UPDATE:
Completed Maps
Hong Kong (55-60% realistic sizing)
Mombasa (1:1 realistic sizing)
Remember suggestions and ideas are welcome!
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So march last year i got bored with the random maps and decided to make maps of actual places with pretty much the same distances and traveling times for things in real life.
I started on a Hong Kong map , http://archive.forum.simutrans.com/topic/07591.0/index.html , which i never ended up completing.
So now i've started up again and took prissi's advice. I played around with what the tutorial said and now i'm 25% done with a hong kong map which is heaps more acurate and 100x faster than i had before. It includes all areas of the Hong Kong SAR, even land reclamation.
I am also considering doing the following areas, just as ideas.
Macau SAR (2 versions, 1 with just original islands and 2 with land reclamation) *1 version, present day macau
Hong Kong SAR - Shenzhen *larger version under thought
Macau SAR - Zhuhai
Shenzhen - HKSAR - MSAR - Zhuhai - { Zhongshan - Guangzhou - Dongguan}
Mombasa (being a Halo fan i thought it would be cool to make 'New Mombasa') complete
The bigger maps of course would lag for most people, especially with autosave, so i dont know wether it would be worth it. But its seems cool as a 'multiplayer map' where each player has there own city area and develops and interlinks with each other. And it would also be extremely costly to build infrastructure for such distances.
Anyone have any ideas? any suggestions? Any certain city/area you think needs to be a map?
I would welcome every map you mentioned, we are far from complete in the Asian maps section (http://maps.simutrans.com/asiamiddleeast.html (http://maps.simutrans.com/asiamiddleeast.html))
The Hong Kong map seems to be good, many islands, (large and small), various geographical accidents, I look forward to seeing your map. :)
I've just finished testing out the map.
I tested the map using info about the airport express line and Tsing Ma Bridge. It takes roughly 12 minutes for he MTR K stock from the Asiaexpo station to Central station. A bus going 100km/h on the bridge directly over the water area takes about 37secs. This put the map between 55-60% the size of an actual 1:1 map.
Its still rather big and has okay times. But i reckon there would be problems with space when you start putting in more metro lines and double lane highways/freeways with good on/off ramps. Building sizes seem relatively fine though.
I havent refined the shorelines so they are bit weird. Test it out and tell me what i should do. Do i just fix the shoreline? Do i attempt to get a 1:1 map? i couldnt upload the .ppm file
Your map is really fine. It's indeed a bit squary (if that is correct english ;) ) at the shorelines, but very well playable. Its size is now 1680x1240, which is good for most players. Some people like their maps a little bit smaller, so you might consider making a second smaller version, say 830x620.
As it is now, I would happily publish it on the maps website, if you allow this. If you want to change something I will wait for a while.
Yeh the squary-ness deffinately needs to be smoothed out. I'll do that first. I've also finished a 1:1 map for Mombasa, Kenya which isnt so big. I'll do Macau next since it's also a smaller one.