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Msprintz

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Everything posted by Msprintz

  1. Travel Question

    Msprintz replied to MisterBlueStar4's topic in General Off-Topic

    I would say it's a mixture of friends, family and solo trips. That option though really depends on the circumstances. This past week I was on a trip with family to attend my brothers wedding this past Friday Sept 1st. I flew out with my family, but opted for a solo rail journey back. I like to see areas off the beaten path and like the laid back atmosphere of the train. In addition taking a week- or two week vacation solo can have it's benefits in that you aren't tethered to what the other wants to do. Granted even with one of my friends it's similar to solo as he prefers staying in the hotel, so best of both worlds maybe. Traveling to anime conventions often means going with friends or at least meeting up and traveling with them along the way. Some of my best trips though have been solo treks, like catching the last run of the circus train in VA, and the Cherry Blossoms in DC this year. Met up with area friends and drove up to Boston later that week for AB, but the solo parts probably got a ton more photos easily. Same for a solo trip to Chicago a few years back, I have to do that again. Hashing out plans for a western trek.
  2. Usually I'll place my commercial zones between the residential and industrial zones as a sort of buffer to mitigate the pollution effects on residential zones. Commercial zones don't seem to mind the belching factories and it reduces the number of sick CIMS I find.

  3. Free Content Update Details

    Msprintz replied to boformer's topic in Cities: Skylines General Discussion

    I like where this is going, maybe with the addition of these features, they can at some point include strip mining. Would be rather ingenious and a first among simulations to include it.

  4. Garbage and Dead Bodies ....

    Msprintz replied to herbigharo32's topic in Cities: Skylines General Discussion

    Cemeteries in C:SL are actually tame compared to their real life counterparts in real life. In fact real cemeteries can stretch for block upon block, there are some fairly large ones in the New York Metro. It's also coincidentally a problem in regards to potential living space versus death-care. I generally place each cemetery next to a crematorium to combat this problem in game. As for garbage there are better alternative available via the community on steam. I find keeping garbage structures strictly to isolated industrial neighborhoods helps spread out the trash trucks and keep my traffic down to a degree.
  5. I'm definitely intrigued by the idea floated for an industrial dlc, with larger industrial structures connected via rail from the get go. Yes it's nice to see current industries ship their goods by truck to the train depot, however a coal mine doesn't generally do that in real life, nor does a steel mill in most instances. I'd be in all favor of such if the developers were to pull off a dlc like that. Beyond that the water expansion idea also sounds nice, and would be an interesting concept beyond the mods currently in use. I'm sure the developers are taking heed at mods and discussions here so some of these ideas are sure to make it into one of the expansions sooner or later.
  6. I remember SC3KU very vividly, played it extensively myself. I was fairly decent, having learned from 2000. It was my first time playing it's predecessor that I actually had difficulties, because the game was vastly different from it's predecessors. I found you couldn't do donut-blocks like in the NES version, and i couldn't use railway tracks as a transport between zones. It was so easy to build and rapidly raise the land value in 3000, the headlines were also amusing before the natural disasters. Yes the music was great as well, very uplifting and soothing like that of other city building games ( which I suppose is important ). I also have that manual laying around somewhere in a cabinet, and like yours should be still in perfect shape. I actually would subscribe to any structure based on SC3KU

