I'm opening this thread for discussion about (any) my transportation stuff (mainly stations).
In order to keep Warrior's thread clean, I'm moving all irrelevant posts here. Other members, please delete your posts not related to HSRP and post your messages here.
cogeo --- « Reply #417 on: May 28, 2008, 04:07:42 PM »
I have made a set of GHSR and GHSR/Rail stations, using my transparent models.
If you want to test/review them, you can get them from the attachment in this post.
I would recommend that you remove them though after the final set is released, as they may be updated.
Dependencies are SG Props Mega Pack Vol1, BSC Textures Mega Pack, the Semitransparent Models (STEX) and HSR Stations Essentials (STEX).
Btw has anybody used my GLR stations pack? There appears to be a problem with station with dual track (Interchange Stations). Weird, they were released long ago, and got many downloads, but I have got no complaints yet.
EDIT: Buttons are not ready yet, so the menu shows the LE-generated icons, but other than that they are done.
Toichus Maximus --- « Reply #418 on: May 28, 2008, 06:14:41 PM »
sweet, checking them out right now.
EDIT
I had a ctd error trying to drag monorail from the station. This happen to anyone else?
edit 2
happened again trying to plop the station directly over existing line.
edit 3
i managed to get it working. I dragged hsrp first, plopped the station at one end, gave it some space, and then dragged some more. Didn't work in another tile, tho.
b22rian --- « Reply #419 on: May 29, 2008, 12:36:57 AM »
Cogeo,
I thought i was using the duel interchange in 1 of my cities..But i only ran across the single track interchange..
it seems to be working beautifully for me.. has a 32 % usage, not really in one of the denser part of my largest
city.. (355 K).. What did you find out on the duel path one that was an issue ?
BTW, thanks so much for all your beautiful stations !
Brian
choco --- « Reply #420 on: May 29, 2008, 07:00:09 AM »
cogeo: im having the problem with the dual interchange stations. GLR<->Rail. No traffic at all.
i'll have a closer look tonight.
cogeo --- « Reply #421 on: May 29, 2008, 10:28:14 AM »
@Toichus Maximus: What you are talking about is normal. There are two kinds of stations, those with the same type of networks through the station, and those with dual track. In the former case you simply drag the network through the station. In the latter drag the network as far as it can go into the station. GHSR (monorail) can only be dragged over one tile; the rest is rail and connects to normal rail. I never experienced a ctd, so could you please tell me the steps taken?
@b22rian: What do you mean by "single track interchange"? Is it one of the two large interchanges marked as "GLR at Front" or "GLR at Back"? These are OK.
@choco: The stations I found to have the problem are the interchange stations with dual track, with GLR connecting to the east or west side, both the small and large ones. That is 4 lots in total. I have attached an update. Could you please test it (replace the previous one, and buldoze all the 4 station lots mentioned above, if you have plopped any). If they are found to be OK, I'm going to update the uploaded ones too.
Thank you all for your testing and replying!
Toichus Maximus --- « Reply #422 on: May 29, 2008, 05:55:46 PM »
the ctd happened for two reasons--one was when i plopped a hub without any existing hsr network and then tried to plop a hsr starter. I didn't test if I could have done that on another part of the map or if it only happened when it was near the hub. The other reason was trying to draw monorail from the station to an existing end. It seems that dragging from the end to the station is safer.
choco --- « Reply #423 on: Yesterday at 05:58:03 PM »
not to get this thread too far off topic, but here's what i found with the GLR hubs....
The old hubs weren't working, except for cars and peds crossing thru the station. I checked the readme to make sure i wasn't missing something obvious, but i couldn't get them to work. The screens can say more than i can. the first is the old hubs, the last is the modified hubs.
cogeo --- « Reply #424 on: Today at 01:47:59 AM »
That is it appears to be OK now? I do see traffic paths on the rail and GLR track. Isn't this what it was supposed to be?
As for the textures mismatch, these were designed for the old GLR textures, but there is mod on the STEX by ebina.
Warrior, sorry this has turned off-topic, but I'm going to delete all irrelevant messages as soon as this is sorted out.
To those tested the GHSR stations: Do they work for you? Any problems? Should I upload them as they are?
b22rian --- « Reply #426 on: Today at 07:50:49 AM »
Cogeo :
I have just tested Small GHSR and also Large GHSR stations on one of my main lines in a larger city of mine..
Both stations are showing high passenger usage and are operating beautifully...
I will try to get a chance to test out some of your Rail /GHSR interchange stations after work, later today..
Thanks for taking the time to create such wonderful stations for the GHSR..
Brian
I have discovered a few problems in some of my lots. Just checked the Suburban GLR Stations. and they appear to have a problem with car and bus switchings: car switching (parking) occurs at all sides but the front, while bus switching occurs only at the back side. This is exactly the opposite of what was intented. Cars should enter the station from all sides but the back, while buses should stop at the front. It may be easy to say that everything is flipped, and the solution is just to reverse the switchings, but I remember well that especially this feature was exhaustively tested and worked really as intented.
That is there appears to be problems with TE lots that are not "symmetrical". So I would like to ask all TE specialists:
- Which side of the lot is supposed to be the "north" for TE? The convention my lots comply to is that the "north" is the "front" side of the lot, however some recent tests rather point out that the opposite is true.
- Is that affected by the SC4's or NAM's or the "Left-to-Right Switch" mod?
- Is this related, in any way by the orientation of the lot's "building" (the gray rectangle in LE)?
- Do the TE switches have to be defined differently if the track is just adjacent to the station or if it enters the station?
It may be a quick fix to TE these lots symmetrically and get rid of all problems easily. For example, stations with GLR at East could just be modded to allow GLR conversion at both East + West sides - as there is GLR track connected to the one side only, the other switch will just not be utilised by the game, but the side that does have a track conncetion will surely have a working switch, and this independent of how the game "interprets" east and west. However I would like to mod them them in a way that only allows transit conversions at the "correct" side only. Any help would be highly appreciated.
From my experience, north has always been at the BACK] of the lots. It is not necessary to use symmetrical TE functionality.
Ok Cogeo...,
I was able to test ALL of the Rail/ GHSR interchangestations on one of my busier lines in one of my larger cities..
All of them are working great, high usage in all the tests I ran..
A very nice job with these and they were sorely needed by many of us who love Warrior's High speed rail..
Thanks again for all your effort and hard work on these..
Regards, Brian
@nerdly_dood: I have just confirmed this. Just can't understand how these problems weren't discovered earlier. I would swear that they seemed OK and tested in depth.
