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Expanding the vehicles routes and behavior

Started by Terring7, September 26, 2019, 11:31:14 AM

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Terring7

hailman made a mod named Variable Route Buses. This mod changes the behavior of the buses to allow Sims to ride the bus directly to work, by getting on the bus at designated stops but getting off anywhere they wish along the route. It might sounds unrealistic and make buses work like taxis, but this is how many municipalities operate bus service in more rural areas, like in Belgian countryside.



So, if we can change the behavior of the buses, how about changing the behavior of the rest of the vehicles as well, by giving them new destinations and new abilities? Here are some ideas.

Freight trucks begin from your industries and end up at the edges of your city (usually), at your freight train stations or at your seaports or in-land freight airports/spaceports. It looks like your industries supplies your neighboring cities, which is nice and welcomed, but never your own city. If they can ship their products at the other cities, why not at your own city as well? So, here is my first question. Can we make the freight trucks going to commercial (and even residential) zones as well? This could simulate the purveyance  of the shops and offices, like having the trucks transporting food from the farms to the restaurants and cars from the car industries to the car dealerships. It could also simulate delivery orders from industries to residences, like ordering a new wire for your phone or spare parts for your car directly from the factory. This could made the traffic more realistic but also more challenging to manage it.

Speaking about I --> C and I --> R freight tracks, how about adding a C --> R version as well? We already have some nice automata that could be useful for this task, like those commercial vans. Shops (and maybe even offices too) would function like mini factories that provides jobs to our Sims, but they'd also send products by vans to our Sims' homes as well. A kind of C <--> R connection.



Now, let's make the add. Homes sends workers to shops and offices, shops and offices sends products to homes. Homes sends workers to factories and farms, factories and farms sends products to homes, shops and offices. Add the rest of the routes (like cars and buses) and you'll have something like this:

R <--> C

C <-- I <--> R

It would make the freight trucks even more useful and the traffic even more realistic, but I'm afraid it would require a serious (and maybe impossible) scale of modding attempt.

And now, my favorite part. Let's get nuts and heretic ;D . We all know that industries can ship their products directly into the railroad if you build them right next to it. No need for the freight station. Just build your factories right next to the rails. But how about giving this ability to the residential zones as well, so Sims can use the railroads as an alternative for the roads? I'm not talking about visiting the closest rail station to get a big passenger train. I'm talking about this:

https://www.youtube.com/v/0zeBIxI7n1I

Small, car-train hybrids for everyone! Just build some homes next to the rails and let your Sims hit the railroad to go to their jobs and return from them. Of course this will require a new kind of automata. Something like this:



Big passenger trains, freight trains, and now small car-train hybrids. Another good reason to get rid of those track checkers.

So, more useful freight trucks, delivery vans, and more flexible railroads. Can we have them?
"The wisest men follow their own direction" Euripides
The Choice is Ours
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Simtropolis Moderator here. Can I help? Oh, and you can call me Elias (my real name) if you wish.

jeffryfisher

Quote from: Terring7 on September 26, 2019, 11:31:14 AMCan we make the freight trucks going to commercial (and even residential) zones as well?
Maybe by modding a bunch of destination buildings to become ultra-low capacity ports. Then each one would claim a few packages per period.

However, ports are weird. You might run into problems with port controllers.
Modding PC games since 1993 (back when we needed hex-editors)