Trash and Deathcare Tips

My trash and deathcare tips in one sentence:
Go incinerator-only and crematorium-only while making sure to zone residential slowly.

Let’s dive in to the details:

Trash Tips

• Landfills provide a maximum of 15 trucks vs the incinerators 27.
• Once a landfill is full, it can’t receive more trash until additional space has been created through emptying.
• While set to “Empty”, trash trucks will haul trash from the landfill to the incinerators or another available landfill. 
• If you can’t empty a landfill right away, you should turn it off. The trucks aren't utilized by other landfills, so you're better off saving the expense of keeping it open. 
• You can't move a landfill until it's been completely emptied.
• While emptying a landfill, a large number of trash trucks will flock to it, thus creating a potential traffic problem.
• Additional trash can't be added during the emptying process.
• Landfills create pollution, but no noise. Incinerators create both pollution and noise. 
• Both landfills and incinerators have an operating radius, so in larger cities you can't just place them in one corner.
• Trash truck efficiency is diminished in cities with heavy traffic.
• You don’t have to use landfills. You can go incinerator-only. I prefer this method because it removes the number of variables involved with balancing supply and demand. I don't have to worry about both picking up trash and emptying landfills at the same time.

If you find yourself in a pinch where there is more trash needed to be picked up, you can:

• Increase the trash budget, thus increasing the number of trash trucks, or
• Build extra incinerators and/or landfills and turn them off one at a time until you find the right balance of supply/demand.

Deathcare Tips

The key to avoiding death-waves is to have a more consistent rate of births.

• When starting to populate a newly constructed residential area, don’t zone the entire area at once. Add to the residential area slowly. This allows the lifecycles of the CIMs to be spread out and not all hit old age at once.
• Remember that you can turn deathcare buildings off and on as needed to handle supply/demand. You can also increase the budget as needed to increase/decrease the number of hearses.
• Keep an eye on your population stats to notice any birth waves that can then turn into death waves later down the line.

Deathcare is similar to Trash in that you have items that need to be picked up and taken to a disposal site: Cemeteries are to crematoriums what landfills are to incinerators

• Cemeteries provide a maximum of 10 hearses vs the crematorium's 7.
• Both deathcare buildings have a service radius, so in larger cities you can't just place them all in one corner of the map.
• Crematoriums produce pollution while cemeteries do not.
• Once a cemetery is full, it can’t receive more bodies until you start to empty it. If you can’t empty it right away, you should turn it off, thus not paying more money to keep it running. The extra hearses won't be sent to help out other cemeteries or crematoriums. 
• While emptying a cemetery, a large number of hearses will flock to it, thus creating a potential traffic problem.
• While set to Empty, hearses will take bodies from the cemetery to the crematorium or other cemeteries that have room.
• Hearse efficiency is diminished in cities with heavy traffic.
• You don’t have to use cemeteries. You can go crematorium-only. I prefer this method for the same reason as I gave in the trash tips: It's easier to manage.

If you find yourself in a pinch where there is more dead needed to be picked up, you can:

• Increase the health care budget, thus increasing the number of hearses, or
• Build extra cemeteries and/or cremtoriums and turn them off one at a time until you find the right balance of supply/demand, or
• If you don't want to bother picking up the dead bodies, you can demolish the building instead.

Free Flowing Traffic Tips

by Jamie Ramsey of the Skylines Nation Guild

How to avoid traffic lights and reduce stops on major roads:

These are the principals used in my Free Flow Grids

1. Highway to 6-lane or 4 lane junctions doesn't create traffic lights.

2. Highway to Highway do not create traffic lights.

3. A 2-lane to Highway does not create traffic lights, but 2-lane to 6-lane or 4-lane creates traffic lights.

4. A off ramp to 6-lane will create traffic lights.

5. 6-lane to 6-lane junctions create traffic lights.

6. A off ramp to a 4-lane or 2-lane road also doesn't create traffic lights

7. Roundabouts using Highways at any major intersection can create a free flow intersection/junction without stop lights.

8. Traffic should be divided in tiers as follows: 

• Tier One: 2-way roads or walking paths 
• Tier Two: 4-way and 6-way roads, 
• Tier 3: Highways.

9. The goal in number eight is to confine zoning to the 2-way roads and channel traffic to the 4-way and 6-way roads and from there to the Highways.

10. Where the tiers meet Highways, roundabouts will ensure traffic flows smoothly.

11. Placing walking paths along major roads is a good way to prevent zoning where you don't want it without using a mod.

12. Finally, don't worry about space, especially if you use a mod that provides access to all 25 squares. A million people can fit in HALF that area so feel free to spread things out!

Steam Workshop Navigation Tips

Navigating the Steam Workshop

by Jamie Ramsey of the Skylines Nation Guild

This game is designed for modding. So much so that on day one there was already thousands of mods to choose from.  Anyone that is capable of playing the game is also capable of creating new content. This leads to a absolute flood of material, much of it repeats. However, the flood is easy to manage.

1. Remember mods, assets, maps, and saves are different items.

• Mods actually make a change in the game like adding new UI elements
• Assets are building or road items built in the Asset Editor using primarily stock items
• Maps are custom maps made in the Map Editor

2. Once you know what you are looking for, choose the right category.
3. You can filter mods based on tags, but most authors haven't added them. So it is better to search via keywords.
4. There are many players that do the filtering and sorting of mods for you like Skylines Nation Guild member Andy Go who create customized lists of favorites.
5. For those categories that are just too huge. Use the Recent, Popular, and Top Rated filters to show only what you want to see.
7. There is a sub-group of the Skylines Nation Guild that is just about mods, so requests can be made in either group. The sub-group is just lower traffic to make things easier to find. https://www.facebook.com/groups/SkylinesNation.MapsAssetsMods/

Tips About Fluid Dynamics

by Jamie Ramsey of the Skylines Nation Guild

Skylines has an interesting layer to the game that is not very obvious at first. The thing is that unlike most city builders the water is dynamic i.e. it changes and actually flows! 

1. Make sure that water buildings are upstream from sewage buildings
2. Don't dump sewage into still water as it will just sit there and spread out
3. Be careful dams can Stop AND Reverse the flow of rivers not to mention draining the river beds dry.
4. Dams can also cause flooding in parts of your map!
5. Water pumps can drain or lower bodies of water if too many are used in one place.
6. If you just want to be evil you can dam a river, drain it dry, then run your sewage into the dry river bed for a river of poo!

Miscellaneous Tips

by Jamie Ramsey of the Skylines Nation Guild

Rotation Tips

Do you use a single right click to rotate a building or intersection? Do you ever think why can I only rotate something 45 degrees at a time? Want more freedom of rotation?

1. Turn off grid snap (You must turn it off from the road section before switching to intersections for example.)
2. Click and Hold the right mouse button
3. Drag the object left or right to rotate
4. You can release right click to check rotation as the object will stay attached to the cursor and the last angle.
5. Simply left click to place the newly rotated object when you are done

Highway Connection Tips

Connections between highways roads and ramps need to be smooth. If you have too much of an angle in your ramps, cars will have to stop and make a hard turn. It slows traffic down considerably! Smooth curves are best!

Hidden Benefit of the Asset Manager

The Asset Editor is great not only because the interface is simple, requires no coding or modding skill, and because you can check the stats on buildings, which can help with building efficiently.