Redimus

Modular 2.0

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I've always been a fan of the modular buildings, and intend to build a layout that relies heavily on them. Unfortunately, I have never liked the standard way they interact with roads. The Lego road baseplates have several rows of studs on their outer edges, leading to the weird practice of most people's Lego cities having a random rough strip of land between the roads and the city center buildings. Add this to the fact that the roads themselves don't actually connect in a modular fashion.

My first thought was just to have smaller baseplates with tilled roads. Whilst this works, I'd have to add an extra plate to the underside of *every* modular build to allow for the 1 plate height difference between the road and the pavement, and it still wouldn't actually result in a road attached to the rest of the city.

My second thought was, what if I just remove the baseplates as they are currently aligned, and attach the font of each modular set to the side of the road plates. This solves the lose road issue, but results in a very difficult to disassemble city (something I've needed to do at least once a year). It also still has the downside of taking apart the bottom over every modular set, but I've kind of resigned myself to that.

Still not happy, I stumbled upon a youtube video of micro scale modular  cities, which included the road in each modular segment. Whilst not the perfect solution (for ease of reconfiguration, I'd like the roads completely separable) id did point me in the best direction to go forward.

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Using standard modular base ideas (as seen in yet more youtube videos) I've come up with a range of 'standard' and easily swapable bases, plus square road segments of various configurations. The logical plan is to base the system on the standard base plate widths (8, 16 and 32 studs). Unless I wanted extremely wide roads, I found that the only sensible width would be 16 studs. I could use the 8x16 tiles, but I don't want to have to add road markings, plus I liked the idea of having grills built into the road.

The bases are basically hollow, with enough support to stop them sagging in the middle.

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And here's an example of how a section of city would look (minus the actual buildings).

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I've not yet got as far as considering how I'll squeeze my beloved railways into this system yet, but that'll be the next job (and the job I will *have* to do before I even think of actually using this). One advantage I see is when I have to disassemble my city, I'll be able to easily use things like stations as display settings for my trains without radically dismantling them.

As usual, suggestions, feedback and criticisms are welcomed and encouraged.

 

Edited by Redimus

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It is a nice way to make your roads but also a bit expensive...i'd rather spend that money on road furniture and things like that!

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The raised paint stripes on the road are a little bothersome, but besides that I'd say it's a solid plan. I look forward to seeing this in real bricks.

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1 hour ago, Actor Builder said:

The raised paint stripes on the road are a little bothersome, but besides that I'd say it's a solid plan. I look forward to seeing this in real bricks.

Aye, I couldn't think of any other way of doing it without either using stickers or breaking the strict rules on measurements.

1 hour ago, LegoSjaak said:

It is a nice way to make your roads but also a bit expensive...i'd rather spend that money on road furniture and things like that!

It shouldn't be too expensive, as the majority of the bits don't need to be a specific colour, and are bits I have loads of. Probably the only costly bit (other than the baseplates I'd have to buy anyway) is the large plates

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Very nice. These are similar to the Moduverse Baseplate style of city road and baseplate connections. I like that yours go straight to the road whereas the moduverse style adds even more (unnecessary) sidewalk to the existing sidewalk of the modulars, so the 16 wide roads with no sidewalks utilizing the modulars sidewalk is great. But the road tiling design is a little better in the method of the moduverse and Supertruper1988's MILS linked design for the thinner road markings using SNOT. 

http://www.swebrick.se/index.php?topic=6350.0

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Thanks for the links guys!
I'll definitely be looking into that those. I'll probably not jump onto their standards (unlikely ever gonna need to combine my city with anyone else's, and I wanted less pavement from the start), but if I can get a satisfactory road in the width without adding too much extra height (and therefore parts) to the modular bases, I may well use that.

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That always bothered me as well, the stud space on the street plates. I never liked just tiling the entire section, made the sidewalks too large to me. What I did is extend the sidewalk a few studs(took the light grey tiles from the Modulars), leaving the last two rows for a bike lane. Best of all, it makes connecting the Modular & street plates together easy & snug with 2x2 tiles. 

32844436726_82db78bf08_b.jpg

 

Edited by Vindicare

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I prefer a SNOT-oriented road system over a plate-oriented one since it's much more flexible in my opinion. Plus you get nicely rounded corners;

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One of the main principles is the strict separation between road, pavement and buildings (not "connected" in real life either) which can be combined freely, even buildings with odd widths are possible:

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The SNOT measure of road plus pavement equals five plates, thus pavement and the "ground floor" of buildings match perfectly.

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The "hollow" pavement allows cables for 100% Lego streetlights:

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Last but not least SNOT roads allow to have a slot to guide moving vehicles:

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Of course, this is quite a different approach but once you've started with it things come together nicely.

 

Edited by ER0L

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Hmm, that looks really good, but part of my brief was that I wanted the city to hold it's self together (because wobbly tables, the layout being next to a passageway in the room and roaming cats mainly).
 

How do you find the system allows for flexibility in layout of your city? Does rearranging the buildings often cause awkward gaps?

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So, been working on this, and we now have modular v2.1:
Image may contain: table

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I'm not 100% happy with it yet. Not only is the road a considerably more expensive piece now, but so is every other module, plus the additional height that's had to be added. Initially I was going to carry the road to the side of the module, with snot building to give the side road markings, but that would result in the loss of far too many attachment points (ie the city would effectively be a series floating islands in a sea of roads). Might still move the curb stones back to the building modules.

