Best products from r/CitiesSkylines

The angle that us advocates/urban planners are arguing over parking about goes way beyond 'aesthetics', which I sometimes have to remember also includes those tastes that see nothing wrong architecturally, economically, or culturally with parking structures.

Above ground and underground parking in towers are affected by, among other things, off-street parking regulations - whether minimums or maximums - and pseudoscience about how much parking is 'needed' at a site. The reason most of us want it built into the game - rather than simply being satisfied with mods that allow you to plop parking as you please to replicate your own mid-western peak-car American city - is because parking can be used as a subtle hint about the performance of your transportation network and your economy/tax efficiency of the land, in a similar to the appearance of abandoned buildings. It's really hard to encourage people to download a mod that does this and I argue it's a critical lesson in the game, aside and maybe more importantly than a bunch of other niche policies the game teaches you through ordinances.

Parking one of the biggest aspects of car-centric transport planning that we've recently questioned and debunked with with lots of data; it's upending the disciplines of transport planning and development.

So it's not just about the aesthetics of having parking garages to make cities more life-like or a more accurate simulation of where all those cars go when they're standing around doing nothing.

It's more about the fact that the game misses a crucial opportunity to teach just one more subtle but important lesson about the connection between parking (or more accurately, just the right amount of it) and the type of environment that makes a city successful and one that people want to live in. This is a HUGE issue on a daily basis for many professionals and citizens on the front lines - for me personally as I fight with neighbours over reducing parking requirements in buildings so developers can build more units to satisfy the housing crunch in Boston.

Sim City inspired a whole generation of people to become city planners. The next generation of city sim can inspire another generation of lay people to understand more viscerally the problems last generation's city planners left us with... If you want to make your city look like parking-pocked downtown Houston, Indianapolis, or Brasilia, that's great! Power to you. But your city shouldn't perform economically or with the same return on taxes vs city expenses as New York City, San Francisco, or Portland, OR. It's the same lesson that you learn when you put your dirty industrial right next to your residential - your choices make your city that much more or less desirable to live in.

Well... that's a a request that can have many answers. But it's about to be Thanksgiving week, so you're going to have more options than usual for the next week or two. A couple general rules to follow...


Prioritize RAM (aim for 8GB at a minimum, 16GB + if you can. By far, games like Cities benefit the most from this.)

After that look for the best combination of CPU (i5 or i7 Proc are fine), SSD for Hard Drive (drastically improves load time), and video card (honestly, not the most important part here... though certainly don't ignore it).

An example budget gaming pick might be:
https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Laptop-Hexa-Core-i7-9750H-Antivirus/dp/B07THN4VB9/

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But like I said... keep an eye out this week. There are a lot of deals coming out. There are dedicated subs here on Reddit for spotting the best machines... so maybe search reddit for laptop deals and look for recommendations.

That's a difficult question for me to answer. Someone working in career placement (or whatever it's called - someone who helps you chose a career) could probably give you a better general answer.

In terms of games, you could try playing OpenTTD (Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe) or Cities in Motion 2 (the game Colossal Order made before Cities: Skylines). Both have a much stronger transportation focus, with a good deal more micromanagement and therefore a steeper learning curve, and are a notch closer to what I do IRL. If you can play either/both for days without getting bored, you might want to be a traffic engineer.

If you'd rather read, you could get Traffic: Why we drive the way we do. I think it's a good read for anyone who lives on a street. If you read that and think "I wish this was 10 times longer and also my life", you might want to be a traffic engineer.

If you want to dive into some more technical stuff, wikipedia has some good articles, e.g. on the Braess paradox (the math is interesting, but you can probably skip over it since it's pretty high-level, abstract stuff). If you get to the bottom of that and start clicking all the "See also" links, you might want to be a traffic engineer.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask :)

I bought this one..

[Dell inspiron 5577] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XFGDD8P/ref=twister_B06XYM29GY?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1)

I came with one 8gb RAM stick, so I plan on buying another, as it can support up to 32gb.

I'm also going to replace the screen as the screen on this one is not that great.
I plan to replace it with this one

I mainly bought it because I currently have a MBP, but I wanted something I could upgrade and add to, as I can't do that with my MBP. I'm pretty happy with it. I was playing last night on high settings with some basic mods and a few assets (TM:PE, Move It and RICO, for now) there wasn't any lagging or problems and the laptop barely warmed up, which I was surprised about. I don't plan on using it for much else though, I have a few other games I want to add, but since my other laptop still works, I plan on using that one for my work/docs/pics and stuff like that so this one wont get bogged down.

Yes to both, but don't go anywhere near that Alienware. If you're set on one of these two, do your self a favor and get the HP.

But it's still not a great system for the price. I found basically the same system for $350 less on Amazon. With the money you save, you can buy a 6gb version of the GTX 1060 (the best buy system has a 3gig model), and still have $100 left in your pocket.

you are awesome, was sitting here thinking about how I would love to gift him a new mouse with macro buttons, to help him, but I'm partially in the same situation as him when it comes to employment at the moment.
Here is a mouse I was looking at that would fit his needs:
Logitech g600
newegg
amazon
With the logitech gaming software you can bind all those "G" buttons on the side and top to any keyboard button you want

Make sure you read up on how to replace the liquid for the liquid cooler. Try to do it every 6 months at least.

