Roads aren't perfectly perpendicular

[Neolantro]

Hi folks,

I've noticed that roads can't be built properly perpendicular to one another. I use the default orthogonal snap (which snaps to 90 degree angles). However, in many cases this does not result in perfectly perpendicular / parallel roads. The roads seem to end up every so slightly off-perpendicular. This results in zones that are weird and broken - little patches of zones that are jagged and space-wasting. They prevent the building of buildings with wide footprints, leaving behind a bunch of one-cell zones.

I would like if roads would align properly to the grid - so I can make perfectly rectangular zones with no wasted space. If anyone is aware of a way around this or a Workshop patch, please let me know. Thanks.

 

[stilgarpl]

You are just doing it wrong. I've built perfect grids spanning three or four zones without problems.

 

[Seekhunt]

Hey you.

it's very easy actually. It all starts with 1 single road being "off" Laid wrong, or on a hill or something.
If you look closely to your grid when you build the roads, you can see if they align on top of each other, or maybe slightly wrong.

So what you can do, it try to find a road where you can make a perfectly 90 angle, and start from there. I make grid building my self. And somehow
my roads get messed up. I fix this by finding the best 90 angle make a square and go from there. Either by making a whole new zone, and go back and deleting the old zones
that are wrong.
So not an easy fix but it all starts with one road going bad. So either find that one or try out what i have written

 

[Neolantro]

I am quite confident I'm doing it correctly. I use the ortho snap every time and have bulldozed then rebuilt roads repeatedly.

 

[Neolantro]

Again, I have the base roads correct but they inevitably veer off course. I have blocks of blocks of correctly-aligned roads and then they start to veer off course. I have rebuilt the roads repeatedly - rebuilding both the base road and the offshoot roads - and despite repeated attempts they never line up. Again, let me make it perfectly clear that the roads I'm branching off from are aligned fully to the grid.

Edit: You mention hills. This may have something to do with uneven terrain. But why would undulations in the landscape cause the angles to go off? I was using the plains map which had very very little variation in height.. everything was flat and low, so it would be strange for that to throw off the grid.

 

[RustyCool]

I am quite confident I'm doing it correctly. I use the ortho snap every time and have bulldozed then rebuilt roads repeatedly.

Dude, go to youtube and watch some lets plays. It is very esay thing to do. You are just not doing it right.

 

[Simcity5]

You can make them perfect. Ive done it throughout my city. Are you using the highway to line them up, because they arent aligned. You need to use 1 road to measure from and stick to this throughout your city to get perfect alignment. So if you do use the pre built highway to start from only use one lane.

The first road is pretty much a guess, but if you build every other road from this road they will all be aligned to that road.

 

[AngelOfPassion]

Wow, there's some definite bitchiness about something that just doesn't work correctly. I'll try avoiding the highway. Thanks, Simcity5, for the only constructive post in the thread.

Lmao are you serious?

 

[tk-093]

The highway can throw anybody off because it doesn't give the zone grids as a guide.

 

[AngelOfPassion]

The highway can throw anybody off because it doesn't give the zone grids as a guide.

I don't think he is actually talking about the highway itself though.

 

[Junuxx]

I haven't had issues getting roads perpendicular.

I do find it tricky to make parallel roads.
As in this kind of shape:

   __
__/

The snap tool doesn't help at all to align the two horizontal parts.

 

[Neolantro]

If I remember correctly (it's been a few days), the highway does include 90 / 180 degree snapping. But I think what Simcity5 was saying is that the highway is at an odd angle, like say 80 degrees or 100 degrees. I have noticed it's hard to get both roads of a highway to stay parallel - one side can veer slightly off. Anyway, it sounds like this has a lot to do with highways throwing off the initial road.

Again, this is a problem with the game itself, because SimCity 4 (let's not talk about 2013) had no problem snapping roads to the grid. I have no desire to have slightly off-kilter roads and nor do most players, so it would be nice if the snapping required less fiddling.

