Questions: Chirps in space, no private cars mod, traffic ai, agent tracking&display; map copying

[Emre Yigit]

Hello all. I've returned to Cities Skylines after a considerable absence, loaded up the DLCs (other than the disasters one) and have a few questions.

1. Why is this forum so ill-frequented? Have people become bored with the game or is there a better community elsewhere?

2. Using a combination of TMPE and NE2, it seems possible to ban private cars (except those carried in pockets which briefly spawn) entirely and throughout a city. Has anyone tried something like this for a large city - would it work?

3. Is the TMPE traffic ai any good, if I decide not to ban cars?

4. I love the tunelling options. Am I right that if, say, I built an under- as opposed to overpass, the game would continue to track those resplendently clothed tourists, but my video card usage might ease off a very little?

5. If I have a map I like that's say "Temperate" how can I copy that to "Tropical" or "Winter"?

 

[Turjan]

Hello!

1. These forums are generally only busy around releases. People share their city images mostly on Reddit, which is quite active. Modders are active on Simtropolis or Discord.

2. Not sure whether anyone tried it. Major cities with proper public transport hardly have private cars anyway, even without mods. Bike lanes also help a lot.

3. TMPE traffic AI is very good, but can be somewhat taxing on your CPU, depending on your system. Don't forget to actually activate the better AI in the mod's options. Also, if you add it to an existing city, give it some time to sort itself out, as the start can be a bit rough. That said, you can get a grip on traffic with the vanilla traffic simulation, you are just more limited in how you design your road network, mostly as far as intersection layout is concerned.

4. Maybe. Working with tunnels is cheap (unrealistically so), easier to build and helps a lot with traffic, though I don't like it too much as it feels rather cheesy. But that's a matter of personal preference. Just try it and see whether you like it.

5. Use the Environment Changer. Load up the savegame of your city while changing the theme selection in the drop down menu, save the city, done. Ignore the warning message in those drop down menus, they are just there to remind you to think of the repercussions of what you are doing. Switching a map from "tropical" to "winter" involves changing building sets, like parks or unique buildings, which means quite a bit of stuff may disappear from your city if you don't use other mods to prevent that. Also, switching between "European" and "Tropical" involves changing vanilla building sets, which means you should activate the "European/International" style (a vanilla feature) before doing that, immediately pause the game on city startup and define the default style in the policy menu, if you don't want to lose much of your existing city.

 

[Emre Yigit]

Thank you very much, that was very helpful.

 

[AquilaSol]

1. This place is pretty quiet, although it gets busier around updates. There are more active communities out there.
/r/CitiesSkylines/ on Reddit is fairly active.
SkylinesNation facebook group with over 12k members and many of the modders and asset creators, which is very active.
Simtropolis is mostly the active modding community.
And several Discord channels from Youtubers, the Subreddit, etc.

2. I tried that in my tropical city. No, it doesn't work with just NE2 and TMPE. Mainly because vehicles will ignore TMPE rules is there is no alternative route to their destination within the acceptable timeframe. It does work with AVO, if you forbid all cars from spawning. But you will need to use other mods to prevent your city from collapsing.

3. No, because it will ignore those rules if there is no other route. Other than that the traffic AI is still limited by the engine and your system specs.

4. Sadly, no, because the units are still calculated and rendered, even if you can't directly see them. The main problem is not the graphic render, but the CPU calculation.

5. See Turjan's comment. Environment Changer will do that. I switch between biomes all the time to simulate seasons.