FLUPS Flops

[huzman]

I use FLUPS a lot and only now I came up with these little hiccups:
1) I found a street underpass by accident, see pic below.
2) Also the link between the two ramps was found by accident.
3) They don't show systematically when you open the FLUPS.
4) When trying to lay down the road underpass and you rotate it, it becomes a one-way ramp. Maj+Tab won't help.

I'm sure there's a little trick that would solve it.
Much obliged to those who would help.

[Themistokles]

I'm a little unsure what is your question, but if you are searching to find the street underpass again it shares its place in the tab ring with the pedestrian underpass and the on-slope street tunnel entrance, so you'll have to rotate these using the end and home keys to find it.

Also, you may already know this, but it looks like you are missing the connection piece (i.e. straight road under straight rail) to make sims able to pass from the one ramp to the other.

[Andreas]

Have a look at the NAM FLUPs Tutorial. Rotating the pieces several times in order to get other variants was done on purpose, so you could build several FLUPs without cycling through the entire TAB ring again. If you got the wrong piece, simply rotate it a few more times until you find the right one.

[matias93]

There are three variants of the street FLUP underpass:

   
• A pedestrian underpass that looks like a metro entrance but beige instead of blue, and is meant to be used with pedmalls.
• An on-slope underpass that is meant to be used on a 12 metres high slope, as a tunnel entrance.
• A conventional underpass ramp that is two tiles long, as you found on the image.

You have to rotate the piece to get the different versions, so sometimes is hard to put the same type on both sides of the underpass at the first try, but they are all functional.

[huzman]

... it looks like you are missing the connection piece.

Quite right. I guess I didn't express myself clearly enough. I know how to rotate things, but some times it rotates to a different FLUP. Let's say I'm putting down the said street ramp, I found it and plopped it down. Fine. But when I rotate it to put it down on the other side the ramp it becomes an entrance to an underground site (?) as matias93 pointed it out. Not Fine. So I tab forward/backward, trying to find the piece I want, cycling thru the whole thing several times. Very frustrating and time consuming.

To resume: It looks like there are TWO ways of clicking the FLUPS window. One without the street ramp -and it's companion link- and one with the proper street ramp.

And I'm not looking forwards to place ramps of diagonals. Whew!

Anyway, thank you all for your prompt answers.

[Indiana Joe]

Quite right. I guess I didn't express myself clearly enough. I know how to rotate things, but some times it rotates to a different FLUP. Let's say I'm putting down the said street ramp, I found it and plopped it down. Fine. But when I rotate it to put it down on the other side the ramp it becomes an entrance to an underground site (?) as matias93 pointed it out. Not Fine. So I tab forward/backward, trying to find the piece I want, cycling thru the whole thing several times. Very frustrating and time consuming.

To resume: It looks like there are TWO ways of clicking the FLUPS window. One without the street ramp -and it's companion link- and one with the proper street ramp.

And I'm not looking forwards to place ramps of diagonals. Whew!

Anyway, thank you all for your prompt answers.

Hey Huzman,

the FLuPs are indeed a bit tricky, since they contain more than one item per slot on the TAB ring.  Pressing TAB will cycle through each slot, but unlike other menus in the NAM, there is more than one piece available in each spot before your press TAB again.

So using the Street underpass FLuP as an example: let's say you have the street underpass piece pulled up.  As you press HOME to rotate the piece, these are the options you will get:

1.  Street underpass facing North
2.  Street underpass facing East
3.  Street underpass facing South
4.  Street underpass facing West
5.  Pedestrian underpass facing North
6.  Pedestrian underpass facing East
7.  Pedestrian underpass facing South
8.  Pedestrian underpass facing West
9.  Street tunnel facing North
10. Street tunnel facing East
11. Street tunnel facing South
12. Street tunnel facing West

So you will notice, there are 12 rotations of the piece, rather than 4.  But 8 of those "rotations" are different pieces entirely.  If you hit the TAB key, it will change to a different piece (such as the One Way Road underpass), which may also have 12 or so rotations which are several different pieces.  After rotating the Street Underpass piece 4 times, you would have to hit the HOME key 8 more times to go back to its original rotation (or just use the END key to go backwards).

What's really frustrating is that the pieces will auto-rotate themselves to avoid obstacles if you move your cursor around the screen.  Since some of the "rotations" are different pieces, you may not be able to find the piece you are looking for by hitting TAB.  Instead you will need to recognize it's "family" and hit the HOME/END keys once you are on the appropriate selection to get the piece you actually want.

