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Hey guys, I really wanted to play sc4 again this week, but I didn't really got well with my time disposition today so, I accomplished only enough for a teaser :/ This time I'll try to construct a small US-styled city. I was a little buzzed at this time, so I didn't really made any plans about any kind of more complex traffic systems. i'll have to plan around the next time^^ Let's call it a challnge:3 Unfortunately, all this awesome swedish houses are in the US-tile sets. They look great tho, but don't really fit in with the american houses ;/ Well, I tried to create a "chess field-city planning" so the blocks of w2w houses are in the shape of squares and rectangles. I didn't began with filling in details (parks, plazas, etc...) yet. But I kinda like the look, at least it's promising to me. A suburban area. i used the new SAM addition, the treets with bike tracks (they look orgasmic). Not much details in here too, but the rectangonal shapes of the blocks make it easy to fill in stuff afterwards ^^ I hope you liked the trailer, have a nice evening! Replies Ln X: Thanks, but it's really just...well....a church in a field, nothing special^^ Kim Sunwoo: Thank you very much^^ SylvioJ: Thank you, but I really think, some more fields would be nice in especially that kind of areas :3 Tonraq: I'm just not well educated about effective urban planning^^ Mymyjp: Hehe, Thank you^^ MilitantRadical: It's not even a problem about time, more about good inspiration

Replies: Schulmanator: Maye not as much as we'd hope. Read on to find out what I mean! Mymyjp: I can't fire you, I'm not even sure what you do lol! Entry 18: Buses go Choo Choo! Right people it would seem that I should have hired someone to do my bus system rather than thinking I could figure it all out myself (I swear I can really, someone must have tampered with my plans. Harry!). Anyway our buses sucked. Like really sucked as evidenced by this photo here where, despite having a dedicated lane thingy for the bus stops congestion with all the buses was horrendous. Add to that the fact that all the bus lines had no return route and were all circular meaning that it took ages to get anywhere (unless you wanted the next stop or two) So back to the drawing board. Several months later we had drawn up plans to implement new bus lines and were busy implementing the brand ne.... oh screw it this happened. Back to the drawing board again, where Harry continuously yelling PASSENGER TRAINS at me made me decide to upgrade the interchange that sends you into Nielton to improve the flow. At which point I had a excellent idea! A rail line and bus catchment network! (Harry: I give up) Anyway this plan would be flawless and would revolve around rail stations in Prenston, Nielton Heights and Central Gabtoria and then a catchment bus network for each one to bring passengers to the station! Anyway we got right onto it and soon had this multi platform station in Central Gabtoria with attached Bus Depot As you can see in the next photo of the same area just fast forwarded a couple of months, we've used this as a test area where, apparently its working a hell of a lot better and growth has begun around the station As for the actual lines we have the Red sight seeing buses, the Blue residential line which picks up people from around the town to take them to or from the station and the Green line which takes you to the Gabtoria Sands Industrial Site and all of them are operating as two way lines this time! Anyway with this system working so far we've started installing the system at the other places we mentioned above. Here's the Nielton Heights station with the bus lines waiting to be implemented And the Prenston Industrial station where the rail-yard is currently undergoing a large expansion and is a bit of a mess at the moment but hey, progress and breaking eggs and such (does kind of suck if you live in that part of Prenston Grove though). Anyway even without the buses the train connections were hard at work which, given that we'd been lazy and put several of the crossings at grade meant we ended up with some slight traffic issues. Yer that needs sorting. Luckily though tunnelling under the track was easy enough and relieved the traffic. Now finally for this fairly long winded entry we have a random image of the variety of building styles in Central Gabtoria. You can literally see the CBD like 100 metres away from this lovely shack. That's diversity for you! (Hopefully this image will also mitigate some of the anger from this entry being yet again nothing like I said it would be. But then again, when life gives you Bananas you throw them away because Bananas are horrible. Or swap them for apples!) Till next time where I've given up pretending to have the faintest idea what the entry will be about! Crown Prince James (OOC: As you can see I've taken into account the comments on my failed bus line and then tweaked them to come up with this. Hopefully it'll work better this time round and thanks everyone for the advice!. Cheers James)

