SC4 Devotion Forum Archives

ESURE came about as an attempt to implement express subways according to the method that I proposed in my old thread, A solution to the eternal commuter problem (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5271.msg167659#msg167659). If you haven't read that thread, it may be helpful to do that first, as it explains the many things that express subways can do.  My first post and the long one with the diagram at the end are the most important.  I basically just implemented the proposal I made there once I knew enough about how to do it.

ESURE is composed of two parts – SURCs (Subway to Underground Rail Connectors) and FURLs (Four-way Underground Rail Lots).  Express subways use only SURCs.  Here's a picture of an express subway crossover from the ground view:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg216.imageshack.us%2Fimg216%2F6678%2Ftopview.jpg&hash=b00466ebf2d6d44d2ac957bd159a2d461617919c)

The crossover consists of the intersection square plus the two adjoining road squares with the red brick sidewalk.  As you can see, it's as inconspicuous from the surface as underground rail.  Underneath the two intersecting roads are two subway lines which cross but do not intersect.  Here is a picture from the Traffic Volume Data View:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg216.imageshack.us%2Fimg216%2F893%2Fsubwayview.jpg&hash=7f72b56641a17abce9ba8443a7eedaeb84d863d2)

As you can see here, both subway lines have good traffic.  But it's through traffic for each line; the subway lines cross, but don't intersect.  So the Sims traveling by subway can't change direction at this intersection.  The following subway view shows how this is accomplished:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg216.imageshack.us%2Fimg216%2F1492%2Fbottomview.jpg&hash=d01bb89fe076a454d0b73d88c37efc51ee8f7d6c)

As you can see, there are what appear to be subway switches right on either side of the intersection.  They convert the subway (yellow lines) to underground rail (orange lines).  The intersection is a standard underground rail 4-way road intersection piece.  Due to the way the SURCs are constructed, although the subway lines touch, there is no traffic exchanged between them.  If there were, you would see yellow arrows going off to the crossing subway.

This is also great for the Big Dig, because the limitations about crossing subways is removed.

Originally, this is all I was going to do.  But after doing this, I realized that if you turned the SURCs around, you could get underground rail extensions.  Suppose you have a river and you want the underground rail to cross the river and emerge as underground rail on the other side.  You just stick a SURC on each end and cross the river with a subway.  The subway can turn wherever it wants, so the two portions of the underground rail don't have to be directly opposite each other.  This is also useful for using underground rail under streets that dead-end at large parks and then continue on the other side, running underground rail under large buildings, etc.  Since all of these situations often end in a T intersection, I made a T intersection SURC.  And for subway lines crossing under ped malls, I made a full set of ped mall SURCs.  All SURCs can be found near the bottom of the Misc Transit menu; when you place them, the arrow should always point toward the underground rail line.  Also, the road SURCs (and FURLs) are transit enabled for various reasons of usability.  However, this means that any underground rail puzzle piece next to the SURC or FURL must be placed after the SURC or FURL is placed.  Since accidentally moving the puzzle piece over the SURC or FURL can cause an immediate crash to desktop, it is recommended that you save your game before placing these pieces.  The ped mall SURCs and FURLs are not transit enabled, so there is no CTD danger there.

Here's an example of a SURC used to let an underground rail cross below a large park.  First, the surface view:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg515.imageshack.us%2Fimg515%2F218%2Fparkbefore.jpg&hash=8091cd37115435afbb2682342f99d7358861aead)

At the top of the picture, you can see the underground rail; it's the road with the red brick sidewalk.  And at the bottom of the picture, there's a similar underground rail, though not directly across from the first.  To connect up these two portions in a city that was already built would normally be a huge mess, if you were to use the standard underground rail puzzle pieces.  And even then, there's no way you could go directly under the park, as a real underground rail would be able to do; you'd have to take a long route around one way or another.  (And, of course, Sims don't like long routes.)  But with SURCs, all these problems disappear; the underground rail just runs under the park:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg515.imageshack.us%2Fimg515%2F7309%2Fparkafter.jpg&hash=a6c3a85ee6a745b18768725de16b5871e4ad49bc)

