Greetings, fellow city-builders, and welcome to another Sunset Harbor Dev Diary!

As the previous diary was dedicated to Trolleybuses, we think it's a good idea to follow it with even more public transport services coming to you in Sunset Harbor.

Intercity Bus Service

Intercity Bus is a public transport service that opens up a new outside connection. In addition to transporting tourists, the Intercity Bus Service also makes traveling easier for your citizens and ultimately decreases traffic, as people leave their own vehicles at home.

There's something to it when you travel by night, with home waiting in the distance.

The Intercity Bus Service unlocks at Milestone 6, but you can already see intercity buses on the highways at the start of the game. The new intercity bus station and terminal are located in the same build menu tab as the local bus service. There is no need to create any stops or lines, just build an intercity bus station or terminal and you can notice intercity buses making frequent stops at your city. This new service also comes with a brand new intercity bus vehicle model and an updated Public Transport Infoview. Adjusting the old bus budget slider also encourages people to use intercity buses more.

An intercity bus station in the morning.

Passenger Helicopter

The next new public transport service takes citizens to new heights. Passenger helicopters circumvent traffic altogether and zip through the sky, connecting people in a whole new way. This service unlocks at Milestone 11, right before airports, and uses the same build menu tab as other Air transport services. The new assets that unlock with the service are the helicopter vehicle model, helicopter depot and helicopter stop. There is also an updated Public Transport Infoview and helicopters are added to the existing Air Transport budget slider. To start building your first passenger helicopter line, you first need to place a helicopter depot that sends out the helicopters. Then you build as many helicopter stops as you want and connect them with the new Helicopter pathway tool. Don't forget to connect the depot to one of the stops because helicopters can't move without pathways! Lastly, you can create helicopter lines by selecting joined Helicopter stops with the Helicopter Line tool. There are also two helicopter stops in one of the new transport hubs we are going to talk about next!

Connecting a Passenger Helicopter Depot to a Helicopter Stop using the Helicopter Pathway tool.

Transport Hubs

You read it right, we are adding new transport hubs to the game! There are five new hubs in total coming with Sunset Harbor. Transport hubs connect different transport networks together, making changing from one transport type to another easy and fast without the need to walk from one stop to another. All new hubs are added to a brand new build menu tab together with the older hubs. Transport hubs function the same way as public transport stops: If a transport hub has been built and is connected to a road, train track or metro track, it can be used as a stop when creating a public transport line.

Train-Metro hub, at your service!

Here are short introductions to the new assets:

• Bus-Intercity Bus Hub utilizes the new intercity bus service introduced above and connects it to the good old local bus service. Bus lines can be created on the bus platforms and citizens can change between local and intercity buses with ease. At Milestone 6, this hub is the first of the five to unlock.
• Metro-Intercity Bus Hub combines the intercity bus service with an underground metro network to get your travelers all around town! This hub unlocks at Milestone 7.
• Bus-Metro Hub connects the local bus service and two metro networks together. You can see citizens taking the escalator to the metro and hurrying to the bus platforms as they change lines. Unlocks at Milestone 9.
• Train-Metro Hub has two large stations connected together by a road and a bridge over the road that makes it easy for train passengers to change to a metro line. But hang on, is that an overground metro line? More about that in the Dev Diaries to come This beauty unlocks at Milestone 8.
• Metropolitan Airport brings with it the largest building to Cities: Skylines so far! This hub wraps together an international airport, two underground metro stations and two landing pads for the passenger helicopter. This colossal building unlocks at Milestone 13.

The Metropolitan Airport will bring citizens together from around the world.

With these hubs, we've tied together all the new public transport services. The next Dev Diary is going to focus on completely different city services. We hope you liked these new features and are looking forward to the next ones!

Until next time, city-builders!

Colossal Order dev team

EDIT: Fixed broken smiley

 

[Meesmoth]

Will intercity buses can use the already-uploaded bus assets in the Workshop?

How big is their capacity compared to regular buses?

Edit: The default model of the intercity bus reminds me of the ones used in my country also as intercity buses, it only lacks random names on the sides, lol.

 

[LogOutGames]

Could you please update the bus terminal added in After Dark to work as the new intercity bus station? It would also be pretty nice if you could make the intercity bus stations to work like the train stations - give us an option to allow or ban intercity traffic.

Edit: We still don't know how big trolleybuses are. Could you please elaborate on that a bit more?

 

[tapotupotu]

Can trolley busses use the new / oder Hubs?

