SC4 Encyclopaedia

[krbe]

This thread was previously known as: "(Urban) Planning reference - collected tutorials?"

I think we can agree that there are some truly amazing MD's floating around, both in terms of the results achived with both good cities and a good story (like Sepsi's Rodina (not mirrored on SC4D?)), and what can be learned from creative playing and key pressing, like David's Three Rivers Region -- congratulation with the anniversary, well celebrated on my part on a large airport covered in fog for six-seven hours! How time is found to family, job and SimCity is unbelivable, especially after the Swiss told me a few words about banking.

The same is true for the tutorials -- much time can be saved by 10 minutes of reading. What I do miss though, is a thorough reference sheet, similar to them you can use when you need to sharpen up your knowledge, wether it be physiology or economics. Something like a collection of several tutorials, divided into different topics but in a larger context, seen as solutions to common urban problems.

This could be how to solve inner-city traffic jams with a sunken highway in dense areas, or a "Big-Dig" project like one have in Boston; or how to create a realistic/believable airport with right markings, ample space; or how, where and when to plan a military base; how to zone for different areas; infrastructure choices; etc. This would also be of help if you want to build in different building styles -- compare America's Las Vegas with Germany's Berlin; just by looking at the map you can notice the huge difference in how these cities are built.

I wouldn't hesitate to make such a reference, if there is interest in it, but that would mean I need help from you, both in planning in what to include/exclude, help with technicalities (conversion tables etc.) and permission to use content (like pictures, tutorials and exercepts).

If anyone would be interested, there is plenty of time in the Yuletide to get som worke done

MOD EDIT:Changed title, discussion has moved onto the SC4 Encyclopaedia now. - Fred

[Ennedi]

I wouldn't hesitate to make such a reference, if there is interest in it, but that would mean I need help from you, both in planning in what to include/exclude, help with technicalities (conversion tables etc.) and permission to use content (like pictures, tutorials and exercepts).

Yes, there is an interest in it 
Your proposition is very kind and interesting.
Do you have any more detailed idea how should look such reference? If yes, you could explain it, even if it is general and incomplete.
Some of us are thinking about an SC4 Encyclopaedia  , it's an idea of Dustin (thundercrack83). This idea is on the very early stage of development, but we think about it.
There are at least two problems with it:
1. The sc4 knowledge has a complicated structure, it would be very difficult to divide it into categories
2. This knowledge was never structured in any way. Because of it there is a lot of information redundance in all SC4 sites - people ask for the same things many times.
If you have any ideas/questions/propositions, please send them here  . Maybe we will find a starting point?

[Shadow Assassin]

A Wiki would be very useful, because it's easy to edit and provides a great repository of information.

ST has the Omnibus, which is the closest thing to what you're proposing, but it's not open, like a Wiki is.

[krbe]

[...]
1. The sc4 knowledge has a complicated structure, it would be very difficult to divide it into categories
2. This knowledge was never structured in any way. Because of it there is a lot of information redundance in all SC4 sites - people ask for the same things many times.
If you have any ideas/questions/propositions, please send them here  . Maybe we will find a starting point?

Exactly the problem. Since so many are doing so much, it's hard to get an overview, and the soultions may also be hard to incorporate into existing developments, as we're really dependent on were we live (it's always interesting to see how different answers may be depending on origination in Europe or the US). And because this game now is almost exclusively community supported, much information are withering away in old threads -- even though it may be just as important today.

The encyclopædic/wiki approach to the problem solves some of dating issues forums have, but if we're going for that, we must decide on wether we want many entries to deal with specific problems (example "train stations in local neighbourhoods") or fewer which covers systems in more detail (example "viable suburban train networks").

More on this later -- last Christmas shopping to do!

[DFire870]

A wiki would work very well for something like this... As an example, in another forum I'm a member on, we're a region in the online game NationStates. We created a wiki to compile information about the various nations, since we can create pages for our fictional nations, corporations, characters, and whatnot. So far, it's worked very well, so a wiki for city planning and such in SC4 would work great.

The difference in terminology and other things between different countries could be solved by either having those as categories on the page (like they have on Wikipedia).