@b22rian: Indeed, I have tested them as well and they look OK. I'm gonna test them in LH-driving configuration too. All tracks here are straight and reverse paths were already included in the essentials, so no problems are expected - just want to make sure that switchings work the same.
I have also found some bugs in the following sets:
- GLR Stations and Hubs: cars can't enter the Small Stations from the front side (it was intended that they would not enter from the back side). Also the four hub stations with GLR connecting to the East or West side were all wrong.
- Suburban GLR Stations: car and bus switchings are flipped (they enter from the back side, instead of the front). Also no pathfiles for the split-track stations for LH-driving Installations.
What is really weird is that I have got no complaints from players, although these were released long ago and got many downloads. These are about to be updated in the next few days. A question I have is, why does the draggable GLR Patch for GLR Stations Pack include the building exemplars as well. For connecting to draggable GLR, modifying the lot exemplar only should be enough. Including the building exemplars in the patch causes them to just carry the errors they initially had, and even worse override any fixed buildings with the older (wrong) one!
If you have downloaded either the GHSR or the GLR Stations from the HSRP thread (attachments), please remove them, they are going to released and updated respectively (there are minor fixes in both cases).
OK, now that GHSR appears to work, let's hope that someone will mod/re-lot some of the existing rail station BAts (King's Cross, Gare du Nord, etc), enabling connections to all kinds of rail, ie GHSR (intercity), rail (commuter/local) and GLR (suburban) as is the case with real transit hubs. Maybe we should make a tutorial (somewhat more standardised this time), as with more transit types included, the combinations get so many that is impossible to make stations that can satisfy the needs of all players. The GHSR Station Pack (though it accommodates only two transit modes - GHSR and Rail) contains 8 stations, and there are still some combinations not made (eg Large Interchange Station with rail connections in three out of the four track outlets - only one GHSR connection). If another transit mode (GLR) is added (not to mention bus and subway) the number of lots becomes unmanageable. So maybe a good guide would be preferable.
Thank you all for testing/reviewing these.
I hope you can get your stations fixed. I was not entirely aware that there was a problem, either. I must say that I look forward to the fixed functionality with the lot update, they were excellent in the first place; they'll be even better with your update! ;)
I have also found some bugs in the following sets:
- GLR Stations and Hubs: cars can't enter the Small Stations from the front side (it was intended that they would not enter from the back side). Also the four hub stations with GLR connecting to the East or West side were all wrong.
Yup, I see what you mean now about the small GLR stations.. I checked 2 of them and not a single car is entering
either parking lot...
Brian
(edit).... I meant on the Small GLR interchange stations only.. On the normal Small glr stations the cars are entering
the parking lot as they should be...
Quote from: cogeo on June 01, 2008, 02:04:05 PM
A question I have is, why does the draggable GLR Patch for GLR Stations Pack include the building exemplars as well. For connecting to draggable GLR, modifying the lot exemplar only should be enough. Including the building exemplars in the patch causes them to just carry the errors they initially had, and even worse override any fixed buildings with the older (wrong) one!
The main reason for including the building exemplar file was to fix the issue with the REP count of the Transit Switch Traffic Capacity property being not 0, which caused problems for Mac users. I don't remember if your files had this fixed already, though (many others didn't). I'd say the best method to prevent any further issues would be to include a Cleanitol file that has a list of all outdated files, including the draggable GLR patches.
@Andreas: Thanks for the reply. So should I suggest players to remove the patch (and use the puzzle pieces only), or it would be possible to remove the building exemplars from the patch (update the patch)?
Some interesting findings about TE-ing lots. There appear to exist some bugs in SC4, as far as this is concerned.
Stations that connect to two kinds of tracks (a different one at each side), should work as both hubs (eg Rail<->GLR) and as normal stations (eg Ped<->Rail and Ped<->GLR). I first attempted to TE them in a way that only the "correct" switchings are allowed, eg for a station with GLR track at the East side, Ped<->GLR is allowed only at the East side and Ped<->Rail only at the West. This way the "hub" functionality works as exepected, but the embarking/disembarking not! Reversing the switchings causes the opposite effect, ie only embarking/disembarking works, but then the station doesn't work as a hub! So the only way to make both modes work is to specify both East- and West-side conversions, Some tests I have have showed that even if the "East" and "West" are meant to specify "direction", rather than "side", this doesn't fix the problem either. So the only solution is to specify conversions at both opposite sides, eg stations with GLR track connecting at the East side must have switchings like
0x81,0xA0,0x07,0x00 and 0x82,0xA0,0x00,0x07 (ie at both East+West). Weird, but otherwise it doesn't work!
Parking is even more weird, eg if you want to restrict access from the back (north) side and specify a conversion like 0x81,0xB0,0x01,0x00, the (same) station is OK if plopped in the EW direction, but not if plopped in the NS direction! That is it appears to be rather buggy! So for parking only the conversion that allows switching at all four sides (0x81,0xF0,0x01,0x00) should be specified. I had attempted to block car access from the back side, to satisfy visual requirements (ie parking looking not "connected" to the back side), and this appeared to work in some cases, but as it causes problems (depending on how the lot is plopped) I'm going to revert it to normal. Cars will enter from the back side too, but I would prefer this to making the parking inaccesible for some plop directions.
EDIT: Tested buses as well, same problems here. Either specify conversions for all four sides, or at least at two opposite sides - you will get conversions on the side that you don't want too (as a side-effect) but this is still preferable to not getting conversions at the side intended.
If you have experimented with lots that are not "symmetrical" (and modded them as such), please post.
Quote from: cogeo on June 02, 2008, 08:32:41 AM
@Andreas: Thanks for the reply. So should I suggest players to remove the patch (and use the puzzle pieces only), or it would be possible to remove the building exemplars from the patch (update the patch)?
Well, I haven't checked your files, but I assumed that you've made the stations compatible with draggable GLR when updating them recently. So that would mean the patch that was released a while ago isn't necessary any longer. The sole reason for the patch was to make the stations compatible with the draggable GLR and possibly fix the capacity bug for Mac users. For new or updated releases, I'd suggest to TE a station for draggable GLR, rather than the GLR puzzle pieces, so the patches are not longer needed (and can be removed via a Cleanitol file).
Cogeo :
I see what you mean about the opposite sides switching for buses and cars..
I was having a look also at a couple of Lindevang Elevated Rail stations im using...
First of all the main thing is the stations seem to be working well with a high volume of passenger use..
But when I look at the colored pathing arrows using the route query... it shows cars entering the busing shelter
areas..And buses entering and leaving the parking lot.. Kinda the opposite of what you might expect...
Based on what you were saying in your post..I would assume Lindevang designed the station as it should be..
But must be some sort of backwards bug on the part of maxis.. ??
