Anyone play Cities: Skylines yet?

[thspfc]

That first picture reminds me of the Mixmaster (I-35, 80, and 235) in on the north side of Des Moines.

[Ned Weasel]

Well it looks like you used TM:PE for the Michigan left. If you have TM:PE, there is a feature to restrict access to certain vehicles.

Oh, cool!  I didn't know that.

That first picture reminds me of the Mixmaster (I-35, 80, and 235) in on the north side of Des Moines.

Hmm, sort of!  The interchange I made basically just happened because I had a trumpet, and I wanted to convert it to a four-way interchange, but I didn't want to tear down the trumpet.  Such a thing probably only really works if most of your movements from one of the freeways are turning movements instead of straight-through movements.

[fmendes]

None of these are very well detailed, because I don't like fussing with a million mods, but here's what I've been building with Unlimited Money lately, just for kicks:

I'd love to know if an interchange like this exists anywhere in the wild:


Bridge and tunnel entrance/exit:


Michigan Lefts (thanks to TM:PE) and a diverging diamond (vanilla):


C-D lanes and freeway tangles that would probably be silly IRL:


Tollway service plazas:


I wish there was a way to restrict the access on that service road to fire and police vehicles only:


Lonely (for now) airport, with a cloverstack and another service plaza:

very impressive that interchnage at the tunnel is nice

[Ned Weasel]

very impressive that interchnage at the tunnel is nice

Thanks! That one was especially fun to make.

[ari-s-drives]

...
I wish there was a way to restrict the access on that service road to fire and police vehicles only:

...

If you are using TM:PE, then you can restrict vehicle access.

[paulthemapguy]

Michigan Lefts (thanks to TM:PE) and a diverging diamond (vanilla):

Hook yourself up with the new version of Node Controller, and you can make the crossovers at that diverging diamond look smoother.

[fmendes]

Michigan Lefts (thanks to TM:PE) and a diverging diamond (vanilla):

Hook yourself up with the new version of Node Controller, and you can make the crossovers at that diverging diamond look smoother.

and u cant forget move it mod as well i use a combination of the two to make a good road.
On a side note how do u make the pictures so u can attach them in this forum i cant do it lol?

[Ned Weasel]

On a side note how do u make the pictures so u can attach them in this forum i cant do it lol?

Print screen, paste in GIMP, export as a JPEG, upload to Imgur, copy link, paste link in image code with 800px width and file extension appended to the end of the link.

[jakeroot]

Progress GIF of some new freeway construction. The village at center is a large freight operations center and the two-lane highways were getting bogged down by all the trucks.

I'm in the process of building a new airport to improve freight operations. This involved raising the land, sinking the HSR lines below ground, realigning the Hayes Bypass (the road at top), and building a new access road. I intend to make it a bit like PDX with some shops along the access road.

The old loopy road at the bottom was the old Neville Hwy, and the road leaving to the right of the image was Raleigh St; the road from left to right is now the M2 Neville Freeway, and the bottom to top road (new construction) is the M3 Silverlands Fwy.


M2 / M3 Junction Progress by Jake Root, on Flickr

(disregard the UFO-looking things, they are to help me build my loops)

[JoePCool14]

So here's an interesting I thought I'd share.

I've had the same Cities: Skylines save ever since day 1. I bought the game the day it released, and have been playing the map basically ever since. That makes the map over six years old. I've got some screenshots and older saves that show the progress of the city, but something interesting I also have is an old "map" I made a few years ago, detailing the layout of the Interstates in the city.

I say "map" in quotes because it's just some crude lines in Excel with a few shields on it to mark the different roads.



Well, I decided tonight that I was going to update the map to include more recent changes to the city since I originally created this.



As you can see, I've decided to renumber many of the roads. I originally waffled about where my city is located, but given its more northern appearance and the focal point of the city being on I-90, I decided to place it in Wisconsin. Originally I had it located between Madison and Rockford, but since I-90 is really north-south in this section, I decided to move it to be between La Crosse and Tomah. Let's just say it replaces Sparta. 

Anyway, I'll try to provide some more context if people want, but it's 11 pm and I want to go to sleep instead. But let me know your thoughts on this.

[Roadgeekteen]

I wish you could import route shields into cities skylines.

[Ned Weasel]

I wish you could import route shields into cities skylines.

I wish they could just make a game that was an honest-to-goodness traffic simulator.

[Roadgeekteen]

I wish you could import route shields into cities skylines.

I wish they could just make a game that was an honest-to-goodness traffic simulator.

There are mods that make traffic more realistic I think.

[jakeroot]

The mods these days make it good enough that there doesn't need to be C:S2.

