General Discussion

[dedgren]

OK, this is the first post in a thread I'm calling "General Discussion."  Here, the 3RR Collaboration Team Members can discuss topics of general significance to the 3RR collaboration effort in a forum that is also open to public input.  'Couple of points-

1.  If there's a limited interest matter a team member needs to surface or have addressed, or if there's a problem of some sort, let's have those discussion over on the team's private thread.  If we decide as a group that public input is warranted, or would in some way be helpful, we can then bring it over here.

2.  If you're not on the 3RR Collaboration Team, but are interested in the collaboration effort and in how 3RR turns out at the end of the day, feel free to post here and throw in your 2 cents (or 2 dollars for that matter- if you are thinking about a larger contribution, LOL, PM me and I'll send you details on my PayPal account).  Everything posted here will be considered, so don't hold back just because you haven't stepped forward (yet) and joined the team.

3.  Along that line, post requests to develop a quad (i.e.: to become a new team member) here.  Sometimes I miss stuff posted in 3RR when it gets busy.

4.  Announcements concerning the collaboration effort will be posted here- I will also try to make sure, depending on the significance, that they go out over the PM system as well.

* * *

So, with that, I'll exit here and double-post with the first topic for discussion.


David

[dedgren]

Topic for Discussion No. 1-

The premise behind 3RR development generally is that it is occurring in a region in the North American midwest/north woods that was settled commencing in the 1830s, grew into its present land use and development patterns mainly in the late 1800s/early 20th Century, and has preserved a fairly great amount of that development to the present day.  This is not to say that in places like Pineshore that there is not modern urban development- my thought is that the downtown should have a fair number of new buildings mixed in with the old.  There are also modern suburbs that date back only to the 1950s and 60s (Haypoint, Baudette and to some degree Richwood and Harford).  The smaller city and town cores, though, should be reflective of the sort of substantial and prosperous Main Street commercial and civic development that was in place by the 1950s.

Another guiding principle behind developing the region is that, while each team member should have as much opportunity as possible to put his or her individual stamp on the quad in question, all development should tend toward a reasonably consistent whole.  I'm again focused here mainly on urban development.  I think this means a couple of things.

1.  We need to have some degree of agreement on basic considerations of big city architecture- no buildings, for example, over X stories tall (I don't think, for example, that there is a building in Duluth or Winnipeg that is over 15 stories tall).  My sense of larger midwestern cities with substantial roots in the 1800s is that large numbers of older building are made out of brick, as another example.

2.  For smaller cities and town, we need to identify an across-the-board set of plugins that will give us a consistent built environment appearance.  Once we do this, I will then ask each individual team member developing a small city or town to propose a reasonable number of additional plugins that he or she thinks is necessary in "personalizing" the development.

3.  Villages and places, in that they are mainly residential, will need a basic set of across-the-board residential structures.  In the midwestern towns where I grew up, two story brick, stucco and balloon-frame wood sided houses were the norm.  Lots tended to be 50'x150'/16m x 48m in older urban single-family residential areas laid out in rectangular grid "blocks."  Post-mid 20th Century subdivision development employed larger lots on streets that tended to meander around, and there were often small cul-de-sacs to maximize the use of space.

So, what basic commercial and residential plugins should we use for Pineshore (I'll broach industrial stuff later in connection with that portion of the backstory)?  What basic commercial and residential plugins would be a good choice for our smaller localities?  Should we exclude Maxis stuff?

A couple of points to keep in mind.

1.  I plan to use a population reducer mod (I know there is one- I can't remember what it is called) to keep pops realistic and in line with the targets we've set in the backstory.  Those targets, mind you, are not hard-and-fast, and we can increase or decrease them for good reason.

2.  I grew up with midwestern brands of gasoline all around me.  Many companies are long gone, but whatever the status quo is today, we need to agree on four or five brands of gas that will be sold in the region consistent with the plugins that are available.  I recall Standard (later American then Amoco), Cities Service (later Citgo), Shell, Texaco, Phillips 66, Sinclair (later Arco), and Mobil.  In Canada, I recall Shell (again) and Esso.  I'm open to using any reasonably realistic brand out there (sorry, no Chevron (west coast), Union 76 (ditto), Sohio (where do you think?), or Conoco (U.S. south).

That's plenty to start with.  We'll see how the ball rolls, and then I intend to next visit the issue of mods to be used generally.  I have a little list...

Later.


David

[pvarcoe]

Hi David.

I will follow these threads with much interest.
I haven't signed up, but am very interested to see what standards come into use in 3RR.
By standards I'm thinking of things like what road mods (dirt shoulders, etc) will be used.
Also things like terrain mods, water, all of that kind of thing.
Also standards like your proposed mile roads and quarter sections.

