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Are Airports really needed in SC4?

Started by cogeo, March 26, 2017, 10:03:40 AM

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cogeo

Hi all,

This question, esp after so many years of playing (()what()) simcity, may sound weird, but could someone please give me an answer? (and sorry if this has been asked again, it has I guess, but couldn't find anything)

I know airports raise caps for CO (and I) development, but do they really offer something other than this? They have many negative effects (take up space, pollute and have maintenance costs) so it may reasonable to avoid building them if possible.

Is it OK to defer airport construction until you can no longer find other ways to raise CO demand caps (connections plus cap-busting buildings). If so, airports for medium-sized cities may not be needed at all, as cap-raising by connections and buildings like the Convention Centre and the Stock Exchange should be enough to ensure unrestrained CO development.

Otherwise, you will need to build airports in every city tile, even in small towns. In such a town I have some 6000 CO jobs, CO caps are at 6-7%, but the game already asks for an airport.

Another question is about the increased capacities for Maxis airports. It's an install option in the NAM Installer. What's the point of this exactly? The Maxis Large International Airport has a capacity of 880,300 pax. Was this not considered adequate? Esp combined with the other cap-raising facilities (connections & buildings)? Still, modding capacities to 4x or 8x of the original, isn't just way too much?

Thank you

APSMS

I always wondered about that NAM option, mainly because there doesn't appear to be an option to say no, and I prefer the AC Functional Airports mod (with airport controller) instead for my airport purposes.

I think you can usually ignore the airport; one of the advantages of the AC airports is the heliport and bus shuttle options which take up considerably less space and still retain the regional airport concept.

Then again, I'm confused by the CAP reports in my game; in theory I've capped my CO$$, but adding connections and such don't raise it, and neither does the stock exchange and airports I plopped. Then again, I keep growing CO$$, so maybe there's a reporting problem in my game.
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Andreas

Admittedly, I haven't checked the exact benefits of the airport regarding demand cap relief and such, but IIRC, the advantages are not that large. Personally, I was more annoyed with the constant requests from the advisors, so I went ahead and created a simple solution, my SFBT Airport Shuttle Bus, which is simply an extension of the Maxis Airport Controller (and thus incompatible with the BSC one), but I was looking for an easy-to-use all-in-one version to remove the "need" for building an actual airport. So far, it seems to work fine, and when the station exceeds the designed capacity, simply building another one does the trick.
Andreas

metarvo

I'm all in favor of skipping Maxis airports and building realistic, eyecandy ones if possible.  Of course, those can take up more space than the smallish Maxis facilities, but I like them better.  The Maxis airports are only last resorts for me.
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Terring7

Although airports have had always been a big "yes" in my books, I never liked the fact that they consume too much space and produce too much pollution. This is why I preferred heliports. Even my smallest villages had at least one small heliport, providing extra access for my Sims. Even my biggest cities had heliports instead of airports.



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prat

Quote from: Terring7 on April 08, 2017, 01:38:31 AM
Although airports have had always been a big "yes" in my books, I never liked the fact that they consume too much space and produce too much pollution. This is why I preferred heliports. Even my smallest villages had at least one small heliport, providing extra access for my Sims. Even my biggest cities had heliports instead of airports.




sound interested