Bridges over lines.

[Klinn]

Looks good Person012345, especially that last shot.

Thanks bencze, I was trying to create the feeling of a busy rail hub in the center of a city.

I find that having bridges or roads close to the ends of the station helps carry the economic wealth of the town across to the other side of the rails, thereby allowing that side to become more built up and therefore the station appears more central in the layout of the town.

Back when I had roads crossing the rails further down the line from the station, the other side of town never seemed to develop properly. Effectively the railway was cutting it off.

(BTW, why is there no quote function in this forum?)

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by Klinn.

[Traian Trante]

Make sure when buildign bridges they have enough height. that was my original problem, i was building bridges as close to the terrain as possible, and coudl never get them right.

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Yeah, I agree – it should be easier to make these kinds of constructions. Did anybody play CitiesXL before? I play it, it’s the same thing in that game (always fiddling around to get stuff to connect and look right, slopes always in the way, stuff fits but then doesn’t when built in another order, etc.).

Was really hard to make it look acceptable, I don’t like how the landscape textures under the bridge on the sides are stretched though, but I can’t change that.

The one thing that really reminds me of the Transport Tycoon games (besides the trains, obviously), is the overabundance of fountains and statues 😀

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by CrunchyBiscuit.

[Azrael]

I think, we need a dev statement, what factors decide, in which direction a city grows, because my biggest city in the first game has grown on the other side of the tracks, though they needed to cross the tracks.
So I’m not sure, if the fact, that they need to cross tracks by a normal track-road-junction really makes a difference for the program.

The only thing I could imagine, that makes a difference, is, if the City needs to establish a rail-road-junction by itself, since I only have crossed existing roads, which the city later on used to establish a connection to the new city parts on the other side of the tracks which I could observe by the fact, that the city upgraded the neighbouring dirt roads to normal city roads and later on modern city roads.
Since there are some minor difficulties for humans and that the track construction tool is rather sensitive regarding needed space, I think, the AI has too many difficulties to build roads itself across tracks, so they don’t expand across your trailtracks, if there are no existing crossings or they still do but over a crossing, that is very far away from the city, which would look akward.

I never experienced such a scenario but I could test it in my second game, that I play by now, if cities grow faster over tracks, when I cross the tracks with bridges or tunnels and not normal crossings.

[Klinn]

I think you’re right Azrael, the AI cannot build roads over rail lines either. They will only take advantage of existing roads. When I lay out a station, I deliberately add some transverse roads before creating the rail lines so that development at least has a chance of reaching around to the other side of the tracks.

But in most cases I found that the development was pretty minor and of low economic value. To improve it I had to build roads closer to the station ends, ones that are closer to the heart of the city. From reading the developers’ log, I think the main factor influencing the amount of development is travel time. So closer roads, or quicker in-city transit, will help.

[Bansheedragon]

@Klinn

If I didnt know this was a game I would almost think those pics was from some real railway tracks.

That looks pretty damned awesome.

I wish I had the patience to make something like this.

[trainjunkie]

I have had good success by first making bumps in the lanscape with the lanscaping tool and then making a bridge between the bumps.

Railway bridges are easy because you can build them segment by segment.

I was thinking about making a pillarless bridge to help with overpasses.

[trainjunkie]

 

Is what I mean

[Person012345]

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/50986086088710944/4AB231C4F59198D4ACAFD25F61D65963B359A437/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/50986086088698179/D1C329A29B18771A25BEA362F742F578DF12DAF1/

You have no idea how much of an (expensive) pain in the ass this was to make work.

[Azrael]

So why did you build it then?

[squishycube]

Klinn, that looks fantastic.

Person, thanks to your tip I created this baby:

[Person012345]

@Azrael because it was interesting. I learned some lessons from it and will make more similar things in future except they will look better. Not everything has to be “most efficient” blandness, I want my games and systems to look different each time I play.

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