Forcing power lines

[Floydian]

Yes, I know, powerlines aren't custom content... But I don't see any forum for non-custom lot problems.

Anyways, I know that powerlines can be dragged over parks. I've acheived it to some extent, and I've seen it done in many mosaics. Its easy enough orthagonally, but I need a diagonal one. See the picture below


I want them to go from blank square to blank square, but cross over the grass squares. Half the time it will do it, but then it'll just randomly decide it can't do it for certain squares.
Of course, placing the parks after the lines just bulldozes the lines.

How can I force the powerlines to go? Any mods that can do this?

[Pat]

Hey Floydian,
Hmm far as there being any mods out there to do that I havent seen any I am sorry...

[metarvo]

Sadly, I'm not aware of any mods that would force diagonal power lines to cross parks.  I do have one suggestion, though.  If you have LE and are fairly familiar with it, you could create a custom 1x2 park lot with the same base texture as the adjacent park tiles, and place it one tile away from the already-built diagonal power line.  This way, you would create the illusion that the park continues under the power line, even though no park tiles are actually present in the path of the line.  I hope this helps, Floydian.

[threestooges]

There are a few ways to achieve the effect metarvo mentioned above. It takes more than just making a 2x1 tile though. The game will remove power lines if something crosses their path. The wires are a model that essentially occupies the lot until something else comes along. As a result, you would need a lot that overhangs its border (a 2x1 that works like a 1x1). There are two ways I know of to do this:
The underbridge method used to make a number of park path pieces (which you may be able to retexture if needed)
and the method described here by metasmurf which affects any lots already placed in the game.

[Floydian]

Thank you for the responses all. I will try to find some overhanging grass tiles, as I have no experience with the lot editor (And while I'm sure I could grasp it, I'm just plain lazy and can't be bothered to install it, set it up, learn it, and do it just for a pieces or two)

[Ennedi]

This is an Under Highway grass lot set made by gn leugim. Maybe it will help you, please try it 

Adam

[homefryes]

Floydian, I may have a solution to your dilemma which won't require any lotting or props. Hopefully my grid-like drawing will help assist what I'm saying. Now, it's been a while since I've done this, so I'll do my best to explain it properly. This method works both for orthogonal (easier) as well as diagonal (trickier) power lines. In this diagram, the red X's indicate the towers, and the green P's are the park tiles.

• First thing to do is to drag your power lines out where you want them to be.
• Next I use the sign-post tool (adjacent to the tree menu) to put sign posts where my towers go (if you're not familiar, you need to type something, even a space, into the sign post to get it to stay). If this is an orthogonal stretch, you only need to mark the first two beyond your proposed park area plus the ones in the park. If diagonal, you need to mark all the towers in the diagonal stretch (between corners or junctions) that crosses your park. You may need to blast many towers away at some point during your re-draw, as diagonals can be very tricky. Starting mid-stream on a diagonal usually results in a junction tower, and, personally, this is not desirable to me when I'm doing it. So knowing where your towers need to be is key to achieving the desired effect.
• Blast the towers from your proposed park area; be sure not to accidentally blast away your sign posts (they won't both go at once).
• Start placing your park tiles, leaving your posted areas open.
• If you're working on a diagonal, go to a corner or junction tower that is at least 2 towers away from your park and start your re-draw ... do not stop until you have crossed your park and reached an existing tower (that you didn't blast) or are planning a junction or corner point. If you don't have a tower separating this starting point from your park, then you will need to temporarily create a new starting point beyond your existing tower for this to work properly. You can always blast it away later
• If working on orthogonal, you simply need to start 2 towers away from your designated spot in the park, and start drawing toward and over the park until you have successfully crossed the park.

If any of this not making sense, I'll be happy to clarify it later on and maybe include some actual screenies (I'm away from the game right now).

— Don

[Floydian]

Ennedi, I will try that out... They look useful anyways for filling my unreachable squares in with good grass (A terrain that matches the grass lots would be really wicked).

I do understand what you are saying homefryes. However, that is the method I was using. I found that it would just sometimes not work period, and other times it would work fine. I ended up changing the powerlines to orthagonal since its so much simpler.

[rootbears]

where did you get that grass and wall 


        -rootbears