Roads/Rail is broken

[iLoveMusic 66]

I keep running into this issue recently. Whenever I upgrade my older Maxis avenues/roads into wider ones from the NAM, often the old and new roads will refuse to connect, no matter what the situation. Also, NAM roads seem to break the surrounding terrain by creating slopes that were not there before - messing up nearby developments and roads. Sometimes I demolish a road/street, then try to put it back again, and it just won't. It gives me "Unsuitable terrain for road" or something like that. Help would be appreciated.

 

Broken NAM-to-Maxis avenues:

 

Broken street/roads after I installed a roundabout:

 

 

Even though I just had a rail in this exact location, the game refuses to let me to put it back:

 

 

And this.....these were perfectly level until I upgraded the streets. There were no slopes or hills here, then suddenly there were:

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There are transition pieces available in the menus.  You just have to look for them.  I think this is a pretty well documented area.  Try a little RFM.

[rsc204 21,815]

Firstly, the NWM networks in the first shots can not continue due to an unsupported layout:

 

- In your first picture the RD-6 is unable to move over 1 tile (left side) after the El-Rail crossing, you would need to transition to Avenue before the intersection.

- In your second picture, you can not re-use the bridge over the highway with the six lane avenue/road and must either transition back to avenue for the crossing or build a different crossing over the motorway (this can be built by transitioning to RHW-6C for the overpass).

 

Secondly, the other problems shown would appear to be a result of the bumpy terrain. Roads, rails and other networks will smoothen the terrain when dragged, however some networks can handle larger inclines than others. When you start placing more and more transit networks and they get closer to each other one network can change the terrain in a way that stops the other network from being built. Most likely these changes occurred when you placed starter pieces as these need flat terrain to place them and everything has shifted as a result. Some playing around with terraforming will help you alleviate most of these problems. Try deleting a few tiles around the connection you want and placing stubs (single 1x1 road tiles) in this space to flatten the land, now you should be able to rebuild them without problems on the newly flattened areas. Unless you want to make significant changes to your terrain reducing the steepness of the slopes, problems like that of the last picture can not be avoided.

[iLoveMusic 66]

My attempts to level the terrain have gone awry - it keeps destroying all of the surrounding structures, and I cannot replace them most of the time. At the rate it was going, I was going to have to re-level the entire city, destroying pretty much everything in the process. I'm beginning to think it's just broken beyond repair. I built most of the city before I discovered the NAM, so updating everything in the city has been utter chaos.

 

See below - so much was destroyed in trying to upgrade just one avenue. I definitely did not save, so everything below has been undone, fortunately:

 

 

Using the transition road pieces has failed as well. All I get is these two Maxis road stubs that I can't doing anything with at all. Either I'm doing it horribly wrong or it just can't be done under these circumstances:

 

[rsc204 21,815]

It's not unfixable, but it would take a lot of work/patience to fix this without destroying/rebuilding anything. To avoid these situations mass-terraforming and use of slope mods are a must, however it takes time to become adept with them. I've binned many a region as my building techniques improved and I simply outgrew them.

 

The stubs on the transition look like the transition used is from RD-6 to RD-4, you need to find the RD-6 to AVE-4 Transition, if that won't plop, delete a few tiles of the RD-6, you can connect them up again after plopping the transition.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Have you tried levelling the terrain with single road tiles?  This generally works in tight areas.

[iLoveMusic 66]

The above tips helped me in some areas, however I've managed to completely screw up the grid in my city beyond repair. Even after demolishing just one tile of road, the game refuses to let me replace it, citing unsuitable terrain. After demolishing several main boulevards in my city, no roads will intersect with it and I have to demolish all of those roads and all the roads that intersect with those roads, etc.

 

It's too far gone - I'm going to either have to obliterate the current city or just start a new separate one. Let this be a lesson to me and anybody else reading this: don't try to upgrade your Maxis road-built cities to NAM. You'll completely break it like I did, and there's no going back. I'd post screenshots but there would be far too many at this point.

[Compdude787 916]

Your problems are most likely not with the NAM, but with a slope mod that you have installed. Try removing it from your plugins and hopefully you won't get anymore of these errors. I had the same sort of frustrating experience with the least restrictive version of the Ennedi Slope mod when I first started playing SC4 again earlier this year. It wouldn't let me build a road on even the slightest incline, which frustrated the crap out of me and I quickly deleted it. I now use slope mods that only affect the RHW and the Monorail networks.

 

Also, this is probably not the case for you, but make sure you don't have the Diagonal Bridge Enabler in your plugins; it's meant for temporary use only, so it should only be in your plugins folder when you want to build a diagonal bridge. (it makes all roads be flat and removes all the water)

 

The NAM by itself does not have a slope mod that affects all networks, so your issues are not with the NAM but with the slope mod you have. So while it is possible to install and use the NAM in existing cities, you can't really keep playing cities you created before you had a slope mod.

[iLoveMusic 66]

 

You sir, are a genius.....I forgot that I had a slope mod in my Plug-ins folder. Into the recycle bin it goes! Man, do I feel like an idiot

I'm going to try it out now and hopefully things cooperate now.....I think you just saved my city