Ronwe

How about an insane little idea for futuristic cities: Flying cars? Shouldn't be too hard, just take the standard road network and add additional path layers on it at different hights. We might need a whole new set of visual automatia to make it look good, but wouldn't it be cool if you could have roads with 4 or 5 layers of traffic to make a scene like something out of "The 5th Element"? You could have something so that like each vertical layer would be just another lane to the game, so driving on it you could shift left or right to go up or down in elevation. Intersections for it might be a little tricky but I'm sure you guys would weave something through. As for crashes or mid air collisions.... that would just be interesting to see what happens! Also, it wouldn't need any pavement or roadways up there or any textures for that matter, although you might add floating centerline lane markers or something if you wanted to show a little visual que that it's there, especially if you use pedmalls or parks as a base instead of roadway pavement. Just a thought incase you guys wanted to try something a little different to fool around with.

From what I understand of this issue, the Mac version has a limitiation on the maximum height that an elevated transit system may have, and if anything exceeds that limit the game crashes. It seems that the maximum height allowed is somewhere just about 15m, the height of the default El and monorail networks. The NAM double height networks are thus incompatible with the Mac version of the game, and the same problem may arrise with any prospective RHW mod with Level Three ramps and overpasses. (L3 FlexFly)

Hah ha! commerce is almost certainly out of the question... Space agencies have a tendency of using their own propriatery docking systems, and this seems to be the case again here. The "Docking technology" that they make such a fuss about isn't the guidence or control system, it's the airlock! If you can guide a spacecraft into a specific controlled orbit, you already have most of the guidance tech needed for docking. The technology needed for the approach and actual joining of the two craft is no more complicated than that of an assymbly line robot combined with something resembling a commercial aircraft ALS or even a homing missle system. The only real challenge is having the mechanical parts function properly in orbit to lock together two different chunks of metal built and launched at two different times. In my own opinion, this seems like a reattempt at Mir on the part of the Chinese.... To them I would say "Yeah it's a big challenge, and it's neat, but I'm sorry, it's already been done! "

Nya, I hate to say it, but I think it's you! Well, you're textures, actually. It looks like you have either an old texture pack or a texture mod that isn't compatible with the new RHW pieces that were just developed. If you have the mod for the wider "Luxury Lane" conversion of the earlier RWH set, this would explain why. My stuff works fine for me, and I just installed RWH 2.0 + NAM 30 over an unmodified RWH 1.1 + NAM 29

This is an interesting conversation, about older machines vs newer ones.... I remember having a problem saving with a large city myself years ago, when I was playing with a completely unmodified SC4 Deluxe version (not even patched!) on my old Dell Desktop built circa ~ 2002. That one had 256k Ram, and a 2.4 gig processor at the time (I upgraded the Ram shortly thereafter) and ran Win XP. I had a city that was approaching 1 million, and was also becoming a traffic nightmare. (I was using one way roads and a 4x4 grid, with lots of subway and bus lines) It did start slowing down considerably as it grew, but I never had any crashes or failures of anykind until one time I tried to save it. It seemed to freeze up, so I tried alt-tabing, then opening and closing the CD tray (which almost always got be back to the desktop), then ctl. alt. del., which got me a black screen with the box [Centropolis.SC4 saved (OK) ] The whole machine was locked up and I had to kill the entire machine and reboot, hoping that the city was actually saved like it said... It was... kind of... but I guess it was corrupted, and crashed just about everytime I played it after only a few minutes. I ended up having the trash it and start over. My guess was at the time that it simply ran out of memory (A problem I'd always have with that machine... yeah yeah, I know, I was cheap and skimped on memory when bought it). Now that I'm playing again, I'm starting to have the same amount of lag, and I worry about the size of my cities. My current laptop may have 20 times the memory of my old PC, but it's also using Win 7 with a quad core CPU... which doesn't take that well to older programs. I'm starting to dread loading up my larger cities, and looking for ways I can improve the performance and reliability of SC4...

