T-RAM

[Chrisim]

T-RAM
does not mean "Telecom - Random Access Memory" 
T-RAM stands for Tram-Road Addon Mod
or simply Tram = GLR = Ground Light Rail

T-RAM is part of the NAM = Network Addon Mod.
T-RAM is not to be confused with RAM = Rail Addon Mod
The NAM already contains draggable tram, tram puzzle pieces, tram-avenue puzzle pieces and a few tram-avenue roundabouts.
We use the mnemonic T-RAM to promote the new tram related developments since the April 2008 NAM version.

Who is behind T-RAM? It's the NAM-Team. In the past, Goaskin, Memo, Smoncrie and others did incredible much for the development of GLR = tram in the NAM. However, recently the developments were pushed forward by Schleicher68, RogerRon91, DJPTiger (for textures), Daeley, Jonathan and myself, with help from the others in the NAM-Team (in particular Andreas and Ebina) and the SFBT team.

New T-RAM contributions in September 2011 NAM
NAM version 30 contains support for diagonal tram-avenue, tram-in-road and tram-on-road. These are the new pieces for diagonal tram-avenue.

Most of the textures for these diagonal pieces were created by Schleicher68, and a few by RogerRon91 - thanks!
Traffic lights were added to all pieces after I took these screen shots.

There are elevated highway junctions with tram-avenue


There are new pieces for tram-in-road and tram-on-road

and there are a few more new pieces not shown here.

Two new styles of Draggable Ground Light Rail/Tram with easily-customizable base textures have been added with the optional Draggable GLR/Tram Extension Plugin. However, there are some initial bug reports. More details on how to use this optional plugin will be posted when this will be resolved. Please be patient.

New T-RAM contributions in August 2010 NAM
NAM version 29 contains several bug fixes for Tram / GLR related stuff (path and switch fixes).

New T-RAM contributions in May 2010 NAM
Draggable Tram-in-Road is new thanks to Daeley:

This great feature remains restricted to straight and curved tracks and does not work for junctions (yet?).

There are new tram turning circle puzzle pieces for tram-avenue (normal and grass texture), tram-in-road, tram-on-street and normal tram/GLR (use SHIFT-TAB to find them more quickly). These pictures by RogerRon91 show them in action:

You can plop your preferred tram station into the gap of these new tram turning circle pieces. Thanks to DJPTiger for his great textures.

Several bugs from the previous NAM version were corrected. There are several new pieces for tram-avenue, tram-in-road, tram-on-road and tram-on-street:
 
Thanks to RogerRon91, Schleicher68 and DJPTiger for the textures. New is also the tram-in-road transition


The FLexible UnderPass system (FLUPs) was extended and you can now build tram and tram-avenue underpasses

You find a FLUPs tutorial here.

Risk of game crashes was minimized - June 2009 version
A bug in the Windows version of SimCity4 causes the game to crash when a puzzle piece is hovered above a transit-enabled lot. We did often experience game crashs when building tram systems (tram stations are transit-enabled lots). The first step to reduce game crashes was the introduction of draggable tram. However, the issue remained because in certain circumstances we still have to use puzzle pieces.

Several steps were undertaken to further reduce the risk.
a) The starter puzzle pieces of draggable tram were modified in two ways. The simple orthogonal starter piece is now three tiles long (you can drag in both directions, starting from the end tiles)

Link to image
and can be hovered above tram stations without causing a crash anymore. And it was stabilized: before, you had to drag at least 6 tiles before bulldozing the starter - otherwise it would revert to elevated light rail. Now, it is much more stable and will remain tram (with few exceptions). Therefore the need for tram puzzle pieces is significantly reduced.
b) The game does not always crash when a puzzle piece is hovered above a transit-enabled lot. It is the interrelation of the modding of puzzle piece and TE-Lot that causes a CTD under special conditions only. With this in mind, we checked all tram puzzle pieces and modified most of them in such a way that the risk of game crashs is minimized.

A risk of game crashs remains. We modified puzzle pieces, but there are several particular transit-enabled lots that will still cause a game crash when a tram puzzle piece is hovered above. All tram, tram-avenue, and tram-road stations are safe except for the diagonal tram station:

Link to image
Also, most elevated light rail above road stations do still cause game crashes. However, as long as you are careful with these particular stations, the use of trams is now much safer.