Id be curious to hear if any others have noticed this backwards switching thing with cars and buses ??
Thanks Brian
No, it was Cogeo's mistake, he was switched around wrong in what he thought was the front of the lot with Lot Editor and transit-enabling programs, but I cleared that problem up earlier, see above ^^^ ;)
As said above, the suburban GLR Stations work as expected (bus stopping only at front, cars entering from all sides but the back) if they are plopped in the NS direction and wrongly if plopped in the EW direction, definitely a SC4 bug. These were tested a lot, but most probably plopped in the NS direction only. This error was very unexpected.
EDIT:
@b22rian: Just checked the Lindevang station, and it is modded in a similat manner. You can verify if the above is true, just try plopping it in the NS and EW directions. One should work OK, the other not. Isn't this a SC4 bug or not?
Cogeo....
OK, I verified it.. as you said my 2 Lindevang EL -Rail stations where the car and buses switching was backwards.. those were both east- west oriented stations.. But when i re -constructed one of the Lindevang station in a North - south direction the cars and buses are coming and going from where they were intended to come and go...
I can test some other stations which have buses and parking lots but this is looking like a maxis issue ??
I thought id show a couple pics of what Cogeo has found out with the station orientation concerning buses and
car pathing issues...
Again for testing purposes I'm using Lindevang El rail station...
First we have the proper functionality when the station is aligned North - south...
Now we have the same station (Lindevang El- rail station)...
Tested in the same location in the same city as the prior pic..
.. But now oriented east - west...
The bus and car pathing reversed ,just as Cogeo suggested it would be .. RE: his prior posts above..
I am only showing just the buses and car transits as this is the issue in question...
Brian
Brian, thanks for the testing and the pics, this is exactly what I meant! :thumbsup:
The same happens with the track configurations too. If you specify that eg Ped<->GLR conversions can occur at only one side (eg East or West), the station behaves differently, depending on how it is plopped. &mmm
So my stations now have "symmetrical" switchings, in order to overcome this (conversions at the unwanted side won't occur, just because there is no track there). I wanted to avoid this, but otherwise it doesn't work. Another solution would be to make two lots for each track confoguration, one for plops in the NS direction, and another one for the EW direction. But this would confuse the players further, and would need to be explained in the readrne in detail - but it is also true that many players don't actually... read the readme. :D
"So my stations now have "symmetrical" switchings, in order to overcome this (conversions at the unwanted side won't occur, just because there is no track there). I wanted to avoid this, but otherwise it doesn't work. Another solution would be to make two lots for each track configuration, one for plops in the NS direction, and another one for the EW direction. But this would confuse the players further, and would need to be explained in the readrne in detail - but it is also true that many players don't actually... read the readme. "...
Cogeo...
Yes I agree with the above.. And not only that but you already put a lot of your RL time and hard work into this..
To create even more stations based on the directional orientation bug is asking too much of you..Were all very
appreciative that you have given us so much enjoyment with your stations.. To me your road- top station series
is pure sc4 modding genius &apls
For the more serious players.. (those that read these threads and are into the transport side to the game heavily)
are going to want to build a road on both sides of your stations regardless of the directional orientation.. (to allow
both bus and car access).. So as you said the "symmetrical" switchings stations will handle this issue..
It is true for the serious transport players that knowing which side buses and cars switch on could have some
bearing on where one places their station exactly..But as long as the player is aware of this issue with the direction orientation than it really isn't a major problem to be honest.. You just have to know which direction
your plopping down your station and than go from there...
.. And thanks again for your recent GHSR stations.. their working quite nicely in my cities at the moment ;D
Brian ...
Brian, thanks for the nice comments!
The final (I hope) version of these is now released (Linkie here (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=19866)). Please delete any of the test versions (downloaded as attachments in this forum). If you liked them get the released ones.
Updates to the GLR and Suburban stations will be released in the weekend.
Great, getting them ASAP. :)
Are you going to create a DAMN file for them, if not I'd be happy to do that.
Thanks for the offer Warrior!
A DAMN file would be nice, but the DAMN plugin is not yet released "officially". Not only it must be released as a dependency (with an installer and a detailed readme), there should also be a new thread (stickied) "advertising" and explaining how it is used (for players, not developers), so that they become familiar and don't post silly comments like "I can't find the buttons, where are they".
This is not ready yet, so I opted for an MML. This is a completely optional plugin and can be installed/uninstalled at will at any time.
I haven't really experimented with DAMN files, but here's a tip that can help:
All building exemplars in this pack are referencing the same common cohort, so it is possible to override only the cohort, instead of every building exemplar, to set the Conditional Building = True property. This is what I have done with the MML. This makes it possible to release an update for the pack (if you need to fix something) without having to update the MML (or DAMN), as they don't contain copies of the (overridden) building exemplars.
I've been using your RTMT stations since last fall, and I think they're fantastic. I do have a question about station capacities, though. I came across the following quote by you from last September:
QuoteThe capacities of all RTMT stations are set as the net capacity plus ¾ the capacity of the fully used network (both directions, morning and evening commute). This has work quite well so far, but I would like to know if I should provide some improvements. The goal is to not allow the stations be congested (due to the through traffic) before the road network is.
Maybe it's just me, but I found the wording here a little confusing. Could you explain in a little more detail?
One reason I'm asking is that I have found that, at least in my experience, the station capacities do need revising, specifically the CAM ones. When using GLR-in-avenue, the stations never get overcrowded unless (as rarely happens) one of the associated networks does. However, the plain avenue stations occasionally get overcrowded while the associated networks are still well within capacity. Even more frequently (though still only on the most heavily traveled routes), the road and street stations get overcrowded long before their networks do. On the other hand, whenever a network associated with a station gets overcrowded, the station associated with it does too, usually worse than the network.
I almost always use the combination bus and subway stations (and trolley for the GLR); I also typically have subways running under every road.
So it seems to me that the GLR RTMT stations have the proper capacity, while the non-GLR stations are set too low for CAM. Basically, I think you need a different algorithm for capacity. For now, I think I'm simply going to try doubling the capacity of the non-GLR stations. So, for example, a road with bus and subway stops will have a little over a third the capacity of and avenue with bus, subway, and tram stops, instead of a little over a sixth of that capacity. This intuitively seems to make sense to me.
Finally, are there any further plans for RTMT? I saw a while ago that ebina was working on something for underground rail; do you know if anything is happening there?
Thanks for all your great work; it's really added a lot to the game for me.
