Three Rivers Region

[CCFC]

Have you guys ever thought of remaking the Arcalogies that existed in SimCity 2000? I never got to experience it.

Here's how it would work:
(Can you put a limit on the item to require x people to build them?) Limit: 120k (Higher could be better)
Launch when you have a few hundred
Have them hold lots of people (Not sure about that)
Once launched, it makes room for more development
..and anything else, since I bet I'm forgetting something..

Does anyone like this? Could someone do this? Does it even exist in some form for SC4

EDIT: I'm post #8500 - I'm a double-00 member again! 8500 posts at the 3RR!

[Albus of Garaway]

Awesome, David! I'm going to test them out first thing tomorrow morning, and I'll be back if I run into any problems.

[dragonshardz]

NOTICE: nerdly_dood, ldvger, and CCFC, you have been added to the 3RR Honors List as posts #8300, #8400, and #8500, respectively.

CCFC, arcologies have been wanted by people who have played SC2K for some time now, however, they are not feasible due to game constraints that I don't entirely understand.

[CCFC]

NOTICE: nerdly_dood, ldvger, and CCFC, you have been added to the 3RR Honors List as posts #8300, #8400, and #8500, respectively.

CCFC, arcologies have been wanted by people who have played SC2K for some time now, however, they are not feasible due to game constraints that I don't entirely understand.

Oh, is it possible to make a building that allows a high population of people in it and can that be one, then? The other fancy effects aren't really needed, but I'd love to know the contraints. So, hm..

[metasmurf]

Ah, euro textures   Thanks!

[riiga]

Awesome textures David!    I'm absolutely stunned.

I've tried them out, and the difference they make is fantastic!

Pictures:
(click for full resolution)

Before:


After:





Oh, and I discovered some errors with the edges not aligning up properly. Picture below:


Keep up the good work with the textures! 

- riiga

[art128]

I'll test them now, thanks David for your hard on the new texture  !

[carkid1998]

Very nice! However, they aren't displaying! I've made a folder in the my documents plugins called zzz-roadtextures , and put the file in that!

Why won't they work?

1 very confused Ryan

[riiga]

Very nice! However, they aren't displaying! I've made a folder in the my documents plugins called zzz-roadtextures , and put the file in that!

Why won't they work?

1 very confused Ryan

First they didn't work for me neither. However, when I removed all other road texture mods, and put the file in z_Euro Road Textures Mod with the name "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz_Road_Retextures_Euro_090803_01.dat", it worked. I used all these z's just to be sure

Hope it helps!

- riiga

[Andreas]

Loading after the file "zzz2_Euro_Textures.dat" from the ERTM should be enough.

[jp]

I tried the new textures and I think they are amazing! thank you David but I noticed this:

[dedgren]

Here's a blast from the past.  One year ago today, to be specific.  As the use of the FAR and full set of wide curves has become more or less ubiquitous, it's increasingly hard to remember that they hadn't been generally released in August, '08.

A sort of slow day today- I never had time to do anything that required any degree of concentration, so I doodled with the wide road curves and FAR.

About a year ago, our friend Phil (pvarcoe) built a beautiful road up to a mountain pass in his great MD "Terraforming Teton" [linkie].  I decided to see, using the wide curves and the FAR, to see what a road pushed up a mountainside at about the maximum grade my tunnel and slope mod would allow: about 8%, would look like.  Once again, I didn't spend any time terraforming (I used one of the quads from the Maxis "Timbuktu") region) or planting anything pretty.  I just laid pavement.

Here's the overall area.



I don't turn on the "Contour line" tool (press [ Ctrl] [ Shift ] and [ C ]) often enough...



...the little yellow lines aren't real useful...



...but they sure are pretty.

The "Terrainquery" tool is way more helpful.  I brought up the cheat box game parameter adjustment input window ([ Ctrl ] and [ X ]) and typed terrainquery, then selected the query tool and checked out the road surface in the tunnel at the top of the pass.



581 meters/1906 feet.

Then I checked out the lowest point I could find on the roadway at the base of the grade.



285 meters/935 feet.  So, our road to the top of the pass climbs 296 meters/970 feet.  I estimate the distance at just about four kilometers, or 2.5 miles- just under 8%.  Here's another view.



I threw in a random mix of wide and FAR curves- whatever seems to best match the terrain at hand.  Here's a few close-ups on the way up.  Note that I've done each as a pair- first with the grid on so you can get a good sense of how rough the terrain is, then off, so you can see how the curves look au naturel.

Here's the area around the first hairpin curve on the cliff over the lake...





...and the curve itself.





