Slaan

It would be easier to adjust the cell size on the compo pack mixer to around 4200 ( the video may bea little out of date but the method is the same more or less) then add in the slaanhatten cell/hub/prefab rules into the relevant parts of the mixer and the hub layout at the bottom. If your'e not too familiar with tinkering with the mixer then trying to add in all of the compo pack stuff to the one I provided can get a bit hectic.

The ol' newborn twins so im busy cliche... sorry I watch too much cinema sins. Thats awesome to hear tho bud you and the missus must be thrilled, you can even have a poopy nappie each too... twins must solve so many arguments

Eagerly awaiting the itch to really grab you by the balls again, I miss your work!

I've since edited the OP as the rwgmixer I was using changed with the new version, I'll be working on another one soon as we are due to have a clean start on our live server. Here is the link to the old mixer you are talking about but you will need to re-add the project sections or some of the newer areas will not spawn in.

Single player should work fine, it's local MP/dedi servers that have a bug requiring the hub to be pre-generated or suffer death by error spam. So if your only in SP then I'm not sure if the rending problem you encountered is project related. It's been a while but increasing the generation distance used to be all that was required, this was before we had the extra biome settings too so the radiation increase might also be needed I'm honestly not sure. The tracks materials are handeled in the wilderness rules within the rwgmixer (just below the hub rules), <path_material value="gravel" /> is where you would drop in asphalt or any other material.

Is this in a single player game or local MP/dedi server?

Yeah theres a few spots where if you break anything the whole lot comes down, I'll defo fix it so it's not so bad but generally on a smaller scale I leave that stuff in. Fallen skyscraper claims a soul every play through on our live server ;D. On a separate note, update time! will edit the OP

Check the original post, there's a mixer that includes compo pack prefabs available via a separate link. You can add the hub manually, however it currently requires an unusually large cell size to fit the hub and still have room to blend out. Ofc adjusting the cell size by such a large amount requires some kind of effort to be made with the rest of the mixer to adequately fill the rest of the map (you will get roughly half as many cells in the playable area and the default wilderness spawning is for cells less than half the size I use). The extra mixer I linked is far from perfect, we run a version of it atm on our dedi server at http://www.northern-lan.co.uk/7d2d/ if you wanted to look at the webmap and catch a glimpse of how it's spawned for us.

I guess it being there with some strangeness is better than not at all! it's not a perfect method but we've done ok using it on the initial server setup when we push out a new game.

That should work, just adjust the cell rule to push it wherever you want it and copy/paste the regions it spawns into. It's the way we get around the bug that crashes out the server when the hub is generated for the first time.

Multi window!? I copy/paste like a pro in just one! I've actually used that method in the past and theres times when it's great even if it's just a starting point. I think I should re-visit this technique but sometimes, especially working between streets or around sections of highway the layer by layer approach is the more painstakingly thorough one. Imagine when people start wanting smoother hills and I have to start adjusting densities, my optician is gonna be rich.

Because there are not enough tunnels already!

That looks pretty cool, trying to come up with ways of removing all the vertical drops, especially in the river area is frustrating without becoming repetitive. I love the effect the hills that I added have and although they are not perfect they fit the area really nice. However, building good hills layer by layer in hals is gonna have me in spectacles before long lol and I promised myself when I added the newest one in the as yet unreleased version, no more hills for a while ( tho this one is the best looking yet!).

