Re-Leveling Skylands Progress
u/littleBigMalin inspired me to actually document this whole overhaul I'm doing. It's going to take a while to finish, but I'm so looking forward to how it will look. I'm leveling the islands, rebuilding what used to be there, and connecting everything. (The text below goes in the order of the images.)
The PC island is actually relatively simple--very few buildings fell off cliffs and most of it is already the same level. Now that I know Pokemon Centers can be moved, I plan on elevating this island to match the height of the eastern/Tinkmaster island (because the region gates can't be moved).
The BB and RR gates will have stairs going up to the PC island. One little oddity that I found is that all three gates in this region have concrete "tails" behind them. In addition, the gate to BB has a structure around it like both gates in the BB zone have.
The dojo island is a little bit odd because some clues indicate that the dojo used to be closer to the other building, but I'm choosing to ignore that. In addition, the "fortune teller" room doesn't actually have an exterior, so I'm open to suggestions on what to put around it. The dojo will be lowered to match the other building.
The roads on the upper half of the eastern island all trace back to the same height as the WW gate, so leveling the roads was easy. The buildings on this island are in some serious disrepair, so fixing them will be interesting. The concrete "tail" on the WW gate is the smallest by far. I didn't include any pictures of the RR gate tail, but I will with the next set of pictures.
The "highway" on the lower half of the eastern island meets up pretty nicely with the upper half once it is raised a few blocks. The road on the far side can pretty much just be redone. I plan on having the rail under the "highway" meet with the cave and Team Rocket base under the Psychic Gym and the lower limestone cave (the smaller limestone cave it goes to by default is tiny).
Raising and Lowering Buildings
The Gyarados island is so far the most challenging just because of all the excavation. While I'm reasonably certain that the roads didn't form a "circle" like I'm having them, I'm NOT willing to "turn" any of the buildings to try to figure out how the road is supposed to look. The road outside the building with the hidden basement shutter is at exactly the same height as the road going to the dojo island. I'm going to put probably at least one of the fountain kits in the grass at the center of the island.
Silph & Eastern Island Height Comparison
Silph & Eastern Island Height Comparison
Extending the road from the eastern island towards the Silph Building island reveals this issue--the "underground" on the Silph island is almost the same height as the road that everything else is at. If I have the drive once I get everything else where I want it to be, I may lower the Silph underground and connect the rail to the rail on the eastern island.
The remaining images are comparison shots of relative heights and showing some of the connecting roads.
Height Difference Between Eastern & PC Islands
Height Comparison Between PC, Silph, and Eastern Islands
Connecting Dojo & Gyarados Islands
Connecting Dojo & Gyarados Islands
Connecting Dojo & Gyarados Islands
Something else I'm considering doing is raising the dojo island and Gyarados island to the level of the eastern island and connecting the rail to the concrete basement under the dojo island. (If I raise Gyarados island, I will leave the basement shutter where it is and just extend the elevator upward).
*edit: Hopefully it lets me keep the pictures this time.