NWM (Network Widening Mod) - Development and Support

[Indiana Joe]

The examples I can think of are in some high-wealth neighborhoods.  Some sections of some of the streets are divided by medians, avenue-style.  On each side there's room for two lanes, but there are no markings.  And in other places it's just one big 80-foot wide unmarked street.

[Flatron]

a total waste of space and an abomination

[Indiana Joe]

 

Like I said, American high-wealth suburbs.  There's two golf courses in the neighborhood, and...well, just look at some of the houses.

The point is that the streets do exist and I think they are a viable addition to the NWM.

[APSMS]

Well, more like a valid addition. I agree, they do have a basis in RL (or, at least in America; I've seen these before) ironically in SC4 these streets would have double capacity of the real thing and little added value in terms of function, and I think one of the time-tested NAM guidelines is form follows function (though I guess we do have the SAM). Perhaps if it was a SAM addition (we have 6 more slots, I think), it would be less difficult to code for, but I think autoconnect is probably one reason why this idea might be resigned to the realms of imagination only.

[j-dub]

One Way streets in real life, at least mine, technically are still wide for 2 car lanes, but are not supposed to be treated as a 2 lane One Way Road, just the one direction, but to SC4 terms, if ever implemented, are still only 1 lane wide, despite the tendency for those to build two parallel one lane wide networks next to each other, respectfully. In the beginning I used to see urban planners make the streets with trees in the middle all super wide, despite it was never supposed to be four lane traffic. Too often the streets would be that fat, keeping in mind, the 50's and 60's had much bigger cars. These days, they build the roads with the trees in the middle more closely to the roads in the NWM.

Also, this last NAM release with the draw-able based curved streets should of allowed a straight away but constant S curved section of street network taking up the full two tiles wide, provided the streets continue to curve back and fourth. Where as, I don't remember seeing a conjoined two tile wide straight away street for this game. The other thing is since the release of curved streets came with the cost of taking more tiles to build, as opposed to the tighter original diagonal street transition, more land would need to be reserved or considered IF such wider conjoined street was going to happen, but with the housing system the way it is in this game, I don't see how you would safely do wider streets with realistic curves/diagonals. I have had interesting stuff occur though, but not always right, my game likes to build custom diagonal houses, and bigger mc mansions just like in those satellite images on the new curves, and existing NAM culdesacs, even though the zone arrows do not connect on culdesacs. It kills me because that means there is a way to build a diagonal SC4 lot on a culdesac, we just don't have access to it. If that's not pushing it, I dunno what is.

[Indiana Joe]

Well, more like a valid addition. I agree, they do have a basis in RL (or, at least in America; I've seen these before) ironically in SC4 these streets would have double capacity of the real thing and little added value in terms of function, and I think one of the time-tested NAM guidelines is form follows function (though I guess we do have the SAM). Perhaps if it was a SAM addition (we have 6 more slots, I think), it would be less difficult to code for, but I think autoconnect is probably one reason why this idea might be resigned to the realms of imagination only.

Yes, it would actually have to be a road-based network to work.  Functionally, it should really have the same capacity as normal streets, which from what I understand is entirely possible through the same process used to set the capacities for the different NWM networks.  So yes, it would be mostly cosmetic like the SAM.

But you're right in the fact that function is the priority; such a network would be near the bottom of the work list if it ever made it there at all.  Unless enough people lobby for it and offer to contribute.  I'd be interested.

[Tarkus]

The idea of converting the OWR-1 over to a Street-based OWS-1 (for capacity reasons, and because many people have repeatedly requested a "Street" specifically over the years) is still on the table and likely to be implemented.  One could sort of pull off a wide street that way, with two of those side by side, which would work out capacity-wise.  There's a few of those sorts of things in Oregon, many in older neighborhoods, no less--such as Villard Street in Eugene, and SE Reed College Place and this short stretch of SE 72nd Ave in Portland.

The thing with simply re-basing the OWR-1 as OWS-1 is that we can re-use the same IIDs, meaning there's actually no new networks being added, and thus, no new crosslinks, though there'd need to be some new RUL2 code written to override the base Street network items.

The capacity trick we've used on some NWM networks only allows us to increase capacity from the base network, by a fixed amount.  That amount is the value of the Intersection and Turn Capacity Effect property in the Traffic Simulator Exemplar, which has been set to 1.25 (meaning the capacity is increased by a factor of 25%) in the NAM Traffic Simulator, since NAM 29/NWM 1.1.  Whatever value we use for the ITCE, that's the factor by which the capacity of networks with DIPs and crossover paths will be adjusted.

-Alex

[Kuewr665]

I had not thought of using S-curves...

On the auto-connect: The RHW does the same thing, yet has many more overrides. Though it does not make as much at-grade intersections. 