Well, I have some interesting results from my experiment. I tried it in my downtown Chicago city, which at 453 years is the oldest city in my Chicago region. Being downtown, it's mostly commercial; about 1.4M commercial population, 660K residential, and somewhere around 200K (I think) industrial. It's an old enough city that growth plateaued a while ago, and while some population figures may move a tenth of a percent one way or another, over time populations are unchanged. Traffic flow is excellent, with only a few areas of congestion. I would estimate that I have several hundred RTMT stations in the city; of these, about a dozen were congested.
I replaced all the congested stations with my double capacity stations. This brought all the congested stations under capacity, although just barely for a few. It also had some interesting side effects.
I mentioned that there were a number of congested stations where none of the associated networks were congested. In these cases, new buildings started growing almost immediately in the general vicinity of these stations, and population figures started to rise above their previous maximum. Even more interesting were the congested stations sitting on congested networks. In most cases, removing the congestion from the station by doubling its capacity completely eliminated the nearby network congestion as well, which was unexpected. Even in the few cases where it wasn't completely eliminated, it was largely reduced. I think what was happening here is that the station congestion was causing most or all of the network congestion; traffic on one network was backing up at the stations while the Sims waited to switch networks. Once again, new buildings began growing around the new stations almost immediately. Within a few years, I had 5% growth across the board - more than I'd had in the previous century.
So it seems clear that at least in this case, the RTMT stations' capacity was a major bottleneck not only to traffic flow, but to city growth in general. I also found it interesting that I got such clear results by replacing only about a dozen stations.
On a related note, I notice that in the "NAM + CAM" thread, you talk about updating RTMT for the new traffic simulators. I hope that you will take these results into account when you do. Also, I think you may have to set the station capacities based on the "Easy" version of each simulator, since the version of the simulator may be changed during city growth, and I don't think there's any way to adjust station capacities dynamically. But I don't know much about these things, so I'll let you figure it out.
Finally, I would urge you not to jettison the CAM settings, even after CAM 1.1 comes out. For one thing, not everyone is going to upgrade immediately. Also, some people may choose to keep the CAM simulator. The new NAM traffic simulators approach traffic management in a very different way from the old ones, and after trying them, I find that the CAM simulator works much better for my cities. I think there will be at least some others out there who feel the same. Someday I may get around to posting my experiences in the appropriate NAM thread...
Thinking about the results of my experiment, I think it raises some fundamental questions about MT station congestion in general. To start with, there are three types of traffic congestion that occur in RL:
1. The network is congested but the station isn't. This happens relatively frequently, especially in big cities, where it tends to happen every rush hour. Some networks, such as roads, don't really have stations, so they automatically fall into this category. Another example would be a subway line, where trains coming by are completely full, but the station is still able to handle all the people coming and going. Of course, the question arises, if there's congestion and slowdown from people getting on and off crowded trains, is that network congestion or station congestion? I think the answer here is quite clear - it's network congestion. Increasing the number of trains would eliminate this problem, while increasing the size or capacity of the station would not affect it at all.
2. Both the network and the station are congested. This is sometimes seen, but it's pretty rare. How many times do you see congestion that would be relieved by bigger stations? Instead, when this happens, it's almost always network congestion overflowing into the stations. For example, after a big sports event, there may not be enough trains to take people away quickly, and as a result, the station fills up and it's hard to get into it. But is this really station congestion? Would having a bigger station with more staff speed up people's trips at all? Not really, because the bottleneck is the lack of trains. Then there's the question of people lining up at the fare turnstiles when things are crowded. Under normal circumstances, there should only be a slight delay here, which should probably be reflected in the Transit Entry cost for the station. If delays at this point are long and frequent, it means in effect that the station is underfunded, either by not having enough turnstiles, or enough working ones, or manned ones, etc. The reason it's not a capacity problem is that once people get through the turnstiles, there's typically plenty of room for them to wait for trains. Since stations are expensive to build, typically they're built with much more capacity than necessary. When they do jam up, typically it's well after the network has become congested, and is a direct result of that congestion.
3. The network is not congested, but the station is. Typically, you never see this in RL. For example, in subway stations, this would mean trains would be coming and going without being filled to capacity, yet the station would be so jammed that it would slow down people's travel. Since stations are built with a lot of excess capacity, this would mean that the station was built way too small, which would in effect mean that the builder was incompetent. But again, this is largely hypothetical; you basically just don't see this situation.
The conclusions I draw from this are that the only times stations get congested are as a direct result of when their associated networks get severely congested, and even then, the station congestion tends to be much less than the network congestion, in that the network congestion will have far more of an impact on the duration of a traveler's trip. So in practical terms, this means that in SimCity it is quite reasonable for networks to turn yellow or orange from congestion, while their stations still remain green. And if the stations do get congested, their color should never be as red as their network's. This is not so much a fundamental principle of transportation as simply reflecting what happens in RL.
Actually the situation where it is a station's capacity to handle throughout human traffic that affects leng of the journey is not so uncommon. Of course I don't mean the standing space on the platform itself, but rather inter connecting passages and exits/entrances . This is a particularly weak spots in the underground stations. Moscow Metro is good example of such station congestion. number of escalators built 60 years ago is simply not enough to handle volumes of people moving in the system in rush hour when intervals between trains are as short as 30 seconds or less. Trains are full as well, but entrances and exits and transitions are absolutely jam packed. Often crowd is so dense that you can raise you feet and would fall down. And it is not uncommon when you'll spend biggest part of total jorney time trying to get in or out of the station.
You're right - I can certainly see this happening. This is a case where the network capacity has been upgraded (in this case, by adding more trains), but the station capacity has not. You could certainly expect to see station congestion in such a situation. It's very similar to the case where an SC4 player upgrades to the NAM, but doesn't upgrade his or her original Maxis transit stations. The old stations will often get overcongested in places for reasons that have nothing to do with network congestion. So this simply means that station capacity must keep up with network capacity, and if you increase your network capacity, you need to add stations that can handle that capacity. For example, on newer subway lines, built with sufficient financial resources, you don't see the problem you mentioned. The point of my previous post was simply that for people building new network lines with new stations, stations with sufficient capacity for the network should be available. Otherwise, the situation you described will definitely occur.
I have been experiencing problems with the GLR <-> RAIL hub stations.
Apologies for the length of this post, I am not entirely sure how it works or what could have happened and so I have simply tried to record here as much of my observations a possible, and hopefully it will make sense to one of you more experienced folks.
