Cities: Skylines (the Sim City we deserve)
- Thread starter Akira AC
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- eran0004
I found a nice asset on the Steam Workshop. It's basically the Aviation Club from the Sunset Harbor DLC, but invisible. I used it to create this small grass airstrip near the town of Woodhurst, imagining that it has some use for the forestry industry.
The runway here is simply painted on the ground with the surface painter mod, I'm using the field texture for this. I suppose the gravel texture could look nice as well. Because the runway heading is 180/360 degrees, the pixels of the surface paint map line up with the runway and that's how I got these sharp and straight edges. The hangar is one of the oil industry warehouses, turned into a procedural object to get rid of the props.
The runway here is simply painted on the ground with the surface painter mod, I'm using the field texture for this. I suppose the gravel texture could look nice as well. Because the runway heading is 180/360 degrees, the pixels of the surface paint map line up with the runway and that's how I got these sharp and straight edges. The hangar is one of the oil industry warehouses, turned into a procedural object to get rid of the props.
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- 17,337
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I'm still not achieving much... I've started a lot, I'm just not finishing it... so anyway... quick shot of the quarry which is mostly done...
- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
This is the town of Port Bérac, in the north-west of the island. It has a long history as a fishing port and with its remote location with respect to the capital city of Saint Martin it also became a prospering port for smugglers, with many of the historic buildings in the town's centre being paid for by the profit they made.
This rebellious little town was finally reeled in by the government in the late 19th century with the construction of the railway. Of course, by this point the smugglers had accumulated a significant amount of money, which allowed many of them to move to Saint Martin to become successful bankers and politicians instead.
Here is the town centre (WIP), with the train station and the market square.
Behind the train station there's a small industrial area with a bakery that is renowned for its fantastic bread. Some say that the rich flavour comes from the crops being grown on land where the smugglers used to bury their treasures.
The church is located on a hill, at the end of a long street lined with cypress trees. This semi-moumental design was a way for the smugglers to manifest their self-determination and independence from the island's government.
The map of the island. City Planner Plays' videos taught me to avoid building cul-de-sacs, so to give people a few options I created a road following the coastline and then made some strategic connections. These backroads are not as popular as the highway of course, but they still see a fair amount of use.
This rebellious little town was finally reeled in by the government in the late 19th century with the construction of the railway. Of course, by this point the smugglers had accumulated a significant amount of money, which allowed many of them to move to Saint Martin to become successful bankers and politicians instead.
Here is the town centre (WIP), with the train station and the market square.
Behind the train station there's a small industrial area with a bakery that is renowned for its fantastic bread. Some say that the rich flavour comes from the crops being grown on land where the smugglers used to bury their treasures.
The church is located on a hill, at the end of a long street lined with cypress trees. This semi-moumental design was a way for the smugglers to manifest their self-determination and independence from the island's government.
The map of the island. City Planner Plays' videos taught me to avoid building cul-de-sacs, so to give people a few options I created a road following the coastline and then made some strategic connections. These backroads are not as popular as the highway of course, but they still see a fair amount of use.
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- 11,299
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- eran0004
I reconfigured the area in front of the train station and turned it into a transit hub with stops for buses and for one of the tram lines. I also added another platform to the train station and shoehorned in a rail depot (non-functional). To fit the depot, I had to rebuild the entire oil industry area in the harbour, because I needed to find a new spot for the recycling centre that used to sit behind the train station.
- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
One small update for the trains (one giant leap for public transport). Now that I've got the rail depot I wanted some prop train cars in front of it. Unfortunately there's no prop version of the Hungarian train I used, so I went to the Steam Workshop to look for a new train with both a vehicle and a prop version.
I found this great looking Adelaide Metro 3000 class train. The vehicle comes in three versions, with 1 car, 2 cars or 3 cars, so you can easily pick the version that suits your needs. Each car has a passenger capacity of 100.
My favourite thing about this asset is that the author gave the train more realistic values for acceleration and braking, so you'll see that it takes some time for the train to reach top speed, and also that it will start to slow down long before reaching the station.
In the screenshot below there's a 3-car train and a 1-car train at the central station, and then there are two prop cars in front of the rail depot.
Here's a workshop link to the vehicle. There's a link to the prop version on the same page.
steamcommunity.com
Edit: Note that these trains have a very high tris count. It might cause the framerate to drop.
I found this great looking Adelaide Metro 3000 class train. The vehicle comes in three versions, with 1 car, 2 cars or 3 cars, so you can easily pick the version that suits your needs. Each car has a passenger capacity of 100.