Remember, also train puzzle pieces can cause game crashs when hovered above transit-enabled train stations. And many elevated light rail puzzle pieces do still cause game crashs when hovered above tram stations. One of them is this transition (it is the only dangerous piece inside the tram rotation ring) - all other tram puzzle pieces are safe now.

Link to image

There are two puzzle pieces for which plopping got a bit inconvenient. The pedestrian bridge over tram

Link to image
cannot be plopped anymore on dragged tram tracks. Same for the orthogonal viaduct rail over orthogonal tram.
Simply bulldoze one piece of track and insert the piece.

Tram systems
1) Tram (draggable tram and tram puzzle pieces)
Apart from the changes to minimize the risk of game crashes (see above), there are no changes.

2) Tram-Avenue
We added five new puzzle pieces for the June 2009 NAM:

Link to image
Monorail and elevated light rail can now cross tram-avenues.

Due to the changes to minimize the risk of game crashes (see above), it is not possible to plop a tram-avenue puzzle piece on top of elevated light rail anymore. When you bulldoze a new tram-avenue puzzle piece, the elevated light rail does not appear as before (left image), but avenue (right image):

Link to left image Link to right image

Simply plop tram-avenue onto the avenue (left image below). If it was an old, previously plopped puzzle piece and it shows elevated light rail, you cannot plop the new tram-avenue-Puzzle and you need to bulldoze the elevated light rail piles (right image below). When you work with the new puzzle pieces only, this inconvenience does not happen.

Link to left image Link to right image

3) Tram-in-Road puzzle pieces
In town centers, you often don't have enough space for tram tracks next to roads. The Tram-in-Road allows both, road and tram, on one tile. And there is even a little bit of space for pedestrians.

Link to image

These are the new pieces in the June 2009 NAM:

Link to image
Monorail and elevated light rail can cross tram-in-road. There are several new pieces that connect to tram-avenue. Most interesting is the lower left piece. It can be used to create special roundabout or to insert tram stations:

Link to left imageLink to right image
We will post a small tutorial that explains how to build this.

4) Tram-on-Road puzzle pieces
Tram-on-Road puzzle pieces allow cars and trams to share a lane. The difference is just visual, but with two car lanes in each direction, it looks like a faster connection than the normal Tram-in-Road. Sometimes you may observe tram automata driving through car automata. To minimize this effect, there are no junctions (with crossing) available. Just a few basic Tram-on-Road pieces: transition with Tram-in-Road, straight, curve, and single- and double street merging into the road. Cars cannot turn or cross the white line in the middle.
This is a picture from th.cb, one of our testers at the German Simforum:

Link to larger image

These are the new pieces in the June 2009 NAM:

Link to image
Apart from the monorail and elevated light rail crossing above tram-on-road, and two transitions to tram-avenue, there is the lower left piece that is most interesting. It can be used to insert tram stations:

Link to left image Link to middle image Link to right image

5) Tram-on-Street puzzle pieces
With Tram-on-Street (with SAM's cobblestone texture) puzzle pieces, you can build tram tracks on your streets in dense town centers. These are the pieces in the June 2009 NAM:

Link to image
Presently, there is no texture set for the original Maxis grey street texture.

To connect SAM streets:

Link to image
From left to right: plop a piece with street stub, select the SAM starter piece 8, plop it, bulldoze the white field, and drag street.

6) Texture variations (tram on green grass)
There are also a few Tram on Grass puzzle pieces for Tram-Avenue and Tram-in-Road, useful in rural areas and suburbs:

Link to left image Link to right image
(thanks to th.cb for both pictures)

7) Tram Roundabouts
A new modular roundabout for Tram-in-Road and Tram-on-Road was prepared for the June 2009 NAM version.

Link to image
(Picture is courtesy of RogerRon91)
Since it is a modular system, other roundabouts can be constructed. This picture indicates how you can build these roundabouts

Link to image

Already in the NAM, you find several tram-avenue roundabouts.

