Forkton - Update #24.1 - Work work, and some inspiration maybe

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

A great overview. That roundabout with the sports facilities inside of it was very snazzy. Lastly in that picture of the two lane expressway, the one with the electricity pylons running through the centre, I noticed that the right hand lane was kind of wonky while the left one was straight? A little quirk or is there a city backstory to that?

[Mymyjp 1,052]

Insanely beautiful...

And I missed your last entry..

My comment to it is that don't feel cheaty...this is an awesome treatment plant area and you did achieve that "industrial look".

 

You have created an amazing cj and all I can say is wow..wow..wow..

[89James89 1,169]

Really nice updates here. I espicially love the idea of that water treatment dam thingy. May have to shamelessly borrow that someday.

 

Cheers

 

James

[SimWarrior 10]

Wow, Forkton is a true Metropolis now! Multiple sports teams, shipping and cruise liner docks, lots of high-density housing... A far cry from the tiny village from the first post.

[Dazzyls 576]

I want to live in Forkton! It looks so nice!

How many inhabitants does Forkton currently have?

[iviaarten 534]

Replies:

 

PK111: Every time I zoom way back out I'm amazed at how great this game looks as well.

TekindusT: All credit goes to the creator of St. Pauli's stadium. The texture work is top notch, and the model is amazing as well.
max_13: Thanks! The moment I saw that stadium on the workshop I just had to have it, I already had a place in mind for it Nice to know the origins of the stadium. Hamburg represent! I'll look into sun control. As far as I can tell the lighting issue has to do something with the orientation of the building, so maybe moving the sun around helps too. Thanks for the tip.

kingofsimcity: yep, I'm definately looking forward to more coastal developments mods in the future. I just thought that the walkways were a nice hint of the mooring poles and stuff like that I'm used to seeing here in the Netherlands.
Ln X: Why did you have to make me notice that!!!! I guess it's just a remnant of me trying to line up the 2 lanes nicely, I must have missed some tiny curve issues here and there. Now I'll have to go and fix it......

Mymyjp: Don't worry about missing an entry, I tend to update the CJ almost daily. I'll be here The industrial look is exactly what I was going for. Good to hear it translated into the screenshots.
89James89: Feel free to borrow and expand on what you see here. That's actually why I love CJ's (both posting them, and reading others).

SimWarrior: It has come a long way hasn't it. Recently (I was sick and had some time behind the laptop) I browsed through the history of Forkton. It's quite fun to look back at how it's grown since the 10th of march

Ultimate727: Forkton is currently being called home by around 78.000 residents, all of them pretty happy since I lowered the taxes after getting to 4M in the coffers. I feel like I need to squeeze some more out of them though to fund the expansion of the water treatment plant

 

 

Today's mods:

 

I didn't have time to make a full update for today, but I've been messing around with Magic Mapper by emf: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416064574

 

The intended use is to import streetmap data into the game so you can realistically recreate cities and towns. I wasn't interested in that though, I was interested in a recent addition to the mod that allows you to export your ingame map as OSM (OpenStreetMap) data to load into a map editor/reader.

 

I've been using JOSM editor (Java OpenStreetMap) to read the files and take some pictures. I'm looking for a better viewer (JOSM doesn't allow you to rotate the map for instance), but I managed to get some pretty decent map pictures which I'd like to share with you all.

 

So here goes.

 

 

Mini-update time:

 

A map of the West part of Forkton

 

 

North in this picture is actually west in the game. On the left of the picture you can see Floydside, the Furnace, and the Furnace fastway connecting to the Old Forkton area at the bottom.

 

On the right of the highway you can see from left to right in the top part:

- the Finexia business district

- Groveside (with Granny's Grove above it)

- Emerald corner

 

In the middle is mostly Pantsdam with Finexia North on the right of it

Bottom part from left to right is Pumpington, Weedville, the edge of the F-side, Uppington, and the western parts of Northon and the Brow.

 

Second map is the central part of Forkton:

 

 

 

The top part has been covered in the previous map.

