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T-RAM

Started by Chrisim, November 23, 2008, 01:58:28 PM

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Terring7

Now, how about tram stations for tram roundabouts? ;D
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pilotdaryl

I'm hoping that those 4-lane roads used in tram-in-road become released without the tram tracks sometime though... or is that part of a different project such as the Network Widening Mod (NWM)?

KrigarN

I'd wish to know that too. And I would also like to make a request for the GLR. (I know, wrong place. But here goes.) Could you please try to fix some flora along GLR tracks ? At least as an alternative during the installation. Please  :'(
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kassarc16

Great job on adding even more ways to run Light rail through our cities!

One request: Possibly have slightly wider turns when intersecting GLR-Ave, i.e. 3 tiles wide like the one GLR-Ave T intersection. I use one of vester's mods, and those sharp turns look odd with standard size cars.

Chrisim

Quote from: pilotdaryl on June 23, 2009, 10:53:32 PM
I'm hoping that those 4-lane roads used in tram-in-road become released without the tram tracks sometime though... or is that part of a different project such as the Network Widening Mod (NWM)?
It would be part of NWM
Quote from: KrigarN on June 24, 2009, 11:00:17 AM
I'd wish to know that too. ...
Could you please try to fix some flora along GLR tracks ? At least as an alternative during the installation.
Along the green rural GLR? Yes, it is possible to add flora, bushs, ... using T21 exemplars. Somebody would have to do it.
Quote from: kassarc16 on June 24, 2009, 09:25:11 PM
One request: Possibly have slightly wider turns when intersecting GLR-Ave, i.e. 3 tiles wide like the one GLR-Ave T intersection. I use one of vester's mods, and those sharp turns look odd with standard size cars.
All dense turns of the tram-avenue are on transitions to normal tram. This is because normal tram was designed for dense cities. It has many such dense turns, e.g. 90 deg on one tile. You may limit the number of cars by train (although it would also limit the length of trains).

z

First of all, I want to congratulate everyone who was involved in the most recent T-RAM extensions, especially T-RAM for streets.  They're fantastic, as usual.

I'm in the process of getting a new RTMT release ready (V3.60), and it would be fairly simple to add a full set of stations for T-RAM on Streets.  Before actually building these, I thought it would be a good idea to ask people what they would like.  Street T-RAM is actual easier to build stations for than Road T-RAM, because Street T-RAM uses the same wide sidewalk as standard roads.  So it would be straightforward to add the standard RTMT bus, subway, and combo bus/subway stations here.  I would plan to make just the single-tile versions here, unless people would really like to see the two-tile ones.

The one question that arises is, What to do about the tram stop?  Some people thought that the stations that RTMT used for Road T-RAM were too big, and that simple stops would have been more appropriate.  Based on that, large tram stations for streets, especially if combined with the standard RTMT bus and/or subway stations, would be way too much, and would result in a very cluttered environment.  And due to the way Street T-RAM is laid out, I don't think there's room for platforms, especially if bus and/or subway stations are included.  So here are the possibilities I see:


  • Trams are much like buses, and you would expect to shorter (i.e., single-car) ones on streets, although that's not essential to this option.  But in any case, you could simply use the standard bus stop as a tram stop.  If you had both a bus stop and a tram stop, they could share the same shelter.
  • The next option would be much like the first, but you would use a different type of bus shelter as the tram stop. (We have lots of bus shelters.)  There would be default shelter types, but these would be completely customizable.  If you had both a bus stop and a tram stop, you could either expand the stop to be two squares, or you could use a third type of bus shelter.  If you like this option, it would be helpful if you specified which bus shelters you would like for which function.
  • What about tram stops that don't have bus or subway stops?  Are there circumstances where it would make sense to use the larger tram stations (at least as an option)?  For example, especially in older European cities, there are some places that only have room for narrow streets, but are still in heavily trafficked areas.  Would a full tram station (as an option) make sense in that context?

I am probably going to start on these fairly soon, and would hope to have them available early next month.  So it would be helpful if people who are interested in stations like this would tell me which stations appeal to them, in as much detail as possible.  Thanks!

heitomat

I'd prefer the "T-RAM for streets"-stops to be the same as for bus only, meaning that there would be only one (combo) shelter for the two means of transportation. As mentioned by z, the tram stop would be situated on the sidewalk, and thus a second shelter would just look odd. The fact that it would be difficult to recognize the "Bus" stop from the "Bus and T-RAM" stop, doesn't really matter to me, as a one shelter solution would be the most realistic in both situations, as I see it.

