79supergasdriver

Hello All! I've tried learning gmax/BAT/LotEditor but just don't have the patience for it. Some folks on here have a real mastery the art and I'd like to tap into thier talents. One thing lacking in the SC4 custom-content community is the way agri-business and industry come together in big cities. I've found a few great rural grain elevators/storage silos but no real "hyperterminal" where regional grain is consolidated into long trains and sent to global market through coastal ports. One example stands just s few miles from where I sit right now...the colossal DeBruce Grain structure. A Google images search will yeild photos of the beast in it's crippled state following a massive grain-dust explosion in 1998. I felt the explosion at Derby High School, where I was making up a failed semester of sophmore English-6.5 miles away. Another example sits on the north end of metro Wichita, in the old industrial area of town. The abandoned monster is nearly 1500 feet end-to-end, has two seperate storage structures which straddle a single rail and sits between two major railyards. From our local newspaper: "DeBruce Grain has put its grain elevators at I-135 and 25th North on the market - and a more unusual piece of industrial property in Wichita is hard to find. The elevator, at 1400 E. 25th St. North, is 100 feet tall, more than 100 feet wide and 1,500 feet long. Built in the 1950s and owned by several owners, the grain terminal hasn't been used since 2002 and is not operational. Kris Wessel, an agent with Grubb & Ellis/Martens Commercial is primarily marketing it based on the 7.5 acres of vacant land immediately south of the elevator. The land sits between Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks, has fabulous visibility from I-135 and is zoned for general industrial." Here's a link to reference photos: s41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/79FordKiller/Grain%20Elevator%20research/ Obviously, a 1500-ft long structure would be way too massive in SC4. I'm imagining something that functions in a similar manner (TE'd for frieght truck/train), provides I-AG and/or I-D jobs, uses lots of power and moderate water, generates moderate garbage but pollutes little or nothing. As for physical characteristics, the structure should consist of a tall headhouse (where the lifting/sifting/filtering/drying mechanisms are), either aligned at one end of or centered between storage bins. The storage bins should feature a flat roof which may be square and overlap the bins slightly or "trimmed" to fit directly on top of them. A distribution system should extend from the headhouse to each of the storage bins in the form of a covered conveyor (a simple windowed long rectangle that sits atop the roof-see photos) or more complicated (and less common) tubular screw-lift system (like what's seen on the rehabilitated north end of the DeBruce monster). All will feature some forms of dust collection systems attached to the exteriors, usually on the roof near the headhouse with tubes running about. One side of the elevator would feature a structure at the base of the headhouse large enough for a few grain trucks to drive in and deposit thier cargo and a staging area for others to line up. The opposite side of the headhouse would have an overhead rack to load several rail cars simultaneously on multiple tracks. These concrete elevators are usually left in the natural finish, but many smaller ones are often painted white to mitigate some solar heating in the summer (so I'm told). These sites may also be home to some type of milling operations as well, usually housed in a multi-storied brick-and-window box at one end of the elevator with direct access to rail and truck (photos of a local example will soon be added to Photobucket link above). I may not be cut out for the modeling, but I'm very willing and able to gather whatever information and additional photos a developer may need. I greatly appreciate any interest in picking up this project. Thanks for looking!

So I can go to MS Paint, create a bitmap image 16x16 blue pixels large, move it to the appropriate file, and have a square region that's 4 large cities sharing a corner in the middle? Am I missing something?