NYC Subways - ON HOLD

by **totalbasscase** on Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:18 pm

I love the NYC map we have currently but the subway inaccuracy always kills me! And I love the gameplay on the rail maps, so I would love to combine the two.

Going to work on the images first, and then do the XML.

Ideas? Suggestions? Criticism?

by **totalbasscase** on Mon Apr 13, 2009 3:28 pm

I put together a rough draft of the train lines themselves.

Note that any late-night service extensions have been removed (the M through Park Slope, the 5 along the 2 in the Bronx) and all trains run Express.

I'm going to take some photos on my commute home to use as backgrounds, to try to give it an underground feel.

EDIT: Changed background to black, added a basic Outer Glow, and added the G and L trains (whoops.)

by **totalbasscase** on Tue Apr 14, 2009 12:54 pm

Here are some drafts of stations.

On the left is a 2-line station, where brown can attack green. Next is a 3 line split station, where silver can attack blue, but neither can attack lime. on the right is a 4 track split station, where yellow, orange, red, and purple all run through, but neither can attack each other.

Suggestions? Comments? Come on, I know someone has something to say.

by **ender516** on Tue Apr 14, 2009 11:32 pm

I can see the difference between lines which can attack and those which cannot, but it is not terribly obvious. Perhaps a plain colour where attacks are permitted and a crosshatching where they are not?

By the way, do you have plans for one-way attacks, and how would you show this? In your examples, you describe the colour on the left attacking the colour on the right, but it is not clear if that was your only intent or if you meant reciprocal attacks were possible.

by **totalbasscase** on Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:21 am

To solve the problem, I changed it so that it is more like the old Rail maps. Now, platforms on either side of a station name can attack each other, but cannot attack across the station name.

For instance, here at Queens Plaza the 7 train (purple) can attack the N and W platform (yellow), and the E (blue), F (orange), and R (yellow) trains can all attack each other, but the two groups cannot cross.

by **ender516** on Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:19 pm

That seems quite workable, provided you never want more than two groups. By the way, I presume that in your example, the green one is also part of the second group and you simply omitted it in error.

by **totalbasscase** on Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:56 pm

Yeah. Everyone always forgets about the G train =)

That'll learn me to post on CC forums before I have my coffee. Yarr.

Draft coming soon, I hope. Maybe tonight. I have most of the multi-stations done, gotta do the single train stations.

I wanted originally to place the stations right over their respective lines, but there might not be enough space on the map for that. What do you think about placing colored dots where the stations are, and offsetting the actual stations, connecting them with lines?

by **ender516** on Thu Apr 16, 2009 12:39 am

That might work, provided those lines don't look too much like the rail lines themselves.

by **ender516** on Thu Apr 16, 2009 12:42 am

By the way, you might want to use the BigImg tag for your map. It keeps those big pictures on a short leash.

by **sailorseal** on Sun Apr 19, 2009 9:00 pm

I would recommend only including the major stops and major lines just to keep it from becoming insanely crowded

by **ender516** on Mon Apr 20, 2009 1:05 am

How many stations and lines are we talking about, if you go for them all, totalbasscase? Leaving aside the admittedly legitimate question of crowding for now, I expect the community would like to know how big a map you are proposing. Different sizes interest different players, and the size of the map also affects gameplay for different numbers of players (2-8).

by **InkL0sed** on Mon Apr 20, 2009 1:28 am

The NYC map fudged the subway lines for a reason - the whole system is too huge to fit into a map and stay accurate. I don't think this is feasible, though I do think it'd be a cool map.

by **totalbasscase** on Mon Apr 20, 2009 7:21 am

I had wanted to include all the lines, but only express stations. Seemed like a reasonable compromise between accuracy and simplicity. Having trouble squeezing the stations into the maps without making it look too bloody confusing.