Cities: Skylines (the Sim City we deserve)

  • Thread starter Akira AC
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Westfield civic engineer when asked to work out the physics of pasta bridge

It's like, errr... tensegrity... or something.

... probably.

Anyhow, it seems any node that's been manipulated by the Node Controller regains deleted pillars when I re-open the game...

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... this is going to be a problem.
 
I have a strange pathfinding issue. For my cargo trains I'm using the cargo train terminal from the Airports DLC, and suddenly every car leaving the city towards a certain direction takes a detour via the train terminal. And not just driving past it on the road, but actually using the internal paths intended for the cargo trucks. It's hilarious, but also annoying since it creates a bit of a traffic jam. Any ideas how to solve it?

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I have a strange pathfinding issue. For my cargo trains I'm using the cargo train terminal from the Airports DLC, and suddenly every car leaving the city towards a certain direction takes a detour via the train terminal. And not just driving past it on the road, but actually using the internal paths intended for the cargo trucks. It's hilarious, but also annoying since it creates a bit of a traffic jam. Any ideas how to solve it?
That's odd. To test I set up that same cargo station off a road with an outside connection about 2 junctions away (and aside from getting absolutely swamped by trucks), let it run for a bit and it behaved normally, so I don't think it's a quirk of using that asset.

Should they be using Pampeluna Road, or are they supposed to be coming in from St. Columbuses viaduct?
 
That's odd. To test I set up that same cargo station off a road with an outside connection about 2 junctions away (and aside from getting absolutely swamped by trucks), let it run for a bit and it behaved normally, so I don't think it's a quirk of using that asset.

Should they be using Pampeluna Road, or are they supposed to be coming in from St. Columbuses viaduct?
I don’t even think they should be going through the industrial area. There’s an arterial road north of the railroad, it seems like the shortest and quickest connection. All the incoming cars are going that way.

I did manipulate the train terminal slightly, by unlocking the tracks so I could place two terminals next to each other. Perhaps that broke something?
 
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If you use TMPE to prohibit car traffic from that area what happens?
I tried that yesterday, but the cars insisted on going there anyway. Today I demolished the cargo terminal, let the traffic sort itself out for a while and then built a new one. That seems to have solved the problem.
 
The new town hall asset that I'm working on is starting to look like something. And the triangle count is surprisingly low still.

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Where do you make these assets?

Really enjoying skimming back through this thread and seeing all the amazing images and maps etc.. Some absolutely stunning work!!

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This is a bit of a noob question, but can you eventually 'play' cities/maps that you've created in sandbox mode on the PC version?
 
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This is a bit of a noob question, but can you eventually 'play' cities/maps that you've created in sandbox mode on the PC version?
I think the answer to that comes down to the terminology. Strictly speaking, there's not really an all encompassing sandbox mode, just the in game map editors, which just allow you to create the environment, and not a functional city in any way. So when you come to 'play' those maps, it's basically just building your city.

When it comes to building your city, the most sandboxy elements (IMHO), are using the unlimited money, and natural resources options, and disable milestones. With these turned on you can basically build what you want, when you want... then when it comes to the really granular - building it where and how you want, you need at least one or two other mods (like MoveIt!). I generally start with unlimited money because I don't want to have to build a crappy area for the sake of it, knowing I'll have to demolish it later. At some point however, I turn the economy back on and the city has to 'work' financially. Natural resources I'll always leave switched to unlimited, because I don't want to spend days building an industrial area, just for it to exhaust its ore (for example) a few days later, and need to be moved/demolished/rebuilt.

Most of the popular mods people use tend to be about improving the simulation or visuals, to give more freedom, accuracy or detail. They're not simulation breakers (for the most part)... so the crux of the game is still building a functional city, and if that's how you want to 'play' the game, you can't sink as many hours into as your heart desires! There's a wealth of assets that help with certain aspects of creating a functional city more easily, or in a more aesthetically pleasing manner, but you can use these as little or as much as you like. Similarly, mods like the 'ticket price editor', can help you tweak things that you can't in Vanilla, which do make your life a bit easier, but are also more reflective of the real world, but you can use them as much or as little as you want.

I know there's a whole layer of 'scenarios' beyond what I've mentioned here, but to be honest, if you've busted your ass making a really good city, you don't want to have to wreck it, just to tick a scenario box IMHO.

It's difficult to overstate how different the game becomes on a PC.
 
Where do you make these assets?

Really enjoying skimming back through this thread and seeing all the amazing images and maps etc.. Some absolutely stunning work!!

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This is a bit of a noob question, but can you eventually 'play' cities/maps that you've created in sandbox mode on the PC version?
I make them in Blender, but you can use pretty much any 3D modelling software as long as it can export fbx, obj or dae files. All the information about creating your own assets can be found at https://cslmodding.info/asset/building/

Edit: An update on the progress. Almost ready for some textures!
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Thank you for all of that useful info @MatskiMonk and @eran0004 🙂👍

Is there any mods (other than MoveIt!) or add-on packs that you'd consider as must-haves?
These are the ones I use the most, I've about 50+ mods at the moment, but some do really specific things and you probably don't need a number of these. Best way to look at it, is the more comfortable you get with it, you'll start to want to do things you can't, at that point, look for a mod or ask.

