I have added enkl’s temple-building to the south-west of the city. Around it, i created a couple of lots which will become some upper-class residential buildings in a future contest. The nice thing is that the structure roughly follows the shoreline so we have enough space to build searfront homes there, too.

The only big question is the W-E skyrail. It would, if going straight, coming from inbetween the star observatory and the jail, OVER the building which is of course a no-go. So there are two options: either make a corner around the building or move the whole track 4 blocks south. What do you think is best? Moving it north, parallel to the Eiffel tower is not an option in my opinion.

I have started to work on the city railways. There are now 4 main stations that are accessible:

• The central station (near the central admin bldg)
• the southern city station (near the bank)
• the tower bridge (near the new bridge)
• the old spawn, now called “central outpost” (I reset the area btw, there were too many defunct/empty buildings)
• the pyramids

What I did:

• All the stations are now a standardized design. (except the central). Try it out, i think it is very practical
• I installed announcement signs on all of them
• exits that go no-where are blocked
• usable exits have signs on them
• buildings that have a connection to the railway have always one direction to go. It will be the one to the further away station. If you want to go to the closer one, you can walk

What’s the plan?

• Unless someone wants to use the same elevated railway design on their lot, this type of railway will be used only in the city. The normal lots will keep the current style railway & stations
• Technically there is a possibility at a station to have several entries, merging all into the same track but then dropping you off in different places. I might build something for the outer lots in the city or in a special train station. If you have a thought-through idea how to do that while using station signs and a high degree of automation, please tell me. Ideally it should be so efficient that people do not need to teleport anymore but still arrive in a reasonable time at their lots. from the outposts.
• I will expand the city-railway stations as needed and as the city grows.

Any other ideas regarding the railroads are of course always welcome.

As some of you might have seen, I have built a bridge over the harbor as a first big addition to the city outside of it’s current area. I am planning more stuff in various forms and sizes. Here is a list of it. PLEASE do not ask me to specify those so you can start building already. Since those will be contests, I will have to come up with specific rules how large etc these can be and I do not have those details yet.

• a harbor with big boats
• a harbor with small boats
• a rich residential area
• a poor residential area
• an industrial area
• a farming area (not too large)
• a suburban area with town-houses and small gardens in front of the houses
• a beach with sunchairs etc
• a waterfront boardwalk area (see this video)
• a waterfront housing area

I also have started to reserve lots that directly touch the central area or the old spawn area. IF YOU OWN SUCH A LOT touching the old spawn or central area, and you are willing to give it away, I will let you choose an alternative free lot and help you move any buildings that you have above ground on your lot to a new lot. The lots concerned are:

• L15-L23
• L23-S23
• S15-S23

OSF was already kind enough to agree to that. Those relocations do not have any timeline and will only be happening once the city is growing into you area. I would think that it will take 3 more months until those lots would help to expand the city. However, I think earlier information is always better.

You DO NOT have to do that. I am happy if you do, but apart from getting a new lot, there are no other benefits. See it as a chance to get a mint fresh lot. If instead you like your lot and want to stay so close to the city, keep it.

If you are creating floors out of Chests, furnaces or dispensers, please consider that they cause massive lag. to players near them.  Therefore, when you make submissions for contests, please make sure that you do not use any of them excessively. I just had to remove 240 furnaces from the library building.

I have now created a new user level, called “citizen”. This user level is for those who are here since a long time. Currently this is set to 4 months (4 x 30 days). It is a level below “architect” and above “settler”. This user level should be automatically assigned if you login to the website and your account there was created 4 month ago.

There is no additional rights associated with this rank for now. I want to see first how many months we need to choose for this level to understand how many people are eligible. Once I adjusted the time span properly, I will start assigning additional rights to that level. So please stand by….

I know relocated the spawn for settlers into it’s own floor in the city, as well as the portals to the outposts. The minecart ministry is moved to its own building in the city which is still under construction. I will be adding to it with some more complex and complete samples of minecart usage over the coming days.

The question is how to proceed. Theoretically I can also move the guest spawn to the city and delete the old spawn. I know we have been running with the old spawn for quite some months now, so I feel a bit nostalgic about it, but I think the city is a much better place to start for guests so they can see immediately what cool stuff you all build. So moving the guest spawn would be a good idea, but what to do with the old spawn village?

Just as the darklands gate, the nether gate now also has it’s own floor in the General Admin building!