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How to place an RHW piece at the correct place with the correct orientation ?

Started by Amoranemix0, September 02, 2014, 05:58:01 AM

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Amoranemix0

At the start of a beginners' tutorial on Sim City 4 stood the strong advice to install NAM. Unfortunately, I followed that advice.

Going through an RHW tutorial (like how to build that fancy interchange) is too time consuming because I don't know how to convince the computer to do what I want and the tutorials don't explain that. (I had already learned that asking nicely, threats, violence and bribes don't work, so I didn't try any of those.)

Before spending more time on RHW I would like to know how to convince the computer to perform one of the most basic and fundamental tasks :

How place a particular road piece at the correct location with the correct orientation ?

Sometimes the following method works : click the corresponding button in a road construction menu, move the mouse pointer to the correct location, press TAB until the correct piece appears as a ghost image (or how do you call that) an press Home or until the orientation is correct. Then click the left mouse button.

The above procedure often fails in following ways :
The correct piece is hard to acquire or keep. This method looks buggy. Selecting a piece from a window (like with bridges) would have been more user friendly.
The ghost dances around the correct location as if there is an obstacle. I think construction tiles can sometimes explain that behaviour.
Home/End doesn't work (as if some orientations are forbidden) and sometimes changes the selected piece.

Thanks in advance for the help.

mgb204

QuoteThe correct piece is hard to acquire or keep. This method looks buggy. Selecting a piece from a window (like with bridges) would have been more user friendly.

All lots in SC4 are set to align to a transport network although there are situations where due to the location you want to place something it can be tricky to get it right (because it will auto align to the side with a road for example). If you are finding the orientation changes whilst you are using Home/End then trying super-hard not to move the mouse whilst doing it (even a tiny fraction) will help. Otherwise briefly remove any roads/streets etc nearby, plop your piece without effort and quickly re-bulid the deleted networks. As for selecting these pieces from windows, that's a lot of work if it was even possible to change such a fundamental part of the game, you know the NAM team are community members who create the mod for the benefit of everybody, not paid developers right? Maxis created how this all works, modders just have to work around it as best as possible sometimes.

QuoteThe ghost dances around the correct location as if there is an obstacle. I think construction tiles can sometimes explain that behaviour.

What do you mean by construction tiles? In essence every tile is either occupied or it isn't, if the tile has nothing on it then you should be free to plop something there, although it may also depend on what is in the adjacent tiles where you want to add your piece, if you have enough space for the item you want or even the flatness of the terrain.

QuoteHome/End doesn't work (as if some orientations are forbidden) and sometimes changes the selected piece.

Some orientations or combinations are impossible, but it's hard to diagnose without a specific example here, you can't for example place two TE (Transit enabled) lots next to each other. Sometimes there is more than one piece in a single step and the rotation shows different pieces, this is how they can appear to change.

Usually when an item can't be placed there is some text with an explanation of the problem and the preview (I think that's what you mean by ghost) piece goes red to indicate it can't be placed as currently selected.

If you are new to SC4, perhaps the RHW is not the easiest place to start, the NAM is quite simply the mod every player should have installed, but it is trying to make the game do things it was never designed to do and as a result somethings add quirks and nuances that over time will start to become clearer. None of the behavior you've described could be called bugs.

If you want everything simple, enjoy Vanilla SC4, but I wouldn't recommend it, much better to spend some time playing around with the various transport options until you are more familiar with how they work or seek out some tutorials on how to build things. Perhaps also consider whether you want to really use the RHW, the NAM has plenty of support for the original MHW with a multitude of simple ploppable interchanges that are not in the vanilla game. Or try the Project Symphony Maxis highway override, which is something of a hybrid between the simplicity of MHW and the flexibility of RHW.

APSMS

It seems you're having trouble with puzzle pieces. A picture might help to identify all of the problems you seem to be having, as they don't seem limited to one specific set of pieces, and it may be that you are mixing up the use of the pieces in your ignorance (no problem as we were all there once, but pictures do help to identify the problem when you're unfamiliar with the terminology).

One thing to remember is that PPs (those things you're plopping) have very limited slope tolerance. Thus slopes or unsupported alignments will cause the game to try and avoid placing them at all costs, including plopping in the wrong spot, not allowing certain rotations, etc.