FindIt! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2133885971
Kind of goes hand in hand with MoveIt! for just placing stuff where you want it

Node Controller https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2472062376
Gives you far better control over how joins are made on roads

Prop & Tree anarchy https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=593588108
Put stuff where you might not otherwise be able

Prop Precision https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=791221322
Allows more accurate placement of props

Traffic Manager https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1637663252
Manages your traffic better... hurts performance if you crank it up though. Allows you to assign more realistic lane discipline requirements at junctions.

Loading screen mod https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2858591409
Makes the game load much more efficiently

FPS Booster https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2105755179
Worked really well for me, clawing back some framerate once the city gets big enough to hurt your FPS

Extra landscaping tool https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2862940316
Useful if you get the Industries DLC

Network Multitool https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2560782729
Helps make neat roads

Clouds & Fog toggler https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=523824395
Visual controls for clouds, edge fog, and industrial smog

No radioactive desert https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=666425898
Kills VISUAL signs of pollution (not the pollution itself)

No Pillars https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=463845891
I use this when I want to avoid collision detection when building roads, or when I don't want zoning on certain roads. It's a bit niche.

Big City https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1270675750
Use 25 tiles instead of 9. There's an 81 tiles Mod too, but I'm not convinced its stable

Intersection Marking Tool https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2140418403
Make junctions look better

As for DLC

To me, Industries adds most to the game, but it depends on what aspect of the game you enjoy.
Mass Transit, and Green Cities are worthwhile for the functionality of some of the assets
After Dark, Campus and Parklife help create more specific types of areas
Snowfall is useful if you want to create winter maps
The others (Sunset Harbour, Financial Districts, Airports, Parks & Plazas) are just nice to have.
The only one I'd warn against is Natural Disasters. It has useful assets (Helicopter emergency services), but the rest of it basically subjects your map to natural disasters, wrecking it in the process. It's good if you enjoy playing scenarios, but epically BAD if you don't want large chunks of the city flattened, flooded or burnt down.
Match Day and Concerts are basically one trick ponies, but I think they are/were free

I basically have all of them. I wouldn't want to miss any of them now, but it's a fair investment upfront and they might not represent the best value unless you really get into it. Cities: Skylines has so far cost me £213, for which I've gotten 2082 hours of play. It is a lot, but I'd say it's also good value.
 
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I'm a habitual F1 hitter, I save VERY often.... thought I'd check out my save file folder...

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24 gigs in Quicksaves for the first 11 months of 2022. Surprised it's only 633 saves, but in any case, if you're running a big city with lots of assets, worth keeping an eye on how much disk space it's using up.
 
Took a break from the town hall creation and made a quick and easy asset instead: A small snow dump. That way I can spread them out throughout the city instead of having a few big snow dumps around the outskirts. Fun fact: The pile of snow was modelled using rigid body physics, a couple of cell-fractured cubes and a big blanket with cloth physics. Blender can be a lot of fun sometimes :)

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I also expanded the harbor, adding fishing industry, some generic industry and a passenger ship terminal.
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Did some more more work on area around the passenger ship terminal. Added some buss tops and a tram line.
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This little detail I really like. Using two layers of quays to get the marinas closer to the sea level. At the far end is a building from the Seaside Resorts content creators pack.
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At the other end of the harbour I created an industrial area. I wanted to use assets that matched the style of the shipyard but i didn't have a lot of them, so I'll have a look at the workshop later and see what I can find.
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A new industrial area means that some new housing is needed as well.
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They've dropped a teaser for something console related, comments deduce from the video that it's more tiles...



... but you might need the latest consoles for it.
 
A very minor update, but I finally got to grips with the Move It controls after watching videos.

So, it's just corner arrows and some trees, but it feels like a victory, as it's the first thing I've placed on my map since moving to PC I'm happy with.

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I don't know why it has caused such anguish, but the move to playing on a PC has been an uphill struggle where I battle to make good of the ideas in my head.
 
VXR
I don't know why it has caused such anguish, but the move to playing on a PC has been an uphill struggle where I battle to make good of the ideas in my head.
It's a steep learning curve and if you've spent any time watching the pros do it on YouTube, your own efforts can often feel sub par anyway. It's also immensely time consuming when you're positioning everything by hand, so it's a big effort too. And last but not least, is simply having the right assets that match what's in your head.

edit: I'm trying to get my head back into asset creation, and have regressed into working in Sketchup again. It's so much quicker/easier than Blender for the easy stuff, though I'll still need to import models into Blender for the texturing.
 
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Do you think that DLCs will be carried over into the remastered version? I'm assuming they won't be, but I'm hoping they will.
I can't see that the DLC wouldn't free as owners of the previous-gen game get the remastered version for free.

I think that the DLC is coded into every base game update but only becomes unlocked when purchased through the store. So if you've bought it, you've bought it, no matter which version of the base game you have. If i remember rightly whenever i've bought stuff it's become available to use straight away without needing a patch downloading. But i could be wrong on this.
 
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Do you think that DLCs will be carried over into the remastered version? I'm assuming they won't be, but I'm hoping they will.

Currently, all DLCs until the 2023 release of "Airports" are Remastered.

We are currently working on the remastered versions of the remaining DLCs (Plazas & Promenades, Financial Districts and all Content Creator Packs and Radio Stations released fall 2023) They will be available soon!
 

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