 

From left to right:

Old and New Forkton, the Forkton Spoon, the F-side with the stadium, Spoon's Hug, Sporkton, Northon and the Brow.

 

Last map shows off the east side of town.

 

 

It basically shows off the Portside industrial park and a corner of the Portside district, along with some interchanges.

 

For some reason I can't get the river to show up in these pictures. If I find a better viewer/editor, I might start adding POI's, district and road names etc etc.

 

Hope you liked this mini update

[Haljackey 17,398]

Whoa this is a really cool mod! Thanks for sharing it and showing what it can do!

[89James89 1,169]

Wow that's a cool tool. May have to use it myself now I've seen that it's not a painstakingly tedious task to create street maps!

 

Cheers

 

James

[iviaarten 534]

Replies:

 

Whoa this is a really cool mod! Thanks for sharing it and showing what it can do!

 

It's great, I think I'm going to have some more fun with it in the future

 

 

Wow that's a cool tool. May have to use it myself now I've seen that it's not a painstakingly tedious task to create street maps!

 

Cheers

 

James

 

 

It's incredibly easy. Would love to see what others come up with.

 

 

Update:

 

Traffic, we always seem to come back to traffic. The city has been evolving rapidly. We're currently up to about 80.000 people living in Forkton. The new developments in Northon and the Brow have put quite a bit of extra load on our road system. Especially around the Portside area.

 

BEFORE PICTURES:

 

 

 

THE PLAN

 

It already used to be a quite busy interchange, with it being the big import/export center for our whole city. The new commercial and residential developments nearby just gave it that final push.

 

With the recent creation of the water treatment plant making a big dent in our reserves, we've had to be smart with the changes we're making. One of the goals for this project was to keep as much of the existing infrastructure in place.

 

We started out with an analysis of where people wanted/needed to go, and figuring out a way of making this possible without having to resort to just creating way way way more lanes everywhere.

 

It was a big success, we'll start of with showing the final complete result, and the we'll take a look into smaller subsections of the whole interchange.

 

So here is the reworked Portside Interchange.

 

 

The first (and most obvious) change that was made is that we've added an additional fly-over over the the roundabout, so that traffic heading into an eastward direction onto the motorway doesn't have to deal with the roundabout at all. We've also added an additional slip lane for traffic heading towards the Portside Industrial Park from the newly developed commercial and residential areas in Portside, Northon and the Brow.

Flow on the roundabout is back to what it used to be like a few years ago, busy, but all traffic is moving.

 

 

Some redundant curves on the fly-overs over the main motorway were removed for better visibility on merging traffic, and to keep speeds up.

 

 

The direct cargo connections to the Port and Cargo station were changed as well. It turned out we had a few problems here actually;

- traffic from both sides of the Portside Industrial Park needed a quicker way to return to their home facility after dropping off cargo at either the port or the station. Previously the were forced back on to the Interchange to make a loop around

- the bridge connecting to the area south of the river was also attracting people from Otherside, who had to do a loop around the port before they could get onto the Interchange previously

- there was very little room between the different merge/exit lanes, leaving little room to buffer traffic.

 

All these problems were resolved by adding some extra connections here and there, and basically 'untangling' some of the routes people had to take.

 

Here's the new situation:

 

 

Another problem we had was some traffic trying to get from one of the sides of the Portside Industrial Park having to take big loops around the area to connect. We've added higher capacity overpasses between the two parts of the district, and added ways to get to the port/station or back onto the interchange.

 

 

We also did a study on turn lanes, and tried to get maximum lane usage and buffer room for all directions.

 

 

Our engineers were particularly proud of this one. This intersection alone has done so much to improve the flow towards the port and station:

 

 

 

Here is the new traffic situation. The red spots now indicate heavy use, but there's literally no jams anywhere.

 

 

Now for some additional pictures of the finished product

 

The new bridge connection makes getting on to the motorway from Otherside a lot simpler and faster, now that it's not solely designed for the cargo traffic.

 

 

We managed to keep elevations to a minimum (most has been constructed with only 1 level of elevation.