OK, I had created a couple of small estates which had no road links to the rest of the city apart from (at most) two links to the city's highway network. Each estate had a GLR track running round it in a ring with either 4 or 6 stations spread around it. Each estate had a rail line running alongside and one GLR station would be built next to a rail station so that passengers could interchange between rail and GLR. Something like this:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.badstrawberry.co.uk%2Fsc4%2Fprovepoint%2F04.png&hash=6bac435949877d501494c858bf170c6b4591eefb)
As you can see, the traffic flows from the rail network onto the GLR ring and around the estate:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.badstrawberry.co.uk%2Fsc4%2Fprovepoint%2F03.png&hash=ff49a8011d60b52de3243fb73bcb2ae901335727)
The problem was that there would be more passengers than the rail station could handle, at least 6000 (well above the 2000 capacity of a rail station). When I found that there was a RAIL <-> GLR hub station I could use with a capacity much higher than I needed I jumped at the chance.
BUT it didn't work out quite how I intended. When i first built the hub station, the passengers dropped right off but then returned at a lower level, to about 2500 passengers. I noticed that they seem to be entering the station at a weird point and I also noticed that the GLR traffic seems to try and jump to another point on the track, missing out the station completely:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.badstrawberry.co.uk%2Fsc4%2Fprovepoint%2F01.png&hash=f27cf19892095c9d8d2aca8a9b65bb3fe2c60bbb)
After it settled in for a minute, the passenger numbers dropped down to 400 and were limited to those passengers that would walk from the station, there was no transferring onto the GLR track. When I looked further at the GLR track, it was as though there was a break in the track but I could find no visual signs of a break. I thought there was a break because when I looked at the whole GLR look, I saw that passengers would take a much longer route, bypassing the new hub station (despite it being closest), travelling on to the next station, transferring onto the GLR and then taking the longest route to their destination, again avoiding the new hub station:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.badstrawberry.co.uk%2Fsc4%2Fprovepoint%2F05.png&hash=11beebb0ec8d2972909d34b9202044002ed98592)
Does anyone have any thoughts about what could be going wrong for me?
cheers
Craig
Wow, this is really weird!
First of all in the third pic rail passengers are converted to pedestrians (disembarking) at a point where there is no station touching the track. Second, GLR Traffic is... teleported far away!
This shouldn't happen. My stations are configured so that Rail<->Pedestrian and GLR<->Pedestrian switchings occur only at the east and west side of the station (where track connects to). That is track touching the station at the front or back side should not be serviced (no switchings should take place). In this case track doesn't even touch the station at the front or back sides, you have roads there.
So it looks like the game is confused, regarding the numerous intersections and the few network tiles around the station as a giant intersection (also involving GLR)! This may sound like fiction, but the traffic paths you have posted rather indicate this! I don't know what may be wrong, may some more experienced NAM members can give a better explanation.
This can't be fixed by fixing the stations. The GLR Stations and Hub plugin was updated recently, but the station you are using didn't appear to have problems.
Maybe a way to fix this would be to simplify the connections if possible, try roads instead of one-way roads, or simply bulldoze the whole thing (incl the intersections) and plop them anew. But before doing so please backup your city (or region) I'm gonna send you a modified version of the station (with the GLR switchings reversed), to see if it makes any difference, ie keep your city "as is" to be used as testbed.
BTW which NAM Traffic Plugin are you using?
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
As for RTMT, unfortunately I don't have the time to improve it now or in the near future. Even making a "simple" update, like adding the Transit Switch Capacity Effect property requires editing 23 exemplars and do this 5 times (for the current capacity sets). In addition, a lot of "peripheral" work needs to be done, eg testing, update documentation, rebuild the installer, re-package, re-upload etc. I can't even consider making a major update, like review capacities (requires also updating maintenance costs, for consistency), make new sets (for all Traffic_Plugins/Simulators), or even more make diagonal versions. I was planning to make a new installer for the props, I mean a real one, allowing the player to select the props from a list, not the presets currently released. As far as I can see, few people install the props correctly; wrote an installation examles document, but few people bother to read the readmes, actually they find it easier to complain, so I'm a little p*ssed! Anyways, ss this is not really too much work, I may do it some day.
About the rest, as said above I don't really have the time for new updates, but if someone wishes to continue work on these, I would be happy to hand over my work till now. Skills required are basically modding, but some "artistic" work might be needed too (textures, buttons, props etc), however this is minimal. I was not BATting when I started making the RTMT pack, and as you can see almost all prop models are from other BATs or packages. Mcdrye's subway (LU originally, and the black, dk green, blue and metallic derivatives) is the only purpose-made RTMT model. With so many people BATting now it will be easy to find people who would be willing to contribute, making new models, or even sets/themes. This doesn't even require additional modding, as props in RTMT V3 are included in separate datfiles, so they can just be added to the package (or released as separate packs) without requiring changing the lots (the Berlin set is an example). Another skill that may be required is making an installer, and I mean a scripted one (like the main RTMTV3 installer) not a simple one that just installes a fixed set of files under the plugins folder. Certainly there are members that can help, but it's annoying asking to rebuild an installer every now and then, plus they have their own schedule and RL issues.
there is one other possibility...
How long did you wait after you made the changes before you tested the new stations set up ?
Sometimes it takes longer for all the changes to take effect than a lot of people think it does..
Sometimes as much as 18 months of game playing time or even longer before you see the new stations
reach their potential capacities... (it may even take longer than this for all changes to take effect)..
Also Ive noticed with the pathing arrows, the same sort of problem with the time element...
So for example if you had made changes to a previous set up. many times you will see parts of the old pathing
arrows combined with parts of the new pathing arrows..if things were tested less than say a 18 month time frame
It can be very confusing because the traffic simulator is still in transition adjusting from the old to the new set up.
If after you changed the stations set up you waited quite a long time before testing everything than there are
other issues that need to be considered.... Just a suggestion...
Thanks, Brian
Wow, thanks for the responses so quickly.
Firstly, to b22rian - I have tried leaving it for up to 10 years in the city's time but the problem persists. I have also tried deleting the station and surrounding roads, etc and trying again - but with the same results. Granted, the people don't seem to be "teleporting"anywhere and are entering and leaving the station at set points, but there remains no GLR traffic, and traffic still goes the long way around the GLR loop to avoid the hub station.
Secondly, to cogeo - I am using the April 2008 NAM add-on and have tried simplifying the roads around the hub, if fact I removed most of them just leaving the important one at the front of the station.