-- John

[Ennedi]

That's good such thread was sterted.

SA, good to know your opinion, it makes me more sure of myself in my thoughts.

krbe: Thank you, I will wait for your next ideas.

The encyclopædic/wiki approach to the problem solves some of dating issues forums have, but if we're going for that, we must decide on wether we want many entries to deal with specific problems (example "train stations in local neighbourhoods") or fewer which covers systems in more detail (example "viable suburban train networks").

Fewer entries, better covering of the whole field. More detailed entries in some crucial points of interest.
An important feature of th Wiki is it doesn't need to consist a complete information from the beginning. It's open formula enables adding information as many times as we need.
As a company owner and managing director (it's a small company, so I must make most organization work myself, or at least give well prepared ideas to my workers ) I tried to collect my knowledge many times. No matter which tools you use (spreadsheet, database or others), your main problem is good start point. In past I often made  a mistake trying to make codes and categories for everything, and the system was more and more complicated, unfriendly and unuseful. The Wiki formula is a lot more flexible.

Please send here more opinions (if you are interested in it ). If we will achieve only a partial success with it, a lot of people will save a lot of time.

When I will know more about your thoughts, I will ask other moderators what they think about it.

[BigSlark]

I think its a great idea.

While not the most knowledgeable of SC4D members, I'm pretty good at editing as I'm the proud holder of a B.A. in English Literature.

I have never looked up Wiki templates, however, since they exist all over the web now they must be pretty easy to start, right?

Basically, we need to find ALL of the tutorials that exist and figure out to classify them. From there, we need to get the pages built and functioning on a private basis for testing, then we need to figure out a way to host it.

I'm not sure who Jeroni uses to host SC4D, but if he went with an American host they typically scale disk space and bandwidth the longer you have a site active, therefore there could be the resources to host it here.

It seems that www.sc4wiki.org is available if push comes to shove and we have to find our own hosting.

I'm really excited by this prospect, it will allow the collected knowledge to be very easily shared and accessed.

What do you all think?

Cheers,
Kevin

[jeronij]

Mmmm....  .... I always wanted SC4D to be the SC4 encyclopedia     

Seriously, I think this is a really good idea, and I totally support it, but there are two basic things that we must organize before we install a single bit of code.

a) As Ennedi mentioned, the structure of the information must be defined right from the beginning

b) The maintenance team must be set prior anything and without hierachy. I can take the technical role of setting up the software and maintain it but this would be all the difference between the team members

I dont mean I want to set any rules or take any sort of command. I just want to share with you my experience with teams in this life 




The site is hosted in Houston, and the host has proven to be very reliable and almost never failed. We have still some room to accommodate a SC4 wiki and it would be a honour to do that. I really hope to see this idea mature, and have a really useful source of information for our loved simulator 

[krbe]

Command isn't a dirty word, jeronij -- crevice is, but not command. I believe the encyclopædia should be in form something like The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy...

... DON'T PANIC!

... a "handbook" which helps transfering regional/urban/local planning from the real world down to the SC grid. Although it may seem contrary to our creative instinct, each region needs a Bureau of Bureaucracy (you) to do the dirty work  <- and to jumble the ball(ot)s.

Let's start with what most of us is most familiar with: City level. Since the sizes of the cities vary considrably, I believe there should be some form of separation of the content -- what works in a 300k city doesn't work that well in a 3k town. For the smaller cities, planning for the future might be important -- such as development of wide axis which can be used for avenues on a later stage; how to keep undesirable elements away from the city and the best location of the next residential area. Later on, a bus network might be needed, expansion/construction of a central business district could be necessary or a railway line might be wanted to transport sims from other parts of the region to the city.

THis way, the list can go on and on almost forever: local planning involves schools, health care, small shops and the preservation of nature; regional planning involves the constructions of motorways, important intersections, specialised districts and perhaps a nifty airport; and inbetween there are all sorts of challenges, like building on slopes, crime fighting and water grid issues.

If we start stockpiling our two cents the lot of us, we'll soon be millionaires 

[thundercrack83]

This is exactly the type of idea that I was envisioning with the SC4Devotion Encyclopædia.