 

 

It just flows great.

 

 

View of the start of the interchange from the train driver's perspective.

 

 

View of the interchange from the top of the Port crane.

 

 

Trains zooming past under the interchange at full speed.

 

 

It was quite a puzzle, but I must say I'm pleased with the result. It works well, and I think I managed to keep it reasonably realistic.

 

Hope you've enjoyed this update.

[max_13 128]

love the pictures of the overpasses!

[Haljackey 17,398]

 

I don't think your elevated walkway above the water is connected

 

Other than that, great work! Especially like that one way road intersection with all the utilized lanes!

[SightedNZ 1]

This journal has been terrific so far Iviaarten, not only is your city a source of inspiration, but your posts have also made for an educational and entertaining read.

 

Thanks to some of your earlier posts about interchange management to/from industrial areas, I think you've identified the problem I have in my city with industry not growing. I can't wait to get home tonight and throw a few bypasses in to redirect industrial traffic flow away from my main centres.

 

Kudos!

[perken 1]

Great job once again! Just curious, the off-ramps from the bride across the water: are they highway off-ramps from a normal 1-way road? Also, how do you get the smooth changes from highway->6lane->2lane?

[Dazzyls 576]

Nice update, once again! I really like your interchanges!

I'm sorry I missed an update, but fortunately update 18 wasn't very big.

 

 

I don't think your elevated walkway above the water is connected

That walkway is meant to be a shore protector, I think. He said that a few updates ago.

[89James89 1,169]

That looks like one crazy complicated interchange there. Nice work!

 

Cheers

 

James

[Neofita 31]

I like to look like the city is changing, growing and alive

[iviaarten 534]

Replies:

 

 

max_13: It's always so nice to get a different angle on the junctions.

 

Haljackey: Those are my coastal protection piers! I tried to emulate the mooring poles and piers we regularly see around docks, bridges and locks here in the Netherlands. I'm hoping for mods in this area.

Also I'm pretty pleased about getting all the lanes utilized. It was a fun puzzle.

 

SightedNZ: That's nice to hear. Hope you get the traffic situation sorted out. Post some pictures on this site when you're done. I always enjoy seeing how other people tackle problems in game.

 

perken: I make most of my distribution roads from highway ramps. The off-ramps from the ramps are ramps as well (hope this makes sense). The best way to get smooth changes is to draw everything initially as a single road type. After you put in your intersections, upgrade the new sectioned parts as needed. If you need a certain transition somewhere, just temporarily connect a perpendicular road to your main route, upgrade as needed, then delete the perpendicular stub again. Hope this helps.

 

Ultimate727: Ah, see you covered Hal's question already, lol. Also, thanks for the compliment.

 

89James89: I couldn't really avoid the complicated nature with a harbour, cargo terminal, and 2 seperated industrial sections sadly. I think for the next big industrial sector, I'm going to keep a bit more room between the different big traffic generators to make it easier on myself

 

Neofita: It's great to occasionally look back on the progress I've made. It's nice to see things evolve.

 

 

 

Today's mods:

 

Another nice one by Ngon, a recycling center: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=417133223

A set of nice thermal solar collectors by makemakey: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=410352594(links to two related lots are in the description)

 

I found a nice container prop made by Hest: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=417569707

He's made some nice trucks and trailers as well.

 

For now I've used his container stack prop for a container yard, which you can find here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=418974752

It's a 10x4 lot.

I might play around with adding the trucks later in some lots as well, but I think I'll wait until I can find a nice loading crane to load the trucks to make it look more realistic.

 

 

 

Update time:

 

Work has been cutting into my play time a bit this week, and when I got around to playing tonight, some of my mods stopped working (it was mostly the visual mods I use for the screenshots, nothing in the city got affected).

All in all, I didn't get much work done tonight, but I thought I might as well share what I did

 

First off, the ever expanding city needed more power. Ever since I gave in to the hippies on the whole sewage cleaning system, they've been bugging me for more green energy. I've been contemplating a nice nuclear plant, but the petitions... and constant chirps.... I must admit I gave in again.

