Barf

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to just install any newer version over an older one; after all, the former would really just be the latter, but with more stuff. At any rate, I'm quite grateful for all the work that's gone into this project; it's made for an excellent means of placing "pre-existing" interstate routes through my region, which would not have been practical if I had to do it with highways. It's also great for going through rugged areas. I can't wait until there are on/off ramps, not to mention puzzle pieces for road and rail overpasses and transitions to highways and avenues. ...Which reminds me, how're things coming along so far? It's quite alright if there's actually been no progress, especially since that's exactly what should be expected during any non-profit, spare-time project; I just believe that it makes things easier for all the involved parties when there's a few words about it given on something at least resembling a regular basis. Thanks in advance.

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to just install any newer version over an older one; after all, the former would really just be the latter, but with more stuff. At any rate, I'm quite grateful for all the work that's gone into this project; it's made for an excellent means of placing "pre-existing" interstate routes through my region, which would not have been practical if I had to do it with highways. It's also great for going through rugged areas. I can't wait until there are on/off ramps, not to mention puzzle pieces for road and rail overpasses and transitions to highways and avenues. ...Which reminds me, how're things coming along so far? It's quite alright if there's actually been no progress, especially since that's exactly what should be expected during any non-profit, spare-time project; I just believe that it makes things easier for all the involved parties when there's a few words about it given on something at least resembling a regular basis. Thanks in advance.

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to just install any newer version over an older one; after all, the former would really just be the latter, but with more stuff. At any rate, I'm quite grateful for all the work that's gone into this project; it's made for an excellent means of placing "pre-existing" interstate routes through my region, which would not have been practical if I had to do it with highways. It's also great for going through rugged areas. I can't wait until there are on/off ramps, not to mention puzzle pieces for road and rail overpasses and transitions to highways and avenues. ...Which reminds me, how're things coming along so far? It's quite alright if there's actually been no progress, especially since that's exactly what should be expected during any non-profit, spare-time project; I just believe that it makes things easier for all the involved parties when there's a few words about it given on something at least resembling a regular basis. Thanks in advance.

As far as I know, any monorail station on the STEX should be compatible with the HSRP. It won't necessarily look very nice, but I don't see why it wouldn't be functional.

As far as I know, any monorail station on the STEX should be compatible with the HSRP. It won't necessarily look very nice, but I don't see why it wouldn't be functional.

As far as I know, any monorail station on the STEX should be compatible with the HSRP. It won't necessarily look very nice, but I don't see why it wouldn't be functional.

I'm not sure that high-speed rail is something you'd ever want to put on the ground... When it comes to the kinds of speeds we're dealing with here, you want to make sure that nothing can get in the way. I will admit, though, that I cannot state that there are no ground-based high-speed rail systems in use anywhere in the world... As for the bridge supports, I agree that something should probably be done about it. While realism should not be the highest priority, I do believe the bridge falls under the threshold in terms of how obvious unrealistic characteristics can get without detracting from the gameplay experience. Playability comes first, though; and while I believe that high-speed rail should require somewhat more planning than highways or elevated rail, a 4

Originally posted by: Fischbob PNGs do not seem to appear properly, read my post in https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=74330&enterthread=y A quick snippet of the post: To test the theory here's my avatar in both JPG and PNG form, both renditions hosted at Imageshack: JPG: PNG: Any idea why the PNGs may not be working?quote> EDIT: Apparantly other people can see the PNG... but I still can't . I couldn't imagine it having anything to do with my browser, quite a few users here use IE 6.quote> I have that same problem, and I know why it happens... Sorta. You see, this is apparently one of a number of sites that use a CSS/Javascript "hack" to allow 24-bit PNG images to display alpha transparency in Internet Explorer. For a small portion of IE users, though, the image will be visible while loading--and then disappear immediately afterward, replaced with a 1x1 "blank.gif" image. Another site that uses the "hack" is DeviantArt, where it's incredibly obvious due to the quantity of large PNG images found throughout the various users' galleries. That's the part that I know; what I don't know is why only a few users have the problem. That's also quite alright, because the fact of the matter is that it's an ultimately pointless "hack" that's also going to be completely unecessary soon--Internet Explorer 7 (currently in Beta 3) has full support for PNG images, among other improvements regarding standards compliance. I should know--I've been using it for some time now, and it's great. However, it still hates that PNG alpha "hack" (just as Internet Explorer 6 did), so I now have a fully-PNG-compatible browser that can't view PNGs.