As Adam (Ennedi) pointed out, the hardest part is finding where to start. There is a lot of information out there that we'd have to compile and organize before even starting the actual process of turning it into something useful.

I'm definitely on board with helping with this project wherever I can, as Adam and I had been tossing ideas around for this for a little while now. If there's anything I can do, please don't hesitate to ask!

[BigSlark]

I will have a little bit more time after Christmas, I will think about what tutorials already exist and how they should be divided up, and what should be added.

And the site is hosted in Houston, eh? No wonder SC4D is always so bloody fast for me...I'm only 400 miles from there, which is virtually my backyard compared to Spain or South Africa...

Cheers,
Kevin

[dedgren]

Always happy to throw in my 2c.  This sounds like a great project!


David

[BigSlark]

I'm pretty sure you have way more than 2 cents to throw in David...

[JoeST]

I fully support the idea of a SC4 encyclopaedia/wiki/repository, and I would kindly support and develop ideas and things

Joe

[LoneRanger]

Uhm, but isn't SC4D some sort of Encyclopaedia or/and ST?
The thing I like most about SC4 is that you can be creative by trying out things, explore options and create your own style.
Tutorials are shared to give idea's so other can refine or simply use it.
It is not my intention to put this idea down but by not knowing everything the game is so much more an adventure just simple trying and picking up some hints
down the tutorial and/or MD section of this forum.
If I think I build great railroads I start a new topic in the tutorial section and it's free for others to give their input.

Peronaly I think this board has a "wrong" layout. [imho]
First prio should be tutorials and after that game help, md's, teams, oftopic.
Tutorials should have more sub-forums and clearer ones like "economics", "terraforming", "ordinance", "infra-structure" etc.

I don't dislike the idea of a Encyclopaedia but I think we're allready siting on one with a little modification.

Tutorials are for learning, MD's are for inspiration, team-section for admiring and off-topic for relaxation.
But maybe I missed the point. 

[Ennedi]

@krbe, thank you for giving an impulse to start this discussion 

The same is true for the tutorials -- much time can be saved by 10 minutes of reading.

Yes, and this is a main reason that such many people are interested in this idea.

What I do miss though, is a thorough reference sheet, similar to them you can use when you need to sharpen up your knowledge, wether it be physiology or economics. Something like a collection of several tutorials, divided into different topics but in a larger context, seen as solutions to common urban problems.

This could be how to solve inner-city traffic jams with a sunken highway in dense areas, or a "Big-Dig" project like one have in Boston; or how to create a realistic/believable airport with right markings, ample space; or how, where and when to plan a military base; how to zone for different areas; infrastructure choices; etc. This would also be of help if you want to build in different building styles -- compare America's Las Vegas with Germany's Berlin; just by looking at the map you can notice the huge difference in how these cities are built.

Yes, it would be very good to have a list of tutorials diversified in many sites. If such list would be well thought and easy to use, it would save a lot of time for everybody looking for his/her problem solution.
But reading your examples I'd like to say we should think about a larger field:
1. The game has a lot of features and we can modify many of them.
    - The environment: maps and configs, the terrain, water, trees and everything connected with the visual aspect of the game. Also - terraforming and arranging the terrain before we start to build cities and later, during building works.
    - Game objects: BATs and LOTs, how to create them and use them in the game.
    - The simulation (transit, budget, utilities, regional development etc.)
2. What I said in point 1 is a basis. These are our puzzles and our tools. What you said in your examples is a later stage - how to solve specific urban problems, create a city in a specific style and so on.
I would like to add that there is no simple answer how to build a "realistic" airport, busy industrial city or a tourist village. It is a question of the creativity. This is what LoneRanger said - you can look at various MDs and find an inspiration.
But we can formulate many general tips about making an efficient transit networks, industrial districts, proper development of residential areas (growable or ploppable? use CAM or not?) and about avoiding typical mistakes. Such tips also should have a place in our Encyclopaedia, but they leave enough space for creativity.

So, we aren't speaking only about tutorials here. We are speaking about all SC4 knowledge which can be used by player. It would be also good to know about these outstanding MDs, which are especially good source of an inspiration (no matter they are active or not, and where we can find them).
Also, many problems were only discussed in various forums and nobody made any tutorial about them. Links for these forums would be highly useful.

