• Welcome to SC4 Devotion Forum Archives.

Real Expressway Mod REW (Development and Support)

Started by eggman121, November 23, 2016, 10:21:07 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.

eggman121


Real Expressway Mod

The Real Expressway Mod or REW uses the work of the OWR variants of the Network Widening Mod to make a condensed version of the popular Real Highway Mod or RHW.
This Mod is intended to be an intermediate capacity network for Simcity 4 by introducing a new range of functional pieces such as slip lanes, Elevated sections and overpass functionality.
Much of the functionality already exists in the current NAM edition (NAM 35) and is being expanded upon with new content.  This includes...

-New Textures for the base networks and ramps.

-Elevated sections of OWR 1 and OWR 2 crossing at various angles.

-New ramps for realistic transitions between the OWR variants including new ramp types.

-Minimising the use of starters so the REW will mostly flexed.

-Multi Radius Curves for  the  REW with R1 and R2 at levels L0, L1 and L2 with OWR 1, OWR 2 and OWR3. Anything beyond will be L0.

-Interfacing with recent additions including the SiTAP project and Draggable viaducts.

-Condensed patterns for ramps compared with the RHW.

-At grade designs (Including roundabouts) will also appear in the REW but the mechanics need to be finalised first.


So this mod will take the underpinnings of the OWR additions and take advantage of them.
Capacities will remain the same as the ones in the NWM for the OWR networks.

Lastly here are some developmental pictures of the mod in action.











This is a  NAM Team project and as such things may change before release. I thank MushyMushy, Tarkus, Durfsurn and other creators for allowing this to happen.

We are happy to answer questions in the meantime

-eggman121 (NAM Team Member)




Network Addon Mod 41
Introduces the first render of the Real Expressway FLEX Piece system. 25th April 2021

Thanks for all the support over the few years. It was a dash to get the Real Expressway system out. Thanks for all the support over the last few years.

Finally the Real Expressway can see the light of day.  ()stsfd()


compdude787

#1
Wow, that looks pretty awesome!! Can't wait to actually start using it!! Will there be D and E ramps along with the A and B ones shown above? It will be nice to have the possibility of exit-only lanes. :)
Check out my MD, United States of Simerica!
Last updated: March 5, 2017

My YouTube Channel

Gugu3


gn_leugim

really nice thing we have here! I love the idea. I just don't agree with one part though:

QuoteThis Mod is intended to be an intermediate capacity network for Simcity 4

I know that in game, the OWR and the RHW-1 have different capacities (right?) but, shouldn't they have the same? and specially in this set up, of fast interchanges, they should be able to address the same capacity as they are physically similar. You may say "speed limits" but them if you are using the same road layout, why limit the speed of traffic?  it would only make a sense if the road layout was different, tighter, shorter and so on. Just my two cents.

Nevertheless, I am exited for what may come up from this. :)  &apls

Seaman

wonderful idea! In fact, this issues exactly what I currently try to achieve with Avenues and MIS sections. This will make it look more serious and will come in handy.

"NAM - serious traffic solutions since 2006"  :thumbsup:

Quote from: gn_leugim on November 24, 2016, 02:51:51 AM
I know that in game, the OWR and the RHW-1 have different capacities (right?) but, shouldn't they have the same? and specially in this set up, of fast interchanges, they should be able to address the same capacity as they are physically similar. You may say "speed limits" but them if you are using the same road layout, why limit the speed of traffic?  it would only make a sense if the road layout was different, tighter, shorter and so on. Just my two cents.

There are some more technical differences (without direct affect to game mechanics): the absence of merging lanes and shoulders call for speed limits due to safety reasons.



One question though: are there any plans to make REW compatible with RHW? This would vastly improve functionality, e.g. by transition REW-1 (OWR-1??) to MIS, esp. diagonal or elevated.

dyoungyn

#5
This looks AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   I agree that the speed should be limited due to the fact that there are no merge lanes and shoulders. 

This could be ramps for AVEs during busy intersections. 

What would make this totally off the shelf  if you could make the same ramps for AVE6/7. 

Great job and and thank you so much for sharing and so looking forward to implementing in my regions.

