Difference between revisions of "Diagonal Bridge Enabler"
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Latest revision as of 00:44, 10 August 2019
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The Diagonal Bridge Enabler or DBE is a mod created by the NAM Team, intended for "advanced users", that allows the construction of non-orthogonal bridges. It was released shortly after NAM Version 30, on September 23, 2011. When the NAM Team adopted the Monolithic NAM paradigm, combining virtually all NAM Plugins into the NAM itself, beginning with the Version 31.0 release in March 2013, the DBE was the one plugin that was the exception to the rule. It still exists as a separate download, and due to the nature of the mod, with its temporary files, there are no plans to merge it.
Description
The DBE is essentially a convenient package that includes a set of temporary files to allow the construction of special bridges. The temporary files, when placed in the Plugins folder, do three things:
- Sets the game's sea level to 0, effectively draining all water.
- Makes any new Roads, One-Way Roads, Rails, and RealHighways be built completely flat.
- Adds an icon (at the top of the Roads menu), including starters for several styles of diagonal puzzle-drag bridges.
While the water is drained from the city and the roads or rails are flattened with the temporary files, the user can construct bridges over these "canyons" in non-orthogonal configurations. Upon removal of the temporary files, the water returns to the city, and the bridge remains in tact.
Controversy
While the NAM Team specifically labeled the DBE as being for "advanced users" and the download descriptions emphatically referred potential users to consult the enclosed Readme before attempting to use the mod, many users in the days immediately following its release simply slipped the temporary files into their plugins without doing so. As a result, many SC4 community forums and Simtropolis Chat were inundated with users asking, "Where's my water?" This glut of tech support cases continued for several months, and became a community-wide annoyance. The NAM Team upped the font size of the warnings to consult the documentation to little avail, before eventually changing the name of the file to "Diagonal Bridge Enabler (Removes Water)". Blue Lightning eventually released the DBE Toggle, a DLL file for Windows users, which automates the addition and removal of the temporary files, through a simple prompt upon starting the game.
The phrase "Where's my water?" has since become a community in-joke to refer to any sort of seemingly obvious technical question.
