building/accessing underground station

[Roads]

pak128, v110.0

Did a search on this and it did help but still have a question.


After clicking on sliced view and going one level down, how do I build roads?  None of my road tools do anything.  What I want to do is this:


Have a station which is built on a hill and is very busy.  I want to build a road under the hill and place an underground station directly under the above ground one.  I'm thinking the new station should have the same name as the above ground one...

[Combuijs]

After clicking on sliced view and going one level down, how do I build roads?  None of my road tools do anything. 

Underground you always must build with a tunnel tool.

I'm thinking the new station should have the same name as the above ground one...

Yes, it will even be the same station.

[Roads]

Combuijs, is that the road tunnel tool?  I'm sure I'm just being dense here but can't get it to work.

[kierongreen]

Yes, you must start on a slope above ground, press the ctrl key to just build the tunnel entrance then extend from there.

[Combuijs]

Yep, that is the road tunnel tool.

To get this working you need to make a tunnel first somewhere. From this tunnel you can build roads. In the end you can delete the tunnel again. The tunnel is necessary to go underground and to give a height level to the road. Once you are underground you can change the road height level with the slope tools. The rightmost two (apart from the restore natural slope button) work, but first build a road on the tile you want to get lower or higher.

Once you get the hang of it, it is easy. As usual...

[Roads]

woohoo!


Got it working.  Many thanks to both of you! 

[Fabio]

This is further proof that current underground UI is rather un-intuitive, sadly...

[Roads]

Yep Fabio, you are right.  It is anything but intuitive.  Still, it works and that's the most important thing.

I think it would be good if we had a drop down menu similar to the one for roads, rails, etc., when clicking on split view.  The most difficult hurdle for me was not knowing about holding the control key down and making the tunnel entrance.  Maybe the tunnel entrance could be one of the icons on the menu?  If you clicked it in the wrong place you would get a message,  Also think it would be good if you had up and down arrows on the menu to move between levels.

[Ters]

I wouldn't call it unintuitive that you have to use the tunnel tool to tunnel, but that you have to build a tunnel entrance first isn't. It is after all possible to start tunneling in the middle through a vertical shaft. For the old normal underground view, it is necessary to tunnel out from existing tunnel structures in order for the game to know at which depth you want to tunnel at, but in the new sliced underground view, that is not the case anymore. And if you forget to disconnect the tunnel entrance before removing it, you lose everyting!

[Combuijs]

And if you forget to disconnect the tunnel entrance before removing it, you lose everything!

Yes, but luckily the shock is so big that you will never forget it in the future... 

[ӔO]

Yes, but luckily the shock is so big that you will never forget it in the future... 

on that note, always be careful with way removal tools and new tracks. Slight slip and everything you've just built can be unraveled, like dominoes

[Fabio]

Imho, removing a tunnel entrance should remove only until first intersection or bend or slope found. Like this it would still remove entirely and old fashion straight tunnel (for those who don't use underground view), but save the work on complex tunnel systems...

What I call unintuitive, it's the ctrl + click for tunnel entrances and the up/down level shortcuts in sliced mode.

[Carl]

Hmm, I find that once you understand how sliced mode works it's really useful and perfectly intuitive.

[Roads]

Fabio, once again I agree with you.  I think the cntrl key might be intuitive if you had to use it for other things you do in the game and I think you can, but I had never used it for anything.  So it just never occurred to me to use it for the tunnel entrance.

Many thanks Ters and AEO for the "heads up" about losing my work.  I'll be in the "save early, save often" mode whenever tunneling from now on.

[Carl]

The ctrl key is used for all kinds of contextual commands in the game. For instance, you can hold ctrl during track building to force diagonals.

[Fabio]

The fact is: you can as well lay tracks without ctrl, so using ctrl is a power user stuff.
Instead, you can't build tunnel entrances without ctrl and if you're new to the game you have no clue you can even build them. It's very easy, but not intuitive...

[Carl]

I'm sure it's possible to lay tracks without ctrl, but if I hadn't found that option in my first hour of playing Simutrans I would have given up in frustration. Placing tracks is a nightmare without it -- I consider it a basic feature. But maybe that makes me unusual.

[Roads]

@Fabio, carlbaker

Yes Fabio, if you see a pile of gold on the top of a mountain, it is intuitive that you have to climb the mountain to get the gold but it may not be easy to climb.  You are exactly right there is a huge difference between "easy" and "intuitive."

carlbaker, it is just the difference in what people enjoy doing.  I don't mind building roads the "slow" way.  I think something that might drive you crazy might not bother me at all and vice versa.

[valten]

The fact is: you can as well lay tracks without ctrl, so using ctrl is a power user stuff.
Instead, you can't build tunnel entrances without ctrl and if you're new to the game you have no clue you can even build them. It's very easy, but not intuitive...

I confirm, i just discovered that i could build tunnel entrance this way by reading this post despite having played hundreds of hours of simutrans...

[An_dz]

We may follow a little the Maxis games tooltips:

Tool name
description
Price
Extra info (ctrl/shift/alt modifiers explanation)

[Fabio]