My favourite thing about this asset is that the author gave the train more realistic values for acceleration and braking, so you'll see that it takes some time for the train to reach top speed, and also that it will start to slow down long before reaching the station.
In the screenshot below there's a 3-car train and a 1-car train at the central station, and then there are two prop cars in front of the rail depot.
Here's a workshop link to the vehicle. There's a link to the prop version on the same page.
Steam Workshop::Adelaide Metro 3000 Class [Train]
Edit: Note that these trains have a very high tris count. It might cause the framerate to drop.
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- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
I created a new train line to a nature reserve I'm building along the coast in the north. I set a design constraint that the gradient of the track couldn't exceed 2.5% (according to Wikipedia that should be a realistic value for passenger trains), so the line is running diagonally up the hillsides. I also learned that the first person camera mod can display the speed of the vehicle, so you'll find that in the top of the video.
I also reworked the area around the fishmarket next the the harbour in Saint Martin and made it more of a unified space. I used to have a boardwalk road from Network Extensions 2 in front of these commercial buildings (they are from the university city content creator pack I think), but I finally got rid of Network Extensions (I heard it could potentially corrupt your savefile, so I started using the Vanilla+ roads instead) and instead of replacing the boardwalk with another type of road I simply moved the buildings up closer to the quay and put down some decals, palm trees and a pedestrian path and extended that all the way down to the fishmarket. Now the road access for these buildings come from the road at the back, thanks to the building spawn points mod, and the front is just for pedestrians.
I also reworked the area around the fishmarket next the the harbour in Saint Martin and made it more of a unified space. I used to have a boardwalk road from Network Extensions 2 in front of these commercial buildings (they are from the university city content creator pack I think), but I finally got rid of Network Extensions (I heard it could potentially corrupt your savefile, so I started using the Vanilla+ roads instead) and instead of replacing the boardwalk with another type of road I simply moved the buildings up closer to the quay and put down some decals, palm trees and a pedestrian path and extended that all the way down to the fishmarket. Now the road access for these buildings come from the road at the back, thanks to the building spawn points mod, and the front is just for pedestrians.
- 17,337
- United Kingdom
So, I've got a lot of missing assets according to LSM, so I went through the error log and subscribed to everything that's missing...
.. now I get errors when I load up the game.
Of course, subscribing to about 100 assets in one go means I've no idea which one might be causing the problem without going back through the LSM report and looking up any that require mods to work. I've been really strict with myself not installing too many mods to avoid this kind of problem.
edit:
Further to the above. After wasting a couple of hours last night, it appears the problem might have been with an update to the Node Controller. Re-sub'd to that bought all the assets back and the errors have gone.
.. now I get errors when I load up the game.
Of course, subscribing to about 100 assets in one go means I've no idea which one might be causing the problem without going back through the LSM report and looking up any that require mods to work. I've been really strict with myself not installing too many mods to avoid this kind of problem.
edit:
Further to the above. After wasting a couple of hours last night, it appears the problem might have been with an update to the Node Controller. Re-sub'd to that bought all the assets back and the errors have gone.
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- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
@MatskiMonk Great to hear the problem was solved 
I'm working on a new low density residential asset. The idea here is that the big platform in the back sits on columns, which should allow for this building to be placed on a hillside without deforming the terrain too much (and without creating an enormous block of concrete beneath it).
I'm working on a new low density residential asset. The idea here is that the big platform in the back sits on columns, which should allow for this building to be placed on a hillside without deforming the terrain too much (and without creating an enormous block of concrete beneath it).
- 17,337
- United Kingdom
The bulk of Cooper county so far...
The main town towards the middle, is Stanley. It's mostly final in its layout, I need to add some more residential to the south west of the town, then add a load of detailing.
The smaller town towards the north east is Dufresne, again, it's mostly the size and shape it will be, it just needs some detailing.
The north western industrial area is the Macuga Mining Corporation, based around a large open pit quarry, and a mine deep under the neighbouring Mount Corona. The forestry area to the north of Stanley, at the top of the map, is the Martell Logging company, and the farm area between Stanley and Dufresne is called Lynch Farms. I find the industrial areas much easier to detail than the residential areas, so these are mostly finished.
There's also a small ribbon development hamlet just to the east of the quarry, I call this Oakehampcote, which again needs detailing.
Croxstone Circuit is coming along very slowly...
Another area I've spent too long on, is this area I call compass junction....
... it's basically a 4 way rail junction that (as I keep banging on about) is entirely free-flowing, all routes can be taken without crossing the path of another train. I wanted to detail it a bit, so it's supposed to represent a pipeline facility... but it's not finished...
