Transit Switch Point modification

[costanzajpg 3]

I recently started using the absolutely gorgeous Chicago Grand Train Station by Mattb325 only to notice that Sims were using it incorrectly. They would walk from their apartments to the station, at which point, instead of boarding the train, they would suddenly manifest cars and drive to work. It was acting as a giant reverse parking garage and greatly contributing to traffic on my roads. Likewise, passengers coming in from the region, instead of walking upon arrival, would drive away, as if they had brought their cars with them. See the attached image for proof. Wanting this to stop but being new to modifying transit lots, I'm asking for advice.

Opening up the .sc4Lot file in ireader, and consulting the list of exemplars, I believe the one I want to modify is 0xE90E25A1, a set of 52 int8s. From what I gather, they come in sets of 4. The first indicates the direction of travel, the second indicates from what side of the lot the travel can occur, the third the incoming form of transportation, and the fourth the outgoing mode.

Quote

0x81,0xF0,0x03,0x03,0x82,0xF0,0x03,0x03,0x81,0xF0,0x05,0x05,0x82,0xF0,0x05,0x05,0x81,0xF0,0x00,0x00,0x82,0xF0,0x00,0x00,0x81,0xF0,0x03,0x00,0x82,0xF0,0x00,0x03,0x81,0xF0,0x04,0x05,0x81,0xF0,0x02,0x00,0x82,0xF0,0x00,0x02,0x81,0xF0,0x01,0x00,0x82,0xF0,0x00,0x01

This is what's listed in the exemplar property, and copying it to the clipboard translates it to

Quote

Outside-to-Inside,All Sides,Ride Train,Ride Train,Inside-to-Outside,All Sides,Ride Train,Ride Train,Outside-to-Inside,All Sides,Freight Train,Freight Train,Inside-to-Outside,All Sides,Freight Train,Freight Train,Outside-to-Inside,All Sides,Walk,Walk,Inside-to-Outside,All Sides,Walk,Walk,Outside-to-Inside,All Sides,Ride Train,Walk,Inside-to-Outside,All Sides,Walk,Ride Train,Outside-to-Inside,All Sides,Freight Truck,Freight Train,Outside-to-Inside,All Sides,Ride Bus,Walk,Inside-to-Outside,All Sides,Walk,Ride Bus,Outside-to-Inside,All Sides,Drive Car,Walk,Inside-to-Outside,All Sides,Walk,Drive Car

If I'm parsing things correctly, I should simply delete the last four entries, as that is the set {Inside-to-Outside, All Sides, Walk, Drive}, which is what is causing my issue.

Lastly, if I'm feeling more adventurous, I would also like to allow buses and the subway to drop off and pick people up from this station. For the life of me, I cannot find the numerical values necessary to add to this lot to enable such a feature. Second, upon locating them, do I have to modify any other exemplar properties to make things function correctly, or is simply inserting the four sets {I-O, all, walk, subway}, {O-I, all, subway, walk}, {I-O, all, walk, bus}, and {O-I, all, bus, walk} sufficient. I feel that subway-enabled lots might require more effort, but again I have no idea. 

Thanks for your help. 

[rsc204 21,805]

7 hours ago, costanzajpg said:

If I'm parsing things correctly, I should simply delete the last four entries, as that is the set {Inside-to-Outside, All Sides, Walk, Drive}, which is what is causing my issue.

Whilst I am a little impressed you managed to work this all out in Hex, I'm sorry to inform you there is an easier way. SC4 Tool is the only Transit Enabling tool that exists frankly and it is pretty much mandatory to use it for such modding.

Indeed having that switch allows for Pedestrians (Walk) which are leaving the station to get in a Car (Drive). If you think of sims entering or exiting the station, everyone is essentially walking in the station, either leaving on foot or by a valid transit switch. Whilst it may seem illogical to many, it's not unheard of that people take a car to a train station and utilise some sort of Park and Ride option. Sure, the simulator doesn't do a great job in terms of how that works out visually, but it certainly doesn't make the station buggy. That said, few modders include this switch precisely because they too prefer not to see the behaviour depicted in-game and are willing to sacrifice this functionality to avoid it.

