Are The TLA5 and TLA7 working as intended?

[Moses Zal 46]

I tried using the TLA5 and TLA7 in a test city.

I zoned for residential, commercial, and industrial next to each others connected with the TLA-7. Sims were going to work by walking only. They were not using the TLA because there were either no way for them to go to their jobs or to get back home by driving. 

When I tried testing the TLA by U-Drive-It, whenever I try using the middle turning lane, the mission is aborted as if I pressed ESC!

Is the TLA bugged or something? I am using currently the NAM 34 version. Haven't updated it to 35 yet.

[Tarkus 6,933]

The U-Drive-It missions being aborted when using the middle turning lane is actually the intended behavior, should "Snap to Road" be turned on.  Those paths terminate at the edge of the network.  Unless you're a tile out from an intersection, the middle lane is intended primarily to go directly to zones/lots/buildings, and provide access to them from the far side of the network--something they can't get with the base Avenue or the AVE-6. 

If you have the SC4 Extra Cheats DLL file (which is extremely useful for purposes other than cheating), there's a "cheat" called DrawPaths, which will show the paths for the transit networks--this will give you a little better idea of how the TLA-5/7 paths are designed.

As far as the zoning access issue, there may be something up with your layout.  Certain designs can disrupt the flow of traffic.

Additionally, NAM 34 is no longer supported, as the team only supports the latest version (presently NAM 35).  I would recommend upgrading--there are a few additions to the NWM in NAM 35, including quite a few new draggable transitions between networks.

-Tarkus

 

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

That DrawPaths "cheat" is going to come in handy for checking network connectivity (e.g. FLUP builds). I hadn't realized I could use it to see paths before sims move in.

This thread prompted me to finally look up TLA (Turning Lane Avenue) and NWM (Network Widening Mod). Previously they'd just been more alphabet soup in the NAM haystack that I hadn't gotten around to studying. I wish I'd paid more attention sooner -- I never knew I could build avenues with property access on both sides! This will cure multiple headaches, enough to warrant a NAM reinstall if I didn't get NWM before.

And one of those headaches is something I hadn't known I had: According to my reading, vanilla avenues create "diagonal congestion". I'm not sure how it works, but it sure sounds like something I want to avoid. I wonder if any other nets suffer diagonal congestion, or just vanilla avenues. Google hasn't found much on the phrase (yet).

[Tarkus 6,933]

3 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

And one of those headaches is something I hadn't known I had: According to my reading, vanilla avenues create "diagonal congestion". I'm not sure how it works, but it sure sounds like something I want to avoid. I wonder if any other nets suffer diagonal congestion, or just vanilla avenues. Google hasn't found much on the phrase (yet).

It has to do with the way that the diagonal Avenue network is oriented on the tile, and the fact that SC4 capacity works on a per-tile basis.  There's a point where traffic going in both directions shares a central tile, which instantly doubles the volume (and thus, the congestion level) on that tile.  The Maxis Highways also suffer from the same issue, as they use the same footprint.  It's a by-product of how Maxis designed all the base dual-tile networks.

Of the NAM's override networks, the RD-4 and OWR-4 also use this "shared tile" footprint on the diagonals, but the TLA-5, OWR-5, RD-6, TLA-7, AVE-6, and every multi-tile RHW network is instead constructed with a "split tile" footprint.  The "split tile" setup takes up a bit more room (and absolutely necessitates the network being constructed by an override of two parallel single-tile networks), but this eliminates the shared tile situation and its downsides.

-Tarkus

[Naomi57 2,985]

On 26/02/2017 at 11:42 AM, Tarkus said:

It has to do with the way that the diagonal Avenue network is oriented on the tile, and the fact that SC4 capacity works on a per-tile basis.  There's a point where traffic going in both directions shares a central tile, which instantly doubles the volume (and thus, the congestion level) on that tile.  The Maxis Highways also suffer from the same issue, as they use the same footprint.  It's a by-product of how Maxis designed all the base dual-tile networks.

Of the NAM's override networks, the RD-4 and OWR-4 also use this "shared tile" footprint on the diagonals, but the TLA-5, OWR-5, RD-6, TLA-7, AVE-6, and every multi-tile RHW network is instead constructed with a "split tile" footprint.  The "split tile" setup takes up a bit more room (and absolutely necessitates the network being constructed by an override of two parallel single-tile networks), but this eliminates the shared tile situation and its downsides.

Interesting, which means that OWR-5 is effectively higher capacity than OWR-4, even though they have the same catalog capacity.  With the inability of either OWR-4 or OWR-5 to do 90 degree corners, diagonals are almost inevitable.

This is really interesting to read, and explains my past observations about diagonal AVE-4 in particular.  Thank you, Tarkus!