I must confess, those types of things really catch my attention, and also influence my development in TT.

The collaborative effort with 3RR is a massive project. I will be very interesting to watch it unfold.
All the best with it!

Phil


HEY, just read your second post while this was uploading. Scary minds, er I mean great minds think....

[Unkles27]

well, this is going to be very complicated... but we can do it.
As far as bats and stuff go, JBSimio's smalltownUSA buildings will be a must, maybe a few different houses and a few strip mall type commercial buildings.
Will it matter what version of the NAM that we will use? Cause I haven't upgraded mine and I'm not sure if I want to.

[Shadow Assassin]

Now, this is a good idea. You were asking about the population halver: here's the link. Use at your own risk, though.

[Travis]

Whew, I can't keep up with you! You type faster than I can read...
This certainly isn't a normal MD anymore. (Not like it ever was...)
It's also a good idea to use the same style of architecture across the region when it comes to plugins. Helps to keep things consistent.
But I have one important question: will you use the Rural Highway mod in 3RR? It seems to be a perfect fit for the way you
describe the region's highways, but I believe it is not compatible with the latest version of the NAM. Thus, I haven't installed the
new NAM yet, and I probably won't until the new version of the Rural Highway mod is released, which will make it compatible.
Well, what should I do? 

Later.

[pvarcoe]

Hi Travis.

I am currently using the 2 lane rural highway mod, with the new NAM, and it seems to be working ok.
But I am using it purely in that 2 lane capacity as a rural highway (uhhhh, hmmmm).
Works pretty well in a rural based senario.


Phil

[Tarkus]

I'd concur about using JBSimio's stuff.  There's some Maxis stuff that looks okay, but then there's some that doesn't, so I'm split on the Maxis-blocking issue.  As far as more recent residential stuff for suburbia, I'd say some of SimGoober's RLS Suburban Homes would do the trick.  I believe DuskTrooper has something along those lines as well.

And Travis, as part of the RHW team, I can tell you that the new v17 version of the mod that is compatible with NAM v20 (the most recent version) has had significant delays.  The other member of the team, qurlix, had been doing all the work on v17, seems to have disappeared. 

I know he had some RL, and I haven't heard from him in over a month.  Last I heard, he was pretty close, but not ready to release it.  However, I have found what the issues are with the NAM/RHW incompatibility and successfully created a fix for it.  I've asked qurlix if I can release this fix (v13) in the interim, and I'm waiting to hear back.  So if David wants to include the RHW as part of the plug-in set for 3RR, someone on the RHW may be able to accommodate it.

-Alex
(3RR-RHW Liaison, I guess)

[thundercrack83]

David,

As promised, here is my official request to participate in the collaboration: Quads 1, 3, 4 are fine with me, if they're not already taken. I look forward to getting started!

Dustin

[threestooges]

Just a quick point of clarification regarding principle 3 (referring to lot size) 16m x 48m translates to 1x3 tiles in game. I would assume smaller (1x2) would also work. If there are any problems along those lines, please let me know.

For places such as Tincup (and other such old/abandoned towns) onlyplace4 has some good western type stuff, I'm just not sure how well it would fit into the location. I know Colorado and places farther west have the typical western structures but as far as I know that also extends eastward (but please ocrrect me if I'm wrong).

Lastly, I was wondering when those who will be collaborating will find out what quad(s) they will be developing, as well as any backstory already in place for them, so that they may begin to better plan for it.

[BigSlark]

JBSimio's work has to be included for a midwestern-style region. It seems that the only close terrain mod is c.p.'s Columbus, if there's something more suitable I'd be very happy.

I have managed to completely remove Maxis created Residential buildings from the game and, as a general rule, it looks MUCH better. Granted, I have a very strange collection of residential structures without any regard to their origin, but some such as the Suburban Homes and American Four Square would be perfect for 3RR.

And count this as another vote for RHW.

As for Historic Towns, many towns on the frontier (which 3RR would have been in the 1830's) burned SEVERAL times before they got fire departments. I have family in the tiny Western Kansas town of Collyer, which was founded in 1861 and managed to burn in 1866, 1888, 1899, and 1923 before they got a fire engine. As a result, the entire commercial district dates from at the earliest 1900. And, if my memory serves me correctly, the neighboring town of WaKeeney lost an entire block to fire at the late date of 1936!

Since we're also creating historic towns, I wish there was a way to make jeronji's streetside mod applicable in some situations but not others. It would look great in an old downtown but wouldn't look quite right in a new suburban neighborhood.

