NYC = From Village to Megalopolis

[Zodicus]

WARNING - NOT YOUR TYPICAL MD

Ok guys. I am a long time SC player but recently got started on heavy modding. Before I ran the game pretty much stock except for a few landmarks and BAT's I got from the old SC4 maxis site. Fortunately (or unfortunately for me) I recently discovered all these new to me sites with this great content on it. Lately I have been experimenting with my modeling using this new found wealth of endless possibilities.

  The purpose of the MD is not to show off eye candy however as my skills improve I will be posting some great shots. No photoshopping will be done simply because I suck at photoshop. This MD will focus rather on the evolution of my region. I will post thoughts, building plans, mods and content I find appealing for my region and misc other information my readers and myself will find useful. If you as a reader would like to see things I am not posting by all means submit a request and I will do my best to acomodate you.

  My NYC is being created on MapSquad's large NYC region. I chose this region because of large size mainly. I am a truck driver by trade and tend to focus on transportation systems. This region will give me awesome bridging and RHW possibilities. Also I should be able to get very dense area's utilizing CAM, which is on par with the area's real world statistics.

UPDATE 03/09/12

Major computer crash on 03/08/12. Retained plugins but lost regions. Project restarted on 03/09/12 @ 1600 CST.

  NYC was born on 2/28/2012 at 0230 CST. First thing that was done was some major teraforming was done to make way for a major container and energy port on the Jersey side just across the river from lower Manhatten. Most of the regions industry will be focused on the Jersey side. This will speed up the export of goods to Simnation and the rest of the world.

  Initial region view


  Jersey City - Energy Terminal View


  The port is still very much a WIP. I still have a long way to go. The oil terminal is the part that is most developed at the present time. I am working on finishing it for the time being and then start on the massive container port. More to come as I get more to show!

PS: Getting my idiots to transit across the river on the RHW to my industrial zones is harder than it used to be. I put in a RHW4, subway, ferry and BTM and those lazy sims sit on their unemployed butts!

[RickD]

Very promising. Focussing on transportation is exactly what I like. And I love NYC.

But you should minimize the menu and disable UDI icons when taking screenshots.

[moeom]

That port is looking mighty fine. 

[Houstonkid]

I was born in Jersey City 

[Zodicus]

Not bad for a beginner eh?

Population of Jersey City has gone from 10k to 25k today. My main focus today is building my railyard for my container docks and widening the dock facilities. Also I have to find some texture packs I seem to be missing. As for the port, I do plan on adding a marina on the south side at a later date but for now I am going to leave it undeveloped.

Industry is still not developing even though I have connected it with subways.
I still have an issue with being able to draw my bridge approaches accurately with monorail/BTM. I rely on highspeed mass trans my business districts and industry tend to be far away from my residential zones.
Looking for another water mod. I think my water is ok but I might try PEG's Crystal Lagoon.
Have a few dependency issues I am trying to resolves.

  I am also just laying out the avenue grids now and packing it full of zones but eye candy and customization of the business districts and neighborhoods will come later.

  Here is a shot of the highway junction (to be named later) and my residential area's


  I had some major issues attempting to build that interchange right. I had to improvise a bit with the MIS 90 degree curves. Doesn't look pretty but right now I need functionality. I will expand to more lanes in the future as traffic volumes get heavier. Probably the N/S highway will be a RHW10 and will loop around all of Manhatten where as the E/W highway will be RHW8. The issue with that will be getting them to conjoin. I hear that RHW31 will have a complete L3 so that would REALLY help.

Will update again in about a few hours. I need to fix those dependency issues. One is causing me to crash a lot.


EDIT:

  I wish I knew how to turn the UDI off I am so new at doing this! I love blogging about projects though. I am an admin on my MMO forum with over 8k posts and about 30% of them are just project blog posts! Thanks for the encouragement guys and I hope over time I can improve my style and learn a lot from the community.