7 hours ago, costanzajpg said:

Second, upon locating them, do I have to modify any other exemplar properties to make things function correctly, or is simply inserting the four sets {I-O, all, walk, subway}, {O-I, all, subway, walk}, {I-O, all, walk, bus}, and {O-I, all, bus, walk} sufficient. I feel that subway-enabled lots might require more effort, but again I have no idea. 

With SC4 Tool, you can edit these things much more simply. But in effect you need a switch from the Transit Type to Ped (Out to In), then the Ped to Transit Type (In to Out) for both Bus and Sub to support these networks. Some networks require additional through-switches, but this doesn't really apply in this case, especially considering it's a terminus station.

As a rule of thumb, if you want to get the right settings then look for an equivalent lot, in terms of supported networks, from within the NAM. Often it's easiest to find a match then copy/paste such properties from a pre-existing Buildings Exemplar.

Once last important tip, SC4 Tool has a bug that will mess with the Transit Switch Entry Cost and TransitSwitchTrafficCapacity properties every time you save your file. You will need to then go into Reader and manually reset the 'Rep' count back to 0 for these properties, you may also need to manually input their values as well, sometimes they get lost when saving too.

[Tyberius06 12,180]

7 hours ago, costanzajpg said:

If I'm parsing things correctly, I should simply delete the last four entries, as that is the set {Inside-to-Outside, All Sides, Walk, Drive}, which is what is causing my issue.

Yepp, you are correct. The last 4 entries need to be removed.
There is an ongoing expansion which will be materialized in a later NAM or an official NAM Certificated Station Pack release which might include and updated version of this station. It is still uncertain at this point, though I updated the station with the most recent NAM/MTA standards a few months ago as a preparation for this expansion. This update will also add the full bus and subway service to the station's repertoir. 

Anyhow, since you are getting familiar enough with reader I'll leave the updated NAM standard TE switch combination HEXes here, you may just copy/paste the whole of it into the appropriate field:

Quote

0x81,0xF0,0x00,0x00,0x82,0xF0,0x00,0x00,0x81,0xF0,0x00,0x06,0x82,0xF0,0x06,0x00,0x82,0xF0,0x00,0x06,0x81,0xF0,0x06,0x00,0x81,0xF0,0x02,0x00,0x82,0xF0,0x00,0x02,0x81,0x50,0x03,0x03,0x82,0x50,0x03,0x03,0x81,0x50,0x03,0x00,0x82,0x50,0x00,0x03,0x81,0xF0,0x06,0x03,0x82,0xF0,0x03,0x06,0x81,0xF0,0x02,0x03,0x82,0xF0,0x03,0x02,0x81,0xF0,0x06,0x06,0x82,0xF0,0x06,0x06,0x81,0xF0,0x01,0x00

Also you should update the Transit Switch Entry Cost (TSEC) to 0.0071and both the Catalogue Capacity and Transit Switch Traffic Capacity properties to 205000.

I hope it helps!

- Tyberius

[costanzajpg 3]

Thank you both for your help. I think I was able to get it working with just iLiveReader, without needing to use SC4 Tool.

14 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

Anyhow, since you are getting familiar enough with reader I'll leave the updated NAM standard TE switch combination HEXes here, you may just copy/paste the whole of it into the appropriate field:

I have a few questions about this.

1. Is the N+S option where they stay on the same network just to facilitate through traffic?
2. This doesn't have options for freight rail. Owing to personal desires, I'm going to add that as well. Anything wrong with that?
3. Do I have to cover ever single combination of input and outputs, or could I simply use walk as an intermediary phase. Eg. Have {O-I, Train, Walk} and {I-O, Walk, Bus} without including {I-O, Train, Bus}?

[Tyberius06 12,180]

10 hours ago, costanzajpg said:

I have a few questions about this.

1. Is the N+S option where they stay on the same network just to facilitate through traffic?
2. This doesn't have options for freight rail. Owing to personal desires, I'm going to add that as well. Anything wrong with that?
3. Do I have to cover ever single combination of input and outputs, or could I simply use walk as an intermediary phase. Eg. Have {O-I, Train, Walk} and {I-O, Walk, Bus} without including {I-O, Train, Bus}?

Hi,

Sure I try to answer according to my best knowledge. 

