Commercial District area — map and notes about customer selection
ASCII Map
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osmous hotel .----------. / 19 | --------------------------------------------' | 25 23 20 | | 24 22 | --. .---------------. .-------------. 21 / | | | | \ / | | / | | | | | / | | | | 8 | / . | | 16 | | | /26/| | / \ | | / / | 11 | / 18 \ mall | '---------' '--' '------------' '------ | | 7 9 RMP 12 14 | 15 | .---------------. R .-------------. 17 .------ | | | M | \ / north | | | P | | / gate | | | | | | | 6 | | 10 | | 13 | | | | | | | | | | | / | / '---------------' '-------------' 1 | / 4 RMP | | \ | 3 2 \ \ 5 .--------------------------------------. \ \ / \ \ '------' \ crown arena
Customer Notes
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Many of the customers in this area may send you backwards. Unfortunately, for most of them you won't be able to tell by their colors alone. To make matters even worse, even when you recognize a pattern and choose the correct customer, its destination is sometimes probability-based and results in a backwards trip anyway.
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Commercial District entrance
When Customer 1 appears, it is always yellow to the Lookout Tower. Customer 2 also always appears in the same color (light-green) for a trip to to the Fire Station. -
Mall – North Gate drop-offs
Pay special attention to Customers 13 and 14 as you approach this location. They let you know which nearby orange customers want to go forward to the Bus Terminal. Here's the best way to select them:- When 13 and 14 are both orange, choose 17 to the Bus Terminal.
- When 13 and 14 are both red, choose 12 to the Bus Terminal.
- After you've taken those two, look for 13 to be orange and 14 to be red. Then choose 13 to the Bus Terminal.
- Now you can pick 14 any time it's orange for a Bus Terminal trip.
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Osmous Hotel drop-offs
Again, looking for customer patterns is crucial here. Watch for these color combinations:- When 20 is orange and yellow 23 appears, choose 23 to go to the Lookout Tower.
- When 20 is yellow and yellow 22 appears, choose 22 to go to the Lookout Tower.
- After you've taken those two, take 20 when it's orange to the Bus Terminal.
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Crown Arena drop-offs
Pattern identification will help you continue forward here as well. At the Crown Arena, Customers 3, 4, 6, and 7 indicate which one wants a trip to the Bus Terminal. Here's how it works:- Imagine that you've Crazy Drifted your cab into the Crown Arena drop-off zone so you can see Customers 3, 4, and 6. If two of the three that form this "line" are orange and the other is red, chances are good that the orange customer to the left of the red one will want to go to the Bus Terminal. (If left-most 6 is red, then you'd "wrap around" the line and choose 3.) If this still sounds confusing, maybe this animated gif will clear things up.
- Complicating matters is the fact that Customer 7 must be orange for this to work. Unfortunately, from the Crown Arena drop-off zone Customer 7 will not be visible.
- The safest way to deal with this is to take orange Customer 6 first (when 3 is orange and 4 is red). As you drive to pick up 6, Customer 7 will come into view and you'll be able to verify that it's orange before stopping in 6's pick-up circle. If 7 is red or absent, you can keep driving and pick up someone in the center or exit of the Commercial District instead.
- Once 6 has been picked up, you can take Customer 7 any time you see it's orange for a Bus Terminal trip.
- Of remaining Customers 3 and 4, you'll have to fill in the (now missing) Customer 6 gap with the missing color. So, if 3 is red and 4 is orange, assume missing 6 would also be orange and choose 4. If both are orange, assume that missing 6 is the red one and choose 3. The final customer is pure luck; choose it when it's orange and hope for the best.
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Commercial District center
Customers 9, 10, and 11 sporadically appear in either yellow (to the Lookout Tower) or even better, light-green (to the Fire Station). Often they appear in pairs, so if you haven't taken two of these three yet, make sure a light-green customer isn't present before picking-up a yellow one. Hidden away in the diagonal alley, dark-green Customer 26 is always available for a trip to the Tennis Court. -
Commercial District exit
Yet another pattern-oriented area, yellow Customers 8, 24, and 25 are very similar to orange Heliport Customers 13, 14, and 15. They are always yellow when they appear and together form a triangle. Choosing the correct yellow one will give you the best chances of a trip to the Fire Station. When two appear, you want to take the most clockwise point of the triangle (or the one counterclockwise from the missing point). Should all three appear, choose Customer 24. If only one appears, it's best to drive elsewhere to pick up someone (unless only one remains, of course). This process is made a bit more complicated by the fact that the building prevents you from seeing all three customers simultaneously. There are (IMHO) two good ways to deal with this "triangle":- Drive towards these three from the Osmous Hotel. (Turn left towards the Commercial District center when 24 does not appear to pick up someone else.) If 24 and 25 appear, choose 24. (This is the safest choice for your first customer since it doesn't matter if Customer 8 is present or absent.) Then approach from the Crown Arena and when 8 and 25 are present, choose 25. (Again, turning right towards the Commercial District center to pick up someone there when 8 does not appear.) Finally, pick up 8 and hope for the best (or opt not to pick it up at all unless you're desperate).
