Taking NAM for my very first test drive, in East New York

[Naomi57 2,985]

My first post in Simtropolis!

I'm a long time player of Rush Hour vanilla, just with just three little cheats:
• A very big city startup loan (Ctrl+X  moolah ), using downloaded  Maxis Extra Cheats.dll (v1.0) .
• Access to ALL my city planning resources from the get-go (Ctrl+X  you don't deserve it ), no download required.
• Ctrl+Alt+Shift God-mode terraforming whenever I feel the inclination.

I like taking existing real-life city maps, and re-making an approximate equivalent, though as I'd love it to be, rather than the ugly bits real cities inevitably have, while keeping the city books balanced and repaying my startup loan.  My last project region was Boston, in which I grew a vanilla region with 889k population across 14 city tiles.

 

Now is my VERY FIRST TIME plunging into the NAM, using NAM36, so I figured it's time to set up a new project region map, East New York.

I used SC4Mapper to prepare both regions.  Gosh, how I love real-life maps!  Especially ones with lots and lots of water.

You see, I'm a huge, huge fan of the ferries, both from a tricky traffic management perspective , and because I can't resist giving my sims the lifestyle they long for.  Show me any sim who doesn't prefer to take a ferry to work if they get half a chance!  

I also love planning bridge capacities, underwater tunnels, large (happy) populations, high capacity roads, dedicated bus lanes, and balancing mass transit, and that's just on the vanilla game with no mods.  I'm hoping I don't come unstuck with the larger capacities in the NAM.  I'll start with a small backwater city tile, just in case, while I'm getting used to the tons and tons of new features.    Thank you NAM team!!! 

My chosen East New York backwater is the low density seaside town Breezy Point, situated on the ocean shoreline off bayside Manhattan Beach.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Breezy+Point,+Queens,+NY,+USA

Loving ferries as I do, I've already discovered that they are deadly attractors for the Eternal Commuter Loop Bug.  A definite challenge, and I suspect it's a challenge that can become a bigger issue with the higher network capacity and speeds in the NAM.

In my new East New York region, I'm taking the following steps to minimise and mitigate the Eternal Commuters:

1. Mid-to-large NWM road loops (not small loops) of high capacity OWR-4 suburban roads connecting each ferry terminal, surrounded with large commercial lots and plazas to take advantage of the occasional burst of eternal commuters, then light industry to encourage the commuters to stay and work rather than hopping straight onto another ferry.   Yes, incoming commuter sims most certainly will ride in a circle and take the very next ferry out of town.  I've seen them do that many, many times already!  
2. Zoning my residential a little further away from both ferries and neighbour connections, to give both residents and commuters lots of local employment options before they ride out of town.
3. Carefully balancing a good spread of RCI (and wealth) between population and jobs in each city.
4. Downloading a high capacity passenger ferry off the STEX to match higher capacities in the region.  This one even has a built-in bus stop.  Yay!   https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/3355-gdv-water-taxi-station-wbus-stop-new-water-taxi  (not tested yet)
5. Avoiding car ferries, which are even stronger deadly attractors of Eternal Commuters.
6. Roughly following the "dendrite structure" that @A Nonny Moose keeps recommending.
7. Using mostly Large city tiles, with neighbour connections spaced widely apart.
8. Careful positioning of neighbour connections and ferries, to avoid proximity problems with Sims riding into town just to take the ferry out again, or vice versa.  I DO want my sims to work, not just ride ferries all day ... even though the ferries are truly delightful.

I'm pretty sure that the sim ferry terminals are very much like Star Trek transporters, allowing sims to teleport to any city tile with a ferry, so it will be interesting to manage the occasional bursts eternal commuters using NAM.  In the past, I've found that careful zoning and RCI balancing keeps the problem down to a manageable level, and it's even a great boost to local businesses around the ferry terminal.  Manageable bursts of Eternal Commuters are even a wee little bit like tourist traffic, with unpredictable spurts of traffic and delicious commercial opportunities.

You can think of ferry terminals as being another type of neighbour connection, with sims buzzing around them like moths to a flame, if they don't have closer employment opportunities.  I've found ferries to be a great way of avoiding No Job Zots.  Though the sims commute times are larger thereby, it's a commute they can really enjoy!

I pasted a screencap of the East New York region in SC4Mapper to Excel, to help me plan a Ferry Terminal and Neighbour Connection map of the region.  Notice I've carefully avoided road loops, and placed all neighbour connections and ferries at distance from each other.  If I find I don't have any little bursts of Eternal Commuters (tourists), then I'll carefully add extra Ferry terminals until I have a realistic tourist bubble.  

[Naomi57 2,985]

I just spotted the news.  Feeling sad even though I never talked to him.

His posts were a big help to my finally understanding how to better balance ferries with the eternal commuters.  Yes, I'm missing him already.
 

 

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

6 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

My first post in Simtropolis!

And a very thorough first post it is!

[Naomi57 2,985]

Thank you, @CorinaMarie.  Your posts on the eternal commuter loops were also exceedingly helpful to me, especially your test scenarios where you tracked a small population in replies to Eusebio's post.

 

And this quote of yours is my favourite from Simtropolis so far.

On 2/6/2017 at 1:28 AM, CorinaMarie said:

I have a MySim who always drives to work (in the same city tile) and then takes the bus home.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Gosh, creating a high capacity ferry loop road with OWR-4 is a tough nut to crack!

The new high capacity ferry needs a high capacity loop road, in anticipation of the coming tourist seasons, so I sent the teams of construction engineers out to some unused land beyond the city limits, to build a prototype loop road with the new road building technology OWR-4.

After blowing half their construction budget, the engineers came back, to say that they can't build 90 degree bends with the OWR-4.

"What about curves instead of corners?" I asked.  "Nope," they answered.

"So, how are we going to turn this straight road into a ferry loop?  How about 45 degree bends?"

"Mmmm, maybe," the engineers replied with disconcerting uncertainty.

