whiteshark365

The answer to your question is both. Conservation laws prohibit any construction within the canyon with the exception of water pumping facilities. Flooding also prevents construction. Even half an inch of rain can cause white waters within the canyon and levels to rise rather high.

Thank you for all your comments. Answers to Questions Nardo69: There is a mass transit system present, but its only a rudamentry system. The majority of mass transit is in hundreds of bus stations located throughout the city. Most you can see because I use the roadtop bus stop lots for then. I have thought about possibly building a small scale light rail system, but not sure if i should go through with it since it woudl invlove demolishing a signifficant amount of development to construct. Thats the one disavantage to having such a sprawled city, any new system building built towards the city requires major reconstruction. As far as a freeway connecting downtown with freeway 248 to the north or northwest, that is a project i am seriously considering implenting arround when the city reaches a million. Yes it would require a signifficant amount of reconstruction, but any city of this size would realistically have such a traffic way. Right now the traffic patterns are not in a big support of the such a project since the majority of traffic in the north has easy ways of getting downtown that are not yet signifficantly jammed. Right now Crystal Junction's size and highway development is simular to that of Tulsa, OK, which is about the same size population wise and Crystal Junction.

Here are a two pics of the region as it is right now. I know they might not look too different from eariler regional pics, but they do list each major town, so new readers can get an idea of where everything is located. Metro East. Metro West

Journal Update: As everyone may know, I have been puting a lot of work into Grimmington instead of Crystal Junction, and until today, I havn't really worked on Crystal Junction since the last update. From now until I can get Crystal Junction up to a million residents I'll be working exculsively on this journal. It's been a while since I put any serious time into Simcity, and am finding myself spending more time on trying to remember my old building habits then actually getting a lot of work done. Just recently, I finished updating simcity with a past 2 months worth of bat buildings which should help a lot with working on Crystal Junction. Upcoming Changes: There are going to be some changes in the way I present this journal over how I have perviously been presenting it. The largest change is that there will not be as many Newspaper's as there have been in the past. The city has reached such a large size, that signifficant changes are not as common, and therefore newspapers will only be posted to indicate signifficant growth, or construction within the city. The majority of all updates will be progress updates about population statistics, urban sprawl, neighborhood development, and so forth. I'll be working primarily on the suburban areas of the city, at least until I get about 925,000 residents, then I'll be working on downtown again. I am going to try and get massive downtown growth when I do begin work on it, and hopefully the large amount of surburban development arround the city will help increase commercial demand in the city center. The area between Sandy Ridge and Crystal Junction is what will be my largest project on Crystal Junction, since filling in that area with low density development is going to require a lot of time and patience. Creating such a sprawled city is very tedious work, espeically since I try and make everything non-gridlike. The area to the northeast, and southwest are also going to be areas of focus for development, so expect a lot of pics of sprawled areas, and development in all of those areas. As I indicated eariler, all the area between Sandy Ridge and Crystal Junction is eventually going to be completly zoned in, with mostly low density residential zones, and some commercial zones along the avenues. The first post on my work will be posted sometime this week. I will say that I have the population currently at 813,000 residents.

Eventually all the area between the two cities will be developed, but that will not be complete until the population nears the 950,000 to one million mark.

Sunday, June 21, 3080 Crystal Chronicles 30

UPDATE TO BE POSTED SOON!!!!! I know everyone has wondered what happened to me. Well basically, I have been real busy lately, and now I have some time to begin working on this journal again.

Hey everyone, Just wanted to post something to let all the viewers of this journal that i am still here. I know it's been a while since i posted any, but have been real busy with work lately. Anyway, I havn't gotten arround to uploading the region yet, need to confer with flamesrock for that still. I'll also try and post an update sometime this week. I regret to say no work has been done on this region since my last update. The town between topaz canyon and future sable vallley allong freeway 11 is Topaz Heights.

City Update 23.1: Future Plans for Expansion. Well it now looks like it is back to the tedious phase of urban sprawl once again. I've already worked with some extensive development in downtown, as you can see from the previous pics. Needless to say the 103,000 commercial jobs are providing a signifficant demand for lower and medium wealth residential zones. I have below a few pics of how I plan on future expansion in the city. Most of the expansion will be in the north and west, arround Crystal Junction's northern limits, and arround Sandy Ridge. I plan on getting Sandy Ridge up to 55,000 soon. There will also be some expansion in the southeast arround the Topaz Canyon and Skarran Lake areas. Here are some pics showing my plans for expansion. Northern Expansion Arround Sandy Ridge And North Crystal Junction Expansion arround the Joplin, and West Crystal Junction Areas. Expansion in the southeast arround Topaz Canyon. Current Metro Area Population 775,000.

