Tutorial: Diagonal, neighbor connecting, intersecting bridges

[daeley]

IMPORTANT: You need NAM version 29 or higher, or some of the tricks below won't work.

some of you probably recognize the following scenario:



A large portion of water is blocking the edges of your city. Since SC4 doesn't allow you to drag a bridge we'll have to find another way to connect over water. Fortunately, with a few tricks, this is possible! Not just neighbor connections, but also diagonals and intersections!

Step 1: Download the file attached to this post and unzip it, but do NOT put the files in your plugins.

Step 2: The picture above. When you are sure your land topology is how you want it, save and exit the game. It will be slightly harder to do some landscaping later on.

Step 3: Put the file "zero sealevel.dat" into your plugins. This will remove the seawater so we can draw our network where there should have been water. Then, for each network you want to tackle, put the "xxx zeroslope.dat" into your plugins. They may conflict with other plugins (like slope mods) so make sure they load last by putting them in a folder starting with some z's, for example Plugins/zzz_temp.
When you enter the game again, the city looks like this:



When we try to draw a network now, the game will keep it entirely flat instead of letting it follow the terrain.



For small heights the game will build retaining walls, for bigger heights, the game will build pylons.



To create a neighbor connection, first draw the network all the way to the edge...



... then draw again to the edge and you'll be offered the opportunity to create a neighbor connection.



You can also draw diagonals and some intersections.



Step 4: When you are happy with the results, Save & Exit and remove all the temporary files again from your plugins. When you return to the game, the water will be back and roads will behave normally again.

the final results:





Q: Can ferries cross under these bridges?
A: Yes, these bridges do not seem to influence ferries (or other boats for that matter).

Q: Can two (or more) of these bridges cross at a different height?
A: No, that's not possible. It is also not possible to draw networks under these bridges at ground level.

Q: Does this only work for road and rail?
A: For now, the NAM includes the necessary files for street, road, rail and one-way road. Theoretically this is possible for any one-tile network (including SAM, RHW and NWM networks). For this to work however, we have to define the pylons for each supported network tile and as you can imagine, this takes a bit of work. Even for street, road, rail and OWR not all pieces (specifically some special ones) are supported simply because there are so many.

Q: Any one-tile network? So not for Avenue and Maxis Highway?
A: Nope, not possible I'm afraid.

Q: Those bridges look kind of ugly. Anything we can do about that?
A: Not much right now. You could plop cosmetic puzzle pieces on top of them, but those don't exist yet...

Q: Can we plop puzzle piece on to of them? GLR, etc?
A: Yes, but that will look a bit weird because they won't have supports. We might release some puzzle pieces exactly for this purpose in the future though...

[TheTeaCat]

 

Amazing, simply amazing. 



TTC

[CasperVg]

Love it, daeley! Awesome work here 

[metarvo]

Could it be that diagonal bridges are within reach?  There are even neighbor connections, which I like very much.  Good work, Daeley! 

EDIT: I'm having a problem, though.  This isn't working for me.  I followed the instructions exactly, but the water remains and the roads/rails don't act any differently.  So, there's no effect.  Are there any good reasons why this would happen?  Are there any plugins that might conflict and prevent this from working?

[daeley]

ah, there are in fact some mods that might conflict, like slope mods. I didn't think about that (as you can see in the screenshots, I did it with an otherwise empty plugins folder).

could you try putting it in a folder starting with some z's so they load last? Something like Plugins/zzz_temp. If that works, I'll add it to the tutorial.

[metarvo]

Thanks, Daeley!  The zzz idea worked perfectly.

[travismking]

amazing, over 7 years later and we are still finding new ways to improve the game

[mattb325]

Excellent discovery daeley. Thankyou

[RebaLynnTS]

Who needs SimCity 5? When tricks like this are discovered, it's like getting a whole new game.

[Shiftred]

I used the zero slope mod to make a quick and dirty viaduct for a sunken highway:

[Ciuu96]

Wow, this is great discovery! A while back custom-network bridges and tunnels were not possible but now we got this and the FLUPs to make UDI-able custom bridges and tunnels! We just need few cosmetic pieces and this will be perfect!

[metarvo]

This has dealt a blow to two grids: the usual grid that always gets beaten up, as well as the city quads grid in Region View.  The latter has been smashed because neighbor connections can be made over water now. 


Not only can bridges over water be built this way, but bridges over land are possible with this method as well.  In fact, RCI development is supported by bridges built with this method.  How do these Sims get their cars up there to go to work?  Are flying cars finally becoming a reality?  I guess this means that the pedestrians have jetpacks, too.    Of course, this might be slightly unrealistic, so "bridgefront" RCI buildings probably wouldn't be used much in serious cities.

[xtra cash]

Very cool. It makes the game more realistic! I wonder how much this game will change in 5 years.

[daeley]

@metarvo: interesting... remove the pylons and the road texture, and you get flying cars :p

[jondor]

I think this begs the question, what happens if you build a bridge with this method, create some zones and then restore the water level?..

[daeley]

underwater zones

[figui]

interesting, i'll give it a try!

mauricio.

[Haljackey]

Very, very, very cool. I haven't been able to draw roads or rail on water since Simcity for the SNES. This will be very useful for not just neighbour connections, but as bridges or bypasses.

[joshriddle577]

Whoa this is very cool!

[editfish]

  As expected from Daeley!  Well done!