[Houstonkid]

Yeah jersey city was a highly industrial city from the 1800's untill the early 2000's. Then big buisness decided to move to the downtown area instead of staying in NYC where the taxes where higher. Feel free to google the area though 

[Zodicus]

Yea I use http://mapper.acme.com to view my area's now. My region will start as being highly industrialized and then transition to mainly commercial. Actually my region is on track now to be highly commercial.

[Zodicus]

Dependency issue 90% resolved but still crashing a lot. Can't seem to get cleanitol to work exactly like I need it too. Probably nothing wrong with the program but the user. I looked at the tutorials for it and for some reason I am having a heck of a time understanding them.

  Did some more work on the W Manhatten side. Progress is coming along well. Population up to 51k. I am working on building a tunnel (just an experiment for the battery tunnel I will build on lower Manhatten) using NDEX Big Dig lots. I don't have any traffic going through it though. Trying to find out what is going wrong there. Also built a few ave underpasses under my RHW4. I forgot where the connector pieces are for it so it's just eye candy for now. I do believe with the tunnel that I will be able to create a highly realist underwater tunnel using the NDEX lots. Going to take some practice but I am a very fast learner

  So far I have my dense residential around the river with medium and high density commercial sectors lining the main surface arteries. I am trying to plan ahead of give my surface streets more capacity than they need right now so I don't have to expand in the future or atleast for awhile. Also building some eye candy int he commercial districts with plazas and some roundabout fillers I am using for monuments. I did a boardwalk/seawall just to see how it would turn out. Wasn't too bad just textures aren't lining up right but I think that's because the seafloor isn't exactly level. Anway time to go back in and finish for the evening and then game with the woman on halo or something then I'll be back at it again. Updated pics will come very soon

[RickD]

I wish I knew how to turn the UDI off I am so new at doing this!

Click on the menu icon with the two people on it (the third one). There is a button for switching them off in the submenu that opens up.

[Zodicus]

I started Midtown Manhatten early this morning. I don't know why but at only 120k population region wide and my sims do not want to work in industry! All they want is more commercial!! I knew from initial planning that I wanted my CBD and downtown to be from midtown manhatten all the way to lower manhatten so that is why I started early. So far I have my I-78 bypass running just north of the CBD that connects with I-695 (the loop around manhatten island) Both are RHW10. Really what I need is to make 78 a 6 lane and keep 695 10 lanes. If both are 10 lanes and both packed during rush hour then where the conjoin for 2 miles before they split again is going to be a nightmare from hell!

  I may end up killing Jersey city and rebuilding because my layout just isn't working. However Midtown is looking great so far!

I need some dang highway retaining walls! I have a few but they either down look right or I can't get them to draw correctly. The ones I really want are by Jeroni but he didn't include a dependency in the download even though he states in the description that it is in there. So until I find it those are out of the question.

  Did my first underground plaza today in the CBD. Looks ok but I think I could make it much better.

  Implemented my subway system. I have 2 main subway lines running through midtown and will also have a BTM running through the north side of town and splitting off going to the Bronx and Jersey.

  Bus systems are widely used to get sims from rapid transit stations (subway/BTM) to their final destinations. Stations average 5 blocks apart.

  May possibly implement an elevated rail as an intracity express trans. Not Sure. GLR may also do that for me.

  Still working on joining 695 to I78. It's out of the way for now and development not planned for atleast 2 weeks to the south.


  TIME FOR PICS!!!

This is a far out overview pic.


  This is I78 on the west side of town.


  I am making use of unconnected avenues and roads with major avenues crossing over with exits aprox. every 55 tiles (1 mile) in more dense areas I could go closer than that. -interesting side note, in the US exits get their exit numbers from the corresponding mile marker number. If there are more than one exit in 1 miles then going from west to east they have an added letter. The first exit starting west would be A. Next B - etc etc etc. Works the same way going from south to north. Now the interesting part - Kansas City on I-70 goes all the way to exit ### - QQ!!!! That means they went through all 26 single letters of the alphabet and then went back to Q! That's like 40 exits in one mile 

Interchange


  This is an interchange on 78. pretty simple diamond. I used FARHW pieces and it almost turned out perfect however, on the WB entrance I had an issue getting the slope to draw just right so I actually had to bypass the spot and make the entrance ramp longer. I do need to add more eye candy once I get it right and completed. I do need those highway walls for this entire sunken part.