 

Close the the Water treatment plant we've built a new solar thermal plant.

 

 

I must say... it certainly is shiny!

 

 

I like shiny..... the older solar plants are still around though. They're still very much needed.

 

 

We also noticed the dump sites around the Otherside area were filled up. The community (and especially the farmers) petitioned and chirped HARD against my plans of some incinerators, so instead, we've had to resort to a recycling center. It generates a LOT of noise though, so we've built it quite far away from the main district here.

 

 

No bad smells, no  noise... they just have to drive a while to drop off their own trash

 

 

It's certainly a landmark in this area. It's the biggest building around here.

 

 

The industrial sector in Otherside has been growing a lot as well. It sends its cargo to both the Portside Terminal, to get loaded to the port, and to other cities in the region. We've expanded its capacity for trains, and gave them lots more room for temporary storage.

 

 

Which isn't really a problem. Space isn't at a premium this side of the river. Containers, glorious containers....

 

 

More room for the trains as well.

 

 

The rails make pretty patterns

 

 

All the traffic heading to and from here also needed a faster way to get in and out of the area. We've upgraded the road that followed the curve of the river to a Fastway.

 

 

It almost cuts the travel time in half.

 

 

Looks like this area is now ready to grow a bit more as well.

 

 

Hope you've enjoyed this update.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Your best entries are definitely your low-rise, suburban and agricultural ones. Those rail spurs were suburb as was the mini cargo terminal- simple but very good.

[ianclowe4c 1]

Looks great. I always take a lot of inspiration from yours and other people's work in the city journals. 

[kingofsimcity 5,740]

Oooooh a nice solar farm and recycling center! We did it boys ! #greenenergy #thefutureisnow

[Dazzyls 576]

Nice solar plants. Nice farms. Nice trainstation. Nice everything!

 

I saw that big industrial area in the background of one of your pictures and I don't know how you do it. I have plopped down 3 cargo harbours and a train freight terminal around the industrial area, but nothing will be built. How did you get industry?

[max_13 128]

The 4th picture looks so realistic, you do a great job on the rural area in your region. I'm also loving the container prop, guess we've seen the same reddit post?

[charlesnew 262]

Wow! Amazing! You give so much inspiration to people, and I love how you're in character.

[iviaarten 534]

Replies:

 

 

Ln X: Thanks. I'm trying something else for today's update though. Finally followed your advise, let me know what you think

ianclowe4c: That's my main reason for posting and reading CJ's as well.

kingofsimcity: aaarggghh... the chirps!

Ultimate727: Best way to get demand for industrial is building up your commercial. They demand the goods. I'm not 100% sure, but maybe because the commercials have an easy time ordering stuff from off map with all those cargo harbours and freight terminals, and that is keeping your industrial demand down. Maybe provide a few specialized industrial goods, that might kick it off too.

max_13: Haven't really kept up with Reddit the past week. I was just looking for props in the workshop, and this popped up. I've seen some other nice uses of those on Reddit since though. Thanks for the compliments.

charlesnew: #fillyourpocketswithtaxmoneys

 

 

 

Today's Mods:

 

A couple of nice unique buildings today

 

Markthal (from Rotterdam in the Netherlands) by Bonzodoggie: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=413962398

Emerald Plaza by Remaille: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=411734206

 

I've also downloaded a couple of growable high density buildings, let's see if you can spot them

 

 

 

Update:

 

I've finally caved in. I have to face the facts. Forkton has been growing steady and strong, and has grown up. Land values are continuously on the rise, and building out rather than up is not the automatic choice anymore. So in today's update, we'll finally build UP in Forkton.

 

I'm going to start with some boring housekeeping though (sorry).

 

The modifications to the Portside interchange have allowed the industrial area on the east side to expand a bit. New factories were quick to fill in the newly allotted space.

 

 

 

The fresh influx of goods created more demand for shops to sell them. Finexia Portside was expanded as well.

 

 

 

Some entertainment in the form of a new skate park was built as well to keep the kids from throwing bricks through the store windows.