- Another way is to drive towards the "triangle" from the Osmous Hotel when Customer 24 does not appear. Hopefully, 8 and 25 will be present. (Crazy Drift your cab to a stop near the middle of the intersection so you can make sure 8 is present. Back up into 25's pick-up circle if it is.) Approach again from Osmous Hotel for 8, to make sure 24 is present first. Pick up 24 last, as it should give you a better chance of going forward as the final customer than the others would. This approach may give you a better overall shot of all three customers going forward. However, it can be harder to start this pattern since 24 is present more often than the others, which can result in the Commercial District center getting emptied out earlier in the game.
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backwards customers
Customers 16 (orange) and 18 (orange or yellow) will always send you backwards to the Downtown area. Orange Customers 3, 4, 6, 13, and 17 will also send you back Downtown if chosen incorrectly, and may even send you back when they are chosen correctly. When 16, 20, and 21 are yellow, they send you back to the Clock Towers Theater. Finally, when Customers 8, 15, 22, 23, 24, and 25 are yellow there's always a chance, even if chosen correctly, that you'll get sent backwards to the Police Station (which is probably the most difficult trip in the game to get a Speedy rating on).
Additional Notes...
- Don't go after your second Commercial District exit customer (either 8, 24, or 25) until you've taken Customer 6 from the Crown Arena area. That way, you're free to grab Customer 7 when orange if the customers you want don't appear at the "yellow triangle."
- If you can't safely take a customer from the Mall – North Gate location, drive towards the Osmous Hotel. Ideally, Customer 21 will be orange or you can take 19 to the Crown Arena. Should none of these customers pan out, drive towards the Commecial District center (or Commercial District exit, if you haven't picked up any of the "yellow triangle" customers yet).
- When taking the red customers from Osmous Hotel to the Crown Arena or vice-versa, be sure to save time by taking the diagonal shortcut past Customer 26.
- At the Crown Arena, it's possible to Crazy Drift your cab into the corner so that it impact-bounces rapidly back and forth between the walls there earning extra tip money in the process.
- The one time in the game I always use a ramp truck is when picking up Customer 10. Stopping your cab so it faces the ramp will let you buffer a Crazy Dash during the pick-up animation. As soon as the passenger's in, your cab will speed onto the ramp and over any oncoming traffic, including buses!
- If you're traveling forward through this area to another destination, never approach the Commercial District exit from the Crown Arena street. It'll be quicker to travel to the top of the map via either the Osmous Hotel street or the one Customers 10 and 11 are on so you won't have to make a sharp, blind turn to access the Divided Road with Tunnel. Speaking of which...
Divided Road with Tunnel
Between the Commercial District and the Bus Terminal the road temporarily splits into three paths and is rejoined again later. Here's a little bit about each one:
- Of the three possibilities, the lane on the right (when you're driving forward) usually has the most traffic on it. It is ridiculously easy to bump into another vehicle in this lane, resetting your Tip Multiplier. Cars often travel side-by-side here as well, making passing very difficult when there are a lot of vehicles parked on the right-hand shoulder. Should you get trapped behind two wide side-by-side vehicles, you may be stuck following them for quite a while. If you try to muscle your way through this route often enough, you'll eventually cause a pile-up so bad you can't get through it. In this case, the only option is to drive back the way you came and take a different route or find another customer to plant your cab on when your current one jumps out. For all of the preceding reasons, traveling via this route is not recommended.
- The center lane becomes an S-shaped underground tunnel. Unlike the above ground roads, traffic travels in both directions through the tunnel. The combination of these two features make it very difficult to navigate at high speeds. You'll either smack into an oncoming vehicle or get wall-stuck to one of the sides. This route is also not recommended.
- As if you couldn't guess, the left lane is the recommended one; it's the only one you've got a semi-decent shot at not resetting your Tip Multiplier in. Although the traffic is oncoming, there's a lot less of it than there is in the right lane and it's usually staggered in a way that leads you back to the shoulder on the left, where you can sometimes do a fair amount of unobstructed driving anyway. This combined with the fact that there are no curves makes it the most direct and desirable option whether you're traveling forwards or backwards. One negative I do have to note is the presence of a phone booth and dumpster on the shoulder. When traveling forward at high speeds, you may be forced to slam into them to avoid oncoming traffic. If you must, jerk the wheel a little to the right just before striking them, then countersteer back towards the shoulder. Instead of bulldozing the remains of these items in front of you (which slows down your cab), you'll send them out onto the road instead. Oh, one more thing... When you're approaching the left lane head-on, you can use the concrete "foot" of the bridge's support column as a ramp to "hop" over vehicles in your path (as long as they aren't too tall).
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Commercial District entrance