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NAM36: Starting Out advice for newcomers

Naomi57

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NAM36: Starting Out advice for newcomers

One of the best NAM video collections for newcomers is the MGB NAM YouTube channel, because he explains carefully and moves very slowly.  Thank you, @rsc204!

Here's his best two videos for newbies, IMHO:

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

Using the NWM roundabouts and 2-tile networks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpLGtqjjE8A

NAM Tutorial Part 4
on the MGB NAM channel

He's using NAM34 (I think), but I found his advice worked well in NAM36, too.

I'm also building a set of SimCity 4 tutorials on various topics, with many static pictures, right here on Simtropolis, and some of them are covering NAM36.  Coming from a background in software development and corporate software application documentation, my tutorials are high quality.

SimCity 4 Gameplay Tips and Tricks by Naomi57 on Simtropolis.

I've got a particularly comprehensive tutorial there on using OWR-4, and another smaller one about suburban roundabout interchanges and the Avenue Y-Stack.

This DRI Draggable Ramp Interface cheat sheet posted by @matias93 is also extremely useful, when you're ready to move beyond the most basic MIS ramps for RHW highway interchanges.  It provided the all-important clues for one vital piece of my recent Canarsie Veterans Circuit Interchange.

I actually only started on the NAM just recently, and there's two key pieces of basic advice I have for newcomers:

  1. Create a "sandbox", a large city tile which is completely flat, away from the rest of the active development in your region, to experiment with the NAM features.  Use Ctrl+Alt+Shift and click the God-mode button to access Quick Level Brush tool, to ensure the entire city tile is completely flat.  SimCity 4, and NAM, work easier on flat ground, and when you consider real-life interchanges, they mostly happen on flat ground, too!
     
  2. Start small.  Choose a city tile on the outskirts, which is not that important to your region, with lower traffic levels.  Even just start with the NWM features under the Roads menu for improved suburban transit solutions, as covered by the MGB NAM videos above.  I started with my Breezy Point city tile, which is a little peninsula with just 1 highway Neighbour Connection.

I found the Network Widening Mod (NWM) a great place to start, because it enhances the RCI Build Roads features.  It's very versatile, immediately useful for better managing high-capacity suburban traffic flows, and improving the look of your urban and suburban neighbourhoods.

I'm completely ignoring NAM Project Symphony (Maxis Highway override mod) and Street Add-on Mod and NAM Rail features for now, because they don't add anything to the basic SimCity 4 gameplay.  With a thorough review of the NAM36 documentation before I started, I decided to not even install those three sets of features ... but I installed everything else.  *:D

The features in the NAM are truly vast, an incredible development project for a volunteer team ... I'm guessing it's on the scale of 20-30 TIMES the feature set of the original Maxis vanilla SimCity 4 Rush Hour!  Be prepared that it will take a long, long time, hours and months and years of enjoyable (and occasionally frustrating) play.  The NAM has literally transformed my SimCity 4 experience ... but it's a steep learning curve.  Starting small will balance your frustrations and joy!  :wub:

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https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/758317-a-comprehensive-youtube-collection-of-NAM/?tab=comments#comment-1719932
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I'll be adding to this post in the comments below, as I come upon more resources that help NAM newbies.  Click on the Follow button at the top of this post to get Simtropolis notifications when I add comments, NAM tutorial resources, and further info to this post.

5da7d4291c917_SimtropolisFollow.png.688b7447d827f84b7ee6c402e9b16a0b.png

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... and another one for DRI.  Yay!!!  *:D

( thank you NAM team!!! )

NAM36 Tutorial: RHW-4 to MIS inline branch (DRI)  (23rd October 2019)

... this MIS ramp provides a one-way inline branch.  The difference between this and most MIS ramps, is that it branches the RHW-4 into two MIS ramps, thereby terminating the stretch of RHW-4....

5dafb93a7cee0_RHW-4toMISinlinetransition.jpg.d058f4d7b73444a98e9c73bf0e08f728.jpg

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You won't want to miss this one, my very first animated GIF, showing exactly how it's done!  *:D

NAM36 Tutorial: Starting Out with Basic RHW Highway Ramps (DRI)  (13th November 2019)

Draggable Ramp Interface (DRI) is the fastest, most flexible, most productive way to build highway ramps.  Never used DRI? ... or never constructed a highway ramp?  I've created an animated GIF to show how it's done ...

Type A1 outside ramp                  Type B1 outside ramp
5dcbc64f5305f_DRIStartingOut4(50pct).jpg.e975b6c5bf59a6c057cc4ea113ea45e8.jpg    5dcbc72e83b01_DRIStartingOut6(50pct).jpg.c8a77493c58079ab01269a630cc143c9.jpg

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Click on the highlighted link for my latest RHW tutorial ...

NAM36 Tutorial: RHW-4 U-Turns  (2nd February 2020)

Sometimes sims need to do a U-Turn on the highway.  This is particularly troublesome if their work and home is close, as the crow flies, but the great big highway is in the way, requiring that they take a very long circuitous route to get to the other side of the highway.  That's the sort of thing that can lead to residential buildings being abandoned.

... There's four efficient and realistic ways to implement a U-Turn on RHW-4 highways ...

5e36212a308e9_RHW-4diamondinterchange.jpg.29ebc285aa945484e118e119ee0212ee.jpg

5e36149eb4949_RHW-4StreetU-Turn.jpg.15a3e8eb4db256ac8f75be5298582d6a.jpg   5e36151f58423_RHW-4RoadU-Turn.jpg.05a9e3852011b86fe61c8f62b12c84b1.jpg    5e36157e1d511_FLUPsRHW-4U-Turn.jpg.4ddbd2cde12889ec235681b0aa5e071b.jpg

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