Functional Airport Capacity / Functional Modular Airport

[Nosimx]

Playing around with the great stuff available I created a functional airport from a terminal model (ACB S2 Terminal Mid 1B) and a gateway model (ABC S2 Jetway Large) and added them to the AC Functional Airports dat.

In-game the trip capacities sum up to the total airport capacity available. But looking at the Prefab Airports, their capacity through the stages goes about along the formula #terminals * #gateways * 6750.

Is there a way to achieve this multiplying effect with a modular airport? (eventually with #runways as an additional multiplier?).

[Voltaire]

Airport capacity is hard-coded in the controller file, it can't be updated after plopping. The functional prefab airport gives the illusion of updating the capacity, but this is only an illusion. It is actually made of 9 separate lots: one is automatically demolished and replaced each time an 'upgrade' occurs.

Another illusion designed into functional airports is that they form a transit network, but they aren't. Usage figures are calculated indirectly, based on commercial-sector activity in the city. Only activity within the city figures into the usage, the region is not taken into account.

To answer the question: there is no multiplying effect. Building additional functional lots (or replacing one with another, like the prefabs) is the way to increase capacity.

It's clear you're not fully understanding how functional ports work, I'm concerned that you're not prepared for the side effects. Port modding is complex and somewhat dangerous -- there were cases of people losing cities and regions, until we understood exactly how to make stable mod packages.

I hope you're testing in an empty region... or you made a backup region before ever loading the new lot?

[Nosimx]

Hi Voltaire,

thank you kindly for your response. I really appreciate your strongly worded concerns. As almost always they won't be barely heeded.

I started with a copy of a Xiziz Terminal, so I guess I walked a quiet safe path. One thing I really did need some more time: how did you achieve the nice lineup of instance IDs for each of the functional airports? (My solution: export from reader and batch reimport).

Before getting technical: heed the warnings - first backup, do double check EVERY TIME (remember, each start of sc4 takes longer), and (End of any joking here:) don't drive with drugs.

"Capacity hard coded" : if I have got the stuff straight right now, the quantity in question is the value of property #ca271784 in the exemplars with grp ID #67cd5fa1. Supposing the game compares actual airport usage against this quantity, the two easy ways would be either dynamically change the quantity, or redirect the game to check against an other place that can be modified dynamically.

Let me guess - nope, twice.

Let's start over from the other side: creating a #CITY# FMA (for Functional Modular Airport) needs some counting to be done regularly. Here I can shamelessly copy the CAM way (thank you all, over there). For the needed Occupant Groups I'd prefer (and hereby kindly ask if I can use) the ID range #ca271790 - #ca27179f. The needed FMA Functional Airport Exemplar can probably do the dynamic counting and show the plopped weighted modular capacity in the ui. (Until now I have only taken a quick look at Ripplejet's lua scripts; nothing weird there besides the question how and when the game triggers them.)

So now the question could be: I have 15 stages available with fixed capacity, and my assembled modular capacity. Can I trigger an airport update "when the time has come"? The core building could be this nice tower (by Muzzy) relotted 15 times with appropriate Landmark settings, if someone in charge will grant permission for this use. It really qualifies as an Airport Landmark.

Oh yes - airport stages. A really different question in the end. The Xiziz Terminal I started with has stage 10, according to PIMX, and so has my derived airport, which only qualifies for stage 5. Where the heck can I alter THIS???


Update: Your use of parent cohorts is convincing. What would be a safe range (of same size) within your realm?

[Nosimx]

I can present first steps. Some buildings, and a very unfinished UI:



Total Airport Capacity (63342) is calculated from the formula #Terminals * #Gateways * #Runways * 6750, with weighting classes tiny(0.5), small(0.8), medium(1.0), large(1.2), x-large(1.5). And I added a RMIP-3 identifier, as that project is in a really advanced stage. I am open to proposals, how to tweak the above formula.



After diving into the details, I'd like to ask Daeley, if I can use some range from the reserved b5c00xxx occupant groups for counting. I suspect, there is enough space left. Who keeps track of the occupant groups within b5c00xxx being used so far? There may be more projects than CAM, SimGoober's canal pieces, and several reward chains.

[Nosimx]

Some progress - different towers for different stages, with 2x3 size. After Stage 10 I ran out of creativity. At least it isn't exactly Muzzys Lot.



They upgrade without problems, at least (tested)  from 1 to 10, all of them taking their construction timeout - except for the very first, which starts without. Any hint for this (minor) bug welcome.



So for now it is a 15-stage variant of Muzzys ATCT Modern Tower. The hard part of the climb is still in front of me, without a clue. Any hints welcome, especially how to retrieve the data needed.