At this point, the question may arise, What happens if you have subway lines ringing the park?  How close can a SURC get to a subway without getting crossover traffic?  The following two underground pictures of the two sides of the park should answer that question:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg515.imageshack.us%2Fimg515%2F9984%2Fparksub1.jpg&hash=448574dfda550c8a08dd0f8d1b127017ec233fa9)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg515.imageshack.us%2Fimg515%2F8865%2Fparksub2.jpg&hash=1dd1f10f119e567a67b65301be73e790b153127e)

Notice that other subway lines can go right next to the SURC on three sides; only one side is reserved for the SURC's subway line.  As long as the other subway lines don't actually connect to the SURC on any of the other three sides, there is no crossover traffic.  This is possible because the transit switch points of the SURCs are highly asymmetrical, which is why they need to be placed with their arrow pointing toward the rail line.

Crossing under rivers is a little more complicated.  The exact same technique is used as with the park, but the SURC must be placed far enough away from the riverbank that the rail does not have to decline steeply to get to the SURC.  (The depth of the actual SURC location can only be seen in the subway view.)  If the decline is too steep, the rail paths seem to break; the Route Query Tool shows rail arrows pointing where no arrows should ever point.

One limitation of SURCs is that they can only convert passenger rail.  But for the straight road piece, they will carry freight rail to the other side of the lot; for the T-intersection, they will carry it to the arms of the T.  You can do something with it there, or ignore it.  On the other hand, this limitation can be turned into a feature if you want to separate your passenger and freight traffic.  A SURC of any sort will do that quite nicely, allowing you to move your traffic where you want it.  And passenger train traffic that goes through a SURC into a subway tunnel is not limited to emerging as underground rail; it can emerge directly as surface rail via the NDEX Rail to Subway Transition (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/stexdetails.cfm?id=4174).

Then there are the FURLs, which is just what their name says:  Four-way Underground Rail Lots.  They're equivalent of a four-way road intersection, except underground.  You can use them for making underground rail lines cross where they have the option of turning in either direction.  Or, you can use one to have an underground rail line make a 90 degree turn in a single square.  This allows much greater flexibility in routing your underground rail through your city.  For example, consider the following industrial area:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg220.imageshack.us%2Fimg220%2F4984%2Fdowntownbefore.jpg&hash=d998bc9e99a61156bce7e75f811be48d3373261e)

You can see an Underground Rail route coming down near the center of the picture.  Right before the last lots before the city edge, there's a freight rail line.  Normally, a rail line can't cross underground rail.  In this case, the surface rail line goes underground on both sides of the underground rail line.  But for regular underground rail, that still doesn't help.  The reason the setup in the picture works is that the underground rail piece between the two portions of surface rail is actually a FURL.  This becomes clear when we look at a picture with some of the routes shown:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg220.imageshack.us%2Fimg220%2F5896%2Fdowntown1.jpg&hash=2d33f798df6324a69ea83d50fd096b3be3cce30c)

As you can see from the balloon in the lower right, there is reasonable rail traffic coming from many directions.  And where the two rail lines cross, some of the traffic turns to the right.  Not all of it does, though.  The following is another picture of the rail routes in this area:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg220.imageshack.us%2Fimg220%2F4848%2Fdowntown3.jpg&hash=f2d67b0ad0a6ae3314df3ec26d07e723b151ded6)

As you can see, some of them go straight through.  What's also interesting is that the underground rail can cross into the next city.  I originally thought I would need to use a SURC to do this, but it turns out that simply putting a standard underground rail piece over a road that crosses the border is sufficient.

A full set of FURLs can be found near the bottom of the Rail menu.  You shouldn't put two FURLs next to each other; although this is possible with the ped mall FURLs, no traffic will flow between them.  FURLs carry both passenger and freight trains.

