RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[dyoungyn]

It just keeps getting better and better with every leap and bound.  The entire NAM team are just pure geniuses.  Keep em coming and NAM35 and NAM36 is just going to be plain AMAZING!

[Seaman]

Don't know if I have shown this transition yet? 

ah, just an ordinary RHW-6s to 8s transition, nothing special... wait WHAT? 

[Tyberius06]

Oh Man!!!

I love what you are doing with the RRW and than you showed those funy RHW crossings, and than the OWR ramps, now this!!!   

Thank You!

[dyoungyn]

NAM Team,

I am running into this problem again.  I tried everywhere and clicked everywhere and still no joy.  The difference between the last problem and this one is I now have a space in between the over passes.  I have also noticed a consistent issue.  Every time I try to build this type of interchange on maps pointing North in the Region view, I have this issue.  Those interchanges such as going from East to West in the Region view no problem.  Again, it seems that only those maps pointing North seem to be the problem for some reason.

[Tarkus]

The inner tiles do indeed seem to be rather uncooperative in my attempt at replication.  I'll take a look at it.

-Alex

[dyoungyn]

Alex,

Thank you for the reply.  I really believe the direction of the maps must have something to do with it as other maps pointed horizontally do not appear to be affected.  The reason I believe this is because the same map at which this interchange is in I have the same interchange around the corner that works fine; i.e. this map is the top left corner and the highway turns towards the horizontal direction.  The things that make you go humm!

dyoungyn 

[Tarkus]

With the way the RUL2 code works, it works on a relative basis rather than an absolute compass-point basis (unlike some of the other RULs), so it's more likely that you simply got lucky with the other orientation.  I'm sure if you poked and prodded the one that does work, you could probably get it to break, unless you did something different with starter placement or the like that somehow made it more stable.  The ways it has broken in my testing have been different from what your image showed.

I threw some extra adjacency stability at it, to wipe out the "deconversion" to the RHW-2 +-intersection.  I also handled the L2-over-L0 version.  Though I imagine someone is going to ask next about the L2-over-L1 version, which I haven't fixed, so I guess I'll have to go take care of that now.

By the way, here's a behind the scenes pic--this is what part of the fix looks like in the RUL2 code. 

-Alex

[dyoungyn]

Alex,

Yes, it probably did look a bit different.  What I tried to do is placing a RHW6C Filler in the gap and it did fix one side but not the other.  I am at a loss.  The other Interchange I did nothing different as I have always had a particular pattern in doing this type of interchange IRT smoothness.  I am not a computer programmer and never understood computer code and the like.  Thank you for addressing this as my only other work around is change the cross ramps to RHW6 ramps as RHW6 crosses fine.  From what I can guess is that 4 lines of RHW appears to shake things up a bit at both 7.5 and 15 heights and again, this only appears to happen to when RHW is pointing in the Northern direction, East and west is working fine.  Could it possibly be the fact that it is at the maps on the edge of the region is why it is doing this?

dyoungyn

[dyoungyn]

Alex,

BTW, I found a work around.  I lowered the interchange at which the RHW6C is going over the 8S with no issues.  As long as the map is able to lower 7.5m then I am fine with it.  At the same time, this will eliminate the raising the freeway and rather it being flat and easy to manage with the same effect.

dyoungyn

[Tarkus]

A few small things whose proposed existence has been debated at times, that I've relented to in my old age . . .



Well, this one has had active code since one of the NAM 31.x releases, but produced a bad draw until I added textures . . .


And these two are more designed for using the RHW-4 as an "MIS-2".  The first eliminates the need for the capacity-dropping One-Way Road transition workaround people used to get traffic signals on an Avenue.  The T21s are designed so as to discourage people pumping two directly adjacent RHW-4s through an Avenue, which was the main hangup on this intersection's inclusion.  The second is for frontage road type deals.  Texans, you're welcome.





More to come, including some stuff that is perhaps not all that interesting to look at, but actually pretty exciting.