Having the best possible road technology for high capacity ferry loop roads is worth taking some financial risks, and the startup loan for Breezy Point has some generous padding to help attract tourist dollars, so I was willing to take a long shot to push the OWR-4 to it's limits.  After substantial cost and time overruns, the engineers announced success, "Ms Mayor, we have an OWR-4 with 45 degree bends!"

"Yay!"  Unfortunately, turning those 45 degree bends into a completed ferry loop took many more months of construction, and demolition, and more construction, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel.  Finally, after several more months, the construction engineers reported they had a completed prototype.  On my way out to the construction site, I asked some more probing questions.

"How did you go with access to the inner industrial zone?" I asked.

"The new pedmall is looking great," they answered.

"But, what about the FLUPs underpass under the OWR-4 loop road?", I queried them.  "We need road access for outgoing freight, and possibly for fire truck access, too, touch wood, and it must not disturb the tourist traffic!"

The engineers glanced at one another, but no one spoke.  After an awkward silence, the lead engineer explained.  "Sorry, Ms Mayor, we hit some technical hitches in getting a FLUPs underpass under the OWR-4.   It seems the two technologies are not compatible ... but don't worry, we put a road tunnel through instead, and it provides space for a bus stop, too!"

I winced when I saw the result, with the unsightly (and very 1920s) tunnel entrances marring the modern look of the ferry loop road.  Noticing the look on my face, the lead engineer said, "Don't worry, Ms Mayor, no one will notice the tunnel entrances once the shops and office blocks go up.  That road tunnel might be old tech, but it will definitely handle the freight and fire truck access."

Attached:  My first try at OWR-4 ferry loop with underground road access for industrial freight trucks.

Traffic discoveries (running NAM on Base Network Capacity = High):

1. Pedestrians cannot traverse road tunnels from a bus stop above the road tunnel.  I was mistaken in my old vanilla cities using that technique!  They can use it to change to a bus route through the tunnel, but not to walk through the tunnel.
2. Loving the new pedmalls!  
3. OWR-4 supports 45 degree bends, but it's super hard, and requires lots of space.  Found a handy video tutorial covering 45 degree turns for TLA-5, which was helpful, but OWR-4 is a tad trickier.  I still haven't figured out all the kinks, yet.
4. OWR-4 doesn't seem to support an OxO FLUPs underpass, nor an OxO Road Overpass.
5. Despite the OWR-4 being super fast and high capacity, the local sim commuters are extremely reluctant to drive 270 degrees around the loop road, even for civic jobs.  I'll have to provide back lane access on that side for the locals.
6. The old SimCity 4 vanilla road tunnel trick does work, but the freight truck automata in the tunnel can be seen crossing the OWR-4.   
   I wonder if a lower elevation vanilla road tunnel might fix that?
7. NAM sims are more reluctant to catch multiple buses in a single commute ... or maybe that's from upgrading to the latest Version 1.1.638 (NAM prerequisite) of the SimCity 4 executable.
8. High density industrial still allows pedestrians to access the entire zone from adjacent industrial buildings.

My next experiment is to try elevated RHW-2 to provide an overpass for the OWR-4, but I think the highway ramps will be too long.  If that doesn't work, then I'll try a deeper road tunnel to see if that avoids the automata problem (point 5 above), but that will require surface elevation changes.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Alrighty, good thing those construction engineers have me to help them with the details!

Using Ctrl+X TerrainQuery on , it turns out that "old tech tunnel" the lead engineer thought would be such a good idea, had a clearance of just 2 metres below the OWR-4.  No wonder there was automata oddities, with trucks abandoning the 2 metre tunnel and heading out straight across the OWR-4, to the endangerment of all sims involved!  

This is a particular problem in many parts of New York, so close to sea level, where old tech (vanilla) tunnels have problems with water leakage if they are dug too deep.  FLUPs underpass technology fixes that, but that won't work with my OWR-4.

Now, to be fair, the pathing for the 2 metre deep SimCity vanilla tunnel worked like a dream, but it was an eyesore, and one we definitely don't want near our tourist district.  With some experimentation, I discovered that both L1 road viaducts (7.5m) and elevated L1 RHW-2 can deliver the goods on freight access over the OWR-4, with just a 4 tile ramp on either side.  Even better, though L1 looks like a low clearance visually, 7.5 metres is more than high enough for a double-decker tourist bus to pass along the OWR-4 underneath.

See screen dump below, for my new improved OWR-4 ferry loop road with road viaduct access to the industrial zone.

I chose the L1 road viaduct rather than elevated RHW-2, for ideal pedestrian access and to avoid in-line transition back to standard road.  Here's the steps involved for building the L1 road viaduct:

1. Delete 2 adjacent pieces of OWR-4 to make room for OxO elevated viaduct overhead.
2. Select "Draggable Elevated Road Viaducts" from roads menu.
3. Tab through to "1-Level FLEX Road On-Slope".
4. Put one down on each side of the OWR-4, with each brown starter tile in the deleted pieces of the OWR-4, Home/End key to swap sides.
5. Press R key for road and drag across to complete the elevated viaduct.
6. Select "One Way Roads" from the roads menu, and drag the OWR-4 underneath the viaduct.  Yay!

It works, too!  I added utilities, civics and residential, then ran it through the simulator for 6 years to check.  

Additional discoveries:

1. Confirmed that bus commuters will change buses at the intersection of OWR-4 and viaduct, and immediately hop onto a viaduct bus over the OWR-4 into the industrial zone.  The one corner bus stop serves both ground L0 OWR-4 and L1 road viaduct.  I guess the bus stop has an integrated lift from L0 to L1, or with the fitness level of these NAM sims, perhaps it's just stairs up to the L1 viaduct?  
2. Pedestrians will cross the L1 viaduct, from the same corner bus stop, to go to work in the solar thermal power station.  Whether they are crossing over the top of the viaduct road, or safely passing underneath, I'm not sure yet.
3. Sim commuters are happier to drive further to work at the police station or the high school.  They are less likely to travel as far for the hospital, and even less likely to travel as far to work at the elementary school or power station.  My first prototype had the elementary school at the far end of the OWR-4 loop road (270 degrees), and in that case back lane access improved staff levels of the elementary school by 4 TIMES!!!  The police station and high school seem to be less prone to understaffing due to commuter distance.
4. The fire station serves both OWR-4 and L1 viaduct using back lane access to the viaduct.
5. Gosh these NAM sims really are fit, the longest pedestrian route was 26 tiles.  Though the road access was excellent, they preferred to walk rather than travel by car 270 degrees around the OWR-4 loop road!  

