GLR & Tram-Avenues Gameplay: Basics & Tricks

[Mikey Knox]

How can i connect the GLR Bridge to Tram in Road, i cant figure it out

http://i.imgur.com/JVYH1QV.jpg

[feyss]

You need to drag the elevated rail on two tiles after the bridge. Then, you build a road crossing this elevated rail just after the bridge and you bulldoze it without touching the elevated rail. After that, you can connect it with the puzzle piece 

[Mikey Knox]

Perfect, thx

[willyart]

I would like to see your tutorial, but I cannot see any of the images, making it difficult to read.

Is there a technical issue with the images?  If you would check into it I'd really appreciate it. - Bill

[mgb204]

I don't know which image hosting site these pictures were on, but a number of them have pulled images or reverted to non-free accounts only over the years. Often that leads to images going missing, sometimes en-masse.

Not a lot can be done about it, but most of the information in tutorials is usable without images. If you get stuck or need clarification on a specific point, feel free to ask too .

[willyart]

Ok - thanks so much, I'll do that.

[Sean Taylor]

Can you build Underground GLR? There are FLUP pieces that seem to lead underground but I cannot figure out how to continue underground? Are their underground stations? Trying to build a replica of the under construction Ottawa LRT.

Thanks.

[APSMS]

Hi Sean,
For GLR, it's just a reskin of the El-Rail network. You can either convert it to subway (to go under buildings and such), or you can use the FLUPs, as mentioned. FLUPs have their own limitations (like you can't build on top of them, but they are fully UDI enabled.

To answer your confusion, you simply use the same FLUP pieces that you use for roads. They are also pathed for GLR, and so will work seamlessly. IIRC they are available in the road menu. You can run UDI GLR through them if you are concerned they won't work or aren't connected correctly.

[mgb204]

I don't know of any stations for the TRAM FLUPs pieces currently, although if it's anything like URail (may not be), it would be a cynch to make them. Really these pieces are most useful when you want a tram route under roads/avenues, there is a reasonable amount of pieces for that. But if you are looking to go under buildings or other ploppables, it's easier to just switch to a proper subway using one of the TRAM to Subway pieces. All the ramps have both versions, so that's GLR, TiA and ToR that are supported.

[Seaman]

There is a "sunken" GLR station, to be used in a 15m trench (http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/19941-sunken-passenger-or-glr-station/). Maybe yo can lead the GLR out of a tunnel, into this station and back in the tunnel. I do something similar with the heavy rail network in my downtown area as well.

[mgb204]

Thanks Seaman, that's a GLR station I didn't know about.

For Sunken GLR, you can also use the BriPlazza multi-purpose stations from the NAM:



When I first read your post however, I was thinking about NOBs Sunken GLR, which is also well worth checking out.

[Chrisim]

Why are the images not available?

I would like to see your tutorial, but I cannot see any of the images, making it difficult to read.

Is there a technical issue with the images?  If you would check into it I'd really appreciate it. - Bill

It is easier now to read the tutorial after re-uploading the images. This time I used imgur.com, hopefully it will last long.
Please note that this tutorial was created with an old version of the NAM (in 2008), and features and details may have changed with newer versions, and there are new options. I just re-uploaded the old images, but I have not updated the tutorial because I am not an active SC4 player anymore ... however it is great that SC4 has still so many players - and it is fantastic that NAM development is still ongoing

[Tarkus]

Chris, it's fantastic to see you around.  Thank you for all your efforts, both with the NAM and with restoring this tutorial!

-Alex

[Flamesofshadow]

as ive only recently begun playing SC4 and using the NAM version 35 and ccannot find good tutorials for everything maybe someone can answer these questions.

Does anyone know how to get the tram in avenue to subway/Urail transition piece to work properly? the issues with it are that seemingly no roads of any kind can actually connect with it or with the elevated rail to tram in avenue transition [the ELR to tram in avenue transition works with straight on connections but when the Tram in avenue to subway is on the end it cannot] (tested on regular avenue continuing after the transition, roads and streets connected after and to the sides of the transition) except other tram in avenue pieces all the regular pieces say "not suitable to build" and wont connect [i did somehow at one time manage to get the regular avenue to connect but before and after it wouldn't].
The second issue with it is i don't know how to run the subway rails to make the connection work as it is in the center line between two grid lines and the subway cannot line up except for perpendicular crossings.
the third issue is that the Tram in avenue to subway transition seemingly has no pathing for the subway section so i'm unsure if it would still work or not as it seems to be the only way i can actually get an elevated rail in avenue to get a neighbor connection as no NAM neighbor transition pieces work at all.

the tram in avenue to tram in road conversion pieces (the ones that allow branch offs of road and splits the rail to left or right with road on other) seem to extend in a way that prevents a tram in road to subway conversion as it moves the "hitbox" best way i know to describe it but if you move a road and a tram piece side by side after using the transition piece in tram in avenue it makes the piece count as far longer than it is meaning i cannot use stations or the previously mentioned subway transition because it thinks its still on that tile.

 

[mgb204]

Find a blank part of your city and follow these instructions.