This entry is divided up into 7 sections; Mosaics Close-ups Before & Afters General Info Real World Comparisons User Guide Interchange-wide Pano's I've merged the previous entry with this one, its better having it all together in one entry. Without further delay, here she is; The core section Stats Highway entrance lanes - 24 (3rd of 9) Highway lanes central section - 29 (3rd of 9) Bridge Structures - 10 (2nd of 9) Total Crossings(time a highway ramp crosses another) - 30 (2nd of 9) Tunnels - 1 (T5th of 9) Ramps - 25 (3rd of 9) FlexFly Ramps - 13 (1st of 9) - 9 elevated/4 ground Height Transitions - 23 (2nd of 9) Mosaic's Hope you know where you going... For assistance, please refer to the user guide Closeup's The WB 707 Cordova Rd. access ramp is the only tunnel in the interchange adding the otherwise impossible 4th level Height transition...? What height transition? The Local to Express transfer Night time The "Rake Hand" ramps Before & Afters Highway 700 through downtown LC and the rail overpasses location of the old Interchange location of the new interchange; Evermore section(the Western approach); sometimes faster is better when it comes to seeing how different things are... General Information Spaghetti Junction is one of the 3 largest of the 9 major interchanges currently built in the region. When fully built out the region will have 14 major interchanges. The construction was complicated be several factors. It's split between two cities Lindin City(LC for short) with a pop of 30,000 is the eastern city, Evermore a bedroom community of 8,000 is the western city. The original interchange was located solely in Lindin City was built very close to the border of its western neighbor Evermore. I tried to build the RHW replacement within LC, but it quickly became apparent that wouldn't be possible. Made to be fully accessible Meaning there is a ramp for to possible route. At first I wasn't going to connect the 700 with the 704 since they travel relatively the same direction. But later on I changed the planned alinement of the 704 and added those ramps, greatly increasing the size of the interchange. A rail line(s) cut across a portion of it Originally it was just one rail line which carried two rail corridors - the line splits shortly after it cross the highway. However the lines were separated as part of a project to increase rail capacity. This limited the available space for ramps and transition pieces on the southern approach. . Built on uneven terrain The area that the interchange ended up being built on was quite uneven. It was flattened out which resulted in two different levels. Since I use the extended height transition pieces wherever possible, this extended the length of the interchange a fair bit east to west. Highway 700 alinement Rather then simply going east-west, I wanted highway 700 to instead curve from the west to the south. A wide 2 lane curve was used for the 700 westbound which resulted in splitting highway 707. A separate lane/ramp had to be made for the local exit off the 700 southbound since the two overhead ramps merge with the 700 south of this location - Item A in the southern approach section. Real World Comparisons How this interchange stacks up to a couple of IRL spaghetti junctions The maps are all on the same scale, a little over 2 km across. First thing that becomes apparent is just how wide mapart makes their roads, in the case of cities streets, they are twice as wide or more! In fairness to them, maps would probably be unreadable if they went any smaller. Where as even though my maps are made in their likeness, all roads & highways are depicted in there actual size, which I think works just fine when viewing the map on a computer where you can easily zoom in or out. User Guide western approach, highway 700/707; The combined 700/707 highway enters the interchange limits as an 8 laned RHW, A) The Eastbound(EB) 700/707 combined highway splits apart early on in this direction interchange. For the 707 drivers must stay on the left, for the 700 stay to the right. B) Drivers wanting to exit onto Kaiser St., the only highway interchange in Evermore, must stay to the left on the highway 707 alinement to access the off ramp to Kaiser St. C) On ramp from Trafalgar Rd. to the WB 700/707 D) On ramp from Kaiser St. to the EB 707 E) On ramp from Kaiser St. to the SB 700 Ideally I would of only used one ramp and spit them at the bottom but aside from there being no peice piece that could do that in such a small space I don't approve of the use of dangerous inside onramps(with no merging lane) onto highways F) Off ramp from NB 700 local/SB 704/WB 707 to Kaiser St. G) Transfer from NB 700 local/SB 704 to WB 700/700 Rail info: 1 - Fastraxx ME(Middle East) line 2 - Fastraxx L(Loop) line 3 - Fastraxx Evermore Station - all day service on the - L line only 4 - Yashino(Rail) Juction - service connection between the ME & L lines The ME & L lines change sides