Actually, they did answer your question. Since the yellow line is always to the left of the driver, you can know the direction of the traffic flow based on which side of the road the yellow line is sitting. The emergency lane can be used as a guide, too, except it's located to the driver's right.

I guess I'll go ahead with another post. First off, XML: instead of using cryptic .dat files and so on, most (if not all) information regarding buildings, props, ordinances, networks, business deals, rewards, menus, and more, could be modified using nothing more than Notepad by having the game load the data from XML files, or possibly some other sort of parsed text file. Secondly, exposure to a scripting language: Civ IV has had great success with its moddability via functions exposed to Python, enabling possibilities that are nearly endless. I know, SimCity 4 has the LUA scripts, but what I'm getting at here is something that's so much more. The user interface, and many of the game mechanics, can be both altered and added to through modding Civ IV; actual mods out there range from modified/replaced advisor screens, new fort and unit functionality, an alerts system that warns you when a city is about to become unhappy or unhealthy, a completely revamped Civilopedia, and... well, you'd be suprised. Additionally, Python scripts can be edited with as little as Notepad, and don't require any kind of compiling process--you just open, edit, save, and play. The downside to exposing functions to Python would be that performance takes a hit; C++ code runs a lot faster than plugin scripts. Of course, you don't really need a large number of the functions to be exposed, either; Civ IV takes its modding to the absolute extreme (you could theoretically turn it into a fan-made SimCity with the SDK), while a game like SimCity 5 would do well with just enough to modify the user interface, and probably various city-wide and regional aspects of the game. As for the actual out-of-the-box gameplay, Habibi Joe got me thinking: it would be neat to be able to manage the region as one county/parish, or even state/province if it's big enough. You could set tariffs or bans on various imports, exports, and services, thus influencing what industries are attracted or repulsed from your region. Your neighboring regions' policies would also have an affect; if North Simkota bans gambling, then your cities on its border would see an influx of gambling institutions, for example. You could also view the levels of demand for certain goods and services throughout the region, so that you can plan your cities to take advantage of them. The regional management shouldn't be too complex, though--no budget, simple interactions with neighboring regions and their cities on your border, etc. The regional aspect of the game should only serve to enhance the experience of playing with the individual cities. Cities also need an explicit reason to exist--you shouldn't be able to start building a city in the middle of nowhere and have people magically appear to populate it. The city should either have a natural resource that a certain industry can use (oil, coal, and gas deposits, fertile soil, timberland, stone/marble quarries, natural tourist hotspots, etc.) or be in a location that has a high demand for some kind of industry or business (gambling, shipping, refinery, manufacturing, utilities, etc.); once those cities are up and running, they provide demand for housing in the surrounding area, which then allows for bedroom communities that eventually grow and develop their own industrial and commercial districts. City ordinances could also have the effect of creating or reducing demand for products and services in the neighboring areas, so demand upon which to found a new city could be intentionally created. A final option would be to establish a military base (probably one air force, one naval, and one army base per region), which of course would provide jobs, which in turn require housing...

Oh man... This latest version is by far the one anyone should want to use. It kinda saddens me that we won't see further development for some time; but I understand that there's really no point in making modifications or fan apps for a game, if you never get around to playing it! This latest rendition of SC4Terraformer had ought to be more than enough to keep anyone happy for some time to come, anyhow--especially since anyone can make custom brushes. Thanks for all of the phenomenal work you've put into this program, Wouanagaine! It'll be a crime if you aren't remembered as one of the greats in modding history.

