RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[GDO29Anagram]

I suppose a DDRHW6C would be technically possible, by using rail like DDRHW4 and having one deck go each direction, but the interface with anything else would be horribly messy.

Technically still, there would be no S or C designation, just DD.

If you wanna be super technical, all RHWs above RHW-4 would have two to three versions: S, C, and DD (where applicable).

I never even got the point of double decker RHW in the first place.

Main gist of DDRHW: Having a highway using half the space and without having it intruding the ground.

[AngryBirdsFan436]

I meant this.

This the picture of the Metro Manila Skyway and the South Luzon Expressway in The Philippines. The one on top that's visible from the picture is the Metro Manila Skyway. But there is a highway below, with also 6 lanes. That's the South Luzon Expressway. So it's like a two way orthogonal ERHW-6C over a ground orthogonal RHW-6C with the pillars on the center island of the ground RHW-6C
Here's the picture of the highway above:

And here's the pic for the highway below.

[jdenm8]

That isn't possible due to one of the limitations listed above. We just cannot do it because of the way the game handles a path's position on the Z axis when pathfinding (It doesn't handle it at all, it assumes paths are all on the same level).

There was a prototype for a network with a similar appearance, however it was not a true Double-Deck network (It used Offset paths, the traffic was actually traveling on the tile to the left of the network underneath) and we do not have all of the files that were created for it.

[GDO29Anagram]

I like to use the "SC4 reads everything two-dimensionally" analogy in the sense that it doesn't know what "up" or "above" or "height" is. (Edwin A. Abbott, anypony?) Regardless, DDs of that design are impossible.

[AngryBirdsFan436]

So it isn't possible to do that kind of network? An ERHW-6C over a ground RHW-C6? Well, How about an ERHW-6S over a ground RHW-6S (with traffic going on the-same direction on each level.)

[jdenm8]

We can't do any kind of double-deck network where traffic moves in a single direction on more than one deck.

[Tarkus]

Looking over that third pic, that to me looks more like two adjacent ERHW-6S networks with ground RHW-6S networks flanking it on either side, which is already possible (and because of the overhang setup, will only take up 4 tiles).

We will not, however, be making any double-decker networks in which traffic is traveling the same direction, nor will we be making different heights of double-deckers beyond the current L2/L3 (15m/22.5m) setup of the existing DDRHW-4 (which we are having to re-implement--we've discovered that the Rail-based draggable is not working as intended).

The next RHW, to be included in the next NAM release, will actually include all the networks we're ever going to include, with the exception of potentially adding "ultra-wides" (beyond 10 lanes) in limited situations, and the DDRHW-8 (each deck traveling in a different direction), and it's very unlikely we'll consider requests for new networks beyond those going forward.

-Alex

[Wiimeiser]

For the ultra-wide networks, I'd definetly go with the 12, and hold a poll for anything above that

(And you won't make 10-C?)

Also, how does the game know if two paths are moving in the same direction?

[dragonshardz]

Also, how does the game know if two paths are moving in the same direction?

Get the extracheats dll, press ctrl+x, type 'drawpaths'.

I don't know exactly how it works in detail but each transit network has a set of paths that tell Sims and automata where in space to travel and what direction to take.

[Tarkus]

Also, how does the game know if two paths are moving in the same direction?

Every path stanza in an SC4PATH file specifies an entry and exit point.  0 = West, 1 = North, 2 = East, 3 = South, 255 = Special Flag (with regular paths, this will add a terminus point to the path, and when used as the exit on a stop point, it'll cause the stop point to apply to all exit directions).

With respect to the car paths, the RHW-2 has one 1-to-3 and one 3-to-1.  The RHW-4 has two 1-to-3s, which each have different path IDs in the SC4PATH file. 

-Alex

[Wiimeiser]

So if the entrance and exit points are the same it allows lane jumping?

[Tarkus]

Jumping occurs when deemed necessary by the simulator.  You might not get jumping on a straight stretch of a same-direction with no intersections or exit/entrance ramps, but if you had an exit ramp anywhere along there on one of the decks, vehicles from the other deck would certainly jump to whatever deck had the ramp in order to use it.

-Alex

[Tarkus]

Double-posting, but it's been 14 hours and developmentally related.

I did a little experiment just to prove the same-direction double-decker problem once and for all.  I turned the DDRHW-4 into a DDRHW-2, and on this particular setup, traffic coming from the other side was only permitted to access the top level, but there was a ramp on the bottom level.

If SC4 really had a solid way of preventing deck jumping, the R zones on the other side would have thrown up no job zots and this particular city would have collapsed.  Instead, we get this (animated GIF time):



They're jumping decks in droves to access that ramp.

It even happens when you do really screwy things to the top deck paths, moving them clear to the other side of the road so as to try to break things up.

