[1.12.26] Transportation System Extension

[Lobby]

The newly introduced transportation update features the following built-in transportation systems:

• Buses
• Passenger Trains
• Freight Trains
• Elevated Train
• Metro

While these modes of transportation existed before the update they now feature the ability to manage routes, stations and vehicles. Even better, you can now extend these systems with more buildings or vehicles via plugins.



Technical Aspects
These transportation systems all have in common that they are based on roads and cars. Even the elevated train that historically was implemented differently is now based on roads and cars (you didn't notice? great, that means that the automatic migration works.) What this means is that the process of adding new buldings, (bus)stops or vehicles looks quite similar for all systems. The only differences are road flags and tags which are used to assign the objects to the systems. Building types play a minor role in this implementation and were picked as appropriate.



Vehicles
Vehicles are implemented as Cars. Car chains are supported and can be used to model long buses and trains. So to add a vehicle to a system you first have to implement it as a car.

Add the attributes "capacity" (amount of people that fit into the vehicle) and "speed" (a speed factor, 1 is the default car speed):

Code: Select all

    "capacity": 20,
    "speed": 0.9

You can also set a price, but by default the game will set a minimum value based on stats automatically.

After that, add the specifics of the system that you want to target:

• Buses

  Code: Select all

      "flag normal": false,
      "flag bus": true,
      "meta": {"tags": {"ts_normal_bus": {}}}

• Passenger Trains

  Code: Select all

      "flag normal": false,
      "flag train": true,
      "meta": {"tags": {"short_distance_passenger_train": {}}}

• Freight Trains

  Code: Select all

      "flag normal": false,
      "flag train": true,
      "meta": {"tags": {"freight_train": {}}}

• Elevated Train

  Code: Select all

      "flag normal": false,
      "flag elevated train": true,
      "meta": {"tags": {"elevated_train": {}}}

• Metro

  Code: Select all

      "flag normal": false,
      "flag subway": true,
      "meta": {"tags": {"metro_train": {}}}

It is crucial to use the correct flags otherwise your cars may not be spawnable.



Station buildings
Buildings can act as a station in a transportation system. There are two types of station buildings:

• Glue - They don't act as a station on their own but only if a spawn station is nearby; can "glue" nearby buildings together to form a single station; for example used for train stations
• Spawn - The actual building that spawns vehicles. A composited station usually has only a few spawn buildings and many glue buildings

Station buildings can define "capacity". The sum of capacities of all station buildings of a station gets used as its total capacity. The monthly price of a station building gets accounted to the associated transportation system.

• Buses
  As of right now (1.12.27) station buildings are not supported for buses
• Passenger Trains - Glue

  Code: Select all

      "type": "decoration",
      "meta": {"tags": {"passenger_train_platform": {}}}
  

• Passenger Trains - Spawn

  Code: Select all

      "type": "railway station",
      "influence passenger train":80,
      "meta": {"tags": {"short_distance_passenger_train_station": {}}}
  

• Freight Trains - Glue

  Code: Select all

      "type": "decoration",
      "meta": {"tags": {"passenger_train_platform": {}}}
  

• Freight Trains - Spawn

  Code: Select all

      "type": "railway station",
      "influence passenger train":80,
      "meta": {"tags": {"freight_train_station": {}}}
  

• Elevated Train - Glue

  Code: Select all

      "type": "railway station",
      "meta": {"tags": {"elevated_train_platform": {}}}
  

• Elevated Train - Spawn

  Code: Select all

      "type": "railway station",
      "influence passenger train": 20,
      "car min level": 2,
      "car max level": 2,
      "meta": {"tags": {"elevated_train_station": {}}}
  

• Metro - Glue

  Code: Select all

      "type": "railway station",
      "meta": {"tags": {"metro_platform": {}}}
  

• Metro - Spawn

  Code: Select all

      "type": "railway station",
      "influence passenger train":25,
      "car min level": -2,
      "car max level": -2,
      "meta": {"tags": {"metro_station": {}}}
  

Note how the "influence passenger train" influence gets used as a general influence for public transport. The game internally distingishes between passenger and freight transport, through.



(Bus) Stops
Bus stops are small stops that can be placed directly on "road". From the point of view of the transportation system they are stations. Nearby bus stops will be merged to a single station. Bus stops can define a capacity that is used as the max amount of people that can wait there at a time. Their monthly price will be displayed as spending for the transportation system. As of right now (version 1.12.27) only the following transportation systems support defining bus stops:

• Buses

  Code: Select all

      "influence passenger bus": 30,
      "meta": {"tags": {"default_busstop": {}}}
  

• Elevated Train

  Code: Select all

      "influence passenger bus": 30,
      "required flag normal": false,
      "required flag elevated train": true,
      "meta": {"tags": {"elevated_train_busstop": {}}}

Note that "influence passenger bus" is used to express public transport influence for all of them.



