To Slope or Not To Slope

[GrandpaKim 7]

I've been resisting getting a slope mod mostly because I don't think they will do what I want.  I shouldn't say that.  I've never used a slope mod so I don't really know what they can and can't do.  What I am looking for is better described as a grading mod.  I want to set a slope to any angle, any direction or multiple directions, and I want to put any transport network on top of it.  I do not want to build a bullet train line, destroy it and put in a road.  That's just offensive.  The way I envision it I would drag a line x tiles wide from some high point to some lower point any distance away and have the mod create a steady slope between the two with appropriate rounding at top and bottom.  It might be 12%, it might be 2%, as long as it lays out the way "I" choose.  Also I want to be able to turn it on and off at will.  I would like it to chop through small hills and fill small valleys while creating a steady slope.  It would also be great if it did a nice job on traverses like you would see on a switchback road.

I realize there are limitations and some of these ideas may just be a pipe dream but like I said, I don't know.  Is there anything out there that might come closing to filling my order?

[Compdude787 916]

I don't think so. You have to use a slope mod. Personally I don't see anything wrong with dragging out a smoother network like the bullet train, then bulldozing it and then putting in a road. You can then choose what kind of slope you have for your road, whether it be a steeper slope drawn out with just the road tool or a smoother slope drawn out with, say, the rail tool.

[rsc204 21,808]

If you set your road to have the same values for terrain as the BTM mod, normally dragging roads would produce the same slope. The problem here is that each network can have but one set of slope settings that can not be changed on the fly. Therefore some effort is always going to be required to get slopes exactly how you want them. You could switch between multiple slope mods (exiting the game in-between) or if you have other networks like BTM or Rail more restrictive than Roads/Streets you use them together to adjust slopes without exiting the game.

[GrandpaKim 7]

Thanks guys, this is more or less what I surmised from the many threads regarding slopes.  It does seem odd though that I can create (painstakingly to be sure) any slope I want using the default tools and create any height hill with the raiser/diggers but a variable slope mod is not possible.  Could it not be done the same way the raiser/diggers are done?  Have menu selections of various grades?  I know nothing about the code.  It just seems odd this one-at-a-time slope limitation.  Rsc204, you say "each network can have but one set of slope settings" but I'd rather my slope had no connection to any network.  Hell, I might want to create a ski hill!  Now that I think of it, I do have roads etc at many different slopes so it appears my networks have multiple slope settings.  Another thing just occured to me:  if you are building down or up a gentle slope how do you prevent the mod from taking over and increasing the grade?  For that matter how does it react on flat ground?

I think I'm sounding argumentative.  That's unintentional.  I just want to understand.

(BTW rsc204, loved your YouTube tutorials)

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I don't use one.  A few that I tried produced problems and rather than try and solve them, I just abandoned the idea.

However, don't let me dissuade you from giving them a try.  Many people here have installed them with considerable success.  You do need to understand how they work.

[rsc204 21,808]

I think the key differences here are how each of the three components you talk about work.

So a hole-digger/raiser lot is a lot with the required settings to raise or lower a tile by a specific amount. Maybe this could be expanded to larger footprints like 2x3 or whatever, but don't quote me on that. I really don't know if anyone ever got into it. You could place a series of ever higher raisers in a line and make a slope, but it doesn't level off the parts in between, I think it's very unlikely you could make that work automatically with the current game code.

The terrain tools are more designed around map creation, generally speaking they are more useful for less delicate terraforming .

Then you have slope mods, actually Maxis included them, all a mod does is alter the parameters of the allowable slopes. Maxis left them very unrestrictive because that makes game play easier for most, you can almost build anywhere by default. The drawback is that all sorts of unrealistic bumps and slopes are then possible, this is undesirable if you are trying to make something more realistic-looking.

Essentially to make what you want work, all of these three aspects would need to be brought together to achieve it. In all likelihood though that's simply not possible without recoding the games .exe. All the mods for SC work within the boundaries of code/properties that compliment the main game code (in sc4.exe). It's simply not possible to link the .exe to new code, it has to be part of the .exe. This is possible in theory, but would be very complicated and possibly even Illegal, certainly releasing such a modified .exe would be against EAs EULA. I read somewhere that the NAM team had to agree to never modify the code to avoid the ire of EA's legal team, so this is no small matter. So without a way to alter the fundamental code, all we can alter are the parameters of what the game code is designed to handle.

