Nacoran

Er, no, the google mashup idea wouldn't actually be in the game. Google mashups are modifications of google maps. There is a big modding community that adds local interest sites. There is one that shows what different levels of sea rise would flood. There are some that show mass transit. You type in where you are and where you want to go and it tells you what routes to take. What I was thinking was that a mashup could be made for this site. Basically, people would save the coordinates of buildings they had made graphics for with the file. A person looking for a specific real world building would go to the mashup map, click on the region and zoom in. Any building that had been made into a stex object would show up as a one of those little pushpins you see on google maps, but instead of giving you driving directions it would link to the stex file for download. It would be a way to graphically find the stex files you wanted, plus help people figure out what landmarks haven't been done. Google is also doing their storefront project, which would be a great source of image files for new stex. Short of a google mashup, even an alphabetical directory of buildings by region would be useful.

Thanks.

Ok, so here are some strange ideas, and some questions... I have only minimal computer skills, but here are some thoughts... Finding things- Someone suggested that there needs to be a better way to find buildings. How about a map? Could someone make a sort of Google Mashup where you zoom in on an area and the tighter you zoom, the fewer files appear in the list below it? I know it would be a nightmare to sort old files, anything new could be tagged by the creator as it's added. You could put a couple other filters on. The ones that pop into my head are historical buildings, current buildings and planned buildings (I'd love to see some of those never will be built building plans that you see on Discovery Channel sometimes. Wouldn't it be great to see Freedom Ship, with it's planned 30,000 residents sailing into port? Roads- I love some of the great road mods. I have no idea if what I'm saying is even possible, but it seems to me that when one thing runs over the top of another (like el train running over the top of a road) the graphics part of it is mostly superimposing one image over another. It seems to be that this is being done in here by modding each tile. Is there some way to make it so that maybe the el train track section is made up of two parts, the el train part and the ground part and the el train part just superimposes itself over the ground part? The idea would be to make things draggable again, so el trains go over roads the same way railroad tracks do. The idea is that if you do this, you cover all the options and the program renders it for you. It would open up double decker highways, bicycle paths under highways, etc. In keeping with controlling how routes interact, would it be possible to swipe some of the code from subway systems and use it for regular tunnels? This would give you the ability to decide just where your tunnel ran, and allow you to have tunnels that intersected underground like in the big dig. It would also be cool to be able to decide what surface you put on your roads. If there was a little pop-up that you could click to chose cobblestone or brick, or concrete or asphalt you could customize the look of your streets. (If someone was coming up with a game from the ground up I'd suggest being able to design the size (width, the sidewalks, the on street parking, lane divides/style), traffic control (lights, signs, speed limits), the surfacing (brick, dirt, cobblestone, asphalt, concrete etc.) and the elevation (sunken, raised, street level, double decker, overpass, underpass, subway etc. (weee flying cars)) Zoning- It has been lamented that modern zoning gave way to urban sprawl. It used to be that nice neighborhoods had mixed use buildings. You had shops on the first floor and apartments above it. The stairway was your commute. Is there a way to introduce this into the game? Taxes- Could someone come up with a Land Value Tax ordinance? Basically the idea is you tax the land based on its access to transportation more heavily than what is actually on it. In theory (and in limited trials) the idea is that if someone owns a tiny building in the heart of the city with a giant lot, he isn't helping the economy much, so he gets taxed nearly as much as the guy with the big building on the same sized lot across the street. To pay this tax he decides to get some financing and build a bigger, more useful building (maybe you could let checking the historical building box ignore this, LVT tax usually exempts historical sites). The general idea is that people in the heart of the city develop bigger buildings and suck the life BACK into the city. It's supposed to counter urban sprawl. And one more pretty please? Those darn holes. I've been playing around in the game with hole digging lots. They are great, but I can't help thinking that hole digging tool based on the zoning tool would<

Double decker super highways/bridges and appropriate on/off ramps would be cool, and is there a way to place regular roads running parallel under raised transportation (highways, els, monorails)?, Mixed rail highway bridges, under highway parking garages, basically anything to let you stack more layers of transportation would rock. Monorails that run through an upper floor of a building like at Disney World, maybe a monorail Grand Central, double decker monorail, one on top, one hanging like a cable car, cable cars... Of course that is just to tide me over until someone builds personal transportation pneumatic tubes like on the Jetsons and Futurama.

LOL!!! Guilderland!!! I always thought it would be cool if there was a Florenland nearby. A good trick for coming up with names is to use a foreign name for something. Altamont just means high (alta) mountain (mont). Use surnames. Our local mall in Guilderland is Crossgates, named after Cross and Gates. I always liked the name even if I didn't like the mall. Ville, burg, ton, dale, vale, forest, city, land, gate, peak, mountain, shire, creek, hill, glade, sound, lake, bog, swamp, cannal, shore, beach, view, anything like that will sound ok on the end of a city name. In front, put Los/Las, New/Old, San, Nuevo (new in Spanish), Buena (good in Spanish), Vista (view in Spanish) Cape etc., or just North, South, East, West. Remember a lot of places names become bastardized over time. North becomes Nor, Town becomes ton. If you want your town to sound historic, slur the words together, kind of like that game where you guess what phrase someone is saying when they say, 'zit sin dah bog, zitsin dah bog, it's in the bag!' only in reverse. Rio and kill both are words for river/creeks. We have a place called Fishkill around here. PETA once tried to get it renamed because they thought it was offensive. Actually it means Fish Creek.

I'd love to see some BATs of the Albany NY skyline. Albany NY? Well, our capital building cost more than the US Capital, our Education building was gorgeous before they put a terrible addition on it. The Regents building is world class. And of course there is the Empire State Plaza. Love it or hate it, the Empire State Plaza is 98 acres, including the iconic 'Egg'. Life in Albany may be boring but I kinda like the skyline.