Question for Pros: How high should ground floor, rail, road be?

[zOldBulldog]

When you look at the best showcases, roads and trains apppear to come to the buildings at approximately the ground floor level, making all the pieces fit together in a very natural look.

But clearly, the "ground level" of a good looking city is elevated by some height, to allow for belts and pipes to flow underneath. And if you have a distribution hub with many materials types arriving and departing by train and/or truck then you need even more space underneath.

So, I ask the pros...

1) How much height do you normally reserve for logistics under the base?

2) How high do you run your rail over flat terrain?

3) How high do run your roads over flat terrain?

[Stress Tensor]

Thank you! These are questions that I have repeatedly struggled with as I've gotten more and more experience with this game. My preference started out to try to be "realistic" by having buildings/roads/trains as close to the ground as possible, but I have repeatedly found that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to make this work well in practice. So I kept raising them up slightly, and again finding it to be insufficient.

I've finally gotten to the point where I use the following guidelines:

1. At least 3-5 4m foundations (i.e. 12-20 m) below buildings for logistics because of minor elevation changes in the terrain even for a single building.
   
2. On average 8-10 (+-2) 4m foundations (i.e. 32-40 m, +-8m) for rail in order to minimize elevation changes (ramps) in the rails.
   
3. About 3-5 4m foundations (i.e. 12-20 m) for roads (same as for logistics clearance).

I certainly do not have the "best showcase", so I also am very interested in others' suggestions and experience with this.

[zOldBulldog]

Thank you. That is definitely a good starting point. Unless somebody else provides good feedback here, I will likely start at 5 foundations (20m) over water and near flat areas, and perhaps more for distribution hubs as they have massive numbers of belts, and rise to the 8-10 (32-40m) in hilly terrain.

It really is a bummer that at least roads can't be on the ground. I even tried running trucks on dirt (following the natural "roads" of the map), but they get very buggy when you do that.

[kLuns]

Originally posted by zOldBulldog:

1) How much height do you normally reserve for logistics under the

Logistics floors either 7 or 11 meters high which is respectively 2 4m walls and a 1m foundation on top or 3 4m walls and a 1m foundation on top. I build from the bottom down on these floors so the ceiling gets filled up first with belts and cables. Only when belts cross I go down.

Originally posted by zOldBulldog:

2) How high do you run your rail over flat terrain?

I never found a good looking solution or I never got the patience for rail building.

Originally posted by zOldBulldog:

3) How high do run your roads over flat terrain?

Flat terrain doesn't need a road imo. The tyres of the road vehicles are made for offroad driving so only the places smaller than 3 foundations width or hills steeper than a 2m ramp need a road adjustment. I usually try a big truck on a hill and stop it on my way up. Then try to get to the top from standing still. If the big truck makes it I won't need a road.

You can always place some beams, barriers, pillars etc. to indicate a part of a terrain is dedicated to trucks.

[Setosum]

I'm not Pro, but...:)
To be honest, the proportions of things in the game are quite weird. So it is very confusing when you try to correlate things which are based on "real life" with the game assets.

I used to try to be as realistic as possible but it just brings me more pain  :) So I gave up and just try to make things neat and tidy, but not realistic. The only thing I really hate and try to avoid is overlapping with different things.

[XistenZ]

Service level (under factory floor) = 3x4m walls (will fit a 10m stack of pipes)
Factory level = 8x4m walls (will fit refinery, the tallest building)
Bonus: train tunnels should be at least 2x4m wall so trains don't clip through the ceiling.

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Depending where you want the rail to connect in terms of your base, typically having it on the side for cargo for a flat base is the best then using pillar-based rail supports to hold the train over the surface does wonders. However if you want to move cargo from one upper ground level to a lower, its better to have the train at the higher point. That is my personal opinion. For example the oil field for my current base has the rail depot at the side of it at ground level but the ending point is just above the cliff face in the forest which then transfers cargo to the storage areas above which I can just move from there.

Personally if you use the rail pillar idea, its best to carry tons of steel/iron plates and rods and tons of concrete if its high off of the ground. Depending on the area, that pillar high (myself anyways) is the ground platform (5m), with the pillar base, three pillar parts, another pillar base and the 2m platform on it, see how long you can stretch the rail before making another one and you can get a sky rail in no time.

(Took me only 3 stacks of concrete, 2 iron plates and some steel to stretch from the start in the forest all the way over to the oil lake and to the coal nodes to the North West, or just north, something like that)

[Space Doctor]

Ive tried something new, I put all train stations directly on the ground, and all factories are built above the stations. Looks much more organic to me.

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Originally posted by Space Doctor:

Ive tried something new, I put all train stations directly on the ground, and all factories are built above the stations. Looks much more organic to me.

That works to, an underground rail depot actually sounds like a cool idea I may try next now that you said it...

[Stress Tensor]

Originally posted by Space Doctor:

Ive tried something new, I put all train stations directly on the ground, and all factories are built above the stations. Looks much more organic to me.

Do your rails hug the ground level between stations/factories too? Or do you elevate them somewhat to reduce the many elevation changes (ramps) that would otherwise be required?

[HuggieJ]

Would love to see some pics of what you all are talking about. Thx

[Space Doctor]

Originally posted by Stress Tensor:

Originally posted by Space Doctor:

Ive tried something new, I put all train stations directly on the ground, and all factories are built above the stations. Looks much more organic to me.

Do your rails hug the ground level between stations/factories too? Or do you elevate them somewhat to reduce the many elevation changes (ramps) that would otherwise be required?

I place all rails on foundations, and try to keep them level. I ended up with just 3 heights for rail, probably 80% are within 12m of the ground.

[apdsmith]

I'm not what you'd call a pro, but I normally have logistics floors between floors of two full-height wall sections - there's 1m wall sections on the foundation edges so the logistics floor gets the full 8 metres to work with.

I also tend to use an awful lot of height when building. The new save I'm working on after problems with the last one stopped multiplayer working goes from sea level to 300 metres high, and possibly higher, if I end up having to put another production floor in.