I think the new 2x2 wide curve is really effective in this combination.  Another view of the curve, rotated 90 degrees.





We continue up the grade toward the switchbacks.





Here's the first switchback curve.  Note that one of the glitches in the 2x2 alpha is that we can't place them directly next to each other yet.  Alex (Tarkus) assures me that we can fix that.





The second switchback curve.





A side view of the switchback area.  For those of you wondering if the wide curves and FAR are slope conforming, these should answer your question.





On up toward the pass.





And we wind our way and arrive at the tunnel.





And there you are.  I think the current upgrade will be a good addition to the game, if I do say so myself.

Later.


David

109424

This post is also noteworthy in another respect.  As I've noted previously, this month, presuming current levels of interest, will be the 12^th month running that you will have given 3RR more than 20,000 page views.  It popped into my head the other day that, while we had celebrated in mid-March of this year 3RR's quarter-millionth view in its then just over two years at SC4D, 20K views a month for a year is almost a quarter-million in and of itself.  I made a mental note to check that at the end of this month and moved on to other stuff.

Then the figure at the bottom of the above post caught my eye.  Taking our current page views, about 366,000, and subtracting 109,424, the views as of a year ago, gives us 256,600, more or less.  So, my friends- thanks so much for checking in a quarter-million times this past year.  Thanks, too, for all the great comments during that time- over 4,000 of them.


David

366363

[sithlrd98]

It is amazing how FAR this project has come. Its hard to believe that it was just last Aug. when you unleashed the ultimate grid-killing pieces...where has time gone?

Jayson

[JoeST]

It is amazing how FAR this project has come. Its hard to believe that it was just last Aug. when you unleashed the ultimate grid-killing pieces...where has time gone?

Jayson

Your pun tickled my funny bone

and man! A year time flies when your watching 3RR

Joe

[projectadam]

WOW, 256,600!!! If only I could get that kind of traffic generated at my ecommerce site

It has, still, and will continue to be a fantastic ride David, keep up the great work and the constant removal of game barriers you have torn down.

[allan_kuan1992]

There are still a few quirks even with the almost-load-last-treatment (the modified cul-de-sacs are the only things being loaded after this mod).

I'll take pics of my situation shortly.

PICTURE EDIT: Attached is the picture showing where the problem exists. Apparently if I try plopping anything beside these roads the old textures will show.

- Allan Kuan

[sithlrd98]

Just to let all of you know...these are not wealth textured , meaning as soon as you place anything next to the roads , they will try and revert. Sidewalk mods and Swampers  sidewalk texture mod / uni density mod ,  is not compatible yet.  As Andreas said , either place zzz2 in front of them if you use the Euro Textures mod , or simply try them with an empty plugins , devoid of the NAM to fully see what they look like now. That is the easiest/best way to test these ATM.

Just my .02...back to killing grass , almost done!

Jayson

[girlfromverona]

Yikes! That's a whole year ago? Where on earth did the time go??!!

Congrats on the page view count, David. It's your hard work that is making 3RR the place to be. 

Just to let all of you know...these are not wealth textured , meaning as soon as you place anything next to the roads , they will try and revert.

Hmmm... that's really weird. I could've sworn that when I placed zones next to the roads, the new textures remained. I'll have to have another look...

[art128]

Congrats David for the page view count ! And thanks again for your hard work you put in the 3RR ! Also, wow, a year ago, I remember when the first shot appeared, I was saying, It's not possible ! !
And, here's for the test of the new euro textures :








-Arthur. 

[Lmac]

Hi Dave, long time no post from my corner haha.

as soon as i saw that winding mountain road, i wanted to drive it . it'd be so much fun to do a 'race to the clouds' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikes_Peak_International_Hill_Climb) style rally on
However most mountain passes that I've seen and driven on here in Australia have very extensive guardrails in place to prevent people from tumbling hundreds of meters to their death, and I can only assume it's very similar in other countries.
I'd love to see a set of guardrails that could be used in the situation you've created; would I be wrong in assuming that somebody has already given it a shot?

I've thought about the practicalities of this in-game though and it probably is a bit infeasible considering that any set of guardrails would have to be very expansive, with enough pieces to cover any situation that is likely to be created by the use of the FAR etc. Another problem would be whether to have them as simple ploppables or to lot them onto gridsquares, the first option requiring a surgeon's hand to place them accurately and the second requiring extra space that probably isnt available on twisting, steep mountain passes and cliff edges. My intuition says to chuck this idea in the too-hard basket, but then again, time and time again it's been shown that lot of the guys and gals in this community don't know the definition of 'too-hard basket'.

Lach