Another possibility is that you're placing starter pieces, which look similar in the previews (those ghosting images), but are really the start of a new road/rail type that is then created by dragging out the starter piece with the appropriate tool (e.g. for the NWM, you would use the road or OWR (one-way road) tool to drag your road as normal, starting at the starter piece).

I second what mgb said; the RHW is for after you figure out the NAM basics. For now using the normal highways will work just fine, as they remain fully functional and will allow you to ease yourself into the whole thing.

The NAM is currently moving towards making most things draggable, which will mean more behavior like the default networks (Avenue, road, rail, etc.) and less fiddling with the puzzle pieces; it also means more slope tolerance. Another thing you must do is read the documentation. It may be a bit dense at times, and hard to understand, but reading will at least provide some answers as well as a knowledge base to asking future questions (or prompting new ones), and it will make it easier to provide tech support on our end so that you aren't as frustrated with this "amazing tool you must use".
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

My Mayor Diary San Diego: A Reinterpretation

Indiana Joe

Lemme condense this into a super quick answer:

1.  You should build with RHW on flat ground (at least until you are used to it)
2.  There should be a few tiles of space around for the puzzle piece to fit properly (much easier to build the puzzle pieces first, then drag the RHW into them)

Amoranemix0

[first picture]

Above is a figure of  a clover interchange that I tried to make as an exercise. One of the problems I encountered is how to place flexramps on the section that only has one yet. I tried puzzle pieces, but I gave up on that (before I improved terrain). The only place I could place the exit you see very close to the overpass. I managed to place one somewhere else with a lot of fiddling and helper obstacles. I couldn't believe the barely visible hill could be the cause of the computer's refusal to place a ramp somewhere else. After reading here I got rid of it anyway (it covered about six tiles right next to the highway). Now I can convince the computer to place an exit about anywhere along the stretch. But how do I convince it to place an entrance ? There is a bug as the 'ghost' makes no distinction between entrances and exists (although I suppose it is intended to be a feature). I have also tried to smoothen the curves, but given up on that.

So I went back to Sim City 4 to get the next example, tried to convince the computer to to place an entrance again, and now it complied! Cycling through orientations using the Home button brought up an entrance. Why not before ?

[second picture]

I followed a tutorial (Maarten's Real HighWay Mod Tutorials: Episode 1: Basic Techniques and Tricks) in which among other things he made an S curve, like the one in the middle. He drew the highway and said the curve could be made smoother. He chose I think a lane shift and convinced the computer to have it replace the S curve. I don't know how he did that. I can only make such a lane shift by drawing highway, placing the appropriate lane shift and they continuing with the highway. The computer is willing to place several other (that is non RHW-4) lane shifts though. Why not the correct one ?


Here is another example :

[third picture]

I followed a tutorial to make an intersection. However, I couldn't make it as described in the tutorial. I tried to reproduce the problem, but now the computer complies! (I think it does that to spite me). The screen shot illustrates what the problem was. I couldn't move the ghost of the elevation transition closer to the cross intersection piece (which I thought could be because the  construction tile of the former in front of it was in the way). So I had to remove the intersection piece (and the bulldozer happily destroyed everything around it as well, although curiously not this time), place the elevation transition and then again the intersection piece. Why ?


I have the impression that not moving the mouse is exactly what not to do. If pressing Home/End doesn't work, then pressing Home/End + moving mouse might. I also have never experienced the problem that the orientation changed while I pressed Home/End. I press Home/End precisely to make an orientation change.

Destroying and rebuilding is the way I have been constructing things, but I find it hard to believe that is the way it is supposed to be done.

I suggested selecting pieces from Windows as apparently the game already supports that feature, given bridges.

Quote from: mgb204What do you mean by construction tiles?
Tiles outside of the object used for construction. Starters show them explicitly. Given that tutorials say they should be destroyed (without saying why), they may be responsible for some problems.

Quote from: mgb204Some orientations or combinations are impossible, but it's hard to diagnose without a specific example here, you can't for example place two TE (Transit enabled) lots next to each other. Sometimes there is more than one piece in a single step and the rotation shows different pieces, this is how they can appear to change.
Given that I am mainly trying to follow tutorials, that could only account for a small fraction of the problems.