Command isn't a dirty word, jeronij -- crevice is, but not command. I believe the encyclopædia should be in form something like The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy...

... DON'T PANIC!

Great idea!  But if you are Douglas Adams' fan, you probably know what information was in the Hitchhikers Guide about the Earth: only two words - "Mostly Harmless" 
Maybe it wouldn't be good if we would end with such SC4 description...

I think its a great idea.

While not the most knowledgeable of SC4D members, I'm pretty good at editing as I'm the proud holder of a B.A. in English Literature.

If this is an offer, thanks a lot! It is a task for more than one people, it will be a pleasure to work together 

Uhm, but isn't SC4D some sort of Encyclopaedia or/and ST?
The thing I like most about SC4 is that you can be creative by trying out things, explore options and create your own style.
Tutorials are shared to give idea's so other can refine or simply use it.
It is not my intention to put this idea down but by not knowing everything the game is so much more an adventure just simple trying and picking up some hints
down the tutorial and/or MD section of this forum.
If I think I build great railroads I start a new topic in the tutorial section and it's free for others to give their input.

Peronaly I think this board has a "wrong" layout. [imho]
First prio should be tutorials and after that game help, md's, teams, oftopic.
Tutorials should have more sub-forums and clearer ones like "economics", "terraforming", "ordinance", "infra-structure" etc.

I don't dislike the idea of a Encyclopaedia but I think we're allready siting on one with a little modification.

Tutorials are for learning, MD's are for inspiration, team-section for admiring and off-topic for relaxation.
But maybe I missed the point. 

LoneRanger, your thoughts are very important!
You are right in most your opinions. But I'd like to give you an example:

Let's say you are a novice painter. You have many paints and brushes, but you haven't a big practice with them. You can spend years looking at other painter's pictures and trying to find their techniques. You can also meet some masters and ask them for something, but you often don't know what is the right question
And it would be very good if somebody would tell you:
"- Do you like this effect? Look, you can use this brush in this way to do it! But don't try this one, it is not good in this case!"
If you would have such source of knowledge, you would save a lot of time. You would use this saved time for making your creations 
And after some time, you would be able to start your own experiments. But you would have a basis yet and you wouldn't waste your time for discovering America second time 
And you would save even more time, if all such knowledge would be well ordered and easy to access. And it is diversified and difficult to find now.
This is what are we saying about here. As you see nobody wants to limit our creativity in any way.
But with your independent thinking you would be more than welcome with our work 

Dustin, maybe we will make a greater step with your idea now?

Jeronij and David, I am sure with your support the work will start soon. Thank you!

Now I will start to make my proposition how sc4 knowledge should be organized. Please do the same, we will compare our visions after a few days.

Adam

[krbe]

[...]

I don't dislike the idea of a Encyclopaedia but I think we're allready siting on one with a little modification.

Tutorials are for learning, MD's are for inspiration, team-section for admiring and off-topic for relaxation.
But maybe I missed the point. 

(Adam has already gone through this first part while I was looking at somebridges while writing this )

The problem is vast amounts of information spread out over severeal sites in a format that is unsuitable. MD's, support threads, announcements etc. are all well and good, until a point, but unless you follow updates regularly, you will at times run into trouble. In addition to this, a forum is constructed to encourage (the most recent) discussion(s), which is a bad way to compile knowledge (likewise, discussing with encyclopædias are generally considered cumbersome). Some information are impossible to comment on (like the fact that the speed limit of different networks are so and so); some are really worth commenting on (like solving a hard and persisting problem for the community), which causes updates to be lost among otherwise useless non-information; and some information tend to be lost among other information, such as support threads (no-one wants to be that idiot which asks a question for the tenth time, but no-one wants to read 35 pages of fruitless answers), especially if it's for several "products".