Depots
The bus and metro transportation system rely on depot buildings that provide space for vehicles. Using the "depot capacity" attribute they define the amount of vehicles that the depot can house.

• Buses

  Code: Select all

      "type": "bus depot",
      "meta": {"tags": {"bus depot": {}}}
  

• Metro

  Code: Select all

      "type": "railway station",
      "meta": {"tags": {"metro_depot": {}}}
  

Station buildings can be used as depot building for the same transportation system at the same time.



Roads & Rails
You can define roads and rails as regular roads by setting the corresponding flags from the cars above.



Category & Requirements
For simplicity the default categories and (rank) requirements in the code listings above were omitted. To be consistent with the in-game content you should define requirements so they are at least as strict as the defaults:

• Buses

  Code: Select all

      "category": "$cat_bus00",
      "requirements":[{"type": "RANK", "lvl": 3}]
  

• Passenger & Freight Trains

  Code: Select all

      "category": "$cat_train00",
      "requirements": [{"type": "RANK", "lvl": 6}]
  

• Elevated Train

  Code: Select all

      "category": "$cat_elevatedtrain00",
      "requirements": [{"type": "RANK", "lvl": 9}]
  

• Metro

  Code: Select all

      "category": "$cat_metro00",
      "requirements": [{"type": "RANK", "lvl": 15}]
  

Caveats

image.png (8.84 KiB) Viewed 2123 times

The player may disable the new transportation system for buses to keep using the old, level based system. In this case your custom buses won't be used.

You should avoid defining a station building or bus stop for multiple transportation systems at the same time. This would mix up accouting or may lead to incompatible road flags.

[THEMAX]

Now this is a really interesting update, and one I was waiting for to get back into modding, I am glad it has finally come. I can't wait to see other stuff you might have planned. I do have some questions though, since my previous mod (The Railroad Expansion) featured various other types of transportations like tramway, monorail, high-speed rails and since I did have new transports planned (trolleybuses, cables cars & gondolas, etc.):

Future additions

• 1. Would the game allow plugins creators to create new transportation system from scratch (like a tramway or a cable-car) ? That means everything from the buildings, stops, roads, depots and vehicles themselves as well as a specific corresponding line in the transportation tab where we can purchase vehicles

• 2. Would we be able to give a type of transportation system (tramway for example) the ability to support both bus-like stations and extended stations. I for example would love to add modular bus terminals to the game.

• 3. Would we be able to change the price of tickets for transportations ? Some routes might then become more expensive like "inter-city" ones on large cities. (Even in-game trains like the ICE should have more expensive tickets).

• 4. Would some kind of "road" on the water be possible, to allow for ferries and water transport ? And what about aircrafts like helicopters or even planes ?

• 5. Could we add more than one train or bus to a single route ? For those who seek realism and don't want a single bus on a high capacity route but also don't want to create dozen of different routes.

• 6. NB: Do you think custom road flags for trolleybuses, cable cars / gondolas and funiculars could be added ?

Current additions

• 1. Does "Depot Capacity" counts all the cars that are part of the chain or solely the lead car ?

• 2. Would it be possible to choose the color of each route and transports on those routes ?

• 3. Is it possible to create a "hub station" that has different types of transports ?

Overall thanks for the update, it's a very good start and I hope to build on that for further plugins updates

[Yakka]

Just a quick question,does the glue station tag is explicitly decoration type only?

[Sta$h]

Woah! We are actually getting transportation update? When will this version be released.. I got 1.12.24

[IlikeBurgerHam]

Hello, I just wanted to ask how you could create an elevated railway station with the current system?
I tried making one but it didn't connect with the elevated rails even after trying out compositions.

My code so far is this:

Code: Select all    Reset

[
{
	"id":"$RedLineRoof00",
	"type":"animation",
	"frames":[{"bmp": "Station 1 Roof.png", "x":0, "w":32, "h":19}]
},
{
	"id":"$RedLineRoof01",
	"type":"animation",
	"frames":[{"bmp": "Station 1 Roof.png", "x":32, "w":32, "h":19}]
},
{
	"id":"RedLineFacade",
	"type":"railway station",
	"title":"0",
	"category":"$cat_elevatedtrain00",
	"requirements":[{"type": "RANK", "lvl": 9}],
	"influence passenger train": 20,
	"car min level":2,
	"car max level":2,	
	"frames":[
		{"bmp": "Red Facade.png", "y":0, "w":32,"count": 2},
	],
	"width":1,
	"height":1,
	"draw ground":"true",
	"animation":[
		{"id":"$RedLineRoof00", "X":0, "y":44}
	],
	"capacity": 50,
	"meta":{"tags": {
		"elevated_train_busstop":{}, 
		"elevated_train_platform": {}, 
		"elevated_train_station": {} } }


}
]

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[JustAnyone]

Just a quick question,does the glue station tag is explicitly decoration type only?