Quote from: mgb204Usually when an item can't be placed there is some text with an explanation of the problem and the preview (I think that's what you mean by ghost) piece goes red to indicate it can't be placed as currently selected.
What I think is going on is the following. For some reason the computer decides that a piece can't be placed somewhere. It then looks for alternatives to suggest. Then two things can happen :
1) It finds alternatives. So it suggests alternatives and skips the desired solution.
2) It finds no alternatives. It displays the desired solution as a red ghost.
The 'explanations' aren't worthy to be called that.

Quote from: APSMSOne thing to remember is that PPs (those things you're plopping) have very limited slope tolerance. Thus slopes or unsupported alignments will cause the game to try and avoid placing them at all costs, including plopping in the wrong spot, not allowing certain rotations, etc.
If the flexramp problems were due to that puny hill, then that makes it unusable on any realistic terrain that is not flat.

Quote from: APSMSI second what mgb said; the RHW is for after you figure out the NAM basics. For now using the normal highways will work just fine, as they remain fully functional and will allow you to ease yourself into the whole thing.
How will using the normal highways ease me into RHW ? I don't see how I could learn to use RHW, if I don't use it.

I did read some of the documentation. That is however not enough to understand. Having read what a stub is on a page doesn't teach you what a stub is because you already forgot it by the next page. That is why exercises are useful. Unfortunately those I have seen don't explain how to do basic things (like how to perform the actions they ask of you) and assume you already know.

I am apprehensive about replacing puzzle pieces with draggable items. Draggable items defer more decisions to the computer, which computers are notoriously bad at making, as illustrated by the bulldozer in Sim City 4. They are much better at executing decisions. The flexramp seems to be an improvement over the puzzle ramps, but that's probably because the ramp list is too long for the interface.

I have been wondering why professional software (even MS Office) have such a high learning curve compared to games. The reason is I think that games are expected to be extremely user-friendly. For a professional program RHW would be an improvement. For a game, a debacle. That may explain why Maxim didn't introduce it. They probably realised it would require too much work to make it user-friendly. If they had included NAM in its current state, the game would probably have had worse reviews and less sales.

Quote from: Indiane JoeThere should be a few tiles of space around for the puzzle piece to fit properly (much easier to build the puzzle pieces first, then drag the RHW into them)
I have started doing that as a workaround for some problems.

MandelSoft

Quote from: Amoranemix0 on September 03, 2014, 12:40:50 AM
I followed a tutorial (Maarten's Real HighWay Mod Tutorials: Episode 1: Basic Techniques and Tricks) in which among other things he made an S curve, like the one in the middle. He drew the highway and said the curve could be made smoother. He chose I think a lane shift and convinced the computer to have it replace the S curve. I don't know how he did that. I can only make such a lane shift by drawing highway, placing the appropriate lane shift and they continuing with the highway. The computer is willing to place several other (that is non RHW-4) lane shifts though. Why not the correct one ?

Please take note that the video is made in the NAM 30 era, before the whole paradigm-shift from puzzle pieces to dragable items. Quite some stuff is not up to date yet.

Secondly, you can find the RHW smooth curves under the (RHW) "curves" button in the Highway menu. Just TAB through to find the proper ones. Note that lane shifts are only available for these ground level networks:
- MIS
- RHW-2
- RHW-3
- RHW-4
- RHW-6S

Also, I do see quite a few bumps in your terrain there at the interchanges. That is often the cause that some pieces don't want to be places, because they can't conform to the slope properly (they can handle some slope pretty staticly, but it often goes wrong when getting near other pieces with static slopes).

Best,
Maarten
Lurk mode: ACTIVE

Amoranemix0

Quote from: MandelsoftPlease take note that the video is made in the NAM 30 era, before the whole paradigm-shift from puzzle pieces to dragable items. Quite some stuff is not up to date yet.
If I understand you correctly, in NAM 30 RHW had the functionality to replace manual lane shifts with several smooth lane shifts, including the correct one. The feature to replace with the correct smooth lane shift was however accidentaly removed. So a bug was introduced. Is that a known bug or should it be reported ?