On 2/14/2017 at 7:37 AM, ER0L said:

Plus you get nicely rounded corners;

Until very recently, you were right, then they introduced these three tiles:
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I think with a little bit of strategic parts swapping, these parts will work out just fine. Admittedly, it does mean it won't be 100% pure modular (the larger curves would have to go over multiple modules) but it should prove really useful.

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I think both of these setups are really great but I find myself way too brick/plates/tile poor to implement either of them. My solution is to use road plates but build all my modulars 4 studs closer to the edge of their baseplate than the standard. This way the sidewalk blends into the tile covered road plates without being extremely large but big enough to feature planters, benches, bus stops and still having at least 4-6 studs of walking/bicycling room. 

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That was my first idea. The problem I had with ti was without extensive modification of some modulars (corner ones in particular) it kind of damages the modularity of them, especially if (as I at one point considered) you just have the bases under the buildings where they fall instead of in a uniform manner. 

To be honest, I've never been a big fan of the road plates either.

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Decided the road was too narrow with the curb stones on the road module (plus it'd be easier to transfer modulars to this system if I'm not having to find even more tiles to replace their curbs), so here's 2.2:
Image may contain: table

Image may contain: table

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On 15.2.2017 at 4:06 PM, Redimus said:

Hmm, that looks really good, but part of my brief was that I wanted the city to hold it's self together (because wobbly tables, the layout being next to a passageway in the room and roaming cats mainly).
 

How do you find the system allows for flexibility in layout of your city? Does rearranging the buildings often cause awkward gaps?

Wobbly tables, roaming cats? Sorry, I must have skipped those requirements. Well, wobbly tables are definitely no option here. However, flexibility doesn't mean that the elements are floating freely, e. g. the pavements fit exactly between buildings (which are heavy) and road "plates" (which are heavy, too). Additionally, you may of course connect all the elements studwise, too.

Flexibility means that you have more options compared to a plate system with a rather strict pattern (one of the main disadvantages of the otherwise great modular building range), e. g. on conventions where there might be different requirements. Buildings can be swapped easily, even buildings with unusual or odd widths are no problem - the length of road and pavement elements may be changed in no time. That's why unwanted gaps are prevented from the beginning, corners are where you want them to be, not where the pattern says they should be.

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I don't see the benefit of building two bricks high. I am also building SNOT roads but my sidewalk is only 4 plates + 1 tile high.

SNOT_Road_1.png

SNOT_Road_2.png

For the modulars themselves you only need another baseplate where you place a few bricks on and simple put the baseplate of the modular on top of them. They will not be connected but will be perfectly aligned to the street modules. This way you can leave the modulars as they are but are very flexible with your roads. The width of one full baseplates also allows a street which is a little narrower to include a tram for example.

Edited by peedeejay

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@peedeejay Don't know how I never saw your post on this but that is excellent!

After taking apart a lot of MOCs I have more grey bricks than I know what to do with and figured I'd finally get a chance to do some modular road system. After looking the various designs over again your solution looks like the most efficient design by far in terms of parts usage. I agree there's not really a point to the greater height of the other designs and they forgo the use of baseplates which would leave a bunch of us with a pile of disused baseplates after converting. It also looks like the road surface is better supported from below vs the Moduverse designs. Is it ok for other to use your method or adapt off of it for integrated road system?

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I did not really invent this but rather adjusted a system that I saw somewhere (don‘t remember since its been some time). So yea, go ahead.

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Hi all,

this solution seems to bit quite over engineered and uses a lot of bricks. As @peedeejay remarked, why is this system over 2 bricks high?

For my town I have invented a SNOT road system which is only one brick + tile high and which is fully modular compatible. It is a combination of the Lego road baseplates and a SNOT road laid on top of the road baseplates.

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You can find the images with higher resolution in my bricksafe folder.

This system works quite well for me. It is still parts-consuming, but far more efficient than the "MultiRoad Roadway System". A clear disadvantage is: it is not compatible with any used standard for exhibitions, but that’s anyway not my intention. I just came up with this system for my stationary layout.

BR,

Guenther

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So back after building a bunch of brick roads. At first I built a few of the style shown here using the baseplates. Excellent design, uses the least amount of parts and unlike the moduverse you can make the road even wider for less sidewalk. I built a few sections including a 3-way intersection all of them that had only 3 studs of sidewalk each side which is nice because then you can squeeze in a bike lane.

Then I decided to try and build some of the moduverse and see if I had enough parts to do a few sections of road and see how it compares. Here's a few shots with a few sections of road. I only have 4 modulars assembled right now though, everything else is taken apart and no corner buildings so just some mock up shots. Nothings actually pinned and most of the details aren't even connected.

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Honestly its kind of a toss up between the two designs discussed here. The moduverse uses a lot of parts (but you can throw in colors you don't care about) but the thicker height allows for lighting wiring and some other depth-dependent road details discussed above.

The thinner Peedeejay/Tmctiger designs shown uses far less parts, gives your baseplates some usage and has more options of road width.

In either case brick built roads are indisputably better than the official road plates which don't really work well with the modulars at all.

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I went with the option of positioning my modulars onto standard LEGO roadplates so the modular width pavement fits right up to the edge of the baseplate’s roadway.  It does make repositioning them more fiddly than if they were separate but the flip side is that they look very neat.  Over the years I have become a dab hand at separating the buildings from the roadplates with just some tidying up of tiles needed to complete most repositioning.

Cheers

Rog

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