RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[MandelSoft]

Yeah, the RHW has hard (asphalt) shoulders and dashed lines.

Incorrect. The new RHW textures have a double solid line. Still they have hard shoulders and no sidewalks

[Wilfried]

Why? 

I think of the textures of the straight, open road. Why should there be solid lines?

[Blue Lightning]

There are cosmetic pieces that have dashed and half dashed lines.

[zakuten]

OK, well, as long as I can tell them apart. Personally, I prefered the old dash-yellow, but that's just me. Eh heh

[wes.janson]

Why? 

I think of the textures of the straight, open road. Why should there be solid lines?

I always associate the RHW with our Trans-Canada highway here, and even when it's single lane each way, there is at least a solid line down the center, the only time it would be dashed would be for when you're allowed to enter oncoming traffic to pass slow moving traffic, and then it would be a single solid line beside a dashed line.

[Haljackey]

Why? 

I think of the textures of the straight, open road. Why should there be solid lines?

I would think so because cars on a RHW-2 are traveling at a higher speed than a road.  Having a passing lane at those speeds is more of a safety risk, thus it is the road that should have a dashed line, not the RHW-2.

A way to reverse this would be to use the rural roads plugin to give roads the dashed line while the RHW-2 would have solid lines.


Also, a road comparison should help:

Road with RHW 3.24


Road with RHW 4.0 pre-alpha


As you can see, the difference is noticeable.  No one should confuse the RHW-2 as a road or a road as a RHW-2.

Hope that straightens it out.

[doorknob60]

Eh, 2 lane highways (with speeds of 55, sometimes up to 65 in states besides slowspeedlimited Oregon) always have dashed lines in long straight sections (for allowing passing). Maybe this isn't as common in Canada or other places, but it is in the US. But I wlready settled on the default being solid, and they you can make is dashed if you want. I assume the dashed RHW-2 will use a starter piece like all the other RHW's start or will it be different (hopefully not completely puzzle piece based?).

[Tarkus]

I assume the dashed RHW-2 will use a starter piece like all the other RHW's start or will it be different (hopefully not completely puzzle piece based?).

At the moment, it just consists of a single orthogonal dashed-line puzzle piece.  There's also a solid/dashed-line (passing on one side) orthogonal puzzle piece as well.  That's the extent of it as far as what Version 4.0 will have.  A draggable, starter-based system is under consideration for a future release in the 4.x series, however.

-Alex

[ThatGuy]

I would think so because cars on a RHW-2 are traveling at a higher speed than a road.  Having a passing lane at those speeds is more of a safety risk, thus it is the road that should have a dashed line, not the RHW-2.

I haven't been on many two lane highways, but all the one's I have been on were dashed except when near an intersection.

[zakuten]

May I suggest a small optional patch? As I'm incredibly crap at anything resembling programming or modeling, I can't do it, but it seems like it would be a tiny job to add a patch to make a dotted texture for the straightaways-- after all, corners would usually be solid lined anyway-- for those who would like it. Just the RHW straights and RHWxStreet would really be all you need...

[Wilfried]

I haven't been on many two lane highways, but all the one's I have been on were dashed except when near an intersection.

Yeah that's the default almost everywhere. Also, on rural roads, you're allowed to pass more frequently because of the higher speed differences and less intersections. And some highway authorities are more restrictive than others.

I know many 2-lane highways in my region where only a few years ago there were almost no restrictions as to passing, but now there are almost no legal possilities to pass slower cars as many dashed lines have been repainted double solid.

That keeps many drivers from passing, though when traffic volumes are low, people pass anyway (illegaly).

Anyway, I don't see the point in going back to double solid by default but a patch could be made for those who wish to.

[Tarkus]

There's actually a fair bit of mixture in RL.  A quick sampling I did of RHW-2s in the outskirts of Portland and Salem areas in Oregon on StreetView found the dashed-solid combo to be perhaps more common than either.  Ditto with the stretch of US-97 between Terrebonne and Madras that I checked.  Of course, that's an asymmetrical setup and would not make sense to use for a base network.  

I haven't been on many two lane highways, but all the one's I have been on were dashed except when near an intersection.

That's even more reason to go for a double-solid setup, actually, from a technical standpoint.  

If you went to a dashed setup for the base network and wanted to mimic this sort of striping situation near intersections and curves, it would require putting overrides on the base network.  Since everything (RHW-4, etc.) in turn overrides the base network, you'd have to do a bunch of re-overrides of those base network overrides just to get the RHW-4 to work properly, and the likelihood of them becoming unstable and causing complications for the rest of the mod's functionality is extraordinarily high.  (Not to mention it would require re-writing about 15,000 lines of otherwise perfectly fine code and slow development on further expansion.)

A double-solid base setup does not require this, and in fact, makes the overall mod functionality cleaner, and fits with Occam's Razor and the KISS Principle (Keep it simple, stupid).  Thus, it has been one of my fundamental design principles in working with these override networks as part of the RHW and NWM to keep the base network as "clean" as possible.  

It seems to me from this discussion that there is a fair amount of demand for "passing zone" RHW-2s, and with a clean base network, it would not be too difficult to implement them as a puzzle-drag-based override network.  Sounds like it could be a rather popular addition to a 4.x release.  ("4.x", in case you're wondering, is the name being given to a planned series of smaller releases after 4.0.  5.0 is planned to be the point at which modularized stack interchanges are possible.)

May I suggest a small optional patch? As I'm incredibly crap at anything resembling programming or modeling, I can't do it, but it seems like it would be a tiny job to add a patch to make a dotted texture for the straightaways-- after all, corners would usually be solid lined anyway-- for those who would like it. Just the RHW straights and RHWxStreet would really be all you need...

That's a possibility, too . . . though it would probably have to wait until after 4.0.  There'd actually be a few more intersection textures required, though, as the RHW-2 set for Version 4.0 has filled out substantially.

-Alex  

[JoeST]

mmmm, 5.0.... 

Joe

[Haljackey]

I tend to think of a RHW-2 as a "Super 2 expressway", where you have on/off ramps and grade separation.  These routes almost always don't allow for passing.  These are common in Northern Europe and routes in North America that haven't been built as a full freeway (yet).  If you're wanting to use intersections, switch to road instead or use a road/RHW hybrid route to maximize speed and ascetics.
-Again, using the rural roads plugin will create a passing lane for roads.

An example of a super-2 expressway:

[noahclem]

Wow, great stuff guys! I just got broadband back today after moving to northern Finland a couple weeks ago and was surprised to see how much I've missed. Draggable diagonal ERHW4 over RHW4, wide-radius everything-one-tile, and more?

I'll refrain from any questions about the details of what might be included in 4.0 and look forward to being surprised but will have my fingers crossed for wide radius 45 degree EMIS, 45 degree on-slope pieces in general, and anything FLUPs.

[TJ1]

Please tell me these images are true 




it would also be interesting if there was ERHW-8C(elevated).

[zakuten]

@ Alex, True, but I figured the lines would not continue across the middle of other types and therefore might not need new stripings. Sorry~

[Tarkus]

Please tell me these images are true 

They are.  And the first three will be possible with Version 4.0.  The ERHW-6C will not be in 4.0, but is planned for a future release.

-Alex

[TJ1]

Awsome

[MandelSoft]

An example of a super-2 expressway:

I seen this road before. It's the B7 (maybe, because I've seen this number only on one sign in Diekirch) in Luxembourg.