The Noro Cooperative

[carlfatal]

It´s a airport, and I have no clue, how an airport should look. But it´s also some awesome roadgeekery here. 

In particular I love that picture in the last update with the tram and the blocks aside. It looks like a snapshot out of a real town. 

Keep up your cool teamwork! 


Thanks Carl! Much appreciate the compliments and it's nice to see you here again

-Noah

[Dantes]

The airport is huge. I'm curious how the airport looks right layout. Will you sow grass at the end or make a bush landscape for the environment?
I got a little scared by the intersecting runway.


Thanks Dantes   I haven't finalized plans for decorating the surrounding area but I'm thinking trees and brush further away from the runways but grass closer. A lot of the empty space will be filled with stuff like a cargo terminal, airplane hangars, de-icing areas, and possibly civil and military aviation. Don't worry about the crossing runways, only parallel runways are active at the same time (depending on the direction of winds I think).

-Noah

[Haljackey]

What in the heck? 


Thanks I think    I've been meaning to ask your advice lately as I'm planning a collector-express system and you're the acknowledged Ontario 401 expert. I've been studying Toronto highways a lot but am still not confident about knowing where to have access to the express section...

-Noah

[art128]

Not a fan of the last runway piece with the high elevation next to it. I'm sure you're going to work on it though.

Nice work with the over layout. Seems quite realistic to me.

If you need any help, I'm always available.


Thanks Arthur! Glad you like it and thanks for the help you've already been giving toward it. That area is just a place holder for now. Only the center 2 (out of 4 total) runway tiles are placed and the only the most basic terraforming has been done. I'll definitely be taking you up on your offer to help--and my invitation to join me building it stands

[kelis]

That's huuuuuuge !! ' can't wait for see the entire airport 


Thanks!! It won't be finished for a long time but I'm excited for it

-Noah

[vester]

Looking forward to see how this airport develops.....


Thanks Arne

[Gugu3]

The airport is insane
Amazing stuff


Thanks for the support Guglielmo!

[noahclem]

Thanks for all the support guys 

I started on a simple composite of the interchange shown earlier and ended up expanding and embellishing the picture a bit more than I'd planned    ...which should explain the mix of polish and rough edges. The map at top left is a screen grab from the updated inkscape region plan and bottom right is the current region view. The section of express-collector highway shown is about two thirds of what's been built so far.

Click for full 3300x3884 image

Updated inkscape region plan

Dotted red section of highway in inkscape maps is the initial area planned for express/collector construction

I've assembled here a table of the most important influences on my recent construction. I returned time and again to reference these areas to determine various details of my own construction. Click on each label for wikipedia article and on each map for google maps link. I'm really hoping we can get the site upgraded to handle embedded google maps eventually

Ontario 401 Interchange with express & collector ramps	XYZ Toronto Pearson
MSP Minneapolis/St Paul Int'l	ORD Chicago O'Hare
DEN Denver Int'l	SEA Seattle Tacoma Int'l
AMS Amsterdam Schiphol	ATL Atlanta

[timmetje]

Pictures don't work, all I could see was the teaser


Sorry if things aren't appearing correctly. Are you referring to this update or earlier pictures? Unfortunately most pictures are now missing due to our image hosting website going down, apparently permanently. I plan to replace them but don't have a time frame. The most recent pictures are hosted by Google and so should be visible to almost anybody--unless the trick I used to make them show as images instead of links is causing errors, in which case I would like to solve the problem as soon as possible.

-Noah

[vortext]

Same here, I can't see the most recent pictures either. No intersection, nor airports and I know what is supposed to show because strangely, I could see it earlier today at work. 

edit: turns out filtering in HTTP Switchboard was too strict and I needed to enable cookies from googleusercontent.com on SC4D. Maybe you have a similar, cookies related, issue timmetje?

On a sidenote, if you use chrome (or a chromium based browser like SRWare Iron) I highly recommend getting HTTP Switchboard. It'll probably break your internet at first, however, it's really versatile since it's basically AdBlock, NoScript, Ghostery et al. wrapped into one and highly customizable, too - for instance allowing specific kind of cookies on a specific domain only. 



