Siilijoki

[vortext]

Belated congrats on OSITM, Noah! 

And fantastic, intricate transit work as per usual. Though the RRW curves definitely make for a whole new level of realism. Can't wait to see how it's going to develop! 

[art128]

The railway approach of the stations is seriously well done.

[Themistokles]

Wonderful! I know no other word to describe it. the station approach in particular.

[Dantes]

I'm curious if the city is built. I can not imagine so close two large central stations next to each other. I'm curious to see more!

[reddonquixote]

I've been staring at these for ages, amazing amount of work Noah  . A lot of planning is going into this.

I don't see any issue with two large train stations being as close as these - even just thinking about Melbourne, Flinders Street Station (in fact one of the BATs being used  ) and Southern Cross Station are both enormous stations and probably about as close as these two are. Equidistant from both of these is Melbourne Central, while underground is actually an enormous transport hub as well. In a large city as this one is shaping up to be, its quite realistic I'd think.

[kelis]

I can't wait to see that port completely done. I like so much that map 

[noahclem]

Tram Planning

My recent building in Avalonia (did I forget to mention that's what I'm calling the new region?) has focused on planning the traffic grid and in particular tram networks. I've never actually tried to map out thoughtful tram routes and it seems fairly important to building a realistic and coherent tram network. The only tram network I'm at all familiar with, besides basic ones like in Minneapolis, is Helsinki, so I've been going over maps of the network and a large planning document (over 100 pages in Finnish but has a nice map of planned future extensions on page 12, a graph of average speeds per line on page 14 which vary between 12.6-16km/h, and some illustrated design principles on pages 18-22). The design principles discuss the advantages ofa  larger number of low-frequency lines or a smaller number of higher frequency lines, the trade offs between a smaller (simpler) number of lines requiring more frequent switching or a larger number of direct-to-destination lines that are more complicated to navigate, and taking into account the disruption caused by potential future roadworks/disruptions into line design, and more.

My plan is in its very early stages, especially as so much of the lines and their surroundings have yet to be constructed. I have to start somewhere though 


Freight Rail Planning

I did decide what to do with the freight rail between the port areas lying closer to the river mouth and parts further east. Bridges or tunnels downriver from the center, which would provide the most direct route, would require very long approaches and be hugely expensive. The bridges in the center have clearances at around 35m, even less if SC4's height distortion is taken into account, and it seems like most bridges designed for all or almost all sea traffic to pass beneath them have clearances around 60m or at the least 50m. I think freight rail should have a more gradual slope than passenger rail so we'd be talking long approaches indeed. The center tile is already pretty full of rail networks and their associated bridges and other structures and while I prefer that what should be a pretty significant freight rail link not run on an overly circuitous route to get to the other side of the river both realistic design and SC4 functionality suggest that staying outside the center tile is a good idea. Since the right bank (city-center side) is planned for ferry and cruise ship berthing down river and marinas above the last bridge (closer to the center) I don't think I'll need any freight rail at all for the right bank. On the left bank freight rails will provide a connection between the lower port on that side of the river and places further upriver, as well as servicing what's left of the ports above the last bridge. What type of goods should service the ports affected by the 35m clearance? I was thinking tankers or bulk ships could get under when fully loaded but wouldn't be able to leave unless they picked up a similarly heavy commodity first

Bridge Plans

I've been wanting to construct an additional bridge connection further upriver on the branch headed west (left in the following pictures). The area around the existing rail bridge is roughly where I wanted it and has the advantage suitable river banks. I would love to place it directly next to the rail bridge and use the same style bridge but can't think of any way to accomplish that. I'm now toying with the idea of a 1-tile space between the two bridges using the same style bridge. Supposed advantages would be the aforementioned river banks, pylons spaced identically to ease ship traffic passing under, and maybe recycling the same bridge design to save money on architects and engineers. What do you think?











I still need to finish RRW-fying the bridges surface 

Thanks so much for all the feedback!

[eclipticalstorm]

Looks awesome! One question, How did you get the avenue to travel under that bridge?

[feyss]

Great work so far. I love what you did with the RRW. I also like how you used the Melbourne station with tunnels going under the station.

I would love to place it directly next to the rail bridge and use the same style bridge but can't think of any way to accomplish that.

I wanted to do that a lot of time too but I read somewhere it was hardcoded, so impossible to do, even with a mod. But that looks great like this anyway.