A solution to make the "Bus and T-RAM" stand out from the "Bus" stop, could be to lengthen the shelter, to indicate larger capacity, rather than adding a second shelter to the lot. This would require a remodelling of each and every shelter prop to make the longer one, though.. Having in mind that the RTMT has the optional use of SimGoober's shelter props (among several other), I know there are quite a lot of shelters to choose from, so I guess a remodelling all of these would take a lot of time..? Anyway, this also eliminates the need of a second shelter to be added to the lot, and the lot could remain single-tile.

Another way to differ the two mentioned stops from each other, could be adding a second sign (tram stop sign) on the existing stop sign prop. However the extra sign would probably be too small to see in-game, leaving it useless for this purpose. (In real life I reckon this is the most common way of doing it, though.)

Also, maybe texture variations on the street itself could help indicating whether the actual stop was a "Bus" stop or a "Bus and T-RAM" stop? I don't have any suggestions on what such textures should look like, though..

(This post might belong to the RTMT-thread.. If so, I apologize.)
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Monorail Master

One thing I would like to see is a Tram In Avenue to Subway Conversion. I just hate wasting valuable space to make the tram to go out of avenue, up a tram to El-train conversion then down a EL-Rail to subway conversion. That just wastes too much space.
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wes.janson

Quote from: Monorail Master on July 08, 2009, 12:46:54 PM
One thing I would like to see is a Tram In Avenue to Subway Conversion. I just hate wasting valuable space to make the tram to go out of avenue, up a tram to El-train conversion then down a EL-Rail to subway conversion. That just wastes too much space.

Wasn't there a model posted before of exactly this somewhere back in this thread?

Check out this


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z

That's right - Xyloxadoria's been working on this, and it's almost done.  It's actually going to be integrated into RTMT, as there will be optional bus and subway stops available with it.  I would like to get it out with the next release of RTMT, which will include the stations for T-RAM-on-Street.  (And ped malls too.)

Monorail Master

Quote from: wes.janson on July 08, 2009, 01:50:51 PM
Wasn't there a model posted before of exactly this somewhere back in this thread?

Check out this



Thanks dude. That's what I was trying to ask for. I just that I had it right now. :)
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z

While testing some RTMT stations, one of our testers noticed that Sims walking along the side of a Tram-on-Road never make it past a street intersection.  The following picture should show why:



Looking at the picture, it also seems that there's a problem with the outer lane of cars at this intersection.

Andreas

I'm not a pathing expert at all, but at least to me it looks just like it was intended. Maybe you could explain those findings a bit more detailed?
Andreas

z

I'm not a pathing expert either, and so I looked into this some more, and yes, these paths do look correct.  I'll have to contact the tester to get more information.

z

#214
A major update of the RTMT Interim T-RAM Stations is now available on the LEX.  This update features the following:


  • The new high definition (HD) tram shelter by SimFox, which can be seen in this post
from the RTMT Creations board, has been included.
  • Shmails' GLR Shelter, Xyloxadoria's GLR shelter, and the SFBT Historic Tram shelter have all been upgraded to HD.  It has been verified that in Zoom 5, all the HD versions of these stations look as good as their SD equivalents.  In Zoom 6, they all look much better.
  • The new Station Highlighting and Queries features are now fully implemented for all the stations in this pack.  These features will be implemented for all the remaining RTMT stations with the release of RTMT V3.60.
  • Installation of these stations has been simplified.  See the Readme for details.

For those people who have not seen the high definition GLR shelters before, here's a quick look at SimFox's:




Although this shows a GLR-in-Avenue station, the shelter is the same one being release in the T-RAM Stations pack.  The new and updated shelters will be available for GLR-in-Avenue with the release of RTMT V3.60.

Meanwhile, work is now about to start on RTMT stations for both Tram on Street and Tram on Ped Mall.  This will be a full set of stations that provides stops for bus, subway, and tram.  These stations will be released as part of RTMT V3.60.

CaptCity

#215
Hello all,

This is in regards to Z's post a few back about the T-RAM/Street intersection pieces. While I was testing some of the T_RAM stations, I came up with this issue...