Heh, actually I LOVED Streets of Sim City, the thing was it was severly limited by the graphics capabilities of the time. However, it was pretty interesting how it worked. It used the same plugin and data as SC2k , and was completely compatible with ANY city you made in SC2K. It just used the information a little differently... Reading the city tile grids like a database, it rendered a full 3D enviroment using 3D models that it supplied which were built to match every 2D building of SC2K. There were some flaws. For instance, only one Archology model was given (a pretty good one of the Arco) to represent the 4 different ones in the game, and of course the graphics were crude (this was like 94 or 95, if I remember correctly) but it still gave an excellent feel of what it was like driving in your city. It even had excellent renderings of the 4 or 5 different bridges, and of tunnels! The reason it flopped was because it wasn't a city creation game, it was a Mad Max demolition derby game, complete with cars having machine guns, rocket launchers, and even flying capabilities. And yes, you could destroy your city building by building. I liked the game though, you could build racetracks with different hills and bridges and tunnels in SC2k, and drive them in SoSC. Infact, the main reason I bought the Deluxe Edition of SC4 was because on the package it said "Now you can drive cars, trucks, planes, trains and even helicoptors in your city" ... and naively I thought it would be like an integrated from of SC4 and SoSC, with driving in 3D.... (This was before, or more properly, when I learned to HATE EA.)

Technically speaking, it is entirely possible to create a top level graphics pluggin module that would modify the graphics output of SC4 and convert it into a true 3D render by extrapolating data from the existing orthagonal projections. The information needed to support a 3D enviroment is already there, provided by the game, you just need a (very complicated) translation system that will convert the 2D info into 3D projections. Unfortunatly, to make it work, you would also need a NASA supercomputer to run it, as it would have to reinterpret every byte of graphic information. Technology that makes 3D renderings from 2D+ data already exists in some current 3D media applications. It just isn't feasible by any means, for personal computer use - or at least not in this decade. It is possible that sometime later on down the road though, if there is a resurgent interest in "ancient" games and technology (which SC4 would be by then) that there may be programs that come about to convert and import many custom things we have made for this game into newer games, adding full 3D capabilitys to the lots we currently enjoy. BTW, I wanted to mention that Maxis already has made a true 3D conversion of Sim City.... Sime City 2000 to be exact. Anyone remember Streets of SimCity?

I have a big problem facing me, I have planned out large RHW and HSR networks with substantial sections inplace. But, I CANNOT interlace them! My highways run at ground level, and my HSR runs 15m above them and it's not feasible for me to use tunnels to cross them with the tight grid system I have going. Basically, if you guys could possibly get around to making a set of over and underpass pieces for HSR, in the same mannor that you've made them for heavy rail, I would be truely grateful! And thank's again for all your hard work that still makes this game worth playing!

I've found out what's blowing up my city!!! It's a combination of traffic jams, honking, and Tanks! I downloaded DolphinFox's latest Tank automatia pack (https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/files/file/26198-armor-pack/), which adds a ton of tanks as Medium Wealth vehicles, so they drive around the city all the time. I wasn't having any problems with them at first, but then I didn't have much conjestion in any of my citys until recently. Now, whenever there's a traffic jam all the cars start honking, including the tanks, which makes them shoot their guns. The result is I get about 20 or so vehicles in one section of the city all shooting at once, flattening whole blocks at a time. I love the tanks, but I can't have them wrecking my city everytime somebody holds 'em up! (As a side note though, it is a pretty good way of pointing out congested areas, and automatically reducing the amount of traffic in them! ) Anyway, I'm still having intermentent problems with the building placement shadow, but that's not a big issue for me, only a minor inconvenience really!

Well, it seems my bug wasn't as fixed as I thought it was! Now, I did a full virus scan only yesterday and it came back clean, so there's nothing systemwise that seems to be causing it. I do have good news though, my buildings haven't been blowing up, even after playing several hours. The placement mat is still buggy though. I tried to get a screencapture of it, but anything I do to take the picture cancels the placement and hides the mat. I may have to set up a video capture to do it. The placement map bug is somewhat peculior. It doesn't happen with any specific lot, and generally goes back to normal after placing the lot-in-hand once, letting me place additional lots with the proper outline. I have had a couple of in game crashes a while a go, but the last one was three days ago, probably about the time this bug started showing up. (Actually, there were two that day) I don't know if there it's possible that a segment of the game was damaged because of it, but I may as well post them. (Click the Spoilers to see the walls of texts!)

