals.

[rsc204 21,806]

14 hours ago, justforfun said:

Have I ever asked that? My point was different: I wish the NAM was more about adding than about replacing.

It absolutely is, that's the definition of iterative, we don't replace things generally, I mentioned every exception and that's over 10 years of development.

14 hours ago, justforfun said:

So if I click with the OWR tool on road intersections I will get the same old turning lanes? That can also be 1-tile long? Or minimum 2?

Yes, I still use these a lot when I don't need the fancy new ones. As I said, having the automatic ones was preventing us from further development, they should never have existed to begin with. I guess at the time, no one ever considered how far the NAM would go and thus this wasn't anticipated.

Again this is not installed by default, you will have to manually tick the option from the installer.

14 hours ago, justforfun said:

Not a minor issue, in dense European cities! Plus stricter slope requirements, if I got it right. Plus they don't allow for double diagonal tracks, which is a serious limitation when you have already designed your network that way.

Well that depends on your point of view, I have been an ardent supporter of RRW since it's inception personally and European cities, dense or otherwise, are my bread and butter.

Do I believe we should support the really comically bad setups that Maxis did for the sake of keeping the game simple?, nope I don't. The whole point of RRW was to make things more realistic, wider curves are part of this and whilst you might need to make some changes to accommodate them, the payoff is huge in terms of functionality.

Yes shared diagonals are also gone, but there is a good reason for that too, shared-tile networks essentially have half their intended capacity where two sets of tracks are on the same tile. Effectively halving the capacity of the entire diagonal section, in other words making such setups a complete waste of time, since it's just visual.

It's another design choice I think we'd not have gone with in hindsight. Yes retro-fitting that is a bummer, plus a small number of stations are now useless that were designed for it. Simple solution?, convert those sections to a single rail if you don't have the space for two, not perfect but a compromise that then will automatically have the needed space for the newer curves (which take just one whole extra tile on the inside of the curve).

Lastly the slope mod for RRW is optional, personally I would never have included it in the NAM, it creates a series of problems to do so. However, like me you can simply not install it or delete it after install, although I do use another slope mod personally, because without one again networks look comically bad.

14 hours ago, justforfun said:

That's your personal estimation. I would surely be happy to use additional draggables IF that didn't imply giving up compact turning lanes and Maxis rail.

Is it though?, the puzzle pieces don't have any sidewalks on them, as such they look really out of place, they also have 0 slope tolerance. Plus, I think I failed to properly explain just how much better using the draggable ones are, they not only support proper wealthing, but more setups, including branches on S-Curves and 90° curves. I tried to find one of my better cities which used these features, but it's buried somewhere, this gives a glimpse into it's potential:

Using FA-Roads and the streets like this allows for hugely more realistic suburbs that are very 'off grid', something that in Europe is absolutely essentially for realism. Unlike the grided cities of the US, which the game was intended to replicate, personally I only use those for convenience when I'm in dev. regions testing stuff out.

I see an overall problem with your argument, basically it comes across as, unless I get everything I want, I'll ignore all those new goodies, even if you'd probably really appreciate them. So far as I can see, the downsides are loosing double-diag rail and needing a bit more space for curves. But for that tiny little compromise, you could have a plethora of new, better content to use. You are right, this is your choice, I said that before, but I really think your own inflexibility is blinding you to the benefits on offer.

If you've managed to upgrade to NAM 35, then you can do everything in this image (except SAM-11 and the WRCs won't work with SAM either). Instructions on how to create these flexible networks are in this YouTube tutorial.

But we're here arguing about these features, because we want you (and everybody), to get the best experience and tools to play SimCity 4, we are passionate about it. Some folks are resistant to change, which is a shame, because those folks are missing out, even if a few small compromises are needed to update. I really think you've made the mistake of thinking those changes add up to a complete overhaul of your existing cities. I'm certain they do not, heck I've been updating the NAM a lot more than any user, (dev. builds), it can be disruptive if you want to play. But I know everything about the changes since NAM33 intimately, so when I say these changes aren't a big deal, you can trust I know what I'm talking about. At the end of the day, we've put our side across and given our best shot to iron out any misunderstandings, what you do at this point is down to you, there really isn't much point continuing to hark on about it.

