Is there some kind of road planning tool?

[Darzai]

I like to start with low amount of money, but I find it difficult to plan ahead without knowing how large roundabouts turn out to be etc. And I am tired of having to scrap complete districts later on to make it look nicer.

So is there a mod that lets you plan a layout , kind of like how you can do this in Prison Architect?

[Verullus Forgefire]

No. You could play with the unlimited money mod. That mod is already included in the game.

[Darzai]

Originally posted by akeela84:

No. You could play with the unlimited money mod. That mod is already included in the game.

No, I just want to plan ahead, not have unlimited money. It is not so much about city painting, but more about planning ahead for certain unlocks. But without them being placable, I am not sure about their size. And because there is no undo for roads while having the game on pause, I could really use a planning tool.

Example :
I know I want to create a certain roundabout where the highway enters the area. But I can't do that yet at that stage. So I want to know how far away I want to start zoning so that I am sure I will have left enough room to build it later on.

This is just a very simple example, but I would like to plan a rough layout for the early districts right away.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Darzai:

Originally posted by akeela84:

No. You could play with the unlimited money mod. That mod is already included in the game.

No, I just want to plan ahead, not have unlimited money. It is not so much about city painting, but more about planning ahead for certain unlocks. But without them being placable, I am not sure about their size. And because there is no undo for roads while having the game on pause, I could really use a planning tool.

Example :
I know I want to create a certain roundabout where the highway enters the area. But I can't do that yet at that stage. So I want to know how far away I want to start zoning so that I am sure I will have left enough room to build it later on.

This is just a very simple example, but I would like to plan a rough layout for the early districts right away.

You are not restricted to playing only one city at a time and the fact that you can make multiple saves, means that you may use roads or mods in one map or save, to plan out or at least get the sense of scale and space required and then take that awareness over to your actual build map.
Therefore, you have plenty of ways to achieve what you're asking without a planning tool mod.

[Darzai]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Originally posted by Darzai:

No, I just want to plan ahead, not have unlimited money. It is not so much about city painting, but more about planning ahead for certain unlocks. But without them being placable, I am not sure about their size. And because there is no undo for roads while having the game on pause, I could really use a planning tool.

Example :
I know I want to create a certain roundabout where the highway enters the area. But I can't do that yet at that stage. So I want to know how far away I want to start zoning so that I am sure I will have left enough room to build it later on.

This is just a very simple example, but I would like to plan a rough layout for the early districts right away.

You are not restricted to playing only one city at a time and the fact that you can make multiple saves, means that you may use roads or mods in one map or save, to plan out or at least get the sense of scale and space required and then take that awareness over to your actual build map.
Therefore, you have plenty of ways to achieve what you're asking without a planning tool mod.

Starting a new save to plan ahead for the original save? This is one of the weirdest workarounds I encountered :)

Would you like a planning tool that gives you an extra layer to draw and plan ahead?

[Thunderhorse74]

What I generally do is simply plan what I am going to do and lay out the cheap roads with the intent to upgrade in the future. I leave gaps where I believe I will need them and restrict my ealry building to areas where I've planned to only upgrade to better roads but the same size.

Build everything on dirt roads leaving gaps where you want larger arteries or highways, and build up zoning in areas where you want to keep 2 lanes.

[mbutton15]

You could create some assets of the roads you want to end up with. Then convert the roads to the basic 2-lane road and save it as a 2-lane version. That way you can place a 2-lane version and upgrade it when you get the 4-lane roads.

Or build the large version, place some trees on the asset outlining the boundaries. Delete the roads so you are left with just the trees. Then in game use the asset to show where you want your junction. Hope that makes sense !!

[ancienthighway]

You already have two predefined traffic circles in the intersection tab that are available early in a town's development. You can delete the roads leading into the circle if they don't fit your needs and place them so they do.
If you can't modifiy those as you want, create your own asset as mbutton15 suggests. It's available from the start so you can position but not place it to see how much room is needed,

[CptJH]

Yeah, and sometimes you have to buldoze some stuff to squeeze a street or roundabout in....
I do lot of grid because it's easier.

Maybe you like to watch some yt videos for inspiration? Some of them are awesome!

[Darzai]

I am talking about an extra layer where you can sketch a layout a la Prison Architect. The whole point is that you then can plan ahead without having unlocks or money to buy assets or roads (without mods) yet.

It feels very counterintuitive to just imagine something in your head and then when turns out it won't work, you bulldoze complete neighbourhoods to change things. This is how I used to play the old sim cities, but since having enjoyed a planning tool in Prison Architect I am kind of amazed that not more people ask about this for City Skylines. It would make sense in this game.

I always have a rough layout in mind, but I hate having to move neighbourhoods a little because I guessed the distances wrong. This is also an (unnecessary) unrealistic part of the game.

It would be a different thing if this was a game like Banished where you try to settle the land without modern technology.

[mbutton15]

Originally posted by Darzai:

I am talking about an extra layer where you can sketch a layout a la Prison Architect.

I like the sound of that. However, I would be concerned it would add a whole heap of CPU usage to an qlready high CPU game.

It would probably only really be useful in the very early stage as once you start making a profit it's easy to lay down roads, as seen below:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1120449014

[mike]

Maybe someone can create some roads that are free, but don't do anything. Then they can be upgraded to actual roads...

[mbutton15]

Originally posted by mike:

Maybe someone can create some roads that are free, but don't do anything. Then they can be upgraded to actual roads...

Good thinking !! There are 'Construction Cost' and 'Maintenence Cost' parameters in the new road editor tool so setting them to zero will eliminate cost. I guess you also delete all the lanes to stop people using them. Or just place the roads and then delete the junctions where they join the existing city so they can't be reached.

[Quboid]

This is far from perfect, but you could use Difficulty Tuning. Set the road price to 0 while you're planning and turn road maintenance cost down based on how much of your road network is supposed to be used compared to how much is for blue-print. This mod also sets the refund price to 100%, so you can plan as much as you can afford while paused and bulldoze unwanted parts with no penalty.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=519781146