just west of here. This was necessary as their rerouted was changed to increase system capcity. http://https://i.imgur.com/Gd4iGNx.png"/> Split section Evermore border: A) These lanes carry traffic from downtown LC and from the SB 704. Keeping right at the ramp takes you through the transfer and onto the WB 700/707 to downtown Pretoria. Stay left takes you onto the off ramp to Kasier St., the only interchange in the city of Evermore. B) Off ramp from WB 707 to Kaiser St. C) Off ramp from SB 700 to downtown LC. This is the only off ramp off the 700 in LC, don't miss it or you'll end up in Cisco Bay. D) This overpass also happens to be Kasier St. which does a little loop in Evermore. LC border: Rather straight forward seeing as how its the opposite of Evermore. As you can see, this is where highway 700 takes its dramatic turn to the south. Highway 707 had to be split apart because of the curve for the WB 700. Southern approach, highway 700: Highway 700 snakes its way through downtown LC, a moderately sized city, however there are no ramps onto or off of the express section of the highway. Instead a express-local aka express-collector system is used. For northbound traffic there is and off ramp into downtown LC further south and an on ramp from downtown LC to the SB 700. However those ramps are considered to be a separate interchange from Spaghetti Junction, the limits of which begin at H at which point highway 700 is a 6 lane RHW. A) Continuation of the off ramp to downtown LC from the EB 700/707 which started in Evermore. Could not place this ramp any closer because of the position of ramps B&C. B) Ramp from the SB 704 to the SB 700 C) Ramp from the WB 707 to the SB 700 D) Highway 700 SB lanes E) Highway 700 WB lanes F) Highway 700 local(collector) lanes, probably the single most important access road in the entire interchange, see item H. G) Here traffic from both the 704 & 707 can access either downtown LC or continue onto the 700. Stay/switch over to the right to access the off ramp to the West Way and downtown LC. Stay/switch over to the left to continue onto the SB 700. Which will then take you to Cisco Bay over the Skybridge as seen in entry 10 H) Where Spaghetti junction starts. Traffic wanting to continue to downtown Pretoria stays to the left, hence why there are two lanes allocated to the busier route. Staying to the right and taking the transfer onto the local/collector lanes will lead to a myriad of possibility - in fact it can take you to every possible route in the interchange. From here WB 700 traffic(the highway is north bound at this spot but will soon curve to the west) can access highway 704, 707, Kasier St. in Evermore and even return back to the WB 700 via the transfer in Evermore. But basically if you want to go anywhere else than downtown Pretoria you have to take this ramp otherwise the next off ramp and chance to turn around is about 3.5km away. J) Another reason why the collector lanes had to be fully accessible, including returning back onto the WB 700 is because local traffic from downtown LC enters the freeway system here as well. Original concept for connecting ramps A,B,C: Aside from being a little too messy and consuming more space then the current set up, I really didn't like how that one ramp went from 1 lane to 2 then back to 1 just to get by the rail lines so I searched for an alternate solution which resulted in the current configuration. Rail info: 1 - Fastraxx ME(Middle East) line 2 - Fastraxx L(Loop) line 4 - Fastraxx LC Station - all day service on the L line, peak service on the ME line, transfer point between lines, long distance Hallmark trains stop 12 times a day using the ME line. 5 - Point where the two commuter lines diverge. The ME line continues west to Gravnhurst and points beyond while the L line curves south to the city of Cisco Bay. 3 - Highway 700 Rail overpass Originally the L & ME lines combined into one line where they now diverge and the commuter train station was located on top of the highway, but the station had to be removed to make space for the interchange. Post rebuild looking east Eastern approach, highway 707; A) Ramp from WB 707 to NB 704 B) Ramp from SB 704 to EB 707 C) Off ramp from WB 707 to Howland Rd. Originated out of a desire to put the excessive inside space between the EB & WB lanes to good use. Also serves as a secondary access point to downtown LC. D) On ramp from Trafalgar Rd. to NB 704 Definitely the least safest ramp in the interchange only 3 spaces of merging room - speed is restricted to 50kph on this ramp. Not the best looking either, but there is no fractionally angled ramp with inside access. On top of that the ramp is barely used. The eastern approach would probably look better without it but I can't bring myself to get rid of it since I like the idea of having some local access to the interchange. E) Off ramp from SB 704 to Howland Rd. F) Ramp from NB 700 to EB 707 G) 707 EB lanes H) Ramp from WB 707 to SB 700 I) 707 WB lanes Northern approach, highway 704; From right to left (west to east) - Ramp from SB 704 to WB 700/707 - Ramp from SB 704 to SB 700 - Ramp from SB 704 to EB 707 - Ramp from WB 707 to NB 704 - Ramp from NB 700 to NB 704 - Ramp from EB 707 to NB 704 The NB 700 to NB 704 ramp is the only one which doesn't utilize an extended or on slope height transition in the interchange, but I found that it actually looks better with the shorter transition piece. Trafalgar Rd. runs in between the ramps. And saving the best for last... Interchange-Wide Pano's looking west looking east looking south looking north