[justforfun 7,778]

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

I mentioned every exception and that's over 10 years of development.

OK, we obviously have a different opinion on the difficulties that those exceptions cause. 

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Yes, I still use these a lot when I don't need the fancy new ones. As I said, having the automatic ones was preventing us from further development,

IF short turning lanes can still be an option, and IF updating to the new NAM does not imply replopping all intersections (a big if), then yes I agree that it's even better to be able to choose whether having turning lanes or not at all. I had missed this feature in my quick trial.

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Do I believe we should support the really comically bad setups that Maxis did for the sake of keeping the game simple?

I don't know which setups you are referring to. I think rail with the pre-RRW wide-radius curves still looks pretty realistic. And are we seriously talking about realism in a game with isometric view, jagged edges, and 4m-tall sims, anyway? Plus, simplicity has value too. Not everybody plays to lay down intricate intersections. 

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

whilst you might need to make some changes to accommodate them, the payoff is huge in terms of functionality.

I certainly wouldn't bulldoze patiently-crafted scenes only because the new curves are even wider, or less slope-tolerant. Being wider also means more unusable space around them, which is unrealistic in dense cities. See, there are different ways of approaching realism. 

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Effectively halving the capacity of the entire diagonal section, in other words making such setups a complete waste of time, since it's just visual.

I do not think double diagonals are a waste of time. Capacity is easily manageable, and they look more realistic than widely-spaced tracks. Again, by making RRW more realistic in some ways, it has become less so in others. 

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

I do use another slope mod personally, because without one again networks look comically bad.

Oh I agree on that. I use a slope mode with old rail, though, and it looks fine while causing fewer headaches.

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

the puzzle pieces don't have any sidewalks on them

Aren't there patches for that? I'm pretty sure I've seen wide curves with pavements available for download. Personally I don't use much wide curves inside towns, because the empty spaces they inevitably require around look comically bad with or without pavements. And there simply aren't enough diagonal buildings, much less FAR ones, to plop along them to make a scene credible.

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

just how much better using the draggable ones are, they not only support proper wealthing, but more setups, including branches on S-Curves and 90° curves.

I am sure they offer more options, the point remains that I can still use wide curves (and I do sparsely anyway) without having to swallow the RRW. 

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Using FA-Roads and the streets like this allows for hugely more realistic suburbs that are very 'off grid', something that in Europe is absolutely essentially for realism.

My cities are full of diagonals and a few FAR in less-dense areas, and yet I only use puzzle pieces. Note also that suburbs are a modern phenomenon. The old cities I build are denser than your picture, with extensive use of W2Ws. Try building a FAR network in a W2W environment and see how much realism you can achieve. The game was obviously conceived for a grid so we need to accept some limitations. Having meandering roads leaves you without content to plop around them.

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Instructions on how to create these flexible networks are in this YouTube tutorial.

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

I see an overall problem with your argument, basically it comes across as, unless I get everything I want, I'll ignore all those new goodies,

Thanks for the link!  Is that what I really said, though? My point is rather that I can happily live without the new features, if they require me to switch to RRW and replop all my turning lanes. 

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Some folks are resistant to change, which is a shame

So why not make change an option, rather than an obligation? New is not always better, in life as in games (in life, it is actually often much worse). Imagine a NAM where upon installation I can deselect the RRW and still get draggable FAR roads. That's all I have been talking about. 

[Tyberius06 12,184]

24 minutes ago, justforfun said:

So why not make change an option, rather than an obligation?