Thanks for all the compliments everyone. ACE: I am not trying to argue with you. This will also be the last post about the planet stats for sake of relivence to the journal, since it was only meant as a side topic to keep things interesting in light of infrequent updates. I spent nearly a day researching physics equations for creating a model for the Frontier Point system. When i was talking about density, I wasn't saying it meant it had greater mass. I was meaning it had more mass packed into the same area, which is the defintion of density, was not meaning that the .897 was of greater mass then earth.. If you want i can provide a copy of the physics equations I performed for calculating surface gravity, planet mass, orbital period arround a more massive star at a specific distance, and so forth. I tested the equations on known planets in the solar system, and they all hit right on the dot with the calculations. Good News for Those Whom Want a Copy of The Region. All other users. I will be with flamesrock assitance providing a copy of the Crystal Junction Region to his site for others to download. The copy is completely unmodifed, it has the entire Crystal Junction Region in it's orgionality. It is reocmmended that you get the desert mod, and PEGs limestone rock mod, to make the regional compatable, and appear the same as i use it. I will remind you it's a very large region, measuring 8 x 4 large maps in size so it offers plenty of area of building. Hope you enjoy.

I know this might be tricky to explain. But the reason frontier point has greater surface gravity has to do with it's average density being higher then that of Earth. Earth has an average density of arround 5.5 g/cm

I know the location and the height of the tower doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the city, but since it was one of the firt downloaded bat buildings that actually grew, I thought it was a good idea to keep it. Downtown is eventually going to be taking up the area of land arround the new tower. I am going to try and aim for a long narrow stretch of downtown along Freeway 48 west till just beyond the flat spire. Everyone else, thanks for the complments. New update will be posted sometime before next weekend.

Thursday, October 1, 3078 Crystal Chronicles 30

Answers to questions: Flamesrock: I can transfer the region to the site, I just need instructions on how to do so. I do have an origional unmodifed version of Crystal Junction before i did any construction. I kept it in case the city ever experienced a major file problem and needed to be rebuilt. 77FurryBeagle: There are mild seasons on Frontier Point but they are simular to that of seasons at earth's equator then in the temperate zones. Crystal Junction's location sees no changes in seasons, temperatures fluctuate at random throughout the year. More tropical-like areas experience two seasons. Wet and dry. Bassically the seasons are defined by the amount of rainfall, instead of changes in the temperature. Area's towards the poles do have some mild changes in temperature but not much. Frontier Point is a planet with only a few degrees of tilt. There are long term changes in the planet's temperature, basically cooling and warming trends that occur over a 200,000 year period. This is due to the planet's sun being a minor variable period star, where it will change in brightness and intensity from a class F3 to a class F6 over a 200,000 year period. Frontier point is currently at the height of it's warming period. Here below are the statistics of Frontier Point. Diameter: 11,795 km Mass: 0.897 Earths (5.36 x 10^21 metric tons) Average Density: 6.24 g/cm

I've said this eariler on this fourm. I don't know how to post a region for download. And as far as the mods. Most of the mods I use can be downloaded off of the mods sections of this site. Individually transfering the mods would require more space then most people's e-mail accounts have.

As far as the temperature. A person can survive temps as high as 150 or 160 for short periods of time, at least air temps, that is taking into account there is no humidity. Liquid temp tolerance is a lot less, most would probably get 1st degree burns if they put a finger in water at 160.. The day of 140F was a one of a time event in Crystal junction's history. As far as how the temp gets that high when compared to africa or death valley, you have to take into account that Crystal Junction is a city that isnt built on Earth. It's bulit on the planet of frontier point. The entire world has no ice caps, only 33% of it is oceans, more then half the surface is covered in deserts. Even high altitudes dont have any ice present. No location on the surface gets below 50 to 55

Thursday, September 23, 3077 Crystal Chronicles 35

Update being posted tonight!!!!!

I've found a traffic light bug that I think might be related to the NAM. I've only downloaded the latest addition today and found an odd bug reguarding the placement of traffic lights on an avenue and diagnol road intersection. Here are a few pics of what I mean. as you can see the first one has two traffic signals, and the other one is showing both signal being on the same side. It isnt a big deal, but was wondering if anyone of you knows how to correct this, or if it is being fixed in the next nam release.

This journal isn't dead, it hasnt even reached the halfway mark of it's life yet. But as some of you think, i have been very busy with things lately, also been working on some side (non-simcity) projects as well. I'll try and get an update for you guys sometime this weekend, or early next week.

Tuesday, October 25, 3076 Crystal Chronicles 35

Philly is simular to stl in that aspect, there are other cities out there like that as well, but not as many since most cities have more of the population in their main city city limts then in suburbs.. Your city is about 25% urban, and 75% suburban. LA is simular as well, so is pheonix. NYC and other east costal cities, and chicago are probably a lot less like that. STL isnt very unique in that aspect, just the shear difference in percent urban and suburban kinda stands out, since stl is 14% urban, and 84% suburban. Of coarse I'll be honest in saying I do find a number of cities have a better skyline then stl, and Philly is one that has a very cool skyline. STL's city ordinance which states no building can be higher then the Gateway Arch kinda limits it's skyline size. Basically no building over 630 feet tall. D.C. has a simular orbinace, but only it has no taller then the capital building.