Sorry, one more thing. if this is designed to work well with OWR then is it possible to make neighbor connections for OWR's. 

Finally, are you showing diagonal ramps for AVE4?

Tyberius06

#6
Wow. Thank you for this. Finally it got a name! :)
Will those modular curve/roundabout sets be released under REW, what you already showed over there on Simtropolis? That would be awesome! :)
You may find updates about my ongoing projects into my development thread here at SimCity 4 Devotion: Tyberius Lotting Experiments
or over there on Simtropolis into the Tyberius (Heretic Projects) Lotting and Modding Experiments.
I'm also member of the STEX Custodian and working on different restoration projects on behalf of non-anymore-active custom content creators.
Current projects: WMP Restoration and SimCity Polska Restoration.
Member of the NAM Team and RTMT Team.

Mikey Knox

While i really really appreciate the work you guys put in the NAM, dont you think its becoming really hard and complicatet for very Casual Players (like me ;D) or new Players (if there are any) to keep up with all the Stuff already in the NAM? I can only speak for myself, but most of the Time i Alt-Tab out of the Game to look at Manuals to see how things work and frankly, its becoming really overwhelming and i end up not using some Stuff (like the SiTAP) because i forget that it exists.

But nice Work Egg :thumbsup:


Seaman

Quote from: Mikey Knox on November 24, 2016, 04:48:24 PM
While i really really appreciate the work you guys put in the NAM, dont you think its becoming really hard and complicatet for very Casual Players (like me ;D) or new Players (if there are any) to keep up with all the Stuff already in the NAM? I can only speak for myself, but most of the Time i Alt-Tab out of the Game to look at Manuals to see how things work and frankly, its becoming really overwhelming and i end up not using some Stuff (like the SiTAP) because i forget that it exists.

yeah, it's getting hard to stay tuned. Especially the dragable patterns for RRW and RHW do require quite some practise. But on the other hand, these features are additional, so we are free to literally forget them in the process and enjoy the basics.  :D

Tarkus

#9
Quote from: Mikey Knox on November 24, 2016, 04:48:24 PM
While i really really appreciate the work you guys put in the NAM, dont you think its becoming really hard and complicatet for very Casual Players (like me ;D) or new Players (if there are any) to keep up with all the Stuff already in the NAM? I can only speak for myself, but most of the Time i Alt-Tab out of the Game to look at Manuals to see how things work and frankly, its becoming really overwhelming and i end up not using some Stuff (like the SiTAP) because i forget that it exists.

It is generally a given that more content equals more complexity (though our FLEX efforts have actually allowed us to reverse this in certain situations).  That said, what are we supposed to do?  Stop making new NAM versions?  The SC4 community is inherently a content-driven one, and without the continued development and release of quality new items for the game, it's unlikely that there would be that many players around, period--new, casual, or otherwise. 

We recognize that the NAM is a very large mod with a lot of moving parts.  There's probably multiple expansion packs worth of transportation content within it at this point, after 12 1/2 years of development, and I think it is pretty safe to say that there are very few players out there who use absolutely everything it has to offer.  However, I wouldn't consider that a valid reason not to offer up those features, or any new ones.  There's a reason we have all those options in the installer, so users can choose just how much of the mod they wish to use, ranging from just the simulator and pathing fixes, up to the "full blast" option for power users.

-Alex

tomvsotis

Wow, the way you guys are continuing to add content to this game after all these years is just amazing. This looks ace and I can't wait to use it!

tomvsotis

Quote from: Tarkus on November 24, 2016, 06:07:41 PM
Quote from: Mikey Knox on November 24, 2016, 04:48:24 PM
While i really really appreciate the work you guys put in the NAM, dont you think its becoming really hard and complicatet for very Casual Players (like me ;D) or new Players (if there are any) to keep up with all the Stuff already in the NAM? I can only speak for myself, but most of the Time i Alt-Tab out of the Game to look at Manuals to see how things work and frankly, its becoming really overwhelming and i end up not using some Stuff (like the SiTAP) because i forget that it exists.