It's easy, if the old set-up stands in the way of the progress and makes creating new stuffs impossible or way harder than it should be, then the old set-up has to go whether some people are complaning about it or not. That's what happened with the very old automated turning lanes, but it was already explained at least twice in the above posts. The problem with Maxis Rail vs. RRW was a bit more invovled. The old installer (up until NAM v36) got broken over the years and the new installer is not able to support the option what keeping RRW and Maxis Rail in the mod requires. Since Maxis Rail won't get any more development (because it's not in the interests of the rail network developpers within the team - and we are volunteers so obviously we are working on things that we enjoy... Maxis Rail is not such thing), while RRW is regularly receiving smaller or larger updates, it was the obvious choice to keep RRW in the mod. We had to make it mandatory because some folks opted it out upon installation, which then broke the full mod and the game for them... So it became an un-deselectable feature. 

Most of the people who are complaining about not having the double diagonals forget one small detail. The double diagonals on the shared tiles are essentially equivalent with QTR and it is a side-effect of how the game was designed. There were experiments in the old RAM era (2010-2011-ish, just before RRW) with QTR and TTR, but it did not go well. It has been proven that 3 or 4 tracks on the same tile (orthogonal section) would cause unwanted track-jumps for the trains even withut switches. That's just a massive luck, that it did not happen on the double diagonals, or at least it was never reported. If it was planned as a real feature, there would have been orthogonal QTR (4 tracks on one tile) at first and then proper curves to transform the ortho QTR to diag QTR, which is your double diagonal. There is no such thing and never been... If I recall correctly there are exactly two stations which support this set-up, both from Marrast, and I can tell, that even the so called "updated" modding (2007) is wrong as hell on them. Capacity, TSEC probably even the switches... So it's good until you don't put any stations on it. But that's just the functionality part. If you are not interested in functionality then it's not an issue.
While it's true that the double diagonals as QTR are realistic (yes here in UK there are such segments and I love them in RL), but there are technical problems. When they go to orthogonal they cease to be QTR anymore, so you go from a kind of realistic set-up to a not realistic set-up in that sense... So on one hand you compain about loosing the double diagonal, but you don't complain about not having ortho QTR which should be the true and realistic continuation of the double diagonal... 

Really?

By the way I just checked vanilla delux SC4, while it supports the double diagonal tracks I was not able to turn both tracks to ortho. Either the left side formed an inner curve, or the right side formed an other curve, but I could not turn both of them to ortho. So we can tell, that even Maxis did not support this set-up, it was just a side-effect. Ok, maybe NAM later added this feature, I do not know because I started using RRW right away when I returned to SC4 and when I first started using mods and NAM. RRW was one of the reason why I started playing with NAM and kept me with the game for more than a decade now. The reason is easy. I hated how unrealistic and ugly maxis rail was. All those narrow curves, the ugly switches etc... 

Anyway. The only thing what I really don't understand in your argument. Either your patiently-crafted cities/scenes are more or less ready-ish, so they don't require anything new, not even those what you requested, or they are not ready at all, so you could change whatever you want with or without new NAM, but in that case why not new NAM? And if they are ready then we are talking about, that you could utilize new NAM in your next patiently-crafted city what you will start. 

Either way. You want new options/features/fixed features - you update. Or you don't, but then you won't have anything new. The choice is yours...

[justforfun 7,778]

3 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

we are volunteers so obviously we are working on things that we enjoy

Is there a real need to keep repeating it, even in bold red font? I thought I had amply acknowledged that obvious fact? 

3 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

That's what happened with the very old automated turning lanes, but it was already explained at least twice in the above posts.

Yes, and I have explained my stance multiple times but here'll go again: 1)whenever it is possible to keep old things that work, please do! 2)When it is not possible because that would impede new developments, I will evaluate what I want and what I do not want in my cities. Hence latest NAM > thanks but no, thanks. 

3 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

there are exactly two stations which support this set-up, both from Marrast, and I can tell, that even the so called "updated" modding (2007) is wrong as hell on them. Capacity, TSEC probably even the switches

I have Marrast diagonal stations, in fact multiple of them on my railways. They get usage, and train automata cross them nicely. If I never noticed a problem with them, it obviously cannot be one that makes a difference.

3 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

So on one hand you compain about loosing the double diagonal, but you don't complain about not having ortho QTR which should be the true and realistic continuation of the double diagonal... 