  7. Hearses not picking up dead!

    Msprintz replied to Speedbird48's topic in Cities: Skylines General Discussion

    I'd suspect it's more to do with noise during hours of sleep. Obviously a commercial establishment that operates in a 24/7 atmosphere or an overnight atmosphere will cause noise pollution during the overnight hours. That in turn causes nearby residential dwellers to experience lack of sleep and sicknesses associated with the lack of sleep. It sort of makes sense to a degree.
  8. I get more noise pollution from specialized commercial zones versus regular commercial. IE: Leisure and Tourism creates more noise than generic commercial. Which makes sense because a Strip Club, Bar, Arcade, and bowling alley for example sometimes have late business hours which could easily disturb the peace of those nearby residents.
  9. Some really great discussion here in this thread. Thanks everyone for your feedback, ideas, and critiques! I do want to state that Cities: Skylines is still in its infancy. There are a thousand things that would be awesome to add to this game, and that list actually grows with every new addition. We have a very diverse fan base, each person has their own priorities and things they like, or hate, or don't care about at all. This means that when we make new content, we try our best to include at least one feature you'll like. This is one reason why we include free patches along with DLC, to try and give everybody at least something they can enjoy. Some things that sound simple to add/change are actually very complex to do (like the topic of combining trams/rail/metro). Please continue to shout loudly about the things you think should be included next! We love it! But I do ask that you be understanding if we can't do it all at once, or even in one DLC =) First of all I look forward to seeing snowfall and it should be interesting to manage a different aspect of city building/planning that has never been included in games of this nature. Beyond that I'd say a few things that could be added would be a canal network, and some sort of above ground and elevated metro system. I'd say one of the great wishes of the community is mixed use structures particularly commercial establishments with residential apartments above them. Not really sure how feasible that last one is but I'd actually be interested to see that in a city simulation or city builder.

  10. U.S. East Coast Heavy Snow Warnings

    Msprintz replied to A Nonny Moose's topic in Current Events

    This storm was truly one for the record books even if it didn't break the all time record at Central Park, already people are saying it surpassed the 1996 storm which Ironically was 20 years ago and also occurred in the month of January. Around here on Long Island I've heard reports of anywhere between 20-30 inches of snow depending on location, and on a widespread scale which is almost unprecedented on Long Island. The Northeast clearly got hammered, and around here there were questions up until about Friday as to the exact amounts of snow we were getting ( gotta hand it the NAM weather model, the only one showing 20-30 near NYC ). That's another thing that will be studied as well, why the other models didn't actually catch onto this until it was late in the game. As for the roads being treacherous, they were treacherous throughout the duration of the storm. Almost got stuck in the AM hours Saturday going to work at the hospital. I opted to actually shelter there, as opposed to attempting the drive home at 4pm. Thankfully most of my co-workers who left around that time frame made it home with little to no incidents ( one pair got stuck and the other helped push them back on their way, another pair not so lucky got stuck and opted to turn back ). Can't really blame them for trying to brave the weather, but on the other hand it's not the wisest of decisions when the weather can sometimes overwhelm even a 4WD vehicle.

  11. Is there an EV in your Future?

    Msprintz replied to A Nonny Moose's topic in Current Events

    The suburbs didn't come about solely for the automobile. Actually railroads were responsible for the earliest of suburbs. The coming of the railroad allowed people fed up with crowded cities to relocate and settle in less cramped settings. Many street car and garden "cities" existed at the turn of the 19th century because of that fact. It wasn't until after WWII that the modern car-centric suburb came about.
  12. Would worry about that, except for the fact I build my own systems. The peace of mind gained can't be beaten, and you know exactly what went into the machine.
  13. Somehow I'm not to surprised that they took out secdrv.sys, as the CD and even DVD are dying media in todays computer driven society. It's almost sad to see it come to this, but just about everything available for the PC can be downloaded from a variety of legitimate sources. Most new laptops and even new computers are now starting to ditch the optical CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive, so obviously change is afoot. Online downloading is even a requirement to get the new Windows 10 that's out, which to my knowledge isn't even available on traditional CD/DVD media. Hopefully they'll come around and put in secdrv.sys with a future patch, as it seems the outcry continues from those with optical drives and older software.

  14. Cities: Skylines After Dark Beta Screenshots

    Msprintz commented on Dirktator's article in News

    Man these shots have me salivating and wanting for more. Can't wait till September 24th now.
  15. Two trains within the vicinity of the wreck were hit by projectiles, a Septa regional train which was annulled after it's incident and one of Amtrak's Acela trainsets where a window was broken ( that train continued it's journey ). Speculation is that either the engineer might have hit the deck or been incapacitated due to a projectile of some sort. Other speculation is that the engineer was disoriented and forgot where on the route he was.

  16. Show Us Your Photos!

    Msprintz replied to Jazzmaster's topic in General Off-Topic

    Went to Roanoke for a few days around the second week of February. Gorgeous city, and very photogenic I might add. Took this panoramic shot from the overlook on Mill Mountain, where the Roanoke Star is. Probably one of my favorite panoramic images.