And this is a junction I only spent about an hour on, and will most likely delete... because it's massive and will be a right pain to 'neaten' up.
The main town towards the middle, is Stanley. It's mostly final in its layout, I need to add some more residential to the south west of the town, then add a load of detailing.
The smaller town towards the north east is Dufresne, again, it's mostly the size and shape it will be, it just needs some detailing.
The north western industrial area is the Macuga Mining Corporation, based around a large open pit quarry, and a mine deep under the neighbouring Mount Corona. The forestry area to the north of Stanley, at the top of the map, is the Martell Logging company, and the farm area between Stanley and Dufresne is called Lynch Farms. I find the industrial areas much easier to detail than the residential areas, so these are mostly finished.
There's also a small ribbon development hamlet just to the east of the quarry, I call this Oakehampcote, which again needs detailing.
Croxstone Circuit is coming along very slowly...
Another area I've spent too long on, is this area I call compass junction....
... it's basically a 4 way rail junction that (as I keep banging on about) is entirely free-flowing, all routes can be taken without crossing the path of another train. I wanted to detail it a bit, so it's supposed to represent a pipeline facility... but it's not finished...
And this is a junction I only spent about an hour on, and will most likely delete... because it's massive and will be a right pain to 'neaten' up.
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- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
I'm creating some simple fields along the edges of the city, to get some variation in the landscape.
Replaced a few traffic lights with roundabouts as well. I like to rotate the roundabouts about 10 degrees or so, it gives a straighter exit and a bit sharper entry, allowing traffic to leave the roundabout faster than they can enter it. I imagine that helps with the flow. I saw that the intersection marking took got a new update with more options for fillers, so now it's possible to have fillers and lines at the same time. You can also round the corners of the fillers, which I think improves the look.
Replaced a few traffic lights with roundabouts as well. I like to rotate the roundabouts about 10 degrees or so, it gives a straighter exit and a bit sharper entry, allowing traffic to leave the roundabout faster than they can enter it. I imagine that helps with the flow. I saw that the intersection marking took got a new update with more options for fillers, so now it's possible to have fillers and lines at the same time. You can also round the corners of the fillers, which I think improves the look.
- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
Did some land reclamation to expand the exclusive waterfront district. Added an aquatics center, a gymnasium and an arts museum, plus some offices, a modern residential highrise and the start of a park. The elevated metro station in the background is actually used as a train station, I removed the metro track and replaced it with an elevated train station track. Had to place the pedestrian paths manually to make it work, but it was pretty easy after watching a tutorial.
- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
Interchange cleanup (and just road building in general) just got a lot easier!
No transition curves (yet?) but I can always use the Python mod when I need those
Edit: To test out the new mod I created a wind power farm. I looked up how far apart real wind turbines are placed and found that it was 4-6 times the diameter of the turbine. I measured the vanilla wind turbines to a diameter of roughly 60 meters, so 300 meters seemed like an appropriate distance to use. I then used the roundabout builder mod to create 300 meter radius circles which I could use as a guide when placing the turbines. Finally I built the roads, using the new mod. I mostly used the "connect path" tool. It was a bit tricky to figure out how to use it, but once I got the hang of it it was a really powerful tool.
No transition curves (yet?) but I can always use the Python mod when I need those
Edit: To test out the new mod I created a wind power farm. I looked up how far apart real wind turbines are placed and found that it was 4-6 times the diameter of the turbine. I measured the vanilla wind turbines to a diameter of roughly 60 meters, so 300 meters seemed like an appropriate distance to use. I then used the roundabout builder mod to create 300 meter radius circles which I could use as a guide when placing the turbines. Finally I built the roads, using the new mod. I mostly used the "connect path" tool. It was a bit tricky to figure out how to use it, but once I got the hang of it it was a really powerful tool.
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- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
Here is an overview of the city. I think the fields are looking great, it's a nice transition between the city and the forest. I'm going to add a few more of those for sure.
I made some changes to the port again. I wanted to fit the shipyard in there, but it was hard to find a good place for it because I didn't want to block the ship paths and I also wanted to have enough space in front of it so that the ships could realistically leave once they've been constructed. In the end it turned into one of those sliding puzzles where I had to shuffle a lot of buildings around. I moved the ferry depot next to the passenger ship terminal, the second cargo terminal was moved right next to the first one and finally the procedural objects cranes moved to a brand new dock.