At any rate, on topic: very nice developments Noah, the airport is one heck of a project! Not to mention all the intersection casually draped around it! 

Also nice RL examples, clearly shows the inspirations! Looking forward to see things progress! 


Thanks a lot Erik! I appreciate you shedding light on the likely technical problem and am glad you popped in so quickly. Now I just need to figure out the scale of the problem and an optimal solution.... Nice looking tools you mention too, I plan to give them a try. And the SC4 feedback itself is of course much appreciated as well

-Noah

[MandelSoft]

Excellent progerss, Noah! That's some nice synergy between land and air transport you've shown there and I love it!


Thanks a lot Maarten!!

-Noah

[Kergelen]

Outstanding interchanges! I have been quite some minutes looking at them.  
Incredible work with the huge airport. An adequate airport for a huge region.


Thanks Arnau! Glad you found the interchanges interesting--I always enjoy them more when they are unique designs or particularly specialized for their location. And yeah, the airport's a bit on the larger side 

-Noah

[Haljackey]

I've been meaning to ask your advice lately as I'm planning a collector-express system and you're the acknowledged Ontario 401 expert. I've been studying Toronto highways a lot but am still not confident about knowing where to have access to the express section...

-Noah

Acknowledged? Well ok then...

What I can advise is that the express lanes should have access to the collectors (and vice-versa) between two major interchanges or every 3 interchanges or so. The express lanes should also have dedicated on/off ramps at major interchanges when possible, but this will significantly increase the complexity of the junction. I've only seen a handful of examples where this is done well in SC4 (mostly by McDuell).

Not sure if it's helpful but I did film the 401's entire collector-express system last year. Here is the video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMtusG5tuC8

If you need anything else or more info I'll try to help you out.

----

Back to your entry,

I have given up all my attempts at building a large custom airport. The amount of difficulty of getting it to look realistic is insanely hard, at least in my mind. Getting the surrounding area to look right is a challenge too. It looks like you're pulling it off quite nicely, but I'm no aviation expert .

All I gotta say is keep at it, and as long as you're having fun doing what you're doing then you're doing it right! 


Thanks Hal    The video is quite useful. Around every 3 exits plus connections at major interchanges is about what I was planning, 'spose because of what I've seen in Toronto. I'm a bit confused about when to do a basketweave versus conventional connections and where all those ought to be placed in relation to exits (with local access). As for the complexity required for those interchanges, I consider it a benefit--we may be kindred spirits in that way. I may be no McDuell but I know my way around an interchange I've got more to say but will save it for the next post....

-Noah

[packersfan]

#1: That is a great looking start to a realistically set up modern airport with a great RHW approach.  I've only had one great airport and that was a recreation of Cincinnati's airport in my Sessquenna region, but it didn't really have great transportation infrastructure (highway, rail, road connections).  Great work!

#2: Love the "Noroway" shield.  Cool name.  I regret my highways not having a catchier name than "Interdistrict" instead of "Interstate"..."National Highway" instead of "U.S. Highway"..."District Highway" instead of "State Highway".  Nice!

#3: I find you SC4 tile naming system interesting.  My new region has a naming scheme sort of like that where basically a small tile would be named "Row - Column" with Letters representing rows and numbers representing columns.  A medium tile would have a name like A-B-01-02 since it covers two rows and columns.  However, even this has become slightly confusing (though very simple to implement when making my map.  I'm now doing it based on Township names and sections (1-36)...but even this will prove complicated...argh!

Anyway.  Great work.  Look forward to more, so I can weep at my incompetence.


First, don't weep, as the District of Wenzel has achieved things that haven't been done here and done things better then they've been done here, despite this place having many extremely talented people contribute   What you achieve on the macro scale with SC4 is probably peerless.