Finally, the following picture shows a simple example of how SURCs and FURLs can be combined to provide great flexibility in using underground rail:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg230.imageshack.us%2Fimg230%2F8300%2Frevisedfurlserctn.jpg&hash=d4a7b0f1508e490d4ac579908ae109763531cabb)

Notice how the path of the underground rail is blocked by a large apartment building.  This is very common in cities; roads come to dead ends, permanent or temporary, and this is one of the things that currently makes underground rail difficult to use.  But here, a pair of SURCs, one on each side of the building, allows the underground rail to continue on through.  Then the road comes to a final dead end, but a FURL allows the underground rail to branch off in one of two directions.

I think you can see by now that with SURCs and FURLs, there is essentially no limit to what you can do with underground rail.  The SURCs allow it to bypass all obstacles, while the FURLs allow the type of tight turns that subways make, allowing you to route your underground rail wherever you want.

---

Now, some people familiar with the NAM may say, "This is all very nice, but the FURLS really should be NAM puzzle pieces."  To this I say, "Yes!  Definitely!"  While they work fine as they are, they definitely would have more flexibility as puzzle pieces, for reasons which are familiar to people who know the NAM.  Also, among my ped mall lots, I have included sandstone and grass ped mall, even though there are currently no corresponding underground rail ped mall puzzle pieces.  This was done anticipating that this omission would be fixed; I think it would be especially useful to have underground rail for the grass ped mall.  Similarly, the limitations on river crossings (and the limitations to passenger trains for these) could be removed by having a set of puzzle pieces similar to those used to cross under water in the FLUPS.

And if we're going to get NAM involved, why not really do a good job?  URail under road is useful, but in the real world, you're at least as likely to find it under avenues.  So some URail under Avenue puzzle pieces (including the necessary intersections) would add yet another dimension to this network.  Finally, now that the two-network barrier has been broken, it's possible to have puzzle pieces for URail under Highway, or Monorail, or GLR-in-Avenue, for example.  Just a few of these would be extremely useful.

I have access to the resources to get this done, but of course, I would need the cooperation and consent of the NAM team to actually implement it in the NAM.  I have contacted the NAM team, and they will be considering the NAM-specific parts of my proposal.  While they deliberate, the current package is quite complete (and well-tested) as it stands, and I am posting it here for people to try.  Eventually, the whole package will be uploaded to the LEX, with or without the NAM extensions.

I have attached the current version of ESURE to this post.  Simply extract the contents of the Zip file into your Plugins folder.  However, you should keep only one of the two texture files, depending on whether you prefer the European or Standard (US) road textures; the other texture file should be deleted.

edit:- now I have that out my system, although I would recommend changing the acronym, great work, I can see many applications for this, shame I cant stand the underground rail sidewalk texture...

This is great work here from Z...
and its addition compliments a well rounded transit network in any gamer's city.
This aspect should not be under-estimated.

As someone who fully tested E- SURE for Z .. i can fully endorse its use to all who strive for a top notch
transportation system in their cities.
Everything that Z mentions in the above post, has been fully tested and has been checked out by myself  .
I can verify that everything is fully functional and operational without bugs..
. I was quite amazed where this takes "under ground rail and subways "
in the game from where they
were previous to the creation of  " E -SURE" . I think especially the "under ground" network which as most
of you knew, was quite restrictive in its use.. E - SURE changes all that !!  Essentially because of  E - SURE
Underground rail can now be treated in the game just like any other transit network Meaning a player
can feel free to build this network any where they chose to in their cities.. In addition it has the
added advantage  of proving a second transportation means ( the other being subways ), to providing
another complete network (rails ),, To denser area of the cities where previous other means of transit
have been completely stymied by wall to wall development.. It eases the  " pressures" somewhat to
100 % accurate transit planning,, by giving a second highly used network that can now tunnel under
development rather than through it.. In the meantime being forced to demolish all those pretty condos
or high rise office buildings !

