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With Mass Transit, you can take control of not only the waterways, but also the sky. Last week I wrote about Ferries and how they offer excellent solution for connecting isolated islands to the city with fast routes. Blimps are another way of doing that, but work better for larger settlements, as they have a higher passenger capacity than Ferries.

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A blimp gliding over the city

The basics of Blimps are much like Ferries. Since they do no work on roads, you need to mark Pathways for them to travel. Blimps fly from stop to stop and need a route to the Depot. Pathways are two-way, basically like virtual roads for Blimps, so you have exact control over where they travel. Stops need a road connection, but other than that, can freely be placed anywhere on the map. Depots need to be connected to roads as well, but can send vehicles to any line they have a Pathway connection with. The amount of Blimps per line is determined by the public transport budget for them, but can be adjusted more carefully with the new slider for vehicles per line. Blimps glide over the city, ascending and descending on their own, following the marked routes.

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That's some quality education right there

As an extra benefit, there is space on the sides of Blimps for advertisements. By default they show adverts from various companies, but if you wish to use the space to your city’s benefit, you can set a policy so that Blimps show educational posters. This boosts your city’s education facilities a little bit, and of course looks quite cool.

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Cable cars operating on a slope

And then there are the Cable Cars. Don’t think of the San Francisco Cable Cars, but the type that travel steep hills suspended on cables. The Skylines Cable Cars are very useful on slopes, but can also be placed on level ground. There are two types of stops: end-of-line stops and stops where Cable Cars can pass through and continue to further stops. Pass through stops can also be used at the ends, but end-of-line types can be used to get that finishing touch. Cable Cars lines are somewhat easier to set up than other types. Built the stops you want to have in the city and connect them with cables. When any two or more stops are connected, the line will start to operate automatically. All stops connected to each other are considered one line. Cable Cars do not have Depots, so no Depot connections are needed.

Cables can go over roads and their height can be adjusted with PgUp and PgDown, just like roads. However the cables cannot pass over houses. Cables can be built on water, even so that the concrete bases of the pylons are standing in the water.

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Cable Car stop in action

Cable Cars don’t have a huge capacity, but they run often, allowing a constant stream of passengers to be transported. Avoiding roads is a huge plus, that’s less vehicles on the roads so less traffic congestion. Operating on level ground, slopes and allowing cables to go on water makes sure Cable Cars are very flexible as means of transport and can be used in many different cases.


What will your city get first, Cable Cars or Blimps?
 
i know that this is a trivial point, but i've watched several videos of the new Mass Transit DLC and i was wondering whether you had planned to make the fans on the airships move in direction of travel? At the moment they point forwards all the time, but it would be cool if there was animation that moved them around when coming into land or taking off.

and to answer your question: airships will dominate my cities, airships are very very cool :) (i refuse to use the b word!)
 
I am curious about which real city that served as a model for using blimps for mass transit, or how you arrived at the "interesting" conclusion that they should have higher passenger capacity then ferries do?

I was actually looking forward to building more realistic mass transit solutions into my cities, but spending time on fantasy things like this is just such a waste IMHO.
 
Guys (and girls) could you include the trams and give them hubs too?
I know the trams are part of the Snowfall dlc but I don't like it. I hate the heating thing and i don't want that in my cities but I could use the trams...
I don't mind paying for DLCs. I have the Stadiums, After Dark and Content Creator High Tech. i paid for them. It's cool. But I don't want heating. I don't really care if you put it in a separate DLC, I will buy it.
 
Guys (and girls) could you include the trams and give them hubs too?
I know the trams are part of the Snowfall dlc but I don't like it. I hate the heating thing and i don't want that in my cities but I could use the trams...
I don't mind paying for DLCs. I have the Stadiums, After Dark and Content Creator High Tech. i paid for them. It's cool. But I don't want heating. I don't really care if you put it in a separate DLC, I will buy it.

You don't need heating if you don't play on a snow map ;)
 
As an extra benefit, there is space on the sides of Blimps for advertisements. By default they show adverts from various companies, but if you wish to use the space to your city’s benefit, you can set a policy so that Blimps show educational posters. This boosts your city’s education facilities a little bit, and of course looks quite cool.

I don't suppose there would be an option to have no adverts on the sides?
 
I'm also skeptical of the idea that the blimp would have more room than a ferry. And that picture of it loading passengers makes it look like you've got a group that takes up more space on the ground than would fit in the blimp (I'm hoping that just means that the line is longer than one blimp-load).
 
Guys (and girls) could you include the trams and give them hubs too?
I know the trams are part of the Snowfall dlc but I don't like it. I hate the heating thing and i don't want that in my cities but I could use the trams...
I don't mind paying for DLCs. I have the Stadiums, After Dark and Content Creator High Tech. i paid for them. It's cool. But I don't want heating. I don't really care if you put it in a separate DLC, I will buy it.
i bought the snowfall DLC solely for the trams. it was on sale recently, you should have bought it then.

I'm also skeptical of the idea that the blimp would have more room than a ferry. And that picture of it loading passengers makes it look like you've got a group that takes up more space on the ground than would fit in the blimp (I'm hoping that just means that the line is longer than one blimp-load).
You mean like the bus lines in the game? Airships have a capacity of 70 people (if i remember correctly from on of the videos)
 
This is looking quite interesting. I love that cable cars are included. I don't like that they don't hang straight down when they are moving on a slope. They should not tilt as if they were climbing a road, they should have a pivot where the wheels are (see here).
 
This is looking quite interesting. I love that cable cars are included. I don't like that they don't hang straight down when they are moving on a slope. They should not tilt as if they were climbing a road, they should have a pivot where the wheels are (see here).
I think they are designed to match the 3s style with many cabins moving along instead of two moving backwards and forwards:
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The transportation that i would most probably be using in my city would be the cable cars to get up the mountain and other rural areas in my map awesome work Keep it up im really looking forward to the Mass transit DLC
 
You don't need heating if you don't play on a snow map ;)

Not necessarily. Temperature swings were added to all maps with the free patch that came with snowfall. On a temperate or boreal map the swings can be large and electricity usage increases greatly. You don't have to use heating, but you will have to have greater production of electricity than you city normally needs. I suppose you could have extra generating capacity and turn it on and off as required, but I find that having a heating system is much easier.
 
I'm going to use cable cars for sure, especially along mountains in my island map. Blimps... they look like vehicles for a touristic purpose, I can't see them in a realistic transit line. I could use them exceptionally, but only in dedicated zones. Ferries... I'm sorry but without car ferries it's not serious. A car service is common everywhere, even between small islands.