#1 Thank you! This is the first real airport I've done, precisely because it is so difficult. I've yet to even get rail incorporated besides that light rail intended to serve as intra-airport transit. In any case, it's almost embarrassing how much time I actually spent on this area 

#2 I love it too but must give Maarten credit for the highway shield. It's vector-based, so scalable, and I made the one for the picture just by zooming super-far into the inkscape map after putting it over a background I could easily make transparent. "Noroway" refers to the country/region though, rather than a name for the type of highway (although that would have been extremely clever in hindsight).

#3 Again, I love it but in this case must assign credit to Willy. I can certainly understand the difficulty in creating such a system though as it's been really difficult and less successful when trying myself.

Thanks again and the thorough feedback is much appreciated 

-Noah

[Shadow Assassin]

Nice work Noah!

A quick critique about the airport, what are you going to do about the east side of the runways being in a cutting? Have you leveled it out? Also I have a minor concern about the interchange directly beneath the western approach to the runway, perhaps the freeway should be a little lower? Also the tunnel passing under the taxiway, the approaches should be further away from the taxiway itself, perhaps leave a 1-tile gap. Love the map though I can't open it properly.


Also - haljackey... at about 3.50 in your video here... is it just me or is that red people mover awfully close to the Winnebago?



Thanks Daniel! I plan to level out the area around the east end of that runway but I think I'll also move it a little bit west, so there will be about half as much area on the eastern tile. I've also moved the western end west (12 tiles IIRC) and am thinking 4000m should be a good length. I wanted one particularly long runway but unless they're testing experimental aircraft there shouldn't be a reason for anything longer then 4km near sea level. As for the highway/runway/taxiway crossings...I had actually made the tunnel under the western runway higher and shorter between my last post and yours     I was basing the "tunnel" depth and separation from taxiways and runways off of the ones I'm familiar with from Chicago O'Hare (taxiway only) and Atlanta (taxiway & runway) where they appear to be airport bridges rather than highway tunnels. I'm not really familiar with real tunnels in the same situation though I'd not be surprised if they're as common as the "bridges". The layout of the highways makes it fairly trivial to follow your suggestion, so it's certainly a possibility   Another option to make it look better might be to make the areas look cosmetically more like bridges, including paving over the top of the tunnels between runways and taxiways, using overhanging taxiways like xannepan's but offset differently, and adding cosmetic tunnel/bridge portals. Were you having trouble with the large image map or the inkscape one?

Cheers,
-Noah

[Haljackey]

Also - haljackey... at about 3.50 in your video here... is it just me or is that red people mover awfully close to the Winnebago?

I believe that it was being towed by the Winnebago. Most people use a vehicle to tow a trailer, but it's the reverse in this case as the Caravan likely does not have enough power to tow it.

Off topic I know but I thought I may as well respond.

[kbieniu7]

Wow! Massive! I've never made such a big intesection and you've managed to make a huge junction around the airport on two tiles! Good planning


Thanks buddy! Sometimes bigger can be better Glad you liked it.

-Noah

[Yan077]

I never seen such a massive interchange, that's really impressive Noah !   .




Thank you very much! It's always great to hear from you and I wish you a warm welcome to Noroway 

-Noah

[romualdillo]

Great work Noah!!! I'm speechless!! 


Thanks a ton!!!

-Noah

[compdude787]

Nice airport so far, and I really like the collector-express lanes!That's something I'd like to do in SC4 someday. And I hope to see a UDI video of this freeway once it's complete. And it's too bad that Majhost is down, because now I won't be able to look at any of your older interchanges. Sometimes, when I'm really bored, I love to go back to page one of this thread, and just go all the way through this thread and look at all the interchanges. They never get old!


Thanks very much and nice to hear from you again! The collector-express lanes have been pretty fun to work with actually, so far not as difficult as I might have guessed and it's a refreshingly different way to build and think. UDI is a great idea, not sure why I don't do it more. I did just dust off my Fraps to make sure it still works.... We do plan to fix the images so don't worry that it's lost forever. In fact, if you're interested in fixing the broken links I could give you access to the picture files Maarten and I have gathered. Out of curiosity, does the plane in your avatar mean your particularly interested in airports?

-Noah