The problem seems more related to the NAM add-on than anything else because I have experienced something similarly weird. I find that the same thing happens in other traffic if changes have been made to the local area. Here is my example:
I started with the setup in the pic below, a fairly busy locale:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.badstrawberry.co.uk%2Fsc4%2Fprovepoint%2F07.png&hash=a6f744778eb9062faba407c6ded13a2d8fd83ecf)
Then I removed a patch of zones:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.badstrawberry.co.uk%2Fsc4%2Fprovepoint%2F08.png&hash=3429764be9f7801d8598166eeac753af54195ea8)
Then when I check the traffic flow you can see that some of the road traffic appears to be "teleporting" over open land:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.badstrawberry.co.uk%2Fsc4%2Fprovepoint%2F09.png&hash=6b81be01bbae919f368c70f0d2dffe34e0693957)
It stays like that indefinitely and no matter how long I leave it, it doesn't seem to correct itself until I re-lay the roads that are affected:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.badstrawberry.co.uk%2Fsc4%2Fprovepoint%2F10.png&hash=0f19c158fe588073d9231b9045622d70f7359157)
Hello badstrawberry..
yes , I agree its all a strange problem..
I was just curious if you were using the new nam traffic plug ins..
these ?
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=3693.0
If you are not.. i would encourage you to give one of those a try..
Most of us, have now switched over to using one of those..
If you are using one already.. I'm curious which one you are using ?
Obviously, I'm also curious if you were to install one of those..would you still have this same strange
problem you are having now..
Quote from: b22rian on July 27, 2008, 02:26:10 PM
Hello badstrawberry..
yes , I agree its all a strange problem..
I was just curious if you were using the new nam traffic plug ins..
these ?
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=3693.0
If you are not.. i would encourage you to give one of those a try..
Most of us, have now switched over to using one of those..
If you are using one already.. I'm curious which one you are using ?
Obviously, I'm also curious if you were to install one of those..would you still have this same strange
problem you are having now..
I believe that April's NAM has those plugins included, if I'm not mistaken. &Thk/(
Quote from: Rayden on July 27, 2008, 05:00:10 PM
I believe that April's NAM has those plugins included, if I'm not mistaken. &Thk/(
yes, I wasn't sure whether or not that was the case - but when I tried to download the traffic plugins it stated that the download was locked by the author, so maybe they have already been included in the April NAM.
However, there is a new twist on things.... In my first post I mentioned about there being no GLR traffic from the RAIL <-> GLR hub I used:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.badstrawberry.co.uk%2Fsc4%2Fprovepoint%2F05.png&hash=11beebb0ec8d2972909d34b9202044002ed98592)
To the left of the pic above, you can see that i am using the Cogeo hub staion, but al the other GLR stations on that loop were Tonkso GLR stations.
When I tried replacing the Tonkso GLR station towards the bottom of the pic with Cogeo's small GLR station, GLR traffic started to run again from the hub station. So I don't know whether or not that is an important fact or just coincidence.
Yes, I think the new traffiic sims were included in the april nam update..
But you would have still had to have made some choices as to which one you wanted to use..than..
First whether you wanted to use type A or type B...
And than in addition whether you wanted to go with easy, medium or hard ?
Do you recall making such a choice during the install ?
Thanks, Brian
Quote from: b22rian on July 28, 2008, 05:34:39 PM
Yes, I think the new traffiic sims were included in the april nam update..
But you would have still had to have made some choices as to which one you wanted to use..than..
First whether you wanted to use type A or type B...
And than in addition whether you wanted to go with easy, medium or hard ?
Do you recall making such a choice during the install ?
Thanks, Brian
No, I didn't make any choices as such - I'm using a mac and there was no installer as such, just a bunch of files to drag into a Plugins folder. I don't recall any reference to all this in the readme file that was with the plugins, but i will look a little further into it now.
EDIT/UPDATE - OK, I just checked the folder and files that I dragged into Plugins folder and i read through the README again; there was no mention of all this. However, when I was looking in subfolders I came across some more documentation which explained that I have to select certain files and discard others - so it looks as though you are onto something b22rian. Thanks again for your help on this - I am going to make the relevant changes and then play again to see if it solves my earlier problems.
ah great badstrawberry...
Yes, these new traffic simulators have added a lot of new enjoyment for me with the game..
We have Jplumbey and Mott to thank for the improvements they have made with the path finding algorithms..
Once you get your files sorted I still encourage you to read carefully this thread..
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=3693.0
This will help you understand the new traffic sims better..
as id mentioned in the thread i recommend you start with hard difficulty and than see how it goes as your cities
get larger and the traffic more challenging...
I have using traffic sim B on hard difficulty .. Im still hanging on in my largest city with 640 K population..
to that difficulty level and enjoying the challenge of seeing how long i can hold out as the population grows
still larger.. anyways keep us posted how you are doing ...
Thanks Brian
EDIT........
Actually i was reading some of the last posts from the traffic sim thread..and it does sound like if you have a
Mac as you do..your supposed to leave a lot of those files outside the plug in folder.. and than pick and chose
the files you want to use.. You may even want to consider re- installing ?
I dont have a Mac myself so i can only be of so much help to you, sorry...
Quote from: b22rian on July 29, 2008, 05:43:01 PM
Actually i was reading some of the last posts from the traffic sim thread..and it does sound like if you have a
Mac as you do..your supposed to leave a lot of those files outside the plug in folder.. and than pick and chose
the files you want to use.. You may even want to consider re- installing ?
I dont have a Mac myself so i can only be of so much help to you, sorry...
Yes, all is running smoothly in my city now, and my sims seem happy to transfer between RAIL and GLR in the hub stations. I wish the same could be said for the HSR hub I experimented with, but I believe the problem there is a known bug and may be rectified with future updates.
Sadly, I am also learning that having extra plugins seems to slow down my game, and this is experienced by many mac SC4 players - whether or not there is any truth in it, we mac users seem to think that this problem affects us more than windows SC4 players. Also, I keep drawing a blank when looking for advice on creating custom lots, etc - again because I'm using a mac (which is not an intel mac and does not run windows). I do have a PC as well, and a copy of SC4 for windows somewhere, but the PC is horribly under-spec and the version of SC4 for Windows I have is just the original and not the deluxe / rush hour version.
Nevermind...
Anyway, I'm going off-topic now, so I'll shut up. Thanks again for your help B22rian and thanks again to Cogeo for the great work.
ok glad your pathing problems have been sorted bad straw...
And also thats quite interesting about how plug ins slow the game down with users of macs also..
I wanted to pass along a couple links to you i think you would be interested in..
Your quite right about the HSR Hub having some problems and bugs.. If your interested in the latest findings
on that here is a thread over a simtropolis you may be interested in reading...
http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=124&thread=74279&STARTPAGE=47
its the posting by peace daddy near the bottom of the page..
Anyways, on the basis of his findings Ive decided to replace my 4 hsr hubs i had with these wonderful new
huge HSR stations available on the stex for dl..
http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=20139..
I replaced 3 of the hsr hubs with these monsters.. ( 4 track, 75 K capacity)
and the 4th hsr hub i replaced with a combination of different stations...