The second change I made was to replace a few warehouses near the cargo terminals with these container warehouse assets by Avanya. I felt it created a better visual appearance for the port than the normal warehouses did.
It's getting hard to find useable land in the city, the remaining land is often a bit too steep. It's a pretty nice challenge though to look for areas that could be developed. This little neighbourhood I'm very pleased with, these tenements are so big that it actually makes sense to keep some space between them, so it works pretty well on a slope. I'm using the trees to hide some of the bumps in the terrain.
I made some changes to the port again. I wanted to fit the shipyard in there, but it was hard to find a good place for it because I didn't want to block the ship paths and I also wanted to have enough space in front of it so that the ships could realistically leave once they've been constructed. In the end it turned into one of those sliding puzzles where I had to shuffle a lot of buildings around. I moved the ferry depot next to the passenger ship terminal, the second cargo terminal was moved right next to the first one and finally the procedural objects cranes moved to a brand new dock.
The second change I made was to replace a few warehouses near the cargo terminals with these container warehouse assets by Avanya. I felt it created a better visual appearance for the port than the normal warehouses did.
It's getting hard to find useable land in the city, the remaining land is often a bit too steep. It's a pretty nice challenge though to look for areas that could be developed. This little neighbourhood I'm very pleased with, these tenements are so big that it actually makes sense to keep some space between them, so it works pretty well on a slope. I'm using the trees to hide some of the bumps in the terrain.
- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
Red Bull will run a Cities Skylines e-sports event on the 21st of August. Will be interesting to see what they have come up with.
www.redbull.com
What you need to know about Red Bull Metropolis
Bringing competition to Cities: Skyline for the first time, Red Bull Metropolis is a unique event you won't want to miss.
www.redbull.com
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'bout the only good thing eSports are good for is content drops... I hope there's some new stuff!
... glad CSL is getting some love though.
... glad CSL is getting some love though.
- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
I noticed that the jails in all my police stations were pretty much full, so I built a prison on that small island to the west (everyone knows that all the best prisons are located on islands). I also gave the island an observatory, imagining some cheap Hollywood action movie plot where a pair of likable anti-hero prisoners make a daring escape, but finding that they can't leave the island they break into the observatory and take a group of astronomy students as hostage. Then they discover that an enormous asteroid is heading towards the Earth so in order to save the world they need to search for a space shuttle to hijack, all while fleeing from the police in an epic car chase with the old astronomy professor as the driver in his 1992 Ford Fiesta.
I'm really happy with this bridge across the strait, it's made using the two-lane two-way highway from Mass Transit.
Where the bridge connects to the main island I built this trumpet interchange using the new Network Multitool mod (never before has it been so easy to make such beautiful interchanges). To spice up the interchange I went for the style of a brand new road that's partially still in construction, so I made the road surface darker to make it look like new tarmac, sprinkled some sand texture around the area and placed a handful of roadworks props.
I recorded a first person view of a prison transport from the police station in the city centre. You can see the interchange and the bridge towards the end of the video, unfortunately the game decided to autosave at that point so it's not the smoothest footage ever.
I'm really happy with this bridge across the strait, it's made using the two-lane two-way highway from Mass Transit.
Where the bridge connects to the main island I built this trumpet interchange using the new Network Multitool mod (never before has it been so easy to make such beautiful interchanges). To spice up the interchange I went for the style of a brand new road that's partially still in construction, so I made the road surface darker to make it look like new tarmac, sprinkled some sand texture around the area and placed a handful of roadworks props.
I recorded a first person view of a prison transport from the police station in the city centre. You can see the interchange and the bridge towards the end of the video, unfortunately the game decided to autosave at that point so it's not the smoothest footage ever.
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- 4,013
- Null Island
Starring Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson
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- The Pool Of Life.
It is going to be interesting to see what they come up with. It would not be the first game I would choose for e-sports. 🙂Red Bull will run a Cities Skylines e-sports event on the 21st of August. Will be interesting to see what they have come up with.
What you need to know about Red Bull Metropolis
Bringing competition to Cities: Skyline for the first time, Red Bull Metropolis is a unique event you won't want to miss.
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- cutback73
- cutback73
Curious, does the PC version have a mod to move entire chunks of city in one go? I certainly could have done with such a thing on PS4 yesterday. I was building a University Campus and decided to pretty much copy the layout of one in Trondheim, thought it looked nice and would probably work with the Cities buildings. Started building it from the front entrance only I found once I'd finished all the surrounding roads were bigger than I thought and it really didn't fit in with my existing planned layout for the city centre, it could do with moving a few hundred metres and spinning a few degrees.