I too would like to urge the NAM team incorporating e-sure into the NAM such that it would eventually
make complete a fully operation under ground rail system capable of crossing any other transit networks
in the game... As well as Express Subways which relieve the concerns of the "eternal Commuter Issue " .

It had certainly been a great year so far in traffic modding.. First we have the new NAM releases of January
and March and now we have Z's ," E - SURE ", to take us into the next phase of high tech transit modding
for sim city 4.. I encourage everyone out there to give E - SURE a try and please post any comments or
questions you may have about it in this thread...,

Thanks Brian

Well, I must say this is a surprise! Z, I can see that these are lots, and you seem to want them as puzzle pieces. I can create everything except the part that converts the subway to rail. I have no knowledge on how to do that part, but I can do everything else. Possibly, you could make subway puzzle pieces and have them pathed for regular rail too, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I can help with anthing thats within my knowledge field.

Hope this keeps going well,
Vince

Sorry Z, I only just remembered your PM about this from ages ago  &ops

I'd love them to be puzzle pieces but sadly they can't be, puzzle pieces can't convert traffic types like TELs can.
Currently we think that subway puzzle pieces aren't possible, and we've tried. We've also tried putting train paths on subway and it didn't work.

If you want anymore puzzle pieces made (that won't convert between subway and train) then I can do them, as I have nothing much on the agenda atm.

I'm not sure if you'd want this but the subway paths could be cahnged so that at a + intersection the trains will not turn corners, and if you want them to you'll have to a sort of ring shape ?

Jonathan

Thanks, guys!  I guess I didn't make it clear enough in my original message - I know the SURCs (subway to underground rail connectors) can't be turned into puzzle pieces, but the FURLs (four-way underground rail lots) clearly can, as there's nothing but rail going in and out.

Jonathan, I don't think I'd want to change the subway paths for intersections as you described, as that would have too big an effect on existing cities.  And the SURCs seem to do the job quite well here.  But if you want to start making puzzle pieces for the FURLs, and then go on from there, as described at the end of my post, that would be fantastic!  :thumbsup:  We have the potential for increasing the usefulness of this network quite substantially, and I would be really happy if you were willing to help out on this.

Vince, if you want to help out on this too, talk to Jonathan, so that you two can coordinate things.  And it might not be bad to copy me on communications, so that we keep everything straight.  But also, we have plenty of work for you at RTMT, whenever you're ready for it.

I'm very pleased at the positive reaction to this proposal, and the willingness of two first-rate people to work on it.  Feel free to start, and don't hesitate to ask me about anything that's not clear.  Thanks! :)

Exactly, puzzle pieces can't perform traffic-type conversions; I had tested this long ago, considering making RTMT puzzle pieces; this solved two major problems, the no-access zots and the textures that can't be wealth-dependent for lots (as lots have their own wealth level), but was basically unusable as conversions couldn't be performed.

And yes, subways shouldn't intersect in crossings, one should go under the other. I don't know if it's possible for the game to ask whether to make an intersection (like for highways), but it could still be enough if it could be left to the player making the connections, if needed. And I don't think rail is a good example, the intersection looks just stupid, with that circular track around it (sometimes trains even run around the intersection, when they could just run straight), that for the subways could be much simpler, just two non-intersecting tunnels (connections between tunnels would be independent of the intersection, just short diagonal tunnels - or instead straight in the case of a diagonal intersection). Basically there are four types of subway intersections that need to be changed, straight, diagonal and the two straight-diagonal combinations). Another needed thing is BATs for the non-intersecting tunnels. I think this is quite easy (they need not show subway automata running through).

EDIT: Existing cities may not be affected, if this could be a new type of intersections, while the "old" ones can be still functional (though not possible to be constructed anymore).