I know hal9000 is a wizard, but god damn guppy you're talking about a prefab that would be 1521 x 1521, the initial extract including the bedrock to sky layers would be freaking massive. Heck even just claiming an area that big would have my PC smoking. I have no plans to extend beyond that outside road, although that road may not always be a solid square around the hub. So if you really wanted to drop this into navezgane, the blending in around the edges may be a once only job regardless of how often I add/update the hub itself. As to how I would do it, work out where the SW corner would be in navezgane, lets just say for this examples sake its -500,-1000. In the current prefab grid the South-western most point is 0,0 but the lot coordinates to spawn in that city section (although it's empty atm) would be 0,117. the coordinates you'd use in the navezgane XML to spawn the south western most prefab lot would be (0 - 500), (117 - 1000) or -500, -883. and just like that you can now calculate the lot coordinates for the rest of the city sections. No need to drop in a giant prefab, just do it the way I do in random gen. Now this would not factor in the offset, you'd have to play around and find one that is low enough for the tall parts, high enough for the low parts and overall creates as little terra-forming work to blend it in as possible. Future proof if you ever did do this as the -25 offset I use currently leaves me space to add stuff underground (sewers/subways etc) and it would be a shame if that wasn't factored in and you weren't able to include any things that may be added in future. I'll be honest, considering navesgane already has some excellent topography you could really bring it to life imo with a decent sized city, extending the highway out to diersville and the other small towns, joining up the rivers etc but it is a project of epic proportions.

Adjust the cell rule to any coords you like, atm getting it exactly 3000 s and w will be slightly problematic due to the cell sizes required to spawn in the hub. However, this will not be as much of an issue from a16 as the hub will go back to being centered within it's cell instead of pushed into the NE corner, meaning I can reduce the cell size right down to a much more forgiving 2000ish. Off the top of my head, it's current cell size is 4200 so the cell SW of the center would be -1,-1 and the SW corner of the hub using that cell would be approx -4200,-4200 with the center of the hub being around -3500,-3500.

Been enjoying the survival play through for much longer than expected but work has been ongoing since before xmas. Not sure if I'll drop the latest stuff before A16, some things I said I would do have not been done and a whole bunch of other stuff has been added instead. Much of the NE has been renovated to try and bring performance back to acceptable levels and although there are still some hotspots of stuttering, generally speaking it plays much better. Cookies for those who can spot the traders, I know some of our community memebers won't be happy that the bandits (naughty players not NPC's) can snipe into them from nearby buildings

Im kinda lucky being the one setting it up I have all the required files, that said like you mention in the CP thread, average joe does not want to have to download third party packs and see's red errors as a sign of a bad server. It's awesome valmod is becoming more popular as people are starting to get into the habit of needing these extra things on the client but at the end of the day it's mainly red tape that could be taken care of server side and we see a massive drop in players when we roll out more unique and custom worlds. With that in mind I've been on all morning replicating the slaanhatten de-sync ♥♥♥♥e on our test server and will drop the report, reproduction and logs in Kinyajus' mail box as I've a sneaky feeling that this is also related and with new random gen on the cards for A16 it would be nice to have this stuff taken care of.

As there won't be an update for a couple weeks yet HERE is a newer version of the RWGmixer. You MUST have the latest compo pack prefabs installed too. The mixer features Slaanhatten at 0,0 and rather than rolling out custom cell rules for some of the larger builds, I've added them to the custom hub code for the city and dropped them around in the empty areas surrounding the hub. It should be noted that these are not permanent additions, they are just used as fillers when we generate a new map for a playthrough. The other main difference is the introduction of the compo packs custom towns/rural/cities and wilderness spawns. Everything outside of the center cell is now randomly generated. The cell offset is back up to 0.7 and we have a reasonable amount of vanilla/custom prefabs out in the wilds now to compensate for the larger cell size. We run this mixer on BigC90210s' server over at Northern-lan along with valmod overhaul if anyone wants to see it in action. Feel free to add or modify, if you take a look at the hub code for Slaanhatten you can see how the big builds were thrown in as a last minute addition and it's quite simple to drop in as many 'extras' as you like. *Bugs* Massive console spam on the first time connecting to the dedi server, quit and re-try as this is a once only thing. The usual slaanhatten de-sync bug that requires the work-around fix (see project folder/OP)