So with no other option I started using the road tool as a ruler measuring everything, calculating the angles of curved roads, etc. First attempt was miles off, misjudged the angle of one support road which threw the whole thing off. Second attempt was much closer and whilst still off, I was pretty happy with it.
Original position on the left, 'moved' version right. You can see how it moved in relation to the train station.
A closer view
What I based it on. Not too bad I think. Lots of detailing to do and adding in the greenery of course.
I hope the cims appreciate the time and money involved in relocating their new, unopened University!
So with no other option I started using the road tool as a ruler measuring everything, calculating the angles of curved roads, etc. First attempt was miles off, misjudged the angle of one support road which threw the whole thing off. Second attempt was much closer and whilst still off, I was pretty happy with it.
Original position on the left, 'moved' version right. You can see how it moved in relation to the train station.
A closer view
What I based it on. Not too bad I think. Lots of detailing to do and adding in the greenery of course.
I hope the cims appreciate the time and money involved in relocating their new, unopened University!
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- United Kingdom
Ha, figured as much. Well, I suppose it brought a bit of challenge to the game that it otherwise lacks.
- 5,738
- Codemasters (EA)
- PJTierney
I hope the functionality of that mod comes into the base game next time.
Ha, indeed. I did actually start doing things a bit more realistically since watching some of his videos, like only building water pipes under roads and not bulldozing existing buildings at will to re-design areas, but it's nearly impossible to be totally realistic with the vanilla game. Main issue is obviously inability to plan, you can't really judge what the buildings will be like until you plonk them, or in this case, just how far roads will go.To quote City Planner Plays: “That would never happen in real life”
It looks great though! Very impressive to move it without MoveIt.
Also on another note it's funny how you don't always realise what really basic things aren't in the game until you start trying to mimic real cities. When I started on this it only really dawned on me looking at the front entrance that steps just don't exist, other than pre-rendered in some assets.
I think what they could also do is make a proper sandbox mode where you can design stuff outside of your city with no limits and then import it, see what it would look like, tweak if needed and then plonk it all down once you're happy.
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- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
I made some more upgrades to the highway and replaced all the at-grade intersections between Saint Martin and Port Bérac with interchanges to improve the traffic flow. This is the new interchange by the airport, replacing the old roundabout I used to have. I actually kept that roundabout in place and incorporated it in this asymmetric dumbbell design, it's the roundabout to the right in the picture.
Where the highway connects to the city I built this roundabout and because the collector (top left) had to be moved a bit to make the new connection I got a bit more space between it and the storm drain, just big enough for a little park.
Where the highway connects to the city I built this roundabout and because the collector (top left) had to be moved a bit to make the new connection I got a bit more space between it and the storm drain, just big enough for a little park.
- 11,299
- Sweden
- eran0004
I finally brought my city to financial balance. First I checked how well my city was actually doing, which is pretty hard given that it only displays the income and expenses over the past 7 days. So I made a note of the result every 7th day and after 15 weeks I calculated the average result. Turned out to be -22,500 ₡ / week, not great. The first big expense was pretty easy to identify, it was the campus area and the universal education policy.
The second one was harder to find, I noticed the budget panel saying that my policies cost me 18 000, but it didn't specify which policies were the expensive ones. I tried turning a few of them off but nothing much happened. Eventually I found the culprit though: the free smoke detector policy. It looks pretty innocent, just costing 5 per building. But when you've got two thousand buildings in your city it can dig a deep hole in your budget. Turned that off and instantly made a profit.
It seems pretty unrealistic for a smoke detector to be that expensive, it's not like they need to be replaced on a weekly basis. Sure, with that policy you can get away with fewer fire stations, but for 10 000 ₡ per week you can get 7 fire stations for a total of 175 fire engines so I can't really imagine any scenario where you'd be better off with the smoke detector policy.
The second one was harder to find, I noticed the budget panel saying that my policies cost me 18 000, but it didn't specify which policies were the expensive ones. I tried turning a few of them off but nothing much happened. Eventually I found the culprit though: the free smoke detector policy. It looks pretty innocent, just costing 5 per building. But when you've got two thousand buildings in your city it can dig a deep hole in your budget. Turned that off and instantly made a profit.
It seems pretty unrealistic for a smoke detector to be that expensive, it's not like they need to be replaced on a weekly basis. Sure, with that policy you can get away with fewer fire stations, but for 10 000 ₡ per week you can get 7 fire stations for a total of 175 fire engines so I can't really imagine any scenario where you'd be better off with the smoke detector policy.