Seeing as how Sim City 4 is essentially unaccomodating to players that are new to the series, and given the direction Will Wright has taken with Spore, I believe it is very likely that Sim City 5 will be placing the most emphasis on on two things: algorithmic/procedural programming and content, and moddability. I can see lot designs being much more procedural, for starters. For example: instead of lot files that have prop A and ground texture B at location (X,Y), the game will generate, assign, and place buildings, props, and textures based on multiple factors, such as wealth, population density, surrounding lots/tiles, climate, etc. You'd get things like fences between wealthier and poorer properties, ground textures that extend from their lot to the edge of an adjacent (diagonal) road and gracefully blend in to each other, parking lots that always appear to have proper road access, and land contours that remain natural (as opposed to entire lots being built on top of ugly and unrealistic platforms). It would also make things easier for the modding community, because everything would be the Sim City 4 equivalent of a dependency. It would also mean that more subtle variation in the width of various roads and lots could exist--there'd be no more suburban streets as wider than anyone's house, for starters. More importantly, though, would be the effect your initial construction would have on the surrounding area's ability to grow; when the time comes to widen a road for increasing traffic, it may not actually be possible because the proximity of various buildings to the street is too close. Such a problem can be prevented with an ordinance that requires a certain amount of space between a building and the "main" roads, but you risk ending up with wasted developement space if the roads end up never needing to be widened. Compensation to landowners would have to be paid in order to widen a road, too. The game could also generate realistic-looking suburbs from large areas of zoned land; streets, property lines, and other factors would all be handled automatically by the "realtor" that initially buys the land from the city. This would increase the importance in planning your zoning, because wealthier sims will only move into smaller lots than normal if the business opportunities (industrial/commercial demand) are high enough. Thus, your zoning would specify both development type (suburbs, apartments, etc.) and individual lot size (small, medium, or large). Additionally, an area could be specified as park land; and then the player could either choose to let the game generate the park automatically, or personally design a layout specifically for that location. I've already spent way too long typing up this post, though, so I won't go into possible ways that micromanagement and over-complexity could be minimized; however, I will note that the extent of procedural/algorithmic automation of city design and management could be specified by the player to suit his/her preferences. I'll end by saying that something I can't see very easily is a Sim City 5 that is graphically both entirely 3-D and aesthetically equal or superior to Sim City 4; the models would be more numerous, and vastly more complex, than in Civ IV (which is a game that's already very demanding in terms of system requirements).

Originally posted by: jplumbleyThe painted over top of the landscape sounds like a good idea. But the problem still remains that we cannot figure out how to get the game to select a specific kind of tree. People will want to put evergreens in the high altitudes and maples in the low altitudes and thats where our problem lies. Even if Karybdis can decode the trees from the save game we still have the problem of how we are going to represent them in SC4TF. The "overlay" may create some possibilities to look into though and see it they work. It may work to an extent but the way I am thinking it would only allow the user to create where the trees are planted but what trees are planted would be randomly selected from all trees in your plugins folder so you would have a wierd looking forest of 50 differrent trees with no right order to what trees are chosen.quote> I had assumed that any tree plugins contained information regarding appearance at certain altitudes when using the God-Mode tree tool, and that the same data could be used to determine what trees SC4Terraformer would plop at any given location. However, I am by no means knowledgeable when it comes to the contents and structure of plugins; it merely seemed to me that the above-described would be the case, given the that the game knows what species of tree--from say, Cycledogg's mod, for example--belongs in what elevations. ...At any rate, I have yet to give 0.8c a try; I certainly look forward to it, though, as it looks like this is a rather sizeable update. Wouanagaine, this community is unquestionably fortunate to have someone of your calibur among their already impressive ranks.

I don't know how feasible it would be, but I suppose a possible solution to the trees problem would be to simply represent trees using a texture that's "painted" over the landscape. The more transparent the texture, the fewer the trees, and vice-versa. As for varieties of trees, you could make it so the user could put any plug-ins in the region's folder, and just have SC4Terraformer load those up when it loads the region. An alternative could be to make a plugins folder just for SC4Terraformer, with a subfolder for each set of plugins. That way, if someone uses different mods for different regions, they'd be able to specify a set of plugins from within the program; it would also make it easier to implement a function for the program to create a region from scratch (instead of the user having to create a folder and config.bmp beforehand).