Link to image
This picture shows them with trees and flora, but this is an option if you don't like it. The displayed tram station is from the BSC SFBT GLR Tram Mod.

Bug Fix for LHD game versions only (UK, Japan, those versions where traffic drives on the left hand side): the tram-in-road transition to elevated light rail above road (from the May 2010 NAM) does not work because of missing paths. Extract the file "NetworkAddonMod_LEFT_HAND_VERSIONS_ONLY_Required_Additional_Plugin_add.dat" contained inside the attached zip file and move it into your folder NetworkAddonMod\z_Left Hand Version Plugin, and it will work. This fix is not required for the right hand drive version of Sim City 4.
EDIT: I believe that this fix was included in NAM version 30, but I don't know for sure.

[M4346]

I've seen these around - obviously showcased by the testers - and they look amazing! Great job and I can't wait to see more T-RAM! 

[TheTeaCat]

ooh very nice indeed 
I too would like to see more of T-RAM


TTC

[dedgren]

That's beautiful stuff, Chrisim!  Makes me think about the cities I might create... someday.

Good luck!


David

[SimsReporter]

Oh wow, Very nice. Can't wait to add this to Simcity 4 . 4th comments...woohoo 

[nerdly_dood]

If that isn't perfect then i dont' know what it is! This T-RAM is amazing!

Oh, and the thread's a sticky too...
I looked at the German site linked to above, and although I can't read a word anyone says, I can look at the pictures, and they are even more amazing than the ones posted on this page! I highly recommend it to anyone who can look at pictures and see what they are showing.

[Haljackey]

Its always great to see when a new NAM project is starting off.  Best of luck with creating T-RAM!

-Haljackey

[papab2000]

Very nice 

[Kitsune]

Pulled this from page 7 of that german thread.......



Finally! Its comforting to know that atleast it exists 

[Pat]

OOOH MY WOW!!! SOO verry stuuning job here!!! My intrest is defintly peeked here Chrisim and I will be following for more for sure....

i like this one the best its sweet!!!!

[JoeST]

good to know this project has its own thread now

cant wait for more, thanks chrisim

OK can I maybe suggest roundabout pieces that connect to standard GLR

[choco]

this looks sweet!!

whats that network with the glr down the middle on the left of caspers pic?

[RippleJet]

whats that network with the glr down the middle on the left of caspers pic?

Unless my eyes deceive me, that's a 1-tile wide road with GLR.

[rooker1]

 

I have just fainted.......

PS, if you need anyone else to test this, I'd be glad to help.
Robin 

[un1]

Amazing, amazing.   
Nice work that you have done. This will be very useful.

-un1

[pagenotfound]

Very nice work here. 

PS Is it possible to have a GLR to El rail transition in avenue piece?

[Theirishnintendonerd]

Wow! This mod will be extremley usefull , Can't wait to use it in game 
-Trevor

[bob56]

This is one of the great things i've seen! I can't wait for this!

Also, with pagenotfound, i would appreciate a glr-Elrail avenue piece.

[Chrisim]

Makes me think about the cities I might create... someday.

David, no please, stick to S C=3RR 4 

I looked at the German site ...

Ok, but how shall I surprise you when you look at Simforum?

Pulled this from page 7 of that german thread.......



Finally! Its comforting to know that atleast it exists 

This is Xyloxadoria's BAT of a tram-avenue transition to subway under avenue. It is fully functional, but there are still a few imperfect details to resolve. I hope that he will work on it again ...

roundabout pieces that connect to standard GLR

An avenue roundabout fits to the tram-avenue. Its center consists of 2x2 tiles. For standard GLR, it would not be symmetrical anymore and would look strange, I believe

Is it possible to have a GLR to El rail transition in avenue piece?

That's a difficult one, but it should be possible by modifying a copy of the existing NAM model. Would take some time to create, but may be worth the effort ... - thanks for the idea!

whats that network with the glr down the middle on the left of caspers pic?

I'll show more next weekend 

[kbieniu7]

Das ist Wunderbar!
I had been always waiting for this stuff, especially for one-tile-wide GLR on road.
I can't wait, since I saw it and on SimForum loops, GLR on grass texture, rail over GLR in avenue. Great work