As a result most mods that fundamentally change the game are really just work-arounds, ways to make the impossible possible. So for example the Diagonal Bridge Enabler is a workaround, there will never be a way to simply drag a diagonal bridge. Try it, the network tool goes red and says no, this behaviour can't be changed. So a series of T21's fakes a bridge by adding plyons to the tiles between 2 starter pieces.

In essence that's why users use the methods we do to create slopes, because over the years, this strategy was considered the best for making nice slopes. Slope mods only work one way, they dictate the height difference allowed between one tile and the next. So if you've a gentle slope they won't make it steeper, only the other way around. If you have 5 slope mods all with different settings, you can use them in combination to alter the slopes. What it comes down to at the end of the day is your playing style. Would you rather spend some time creating nicer slopes, or is it too much effort for an aspect of the game that doesn't bother you. I think once you've started making nicer slopes and using slope mods, it's hard to go back to the old way. It does take some time to learn and figure out how to get the best out of these tools. Did you know for example placing a PedMall on part of a slope will "lock" it's height so dragging next to it will not adjust the terrain of the tiles surrounding it? But when you do, your game will look so much better for having done so. A combination of the diggers/raisers, terrain tools and slope mods used together can make for great scenes. But like most things in SC4 there is no shortcut to adding such detail, it requires a certain amount of dedication to put it together.

Maybe what you want could possibly be achieved by adding a new type of tool to the god mode terrain tools. Of course this is based on the premise that you could alter the settings to suitably simulate such a slope. I'm not the guy to speak to about that, but if the rain tool added new items to the menu, it might be possible to add others. I'm guessing any such tools would have to have a circular or square radius though, based on how the current tools work. They probably wouldn't act for a number of tiles in a straight line, therefore they would make more of a hill with the slopes on each side. At any rate, since I'm moving into pure speculation I'll leave it here.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

Time for a confession - slopes are the sheer horror to me.

I use differnt ones. I build a bit of the road. Save. Stop the game. Put the slope mod out of my plugin folder. Start the game. Build the next part of the road. Save. Stop the game. Put another slope mod into the plugin folder. Start the game. Build the bridge. Save. Stop the game. And so on.

There is no perfect slope mod. One is good for bridges, the other is good to build tunnels. One works well for the road I built but it is to limited for the rail I built next.

(So my dream would be a dynamically adjustable slope mod, as I wouldn't need one slope but many different slopes)

 

Well, my advice - as always - why take this or that, if you can take all of them? (I even have a dozend edits I made myself by adjusting the values of existing mods. Turned out to be an endless story.)

 

Err. Uhm. But in this case, to use all of them - it brings gameplay to a certain limit.

 

 

  Edited November 25, 2015 by fantozzi  
Try to make it looking like english.

[GrandpaKim 7]

Hmm, fascinating subject for which I have no expertise.  I am continuing making my own slopes and finding some shortcuts of my own.  Creating a smooth slope on a diagonal is still a horror story, though.  Frankly I'm amazed at what the modders can do.  Keep it up guys.  I will never dis you but I will continue to ask questions.

As you may realize, I'm new to SC4. Early on, I created my first region.  It has now turned into a sandbox.  Working with it I found it much too rugged so it's an excellent place to learn about slopes, and everything else about the game for that matter.  I thank you all for all your patience.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ I can do nothing but encourage you and all recent players.  I've been running this game, on and off, for something like a dozen years now, and I always can find something new to try.  The very open-endedness of this program makes it an absolute favourite as a pass-time.

One of the real dangers here is information (and plugin) overload.  Caution is the watchword here, and never be too bound up in a set-up to start over.  Starting over is easy, just move your Regions and Plugins folders out of the game structure and start the game.  The game will re-import the default regions and make an empty plugins folder.  Re-installation is not necessary.

BTW, I have a very large downloads folder that contains everything I've ever downloaded, so if I do a restart I can get what I consider to be 'standard' from there without too much trouble.  Standard for me consists of NAM, RTMT, SPAM and all the 'fixes'.  After that it becomes a matter of need rather than want.

[GrandpaKim 7]

Nonny, I handle my downloads much the same way.  Though SC4 suffers from overload, it is still easier than MS Flight Simulator.  After a long hiatus I have to relearn the program and add ons; the flying part is easy.