EDIT:  See my OWR-4 Ferry Loop (NAM36 visual tutorial) post for full instructions, if you'd like to build one of these ferry loops for yourself, or even to just learn how to use these NAM features.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Discovering the "Fly-swat Ferry Loop" ...

My lead construction engineer surprised me this morning, saying, "Ms Mayor, we've had a background project percolating nicely over the last few months, and we think it's going to be the perfect solution for high density commercial ferry pier construction."

With silent doubts and misgivings, I headed out to the construction site outside the city limits, to view their Avenue Y-Stack prototype.

Wow, just wow!  I was struck dumb and pleased when I saw it.  While lower capacity than the OWR-4 ferry loop road, this little gem will deliver very smooth traffic flows with the eternal commuter tourist trade.  As my eyes traced the lanes, I could see that it would deliver ferry traffic to BOTH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE CARRIAGEWAYS of the looped avenue.  Ferry commuters would have shorter and faster access to commercial zones, while tourist traffic would be neatly spread across clockwise and anti-clockwise directions.

( thank you NAM Team!!! )  

My lead engineer waited with bated breath, a mixture of quiet anticipation and nervousness, to hear my response.

"This is sooo good!  Wow, you've outdone yourselves.  I think this moment deserves a celebration; gather the team together.  Have you got some champagne?"  

Prototype pictured below, which I have now dubbed the "fly-swat ferry loop".  The vast number of community gardens in the prototype  represents the sea .  (I don't have ploppable water yet, and I have to say the sea of community gardens looks a bit like urban permaculture!)  I haven't tested it yet, but my long experience with traffic management on vanilla Rush Hour, tells me this will work and is going to be fun to watch once the ferry starts delivering passengers.  Here's the advantages with this Avenue Y-Stack ferry loop approach:

1.  This is SO EASY!  Unlike my struggles with the sophisticated OWR-4 loops, the Avenue Y-Stack integrates painlessly with avenues and FLUPs.  Strictly speaking the FLUP underpass is mostly cosmetic, because commuters all have access via the avenue loop, though I'm pretty sure the underpass will prove useful in some ways.  The FLUPs have a shorter ramp than the L1 road viaduct I used in the OWR-4 ferry loop posted above.
2. OWR-4 is impossible to get onto a pier.  The pier would end up so fat and wide, that it wouldn't look like a pier anymore.  The Avenue Y-Stack delivers smooth one-way traffic to and from the ferry.
3. There is enough avenue on the pier to realistically handle weaving traffic coming off the Avenue Y-Stack.  If this was real-life, I would lower the pier speed limit to 40km/h to decrease weaving-related traffic accidents coming on and off the interchange.  In real-life, the hairpin bend at the ferry entrance would also reduce traffic speeds down to 20km/h, making the ferry entrance safer for pedestrians and children.
4. The shape looks like a pier!
5. It should distribute ferry traffic across both of the avenue carriageways.  With vanilla SimCity avenue ferry loops, only the outside (anti-clockwise) carriageway ever saw any ferry traffic.
6. As with my other ferry loops, having just one intersection at the far end of the loop encourages ferry traffic to complete the full circuit, thereby vastly increasing commerical wealth traffic benefits, and discouraging U-turns that cause avenue traffic congestion.
7. The bus stops, mountain trails, and streets (pictured below), will distribute bus and pedestrian commuters to jobs across all the commercial lots.  These are necessary because I'm pretty sure the bold white sides of the Avenue Y-Stack forbid pedestrian access.  Bus stops allow transit switch of highway bus commuters to pedestrian mode, but they don't allow highway pedestrian movements without the streets and Pedmall mountain trails shown in the screenshot.

I predict the following downsides to this "fly-swat ferry loop":

1. Because the inside (northern) lanes of the Avenue Y-Stack completely bypass the ferry, the high density commercial lots near the ferry are entirely dependent on ferry traffic, with very little local traffic.  If the ferry traffic diminishes for any reason, the high density commercial lots will dilapidate.  For that reason, I'll initially zone the ferry pier area for manufacturing (I-M), then for high tech (I-HT), which is very realistic for a low-traffic pier area.  When the ferry traffic volume increases, I'll rezone for high-density commercial offices (C$$$) to increase number of high EQ jobs.
2. While this Avenue Y-Stack should deliver maximum avenue traffic (12,000 on dual carriageway, rather than 6,000 on the single anti-clockwise carriageway – NAM High setting), that doesn't compare to the traffic capacities on the OWR-4 (22,500 on NAM High setting).  Two high capacity ferries on the pier can deliver 10,000 passengers a day, which can increase to 40,000 passengers if the ferries are overloaded.  If there is ever serious unemployment in the region, the eternal commuters (tourists) will turn the entire loop bright red.  OTOH, while the advisor's warnings can become annoying, patches of red avenue traffic in commercial districts are actually good for business.
3. Four of the bus stops look like they are too far from the road, because they are sitting beside curved pieces of elevated lanes on the Avenue Y-Stack, but experience tells me they will work in those positions.  Similar bus stop positions even work for elevated Maxis Highways (L2 MHW) and interchanges.

Totally loving the NAM, though I have to admit the sheer number of features is a little overwhelming sometimes, even for a veteran software developer and longtime vanilla SimCity 4 player like me.

EDIT 11th October 2019:  I've found the Fly-swat ferry loop works well ... not nearly as well as the OWR-4 ferry loop, but it does the trick.  I've done one so far (doing my 2nd one now), and found it best to zone a little industrial on the pier, as that attracts more distant commuters and develops well without as much traffic.  The ferry traffic will increase as I develop more city tiles with ferries, so there will come a point that I replace the industrial lots with commercial ones, to take advantage of the ferry-based traffic for C$$ commercial growth.  PLEASE NOTE that the prototype layout (above) needed a few tweaks, see post below dated 11th October for the final layout.