Thank you for all the compliments guys. I do appreciate them. I am glad you enjoyed the story and the details. Ideas for city weather. When i have designed all of my cities, I have a basic idea for the weather they have. Ridge Point, Grimmington, and West point i never went into as much detail in because i was more concerned with getting the city's finished. However, since in each city they are all protrayed as being on a different plantet, I have to try and create some alien-like weather, or weather not as commonly seen in the United States, while constructing the cityies as US cities would be constructed. Crystal Junction is supposed to have a lot of simularities with Pheonix, but the exact atomsphere of which I can't duplicate fully, since I've never been there before, or to be honest, ever even scene the skyline, but I have read some about the weather, and I try to make the weather more hot, and since the city is near the equator of Frontier point, little change in the seasons, espeically from a world only 40% covered with water, and an orbit that creates tropical or desert-like conditions globally. I do read a lot about weather, and try to make my descriptions of conditions as realistic as possible. I also from reading alot about weather, am able to usually think this stuff up quickly. Ridge Point, while I didn't go into any weather detail has a sub tropical weather system, not quite temperate, but not quite tropical. Very rainy, very dry periods, able to support dense farming. West point was constructed in an area boarding the very geologically active areas, as well as at the base of a moutnian range, so it's conditions can in some cases vary greatly, but it tends to have a more extreme range in weather patterns. Severe storms, droughts, windy conditions, cool periods from downdrafts off the moutains. Grimmington has a cross between West Point and Ridge Point's weather system, but generally tends to support grasslands. Long mild periods of light rain, and baulmy weather, but breifs intense periods of storms or wind. Crystal Junction as you all know has a very dry, hot, and desert-like weather systems. Severe weather is often in the form of heat waves or sand storms, but over all it has a constant hot and dry climate, with in most cases less then half an inch of rain ever falling within a 10 year period. The Crystal and Limestone rivers stay wet only from springs, and rain to the southwest and south. The city's location is a place where most of the air loses it's miosture hundreds of miles to the west. The only time it ever recieves rain is when on the rare ocassions, low pressure systems from the north are powerful enough to draw moisture into the area from rapidly enough before it dries out, or the air is so heavily saturated that the area's lack of air humidity isnt enough to prevent rain. 77FurryBeagle: I got the idea for the name the Galleria, mostly because it is a very generic name for a mall in a major city area. I would be lieing if i said that the STL area's Galleria mall wasnt of some infulence. I do know that a lot of major cities have a mall named the Galleria, L.A. is another such city that has one. I do also base most of my city's to some exetent off of STL, and I would imagine a lot of people on here do try to model either their whole city or parts of it on their hometowns. The major sprawl for instense of all my cityies comes from the fact that St. Louis is the 2nd most sprawled city in the US, only Pheonix is more spread out then STL, when compairing area to population. STL is obly 18th in list of population though in the nation. The STL metro area extends almost 60 miles across from one corner to another, only 385,000 of the 2.6 million people in stl actually live in the city, one of the few cities where suburbia dwarfs downtown. Dannato: The detials I put into a story to come rather quickly from me to think up, however, writing them is the part that takes a lot of work for me since as most can tell, my grammitcal and spelling skills are far from perfect or even good. I do try and read over what i type up in the newspaper once, but a lot of stuff still gets overlooked. Future Projects: I know it seems a little earily to be thinking about what my next major project will be. This city has taken even twice as long as Ridge Point did, even tho it is only about a third of the way complete. I will say I am going todoing both West Point and Grimmington, simply, because i didnt use downloaded lots or mods as much with them, or even the NAM mod like Crystal Junction has, and I never really went into much detial reguarding the naming of everything. I will say my next project will as far as a new city is concerned, will be a costal city. But I am not sure which city yet. I am thinking very heavilily about doing the capital city of Frontier City, but may also do a smaller city. Frontier City would be a very big project to undertake since unlike either Ridge Point which was 1.25 million, or Crystal Junction which I am aiming for 1.9 million, Frontier City will be 5.3 million in size, and need some customized buildings, since the city I imagine it to be has two two mile tall towers in it. I might might do grimmington again while doing Crystal Junction, because a town of 50,000 doesnt take as extensive amout of work as a 1.9 million major city does. Next update on here will be sometime this week.

Tuesday, July 16, 3074 Crystal Chronicles Special Edition 40

City Update 22.1: Crystal Junction is currently a city of signifficant size. It still lacks enough people to be considered a major city, but, at it's current rate of growth, that may not be too far off. Currently the Crystal Junction Metro Area consists of roughly 650,000 people growing at a rate of about 15,000 per year. The city as you can see on the graphics below is starting to spread north all the way to the Upper Crystal Canyon, and outward arround the southwest, and west. Already Sandy Ridge is becoming the hot growth spot with the town having a population of over 31,000, thanks to the newly generated business from the constructed freeway 248. Downtown Sandy Ridge has already begun medium density zoning to provide more jobs, as well as attract workers from Crystal Junction. Sandy Ridge itself is on the verge of being incoperated into the Crystal Junction area, but that itself is still pending. Also provided are the locations of each major airport so everyone can get a rough idea where everything is located. Eastern and Northern City Spread Western and Sandy Ridge City Spread Airport Locations Feel free to comment guys.