 

[Clemcy]

Still no underground train station I guess ...

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

New airport. (And flying club still to come!)
Choppers. (Not that I didn't already know.)
Nice hubs. Intercity bus is a nice addition. (I thought that the bus station from After Dark was going to be before I got it.)

Buses still have to drive between the trees and over the grass to get onto the road.

 

[Giveaway412]

Whew, looking great so far! Some questions:

1. Are there any notable differences between Helicopter lines and the Blimp lines introduced in Mass Transit? I assume the Blimps are higher capacity, but slower.

2. Are those ploppable parking lots I spot in the picture of the Metropolitan airport? Or are they attached to the building itself?

Lastly, I just wanted to point out there's a broken image link on the line talking about the Train-Metro hub.

 

[Danbyization]

Edit: We still don't know how big trolleybuses are. Could you please elaborate on that a bit more?

This was answered on Instagram. Same as normal buses - 30.

I don't understand exactly how these intercity buses work. Are they just for tourists? The dev diary says that they are not just for tourists and are also for citizens but seen as you can't create lines for them I don't see how they can be used by citizens unless they are going to an outside city.

 

[[Delta ²k5]]

I don't think the "old" workshop bus stations assets are directly compatible with intercity buses because they use a different ai.
Also it would not make much sense to update the After Dark bus station because there is a large issue - for the asset to show up you would need both DLCs! Users with just AD would not be able to use the bus station anymore because the ai for intercity buses is missing.

One workaround is possible: if the ai for the "international bus station" is included in the regular patch a marker point could be shipped with that patch. That marker then could be used on any asset (just like the helipad marker on ND).

 

[J_A]

Intercity buses will work like another intercity means of transportation.

 

[simonho1989]

Hope modder can create their own hub, mixing and matching different transport station as they like. e.g mix monorail with ferry pier

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I don't understand exactly how these intercity buses work. Are they just for tourists? The dev diary says that they are not just for tourists and are also for citizens but seen as you can't create lines for them I don't see how they can be used by citizens unless they are going to an outside city.

No different than the airport or cruise ship harbor terminal, or driving out in their own cars.

 

[Meesmoth]

Same as normal buses - 30.

If it's 30, then might edit it on AVO myself. 30 passengers for a bus is too low, I have seen local and intercity buses in my country trying to fit 120-150 people inside like packed sardines.

For vanilla buses it should have been 60.

Edit: Plus on most buses there's also standing capacity, not just the ones that can sit.

2nd edit: Added image of a intercity bus interior in my local country.

 

[antrachton]

I am bit disappointed with these hubs - only 2 means of transport connecting at each hub... that's not a hub
I'm sure there will be few new proper hubs popping up on workshop quite soon, as it was with the Mass Transit.

 

[Lolikita]

I just hope that the metro stations have 2 platforms because the International Airport from the Night expansion and the hubs from Mass Transit only have 1 platform which means you can only have 1 train stop at the station at a time instead of the usual 2.

 

[Beer Fiend]

I do have to say I'm not sure about the design of the rail-metro hub, so I'll probably end up just using the fabulous MOM to create hubs out of multi-platform stations.

 

[mntoes]

I'm not seeing the image of the Overhead Metro line.

 

[TTJ]

I am slightly disappointed, that the helicopters essentially work like blimps. In my view, a better way would be to use them as an air taxi service as follows:
1. Helicopters move freely between all available helecopter landing pads. No need to build routes between them.
2. When tourists of residents want to get from helicopter port A to port B, a helicopter flies them on the direct route.
3. A new policy "air traffic noise ban" allows to define no-fly areas for helicopters

 

[Lord_Beelzebub]

I am slightly disappointed, that the helicopters essentially work like blimps. In my view, a better way would be to use them as an air taxi service as follows:
1. Helicopters move freely between all available helecopter landing pads. No need to build routes between them.
2. When tourists of residents want to get from helicopter port A to port B, a helicopter flies them on the direct route.
3. A new policy "air traffic noise ban" allows to define no-fly areas for helicopters

I would 100% agree. Although taxis only take only person at a time, if they work like blimps and ferries then they can transport a lot of people at once.

 

[pengoyo]

Can we please get a metro station with two platforms.

I know there are ones on the workshop, but placing lines in them is always a bit janky. Be much better if there was at least one that didn't rely on mods (note, I'd prefer a plus shape layout, as it helps with making a grid/criss-crossing line, but would gladly accept any layout).