It is generally a given that more content equals more complexity (though our FLEX efforts have actually allowed us to reverse this in certain situations).  That said, what are we supposed to do?  Stop making new NAM versions?  The SC4 community is inherently a content-driven one, and without the continued development and release of quality new items for the game, it's unlikely that there would be that many players around, period--new, casual, or otherwise. 

We recognize that the NAM is a very large mod with a lot of moving parts.  There's probably multiple expansion packs worth of transportation content within it at this point, after 12 1/2 years of development, and I think it is pretty safe to say that there are very few players out there who use absolutely everything it has to offer.  However, I wouldn't consider that a valid reason not to offer up those features, or any new ones.  There's a reason we have all those options in the installer, so users can choose just how much of the mod they wish to use, ranging from just the simulator and pathing fixes, up to the "full blast" option for power users.

-Alex

fwiw, my 2c on this: the problem isn't so much with the degree of complexity within the mod as it is with the lack of documentation. Clearly, there's only so much the NAM team can do, and I expect they'd much rather be creating new features than documenting existing ones, but imo the reason new players can feel overwhelmed by this mod isn't really the number of features -- it's not knowing what any of these features do, and having no single point of reference to find out. (Until this thread, for instance, I'd been unaware that any SiTAP functionality was in the new NAM, and working out how to use it involved finding a video on YouTube rather than looking up the manual, because there isn't one -- or not for that feature, anyway.)

Anyway, I hope you never stop adding features! Like i said in my previous comment, the amount of functionality you've been able to add to a 14-year-old game is just astounding.

FrankU

Hey, so this is kind of a simplified RHW? That would be nice, because like Mikey Knox I think the NAM and all its features are really overwhelming.
Half a year ago I tried to make a quite simple RHW-Avenue connection and it took me soo long... I could not find a certain puzzle piece I needed. Long story short: I decided that the RHW is not for me and I uninstalled it. This is not a pledge for stopping development. No no. Please develop as much as you like. It's just an illustration that it would be nice to have some kind of simplified RHW, because the Maxis highways are, well.... Maxis  :D . They do what they are supposed to, but visually they are not very attractive.
Of course it would be nice to have more menu options, so that it is easier to find the right element, but that's a game flaw we cannot pass.

APSMS

Quote from: tomvsotis on November 24, 2016, 08:10:38 PM
fwiw, my 2c on this: the problem isn't so much with the degree of complexity within the mod as it is with the lack of documentation. Clearly, there's only so much the NAM team can do, and I expect they'd much rather be creating new features than documenting existing ones, but imo the reason new players can feel overwhelmed by this mod isn't really the number of features -- it's not knowing what any of these features do, and having no single point of reference to find out. (Until this thread, for instance, I'd been unaware that any SiTAP functionality was in the new NAM, and working out how to use it involved finding a video on YouTube rather than looking up the manual, because there isn't one -- or not for that feature, anyway.)

Anyway, I hope you never stop adding features! Like i said in my previous comment, the amount of functionality you've been able to add to a 14-year-old game is just astounding.
We are working on a way to make the documentation easier to update. As with any code project, documentation is often harder to procure than the actual code, but we are moving towards a wiki-based solution so that less-developement heavy members can assist the team in this area, as well as able NAM Associates. The PDF files included in the NAM are very difficult to edit, and Alex has been working on breaking it down into meaningful chunks to ease the editing process.

Zack (woodb3kmaster) and Robin have also been very helpful on this front, and all of the new RRW features have documentation written up by eggman121.

I'm pretty sure SiTAP was introduced in NAM 34; I thought we'd made a bit about that, but I guess it wasn't as well publicized as I thought. Hopefully once FTLs get going we can extend some of that functionality to the NWM, but there's a lot of moving parts that need to fall into place.

Quote from: FrankU on November 25, 2016, 12:01:34 AM
Half a year ago I tried to make a quite simple RHW-Avenue connection and it took me soo long... I could not find a certain puzzle piece I needed.
I think maybe this Puzzle Piece search is the problem. Many users ask for Puzzle Pieces to do what a simple drag can accomplish quicker and easier. Even with the MHW I would drag out the intersections and only place them if the AutoConnect function didn't trigger. Maybe this is part of the paradigm shift that needs to happen for most users? The REW will end up working precisely the same way, so either way a new approach is needed to take advantage of the features at hand.