I've found the Fly-swat ferry loop is good for low-to-medium density commercial, whereas the OWR-4 ferry loop is good for medium-to-high density commercial.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Learning more about FLUPs and high capacity suburban intersections (NAM36)

While FLUPs are quite intuitive to me, having done many, many creative SimCity 4 vanilla tunnels, FLUPs also have some really nifty features that are not immediately obvious.  This video tutorial is totally worth seeing, and he taught me a whole bag of really useful tricks which would have taken a LONG, LONG time for me to learn by myself.  Highly recommended.

https://youtu.be/HpLGtqjjE8A?t=334
NAM Tutorial Part 3a (starting at 5:43 minutes)
on the MGB NAM channel

While OWR-4 roads are a really difficult NAM feature to use, which I talked about in some of my previous posts in this thread, the FLUPs underpasses are actually really easy, at about the same difficulty level as the old Maxis elevated highway interchanges ... what I would grade as intermediate level on the following scale:

Beginner ► Intermediate ► Advanced ► Difficult ► Sophisticated ► Expert

With help from the above MGB NAM video tutorial, I put together prototypes of two fairly equivalent suburban interchanges (see screenshot below).  In both cases, the north-south road is higher capacity because it uses the standard Maxis one way roads (OWR-2) as slip roads to the intersection.  I built the road on the left first, because it resembled a suburban interchange in my local area, and then I learned how to do the slip roads from the above video tutorial after seeing @CorinaMarie recommend this channel in one of her posts.

The screenshot below shows the three NAM (NWM) pieces required for both intersections.  Frankly, the FLUPs avenue roundabout underpass (on the right) is easier than the highway roundabout overpass (on the left), because the vanilla Maxis Highways (MHW) are actually trickier than FLUPs are!  The roundabout pieces are from the  AVE Inter  game menu item, and the FLUPs Ramp for underground Avenue piece is from the  FLUPs  game menu item.

WARNING: Both of these simple suburban interchanges have one big limitation — they only work on orthogonal (north-south or east-west) layouts, they don't handle diagonal avenues at all.  In fact, all the FLUPs ramps seem to have that same issue, though the FLUPs tunnels can swap to diagonal underground.  Keeping that one limitation in mind, otherwise they are really super useful.

The FLUPs Roundabout Avenue 4x4 underpass (on the right) is a cheaper and simpler interchange, really easy to construct.

The four slip roads are just the vanilla Maxis one way roads (OWR-2), and these are the hardest part of each interchange — the video explains it well.  The four tricks for these slip roads are:

1. Make sure you have all the arrows pointing in the right direction.
2. Do the diagonal bit attaching to the avenue first.
3. The diagonal bit attaching to the avenue intersects two tiles on each side of the Maxis avenue (AVE-4).
4. The slip roads attach to the "corners" of the roundabout.

Watch the video tutorial if you're not sure about how to use the FLUP ramps.  So very easy!

If you're keen on the look of the Maxis Highway Over Avenue Roundabout overpass interchange, it works much the same, except for extra steps doing inline transition of the Maxis elevated highway (L2 MHW) down to a ground level Maxis avenue, as follows:

1. Place the Highway over Avenue Roundabout piece.
2. Stretch out one extra tile on north and south sides, of Maxis elevated highway (L2 MHW).
3. Stretch out Maxis avenue (AVE-4) from the Maxis elevated highway stubs.

These inline transitions of elevated highway to ground avenue work exactly the same as the original vanilla Maxis SimCity 4 Rush Hour highway transitions that I've been using for years.  NAM has further improvements on the vanilla Maxis highways, but that's something I'll experiment with another day.

 

[Naomi57 2,985]

Hey @CorinaMarie and @Cyclone Boom, I thought you might like to see that I'm at the next stage with my OWR-4 ferry loop.  It's in the top left corner of the screenshot of this post in my Breezy Point city journal.

I tested the OWR-4 ferry loop road in-place on my Breezy Point city tile, for 15 years in the simulator.  Yep, it's perfect.  Not so big that it dissuades ferry traffic, not so small that the ferry traffic hot spot is all on one little intersection.  I even got a whole heap of outgoing ferry trips to a couple neighbouring cities that don't exist yet!  

I've currently got the ferry loop zoned for small C$ lots, but will rezone for big 3x4 growables when commerce heats up.  I really should build myself some neighbouring cities with ferries, so I can start to see some tourist traffic.  

Watch this space!  Also, super enjoying a few more NWM features:  ARD-3, NRD-4, road roundabouts, and avenue roundabouts with diagonal avenues.  

Thank you for all your work, @CorinaMarie, keeping this Simtropolis web site up and running!

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

4 minutes ago, Naomi57 said:

Thank you for all your work, @CorinaMarie, keeping this Simtropolis web site up and running!

My pleasure, but please know it's more @Cyclone Boom who does most of the techy aspects of keeping Simtropolis running smoothly.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Thank you to both you and @Cyclone Boom, then!  All your technical and admin efforts, and your community engagement, is so appreciated.  

[Naomi57 2,985]

I've just created detailed instructions for constructing one of my OWR-4 ferry loops, complete with many, many screenshots!

In the fairly remote event that someone else has the same passion for ferries that I do, this will be perfect for them. Fortunately, the tutorial is also useful for anyone who wants to do a ginormous OWR-4 roundabout in the centre of their city, or simply wants to learn how to do OWR-4 bends, intersections, or an L1 road viaduct over their stretches of OWR-4, which are all far more likely uses for the tutorial!

[Naomi57 2,985]

I just tried out the Fly-swat ferry loop for real, on Carnarsie Pol, my tourist island and bedroom community.

There's a few little adjustments required, compared to my original prototype in my sandbox ...

I extended the pier area by one tile, and moved the bus stops as shown by the red arrows above.   I've noticed NAM curves are finicky with bus stop and RCI access, with the closest available tile not actually having access to the road when the road curve only barely overlaps it's adjacent tile.  I had to move the bus stops over by 1 tile so that they would have connection with the adjacent curved avenue.

