RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[Tarkus]

And don't get me started on Canada's Highway 401.

We'll wait for Hal on that one.  He's our resident 401 expert. 

-Alex

[blakerussell]

Seems like everything is bigger in Texas. I think the widest undivided roadway on a motorway here is 6 lanes in one direction, but only for a short stretch. The A2 and A4 have longer stretches of 2x5 lanes.

I live in Houston, we have basically no mass transit. Other than buses and a small GLR (within) downtown, every body drives to work. Many decide to drive trucks despite not having anything to transport ('Merica).

Those lanes are put to good use during rush hour. And the city grows, just add another lane.

[compdude787]

And the city grows, just add another lane.

I wish every city in the US, especially Seattle, had that sort of mentality. You definitely need to expand all your roads to handle increases in population!

[Meastro444]

And the city grows, just add another lane.

I wish every city in the US, especially Seattle, had that sort of mentality. You definitely need to expand all your roads to handle increases in population!

And ruin the city with it. Cities in the US should increase in density, suburban living is ruining the planet.

[Indiana Joe]

Yep.  Not to turn this into an urban planning discussion, but the Interstate highway system isn't sustainable and is gonna have to go.

Fortunately we have SC4 to build all the virtual 19-lane highways we want without repercussions.

[APSMS]

And ruin the city with it. Cities in the US should increase in density, suburban living is ruining the planet.

Actually, while I don't think that the interstate system is particularly good due to the amount of funding it receives over other alternative transit options, I think that increasing density is the wrong way to go, particularly for the cities, mostly because America isn't like Europe, and wouldn't be able to deal with the population increase, and second, because the road networks are already over-capacity, and it'd not like Americans are about to give up their cars anytime soon. That's more a social issue, but it's hardly one you can ignore when considering urban development/highway restructuring.

IMO, the best thing to do would be to create excellent Mass Transit systems (Boston has a very good one, I can attest to this) that serve the suburbs, and let people choose to ride the MT or sit in traffic for four hours.

I can tell you that, personally, I would not want to live in a downtown/urban setting. It's just not my thing, and I like having a yard.
I think, too, that urban living is hardly going to help the planet any more than suburban living, and it makes you more vulnerable to systems failure (electricity, water, gas, food, etc.) if anything catastrophic happens, but that's perhaps another topic for another thread.

[compdude787]

And ruin the city with it. Cities in the US should increase in density, suburban living is ruining the planet.

Actually, while I don't think that the interstate system is particularly good due to the amount of funding it receives over other alternative transit options, I think that increasing density is the wrong way to go, particularly for the cities, mostly because America isn't like Europe, and wouldn't be able to deal with the population increase, and second, because the road networks are already over-capacity, and it'd not like Americans are about to give up their cars anytime soon. That's more a social issue, but it's hardly one you can ignore when considering urban development/highway restructuring.

IMO, the best thing to do would be to create excellent Mass Transit systems (Boston has a very good one, I can attest to this) that serve the suburbs, and let people choose to ride the MT or sit in traffic for four hours.

I can tell you that, personally, I would not want to live in a downtown/urban setting. It's just not my thing, and I like having a yard.
I think, too, that urban living is hardly going to help the planet any more than suburban living, and it makes you more vulnerable to systems failure (electricity, water, gas, food, etc.) if anything catastrophic happens, but that's perhaps another topic for another thread.

Completely agree with you on everything except the whole mass transit thing. Let's move our discussion over to this thread, though.

[Tarkus]

Getting back onto topic, and back to the discussion of DDRHW systems, it looks as though there will be some changes coming to the existing DDRHW-4 network by NAM 34 at the latest (possibly by NAM 33).  The fact that the DDRHW's top deck is at L3 has made it difficult to build interchanges with it, and the userbase tends not to build the L1-under-DDRHW crossings that were originally used as a rationale for the L2/L3 configuration.  There's also the matter of the proposed DDRHW-8, which, if we were to give it a similar L2/L3 setup, would ultimately require us to make an L3 RHW-8S, which is not a desirable move.

To that effect, it appears we will be lowering the DDRHW's two decks from L2/L3 to L1/L2.  The only two things this will really effect are the L1 undercrossings (which will no longer be possible with the L1/L2 configuration, though L3 overcrossings will become viable), and transitions to interchanges involving DDRHWs, which, theoretically, should become more compact with the lower height.