[Andreas]

The good thing about the auto-rotation is that you don't need to press the home and end keys to align them properly at all in most cases, as long as you build the underpass exactly as described in the tutorial. Say, you want to build a street underpass under a railway line. Drag the railway, but leave a one tile gap for the underpass. Then drag the street up to the railway, leaving this one tile gap, too.

Now, open the road menu, click on the FLUPs icon, and then press tab a couple of times until the street underpass shows up. Move the preview over your street stub, and it should rotate into the right position automatically. Click once for plopping it, then move the mouse to the other stub, and click again for the other ramp.

Now you can drag with the railway tool through the gap, and eventually select the FLUPs icon again, tabbing through the cycle until you find the underground "tunnel" piece. Rotate a few times until you found the piece for "under railway", and click on the tile between the ramps.

[huzman]

Actually, all I'm saying is that street ramps and their "straight street under perpendicular rail" link, maybe other things, sometimes show up and sometimes they don't.

Indiana Joe: Very complete explanation and it confirms some of my doubts. Thanks a bucket.

Andreas: Your trick of leaving one tile empty simplifies everything a bit. Ran to my local SOUP office and tried that trick. Glad to tell you that it works. Thanks a bucket too.
Now, I ran the FLUPS again to find that elusive "straight street under perpendicular rail" link and came out blanked out. Nada. Ziltch.
So I plopped some unrelated items like houses, flora, and went back to the FLUPS two times, still no link. Ran the FLUPS a third time before I found that darned link.

That's enough to discourage the weak of heart...

[Andreas]

Hmm, that's a bit weird, those pieces shouldn't show up "sometimes" and "sometimes not", but the tab and rotation sequence is supposed to be the same everytime you use the pieces. All I can think of is what Indiana Joe said about "obstacles"; if your cursor is above an item that would block the puzzle piece from being plopped (such as another network), it might not show up properly. But as long as you hover the cursor over empty land, or a zone (where it would bulldoze the buildings when being plopped), it should show up properly alright.

[huzman]

Just came back from my SOUP local and there are some minor results:
The "star" layout for streets and roads work fine, not with one way roads or avenues. But that's minor... In fact, I couldn't find the proper link for the ramps for some of them.
For me, the big bug is finding that "Straight underground route perpendicular under straight rail" (that's the official description), just scrolling the FLUPS tab several times and getting nothing just makes me fed up, so I just save, get the hell out of here, and go to freecell or something like it.

OK, let me put it this way:
I'm doing a largish region which is fun. Good. I'm working on long distance rails, roads and adjacent streets. Lots of fun. Some tiles are far from others, so I use airports to link them. Great, it works.
As for adjoining tiles, I use connecting rails, avenues and roads. And every so often, the rails are in the way of roads and that is when my current dilemma begins and we are back to square one of this topic.
Am I getting clearer on the picture?

I really appreciate your feedback on this...

[Andreas]

Well, here's how it works on my system:

1. Drag the railway and the streets in a + pattern, leave the middle tile empty (as described above).
2. Click on the FLUPs icon, press TAB three times in order to find the street ramps.
3. Move the mouse to the street stubs and plop the ramps. They should align automatically.
4. Select the railway tool and drag the railway through the empty tile in order to close the gap.
5. Click the FLUPs icon again and press TAB ten times until you get the connector piece for rail. There are several others at this TAB position, it might start with some diagonal or parallel piece. Just look for the "street + railway" combination.
6. Now use the HOME and END keys several times, until you find the "Straight underground route perpendicular under straight Rail" piece, and plop it in the middle. Hint: The piece shows up with different rotations while you cycle through the options with the HOME and END keys. If it simply doesn't show up, maybe rotate the view by 90 degrees and try again. Once you found the proper orientation, plop the piece onto the railway to complete the underpass.

[huzman]

"... a great step fir humanity."

Andreas: Your 6 point walk thru is right on. Learned a lot about FLUPS and how the icons are organized. Merci.

Indiana Joe: Your explanation about how to 'rotate' a given flup opened my eyes very wide. Merci.

Amazing how much I have improved and expertise in only a couple days. Again, Merci you both.

[Andreas]

Admittedly, the FLUPs setup is not entirely self-explanatory, so I'm glad it worked out for you eventually.

[huzman]

Well, It is all due to you, all of you.

Wanna a postcard of Paris?

-h