Uber Urban News

Services in Uber Urban are another core feature of the game. Just like any city builder, it is important to have enough services for citizens in order to keep them happy. Citizen happiness is crucial for having high zoning demand, as well as for elections (which will be covered in a later post).

The output of service buildings can be adjusted by their respective service's budget, controlled in the finances menu. For example, if you just need a little bit more output of a power plant, but don't need so much to warrant purchasing a new plant, you could simply increase the power budget of your city.

Services In Uber Urban In Order Of Unlock:

1. Power
   
2. Water
   
3. Garbage
   
4. Transportation
   
5. Communication
   
6. Police
   
7. Fire
   
8. Medical
   

Power is the first service unlocked and you will have the option to place either windmills, coal power plants, or nuclear power plants.

Water is next unlocked and will consist of four options: a small water tower, large water tower, small groundwater pumping station and large ground water pumping station.

Next, garbage and transportation services are unlocked together at the same time. Garbage can be taken care of by a small landfill, large landfill or garbage incineration plant. Transportation in Uber Urban is split up into two distinct parts, cargo and passenger transport. Passenger transport is the only one that is considered a "service" and is required by citizens. It can be satisfied by placing bus terminals, train stations, ferry ports or airports.

Next, the communication service is unlocked and will require you to place either small cell towers, large cell towers, or data centers.

Fire will then be unlocked after and will consist of small or large fire stations.

And the last service to be unlocked will be medical. It will be the most expensive to maintain and can be fulfilled by placing either clinics or hospitals.

I still plan to add many more service types and service buildings for each after launch, however this is going to be all the ones present for the early access launch in Q2 2025.


(Nuclear Power Plant, Coal Power Plant, Large Police Station)

Transportation in Uber Urban is a crucial part to managing a financially and resourcefully successful city. As your city expands, you will have two distinct types of transportation: passenger transport, and cargo transport. Passenger transportation will fulfil your citizens transport need and will alleviate traffic. Cargo transport will allow you to either export goods for a profit, or import goods at a cost. It is crucial, the larger a city grows, to ensure that it has a sufficient supply chain set up, and that no buildings are lacking resources. The transportation types currently implemented in Uber Urban are: ground, rail, water and air transport.



Ground transport will consist of bus terminals and bus stops for passenger transport, along with truck depots for resource export and import. Ground transport will be the first unlocked transport type, and subsequently will be the most limited in terms of its capacity.


(Truck Depot)


Rail will be unlocked next and will consist of rail tracks, passenger stations, and cargo stations. Rail will have a higher maintenance and construction cost than ground transport, but will allow more passengers and cargo to be transported. The price per passenger transported on rail will be lower than that of ground transport. Train tracks can also intersect roads as shown in the picture below


(Rail Crossing)


Next, water transport will be unlocked. Water transport will also only be available where there is costal space and will consist of a cargo dock, and a passenger ferry terminal. Below is a picture of the cargo dock.





Lastly, air transport will have a cargo airport, a regional passenger airport and an international passenger airport. Air travel will be the highest capacity form of transportation, and will therefore be the most expensive to build and maintain.





The transportation system in Uber Urban is a very important part of the game that is heavily intertwined with the resource and government systems, which both will be discussed in future posts. If you have any recommendations or comments please feel free to let me know, I'm always open to new suggestions!

Over the past few months, Uber Urban has been dramatically redesigned, with all new zoning tools, new government mechanics, as well as new trade and financial mechanics. Within the coming week, an update to the demo will be launched, allowing anyone to try out the new features.

Version 0.5 of the demo will likely be the last major demo update done as the game nears its launch of early-mid 2025. One of the major new features in version 0.5 are the maps and objectives. Currently, the demo is limited to only the tutorial map, but the full game will include an expansive amount of unique maps, each with their own terrains and challenges.

As with any major update, I would greatly appreciate any feedback on problems you may encounter, or future ideas for features that can be added. If you have any comments to leave about the game, please do so in the Steam community page.

Thank you for reading, and now go try the demo!

As with any city-builder, zoning is a very important feature and I'm happy to say that Uber Urban will offer a detailed and comprehensive set of zoning options.

Currently implemented zoning types:

1. Low Density Residential
2. Medium Density Residential
3. High Density Residential
   
4. Commercial
5. Low Density Mixed Use
6. High Density Mixed Use
7. Industry (Factory's & Farms)
8. Office

[h3]Low Density Residential:[/h3]
Low Density Residential will be made up of small, single family homes. It will be cheap to build but will house relatively few people.

[h3]Medium Density Residential:[/h3]
Medium Density Residential will be made up of townhouses / rowhouses and will be more dense with each home being able to house more people. Zoning will cost more and each house will use more services, but they will also produce greater tax revenue.

[h3]High Density Residential:[/h3]
High Density Residential is the most expensive and the most dense of all residential zoning options. High density residential will be made up of skyscrapers that will hold immense amounts of people, and will cost a lot to zone. Service usage (i.e water, power, fire, police, etc.) will be high, and tax revenue will be as well.

[h3]Commercial:[/h3]
Commercial is crucial to developing a proper supply chain and commercial zoning is a versatile zoning option that will develop as you unlock new buildings and resources. It is one of the main ways citizens are employed and one of the main tax revenue streams.

[h3]Low & High Density Mixed Use:[/h3]
Mixed use building offer commercial and residential in one. They contain a shop at the bottom of the building along with apartment's on top. They are in-between medium and high density residential and while somewhat expensive to zone, offer a great amount of tax revenue.

[h3]Office & Industrial:[/h3]
Office and industrial zones both work together to produce goods which are used to supply commercial buildings along with fulfilling trade routes. Office and industrial zones typically are what employ the most citizens and are another major tax income stream. In future posts, more will be discussed about the economy, trade, and how office and industrial zones work.

Welcome to Uber Urban's second dev log! This will cover the city building mechanics of the game and go over how you would build a simple neighbourhood.

[h2]Individual Placement[/h2]
As opposed to typical city builders where you zone areas and have little control over the individual buildings that get placed, with Uber Urban, you have the ability to hand place as many building as you like.



(Raw Gameplay Screenshot)

[h2]Row Placement[/h2]
While hand placing buildings gives you your picture perfect city, it is tedious and can take a long time. So, you also have the option to draw a line for buildings to be placed on. This really makes it quick to draw swaths of homes and create whole neighbourhoods in seconds.



(Raw Gameplay Screenshot)

[h2]Final Product[/h2]
With a combination of individually placing building along with drawing rows of them, you are able to quickly turn your vision into a reality.



That's it for the placement of buildings in Uber Urban right now, and I hope so share about road construction and the logic of the simulation in future posts!

Thanks for reading!