-Alex

[chosenreject]

Getting back onto topic, and back to the discussion of DDRHW systems, it looks as though there will be some changes coming to the existing DDRHW-4 network by NAM 34 at the latest (possibly by NAM 33).  The fact that the DDRHW's top deck is at L3 has made it difficult to build interchanges with it, and the userbase tends not to build the L1-under-DDRHW crossings that were originally used as a rationale for the L2/L3 configuration.  There's also the matter of the proposed DDRHW-8, which, if we were to give it a similar L2/L3 setup, would ultimately require us to make an L3 RHW-8S, which is not a desirable move.

To that effect, it appears we will be lowering the DDRHW's two decks from L2/L3 to L1/L2.  The only two things this will really effect are the L1 undercrossings (which will no longer be possible with the L1/L2 configuration, though L3 overcrossings will become viable), and transitions to interchanges involving DDRHWs, which, theoretically, should become more compact with the lower height.

-Alex

i like this plan. It will make transitions smaller and the only time i have ever used a L1 crossing under DDRHW was usually a L1 mis because some of the exits got pretty long and i needed the crossing for space. i wish i had the skills of the nam bridge engineers as ive always thought ddrhw needed some bridge love, but all i can do is be annoying and mention it from time to time    ... but i will take a ddrhw8 and be happy with that!!!  By the way merry christmas NAM team! thanks for everything you do!

[Tarkus]

The tricky thing is that with the way wealthification works, those textures have to be baked onto the road and highway textures--the grass isn't a separate base texture or underlay.  It's physically possible to do, but it's a heck of a lot of work, because you would have to add the sand textures to pretty much every draggable network tile.  Automation with Photoshop actions helps to a large degree, but it's still a massive effort.

-Alex

[memo]

Would it be possible to replace the default NAM grass textures with sand textures,that would better work with my region?

I can do what Tarkus explained in three clicks for 95% of the textures if you provide the three textures to use, one for each wealth.

[GDO29Anagram]

I can do what Tarkus explained in three clicks for 95% of the textures if you provide the three textures to use, one for each wealth.

I call hacks.

[Moonraker0]

Hey guys, I was just hoping that someone could shed some light on my previous issue with the DDRHW bridges.  Perhaps it's the case that if no one knew a solution then, there's no reason why anyone will know the solution now, but I thought perhaps that Tarkus's last development update just made everyone forget what was going on before :p (happens I'm sure, it's an impressive update)

The area after the bridge ends near the main city has been re-worked, and extended length-wise, but still no traffic is using it.  I've even added an intersection with another avenue.  I'll try posting an updated screenshot of the configuration when I'm able.

Thanks in advance for any new suggestions.

[Tarkus]

Thanks for checking in, Moonraker.  Attempting to zoom in on your image, it does look like there might be a missing path on one of the orth-diag transitions close to the neighbor connection.  That was an earlier reported bug with the NAM 32 release, and I issued a patch about a year ago for it (here).  You can replace the original DDRHW .dat file with that one, which would be located in Plugins\Network Addon Mod\Real Highway Mod\DDRHW.

If that doesn't do the trick, or if you already have that file, it's going to be a more complex issue, and I don't really have any real guesses without attempting to build a test city to replicate it.

-Alex

[Moonraker0]

Thanks for your reply, Tarkus.  This turned out to be the solution I needed!  Now I have very high levels of traffic using the bridge; it's great to finally see it working.

I was also wondering, however, if anyone could perhaps help me with another issue I've been having.  The FlexRamp for L2 RHW-4, type B1 doesn't work right for me; the ramp piece just stays as RHW-2 L0, like in this screenshot.  I see the tooltip says it should support different levels of RHW-4, so I'm not sure why this won't work for me.

Thanks in advance for any help on this matter!

[jdenm8]

IIRC, that piece doesn't actually support Elevated.

[roadgeek]

I have been using L1, and it works fine. Try dragging a road under it parallel to the main highway, leaving two empty tiles between.

[McDuell]

Apart from the various ground RHW types, the FlexRamp type B1 currently supports only L1 RHW4.

There is a total of 3 possible elevated FlexRamp configurations at the moment (also IIRC):
- FlexRamp type A1, L1 RHW4
- FlexRamp type A1, L2 RHW4
- FlexRamp type B1, L1 RHW4

All other other configurations aren't currently supported.

[Tarkus]

We're adding a ton more support for elevated ramp interfaces in NAM 33.  In fact, probably two-thirds of the existing ground setups will have elevated counterparts, which is in sharp contrast to how development has typically gone on that front.

-Alex

[Haljackey]

And don't get me started on Canada's Highway 401.

We'll wait for Hal on that one.  He's our resident 401 expert. 

-Alex

Eh? You rang?

Also for NAM 33, I have plans to make video tutorials for various components including several RHW demos. It seems to be one of the most heavily requested items in the community, so if you have any suggestions on what we could cover, feel free to let us know.