Edit: What I would really like is a universal, absolute grid that's not relative to any road. That way I could lay out all my roads at once without having to "daisy-chain" them by building them as branches from one another. Again, something I could do in SimCity 4 that I really miss. Otherwise it's a great game; this bug is rough to deal with.

 

[AngelOfPassion]

I haven't had issues getting roads perpendicular.

I do find it tricky to make parallel roads.
As in this kind of shape:

   __
__/

The snap tool doesn't help at all to align the two horizontal parts.

Now this I can see being an issue. Although a really easy way to get around it is to build a straight road and then a perpendicular road and then another straight road. Then just delete the perpendicular one so that they are both parallel to eachother.

 

[AngelOfPassion]

If I remember correctly (it's been a few days), the highway does include 90 / 180 degree snapping. But I think what Simcity5 was saying is that the highway is at an odd angle, like say 80 degrees or 100 degrees. I have noticed it's hard to get both roads of a highway to stay parallel - one side can veer slightly off. Anyway, it sounds like this has a lot to do with highways throwing off the initial road.

Again, this is a problem with the game itself, because SimCity 4 (let's not talk about 2013) had no problem snapping roads to the grid. I have no desire to have slightly off-kilter roads and nor do most players, so it would be nice if the snapping required less fiddling.

Edit: What I would really like is a universal, absolute grid that's not relative to any road. That way I could lay out all my roads at once without having to "daiy-chain" them by building them as branches. Again, something I could do in SimCity 4 that I really miss. Otherwise it's a great game; this bug is rough to deal with.

Yeah the highways don't belong to the grid. You don't have to actually start from the highway though. When you start a new city you can use the road tool anywhere. I start a little off to the side of the starting highway and then connect a random road to the highway that I know I will delete later. But then all the roads where I actually am starting my city are on their own grid if that makes sense.

Starting right on top of the initial highway connection just causes way too many problems that can be avoided starting a good distance away from it.

 

[Junuxx]

Now this I can see being an issue. Although a really easy way to get around it is to build a straight road and then a perpendicular road and then another straight road. Then just delete the perpendicular one so that they are both parallel to eachother.

True, that's a workaround. But sometimes there's buildings, terrain or other infrastructure in the way.

 

[Neolantro]

Yeah the highways don't belong to the grid. You don't have to actually start from the highway though. When you start a new city you can use the road tool anywhere. I start a little off to the side of the starting highway and then connect a random road to the highway that I know I will delete later. But then all the roads where I actually am starting my city are on their own grid if that makes sense.

Starting right on top of the initial highway connection just causes way too many problems that can be avoided starting a good distance away from it.

Ahh, yeah I think that makes sense. So I could just do my own grid that doesn't (necessarily) line up with the highway or the edges of the map, but that still provides right angles. I'll have to try that. I'd much prefer a universal grid (even StarCraft has one, and that's a much less precise game!) but it sounds like I can make my own that does the job.

I've been starting by branching off the highway - particularly because of the opportunities it provides and because the tutorial suggests it. But I can do what you said and have a one-off road that links them together until I have a full grid in place.

 

[AngelOfPassion]

Ahh, yeah I think that makes sense. So I could just do my own grid that doesn't (necessarily) line up with the highway or the edges of the map, but that still provides right angles. I'll have to try that. I'd much prefer a universal grid (even StarCraft has one, and that's a much less precise game!) but it sounds like I can make my own that does the job.

I've been starting by branching off the highway - particularly because of the opportunities it provides and because the tutorial suggests it. But I can do what you said and have a one-off road that links them together until I have a full grid in place.

It makes it SO much easier because then you can plan ahead how you want to extend the highway and where you want the ramps to be for the incoming traffic doing it that way.

 

[Neolantro]

It makes it SO much easier because then you can plan ahead how you want to extend the highway and where you want the ramps to be for the incoming traffic doing it that way.

Thanks for the tips. Will try the custom grid and post back with results.. fingers crossed!!

 

[Neolantro]

It worked. Best idea is to start your own grid and ignore the one set by the highway. You can even create grids at different angles for different parts of the city - it keeps things interesting.