-Alex

[matias93]

I guess now there is no excuse for us not to revamp our entire highways with those little marvels! Only a question, though: will that RHW-4 intersection be as stable as to use it on a L1 interchange? This would allow for compact high capacity interchanges, perfect for centric environments.

[Tarkus]

If you're referring to an actual L1 AVE x RHW-4 intersection, those haven't been made yet, though are due to be in very short order.  However, if you're looking at using it in a situation where the RHW is L1 and the surface street is ground-level, it does presently work there.  The process of getting there is slightly less smooth compared to using an MIS at this point, but it's rock solid once it's fully built. 



That stability is largely due to the aforementioned "not all that interesting to look at" stuff I've been doing, which has been adding a ton of adjacency stability to the existing ramp-style FLEX Height Transitions.  That block of code has gained about 70,000 lines in the past couple weeks or so, with a bit more still to be added, allowing them to operate as we've always envisioned.  Tighter situations work a ton better, and it'll pay dividends once we get further into the QuickChange Xpress project.

Another "not that interesting to look at" project has been re-implementing the starters for the wider RHW networks, giving them dedicated false intersections (rather than sharing parts with the narrower networks), eliminating the need for extra stabilization code.  The NWM is also getting a similar treatment, in preparation for the FTL project, though there's still more legacy support code to add there, for converting the old starters.

-Alex

[metarvo]

You get a big Texas football Friday thanks from me, Alex!    I've used the OWR transition for frontage roads almost exclusively; that is to say, I've used OWR-2 for frontage roads as opposed to RHW-4, except for places where a ramp is needed.  Now, I can see myself breaking that slowly but surely breaking that habit.    Touchdown!

[dyoungyn]

Alex,

Looks very promising and outstanding.  Don't mean to complain, but I do not see the light for cross traffic from the ramps.  I only see the light for the AVE.

[Tarkus]

Thanks, metarvo and dyoungyn!

Don't mean to complain, but I do not see the light for cross traffic from the ramps.  I only see the light for the AVE.

Similar to the situation with the OWR network, the RHW network does not natively support stop points, and the signal placement here is designed to be a carbon copy of the Avenue x OWR intersection.  Unlike the OWR, we do have RUL-based control over RHW directionality, so that makes things less problematic, but a signal there would still be permanently stuck on green.  The ultimate plan is to implement something along the lines of what we did with the OWR signalization in NAM 34--essentially, an extension of SITAP ("Signalized Intersections and Turn Arrows Project") for select RHW intersections--but that likely won't happen until after NAM 35.

Right now, the plans entail doing that particular phase of SITAP expansion in consort with the plans to add FLEX Turn Lanes (FTLs) for the MIS Ramps.  That, by the way, is also part of the reason QuickChange Xpress (QCX) won't be part of NAM 35, as we are looking to build FTL and SITAP functionality into many of the QCX setups.  This initial prototype should give you a partial idea of the end goal:




-Alex

[APSMS]

Good thing I wasn't sipping my coffee, or else I'd have gotten my computer wet and sticky...

Great stuff here Alex!

Sure it won't make it for NAM 35, but great things are being planned, which is very exciting.

-Absalom

[woodb3kmaster]

Let's see here... Signalized MIS intersections + asymmetric MIS/Road intersections + FTL overrides on FLEX-HTs = not enough jaws to drop to express my amazement! There's a lot to look forward to in NAM 36+, that's for sure!

[Ernestmaxis]

Sim city isn't that great withouth these great modding performance. Great work ! 

[dyoungyn]

I must have been half awake when I seen your reply Alex, I did not notice what an amazing ramp interchanges you created.  WOW, WOW, and WOW.  Can't wait for release.  Only hope the same would apply for ground ramps.  Hopefully, also AVE4/6 will apply also.

[Vizoria]

NAM 35 is going to be incredible. Keep it up with the "stuff that is perhaps not all that interesting to look at, but actually pretty exciting". The added functionality will allow for even tighter and compact urban areas. Also the draggable transitions, and intersections, for RHW and NWM look amazing.