  17. 2 pics of Chicago RR yards

    Msprintz replied to spokelips's topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion

    Some of that may be former line side structures and industries. A lot of large industries grew alongside the tracks in that area and in that particular section of the nation. Saw quite a few lineside industries when I took Amtrak to Chicago, mostly among the various yards south of the city itself. Quite a few working metallurgic facilities dotting that stretch, such as a nice sized steel mill.

  18. RR U-Turns

    Msprintz replied to spokelips's topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion

    Around here, we have freight trains with 2 locomotives on each end. And oddly enough, they always seem to be loaded with a large amount of shipping containers. And they are very long, some may be a mile long or more. I have a feeling it depends on where the trains go to. I believe the ones I see originate from a port on the coast and head to a major rail hub north of where I live...so they are loaded both ways. In that case, it makes sense to be able to simply go the other direction by using a pusher-puller locomotive configuration. Probably hauling loaded shipping containers from the port to the transit hub, and empty containers are taken back to the port. Those would be helper locomotives usually added to the rear of a train to make it up a fairly steep grade. Thanks to modern technology these locomotives may be run through a computer DPU, and thus unmanned. You'll primarily see this in California for trains traversing the Tehachapi pass ( primary access point to the port of Los Angeles ), and Appalachia on the heavy coal drags. Some short lines may use two locomotives as well to save time on switching maneuvers.

  19. 2 pics of Chicago RR yards

    Msprintz replied to spokelips's topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion

    That is indeed a turntable in picture #2, most likely a hold out from the steam era when turntable were used to turn locomtives. Most turntables have been removed due to the ease of which a diesel locomotive can be turned and serviced. Sadly that has also led to the demise of the roundhouse another structure associated with turntables, few if any exist except for museums and the few active holdouts.
  20. The game itself probably won't include "real" businesses such as Target, Shopko, McDonald's, and Publix. However if the game can be easily modified as advertised than it's not out of the question that "real" businesses could be a reality in game. Again I have my faith in CO/Paradox that they will deliver in this category, the rest is up to the modding community after that.
  21. Oh it definitely looks good, and game play should be equally as good. CO/Paradox produced the games Cities in Motion and Cities in Motion 2, the latter of which is the framework for Cities:Skyline. Game play for those two titles which focus on the management of transportation systems are extremely deep ( allowing seasoned players of the genre to jump right in ), but provide enough for those new to the genre to get the hang of playing. The latter allowed broader micro-management right down to where you could set the schedules. In Cities:Skyline you'll most likely have a ton of options right at your disposal for micro-managing roads, zoning, and public transport ( a little less micro-management than that of CIM 1&2 ) just to name a few.

  22. Cities: Skyline; A new City Simulator Announced By Paradox

    Msprintz commented on pcwhiz24's article in News

    If CIM and CIM2 are any indication of how this game will turn out, than I'm more than happy to say I have faith in this being a hit. Cannot wait to see the final product.

  23. malaysia airlines A Missing Plane.

    Msprintz replied to RipRap's topic in Current Events

  24. Internet Neutrality

    Msprintz replied to A Nonny Moose's topic in Current Events

    That's not entirely accurate. This country was made prosperous by corporations working without the oversight of the government. It was only when those corporations threatened to become more powerful than the government itself that the electorate took action. Regulations were put in place to prevent that scenario from happening, some sensible and some not so much. Net Nuetrality is a needed regulation in my opinion to avoid corporations from becoming too powerful.
  25. This isn't really a new or first time event, and it's a fairly frequent occurrence in that part of the nation during the spring and fall months when the weather pattern changes. So far despite a few small severe outbreaks of tornadoes ( the highest I believe was an Ef-4 in Arkansas ), the numbers are much below normal. This has actually been the case the past few years, which is a relief for the nation after 2011 when Tuscaloosa, Joplin, and Birmingham suffered catastrophic tornado damage from Ef-4 and Ef-5 tornadoes. The unusual component is the late season snowstorm.
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