Picking through the TODO list - what should my first project be?

[vedrit]

either way, it can still be done, and would be an interesting thing to use.

[H-Hour]

Here are a couple of shots from Radiant on the street/rail section that I've been working on. I plan for it to be the base for a mid-to-large city street grid that we can then plug buildings into. The stairs in the middle of the rail platform descend to an underground street crossing.

The street lines are blended on using the material system, that's why they don't appear here. And the emergency sign will have a flashing ALL TRAINS STOPPED text over the red part.







Feedback and suggestions welcome.

[bayo]

It is very nice; but the railroad isn't it too much loud?

[H-Hour]

Bayo, thanks for the feedback, but I'm not sure what you mean "too much loud"...

[Destructavator]

Perhaps "too large"?  As in too large for a random map assembly tile?

[H-Hour]

Ahh, yes. It's 3x256 wide and 4x256 tall. But I don't see any way to do big city with little tiles.

This is the widest avenue I'm planning. I'll also be making street tiles that are just 1x256 wide, and possibly a tile with the rail and streets that are one lane wide, making the whole thing 2x256 wide.

Also, what you see here will eventually be two tiles, that can be matched together or not if they're on the edge of the map (the rail stop can be split in two vertically).

But I am planning city blocks to be about 4x256 squares, and if we're talking about tall buildings, that means that each block will probably be one tile, though I've thought of a few minor exceptions.

[bayo]

Sorry, it talk about that pink distance

[H-Hour]

Ahh ok. Yeah, that's a fair point. I went back and forth on it. The more height there is the more noticeable the detail under the rail will be. But it is quite high and it presents a practical problem in terms of how the streets will cross the rail (not much space to the right of the rails for the road to rise).

I'll play around and see if I can come up with something else.

[Kildor]

I`ve thought about monorails, when looked on the screenshotes. Are we in future, or not? :-)

[Destructavator]

That's a good point - the game is supposed to be close to three-quarters of a century in the future.  Perhaps it would help to do a little quick research on emerging technologies with trains and subways, and think about what type of trains would likely exist in such a future.  I've heard of the start of high-speed levitating/hovering trains and such, but don't know too much about them.

[Bartleby]

i already like this map very much, h-hour.

the rails are too high like bayo said (and maybe a bit too wide).

if u want to use a maglev - the transrapid is great ^^.
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Magnetschwebebahn.svg&filetimestamp=20070730120548

[H-Hour]

Sure, I can make it a monorail. If I use the image Bartleby posted as a reference, I would probably embed the v-shaped rail into the ground, because the rail can't be too high off the street (cars still need to pass over it).

I don't want to get too crazy about future technologies, just because I think people often exaggerate the pace of change. In the U.S., we're still driving on road infrastructure laid down in the 1930s and the New York subway was first built in 1869. Though technology has improved both, cities are essentially spaces in which technology is pasted onto existing infrastructure. I'm planning to try and build the city as a mix of new and old building styles, as most cities are today.

[Kildor]

maglevs shouldn`t  cross via normal roads. It has very precise dimesions.

[H-Hour]

Thanks for pointing that out, Kildor. I just had a scan of some monorails on Google Images and I'm not sure it will really fit here. It doesn't seem to play nice with streets. They all seem to be raised off the ground. Perhaps I could make a monorail for the eastern culture's RMA when the time comes.

[H-Hour]

A few more options for the rail line. It's now only 4 units above the street level, an incline that will be fine for making a smooth road/rail transition.

Option 1



Option 2


Option 3