There are definitely very good traffic simulator mods. TM:PE is very well coded at this point.

[johndoe]

I wish you could import route shields into cities skylines.

I wish they could just make a game that was an honest-to-goodness traffic simulator.

Vissim, Synchro / SimTraffic, TransModeler ... why pay for a game when someone will pay you to do it as a career?!   

[Roadgeekteen]

The mods these days make it good enough that there doesn't need to be C:S2.

There are definitely very good traffic simulator mods. TM:PE is very well coded at this point.

Although if you play the game on console, you can't use mods. Also it can be tedious to look for mods so it would be easier if features were in the base game.

[Ned Weasel]

Vissim, Synchro / SimTraffic, TransModeler ... why pay for a game when someone will pay you to do it as a career?!   

Because nobody's going to pay me to do it as a career.

[Roadgeekteen]

Vissim, Synchro / SimTraffic, TransModeler ... why pay for a game when someone will pay you to do it as a career?!   

Because nobody's going to pay me to do it as a career.

He was joking I think

[johndoe]

Vissim, Synchro / SimTraffic, TransModeler ... why pay for a game when someone will pay you to do it as a career?!   

Because nobody's going to pay me to do it as a career.

He was joking I think

Not necessarily; if you have a real interest in it I bet you could find an employer to work for.  Without a degree it would be more challenging but I bet some organizations out there have big needs and would be willing to hire non-engineers.

[vdeane]

The mods these days make it good enough that there doesn't need to be C:S2.

There are definitely very good traffic simulator mods. TM:PE is very well coded at this point.

Although if you play the game on console, you can't use mods. Also it can be tedious to look for mods so it would be easier if features were in the base game.

Plus some of the DLCs would be better if they were properly integrated into the base game rather than grafted on.  The fact that they're added in DLC makes for some inelegant implementations (such as snow maps rather than seasons).

[Roadgeekteen]

Vissim, Synchro / SimTraffic, TransModeler ... why pay for a game when someone will pay you to do it as a career?!   

Because nobody's going to pay me to do it as a career.

He was joking I think

Not necessarily; if you have a real interest in it I bet you could find an employer to work for.  Without a degree it would be more challenging but I bet some organizations out there have big needs and would be willing to hire non-engineers.

It's a bit hard to just switch careers in your 30s.

[Ned Weasel]

It's a bit hard to just switch careers in your 30s.

I switched from data intern to delivery driver just last week.

[Roadgeekteen]

It's a bit hard to just switch careers in your 30s.

I switched from data intern to delivery driver just last week.

Oh interesting cool.

[Scott5114]

Vissim, Synchro / SimTraffic, TransModeler ... why pay for a game when someone will pay you to do it as a career?!   

Because nobody's going to pay me to do it as a career.

He was joking I think

Not necessarily; if you have a real interest in it I bet you could find an employer to work for.  Without a degree it would be more challenging but I bet some organizations out there have big needs and would be willing to hire non-engineers.

It's a bit hard to just switch careers in your 30s.

Kind of depends on the career and how specialized your degree is. Someone with a business degree can probably work in whatever sort of for-profit organization they want.

[jakeroot]

The mods these days make it good enough that there doesn't need to be C:S2.

There are definitely very good traffic simulator mods. TM:PE is very well coded at this point.

Although if you play the game on console, you can't use mods. Also it can be tedious to look for mods so it would be easier if features were in the base game.

Plus some of the DLCs would be better if they were properly integrated into the base game rather than grafted on.  The fact that they're added in DLC makes for some inelegant implementations (such as snow maps rather than seasons).

Proper seasons would be in my top three most-desired features. But, you can still load saves with snow on or off (thanks to mods), so they've kind of met us halfway. I would also like some integration of mixed-using zoning. I have to fake it now.

Realistically, a lot of key simulation changes that players have expressed interest in, have already been integrated through mods. Could DLCs be better integrated? Possibly, but the mod community is where the action is. Colossal Order is about making games that are fun, and I don't know if deeper DLC integration is going to make games more fun. If anything, the potential is that (a) development times are increased significantly, (b) players experience performance loss from running more complex simulations, and importantly (c) the game becomes too complex. For some, complexity is great. But that added complexity is why the mod community exists. For those who want deep integration, you're never going to get that from DLCs because the market doesn't seem to support that kind of game.

I'm going to avoid discussing consoles beyond this: it's a small fraction of the Skylines market, and games designed for the PC (pretty much every sim and 'tycoon' game ever) are objectively superior on PC for numerous reasons. Console versions of PC games are almost universally half-baked and that's not likely to change.