1. The directional (N+S or alternatively the W+E if a station is horizontal and not vertical) switches make sure that the station is used by a travel type (that's not the same as the network) only from the appropriate direction. But yes, it makes sure that the travely type won't try to make illegal turns if an other line of the same network is attaching the station from a different direction (W-E). 

2. Yepp, because it doesn't clearly indicates that there are sufficient facilities for cargo handling, the NAM version won't have the freight station option. However you could add it as you wish. It would be an Out-In/In-Out N+S Freight Train-Freight Train and an Out-In All Sides Freight Truck-Freight Train switch combo additional after the Train-Walk/Walk-Train switches (the full updated code is in the quote and how it looks like in SC4Tool you can check on the image). 

Quote

0x81,0xF0,0x00,0x00,0x82,0xF0,0x00,0x00,0x81,0xF0,0x00,0x06,0x82,0xF0,0x06,0x00,0x82,0xF0,0x00,0x06,0x81,0xF0,0x06,0x00,0x81,0xF0,0x02,0x00,0x82,0xF0,0x00,0x02,0x81,0x50,0x03,0x03,0x82,0x50,0x03,0x03,0x81,0x50,0x03,0x00,0x82,0x50,0x00,0x03,0x81,0x50,0x05,0x05,0x82,0x50,0x05,0x05,0x81,0xF0,0x04,0x05,0x81,0xF0,0x06,0x03,0x82,0xF0,0x03,0x06,0x81,0xF0,0x02,0x03,0x82,0xF0,0x03,0x02,0x81,0xF0,0x06,0x06,0x82,0xF0,0x06,0x06,0x81,0xF0,0x01,0x00

3. You need to cover everything. Most of the switches must be coming in pairs. One Out/In and one In/Out per combination. There are a few exceptions like car parking function or the freight station function. Also it was discovered after long and tedious tests conducted by multiple people ( @z1 who is the leader of the Mass Transit Authority - MTA - within the NAM and who did set-up the currently used TE modding standards regarding TE switches, TSEC (transit switch entry cost) and capacity, @b22rian and Pierreh) that it is necessary to use certain additional switch combinations to make the stations close to fully functional and not just visually. I'm saying "close to fully" because even these days we are discovering small flaws here and there but these are related to the inhereted bugs in the traffic simulator on those parts which are beyond our reach, because these parts are stored in the game's exe file, which we can not modify currently.
We are actually planning to write a tutorial which would cover most of the Transit switch combos, but for situation where the lot is vertically oriented (like most of the terminal stations) and it contains the rail, bus, subway, freight rail and car park functions, the above TE switches are the most likely working ones. If the lot is horizontally oriented (most of the pass through stations), then you need to change the the N+S directional switches to W+E. 

The situation is a bit more complicated if you wish to add more rail related travel types (like GLR/El-Rail and or MonoRail) because that would mean even more switch comboes beyond the directional ones, but the working switch examples for these situations can be found in the NAM itself mostly covered by the Ulisee and Bipin HRW GLR Stations. Though there's gonna be an overall update, only in a few cases that would touch the transit switches, so most of them are save to be used as a template. 

Two other things.

Since we added the freight train station function, that would increse the capacity of the station.

By my calculation the new capacity would be 265000.

The tutorial how to caclucalte the capacity and about the TSEC can be found here:

The other thing is that since the freight station function was added, it might be good to add the Freight Rail occupant group as well. I hasn't digged deep enough to know why this might be necessary, but it is something which we usually do. You may just copy the following code replacing the current one into the OccupangGroups field in Reader:

Quote

0x00001003,0x00001300,0x00001A04,0x00001903,0x00001305,0x00001306,0x00001926

 

- Tyberius

[Ulisse Wolf 4,398]

48 minutes ago, Tyberius06 said:

The situation is a bit more complicated if you wish to add more rail related travel types (like GLR/El-Rail and or MonoRail) because that would mean even more switch comboes beyond the directional ones, but the working switch examples for these situations can be found in the NAM itself mostly covered by the Ulisee and Bipin HRW GLR Stations. Though there's gonna be an overall update, only in a few cases that would touch the transit switches, so most of them are save to be used as a template. 

The stations I created for HRW and the HSRP Hub station can be called the complete stations because they use all the transport networks present in SimCity 4 (Excluding ferries). You can study these stations to understand the logic of transit switches when multiple transport networks are involved.