Just some things to think about.
Cheers,
Kevin

[dedgren]

A couple of things- Phil (pvarcoe), who lives close to there, gently corrected my wrong impression that Winnipeg, at least, has no buildings over 15 stories.  I checked and, believe it or not, there is a whole thread on Wikipedia [linkie] devoted to nothing other than the tallest buildings in Winnipeg.  There, I quickly learned that the tallest building is 33 stories tall...

...and there's a shorter one at 34 stories- go figure!

So I was not even half right as far as Winnipeg goes.  Thought I'd check out Duluth, just to be a completist.  I didn't get very far, at least on the web.  Searching turned up no reference to any tall building of any height in Duluth (which sounds like a very nice place to live, by the way, if you don't mind big weather- there were no pics of the city in a sleet storm with 50mph/80 kph winds).  Wikipedia does have a website listing the tallest buildings in Minnesota [linkie].  No building in Duluth makes the list, which goes down to about 300 feet/30.5 meters.

So, no building in Pineshore over 30-40 stories?  I'll look for your thoughts.

* * *

Tincup has always been one of my favorite mountain town names.  There is a real one- it's a ghost town just west of the Collegiate Peaks of the Colorado Rockies.



3RR's Tincup would be developed consistent with the backstory, so it wouldn't likely be old west false fronts, but it would be pretty rustic.

* * *

I see some good discussion to this point.  I'll let it run another day or so (actually, I won't have a choice- I'll be on a plane for about 13 hours tomorrow).  I'd actually like to have folks go so far as to even propose a candidate list.  I've got a loose one kicking around in my head already, but I'd like to listen to someone else other than the voice inside my head for a change.

* * *

The RHW- never thought of proceeding without it.  I was hoping the NAM conflict would have gotten sorted out, as I love the new "wide-radius" RR curves, even if the close-up appearance is less than perfect.  We'll work things out.

* * *

Dustin (thundercrack83) will be joining us.  I've set up his access to the private thread, and it looks like he's going for the gusto with a Pineshore quad.

I've got to pack...


David

[Zaphod]

hey im here

As for pineshore, I think you should do a good sized downtown. the city may not be huge, but its the biggest city for many many miles and therefore I would imagine its a rather important place

[Tarkus]

Hi David-

Thanks for the update on things, and it's interesting to know about the building heights.  I'm personally in favor of limiting the building size to about 20-30 stories for realism purposes.  The Wells Fargo Center, which is the tallest building in Portland, Oregon (the closest "big city" to me) is 41 floors, and it has a 2006 population to 562,690 (Metro Area around 2 million), whereas 3RR's entire regional population is 463,880. However, there is a lot of diversity in terms of building heights in cities.  Omaha, Nebraska, however, has a metro population of only 819,246, but has a 45-story building (though they quickly shrink after that). 

Hope you have a safe and smooth trip back to Alaska, and we definitely will be able to work something out with the RHW.

-Alex

[Unkles27]

I also think we should limit the building height in Pineshore. I always sort of imagine an Anchorage like downtown, not huge but still respectable and very pretty

[thundercrack83]

hey im here

As for pineshore, I think you should do a good sized downtown. the city may not be huge, but its the biggest city for many many miles and therefore I would imagine its a rather important place

I agree with you completely. If I remember correctly, David set the population for Pineshore between 150,000 - 200,000 (I can't remember the exact figure). Growing up in eastern Pennsylvania, a city of that size is about the same size as Allentown, PA. As far as the midwestern cities, Des Moines, IA has a population of around 194,000, which is in the ballpark. For me, it all depends upon how David envisions the area and then striving to work within his vision as best as possible.

I also think we should limit the building height in Pineshore. I always sort of imagine an Anchorage like downtown, not huge but still respectable and very pretty

As far as a building height limit, I agree with that, too. I wouldn't put the Sears Tower in downtown Pineshore, but since it is the main urban area of the region, I think some taller buildings would work well.

[threestooges]

Also, in terms of a general list of things to include: a decent slope mod and the bridge height mod. I think that 30-40 floors wouldn't hurt as a height limit (at least for now).

[meldolion]

As a slope mode I'd use Jeronij's, to me seems to work pretty good... As for 30-40 floors limit here in Europe in a city like Pineshore is really rare to see buildings higher than 20 floors... Anyway, 30-40 floors seems good to me

[barnatom]

Yes, a height limit should be set. And it should be depending on the time the building was constructed. I haven't seen a midwest-city personaly, but I think that a 30 floor art-deco skysrcaper would be out of place in city with 200 000 inhabitants. So I suggest to establish a chart like this:

Chicago-style: No more than 6 floors
New-York-style: No more than 10 floors
and so on...


barnatom

[tkirch]

The small town stuff would fit in great with everything.

BSC would be great to, especially because of the tracking enabling on the agricultural stuff.