I believe I know the prefab your talking of, it's pretty impressive and way better than the ones I done in the cityblocks by a mile. The method used to create the hub allows me a freedom of building that you just can't have when using more traditional ways and although it's often waaaay more time consuming, the non uniform look and more realistic planning of districts is one thing that makes this city stand apart by quite a large margin imo and a rail network will get the same kind of love if it makes it in. Density blending is one thing that I've been really lazy with, but again this is something that would be more of a finishing touch to the city. Due to the way plans change and areas are revisited as well as the changes to the game itself which improves or kills fps in some parts of the hub, there are far too many opportunities to re-do or edit existing areas to be more performance friendly or aesthetically pleasing so we get the dirty version for now and things like that can be done as a single update across the whole hub at a later date. I love the way it's comming together, the south side of the city is turning out much better than I imagined it would but when you head back to the 'older' areas, particularly downtown and where the sewers were started, performance is borderline terrible and some changes are desperately needed. First and foremost I developed this project to work on multiplayer servers and be as playable as possible, even if it means sacrificing things like a New York style skyscraper district or other larger performance hogging builds. Hopefully as we approach the gold release things will be a lot more stable and we as modders will have a better idea of how far we can push the game before things start going to ♥♥♥♥. Thats why I cherish the smaller builds when they pop up (like your apartments) as they give a great opportunity to kill some large empty space with respectable looking prefabs that are not 'too' big or full of objects/containers/lights etc.

Some kind of rail network was gonna be a 'thing' which would include at least a couple stations, bridge and maybe some subway sections. The main thing is there are many other more important things to add at this stage, even just filling the area up in a respectable way is time consuming and the mentioned rail network would need the city as a whole to be a touch more complete before it could be planned properly. I miss the rail tracks we used to have with the custom city blocks, but we do have nearly 2km of highway and an already impressive road map to race our mini bikes around so for now the rail system will remain on the 'to do' list.

The dedicated server version contains the region files used to generate the hub in a game with the seed name Slaanhatten07. It's mainly for people who struggle to setup a local MP/dedi server game with the required workaround, you can use the included project rwgmixer and simply copy the region files over to your save game to pre-generate the hub area. However, as the mixer included within the project folder is just the city hub added to a vanilla game, it may not match up right if your adding in other things like the compo pack or adjusting the offset etc.

When it comes to adding to the hub, the simple way I think... load it up in a game and add the prefabs/manual build the area's you have in mind. and/or Modify the actual x_custom_city_ prefabs(cut in paths/roads,terraform,decorations etc, will depend on level of skill with the editor) and/or build your own area/street(s)/town Once you're done, extract the whole modified area as a prefab (don't forget any modified city sections) and take some coordinates for where I'd have to insert it to see it match up with the hub. Send/post links and pics. Enough exists in the hub now I think to demonstrate the kind of style I'm trying to go for and it's important that regardless of whats being built we keep looking at the project as a single city as when it comes to the distribution of amenities and landmarks. However I still feel quite wary about commiting so much effort to this method with A16 and more RWG changes looming which is why things have been going slower for a while now. I've even contemplated a more 'enhanced' method of creating the city and starting it again (/shudder). BigC90210 once made a joke about me using 7D2D to play sim city and it's not a bad comparison to how I look at the hub when I consider expanding/upgrades, connecting them to the road network or highway, building up the landscape and filling the gaps with residential. Nothing below -25 and consider the fps when ye stacking 2k lights or large/dense buildings. I know the tutorial videos I made are a little old now and my english is awesome..., but if there are specific things that are hard to understand or questions I can directly answer/expand upon, then Im happy to do more or even thrash out a blog.

Sounds interesting! feel free to elaborate here or send me a mail with the juicy info. I'm due to start more work on the hub soon and look forward to seeing what you've built.

I'm taking a break for a week or so while I enjoy a survival play through on BigC's server, I have a few loose ends to chase when I start building again. I did add mondsucht on steam and intend to speak to him about the mental hospital, even tho we already have the asylum up by the hospital I can think of a couple of possible uses/spots to drop it in. It's working quite well so far, tho like most times I play through surivial I end up with an ever increasing list of ideas/edits that are needed so It won't be too long before I get the itch to continue.

v0.5.1 is available for download, updated the main post. Enjoy