Incidentally, the OWR-4 ferry loops are continuing to work like a dream, attracting loads of traffic even before any other cities know about Canarsie Pol, but this first Fly-swat ferry loop is not getting much traffic yet, at least not at Canarsie Pol.  My current theories are:

1. The OWR-4 ferry loop is more enticing to sims because of it's a higher speed limit?
2. I don't have enough high density residential near the Fly-swat ferry loop?
3. The pier area might need to be shortened?

It might do better when I start getting incoming inter-city commuters and tourist traffic.

You can see the Canarsie Pol Traffic Volume screenshots on this other post, in case you want to see.

 

[Naomi57 2,985]

I've just verified that the Fly-swat ferry loop works.  

It just needed a bit more regional development in other cities.

It's not as good as the OWR-4 ferry loop, but it works ... yay!  

[Naomi57 2,985]

I was playing in my sandbox on the weekend, and found another OWR-4 road loop application, for driving C$$ and C$$$ growth on a landlocked tile.  I'm calling this one the Golden Goblet Interchange.  Two posts on that thread, first draft and then final version.

Using MHW vanilla tunnels, two levels of this interchange stack are underground.

I'm keen to try it out.  My upcoming large city tile in New York, either Marine Park or Brownsville, are both not quite landlocked, but they've lots and lots of highway neighbour connections, and lots of flat land for building large interchanges.  I'll have to evaluate carefully however, for likely regional traffic levels.  The Golden Goblet Interchange should handle a high capacity RHW-4 x RHW-4 interchange, but scaling this for RHW-6S or RHW-8S would require diverting the right-hand turning traffic using enormous slip roads — the OWR-4 only handling 30% of the traffic volume that the RHW-8S does ... and that still might not be enough. 

Each incoming left-turning traffic MIS slip road fills 60% of the OWR-4 road loop tiles with traffic.  With 4 incoming MIS ramps for left-hand turning traffic, the OWR-4 diagonals will carry 75% of all left-turning traffic ... not 25%.  With only a quarter of the RHW-8S traffic making left-hand turns through the interchange, that will put the OWR-4 diagonals at 250% of it's capacity, due to the traffic amplifying effect of the central road loop!   

The inside OWR-2 service road could be altered to carry one of the four left-hand turning traffic volumes, e.g. entering on the south and exiting on the west ... a little bit like one left-turning ramp of a turbine interchange.  There might even be a way to include an L1 MIS viaduct through the central block to provide a left-turning ramp entering on the east, and exiting on the south ... food for thought.

The tricky part, is that truly road testing this one, will take ages and ages, for regional development and traffic volumes in New York to build up.

Who would've thought, that anyone would be complaining that there's not enough traffic in New York!   

[Naomi57 2,985]

The RHW-2 6x6 "Roundabout"

<deleted>

EDIT: Given my recent NAM discoveries, this awkward and inadequate solution is no longer relevant.

[Naomi57 2,985]

The Smallest OWR-4 Road Loop

I just made the smallest possible OWR-4 road loop (I think), in my sandbox.  Nice clean diagonals.  

Just one little problem, it can't do intersections.  

I tried diagonals and orthogonals, I tried OWR-2.  I tried AVE-4, and RHW-4.  I even tried MIS!  I tried connecting them on the edge, on one tile of OWR-4, and on two tiles of OWR-4.  Nope, no can do!

Oh well, here it is for posterity.  If I can figure out how to get traffic on it one day, I might even use it.  Actually, there is one way to get traffic on it ... stick a ferry on one side.  The ultimate eternal commuter loop!   

EDIT:  Actually, further experimentation revealed that the humble vanilla Road (RD-2) and One Way Road (OWR-2) tools will make a clean intersection with the above smallest OWR-4 road loop.  An orthogonal OWR-2 will also attach to the edge of a diagonal OWR-4, with just minor cosmetic upset ... at least I think it's only cosmetic issue.  Ctrl+X  drawpaths on  seems to indicate it works!

[Naomi57 2,985]

A-ha!!!  A couple even smaller OWR-4 loops ... and with connecting roads!

I found a new technique, to offset the starter piece on each orthagonal piece, initially longer than the loop road, then anchor the OWR-4 orthagonal to an OWR-4 diagonal to hold it in place while I bulldoze the starter piece ... working in an anti-clockwise motion through the loop.  Here's two even smaller OWR-4 loops ... these loops are extremely finicky and fragile, and the initial building area is larger than the final loop road!

Good news, while these tiny OWR-4 loops are fragile as a leaf in autumn, the intersection with orthogonal OWR-2 on each diagonal of the OWR-4 can be constructed and bulldozed with impunity, as long as you're working one tile off the OWR-4.

There can only be a single tile point of OWR-2 intersection on the outside edge of each OWR-4 diagonal, but as you can see, you can connect two orthogonal OWR-2 roads on each of those single tile points.

The one on the left is more circular, but the three tile OWR-4 orthogonals are an awkward dimension, and the three tile OWR-4 diagonals are very untidy, and I don't think there's any way to fix that, except to use longer 4 tile diagonals and shorter 2 tile orthogonals, as I did with the OWR-4 loop on the right.

They seem to work using Ctrl+X  drawpaths on , I'll post back here if or when I try them out for real.  They might be a viable alternative for a high capacity roundabout, but at 9x9 tiles for the loop on the left, and 10x10 tiles for the loop on the right, they need LOTS of room.

I tried to do an 8x8 OWR-4 road loop, using the same anchoring and bulldozing technique, plus some weird jiggery-pokery to make the tiny little OWR-4 diagonals work, but the final tile of the last OWR-4 diagonal defeated me.

One huge downside, none of these three small OWR-4 loops allow a RHW overpass.  That seems to require minimum 5-tile OWR-4 orthogonals for just one RHW-2 overpass through the middle tile, as I do for my OWR-4 ferry loops, or 6-tile OWR-4 orthogonals for RHW-4 overpass over the middle 2 tiles.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Three Level OWR-4 Interchange Stack

This three level OWR-4 interchange isn't ready to post on the Show Us Your Interchanges! thread, but I wanted to post it here, because it demonstrates the same single-tile point of OWR-2 connection on the OWR-4 diagonal technique that I discovered above, and also shows the RHW-4 overpass over the middle two tiles of each OWR-4 six tile orthogonal.