Really?

I don't even know what QTR means. If you are referring to multiple straight tracks in one tile, I am afraid your parallel makes little sense. Two straight rail tracks do not leave as much empty space as two diagonal ones, so why would I need multiple straight tracks in one tile? That would be another unnecessary complication.

3 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

I hated how unrealistic and ugly maxis rail was. All those narrow curves, the ugly switches etc... 

But wide-angle curves had made Maxis rail realistic too. We should keep in mind that there is simply no way one can achieve realism at the same in all aspect of the simulation. Remember the example I made before? Even-wider curves may be more realistic, but the empty urban spaces they require around them are not. So while you gain something you inevitably lose something. Hence it's up to each player to determine what aspect of realism matters more, and there is no reason to be upset about freedom of choice. In contrast to your taste, I hate the bland brown of RRW. To my eye, the lack of highlights makes it look flat and cartoonish. Rivit's superb patch overrides RRW with textures similar to Maxis, but what will happen if future NAMs will require yet more rail textures and no further patches will be available? Just mentioning these points to help you see the issue from a broader perspective than just "progress or not progress" (and what is "progress", anyway? In the context of gaming preferences such concept is particularly ambiguous).

3 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

Either your patiently-crafted cities/scenes are more or less ready-ish, so they don't require anything new, not even those what you requested, or they are not ready at all, so you could change whatever you want with or without new NAM

I fail to see the logic in this either/or. How would the desired round diagonal street intersections require me to demolish entire scenes? On the other hand, the fact that my maps are already highly developed is indeed a factor in my little need for most new features. I only recently felt the need for an upgrade simply because the new Debussyman sunken stations require the 7.5m road viaducts. Incidentally I struggled to accommodate even those stations, let alone a whole new rail setup. 

Of course I may be wrong, but it seems to me this conversation is taking a slant that wasn't in my intentions. It sounds like you guys are taking this as a sort of personal attack or something, as if I wasn't valuing your steady efforts and mind-blowing achievements. On one hand it's being said that this is all about making users enjoy the most of NAM, yet on the other there seems to be a kind of personal disappointment, impatience, or even disapproval of different tastes and takes. Almost as if declining new content constituted a personal offence rather than a perfectly legitimate choice. A sort of "either you take the whole package, or you don't understand a thing" attitude. The latter is of course an exaggeration for clarity purpose. Remember, all this began with this simple question: "will the new NAM feature rounded diagonal street intersections?" I wasn't expecting this would somehow touch a nerve. Perhaps I gave the impression of putting too much pressure on you for those pesky diagonal corners, but I assumed it was clearly... justforfun! You surely are putting pressure on me now to use features that I deem either unnecessary or sadly incompatible for all the reasons mentioned before. 

 

[justforfun 7,778]

21 hours ago, Lucario Boricua said:

The reason why I brought up the Road and One-way diagonal intersections in an earlier post is because the Road and One-way diagonal intersections did not feature proper intersection geometry until NAM 46, that is, they also had sharp corners and no semblance of intersection design elements!  Singling out the streets over this is, IMO, unfair and fails to consider the full picture..

That is quite odd, because I have had round corners on diagonal roads for a long time. Perhaps because I use the NAM Retexture and Cosmetic mod, which however, for reasons that are by now obvious to me, does not retexture the corners of diagonal intersections. As you can see, no unfairness or failing of sort in singling out the streets.

21 hours ago, Lucario Boricua said:

Programming diagonal streets involves two methods: using the FLEX diagonal street helper pieces (programmed as true diagonals), and overriding the zig-zag patterns of orthogonal corners.

 

Suppose some day someone gets around to do it, either way, do you reckon it will be possible to add the new crossings as a plugin to an older NAM, or will they require the latest version? I am asking because, by the look of things, unless Maxis rail options will be reinstated I may not be updating the NAM again. Heck, already upgrading to NAM 35 has caused me troubles with the UniDensity, SFBT Street mod, and light replacement mod I am using. When one has crafted a very specific setup, switching is a headache regardless. 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,399]

1 hour ago, justforfun said:

either way, do you reckon it will be possible to add the new crossings as a plugin to an older NAM, or will they require the latest version?