Sweet Jesus on a Stick, that bridge is ...And you came right out of nowhere with it, too—you're like Simtropolis' resident ninja or something, Jeronij. Considering how long it took to render and mod, I suppose a version with a gray/concrete road texture isn't exactly probable. That's alright, though—'tis a small price to pay for something that even Maxis probably would have thought to be impossible! The modders here never fail to amaze me. Also, I'll note that I find it funny how the freight train has the smoke coming up while crossing the bridge; I can imagine someone just driving along, and: "Hum dee dum! This bridge is so nice, it's saved my soul, because there just has to be a God for something like this to exist!" A freight train passes by underneath, leaving a trail of smoke that fills the roadway. "Holy pea soup, Batman! I can't see a thing! What's that thing right up ahe-eeEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" The car flies off the side of the bridge at high speed, and bursts into a blatantly impossible explosion of fire (for dramatic effect) as it hits the water. ...Not that I consider that a real problem, let alone one that can be fixed. At any rate, thanks for putting forth all the time and effort that goes into such an undertaking; I wish you luck with its completion, as well as with any other current and future projects you may endeavor upon.

The entrance/exit ramps don't exist yet, at least not in any public release that I'm aware of. Really, the currently available alpha is just sorta there to say, "Look, it works!" and to publicly test the basic system. I assume, anyway--it's not like I'm a modder in anything, let alone this. They've been working on them, though; there are various screenshots littered throughout the thread.

Wow. This thing looks downright awesome. The implications of such a program being available for map making are huge, and it makes me wonder if it's possible to compress the terrain data into some portable format. I imagine it's not possible, even if you omit buildings, trees, etc.; yet, if people are capable of this, then who knows what's possible? I applaud not only your accomplishments thus far, but those that you will make--and I wish you luck in making them.

This was an awesome throwback to the days of the previous Sim City games, especially Sim City 2000. I suppose one has to have experienced those games to truly appreciate it, though; when you've got graphics that are butt-ugly, building a butt-ugly grid--and cramming as many people as possible into it--seems like a pretty darned good idea. Anyhow, it reminds me of one of the big color pictures featured in the middle of Prima's strategy guide for SC2k; namely, James Alton's MaxiANC. At the time, it was the single largest city ever built in the game, with a population of 9,325,541. James Moore's Rubigger was also featured; and although it was technically larger, it was pretty much disqualified, because the Magic Eraser bug/trick was used.

First off, I'd just like to say that you guys are awesome for making this. Ever since Sim City 2000, I've wanted to have some highways like this. Anyway, as for the whole issue regarding the interchanges... You need a relatively long ramp/whatever for entering and exiting, but the game mechanics typically demand a more conservative use of space; if that's the case, why don't you just make the highway's merging lanes longer? From what I've seen in this thread (not to mention elsewhere on Simtropolis), that shouldn't be too hard to pull off, or so I imagine. It's possibly a reasonable solution in the "realistic" sense, because you still have sufficient space with which to speed up or slow down; and it's practical in terms of game mechanics, as you don't have to deal with ramps stretching outwards for three tiles on either side. Heck, perhaps it'd even be possible to have an on-ramp and exit-ramp share the same merging lane (although, at that point, we're likely getting into wishful thinking). And sure, long merging lanes may not be anything like what's been mentioned in this thread (although I didn't read much of the latter half, admittedly), but isn't that how compromises work, anyway? I mean, if you can't please everyone (by giving them what they want), then please no one (by giving them what they need). Of course, as no one here has likely ever heard of me before, and you just read the contents of my entire post count (as of my posting this, anyway), it is quite apparent that I am quite the greenhorn in the subject of Sim City 4 modding; as such, it's entirely concievable that I just spewed out little more than a bunch of nonsense. At any rate, I wish you much luck with your endeavors with these highways, as well as any project you may undertake in the future.