These are the pieces involved showing the pathing...



This was my original community layout to test the stations. The T_RAM segments consist of all Tram-on-road pieces except before the 90 degree turns and going into the end loops where I transitioned to Tram-in-Road.



As you can see from the next image, Sims couldn't find jobs by walking to the stations (except for a few from the road in the lower right corner).



However, if I placed bus stations throughout the area, they were able to take the buses to the stations and to the jobs, as shown here.



Now, I need to add that I created the exact same setup using Tram-in-Road pieces, and there were no issues there. The sims walked to and from the stations, and I didn't need to use bus stops to get them to jobs. This led me to think it had something to do with the paths.

Checking the Tram-on-Road Single Side Street piece, I saw that it was not pathed for crossing the road network. So I thought that that fact in combination with how the stations were setup was creating a situation where there was no path to the jobs. Therefore, I changed my Tram-on-Road/Single Side Street intersections to use Tram-in-Road\Single Side Street pieces, and all worked fine...



The above image shows the Sims walking to and from the stations. The only changes in the route was to change the Tram-on-Road\T-Street intersection pieces for those of the Tram-in-Road set (along with transitions). Looking at the paths of the pieces, I realized that the one piece was pathed for pedestrians crossing the road and one was not. I'm assuming that was by design? Could that be the reason for original pedestrian issue?


Now, to add more to this situation, I noticed that the Tram-on-Road\Double Side Street intersection piece (the one Z showed) was pathed for pedestrians to cross the road. Therefore, I made a few changes to my original layout to use that piece.



As you can see, I added some zoning to allow me to use the full intersection intersection pieces. But that was unsuccessful. I got the same issue I had before - Sims would not walk to the stations.



And adding bus stops worked once again.



So now I'm really confused. The full intersection pieces are pathed for pedestrian crossings, so why no pedestrians? And to make things more intersting, I changed my intersections to Tram-in-Road pieces to see if it would help again as it had before. Well, that did not work this time. Pedestrians would not use that piece either, and its also pathed for pedestrian crossings also.

So, after all this, it seems that in my situation, the Tram-on-Road\Single Side Street piece is not pathed for pedestrians crossing the road and does not allowing pedestrian traffic, and both T-RAM\Double Side Street pieces are pathed but are not allowing pedestrian traffic. Could I be misunderstanding something about these pieces or is my layout just not feasible here?

Thank you for the patience to go through this long scenario...

BigSlark

I would suggest removing the street cul-de-sac mod and trying it again, it is RUL based and is known to conflict with some of the new NAM works that are still behind closed doors and I have no idea of its effects on T-RAM.

Cheers,
Kevin

CaptCity

#217
Quote from: BigSlark on August 11, 2009, 07:04:30 PM
I would suggest removing the street cul-de-sac mod and trying it again, it is RUL based and is known to conflict with some of the new NAM works that are still behind closed doors and I have no idea of its effects on T-RAM.

Thanks for the response. Yes, I thought of that after I saw my image and realized I still had it. Took it out, but nothing appeared to be any different. And thanks for the heads up on the possible effects on future things.

Oh yes, I forgot one thing I was going to add above... I did replace the Tram-on-Road stations with the Tram-in-Road stations using the transition piece, but that did not help either.

Tarkus

Quote from: BigSlark on August 11, 2009, 07:04:30 PM
I would suggest removing the street cul-de-sac mod and trying it again, it is RUL based and is known to conflict with some of the new NAM works that are still behind closed doors and I have no idea of its effects on T-RAM.

I don't have the file handy right now, but from what I remember, qurlix's old Street Cul-De-Sac mod simply replaces the Street Orthogonal Stub texture and path (0x05004b00) and some of the Type21 Exemplars for the street network, without getting into the RULs.  It can have some odd effects on street light placement, but that's a relatively minor thing that won't affect functionality.

Pedestrian paths at intersections tend to be rather messy since they involve a lot of overlaying of multiple paths along the same coordinates, so if there were a missing pedestrian path there, it'd be difficult to tell just from the DrawPaths, as there'd be no clear visual sign.  The only way to know would be through a test like this.

-Alex

PieEetrek16

I would ask about diagonal T-RAM. I'm waiting for few moths. Is it still on progress? This is thing, I mostly need. :)