Overview ~ Set up on a world destined to die, A very crucial communications relay base under Alliance jurisdiction, allowing the Alliance to carefully monitor and relay private human military communications via its several dozen QECs and its several communication bases. What is to be of this desolate world? Kim Sunwoo Thanks Benedict Thanks, it's been a very long run, and it's ben really fun altogether MushyMushy Thanks tankmank Thanks, and it may be some time before they get on the STEX Sexysark:P jmsepe Ha! Thanks MilitantRadical I did put them there for a reason Tonraq Yeah, it took a while but I did manage to get it done. It was worth the time Mymyjp Thanks, I'd make a comic if I could C4creeper Thanks for that boost of confidence Terring SimCoug Thanks for the high praise TPB Thanks _____________________________________________________________________ Note: I'm just stopping by to show an update Short and sweet. Plus a new planetary display that's hopefully hear to stay. _____________________________________________________________________ The Ontarom system. A hot, but bountiful eden, Ontarom is a world living on borrowed time. Like the Aite system, the planet's moon is on a decaying orbit making its way inward on a collision course with it's parent world. The decreasing proximity between the two worlds has made it increasingly difficult to live on the surface of Ontarom. Higher than average tides with ever increase lightning and thunderstorms have become a problematic hurdle to for colonization. This is still, however overshadowed by the little time Ontaromite habitability will last; and as Thonal continues its 300 year long, trajectory course toward Ontarom, the Alliance colonizes the world as a communications relay base, monitoring, transferring and communicating military information and comms across numerous Quantum Entanglement Communciators and Comm buoys. A number of communciation hubs are located on the surface of the planet, set up by the Systems Alliance in the late 2170s. Human Alliance flags This is one of a number of communications hubs maintained by the Systems Alliance in the Ontarom System. Large Relays and Dishes work around the clock to receive and relay Alliance military intelligence. Outside, supply drop offs are being managed by communications staff, awaiting transport into storages. This stands as a crucial staging point and communications relay that allows for amplified communciations between Alliance forces across a variety of Milky Way star clusters. ________________________________________________________

REPLIES: Ha, hope this update suffices! The new upgrades to my computer are A-MA-ZING! Thanks. Yeah, it was a hit to the ol' pocketbook, but completely worth it. Thanks a lot! I appreciate the kind words. Update 8: Syrenity's Return My computer is alive and Skylines is back! I've been enjoying my new rig. The game runs flawlessly, although I still don't have the population to necessarily test it all that well. I've gone ahead and, essentially, replenished my asset and mod library, this time with a bit more cautious eye. I'm trying to pick things that have smaller file sizes. But enough talking...here's a crap-ton of pictures! The Quinto Tower finds its way back in, essentially, its original spot, in the old downtown of Syrenity. This is where it started. A luxury hotel & spa sits in old downtown, as there are a few nice things to see here. The Cathedral has a certain look to it that, in my eyes, helps it fit into this tropical paradise. Its massive tower chimes the time on the hour. One of the old government buildings near City Hall. Again, the old vs. new juxtaposition. Costal Boulevard huge the coast along downtown. As we leave downtown, we enter the Midtown district. Here, you can find some businesses and more things for tourists, including Syrenity's largest park. Some more of midtown, complete with the Arts Center (foreground), Sky Spyre (mid ground), and another elite hotel (background) And finally, we come to the modern-day CBD of Syrenity. It's massive. The local baseball team, the Syrenity Sounders, has a enviable spot for its home games. What a view. It's not all steel and glass in Syrenity, though. Tucked snugly between the coast and the mountains, you can easily escape the hustle and bustle of the city for some gorgeous views. So I hope you've enjoyed! Development is ongoing and we'll see just how far I can push this. Have a great day!