In other words, not happening.

-Alex

[Jack_wilds]

Been lurking about for some time now and decided to pop in and say hi... so "Hi!"    enjoying the progress and anticipate a remarkable improvement in RHW being bundled together with the NAM with its new RUL set... its a real  for the enrire NAM team to plow ahaed despite the 'noise' of a promised 'new-n-better' SC5 [which I think will lose too much, to entirely RUL out SC4-deluxe ala NAM]...

[McDuell]

And this is a taste of what can happen now . . .





Just need to add some more overrides in, and then the old puzzle pieces will become "officially" obsolete.

We can clean up another menu yet again

Indeed we can.  I think everyone is going to be pleasantly surprised with the menu developments on the RHW with this next NAM.  Fewer buttons, fewer pieces to TAB through, but way more functionality. 

-Alex

After having seen these pictures, I'm really looking forward to the next release. 

I did it in the interchange thread and I also want to do it here: saying a big, big Thank you! to you and your team for your astonishing and excellent work with the RHW. Bravo! 


- Markus

[Haljackey]

New RHW Interchange Guide: How to Make Basketweaves: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=14079.msg426466#msg426466

[MR.Y]

Would it be possible, to make in the center of RHW4, 6S, 8S and 10 crash barriers? Cause in europe in the center of every highway are those.

[Tarkus]

They do exist for the 6C/8C: [link], but I'm not aware of any for the S-type networks.

-Alex

[noahclem]

Would it be possible, to make in the center of RHW4, 6S, 8S and 10 crash barriers? Cause in europe in the center of every highway are those.

I've been wondering about the same thing. Particularly with regard to 8S and 10S because I suspect the vast majority of RL implementation of such monsters wouldn't have a grass median since they occur in very urban areas. Even when they occur in more suburban areas they often were expanded into the former grass median to avoid purchasing additional right-of-way. Besides lacking grass medians such highways very often seem to feature wider left-side emergency lanes.

Since 8S and 10S (and an potentially upcoming dual-tile 12S*  ? ) share a common inner tile that isn't part of any of the right hand exits, save splitters involving 6X networks, the modding sounds relatively straightforward.

I'm curious what the thoughts and experiences of others are regarding these type of highways, and if the consensus matches my impression whether the best implementation would be changing the default version of the inner tile of creating an "after market" mod to T21 in both the medians and extended shoulder. Also, would a single concrete barrier consisting of two "1/2" T21s from each side of the motorway cause graphics problems because the models are so close? Obviously the steel barriers wouldn't suffer from such a problem...

* Is 12S really "ultra-wide"? It would fit on 2 tiles per side and would be necessary in at least a limited form for 10 lane highways to have merging lanes. Because these technicalities are so important 

More importantly, I've been really meaning to comment again on how fantastic all the new stuff is looking. One thing no one's mentioned yet is that the diagonal ANT stability will make dragging diag-RHW-6C a lot easier 

[GDO29Anagram]

Since 8S and 10S (and an potentially upcoming dual-tile 12S*  ? ) share a common inner tile that isn't part of any of the right hand exits, save splitters involving 6X networks, the modding sounds relatively straightforward.

<snippy snip>

* Is 12S really "ultra-wide"? It would fit on 2 tiles per side and would be necessary in at least a limited form for 10 lane highways to have merging lanes. Because these technicalities are so important 

More importantly, I've been really meaning to comment again on how fantastic all the new stuff is looking. One thing no one's mentioned yet is that the diagonal ANT stability will make dragging diag-RHW-6C a lot easier 

Even I don't know where the line between standard-width RHWs and ultra-wides is (I'm suspecting it begins at 10-something), but I've been in favour of raising the draggability cap to 12S and 10C, simply because there's room on the 8C/10S footprints.

All I can say is that it is (theoretically) possible to go there, but how far until we run into capacity, RULing, and ease-of-construction issues? (There is an established cap, but it's yet to be announced...)

Interestingly, although the 6C and 8C share the same median tile, the 8S and 10S do NOT share a common tile. (An added bonus of P57 is that it removes that 8S/10S inner tile redundancy. Less RULing, pathing, and texturing that way.)

As of the T21 aspect, one could simply reuse Maarten's barriers for the S-networks, but I don't know if it's a single-sided barrier or a double-sided barrier; Somepony would have to ask him about that. They're technically not models, for the record, so I doubt you'd have any graphical bugginess.

As of the 6C diagonality aspect, the footprints are the same as with the AVE-6 (and it's recommended to do it that way); That would equate to a lot of dead space, but it's designed for modularity and smooth transitioning between 6C and 8C, should we ever get to diagonal transitions. The only thing that would make diag RHWs hard to draw is the fact that RHW has this auto-connect feature.

EDIT: Since I started the next page, I added the last post from the last page.