Unfortunately it is not possible to release patches for old versions as all old versions of NAM are just GARBAGE. So you will have to update to the latest available NAM version

On why this practice I suggest you read this post

https://simtarkus.wordpress.com/2020/11/29/why-old-NAM-versions-are-immediately-discontinued-spoiler-alert-theyre-rubbish/

Also you are using NAM 35 which means that you are using the penultimate monolithic NAM version (the latest version of monolithic NAM is NAM 36) and therefore you will have the problem of unstable installation as it skips crucial steps including the NAM Controller. 

1 hour ago, justforfun said:

When one has crafted a very specific setup, switching is a headache regardless. 

All of us have a particular setup and yet no one has complained about problems derived from the NAM update or some other mod. If ever it was more complicated during the monolithic era of NAM than now that it is quite easy to update a mod or NAM

[Ulisse Wolf 4,399]

THE WAIT IS OVER

The release of Network Addon Mod is getting closer and closer and after various tests and fixes we are finally ready to unveil the world's most powerful weapon that will completely revolutionize the way cities are built on SimCity 4. 

Set reminders, alarm clocks, write on clipboards and post it notes or on any reminder device because March 20 at 00:55 CET (March 19 at 19:55 EDT) the biggest feature of Network Addon Mod 47 will be shown in world premiere and nothing will be like before. During the premiere you can talk directly with the NAM Team. 

THE REVOLUTION HAS STARTED AND NOTHING WILL BE LIKE BEFORE

 

 

[justforfun 7,778]

18 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

all old versions of NAM are just GARBAGE

Isn't it funny that you even used bold capitals for such ludicrous statement? 

18 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

you will have the problem of unstable installation

I never had that problem with NAM 30, I can't imagine having one with NAM 35. 

18 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

All of us have a particular setup and yet no one has complained about problems derived from the NAM update or some other mod. If ever it was more complicated during the monolithic era of NAM than now that it is quite easy to update a mod or NAM

Nice way to confess you haven't read much of the thread above.

What can I say? I don't like the dismissive attitude of some comments, but I guess the site couldn't remain the same without Corina. I miss her, forums felt vastly different with her. 

As for the rest, I am loving my NAM 35 and will most likely never update it. So you can save your work on diagonal street intersections, and, as far as I'm concerned, on pretty much everything else.

[Tarkus 6,932]

Going to chime in here real quick . . . to put the words of mine that Ulisse Wolf paraphrased into a bit more perspective, here's what I said directly below my intentionally hyperbolic comment about old NAM versions being rubbish: "[a]nd if they aren't rubbish when compared to the current release by any reasonable comparison, then we're doing something wrong." 

I'll straight up say that there's been some cases where we've clearly done something wrong--NAM 31, for instance, which many people forget, because it was overshadowed by the disastrous launch of SimCity (2013) just a few days later.  I personally consider NAM 28 to be even worse (though as a perfectionist who wants to make each and every new version better, of course, I hope to consider all previous NAM releases worse than what we currently have--and again, if one of them is viewed as being better than the current NAM release, and people want to use it instead, we've done something wrong).

Have we made mistakes since then?  Sure.  As much as we try to overcome it, we are still fallible, and there's also only so much we can do as an all-volunteer effort.  I'll admit, the Maxis Rail situation has been a bit rocky.  We had reasons for doing it besides the matter of "developer interest"--the situation with trying to contain all those "either/or" options that were present in NAM 31 through NAM 36 (including not only Maxis Rail vs. RealRailway, but also Maxis Highway vs. Maxis Highway Override, Maxis El-Rail vs. Alternate El-Rail, and and Maxis Monorail vs. the Bullet Train Mod) was untenable. It never actually fully worked as intended, and it eventually blew out the installer.  We knew the packaging we had, with all those either/or situations and everything else, that we were going to have to switch to a more maintainable installer system, and unfortunately, that was going to mean whittling it down from four either/ors, to just one.  We posted a poll here at Simtropolis in April 2019, to know which of these either/or situations had the most even split (and which ones would result in the least complaints if jettisoned), and also to get a general sense of the level of popularity of various features. 

