The Republic of Terra Specula - Update 18: Teaser!

[Tomas Neto]

Yeah my friend!!! Fantastic work, great update again!!! 

[Rady]

Hello and excuse me to all of my followers on my MD! I really do have to apologie for this long time of not providing updates, but RL matters had a firm grip on my time budget. So I only found time to develop my city a little bit but not to keep you informed on my progress on a regular basis. Since this won't change for the next two to three weeks, I decided to give you an intermediate update on how my colony has been evolving so far.

So, glad if you stop over again and have a look, and I promise to get back to a more regular mode of updates latest with end of april!!



[11_1]: First, an overview of the northernmost part of our colony:



[11_2]: A stretch of rural area



[11_3]: Part of the business dictrict that has evolved near the industrial / harbour area



I resized the width of your great mosaics - Robin - Global Moderator. 

[Cyclone1001]

Welcome back! I must say that it still looks just as good, keep it up.

[RickD]

I like the small villages divided by some farm fields and grassland. It looks very realistic to me. Where I live the villages are also situated very close together.

[nedalezz]

WOW, those are some spectacular mosaics! I especially loved the first one with the little towns and the region shot - both of them look great!

[canyonjumper]

Nice mosaics, Rady! Looks great! Don't worry about the irregular updates...mine are too

          -Jordan

[Rady]

@ Cyclone1001: Thanks, glad you still like it!

@ RickD: Yes, same for where I live .. that's where the inspiration came from. Thanks for stopping over!

@ nedalezz: Thank you!

@ canyonjumper: Thanks - it' just that it doesn't look like getting better as far as my spare time is concerned ...



Ok, so here we go, again with just a minor update in gameplay. However, after that update of the colony's plans, the next update for sure will include some nice pics. I took me almost two days just downloading and organizing all that stuff that I need for the next step of developement of my colony ...

[12_1] For a start, let's have a brief look how our colony has developed so far (thumbnail due to file size ...).




We can see that the colony has spread out to the rural surroundings of the first place of contact. However, the colony's administration is eager to put up a spaceport that will allow for regular travel & transport. For this to achieve the industrial production needs to be increased. However, the wide-spread low-denisity civlization that has evolved is a major hindrance for that goal. So the administration started a large developement project that would stretch out finto the far distance in order to avoid the hilly terrain that they where facing at the moment. Thus, they hope, they will be able to bring up high density housings that will give shelter to all the people that are needed by the industry. Following that, and with a massive push from the industry, the planned Spaceport would soon start to raise.

[12_2] The administration's Develeopement Master Plan




So, that's all for today, but watch out for the next update!

[canyonjumper]

Cool plan Rady! Looking forward to how you execute it

                 -Jordan

[Rady]

@ canyonjumper: Thanks for you reply. As you soon will discover, there are some minor problems that will delay the master plan a little ...



As we can see, our colony has already started with implementing the Master Plan. Wildbank Industrial District has been expanded, and a large freight rail station has been buildt. To provide proper means of transportation for the people supposed to work here, the existing rail connection between Upper Harding and Wildbank Heights Industrial District has been extended. Additionally, a second avenue connecting Upper Harding and the new areas of  Wildbank Heights Industrial District has been built.

However - and this has been mentioned by members of the planning team before but put aside by the politicians - the administration soon discovered a major problem. The colony was clearly lacking residential areas for all those people supposed to work here. So, only a few industries where raised, and soon after the developement experienced a sudden halt.

13_1 The newly developed - but sparsely populated - industrial area just west of Bonham Steel Mill



So - moving some steps back - after some discussions the area west of Wildbank was defined to be used for the next step in residential expansion. There where some heavy discussions with a group of local tree-huggers, but that discussion ended soon after the colony's administration agreed to fund the group's new recreational building that was to be erected in Wildbank ....

13_2 The new residential area with the proposed major traffic connection



Having solved this problem, and having issued the orders to the construction companies, the adminstration turned to the next problem that was lurking around for too long now to be disregarded: the only direct and therefore heavily congested road connection between Uper Harding and Harding Commercial Center. There had already been added an additional connection in the south of Upper Harding that helped ease the traffic congestion a little, but most of the traffic still used to follow the main avenue. So, the Road Planning Departement presented a plan for an additional avenue that would connect the northern parts of Upper Harding with Harding Commercial Center.