OWR-4 at ground L0.  Two RHW-4 overpasses, one at L1 and one at L2.  MIS ramps connecting to the OWR-2.

If you try to put two-tiles of OWR-2 (or MIS) connection to a single stretch of OWR-4 diagonal ... it breaks.  The MIS slip roads have to meet at that single-tile point.

 

Important disclaimer:  I haven't tested this single-tile point of OWR-2 connection on the OWR-4 diagonal technique with traffic, yet.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Here's a little animated GIF showing how to do an Inside Ramp using DRI.   Thank you, @GeauxWave!

Coupled with my favourite DRI Draggable Ramp Interface cheat sheet, this sort of thing is extremely useful to NAM newbies like me!  Posting here for future reference.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Alrighty, here's that Golden Goblet Interchange with two MIS roads through the centre of it, to handle two of the four left-turning traffic paths in a RHW-6 or RHW-8 interchange scenario ... which would totally overwhelm the traffic capacities of the OWR-4 road loop.  This delivers half the left-turning traffic paths of a super high-capacity turbine interchange, a very strategic choice to decide which approaches deserve the super high-capacity.  

Ahhhhhh!  There's no way to put an L1 FlexFly over an L0 FlexFly!  That's a nasty trap for a NAM novitiate such as myself.  Here's the last word on the subject from @Tarkus himself!

On the same thread, @rsc204 explains ...

On 18/01/2017 at 12:44 AM, rsc204 said:

FlexFly pieces are limited in terms of what networks you can cross with them.

In this case your probelm is that two FlexFly pieces can not overlap each other. The reason for this is the sheer amount of code that would be required to make it work, a minimum of half a million extra lines of RUL2. By comparison the entire NAM contains somewhere between 1 million and 1.5 million lines of RUL2 code. Therefore until a beter solution can be found, you will need to move one of the curves to make this work correctly.

So, I went with simple MIS diagonals, L0 and L1.  Actually, not so simple!  In such cramped quarters, I think it only works in this one position, and it broke every time I played with it.  I did get the hang of repairing the grade separated DxD MIS using the all-purpose RHW-2 tool ... useful tool that!  

I even got the service road done.  I think that L0 DxD RD-2 and MIS will work a treat, as far as traffic volumes are concerned.  It's only there for fire trucks, buses, and the seasonal Resort staff.  The 6 little parks look nice, but there won't be any high tech industry lots inside the busy centre of this interchange any more.  

On a very sad note, I have to kiss goodbye my first NAM Sandbox today.  Very awkward.  The city tile I put it on is being transformed into Brownsville ... in hindsight, a very poor choice of city tile for my Sandbox!  I've learned my lesson, my new Sandbox is in Garden City, in the very far north of East New York, an area with no ferries at all!  

[Naomi57 2,985]

Yay!!!  Last night in my sandbox, I found a way to do a neat and compact RHW-4 T-Interchange (NAM36).

Could I make a more compact RHW-4 T-Interchange?  Please comment and post if you know a way ...

[metarvo 711]

You're doing quite well with the NAM Naomi!  It's hard to believe you've only recently started using the NAM, because you're already jumping right into some advanced stuff.  In fact, I'm getting some inspiration from your testing.  Nice!

[rsc204 21,857]

On 23/10/2019 at 5:29 AM, Naomi57 said:

Could I make a more compact RHW-4 T-Interchange?  Please comment and post if you know a way ...

If you're using it, transition to MHO for the interchange and plop the prefab T-Interchange, that's pretty compact. Although you've done pretty well with this setup and the MHO option won't give you the option to come off the highway like the roundabout does. Amongst the MHO prefabs are special roundabouts that can transition to Avenues from MHO, including at L2. If you've yet to try these out, I highly recommend doing so. MHO transitions very cleanly to RHW-4, it makes it easy to use MHO parts in combination with that and MIS.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Hi @rsc204, my reason for liking some use of MHW, is because I like doing some diagonal highways, and diagonal interchanges.  I always disliked the MHW cloverleaf, but I don't think the DxD MHW Avenue & Highway, and diagonal T-Interchanges have an equivalent in MHO.  @Tarkus replied on this other post of mine, confirming the current NAM limitations that make DxD interchanges difficult.

On 02/10/2019 at 12:50 PM, Tarkus said:

Unfortunately, the RHW currently only has a very limited array of content for diagonal interchange capabilities.  Only a couple of networks allow ramps to branch off their diagonals, and none of them are elevated networks.  Additionally, the only way to transition from ground to (some form of) elevated diagonally is through the FLEX On-Slopes.  The FLEXHeight transitions are planned to receive a diagonal variant soon, but that's at least two releases out (they won't be in NAM 37).  Beyond that, the solution of elevating the Avenue doesn't work, as is no support for Orthogonal Avenue-over-Diagonal RHW.

I'm very happy with RHW for orthogonal interchanges ... tricky, but so much fun!

Given my primary interest in MHW is diagonal interchanges, I think the MHO actually breaks that, because it reduces the set of ploppable interchanges.  I find the MHW diagonal T-interchange, and the NAM ploppable Trumpet interchange useful for diagonal highways, too.

It's true that MHW really doesn't blend in with RHW visually, even though the L0 MHW highway stubs integrate very readily with RHW-4.  Someone recommended this mod to me, given MHO probably doesn't help me with diagonal interchanges.  I'm yet to try it out, as I'm still very new to using mods.  Do you have any thoughts on this Asphalt Highway Mod?