This is really something I wish I had on some crowed cities.
I never seen an reason for intersection subway other than at station, so I usually lay down my subways line that way, but most of the time, when adding more and more station to follow the city growth, I have to use crossing and then my subway get not that much effective

Thanks for the mod !

z we have talked about this subject quite a bit and also about how it might be implemented. i must say, this looks and seems to operate exactly how i envisioned when i first began experimenting with express lines. i would love to test this for you as my cities have been set up with hope of something like this while trying to work around other ways. i am still experimenting with the el-rail express stuff (mainly within stations now trying to get a station that has 4 tracks running through it [2 in each direction] but only allowing the local tracks to stop [ it's workable with 2 half stations, but a single station would be preferred]), but this seems to answer just about any question for express subways...one question i have though, are their converters and underground rail under avenue? i tend to do alot of work on avenues, so the avenue pieces would be necessary.

the required pieces would be:
- rail under avenue
- rail under avenue/street intersection
- rail under avenue/road intersection
- rail under avenue/one way intersection
- rail under avenue/avenue intersection

this is an awesome development, and as it appears, with no testing yet, i support this project. the concept is sound, the evidence appears completely valid, and the result appears to be a game changer. i do suggest acknowledging that this is not simply for express lines but appears to mainly be for the creation of dedicated lines. (washington dc style, not nyc as nyc has too many branches and we haven't figured that part out yet.)

Right now, there's nothing for avenues - underground rail for avenues has to be added as NAM puzzle pieces.  But it's one of the things I suggested at the end of my post, and hopefully, it will get done.  And of course, the intersections you mentioned need to be made as puzzle pieces as well.  Any intersection with a road or another avenue can have an underground rail spur branching off under it, as it doesn't matter if the spur isn't used, and it makes it really easy to extend the underground rail later.  And of course, the spur would be invisible, being underground, so it doesn't look ugly.

As for SURCs for underground rail under avenue - I just hadn't thought that far ahead.  But you're right, it would make sense, and it could be done rather trivially, adding just one or two more SURC lots.

QuoteI do suggest acknowledging that this is not simply for express lines but appears to mainly be for the creation of dedicated lines.

Yes, this is true; that was the original motivation for starting this project.  Theoretically, it should make multi-tile commuting much easier; Sims could get on the subway at the edge of one city, and then find that they travel through city after city with no exits until they reach the central business district.  It will be interesting to see if that part actually works...

i would be more than happy to test that for you. i can make some slight adjustments to my cities where the current pieces would work. my cities would suffer some adverse affects, but the hypothetical results are exactly what i desire for my cities. it would be interesting to compare the results to my current dedicated el line setup.

Yes, I would definitely be interested in the results of such an experiment.  It would be useful to see the details of your setup as well.

About avenues, couldnt a express subway be done by adding a addtional subway line beside the local subway line and have a station span two tiles for common stations? As avenues do have two tiles to play with.

Yes, that would work if you put the subway station on the side of the avenue.  But what I'm referring to here as "express subways" are subways that cross other subway lines but don't permit turns, which is something rather different.

@z: i'll work on getting you the details. my computer is in the shop getting the motherboard, wireless card, and who knows what else replaced. basically new computer for me. stupid defective model...anyways when i get it back, i'll take some screen shots of the full map as well as individual target locations (both surface and underground views). it will take me a few days to make sure the original city is backed up and then get the subway system slightly reconstructed to be ready to run the tests. first run could be no earlier than monday afternoon.

@kitsune: what we're talking about doing is dedicated lines (with no branches since that isn't feasible and doesn't appear to be anytime in the near future if ever), but i personally do plan on using this for express services. as for the dual station, idk if that's possible for subways...i'm not sure how shared stations with different lines will work (like where 2 lines cross at a station...common in NYC.) so we'll see when i run my experiment. there aren't any high elrail over elrail stations or elrail over glr stations at the moment, so those might not be possible...we'll see though. most likely it would have to be a lot that enables an underground rail station and a subway station on the same lot in the same spot. that would work well for the subways, but elrail still needs some experimenting...

@z (again. lol): what i just said to kitsune just brought something to my attention. would it be possible to get a RTMT lot or 2 with both an underground rail station and a subway station on the same lot? that would solve the shared station issue.