I78 / I695 interchange - WIP



   Man that's going to be hell to put together....... 

  CBD



Still developing and needs lots of TLC

CBD - underground Plaza



That is my first attempt at an underground plaza. Plain jane right now but I am still experimenting with building them. The ones way don't have an underground connection. I got to figure out exactly how I am going to work that one. I may have to drop the one ways down to 2 lanes for that segment. FLUPS already made under the plaza. For realism I didn't put glass or open area's where the tunnels should be. I may just take the tunnels out and make all the streets loop around the plaza. I don't know exactly what I am going to yet as it is still a WIP.

[cmdp123789]

I thought this was a recreation when I first read the title... Guess it doesnt have to BE a recreation to be good... right?

[Zodicus]

I thought this was a recreation when I first read the title... Guess it doesnt have to BE a recreation to be good... right?

You're half right, it will be good

  I am not advanced enough yet using heavy modding to reproduce and accurate model of a city. I will be as I get more practice. For now, this will be loosely based on NYC but in know way will I ever consider it close to a reproduction. In the future I WILL do a good model of either of the following: Miami, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Washington, Seattle, Brisbane Australia, Nashville or my home Houston. I lean towards cities with more water in them because I have always been a coastal boy myself. I tend to focus on fishing ports, industrial ports and bridges.


     I'm up to 90k pop in Midtown. Hmmmmmmm.....

[whatevermind]

Now the interesting part - Kansas City on I-70 goes all the way to exit ### - QQ!!!! That means they went through all 26 single letters of the alphabet and then went back to Q! That's like 40 exits in one mile 

While the US Interstate system indeed deserves admiration, this hit me as one of those, 'that can't possibly be right' deals.  I was correct.  It is in fact a roughly 4 mile long loop of highway, and it only goes as far as Y.

Nitpicking aside, interesting work on the region, and good luck.  I always find NYC to be a challenging region to play.  I don't know if it is the complicated geography, or the high standard set by the real world, or both, but it's always a fun area to work on.

[Zodicus]

I'm going to have to take a picture of the signage next time I go through there. Being a cross country trucker I go through there a lot because I70 is a main W-E artery in the late spring through early winter months. I know for a fact I have seen QQ signs heading west bound crossing into Kansas from Missouri. That section of highway is partially DD - if memory serves - maybe that double digits represents the DD section? Only DD Interstates I travel on is I70 Kansas City, I35 Austin TX, I10 San Antonio Texas.

   Anways it's no big deal actually just me thinking out loud. I know Kansas city has extremely complicated highway system that are compact. It is really one of the tightest area's I have been too in a semi aside from the far north east. That would be very interesting to research those highway systems to give me idea's on mine.

EDIT:

I must be loosing my memory in my old age. This explains it all:

Interstate 35 enters the loop at its northeast corner, joining I-70 on the north side and forming the west side of the loop before exiting in the southwest corner. Exits on I-35 range from 2F to 2A while it overlaps I-70, and 2Y to 2U after I-70 exits the loop.

I stand corrected. According to DOT guidelines that is not how it should work out I think however I670 is a complete loop (as denoted by the even number on the beginning - odds are spurs) so maybe it works differently for loops..... Very interesting!

whatevermind thank you, you just taught an experienced professional traveler something new! You should be proud of yourself, lord knows I am

[Zodicus]

Sorry for my lack of recent updates. Some dillweed pulled out in front of my while i Was doing 65 MPH on a highway and decided not to depress that rectangular object under the right foot to make the vehicle go faster. I had to stand up on the brakes and my pc flew from my top bunk to my dashboard and broke the hard drive. I ran Hiren's 15.1 on it and fixed the corrupt HDD but had to replace it anyway because it was too badly damaged so I lost everything! Luckily for me I keep my plugins backed up and a 32GB flash drive but my region was NOT backed up so I lost the entire project (note to self keep backups of region)