EDIT:  I just spotted that @Haljackey recommends this one, instead:

 

[rsc204 21,857]

Generally speaking you are right with the limitations of MHO re: diagonal interchanges. Whilst the Pre-fabs will not be likely made anew for MHO, the real limitations here are more on the RHW side than anything. Having basic on/off ramps for diagonals for MHO would be a great start, something I would like to add at some point. One issue is that the models used "morph" the Ortho textures for diagonals/curves and that requires an understanding of U/V Mapping that I've yet to crack. However, the beauty of MHO is it's interaction with RHW-4, so when the need takes I just switch to RHW, where things like this are possible:

I think everyone that switched from MHY to MHO or RHW had to go through a change of mindset at some point, in terms of how to build. If the need to build larger interchanges bothers you, then keeping MHY may work out better for you. For me, I figured since I was going all-in with RHW, I'd rather complement it with MHO. When Diagonal on-slopes and height transitions finally make it to a NAM release, I see the potential for improved designs that are more compact. Some pieces are in development releases, so I've had a chance to play with them.

7 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

Do you have any thoughts on this Asphalt Highway Mod?

If I wasn't using MHO, certainly I'd install that. I find it's much nicer visually than the regular MHY, black tarmac is much more common than grey concrete in the UK. However I don't think it covers bridges and tunnels, although that's not the worst drawback, since often the former at least might have a different surface.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Just got a hugely helpful reply from @McDuell on this other thread.

Check out this MIS folded wye DRI technique he posted for me!  So useful for  frontage roads, and couldn't come at a better time for my Brownsville large city tile network building.  I'm saving this one away in my Simtropolis image folder.  

[Naomi57 2,985]

High Capacity Turbine Interchange – aka Fun with FlexFly      

I've been SO KEEN to produce a turbine interchange ... ever since I downloaded NAM36.  Turbine interchanges are higher capacity than a cloverleaf, by virtue of the streamlined paths and gentler curves ... and they look so groovy!

Today, I managed to do it.  Hence the title of this post ... "Fun with FlexFly"      

Ahhhhh!  This was so darn tricky!  Oh golly, I can't even contemplate producing a tutorial for this one!

On a 6 point scale, the construction difficulty of this turbine interchange rates as Sophisticated:
      Beginner ► Intermediate ► Advanced ► Difficult ► Sophisticated ► Expert

This makes the OWR-4 Ferry Loop look like a walk in the park.  Here it is.  Click to enlarge.  The decorative 4x4 AVE-4 NWM roundabout is there just to give a sense of scale, and to mark the dead centre of the interchange.

Ingredients List:

1. Four (1x4) 1 Level Flexible Height Transition pieces, for each left-turning path through the interchange, i.e. 16 of them in all.  These are marked with red lines above for the path entering from the south, and turning left to the west.  These convert the left-turning MIS path from L0 to L1, L1 to L2, then L2 to L1, and finally L1 to L0.
    
2. One (5x5) FlexFly MIS L1 90 Degree (Type A1) piece,  for each left-turning path through the interchange, i.e. 4 of them in all.  This is marked with the 5x5 yellow box.
    
3. Two DRI Type B1 ramps, for each left-turning path through the interchange, i.e. 8 of those, plus another 4 to complete the right turning paths, making 12 in total.  These are marked with blue lines.
    
4. Many, many uses of the RHW Disconnector tool, to remove MIS tiles that get in the way of the brown tile for the 1 Level Flexible Height Transition, or to remove pieces that misbehave and won't respond to my determined fixing clicks with the all-purpose RHW-2 tool.  

If I dare to put this into my Jamaica Bay large city tile, as the largest interchange of my "Belt Parkway" reproduction through eastern bayside New York, then I'll convert the approaches to RHW-6S or RHW-8S, and I'll upgrade the diagonals from MIS to RHW-4 single carriageway ... if I can!  I'd also put the straight orthogonal stretches of the interchange underground using MHW tunnels.  I cannot hazard the size and complexity of this interchange if I tried to put the straight sections of RHW-4 through at L0 and L3.   

Even attempting to draw one stretch of orthogonal RHW-4 through that interchange at ground L0 doesn't work, because of issues with the position of FlexFly and Height Transition pieces, even though those pieces are already at L1 or above.  It's incredibly finicky, and it's already huge!  The square RD-2 border around the interchange, only partially included in that screenshot, is 56 x 56 tiles.  

By comparison, my medium capacity Golden Goblet Interchange fits easily inside 44 x 44 tiles, including the same 3 tiles of highway approach one each side, and my completed Three Level OWR-4 Interchange Stack is 40 x 40 tiles.

While it's a tiny little bit sad that I'd have to put the orthogonal RHW-4 approaches underground to get them through the interchange, I'm mostly a wee bit sad that it's not as groovy as the real-life turbine interchanges.  I'm still feeling chuffed, but I think I'll try my hand at doing a RHW cloverleaf instead.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

EDIT: With some little compromises, I've just discovered that there is a simpler pattern for producing a turbine-ish interchange, not quite a turbine, but certainly inspired by that concept ... posting on that soon!

[Naomi57 2,985]

High Capacity Turbine-ish Interchange — with no FlexFly!

My mind refused to turn off from having more turbine interchange ideas.  I call these "turbine-ish", because these ideas do not really look like a real-life turbine interchange at all, but they carry the same concepts, merely translated to a SimCity 4 world that has slightly different laws of physics (and road construction), than the real world does!  

Okay, so when you get down to it, a turbine interchange delivers the following benefits:

1. A simpler road layout for motorists to follow without getting lost.
2. Faster traffic ... no tight 270º bends!
3. Minimises traffic weaving from lane-to-lane.
4. Groovy geometry to see from passing air-planes ... and for this city mayor!  

While SimCity 4 road networks, NAM36 included, does not reduce the speed limit at all for sharp bends and corners, there is a commute penalty for roads that go out of the way.  That's probably much less of an issue with the NAM installed, and maybe it's no issues at all given the NAM Traffic Simulator does such a better job ... but my mind still carries all the memories from years and years of vanilla SimCity 4.

I literally watched sims avoid using a MHW vanilla cloverleaf, simply because they didn't like those 270º bends forcing them to travel more tiles to get to work.     Mind you, that's the vanilla traffic simulator for you!