[Geometry123]

I have a suggestion: Since we have a NRD-4, why not convert it to an OWR? (NOWR-4) It can look good in tight downtown areas, and of course, be more compact than the two-tile OWR-4. It's also resistant to the 'tidal flow' effect of the OWR-4 and OWR-5.

[GDO29Anagram]

I have a suggestion: Since we have a NRD-4, why not convert it to an OWR? (NOWR-4)

No new NWM networks are planned to be added. The networks already available (with the exception of the still-to-be-implemented AVE-8 and TLA-9) are pretty much the final networks for the NWM.

[xannepan]

Guys I was wondering if it'd be possible and how much work to create duplicate instances of one of the NWM networks (or standard game networks for that matter), same texture, but different T21s. That way we could have some sidewalk variations, e.g. trees, cars parked on the side etc.

Would there be any interest in this, has it been explored/considered before?

Your thoughts? 

[GDO29Anagram]

Guys I was wondering if it'd be possible and how much work to create duplicate instances of one of the NWM networks (or standard game networks for that matter), same texture, but different T21s. That way we could have some sidewalk variations, e.g. trees, cars parked on the side etc.

That would be akin to creating a SAM version of the NWM. It wouldn't be practical for the same reason that there's no SAM equivalent of the RHW: Too much code to add in, and RUL-2 would be unnecessarily larger than it already is.

[xannepan]

Ah too bad. Rul coding is one of the modding aspects i am still completely unfamiliar with. So what you're saying is that new rul codes are needed despite that the network texture and its blending with other network textures would be exactly the same as the original instance, correct?

[MandelSoft]

That is correct. Technically, you will need other texture IIDs, because that's how T21 files work: they refer to a texture (or exemplar, in case of a model) IID and traits like placement pattern, wealth and density. If you want to make different T21s for the same texture, you can only do this for another combination of traits, or both T21s will appear at random. If this is not what you wanted, you have to duplicate an entire network with new RULs, IIDs and not to mention, the required cross-linkage.

It may look simple in theory, but in practice it's a lot of work...

[GDO29Anagram]

Ah too bad. Rul coding is one of the modding aspects i am still completely unfamiliar with. So what you're saying is that new rul codes are needed despite that the network texture and its blending with other network textures would be exactly the same as the original instance, correct?

You would need to end up with an NWM scheme that would look like this for the single-tile networks:

0x5100#### - TLA-3
0x5101#### - AVE-2
0x5102#### - ARD-3
0x5103#### - OWR-1
0x5104#### - OWR-3
0x5105#### - NRD-4
0x5106#### - TLA-3 again
0x5107#### - AVE-2 again
0x5108#### - ARD-3 again
0x5109#### - OWR-1 again
0x510a#### - OWR-3 again
0x510b#### - NRD-4 again
0x510c#### - TLA-3 again again
0x510d#### - AVE-2 again again
0x510e#### - ARD-3 again again
0x510f#### - OWR-1 again again

You'd run out of room when you reach 0x510f####, but when you hit 0x5120, you run into the two-tile NWM networks.

[xannepan]

Thx guys. I get it. Too bad though, would have been great for variation. Well, I guess i can almost reach the same goal with sam overrides

[Swordmaster]

You could, of course, load the game with one T21 mod and drag your roads. Then save and restart with another T21 mod and drag the roads in another part of your city. Trouble is of course you need to be careful when the two meet. One click too many and you need to reload again. But it works in its own limited way.


Cheers
Willy

[memo]

Also, T21 files already allow for a wide range of variation. For instance, consider this pattern:



Each row could represent a street in West/East direction that has a different prop layout attached to it, e.g. one of the streets has parked cars, one is tree-lined, etc. You would not have the same degree of freedom as with the SAM, but at least it is always consistent, in contrast to Willy's proposal, and offers a lot of variety.

[eggman121]

Hello xannepan

One Idea you could try is to set T21s to certain zone and wealth types. The T21 allows you to change the type of props that appear based on the type of zone or and wealth of the adjacent lots and zones. I'm using this method to place speed signs on the Transport Signage mod that I am working on.

There is more information in this tutorial created by swamper77 which can be found here:

http://www.wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Tutorial:How_to_Create_T21_Exemplars_%28Swamper77s_way%29

Zone mapping may allow you to have the variety of props that you require and may allow you to have the same customization as if it was a SAM network. I am pretty proficient with T21s now so I can help you if you need more information. Memo also has some great information so he may be able to help as well.

-eggman121

[Tarkus]

You'd run out of room when you reach 0x510f####, but when you hit 0x5120, you run into the two-tile NWM networks.

Actually, you'd run out of room sooner than that.  0x5110 is where the dual-tile NWM networks start, and 0x5120 is the start of the triple-tilers.  A good portion of the remainder of the 0x510# range may also end up being consumed by single-tile Elevated NWM networks.

-Alex