So the procedure to place the correct piece at the correct place with the correct orientation requires the following preparations :
1) Make sure the area is flat.
2) Make sure there is ample space around the piece.
Such requirements should be explained in manuals and tutorials because they do not apply to real world construction and are therefore unintuitive. The second requirement is also impossible to always meet.

joshua43214

First, I would like to mention that Real Highway is not all that the NAM is.
NAM includes far more than RHW, and probably the most important aspect (and why it should be installed) is the traffic controller. In a word, the Maxis traffic controller sucks. Even if you chose not to use RHW, you should keep NAM installed just for the traffic controller.
You also get things like diagonal streets, ground level light rail, elevated heavy rail, the list goes on.

Having played this game since right after it's initial release, I feel your pain about RHW. I have been using it since it was the original rural highway project. It can be massively frustrating to use at times, and I have uninstalled it countless times from frustration. All that said, it is a huge improvement over the original game, and the work that has gone into it (all unpaid) is probably more that any other game. I am not aware of any other game that has a set of mods that amount to a basically entire new expansion including new feature. I would kindly suggest that you be a bit extra polite in asking for help, the NAM team has gone to extraordinary lengths to make the NAM more user friendly. You are probably correct in your assessment that the game would have done poorly if it had been released and been difficult to play, but the NAM team works with what they are given and they have done an amazing job. They do not need your criticisms of their hard work being too difficult for you to use - they are already quite aware of it, and will (and have) go out their way to be helpful.

To your problems.
Virtually all the RHW tutorials out there are obsolete. So things like "destroy the construction lot" are no longer relevant because some hard working volunteer took the extra time to make your life easier.
Learning to use the RHW can be frustrating, and the initial learning curve is a bit steep, but easier than the curve for Excel.
Your concern about dragable stuff being inferior to plopables is actually misplaced. As and example, when you drag out an MIS exit ramp from a RHW4, you get the exact same item that you would plop. The computer is not making a decision for you, your drag pattern tells the computer precisely what you want, and that is precisely what you get.
as an example:
lay down a RHW4
drag out a 1 tile stub of real highway (the RHW2 that is the default). This will look like the stub in your 3rd pic.
now, drag 3 tiles of RHW from the stub parallel to the RHW4, Presto, a parallel MIS ramp appears. This is the exact same ramp you would plop.
Alternately, from the stub, drag RHW 3 tiles parallel and 1 tile out. Presto a 45 degree MIS ramp appears.
The computer did not make any decisions, you told the computer what to make.

From your pictures, pretty much all of your problems are caused by the terrain not being flat enough. Most of RHW will tolerate some slope, but some stuff like fractional angle pieces tolerate very little. They might make some improvements to this, but I suspect this is the best balance we will see. When you go to build a ramp, plop single street tiles where the ramp will plop (use road tiles if you are using Enneddi's (sp?) slope mod) to flatten the terrain. Some parts of the ramp "overhang" adjacent tiles, so you will often have to flatten tiles that the ramp does not visually appear on.

Once you get proficient with RHW, you will automatically see where you will have to flatten terrain.
Keep in mind also, that making a complicated RHW interchange is time consuming even for experienced users. I can make a simple crossing intersection with embankments in less than 5 minutes.
This eyesore took about 4 hours and I am still not quite happy with it


I would suggest two things;
create a new fresh region for practice. Pretty much all of us have sandbox regions we use for testing mod combinations and the like. I often build a rough version of an interchange in a sandbox region before I attempt it in a established city tile.
Watch this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTdbYMwo58w
You will probably learn more about NAM from this one video than all out comment combined.
The series is worth watching in general. He spends the first 12 or so episodes doing nothing but creating interchanges, before he starts zoning and running the simulator. You will see even an experienced member of the NAM team have all the issues you are having, and see how he solves them. It might run a bit long, but it is good stuff to go with your morning coffee.

mgb204

I will just quickly add that your expectations are for a professional product, but last I checked you have to pay for those. Office is not difficult, although the advanced part of the programs are, but that's kinda the definition of advanced, no? Think of RHW in much the same way, it's for advanced users, I moved back to MHW myself for a region or two because I was also suffering the sort of problems you seem to be having at first. The simple reality was that until I was more familiar with the entire game, I was not able to understand some of the concepts I was reading about.