Actually, I just restarted the game after restarting my computer, and everything is working fine again! ... I haven't changed anything, so there's a chance it may reccure, but for now at least the problem seems to have fixed it self! If it happens again though I will be sure to get a few screenshots, now that I know how! (thanks X493x)

Okay, I'm having some problems in game that I don't know what to do with. My building placement shadows are a bit screwed up (I'm trying to figure out how to get a screenshot of it) in that they are often oversized (bigger than the actual lot to be placed) and do not show the directional indicator arrow. My second, and more serious problem is my city is self destructing! Whenever I zoom into the level 4 or 5 (Closest two) levels, about one time in five, I will have all buildings in and around the immediate camera view suddenly implode and become piles of rubble on their (now vacent) lots, like they destroyed by a disaster but not cleaned up. It doesn't seem to matter what buildings they are, as I've had maxis default collage and army base both go kablooy in one shot, and thin half of my downtown with a bunch of custom residentials and commercials go the next. It's driving me nuts! Something else that's weird is that it's not destroying the transit networks; the roads, train tracks, and even custom HSR, RTMT, GLR networks go untouched, just covered in dirt from the blown up buildings attached to them. Neither of these problems existed before I installed the AC airport mega pack V2.1 and all of the dependancies associated with them. I ran the cleanitall files included with them before installing them and it said I had no problems afterwords. The lots worked just fine in came, but I'm having these problems now.

Oh jeeze, you guys know how to tease the dickens out of me! First of all, let me say that the NAM project as a whole is in my opinion, the single most important thing that makes SC4 worth playing these days. It's success is the main reason why SC4 still retains such a loyal following so many years after it's initial release. Even with all the other lots and upgrades, the game truly wouldn't be the same without this vastly superior transit network system. I applaud all of your efforts and hard work, and appreciate your kind generousity in sharing your successes with the fans at large! Now, I've just gotten back into the game myself, and spent the past couple of weeks piling on every upgrade I can get my hands on! I've had some compatibility issues (who hasn't) and was prevented from diving into a full scale superhighway building progect when the RWH module of my game wouldn't drag the highways out from the starter pieces. I fixed it by hidding my pluggins folder from the game, reinstalling just the NAM (the full set of everything) and then copying the whole thing into the main pluggins folder, overwriting any and all files in there. I got it all fixed just last night, only to come on here and read that you have an imminent update pending, and I should hold off again! Ah well, my sims have survived on busses, avenues and HSR thus far, they can wait a few more simyears. Anyway, please keep up the terrific work! I am extatic about those SPUI's, I'll be using them all over the place! I live in Phoenix AZ, and that is almost exclusively the kind of interchange we have...

Actually, this isn't quite true. While I can't think of any examples of heavy rail using light rail tracks in current times, there were some examples of this occuring in the past. Interurban and even trolly lines were often used to service inner city industries where it was too difficult or even outright impossible to lay heavy rail right of way. There were industries that were serviced only by a switch laid right in the street from the trolley line through the front wall of the factory or wearhouse. All freight movements were made at night so as not to interfear with the morning and evening rush. Conventional locomotives couldn't be used on these lines because of the narrow radius curves, but special small electric locomotives were common sights shunting a handful of boxcars down the city streets to their scattered destinations far from the railyards. It also is a myth that elevated rail could not support freight trains. Chicago had an example where freight movements were made every night over part of the city's elevated network. I don't have any references at hand at the moment, but I can look them up if desired.

Oh, so many things, so little time... I've just gotten back into SC4 after a long hiatus, and have finally gotten into pluggins and mods, which have mostly solved all of my original complaints with the game, especially road and highway networking limitations; with a lack of various kinds of ramps and connectors. NAM has mostly fixed those, even though it is difficult to negotiate through the network of puzzlepieces and options sometimes. That brings up another problem well known to everyone, the restrictions on new menus. EA, come on, you deliberatly make this game end-user expandible, setting up the game engine to incorperate new lots, models and other elements, but then do nothing to help the GUI handle all those new things! Another MAJOR issue I have is the huge step BACKWARD the game has made from where it used to be with SC2000. Remember the hydroelectric dams? Remember ploping water on hills and at different levels? Why the heck didn't you continue that function in the original game? What about the scenarios? Remember those, they give you a city with some serious problems, and you get to figure out how to restructure and rebuild after things like, oh, mass riots, hurricanes, development stupidity...? And about Riots, remember how they were an actual mob running down the streets, throwing bottles and setting fire to everything around them, and you get to chase them down and stomp them with your police and military? You gave me a TANK, I could DRIVE.... and nobody to shoot at!!! How can I tell what parts of the city need to be destroyed and redone if the people won't come out on the streets and light them on fire? How am I supposed to rid my region of disidents if they don't come out and fight?! That stupid Steam Train engine... I can't stand it! It does NOT fit with the cars, ships, and other traincars of the game. If anyone can give me a file that represses or replaces it with something decent, say a New York Central Hudson, I'd be very grateful. There's a bunch of other things as well, but I'll get to those later, when I've got more time....