The poll suggested that the most even split was between the default Maxis Highway and the Maxis Highway Override, and, much to our initial surprise, the widest split was between RealRailway and Maxis Rail.  We had actually initially expected the split would be substantially in favor of Maxis Rail, but it was instead the exact opposite--more than 3:1 in favor of RealRailway.  While historically, the people that tend to vote in these sorts of polls tend to be those who follow NAM development more closely, rather than the broader spectrum of SC4 players we'd like to have vote in this sort of poll, this result suggested the setup we currently have, even compensating for that potential bias. 

Additionally, most of the feedback we've gotten in favor of Maxis Rail, both during and after the polling period, has been from users who are of "minimal" or "vanilla-plus" philosophies, who do not avail themselves (or want to avail themselves) of much of what the NAM has to offer.  That also gave us a clear mandate that the new NAM Lite package (which had been proposed for some time prior) needed to offer Maxis Rail, and with the delays that have faced the Legacy Plugins, we were at least able to use that package to get basic Maxis Rail support out to the folks who publicly expressed the most interest in it.

The planned rollout of the Legacy Plugins--for Maxis Rail, Alternate El-Rail, and the Bullet Train Mod--has sadly been stymied in development hell for quite awhile, after the initial builds of these Legacy Plugins ran into quite a number of issues in testing.  Unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as ripping them from the last NAM release that had them, and that's been especially the case with Maxis Rail.  We had hoped to have them out quite some time ago, and do apologize for their protracted development cycles. 

Bullet Train and Alt El-Rail are being brought up to provide support for current NAM features by rsc204, so those will be very much worth the wait when they do arrive.  While eggman121, our Rail Department Lead, has been mostly inactive during this development cycle due to RL, he has seen the recent discussion about the Maxis Rail Legacy Plugin, and has already begun revisiting it, though it will not be ready to be released alongside NAM 47.  As with any NAM Team projects (except for the debacle that was NAM 31), we do not publicly announce release dates for our projects.

-Tarkus

[Ulisse Wolf 4,399]

DRAGGABLE PEDMALLS WITH RCI GROWTH SUPPORT

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

You have heard, read and seen well.
Those crazy geniuses of the NAM Team members have realized the most modern and requested feature without invoking the infamous DLL Modding.

With Network Addon Mod 47 you finally have the ability to use drag-and-drop PedMalls that support RCI growth.
Now you can create all the utopian cities that do not require cars.

The new PedMalls have incoported crosswalks with all networks except OWR and work with MidBlock Crosswalks.

If you want to see more of this revolution you can see it with this video.

 

 

WELCOME TO THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE

[jonnboy1976 218]

12 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

DRAGGABLE PEDMALLS WITH RCI GROWTH SUPPORT

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

You have heard, read and seen well.
Those crazy geniuses of the NAM Team members have realized the most modern and requested feature without invoking the infamous DLL Modding.

With Network Addon Mod 47 you finally have the ability to use drag-and-drop PedMalls that support RCI growth.
Now you can create all the utopian cities that do not require cars.

The new PedMalls have incoported crosswalks with all networks except OWR and work with MidBlock Crosswalks.

If you want to see more of this revolution you can see it with this video.

 

 

WELCOME TO THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE

I don't know what to say except Wow!  This is absolutely fabulous!  The fact that Ped Malls did not support residential zones was the reason I haven't used them more over the years.  AND you've made them DRAGGABLE as well!  Y'all are truly amazing!  Thank you @NAM Team for this and all you do for the SC4 community. 