 

 

And just like the circle of life, the new shops required people to work there as well, so we planned a new neighborhood next to it.

 

 

 

A lot of the people who support St. Pauli's football club wanted to move in, and they did. Since they're a bit better behaved than the Forkton Frenzy Fans, this neighborhood definitely has a nicer feel to it.

 

 

 

All the new developments over here in the northeast caught in a single picture.

 

 

 

Now, finally, to the meat and potatoes of the city, it's seen quite some changes.

 

 

 

The new Market Hall is the spiritual headquarters to all the commercial buildings in our fine city.

 

 

 

It's situated directly next to the Sporkton Central station for easy accessibility.

 

 

Inside you can find an expo center where the latest gizmo's and marketing tricks are being showed off (OOC: I absolutely LOVE that it's correctly textured and modeled on the inside. This thing is amazing!)

 

 

 

Around the central station area, more buildings have been redeveloped. This was also the obvious location for the Public Transport Headquarters for the region.

 

 

 

The view from the roof from one of the previously tallest buildings in the area, not anymore....

 

 

 

Over in Uppington, things have changed as well.

 

 

 

Both sides of the main park have seen extensive redevelopment.

 

 

 

The people seem to enjoy the new view. I get chirps like #finallyinthe20thcentury #allgrownupnow all the time.

 

 

 

A multinational company wanted to construct their new HQ in Forkton as well.

 

 

 

Of coursed we welcomed the CEO of HexTech with open arms.

 

 

 

It's one of the tallest buildings in the city now.

 

 

 

The pleasantly low density and high tech neighborhood of North Pantsdam changed a bit as well. Land values here increased massively from the new developments over in Uppington. It too has been growing.

 

Some of the older buildings still remain though.

 

 

 

Lots of new buildings as well though.

 

 

 

An overview of the redeveloped section of North Pantsdam.

 

 

 

And looking towards Uppington and Sporkton from Pantsdam.

 

 

 

Different angle from Uppington.

 

 

 

Different angle

 

 

 

and an overview of Sporkton

 

 

 

Yes, this.... I most definitely have to call a Skyline.

 

 

 

The view from the old Town hall in Old Forkton by the river.

 

 

 

The paper pushers in the Public Transport Headquarters pushed some plans for a metro on my table. I've so far agreed to let them build a line between the area's lacking commuter rail.

We have two lines running currently

1) Portside Industrial Park - Finexia Portside - Sporkton Central

2) Pantsdam University - Uppington Opera House - Sporkton Central

 

Here you can see the lines, and the usage it's already seeing. Some of the metro's are already completely filled up.

 

 

 

edit: forgot to add the new Overview picture. Can see most of the region from this angle.

 

 

 

Hope you've enjoyed this update, where I had to step out of my rural comfort zone

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Great stuff, great stuff. To spruce up high density commercial variety mix high density residential, high density commercial and office zones together. Strategic placement of unique buildings also helps, something which you did great.

[Dazzyls 576]

This looks absolutely amazing! Have you downloaded any buildings you can in the skyline, or are they all just vanilla? I'm so stupid. EMERALD PLAZA isn't vanilla 

[Mymyjp 1,052]

Such a great entry...and look at the size of the city now...compare to the beginning, it is such an amazing progress.

 

Great job!

[iviaarten 534]

Not a full update, just a quick mod spotlight. Remember I was working on my cargo terminals 2 days ago? Just found an AMAZING set of props that was just what I was missing... CRANES!

 

Made by  cyricc: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=419832440

 

link to the Reddit thread where I found this: http://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/31htmn/i_really_wanted_to_stack_containers_in_my_freight/

 

Looks a LOT better don't you think?

 

 

 

[max_13 128]

Yep that's going straight to my harbor, thanks.

[rsc204 21,866]

Just caught up with this CJ a few days back, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading through and seeing some of the nicest views from Skylines to date. So many open spaces, little parks and realistic details, plus some great camera angles used in your screenshots, it certainly provides a wealth of inspiration for what can be done.