Now it was a lot of work because the hsr hub had multiple type networks but Ive managed quite well so far..
And it was actually fun, the challenge of figuring out what i wanted to do with the old network lines
and using different stations and so forth.. but i can tell you Ive been more than happy with these huge hsr
stations.. all of them are far surpassing the the old hsr hubs i was using previously in my city.. i think the best
usage of the 3 was 88 % which maybe dosent sound incredible .. but remember these are 75 k capacity !
Using those i think along with cogeco's great ghsr stations and your going to have quite an effective Hsr
network i would say.. And its funny too because in my old cities i was never really too impressed with
monorail/ hsr usage.. but this city the usage is off the charts really..
Brian
I am currently working on modifying the Traffic Volume View. I notice that in the Traffic Congestion View, RTMT stations show up as if they're part of their attached network, with the congestion levels displayed properly. But in the Traffic Volume View, no traffic is ever shown going through RTMT stations, and they just appear as gaps in the traffic flow. Do you have any ideas on how to fix this?
I'm also working on building a new traffic simulator, and one of the changes I'm making is to increase the intersection effect in order to make it more realistic. As I do this, another effect becomes clear: It seems that the game is treating RTMT stations like intersections. The stations themselves don't have reduced capacity, but the squares next to the stations seem to have their road capacity reduced in the same way as if they were sitting next to an intersection. Are you aware of this, and do you know what causes it? And if you do, is there any way to fix it?
Quote from: jplumbley on August 16, 2008, 12:36:23 AM
Anyways, the lot.. why does it act as an intersection? Well, people *should* be slowing down to go into and park in the lot, because well its a station isn't it? But we aren't using it as a station... So why would it act like a station...
And people wonder why i dint like the idea of STATIONS being used as TRAFFIC NETWORKS... I just boggles my mind..
yes, I fully agree with you JP...
and i mean this as no disrespect toward Cogeco.. In fact I use more of his stations than any other modder..
I have certainly thought about using the road top stations, they have a certain "appeal" to them for sure .
But I hadn't quite felt the need to use them.. and than I saw your first posting about them..
In light of what your saying here , and your explanation is a very good one.. I think I will try to get by with
the stations I'm using currently in my city.. Obviously each person will have to make the decision on whether to
use the stations or not.. weighing the different pros and cons ..Thanks for taking the time to explain all that to us JP..
Brian
Quote from: jplumbley on August 16, 2008, 12:36:23 AM
Anyways, the lot.. why does it act as an intersection? Well, people *should* be slowing down to go into and park in the lot, because well its a station isnt it? But we arent using it as a station... So why would it act like a station...
But traffic doesn't slow down every time it passes a bus stop - why RTMT stations?
You know me by now - I don't give up easily. So I started looking at the RTMT exemplars, and by golly, there's a property called "Transit Switch Capacity Effect." It's a Boolean, and according to the Reader documentation, "If true, this building radiates capacity like intersections do." Bingo! And wouldn't you know it, this Boolean is set to "true" in all the RTMT lots. So to solve this particular problem, all that needs to be done is to reset that particular property to "false". I can't think of any reason at all not to do this for RTMT stations. Looking at a few other roadside MT stations randomly, this property isn't even present, which is why traffic doesn't slow down going past them.
Cogeo, are you around? Do you disagree with me here? If not, could you please fix this in your distributed version?
Anyway, I won't deny that there are certain disadvantages to RTMT stations, but at least this doesn't have to be one of them. Overall, I still think they're definitely worth using. And as jplumbley and I have already been through a long discussion on this issue, there's no need to repeat it here. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. (Although Brian, you might want to look at our discussion here (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2763.msg166701#msg166701) if you were thinking at all about these lots.) And I'll agree with jplumbley completely on one point: In the end, it should be up to the users whether or not to use these lots.
QuoteDuh.. Stooopid game.
Don't I know it! Some day, my friend, we need to get our hands on the source code (legitimately, of course), and fix some of the worst aspects of this game.
Sure Z..
if this is the only hang up with these stations and it can be easily remedied as you explained in your post.., id
love to give them a try sometime..Cogeco makes really good stations and he puts as much hard work and effort
into them as anyone I've seen really.. he is prolly caught up with real life stuff right now...
and ya i know you Z, you never give up and also you are very gifted with this stuff !
Brian
Quote from: jplumbley on August 16, 2008, 12:14:04 PM
And you are quoting links to show B22rian, so that he will read what you have to say, which is incorrect and I just dont want to take the time to explain it any further, because Mott, has already explained why you are wrong in his first post. I realize, some people will read your posts and follow your ideas on the TE Lot discussion, but I cannot change that, I can only say that people should read the first post in that thread and not the last ones.
Its ok JP, I fully agree with you.. its up to each person's responsibility to read ALL the posts on a given issue and
not just read one or 2 posts out of context because there too lazy to read the entire thread .. Than they need to
decide what they want to do.. You can't hold our hands so to speak and decide for us .. Now sometimes that may
be difficult when issues are being debated , and many of us dont have either your technical know-how or Z's..
But such is life.. But I will state my own feelings because its another avenue for me to again thank both you and
Mott for what you have done for this community and i feel its been a lot ! To be honest I wouldnt use the road top stations until and/ or unless I heard from you or Mott it was a good idea to use them.. And I hope this dosent
hurt Z's feelings.. but you guys (and many others) have been around this community for awhile now and you have
done so much for all of us and i respect that maybe more than you know.. I doenjoy listening to the new ideas that come up from time time on this board ( and im sure many others do also ).. and reading about them.. I'm confident also that you would agree Z has shown the ability to contribute maybe in a similar fashion to you and others who have both come and gone too ..with some new ideas.. And As i mentioned in a previous post I just hope we can all work together for the betterment of the community overall as you and Mott have always done in the past..
I also understand your feelings that you feel you have spent enough time on this particular issue and would simply
like to move on.. I respect that fully..
I know this sounds a little corny but I give thought to you and Mott every time I play this game .. how much better the path finding engine and the new traffic sims you guys created over the original maxis one, and
the improvements are quite obvious to me every time i play this game..I will always be most appreciative for you
and Mott for that..
I wish you the best always , thanks JP..
I know I got a bit off -topic with this post so I will apologize for that..
Brian
This is neither the time nor the place for me to respond to jplumbley's posts. But for the benefit of cogeo and anyone using his RTMT stations, I just wanted to state that I have verified through extensive testing that setting the Transit Switch Capacity Effect property to "false" in the RTMT exemplars completely removes the excess congestion around them.