Many of the NAM features use starters, puzzle pieces and techniques that can help you to understand the RHW better. There are many limitations you will have to learn and accept if you ever want to get the best out of it, but it also requires much learning from you as a user. Many people will gladly give their time to try and help you when you get stuck, but I do think your expectations are a little high and your posts (whilst probably borne of frustration) do come across as rude. This is one of those times where you have to live with it or wait for things to improve (every new NAM version gets better and better) or simply accept it's not for you. I certainly stand by my suggestion to get familiar with MHW first, then move to Project Symphony and finally RHW (note either option can be used with RHW installed too) yes it's not exactly the same, but it will give you an understanding of the principles of how these things work, whilst being simpler to master.

As for the menu items like bridges, why do you assume that just because bridges show a nice set of pictures, this can be adapted to other items? For example the Tab-Ring functionality can not be used for non-transport items, it's just a limitation that has to be worked within, it wouldn't surprise me if what you want was impossible, but hey that's what the preview pieces are for, so it's not like you are going in blind.

HalJackey''s videos were instrumental in cementing my understanding of the NAM, I watched every episode without skipping and while time-consuming I would not be where I am now without them. All the solutions are out there to be found if you take the time, but moaning that it's hard will only cause your opportunities to have questions answered to dry up pretty quickly. I truly wish you the best of luck with your problems, the more people keeping SC4 alive the better, but modding SC4 is not for the faint of heart, just keeping your plugins organised is more work than many casual players can bear, but if you really want to play, you have to learn to accept it.

jdenm8

Also, we can't use the Bridge window. The code that creates that window is inherently part of the process for building a bridge. As the NAM doesn't contain any custom programming (We add some adjacency rules that tells the game to do things in certain situations but nothing beyond that) we can't use that window.

If you really want a window-based menu system, the closest you're going to come to it is using the DAMN and the DAMN-NAM Add-on.


"We're making SimCity, not some dopey casual game." -Ocean Quigley

MandelSoft

What you also need to remember is that quite a lot of the NAM functionality goes way beyond the functionality of the original game. Almost all override networks are made with the so called "starter-based network" technique, which in itself is a workaround/exploit to create new networks, something the original game was not designed for. We even surprise ourselves with what are capable of with this more than a decade old game engine. If you would told us five year ago that we would be able to break the grid with a dragable network, we would've laughed at you. And look where we are now...

So, that's the reason why quite some things are not that user friendly; because the game was not ever designed for those functions anyway.
Lurk mode: ACTIVE

Amoranemix0

Thank you for your replies. I have stopped 'playing' Sim City 4 and hence I didn't reply. I think the following would be useful.

– Don't recommend RHW to beginners or at least warn that it is very user-unfriendly. If I had known that I may not have bothered with it or approached learning it differently and I wouldn't have complained about it this much. If someone nonetheless recommends RHW to beginners, those who know better could be so kind to place that recommendation in perspective.

– Emphasise the importance of flat terrain in tutorials and manuals. That should reduce the expectations beginners have of RHW. Also explain how to identify and solve terrain problems.

– This may be too difficult to implement. Let the computer give users feedback as to why something doesn't work. A beginner is not interested in the computer's 'advice' about what piece should be placed where. He is interested in why he can't place the piece he wants to. I can see a few ways to do that, but they are probably technically challenging : an undo feature (allowing the user to make mistakes and learn from them) and a 'debug' mode (where instead of giving advice the computer shows the 'ghost' in red with information as to why it can't be placed). If that is too difficult, it is I think still useful to consider improving upon somehow. An important learning tool for humans is to make mistakes and get feedback about them. RHW notoriously lacks that feature : there are still problems I mentioned in this thread where I assume I made a mistake and I still don't know what I did wrong.

– A small problem that I expect technicians to be already aware of (and one reason I would have preferred a window menu as for bridges) : the 'ghost' is sometimes difficult to identify due to it being semitransparent and due to graphic glitches.

Rady

Well, just a reply from an non-NAM-RHW-team member but just a user of this wonderful mod .... using those addons just needs time to be spent on an "sandbox" part of your map. Try out all the different puzzle pieces, plop them and discover over how much tiles they do expnd once plopped. You eill see that there's a difference between the puzzle piece prewiew and the actual piece once its plopped. This will explain many of your plopping issues (e.g. the fact that apiece won't let it be ploped in certain constellations).

You will see that after experimenting for some time (aka learning how to use the mod) you will be able to build anything you might imagine.
If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It's much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.

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