13_3 Authorized traffic developement plan with the newly added southern bypass (marked green), the current main route (red) and the layout of the new avenue (white)



Despite beeing a logical plan, it contained two difficulties:

(1) there surely were some discussions expected with the people that would obviously loose their current homes

(2) the colony's technicians haven't mastered so far the non-level crossing of a single-track rail line . Developement for that problem was under way in the NAM STR developement team (a secret team under direct control of whoever), but with no precise information about when a solution was to be expected (details have been disclosed here: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=10374.msg313761#msg313761) ....

So far for this update, let's see what's coming up next ...

[Nardo69]

Sorry
for not posting here lately ... 

Update 11: WOW! Never saw such a fine elaborated hierarchy of small and dirt street in rural areas including my very own work! Bravissimo on that!   

Update 12: Looks good however I would leave space for some commercials next to the spaceport at its infrastaucture.

Update 13: Not bad but there are some details I am not happy with:

• the big excavator. Its hole in the ground is way too small. Almost 20 years ago I saw such a monster IRL in a brown coal mine near Aachen. That's why I never even tried to use this monster ... 
• the slopes at the sunken roads and railway lines. Yes, you could cover them with retaining walls but instead I would try to make two or even three tile wide slopes (it is not so difficult with the levelling tool from the mayor mode menu) where ever ground value hasn't skyrocket as in this environment too much retaining walls can easily lead to an "overkill".
• in the lower part of the last picture I would really strengthen the shores of the right river right of the railway line. Natural shores are way to soft and weak to carry the loads from that rather heavy buildings on the peninsula. Just continue with the seawalls that you already began left of the railway line

Oh, btw, there IS a possibility of non-crossing STR railway lines: the oldest, pre-NAM method - dig a tunnel

Take care

Bernhard 

[Cyclone1001]

Very nice, can't wait to see it happen.

[RickD]

I like tose planning pics. The route of the future avenue looks totally logical. I would not mind the sims loosing their homes. Sometimes the Sims have to be forced to accept their luck. 

[canyonjumper]

Great update! Seems that you reached your res cap The planning looks good too \\

                   -Jordan

[thundercrack83]

Hello, Rady!

I've just checked out your wonderful work and I have to say that I like what I see very much! A lot of detail and thought seems to go into everything, and it's a treat to follow along with where you're headed!

Can't wait to see more!

Dustin

[strucka]

Great work!

[Tomas Neto]

Wow, fantastic mosaics my friend!!! Awesome!!! 

[kalvar]

is very good, this mosaic is very well worked

[Rady]

@ Nardo69: Thanks for your suggestions! The excavator has been moved meanwhile and is waiting for the next large iron mine to be discovered. As for the sunken railway - thanks, I will work on that. Initially I planned to have some avenues or roads cross the rail, therefore the 15m altitude. However, I agree the slope should be softened. And as you will discover soon, the colony's engineers followed your advice for crossing the STR line ....

@ Cyclone1001: Thanks!

@ RickD: Thanks for your support of the planned route for the avenue. However as things turned out, the problem has been solved with noone loosing his valued home!

@ canyonjumper: Thanks!

@ thundercrack83: Thanks, hope you will also enjoy my further updates!

@ strucka: Thanks for stopping over!

@ Tomas: Thanks - but still just of minor importance compared to your wonderful mosaics!!

@ kalvar: Thanks!





Ok, a long time has passed since we last looked at our colony's developement. So I suggest a brief overview of the colony in it's current state (click thumbnail to get full-sized image. Caution - 2,5 MB!)




AS we can see, both the rural and the urban part has developed well. So the new road-building techniques that have been developed by the (already mentioned) secret NAM team came handy to improve the traffic situation in Ashville. Mindgate Road - passing by Ashville Central Park - has been upgraded to an ARD3 and crosses Tempelton Avenue later:





More of these roads to follow - I promise!! And a big thank you to the NAM team that provided such cool stuff!! 

Additonally, let's have a look at the bypass suggested for Upper Harding. After some evaluations, the colony's road planning departement concluded that a tunnel would be the best option to cross the area north of Upper Harding, possibly due to the fact that mayor elections were around the corner and the current mayor stated very clearly that he definitely didn't want to have demonstrators in front of his office right now....




Ok, ladies and gentlemen, so far for this update. Unfortunately beeing subject to RL matters my time for building my colony is still very restricted. However the next update will see the colony moving forward with it's ambitious plan to raise settlements and the space center in the east ...

[Cyclone1001]

How did you make that wall in picture 2? Very nice, very nice.

[RickD]

the problem has been solved with noone loosing his valued home!

Aww, too bad. Errr ... I mean good for them.