Canal Locks

Do parts of your city keep flooding? Are you getting unexpected strong current in your canals? Is your terrain not flat enough for canals? Use what people have used for hundreds of years to solve these problems: locks.

Now let’s make two things absolutely clear. First, these locks don’t work, they are just for show, real ships cannot pass through them. Second, they are fiddly to build. But with some patience, good results are possible.

You get two locks: a small old fashioned one with wooden lock doors, and a bigger lock that looks more modern and industrial. For each lock you get a rectangle of fake water the exact size of the lock. You also get a version of both locks without doors, and open and closed versions of the doors. You will need these to build staircase locks.

Additionally, you get a Ground Clipping Canal that looks like a hole in the ground but is really essential to make the water level magic happen.

You will need to subscribe to my Dutch Canals. If you are new to my assets, please browse my workshop, I have made a lot of canals and bridges with matching textures. Additionally, the Fine Road Anarchy and Move-it mods are required. And there is a lot of texture re-use, so I hope you are using the Loading Screen Mod.

1. Draw a segment of the Ground Clipping Canal across an incline connecting two flat areas. If you want to place the Small Lock, make it 6 units long (cost 60). In case of the big lock, make it 10 units long.

2. Connect both ends of the Ground Clipping Canal to water with the Dutch Canal, and wait for water levels to settle. You may think water levels never really settle in this game, but they do once current is eliminated. Now, look at the shape of the water boundary where the water meets the Ground Clipping Canal. It needs to be straight or it will break the illusion of the lock door holding back the water.

If the water boundary is not straight, make small changes in the position and angle of the Ground Clipping Canal segment and the shape of the boundary will change. Be sure to move the whole segment to preserve the size. Once the water boundaries are straight enough, do not move the canal segments again.

3. Place down the lock of your choice and put the doors directly against the water boundaries we just created. Note that locks are not symmetrical, they have a high water side and a low water side. The V shaped doors should point towards the high water to resist the water pressure.

4. Place the lock water and adjust the water level with Move-it. Note that the water has a footprint that is wider than the actual lock, so it can still be selected with Move-it after it is in the lock.

Staircase locks are most easily built starting at the bottom. At the bottom, staircase locks do not have to connect to the Dutch Canal, any body of water will do. At the top, the Dutch Canal is required.

1. At the bottom of a smoothly graded slope, place a lock without doors. The locks are not symmetrical, be sure to install them the right way round.

2. Stack additional locks, aligning them on the door recesses until flat ground is reached. Use a lock with doors for the last step.

3. Connect the top lock to water using the Dutch Canal. Add a short segment of the Ground Clipping Canal at the end. Some fine tuning may be needed to get a nice straight water boundary. Use Move-it to place it against the top lock, or move the whole staircase of locks towards the Canal.

4. Fine tune the heights so that each step in the staircase is approximately the same height.

5. Add lock doors and lock water. If you are not connecting to the Dutch Canal at the bottom, leave the bottom doors open and flood the lower lock chamber with real water. The Terraforming Network is recommended for this step.

6. If you are using the Small Lock, add lock stairs between the steps.

For the big lock, your lock keepers will appreciate this signal tower and this ship fits in it rather well. For the small lock, this Schooner is about the right size. Also, my Dutch Bridges pack contains more railing props that look just like the Lock Stairs Railing prop in this pack. Safety first!

The fake water that is used in the locks is has the same color as the default European theme water. If you are using a theme with a different water color, you can adjust the lock water color to match. Unfortunately, Repaint or Prop painter mods don’t work for this, you’ll have to use the asset editor. But even if you have never used the asset editor before, this is easy to do: just load the lock water in the asset editor, and go to Properties, Material, Color Variation #0 and adjust.

Locks can cut off part of your canal system from a water source. No worries, it is is possible to place a water source directly in a Dutch Canal.

Lots of fine positioning is required. Use the Move-it keyboard shortcuts:

• Shift + Alt + Arrow keys: move a small amount
• Control + Alt + Arrow keys: rotate a small amount
• Alt + Page Up/Down: move a small amount up or down