Quote from: redraider147 on March 31, 2009, 10:25:13 PM
would it be possible to get a RTMT lot or 2 with both an underground rail station and a subway station on the same lot? that would solve the shared station issue.

A whole set of URail stations, including the one you mentioned, will be included in the first release of RTMT V4.

Just a point of contention.. In the above you specifically say point SURC's "ghost arrows" toward the rails. I fooled and fooled with this thing.. wasting a couple of hours trying to figure out what was wrong.. finally out of frustraton, I tried to point the arrows toward the subway .. this worked fine.. I don't know if this is an issue of context or an error in the instructions, but in any case I snapped a shot of it so you could take a look at it

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg215.imageshack.us%2Fimg215%2F9831%2Fsurc.jpg&hash=028ac25339f33be71463f013b5934bde993ffd06)

The orange arrow points EAST if it matters.

Still having fun with these.. hehe

It has recently been discovered that due to a game bug, my instructions work fine if the road is running north-south, but need to be reversed if it is running east-west.  This is even true with the T-intersections, which need to be placed with the T pointing the wrong way for roads running east-west.

In about a month, I'm going to bring this up to production level, revise the instructions, and provide a separate SURC T-intersection piece for east-west roads.  The FURLs are also being made into NAM puzzle pieces, which will give them added flexibility.  When this is all done, the final package will be released on the LEX.

Quote from: SC4BOY on August 31, 2009, 11:58:47 PM
I don't know if this is an issue of context...

Quote from: z on September 01, 2009, 12:31:14 AM
..recently been discovered that due to a game bug, my instructions work fine if the road is running north-south, but need to be reversed if it is running east-west

Not an issue, and truthfully that is what I expected.. that's why I mentioned the direction. Just chipping in 2-bits worth in the process and giving another data point.

Quote from: redraider147 on March 31, 2009, 10:25:13 PM


@kitsune: most likely it would have to be a lot that enables an underground rail station and a subway station on the same lot in the same spot.

It could be worked around with the Ninja boulevard station. Place it beside underground rail and it will connect to it as a rail station. Then run a subway line through the station and you have a transfer station. You could even ad a second subway line perpendicular to the first.

You know, the technology from this could be applied to FLUPS...something that converts FLUP traffic to subway would be immensely helpful when passing under those massive lots and parks!

This discussion has already occurred, and there are two big obstacles here:  First, the speed of the subways is way too much higher than the speed of the roads, so the traffic simulation would be thrown off.  Second, you couldn't have buses go through, because otherwise, how would you know on the other end which passengers to convert to cars and which to buses?  I've even tried to build fancy switches that would handle this, but the subways don't work in a manner that would permit this to succeed.

Oups, didn't think about that. Didn't know that the discussion had already happened either.

ESURE has finally been upgraded to the point where it should be ready for final release.  The FURLs are still implemented as lots, as getting them made into puzzle pieces has turned out to be much more time consuming than expected.  However, they work fine as lots, within the limitations described above, and allow both freight and passenger traffic to pass in any direction.

ESURE was originally designed as a way to help bypass the Eternal Commuter bug.  Ironically, what has been learned about the traffic simulator since ESURE was first created has made it clear that this is not possible.  The Sims' destination is decided upon unalterably before the pathfinding engine even starts, so it is not possible to use ESURE to detour the Sims away from a border crossing.

Other than that, though, all the features detailed for ESURE above now work reliably.  The biggest change between the initial version of ESURE and this version is in the instructions!  The initial instructions directed the player to always place the SURC lots with the arrow pointing toward the underground rail.  As noted a few posts above, it was discovered after the release of ESURE that this works only for north-south routes.  For east-west routes, the SURC pieces must be placed with the arrow pointing away from the underground rail, toward the outgoing subway line.

To make this work completely, a separate version of the road T-intersection had to be created for east-west routes.  This new lot now appears in the Misc Transport menu directly under the original T-intersection lot.  The new lot shows a T-intersection rotated to be on its side, to differentiate it from the original lot, where the T is upright.  Additionally, the description of the original lot now includes "N-S", while the description of the second lot includes "E-W".