Sorry, to get back on-topic, my mind started ticking over ways to provide a cleaner and more direct left-turning route through the interchange, one primary goal of all 4-level interchange stacks, and something that would deliver a visually pleasing interchange geometry.  Here's my next 4-level interchange stack, a turbine inspired, "turbine-ish" interchange.

On a 6 point scale, the construction difficulty of this "turbine-ish" interchange rates as Advanced:
      Beginner ► Intermediate ► Advanced ► Difficult ► Sophisticated ► Expert

This one is actually easier to construct than the OWR-4 Ferry Loop, and it's a high capacity interchange suitable for linking up two regional RHW-6S or RHW-8S highways ... assuming that half the traffic is turning left or right.  Even better, it's a small interchange, just 32 x 32 tiles, counting a 3 tile approach on each side.  It might need to be a few tiles bigger when linked up with the RHW-6S or RHW-8S, rather than just the RHW-4 approaches shown below.  I haven't done RHW-6S or RHW-8S yet, but I will soon.  

Ingredients List:

1. Two (1x4) 1 Level Flexible Height Transition pieces, for each left-turning path through the interchange, i.e. 8 of them in all.  These are marked with red lines above for the path entering from the south, and turning left to the west.  These convert the left-turning MIS path from L0 to L1, then back L1 to L0, for a simple overpass over two of the other central MIS left-turning paths.
    
2. One (2x2) 90 degree MIS curve,  for each left-turning path through the interchange, i.e. 4 of them in all.  This is marked with the 2x2 yellow box.  You won't find this 90 degree MIS curve on the menu, it needs to be drawn with DRI, using the all-purpose RHW-2 tool.  You just draw it as a 90 degree MIS corner, which auto-magically transforms into this compact 90 degree curve ... and then breaks half the time!  You can repair the break by clicking single tiles of RHW-2 on various pieces of the MIS road.
    
3. Two DRI Type B1 ramps, for each left-turning path through the interchange, i.e. 8 of those in total.  These are marked with blue lines.  These same ramps are shared with the right-turning traffic in the above screenshot, so you could run an extra set of MIS diagonals for right-turning traffic, if these ramps are becoming a hot spot in the Traffic Volume view.
    
4. Occasional use of the RHW Disconnector tool, to temporarily remove MIS tiles that get in the way of the brown tile for the 1 Level Flexible Height Transition, or to remove pieces that misbehave and won't respond to my determined fixing clicks with the all-purpose RHW-2 tool.  

The 2x2 decorative Street roundabout in the centre provides a sense of scale, showing just how compact this high capacity interchange is.  It's relative simplicity of construction could make it a boon for players who are new to the NAM ... so I'll probably do a proper tutorial on it at some point.

The small size of this 4-level interchange stack depends on putting the two orthogonal stretches of RHW-4 underground, with a MHW tunnel, like many of my interchanges do.  The central set of four 1 Level Flexible Height Transition pieces are completely incompatible with RHW-4 crossing overhead, even at L2!!!

I'm keeping this one stored up for future use.  It's compact size is hard to beat ... but I've a groovier looking high capacity "turbine-ish" interchange coming real soon!   

[Naomi57 2,985]

Another High Capacity Interchange – Do, d-do, doo, Feelin' Groovy

Now, this one isn't a turbine at all, but it came to me while thinking through all my turbine inspired thoughts!

A quick Google search only revealed that it's called a "directional interchange", which is simply not a groovy enough name for me.  This kind of interchange stack tends to meet some public resistance, the towering 4-level structure being considered an eyesore by local residents, so my sims will surely appreciate that I'm putting my orthogonal RHW-4 underground again, using MHW tunnels.    Diagonal MIS and RHW-4 overpass are completely and utterly incompatible.

This one is high capacity, capable of handling the junction of two regional highways of RHW-6S or RHW-8S, but it's a bit more tricky to build than the last interchange.  At a size of 36 x 36 tiles (including 3 tile approaches on each side), it's also little bit bigger, but oh so groovy.  

On a 6 point scale, the construction difficulty of this high capacity directional interchange rates as Difficult:
      Beginner ► Intermediate ► Advanced ► Difficult ► Sophisticated ► Expert

Ingredients List:

1. Two (1x4) 1 Level Flexible Height Transition pieces, for each of just two of the left-turning paths through the interchange, i.e. 4 of them in all.  These are marked with red lines above for the path entering from the south, and turning left to the west.  These convert the left-turning MIS path from L0 to L1, then back L1 to L0, for a diagonal overpass over the two other central MIS left-turning paths at ground L0.
    
2. Two DRI Type B1 ramps, for each left-turning path through the interchange, i.e. 8 of those in total.  These are marked with blue lines.  These same ramps are shared with the right-turning traffic in the above screenshot, so you could run an extra set of MIS diagonals for right-turning traffic, if these ramps are becoming a hot spot in the Traffic Volume view.
    
3. Occasional use of the RHW Disconnector tool, to temporarily remove MIS tiles that misbehave and won't respond to my determined fixing clicks with the all-purpose RHW-2 tool.  
    
4. Extra MIS starter pieces, 4 at L0, and 4 at L1, in an attempt (possibly futile) to stabilise the central overpass area, marked with purple lines.  DxD diagonal MIS cross-grade junctions are inherently unstable.  Sometimes the fixing clicks with the all-purpose RHW-2 tool don't fix it.  Worrying.   
    
5. MIS Filler Pieces are also useful for replacing some of the unstable portions of the MIS roads, but these cannot be used for overpasses and underpasses, which just happens to be the most unstable and fragile part of this interchange.

The two Small Park Green plops mark the centre of the interchange.

The DxD cross-grade MIS instability mentioned in points 4 and 5 of the above Ingredients List, is the ONE BIG REASON this interchange rates as Difficult.  A pity.  The reasons for the instability, and how to fix it, are very mysterious.  The slight asymmetry, with the overpass MIS roads closer together than the ground level MIS, seems to improve the stability a wee little bit, but I might be mistaken in that impression.

Despite the instability, I'm determined that this is the high capacity interchange I want for the largest interchange of my "Belt Parkway" reproduction in my Jamaica Bay large city tile, for the simple (and slightly irrational) reason that I just like the way it looks!