No, station glue can be any type of building draft.

[JustAnyone]

Hello, I just wanted to ask how you could create an elevated railway station with the current system?
I tried making one but it didn't connect with the elevated rails even after trying out compositions.
<...>

The answer depends on what kind of elevated railway station you want to accomplish. The updated elevated train stations are compositions that place glue buildings, roads that act as rail, and the station itself. Station can be either a station building or station "bus stop".

For your convenience, here's the definition of each station building and the rail itself:

Regular station

Code: Select all    Reset

{
  "id": "$elevated_train_station00",
  "type": "railway station",
  "template": "$template_elevated_train_base00",
  "capacity": 300,
  "car min level": 2,
  "car max level": 2,
  "meta": { "tags": { "elevated_train_station": {} }}
}

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Urban station

Code: Select all    Reset

{
  "id": "$elevated_train_busstop00",
  "type": "bus stop",
  "template": "$template_elevated_train_base01",
  "capacity": 90,
  // Forbid to be placed only on roads with these flags
  "required flag normal": false,
  "required flag elevated train": true,
  "min level": 2,
  "max level": 2,
  "meta": { "tags": { "elevated_train_busstop": {} } }
}

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Regular Rail (road)

Code: Select all    Reset

{
  "id": "$elevated_train_track00",
  "type": "road",
  "template": "$template_elevated_train_base00",
  "min level": 2,
  "max level": 2,
  "diagonal cars": true,
  // Prevents regular roads from connecting
  "join group": "elevated train track",
  "flag normal": false,
  "flag elevated train": true,
  "allow bus stop": true
}

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[Kulche]

what a pleasant looking city you've got there

[Ostrovsk]

Hello, how do I get this update? I have 1.12.23a
No updates were received further

[reindeerwheat]

Hello, how do I get this update? I have 1.12.23a
No updates were received further

[Ostrovsk]

Thank you for your help)

[Ostrovsk]

I would like to clarify that I have an impressive amount of public transport. And I'd like to know. Can I somehow put it into this new system so that my buses that I created can spawn in this depot? And if so, how this can be roughly done, I just don't understand the whole essence of what is happening yet

[Jaforzem]

I would like to clarify that I have an impressive amount of public transport. And I'd like to know. Can I somehow put it into this new system so that my buses that I created can spawn in this depot? And if so, how this can be roughly done, I just don't understand the whole essence of what is happening yet

Thanks to this update we can implement and create Plugins which fit the system (the model of the stations, the maps, etc...) and we can even add our own buses, trains, etc... With the NTS (New Transport System) the New Plugins that are coupled with it would literally be "joining" with the game so to speak.

I don't know if I understand myself

[THEMAX]

Hi !
I saw that new tags had been added for transportation system ? Which are those new ones and can we plugin creators use those yet ? Thanks in advance

[JustAnyone]

Eventually, a more in depth documentation will be made, you may see a list of tags here:
https://pca.svetikas.lt/docs/attribute-types/meta/tags/

[Crsopon7]

I have come across a problem. When I have a 4 lane road and i put bus stops on each side of the road, the two stops become one stop. Now this itself is not the problem but instead its a very useful feature I belive. But the problem is that because of this when i assign a stop on say, the left side of the road, later i cannot assign a stop on that same station on the right side of the road. This prevents us from making up and down lines on main roads. I hope this feature gets fixed so that in future we can assign stop on both sides of the road seperately.

[CityBuilderz252]

How can I download with link?

[Aidanspacelover2]

ABSOLUTE 2763 routes creating more traffic

[VojFromMars]

Hello.

This new update feels wonderful (and unexpected to me, I thought the development of the game came to a halt). But it also raises a lot of questions.

I have several cities/regions where I used metro, which was basically overused by my theosims. To even it out, I used to put a metro entrance every 2 squares on most of the avenues, at least around high rises. I even built a huge city without bus, using only metro (and pedestrian walkways). I really don't want to have to rebuild it all using surface transportation.

On the other hand, major stations in real life do have several entrances. It would be great to be able to group by "grapes of entrances" into a station which would be a stop in the new routes. I don't really see if this is possible with this new update, if this would be a future feature of if this is not meant to be the intended gameplay. Any feedback would be welcome, I might have missed something really trivial.

[Patchouli Knowledge]

I'm curious about how to achieve the built-in color change? I saw that the new version of the monorail allows players to color the vehicle body themselves.