The FURLs did not need to be changed at all.  Please remember that the SURCs and the road FURLs need to be placed before the puzzle pieces that go next to them; this was unavoidable with this type of hybrid lot.  This means you must also be careful not to pass the puzzle pieces over the lot as you're placing them, as that can cause an immediate crash to desktop.

At the time ESURE was originally created, I had SURCs and FURLs for grass and sandstone ped malls, even though there were not underground rail network pieces for these ped malls.  At my request, Jonathan has kindly created these pieces, and they exist in the current NAM.

I hope at some point to have the FURLs converted to puzzle pieces, as that will remove limitations on their use, as well as the CTD danger.  Hopefully, this will happen in a future NAM release.  If so, there will be complete compatibility between the puzzle pieces and the FURLs; I would expect to remove the FURLs from the menu then, so that although existing installations would always be supported, new installations would use the puzzle pieces.  In the mean time, I am now releasing ESURE as it is, as it is now fully functional.  Assuming no problems are found, it should show up on the LEX soon.  Enjoy!

Edit by BarbyW. I have removed the attachement as it needs to be submitted for scrutineering before being posted for all to use. I have sent a PM to Steve.

I am pleased to announce that the FURL portion of ESURE has been completely implemented as NAM puzzle pieces by Ebina, and they are now available in NAM version 30.  The FURLs are on a tab ring named "Underground Rail Miscellaneous Puzzle Pieces" in the Rail submenu, directly underneath the three other Underground Rail tab ring menu entries.

The remainder of ESURE will be released as soon as I can get around to it.

I'm glad these finally saw the light of day.   :thumbsup:

Here's hoping the SURC's aren't far behind.  Those would be really useful with the much-improved Underground Rail in the latest NAM.

Quite a while ago I downloaded the ESURE files (4 of them) on the side, but did not bring them yet to my active plugins. I have just installed NAM 30, in which the FURL portion of ESURE is now included. With a view to install and use ESURE, should I then move to the active plugins, only the RoadTexture_Euro and the SURC files?

In your case, yes, since you don't have any FURLs in your cities.  The FURLs were separated in their own file for just this eventuality.

For people who have any FURLs in their cities already, you will still need all four files.  However, if you don't have any FURLs, or if you bulldoze all the existing ones first and later replace them with the new puzzle pieces, you can keep only the three files that Douzerouge named.

Sorry for bringing this thing out of the dust but what happened to it? I remember reading about it a few years back but had no need for it by then. Am now back to playing the game and actually would need it. Can I still use the files in the first post? Cant find this on LEX or STEX.

Rest assured that ESURE is still alive, though currently in hiding.  As mentioned above, the FURLs are now available in the standard NAM Underground Rail menus.  The SURCs are actually scheduled for release as part of a larger project around the beginning of March.  Note that although they function exactly as described above, the non-intersecting subway function has turned out to be much less useful than originally hoped, due to the discovery that the traffic simulator's destination finder sets a Sim's destination before a path is selected, and trying to divert the Sims from that preselected destination simply does not work.

You can use the files from the first post, but beware that they suffer from the orientation bug that is described above.  They also use an obsolete texture for Underground Rail.  I would recommend simply waiting until March when ESURE is formally released.  The release will be announced in this thread.

I neglected to mention this at the time, but all the functionality of the original ESURE has been incorporated into the NAM since NAM 31.  As mentioned above, the FURLs were incorporated as Underground Rail puzzle pieces in NAM 30; the SURCs can now be found in the "Subway to Underground Rail Connectors (ESURE)" option under "Stations, Ports, and Network Transitions".  Both options are included by default.  Just recently, however, a bug was discovered that resulted in the straight road SURC texture not showing up if you didn't also have RTMT installed.  A patch for this problem can be found here (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1444.0;attach=10162); the patch file replaces the file of the same name in the folder "Plugins\z___NAM\Mass Transit Lots\ESURE".