  I have to restart the project. Lucky for me it was still in it's infancy so restarting is not a big deal. Yesterday I started making my highway system and completed my very first complex interchange with the RHW. This interchange was based on Maarten's turbine interchange. I talked with Maarten over on simtropolis and he was able to talk me into building an elevated version of it. After much encouragement from him and 9.5 hours of work I was able to complete it. It does have some texture mismatches and also limited eye candy. That phase of the project will come later when I actually begin developing the surrounding area. Keep in mind that I have only been using the RHW (or most any custom content) for about 6 weeks now. The interchange I had to build by the seat of my pants because there was not an actual guide for an elevated turbine I just used Maarten's guide as a reference. Actually, this is my 2nd COMPLETE interchange ever with the RHW. This interchange is placed on West Central Manhattan island in the city of Jersey City. It's function is to provide a high speed/capacity link to the Manahttan Joe Dimagio highway which is a spur highway on Western Manhattan. Normally the highway terminates at the Lincoln Tunnel and transitions to 12th street but I will actually make it go to lower Manhattan and transition to the FDR loop at the junction for the Brooklyn Battery tunnel on lower Manhattan.


Real world junction

PIC

Model Junction

PIC

the next phase of construction is to extend this to I495. In the real world I495 does not extend across Manhattan Island. I will extend I495 across to the Lincoln Tunnel. I495 denotes that this interstate is a loop - represented as the even number at the beginning of the hwy number so I am going to make it a bonified loop. Phase 1B of highway construction will also see the FDR base highway assembled and construction of the Holland, Lincoln and Brooklyn Battery tunnels. Phase 1C Will see the Queens Midtown tunnel, Brooklynn bridge and Manhattan Bridge.


Pics to come later tonight

[RickD]

That sucks. But good that "only" the PC was damaged and not you injured. Waiting for the pics ...

[Zodicus]

Lucky for me I didn't hit here. I was running 68k lbs and I still can't believe I didn't rear end here. If I had by American law I would have automatically been at fault which would have meant I would have been fired from my job and probably never got another trucking job. Lucky for her I either a dang good driver or a higher power was certainly watching over both of us.

  Anyway my pc doesn't seem to want to load the game now. I may have more going on here than what meets the eye. I am running more tests tonight to see what the heck is the matter. On a side note: I am in the process of building a new pc for my home with SSD and a bulldozer (8 core) AMD cpu. That should boost my graphics/load times/playabilty to the extreme max. I will keep exact copies of ALL sc4 data on this machine (my laptop) to work on it while I am on the road and use my primary machine for when I am at home.

  I should also note that this is going to be semi based on the real NYC. There will be several changes to infrastructure to facilitate better transportation. Basically I intend to do the transportation system better than the NYC DOT. Other than that the city layout will be the same as well as the different districts within the region. This is my first ever attempt at creating a semi accurate representation of the real world region.

   AS soon as I can get the game back and running I will post the pics I have and begin phase 1B of the highway construction project. I estimate 2-3 hours before I can launch the game.

[Zodicus]

OP updated.

[WannGLondon]

You probably should download a radical demand mod, like this;
http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2462

This mod will make all of your developments grow faster and taller, making your MD look more like New York. Also, download some of Aaron Graham's BATs, he has some wonderful New York style buildings. Other than that, your MD looks good. Keep it up!

[Zodicus]

You probably should download a radical demand mod, like this;
http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2462

This mod will make all of your developments grow faster and taller, making your MD look more like New York. Also, download some of Aaron Graham's BATs, he has some wonderful New York style buildings. Other than that, your MD looks good. Keep it up!

Thank you I actually have that mod and one to stop the maxis buildings. I don't particularly care for maxis. I just had to reformat my pc so starting over fresh AGAIN. This time I am getting a mod (forgot what it is called) that loads particular plugins for each region so I can make a true NYC themed MD. Updates on the way I promise! I have my pc back to working correctly now and I am just straightening up my plugins folder now.