On the previous page of this thread, cogeo announced that he no longer had the time to develop RTMT, and offered to pass it on to someone else. I volunteered to take that position, and he accepted my offer. Since then, we have been working together, and he has been passing over substantial amounts of knowledge about RTMT to me. We have now reached the point where the handover is essentially complete, and RTMT development is ready to continue. For this purpose, a child board named RTMT Place (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?board=261.0) has been set up at the top level, and the initial threads are all now posted there. You can find new projects that are coming up in RTMT and others that are proposed in the New Additions to RTMT (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5633.0) thread. But this is going to be a lot more work than I can do by myself, so those of you with good BATting skills who would like some interesting work are encouraged to check out the Call for RTMT Team Members and Testers (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5632.0) thread. As the name of the thread implies, we're also looking for people to serve as testers for the coming creations. Speaking for myself, I have always found cogeo's work to be of the highest quality, and I fully intend to maintain that level of quality through subsequent releases. So please come on over and check out our new board, and join in if you're interested!
Those are gorgeous, cogeo! z- good luck. If staff can facilitate stuff to help out, we're just a PM away.
David
Hey, sorry to dig up an old thread, but I was having problems with the GLR>Rail Interchange Hub lots.
The "Large Rail / GLR Interchange (GLR at East)" station doesn't seem to convert rail into GLR. I made sure that the "draggable" patch is *not* installed. (funny thing, when i use the patch, it works fine for one orientation of the nation, but not the other).
I discovered, however, that if I use the SC4Tool and I modify the transit switch, the conversion now takes place!
Essentially, it looks like they need:
[tabular type=4]
[row][data]Out>In[/data][data]West[/data][data]Rail>Ped[/data][/row]
[row][data]Out>In[/data][data]West[/data][data]El>Ped[/data][/row]
[row][data]In>Out[/data][data]West[/data][data]Ped>Rail[/data][/row]
[row][data]In>Out[/data][data]West[/data][data]Ped>El[/data][/row]
[row][data]Out>In[/data][data]East[/data][data]Rail>Ped[/data][/row]
[row][data]Out>In[/data][data]East[/data][data]El>Ped[/data][/row]
[row][data]In>Out[/data][data]East[/data][data]Ped>Rail[/data][/row]
[row][data]In>Out[/data][data]East[/data][data]Ped>El[/data][/row]
[/tabular]
Combining East / West seems to prevent them from working, at least, for me...
This also appears to have the side effect of 'doubling' the usage of the station. I have 4000 people on the train going in, and 4000 on the tram going out, so capacity is 8000. I am increasing them significantly for my cities anyway, since Z found that capacity doesn't necessarily mean much..
I hate to bump this... but I get the no car zot over the small glr stations if there placed beside a road instead of in front of it. I have other stations that work fine in this congif but not that one. Is there a way to fix this?
This is something I haven't heared of before, not specifically for these stations, but for ANY lot. Could you test once more please? Maybe it was something temporary, a simulator problem. Quite strange, the no access zot concerns the sims who work there, not commuters, I think.
Still, if some more experienced lotmakers can help, Please Post.
However, these station had a problem with modding, which concerned transit switchings and orientation. It was fixed and updated as of June 21, 2008. Pls make sure you have the fixed version installed.
Also. if you have installed the Draggable GLR Patch for these stations, you need... some modding. Open the patch file, and delete the building exemplar (leave only the lot exemplar), because it carries over that old bug; the building exemplar is not needed to make the Lot connecting to draggable GLR (it wasn't me who uploaded that patch, so I cannot update it).
It was me who uploaded that set, and I left in the building exemplar file on purpose for fixing the Mac bug that affects the capacity of the station due to a REP count of 1 instead of 0. I cannot remember if I did check the original files for other bugs such as proper transit switch settings and the like, though.
Hi all,
I have been looking for some simple parking lots to plop next to mass-transit stations w/o parking facilities. Searched the LEX and STEX, but didn't find something very much suitable. There are such lots on the STEX but (at least the ones I found) they were badly modded, like having strong landmark effects, increasing mayor rating etc, while many of them are modded as parks. So I decided to make my own ones, for personal use.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg823.imageshack.us%2Fimg823%2F1428%2Fcgparking1.jpg&hash=62ccd9b72b7a429c9df694230766897e8a071377)
Details:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg683.imageshack.us%2Fimg683%2F1963%2Fcgparking2.jpg&hash=66cf29575f93cf17e4d0f61c23c338797b39ac09)
Here is how they are used, ie with El, GLR, Subway, Monorail and Bus stations, to expand their catchment area (at the residential end, of course - using the ingame garage there looks ugly and takes space):
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg717.imageshack.us%2Fimg717%2F9290%2Fcgparking3.jpg&hash=26620d815322540e4cb941aa61f73b42abbaf546)
The pack contains lots of various sizes, from 1x1 to 2x4 and 4x2, using maxis-only props and textures (both the $$ and $$$ ones). They are functional, like the ingame parking garage. They are quite standard-looking, I hope (this was a design goal).
I have finished with what I wanted for me, though I would welcome any comments or suggestions. For example, the cement base texture (around the parking pavement) is of questionable appearance (though this is a matter of taste); however it's neutral, although a somewhat lighter one might look "better" maybe. Using grass textures there wouldn't look right, I think (though the area is really small), while a "pavement" one would be quite disruptive.
I'm not sure if this is worth releasing. If anybody wishes to continue working on it, I would be happy to hand it over. Most of the work is done:
- Lotting (as it is now)
- Modding: all parameters have been set, and are orgainized into a set of cohorts, which I think is more convenient. It makes it much easier to change things across all lots of the pack, add MML or DAMN easier, etc. Also LTEXTs are already done.
What needs to be done:
- The bigger lots (2x2, 2x3, 3x2, 2x4, 4x2)
- Better menu icons
- Consider an MML or DAMN
- A Readme (huh!)
- Maybe a simple installer
If you are interested in this pack, please post or send me a PM.
Thanks for reading
Great job, keep going &hlp :thumbsup: &apls
Just an idea: There is a set of props made by onlyplace4, that connects the lot with the road, like this...
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stex-server.com%2Flots%2F160167%2F19654%2Fday.jpg&hash=5deac7cd378465d89d12113159c7568589c9ae28)
This is the addon: BLaM Overpath Props Volume 1 (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=18253)
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stex-server.com%2Flots%2F160167%2F18253%2Fpic1.jpg&hash=5e13aa6486122fa23a8321c946482918e1a3e31a) (https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stex-server.com%2Flots%2F160167%2F18253%2Fpic2.jpg&hash=72bc4f37c2af8567c9a17fe0fc49949c3adc600d)
I think that those props will make the parking lots even better :)