An encyclopædia or reference on the other hand, doesn't encourage discussion, although you may do it at the appropriate place (like a subboard on this site for example). And since it keeps discussion, questions, comments etc. apart from the information itself, it's easier to pack more information together, and to "bundle" it with other knowledge, like how to incorporate the information given into different styles of playing and planning. It's also easier to relate different pages and portions of pages to one another than with traditional forum tutorials. Few keep an updated TOC in their threads, even fewer relate (and link) their pages to another's.

Like if you build a great railway somewhere, or discover some clever solutions that are worthy a tutorial, there are probably many more railway questions that others want answers to to get it "right": Like construction of large railway yards close to city centres, construction of high-speed railway (not HSRP) tracks, how to construct in high mountains etc.

(And yes, I'd like the MD's further up too )

---

On your suggestions Adam: not a bad starting point -- I would like to read the terraforming section, I think my own terraformed regions are incredibly round for some reason. And this game is of course up to your own creativity, but if that your air passengers have to wait for take-off until all planes further out on your pier have left, you have to consider some other way to save valuable farmland

On the preposition: We should be starting on throwing out categories soon, and decide on how to collaborate/contribute. I got to read a book about my hometown's history and development from ca. 1850 to about 1940-50, and I noticed that the developement of the city (Kristiansand, Norway) can be slightly compared to a city with about 20.000 inhabitants in SimCity (about the size of the city itself at the time). The book dealt with the developement of main street and commercial area, a gas plant, electricity plant, additional bridges, hospitals, religious life (something I've never thought was quite important in my cities), and I suddenly found myself scribbeling down ideas on how to diversify my own cities more...

[Ennedi]

@krbe,
I agree with your answer to LoneRanger. In fact, I agree with you in more points than you expect 

On your suggestions Adam: not a bad starting point -- I would like to read the terraforming section, I think my own terraformed regions are incredibly round for some reason. And this game is of course up to your own creativity, but if that your air passengers have to wait for take-off until all planes further out on your pier have left, you have to consider some other way to save valuable farmland

You gave some examples concerning the simulation aspect. I has a feeling you would like to limit your vision to this aspect, so I added terraforming, LOTs, BATs etc. But it was not my intention to say any of these aspects is more important than others, but to say our "Encyclopedia" or "Hitchhikers Guide"  should be as complete as possible.
It is very good you emphasize the simulation aspect. Many people make eye-candy regions, but others want to build the properly functioning city and observe it's development. This aspect is very important for us in SC4D too, the CAM is the best example of it.

Because of it I asked all of you to show your own vision of the SC4 knowledge structure. Every of us has specific points of interest, so he/she will emphasize these points. When we will compare different propositions, it will be easier to find the starting point.

Our problem for now is not only the structure (categories). Easy access = good search tool, and as I know it is connected with key words (and maybe other things).
It would be good to have some help from somebody who knows more about the Wiki software functionality, I know about it only as much as an average user should know 

[krbe]

I only have my own experince to compare with, and since I'm not able to run any tools created for SC4 (with maybe the honest exception of the reader) I have to admit that I haven't thought so much about BAT's, and since I'm usually playing on premade maps I didn't think about terraforming (that's what background do to you kids!)

If we're looking for premade templates for a portal / document repository, there are example of free ones (PHP & MySQL) available at OpenSourceCMS. If necessary, I have free server space available at my own domain.

About software to be chosen: Of the Wikis available, I find the MediaWiki (as used by Wikipedia) to be far the prettiest, and the easiest for users to navigate / use. It's however harder to maintain (or at least I think so), but I believe we should be able to find someone with the experience here(?). The others might be easier to maintain, but are much less "interesting" for users (and perhaps lacks important features, I'm not sure).

[thundercrack83]

Sorry for my lack of attention here, I was off for a while for the holidays, but now I'm back.

As krbe stated above, the first step is going to be coming up with "categories" of some sort in order to start classifying all the information that we want to make available. In another post, Adam (Ennedi) gave us a pretty good starting point with environment, game objects, and the simulation, but these will need to be expended thoroughly, and more categories will almost certainly be necessary.

On the Wiki front, I have no experience with any of that, so I can't stipulate as to which set-up is better for making a Wiki. I'm sure that I can play around that try and figure some basic stuff out, though, if need be. If there's anything that I can do, please don't hesitate to let me know!