Requesting advice regarding realism

[Buffalonian2 6]

Asking for tips regarding realism, there are a few specific things I struggle with:

Power plant placement. I like to place my power plants near rail lines and a body of water, as I figure this is where they are usually placed in real life for shipments of coal/oil/what have you. I imagine this may be different for nuclear plants and solar plants. Still, something seems off. Maybe I'm just too picky about my placements/the way I design the network connections. Anyone have anything to add?

Realistic placement of landfills and incinerators.

Realistic placement of water pumps, towers and sewage/treatment plants.

I also struggle with designing intersections for heavy rail lines, they never seem realistic looking.

[crishy 57]

Without pictures is hard to give detailed advice.

 

But when in doubt, Google Map something and see what things in real life look like.

 

Realistic rail intersections are wide (smooth and gradual curves) and busy ones tend to use bridged rail crossings, especially if different networks are in use. Too many details to mention but again, Google Maps is a handy source of advice.

 

Water towers in the highest necessary spot (only enough to cover most or all buildings) of the city. I am not well versed in water treatment but I would imagine large ones would be located close to a body of water. They seem to be very industrial-like in nature, apart from the circular pools of water. Finding one in Google Maps can be harder as they seem to be less well known than power plants and transportation, but Google something about treatment plant (for example, I found Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Plant in Toronto) in the closest large city and you will be able to find one in Google Maps from there.

 

Given this is a fully 3D game you could also use panoramic shots but more often than not they omit important details.

[BlakeMW 84]

Water pumps should be located upriver, above major pollution sources. Drawing from a dam is a big plus as many, maybe most, cities use dams to collect seasonal flow (not modeled in the simulator).

Sewage outlets should be in the ocean if possible.

 

Generally sewage lines should run downhill, and the outlets / treatment plants should be downhill from the city. It is possible to pump sewage uphill, but it is really preferable not to, better if it can flow under gravity as much as possible. For bonus points have your lines run downhill.

 

Landfills and incinerators can be placed in cities. The ingame landfill is not really a landfill, it's more like a scrap yard or a big recycling center. If you think of a landfill as being something like that, then they are okay in cities. Real landfills are so different to in-game landfills you can't really think of them as being the same thing. Incinerators can be clean enough to be in cities. In my experience European cities have a higher tendency to include these kinds of utilities inside the city, in contrast with suburbia where they carry more of a NIMBY stigma and so get put outside the city.

 

Power plants should be placed where it makes sense. For coal and oil, next to rail or a port - the fuel supply is actually modeled although the quantities delivered are very small. A realistic place to put coal power plants is very near the source of coal (i.e. ore extraction industry). Unfortunately, ore runs out in the game so quickly that this makes no difference to the simulation, but IRL coal power plants are often built as close as possible to the coal mine and often the two are coupled. The same goes for oil but to a less extent as oil is more easily transported than coal, as it can be pumped.

 

Wind turbines are fine anywhere, most maps have a fair approximation of realistic good wind areas, but make sure to not place them as densely as the game allows because they do have a big 'wind shadow', google map some real wind farm for an idea of realistic placement. Solar power shouldn't be used on wet looking maps, that kind of solar plant just couldn't be economically feasible on maps prone to rain and overcast weather as they need direct sunlight, they are great for deserts. For realism's sake you shouldn't allow more than 25% of your power to come from wind or solar - wind especially, the solar plant actually appears to be a solar power tower which stores hot working fluid for 'rainy days', so if the climate is one conducive to excellent solar generation you might plausibly get away with a higher ratio of solar but it's asking a lot of the solar power tower concept and in any case it's not going to work in places with cloudy weeks or months.

You can use as much hydro power as the map permits. Hydro is nearly always suitable for providing base load power. Norway has over 100% electricity generation from Hydro and quite a few countries produce 60% or more of their electricity from hydro.

[CorpusDei 69]

I find the standard power stations slightly laughable (the same was true, to a lesser extent, of the SimCity games as well) - they're tiny; half a dozen oil power plants for what basically amounts to a large-ish town?
 
I tend to use sub-stations early on as you'd not really have a power station of any stripe to run a small town, for instance:

• https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=437070032
• https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=421612123

 

Later on, when I can happily drop a million credits on a power plant:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=407843049

 

Only problem is though, I think because of the size of it, the police don't seem to be able to cover it. Even if you plop a Police HQ next to this building it'll still generate crime.

[Trooth 22]

For water and waste water remember water flows down hill.  A water tower would normally be placed on the highest level possible to let gravity feed the system rather than pumps.  Water treatment plants will normally be near a river, but they don't have to be.  Water finds it own level so it will seep through the land.  But that is after the water has been treated.  There are a lot more to water treatment facilities than in the stock game though.  You would normally have several fields used to clean the water before it is able to be put back into the water table.

[Dyas 37]

https://www.google.com/maps/place/WA-3,+Washington/@47.5483506,-122.6719978,2309m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x5491cb4b28cbc39b:0x8e8e74f9a53ca302!6m1!1e1

 

That is a local waste plant I can think of. It is close to a bay, and just right in town. Zoom in so you can see it.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429965889

 

That is good advice on a real treatment plant. I like how it looks, and it reminds me of the RL one. Only complaint, the one in RL is circle, not square.

[Trooth 22]

https://www.google.com/maps/place/WA-3,+Washington/@47.5483506,-122.6719978,2309m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x5491cb4b28cbc39b:0x8e8e74f9a53ca302!6m1!1e1

 

That is a local waste plant I can think of. It is close to a bay, and just right in town. Zoom in so you can see it.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429965889

 

That is good advice on a real treatment plant. I like how it looks, and it reminds me of the RL one. Only complaint, the one in RL is circle, not square.

That realistic treatment plant is very realistic.  If you want to look at an example without a major natural water source find some out in the desert.  A good leech field will make the water nearly drinkable at the end of the cycle (including once it has gone through the water source for the rest of our drinking water).  Water released from a waste treatment plant is clean enough to be non-potable, and is probably safer to drink than straight from a river/creek/lake.

[Dyas 37]

Oh, I do like that guide. I would make my pools round, and only if for the plant I posted from google maps. I drove past that for years, and still would if I go visit my parents. I live in seattle, and that is on the way to there house in Silverdale (just by Bremerton where the plant is).