There is maybe one thing I find strange (but this is for the same reason): I don't find really realistic that you have only two tracks that leed to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof on one side. I could understand it's again difficult with the river.

Anyway, good work. Can't wait to see more 

[Gugu3]

Great work again!I love how you meticulously plan everything...Like the same style bridges next to each other...

[manga rivotra]

The trams plan and the transportation network of Avalon is very impressive, seems very thoughtful and allows already to realize that this city will be a great metropolis.
I will follow it with great interest. 

[seraf]

This looks...complicated  But impressive nonetheless 

[kelis]

This looks...complicated  But impressive nonetheless 

I'm agree 

[Swordmaster]

click

You still got it, eh? 


Cheers
Willy

[noahclem]

Wow, more dust than usual to blow off here

First, thanks so much for all the nice comments! While my MD has been inactive my city-building has not, and a number of new and exciting things have created since November. Most of the earlier work was around the core of the city center, developing an older-looking area with more pedestrian areas and smaller streets. I did quite a bit of lotting, pimx-ing, and model tweaking and the area has a lot of potential. After a while I got fairy exhausted with the process and moved on to regional rail and highway building, as well as a shiny new (big) airport.

Full resolutions of the images can be seen by clicking on them.

Let's start then with some of the city center work. Here's a relatively recent shot of the area around the midieval harbor which is now a marina:


I'm trying to incorporate as much HD stuff as possible, which includes a number of namspopof buildings I've lotted (seen here between the harbor and the castle) and roundabouts from him that as far as I know have never been used (one visible here but with funny coloration around the base that might be due to z-fighting). I've also model tweaked xannepan's Paris market to make it HD and half-sized, which should look great when i get the area around it all sorted out. I also model-tweaked those old stone walls into 50%/HD form which can be seen around the beautiful HD civic building. Xannepan's Paris buildings should feature prominently in the area, especially if I succeed in rendering HD versions of them--I also need to PIMX many into eye candy lots to work around some of the limits of pedestrian areas and relatively low commercial demand.

A current overview of the center area:


I'm pretty happy with how the walls turned out:


Here's a couple of the roundabouts:




The harbor area with the old keep on the peninsula is a favorite area for me




And one of Xannepan's buildings rendered in HD for those who may have missed it in my "bat thread"


A map might help put the highway mark in context:


whole region:


Here's the tile where highways 3 and 99 (the beltway) intersect:


Detail of the interchange:


During the process of building that one I came up with a way to eliminate "wrinkles" in the hilly approaches to the interchange caused by stubs on ramp and width transition pieces by using the disconnector piece


Further east along highway 3, though actually a tile to the south now:


This interchange provides access from the east to areas south of the previous interchange, which lacks connections between east and south


The next tile to the east is the airport tile, St David's


The connections between the motorway and the airport should look great when finished but I'm unable to use flex fly at the moment since it's not included in my current dev build


Detail of part of the international area of the airport--yes, those 2.7-3.3km long runways can handle A380s   The lots using basic plaza textures need to be relotted as the stones are a bit out of place at an airport...


The airport has three runways, though I'd originally planned on one or two. After placing the second runway far enough from the first that it can operate simultaneously with the first even during low visibility there was so much room between the two that a third runway just seemed to make sense. As a result the layout is extremely similar to a RL one--anyone know which one?

Finally, here's an overview of the next tile east along the highway:


Hope you enjoyed the update!

[vortext]

Honestly I think my stone pavement makes pretty snazzy airport runway! 

City center is shaping up really nice and as per usual great work with the interchanges. 

Also really looking forward to HD JENX Paris buildings! 

[kbieniu7]

Heh, quite a lot of making a "core" of the developement! Gathering stuff and textures and lotting and tweaking models sound like a lot of work. I look forward to see more of the city centre, because I'm curious how your slope work will look like

And indeed, the peninsula with the tower it's a really good spot!

[feyss]

Impressive developments here  I especially like the harbour. The use of this circular building on the harbour's corner is a great idea. Great work on the infrastructures too 

[Seaman]

I found myself studying the motorway connection of the airport for quite a long time. The Layout is very promising and you had some clever ideas... I like the way you presumably connect the airport by a decent number of railtracks and your ingenious way of leading them in and out. Quite inspiring!

[c.p.]

Transportation infrastructure isn't usually the part of the game I get most excited about, but this update makes me want to open the game and start building transportation infrastructure   As Seaman said, quite inspiring