Place the TiA to Subway piece. On the end which would be subway, you can drag an avenue freely. If not, you are perhaps using the TiA to FLUPs piece, found in the Tram FLUPs menu. The subway converter is a separate item (looks identical), but is found towards the end of the Misc Transit menu.

Connecting up the TiA part is simple enough, but you can't drag a network from this side. That's because TiA is a puzzle-piece network, you need to place a TiA piece up against it. It's also possible to drag Avenue away from but not into this side, then with the El-Rail tool selected, click on each tile of the Ave to convert to TiA. Similarly, the Elevated Rail over Ave piece can be placed right up against the TiA to subway piece, but it must not be placed upon an existing network.

Yes the subway is in the middle between two tiles, because otherwise it would look odd. But when you switch to subway view, you'll see the subway connector is not in the middle (not possible), it might look a little odd, but it functions fine. You won't see the pathing on below ground networks. How then do you know it works? Use the route query tool once it's all built and provided sims want to use this connection, you should see traffic using it.

As for your last point about the TiA to TiR split preventing stations or subway conversion pieces, I'm not really sure where your problem comes from. Check once more you are not talking about the TiR to FLUPs piece, because those are totally different to TiR to Subway. But again it's totally possible to connect things right up together, if that's not working, you are placing some parts incorrectly I guess? You know a picture showing the problem would probably help to see exactly where the issue is here.

[Flamesofshadow]

the piece i'm using is not the FLUP version its the one from the lower misc transport section, for the roads not connecting part the avenue going off the subway end still doesn't work it just says its "unsuitable to build", and for the branching streets/roads off the sides of both the TIA->SW and the ELR->TIA pieces have the same issue as it will not let roads connect which is odd, it could possible be because i am running the EL to TIA into the TIA to SW piece which shouldn't effect the connections of roads but apparently is somehow.


one thing i cant figure out which does partially apply to the Tram in road/avenue pieces but also most of the NAM pieces in general is why can none of the pieces connect to neighbors? i have tested using the neighbor connector pieces in the NAM but they are virtually useless as they don't actually work and they dont have pieces for the thram/EL rail in road/avenue and because all the Tram in and elevated rail in pieces are puzzle types instead of drag-able pieces so even they cant go to neighbors without annoying layouts that tend to crash the game.

[mgb204]

Try placing the TiA->Subway piece on flat land, even a slight bump (could be invisible) may be enough to cause problems. Use stubs (single clicks with a tool such as Road or Rail) to level off the space for both the transition and and extra tile for the connecting avenue. Such TE-based pieces have no slope tolerance whatsoever.

As for branching roads, do you mean to say you want to make additional connections to these pieces? Puzzle Pieces and TE lots are static, they will only do what they are designed to do. The behaviour you are looking for only exists with Flex pieces, which neither of these transitions are. So in short, can't be done.

Neighbour connections are a funny one. All Maxis networks except OWR have neighbour connections by default. This is because all NC's must be Bi-Directional, hence why both the NWM and RHW need special neighbour connectors. Because each side of these networks is just a single direction.

Indeed NCs for puzzle-based networks won't just simply work like regular networks. In the case of some, take the Viaduct Rail for example, make the connection with Rail first, then place the viaducts on top. A similar workaround won't work for TiA however, because it's two networks in one, both GLR (i.e. Elevated Rail) and Ave. You can't make two networks use one NC piece like this, the game was never designed to work like that. As such, a TiA neighbour connection is unlikely to ever happen. Just split the two somehow before the border of the city. For example, use the piece that splits TiA into Road and GLR. On one side, have a station on the GLR section, so it looks like they split for a reason. Often times within SC4, you have to make such compromises, there is only so much Magic even the NAM team can produce. We're ultimately limited by the code of the original game, which we don't have complete freedom to alter as we may wish.

As for crashing the game, you might want to take a look at this little gem, PP over TE lot CTDs will be a thing of the past.

[Dantes]

Tram-in-road and tram-on-street stations exist, but there are apparently no tram-on-road stations. Well, in fact there are dozens (if not hundreds) of tram-on-road stations:
 
TramOnRoadStop1.jpg...

Yes, these are normal GLR/tram stations. They can be used for tram-on-road due to this NAM puzzle piece:
TramOnRoadStop0.jpg


First plop a tram station:
TRAM22.jpg
Next plop the puzzle piece on both ends:
TRAM33.jpg
Drag onewayroad outwards and back inwards as shown on the next two pictures:

TRAM34.jpg TRAM35.jpg
Connect by onewayroad:
TRAM36.jpg
Bulldoze the outer part of the onewayroad
TRAM37.jpg
and repeat these steps on the other side.

You cannot directly connect the avenue on the side, but you may connect avenue via two onewayroads:

TRAM38.jpg TRAM39.jpg
You can build similar stops for the tram-in-road, and you can create such a roundabout:

Hello 
I am sad, this do not work 

If I destroy the red area the puzzle pieces destroy too. 

[eggman121]

Try the disconnector in the RHW menu.

That will stop the destruction of the Lot.

-eggman121

[Dantes]

I am sorry I have no RHW. I use from simcitykurier NAM 30 from 26.12.2011