Also this screen is pretty sweet. https://www.amazon.com/MSI-FreeSync-Non-Glare-Optix-MAG24C/dp/B07794JYLJ

Check out r/battlestations for inspiration

This is the cheapest prebuilt PC I can find that would be good for running a modded version of Cities: Skylines. It does lack an SSD, but it's got a good amount of RAM and a good CPU. You could grab a 120GB SSD like this, which would help with load times a lot. I know you said you didn't want to build a PC, but adding an SSD isn't hard (it's just 4 screws and 2 cables).

This, but minus 1TB of storage and prioritize the SSD.

SSDs are the single best upgrade for loading times (which in CS can get quite long with lots of mods and assets), and general "snappiness" of the machine.

1TB is over-kill for most, and if you run low on storage for photos etc you can easily buy an external HDD or NAS for not very much money at all.

A 256GB SSD will do the job just fine for Cities Skylines, a couple of other games, and some documents, but 500GB is more comfortable if you want to install other large games. More than that is un-necessary unless you want to store a large number of videos too.

Something like this would be ideal for $900.

Or this for a little less money for $800. It will perform a little worse for CS (slightly worse CPU), a little better in most other games (better graphics card), and has less storage, but is cheaper.

And at $700, this is the cheapest I'd probably bother with, as you start to lose a little too much performance when you drop significantly below this level.

If the above is too expensive, though, dropping the SSD can get you this which is a bit of a compromise but should still run CS well enough and is hard to argue with at $525

Edit: Although I'll add that I'm not American and just grabbed these for example purposes: you may be able to find better deals for comparable specifications.

Ill normally look through Reddit's where they discuss PC Deals for friends who don't want to build a PC.

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Desktops are much cheaper but you'll also need a monitor, mouse, and keyboard. (Desk and Chair optional.)

Cities skylines does much better with a nicer CPU then a GPU.

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Here's a Reddit for you:

https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestapc/

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Here's a link for a gaming PC i found on that Reddit:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D5S3LZM/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza

I'm running it on this, with this mother board and this video card.

It's not the greatest, but it runs Cities Skyline pretty well.

Ah. Fair enough. What does a SSD cost where you're located? If Amazon.com is an option keep an eye out. I think I payed about USD$160 for my OCZ 480GB SSD which at that time was the cheapest drive that size. Though after a brief look everything is quite a bit cheaper now.

If money is that big of a pinch, the 240GB drives will still hold your OS and a handful of large games. You just have to be more conservative with not filling it up with games you aren't currently playing. I started out with a 240GB SanDisk SSD and it was some of the best money I've ever spent.

This is the OCZ:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01B4NUKME/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505435744&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=ocz+ssd.&dpPl=1&dpID=41zFLPW0xiL&ref=plSrch

I'm buying a new computer this weekend and hope to be able to play Cities Skylines, with expansions and a few mods, at mid performance levels. What do you think of the following computer? I know nothing about computer components or gaming requirements (I did check the CS requirements, but I don't know how graphics cards compare or how processors compare). Acer Aspire E 15, 15.6" Full HD, 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8250U, GeForce MX150, 8GB RAM Memory, 256GB SSD

My budget is <$700. This is likely the most graphics or cpu intensive game I'll play for now.

Would either of these laptops be good for running the game?

Acer Aspire E 15

Acer Nitro 5

Or, can anyone recommend cheap-ish laptops that can run it?

I would spending $799 (552 pounds on a Dell Inspiron 7559. You may be thinking, WHY IN THE WORLD would I want an Inspiron? Keep in mind that this is not their Alienware lineup, this computer is actually reasonably priced. It has an i5-6300 HQ which well get the job done. It also has a GTX 960M which will be perfect for gaming, and 8 GBs of RAM which is sufficient for any task. Keep in mind it only has a 256 GB SSD, so I would recommend keeping some external drives around unless you don't download a LOT of stuff like me. The screen is only 15.6 inches, but that is reasonable for the price. I don't personally own this laptop, I'm just viewing it by the specifacations, but if you want more insight on the laptop check out LinusTechTip's Video

Is this the 5567? Be aware this laptop seems to use a low quality TN panel, much like the stock option on the Inspiron 7567 (used to be the only FHD option until they added the IPS upgrade option). All these display quality complaints would apply to it: https://www.reddit.com/r/SuggestALaptop/comments/5ozrqq/warning_the_new_inspiron_15_display_is_indeed/

If you're in the USA, this Ideapad 700 is probably just about all-around better. IPS 1920x1080 display with decent contrast and viewing angles, better GPU (GT 950M, DDR3 variant but the core is faster than the R7 M445), faster CPU (despite being a generation behind; U-series vs HQ series means a lot more than i5 vs i7 or 6th gen vs 7th gen), similar battery capacity, more RAM (But 8GB is probably plenty anyway).

For a faster GPU and also SSD storage, this is the Dell I would pick. Inspiron 7559 with IPS display and GTX 960M for $699.

If not, which country are you buying from, and do you have a link to the listing? I might be able to find another alternative recommendation. Or, check out /r/SuggestALaptop/.