FWIW I keep a copy of the NAM documentation open every time I build transit networks to remind myself how to do the stuff like WRCs and DRIs. And I consider myself at least proficient with most of the NAM.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

My Mayor Diary San Diego: A Reinterpretation

tomvsotis

Quote from: APSMS on November 25, 2016, 12:44:06 AM
We are working on a way to make the documentation easier to update. As with any code project, documentation is often harder to procure than the actual code, but we are moving towards a wiki-based solution so that less-developement heavy members can assist the team in this area, as well as able NAM Associates. The PDF files included in the NAM are very difficult to edit, and Alex has been working on breaking it down into meaningful chunks to ease the editing process.
That's something I'd be glad to help with, if that's any use — writing and editing are what I do for a living.

Fabio Costa

Please say we will have that parallel slip lanes for OWR

Baltimore

      I want to thank you guys for all of the work you have done . The NAM has made SC4 so much more interesting . But I'm a bit confused . I use the RHW . Is the REW a replacement for RHW or an additional variant of another network ?
      Please forgive me if I misinterpreted something said above .
AKA raynev1 @Simtropolis
See what I'm into when I'm not playing Simcity4
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq2BmSZmH0YW7U6TithLBsQ

FrankU

Quote from: APSMS on November 25, 2016, 12:44:06 AM

Quote from: FrankU on November 25, 2016, 12:01:34 AM
Half a year ago I tried to make a quite simple RHW-Avenue connection and it took me soo long... I could not find a certain puzzle piece I needed.
I think maybe this Puzzle Piece search is the problem. Many users ask for Puzzle Pieces to do what a simple drag can accomplish quicker and easier. Even with the MHW I would drag out the intersections and only place them if the AutoConnect function didn't trigger. Maybe this is part of the paradigm shift that needs to happen for most users? The REW will end up working precisely the same way, so either way a new approach is needed to take advantage of the features at hand.

FWIW I keep a copy of the NAM documentation open every time I build transit networks to remind myself how to do the stuff like WRCs and DRIs. And I consider myself at least proficient with most of the NAM.

Well, I am sure it is my ignorance and/or impatience that I could not find the piece. So this was certainly not meant as any kind of criticism. The whole crossing was one large puzzle piece combination, so that only one should be somewhere too. Anyway.... I am not aiming a finding the thing now. For those questions there are other threads. It's just the NAM has soo many features that I get dizzy every tike I try to find my way, so I decided to keep it simple for myself.
And keeping the documentation at hand is indeed very smart. I should do that too. Now that I have a two computers it is also feasible.

matias93

Quote from: Baltimore on November 25, 2016, 10:48:52 AM
      I want to thank you guys for all of the work you have done . The NAM has made SC4 so much more interesting . But I'm a bit confused . I use the RHW . Is the REW a replacement for RHW or an additional variant of another network ?
      Please forgive me if I misinterpreted something said above .


It seems to be a parallel implementation, based exclusively on modified one-way roads; surely for rather simple configurations it could be an option between the Maxis Highway Override and the Real Highway, but it seems to aim to an specific task: to be a big urban surface network that is both compatible with local and long-distance traffic and that can manage custom merging-splitting of lanes with big radius curves.

"Lets be scientists and as such, remember always that the purpose of politics is not freedom, nor authority, nor is any principle of abstract character,
but it is to meet the social needs of man and the development of the society"

— Valentín Letelier, 1895

Tarkus

Quote from: Baltimore on November 25, 2016, 10:48:52 AM
I use the RHW . Is the REW a replacement for RHW or an additional variant of another network ?

matias93 is correct.

The REW is basically intended to be provide a "halfway point" between a fully access-controlled highways and a surface streets.  While the term "expressway" is used somewhat inconsistently, in many cases (such as in the case of the expressway system in Santa Clara County, California), it's a step below a freeway.  As it is based off the One-Way Road network (and its NWM variants), it has a lower capacity and speed than the RHW, but is on the higher side in terms of surface streets.  It's not intended to be a replacement for the RHW, nor is it a simplified version of the RHW, but rather, a project that provides RHW-like functionality (and some other fun things) to the OWR system.

-Alex