[Terring 6,473]

The draggable PedMalls with RCI support is something that I always wished. The dream of the Roadless Paradise of SimCity 3000 is coming true. I just can't wait to apply them into my solarpunk towns. However, I haven't see a draggable version of the mountain trail in the video, so I wonder if it's in your plans. I have used the mountain trail in many towns, so a draggable version of it with RSC support would be very useful.
By the way, the retrowave pedmall is so awesome

[Lucario Boricua 7,027]

Only thing I'll say is the Pedestrian Revolution Mod is in its infancy. We'll be doing a lot of things, just as amazing, if not more, as what we've just disclosed!    

Give us 2-3 years to get pedestrian content up to speed when compared to the other networks. It's not really a fair comparison when stuff like the highways, railways and intersections have gotten multiple years worth of development, whereas this'll be the second NAM version featuring truly modern pedestrian content.

[Terring 6,473]

You know what I'd love to see in the next 2-3 years? Pedmalls that allows flying vehicles hovering and soaring above the pedestrians, just like the roads of Anno 2070

And, if the draggable pedmalls of the video are street-based, how about road-based or even avenue-based pedmalls? They could look less like car-base roads and more like bicycle lines on some serious acid!

6 hours ago, Lucario Boricua said:

Only thing I'll say is the Pedestrian Revolution Mod is in its infancy. We'll be doing a lot of things, just as amazing, if not more, as what we've just disclosed!    

Can't wait

[Ulisse Wolf 4,399]

6 minutes ago, Terring said:

And, if the draggable pedmalls of the video are street-based, how about road-based or even avenue-based pedmalls? They could look less like car-base roads and more like bicycle lines on some serious acid!

Surely we have ideas for bike paths and bike lanes + Pedmall but it is still too early to talk about these things. For now, let's focus on the classic pedmalls and the next generation ones.

[rsc204 21,806]

Further development of Moonlight's Shinkansen (BTM) Mod, it's mostly RHW focused today. I added (modern) RHW support to this mod a while back, but the sheer amount of work meant I had to limit myself to functional support (models) at the time. Since then I've been gradually poking away at the T21s and I've finally completed everything RHW related for this mod:

I've mentioned it before, but there is nothing you can do about the problems with the RHW-6S, the nature of how Moonlight's mod works means that overhanging networks are always going to be a problem. Speaking of which, that is a much bigger issue with the NWM than RHW at least, due to the specific configuration of the RHW, 8 through 12 S networks all look perfect. C networks are fine too, the real problems are RHW-6S and RHW-3.

You'll note that almost all problems with these crossings are caused by objects (T21s or models) which are actually a part of the Monorail piece that doesn't contain RHW. This is a hard limitation without adding new RUL2 overrides to add an extra piece for the overhanging part, then you could rework the models to make it all work better. Sadly, with the current NAM installer situation, it seems unlikely I could fork the code and keep it part of the NAM installer. Because those using the default Monorail (and El-Rail for that matter), won't suffer this problem, but making this change would force an extra tile beside every such crossing. If I go down this path, the only way others would be able to make use of it, would be if they could manually add the necessary RUL2 code to their NAM controller. That said I am very much planning some experiments with how best to implement such.

Elevated RHW support (L0, L1, L3 & L4), where supported in NAM, has been included (not all shown):

Lastly, because this process of sprucing everything up, not simply adding new models, has included fixing Shadow textures, altering linked textures and much more too. Here are just a handful of those situations that have been greatly improved.

One last note, although unless you were inclined to poke around the files, you would never know. I've also put a lot of work into optimising the models and labelling them properly, it was a lot of work and serves absolutely no functional purpose, but it does make it easier to see what you are working with.

In short I have taken this mod and re-created everything from the ground up, it is as complete as I am aware is possible as of NAM 47. Just some polish and packaging to do and this will finally be released, then I can start all over doing the same for the Japan El-Rail Mod... thankfully I kept lots of templates!

[Tarkus 6,932]

As someone who once attempted to do what you just did with Moonlight's mods, I know the insane amount of work that is involved in this.  Truly outstanding work as always, @rsc204 (and that's a massive understatement)!

-Tarkus

[Eggman121 1,035]

This is insanily good @rsc204 Thanks for undertaking this project.

-eggman121