FLEX Turn Lanes (FTL) and Related Projects - Development and Support

[mike3775]

My main issue with Tuleps is they are a pain to plop because one little mistake and you have to bulldoze everything and start over, and its hard to see the little white line for the turning lane

Just demolish the mistake and it should only revert the tiles next to it to their default network. Then just re-plop these TuLEPS and it should be fixed.

If it's hard to see there's two things you can do:
1. Turn on 'zones view' in the data views. It will revert all development to zones. Plopped buildings are bare ground.
2. Turn off shadows or at least put them to low.



One pet peeve I have with the TuLEPs is that the avenue left turn starting piece is the same as the double left turn starting piece. I would request for a future release that these be separated into two separate tabs as I often plop the wrong one by mistake, and as stated above, demolishing can be a painful process.

Your peeve is one of my biggest issues as well.  Same with the lines.

[mike3775]

Sorry for the double post, but I just noticed this today.  I rarely if ever used slip lanes, but today I decided to place some from a one way road to avenue, and noticed that that interchange was never used.  I turned on Draw Paths and noticed this



Thats with the sliplanes, notice the arrows in the red boxes

Without the sliplane this is what it looks like


I have the latest hotfix installed as well. 

[GDO29Anagram]

Sorry for the double post, but I just noticed this today.  I rarely if ever used slip lanes, but today I decided to place some from a one way road to avenue, and noticed that that interchange was never used.

That's supposed to happen. OWR PPs need to be bidirectionally pathed, so that they can be placed on a stretch of OWR, regardless of the direction it's going in. It's so that we don't need to add in one extra piece for every direction of traffic.

Look at the NWM's OWRs. How many transition pieces have bidirectional pathing? (Hint: All of them.)

[mike3775]

Sorry for the double post, but I just noticed this today.  I rarely if ever used slip lanes, but today I decided to place some from a one way road to avenue, and noticed that that interchange was never used.

That's supposed to happen. OWR PPs need to be bidirectionally pathed, so that they can be placed on a stretch of OWR, regardless of the direction it's going in. It's so that we don't need to add in one extra piece for every direction of traffic.

Look at the NWM's OWRs. How many transition pieces have bidirectional pathing? (Hint: All of them.)

Thanks, I honestly never noticed that.  Guess I'll reroute traffic so that they have to use that interchange whether they like it or not  lol

[Wiimeiser]

I honestly don't see how that even stops it from being used, either.

[blakerussell]

I was going to make an AVE/TLA-5 version of that piece when I made the RD/AVE-2/TLA-3 version, but I couldn't quite get the lines to look right at the time, then I got caught up in other projects.

Edit: This was my original result that never got fleshed out, based on a simple clone and flip


Definitely needs a little tweaking.

Periodically, I will be cruisin the forums and see posts of single NAM pieces like the nice double TuLep avenue piece above. I am wondering... Do these pieces all become part of the next NAM release? or are some single NAM pieces available whenever they are designed?

[Tarkus]

We can't release pieces on an "a la carte" basis, due to the way RUL files and controller integration works.  We often have multiple projects going on, all of which must be synced in the NAM Controller file, to ensure that everything works together and is interoperable.  To release individual pieces on an as-they-come basis to the public, we would actually have to "backtrack" development, remove other ongoing projects, and then re-add it.  Some items that we may have textures/models for that appear here also may not make it into the next release, depending on how busy we are with other projects.

At this point that particular texture is just that--a texture.  It hasn't been made into a working piece yet.

-Alex

[mike3775]

I honestly don't see how that even stops it from being used, either.

I don't either, but they completely ignore that interchange and go farther up the Avenue to another RHW-10 interchange and use that one.  I am starting to get usage on it now, little by little, by simply taking the Avenue down to a 2 lane chokepoint halfway between the interchanges and the traffic backups are enough to get them to use it now 

[lfinalDJ]

Hi, I always have traffic problem with this TuLEP piece. It seems it can't handle traffic.

I don't know what i'm doing wrong, here is a screen. Can anybody hep me? thanks

[Tarkus]

You're not doing anything wrong.  That's actually how the piece works.  The Avenue Type B1 (dual-left turn lanes) TuLEP utilize Distilled Intersection Paths (DIPs) to boost their capacity, meaning that the traffic simulator will assign the same capacity/speed to them as an intersection tile, as specified in the Intersection and Turn Capacity Effect property.  (This value is set to 1.25 for all versions of the NAM Traffic Simulator, meaning there's a 25% boost in capacity).

However, to simulate the delays caused by traffic signals and such, the Intersection and Turn Capacity Effect also has values that adjust the capacity/speed of the two tiles leading away from the intersection as well--the default settings decrease the capacity/speed of these two tiles by 80% and 60%, respectively.  The traffic simulator sees the transition from the Type B1 TuLEPs to the normal Avenue as tiles leading out of an intersection, and it's decreasing the capacity/speed on the transition accordingly.  If the Type B1 TuLEPs did not have the capacity-boost effect applied to them, you'd see the same orange color on the congestion view next to the intersection instead.

There is a way to mitigate the effect by using the NAM Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool (TSCT), by reducing the value of the Intersection Effect Multiplier below the default value of 1.0.

-Alex

[lfinalDJ]

Thank you Alex, I always have traffic problems in the TuLEP network transition pieces. In some case the pop up with the guy telling me i had road/avenue traffic problem. And I only sees the red transition pieces. I thought i'm doing it wrong.
You may increase the speed or change some configuration in this pieces in future release (if you can do that) It make no sense having traffic in roads like in the picture who keeps his two lanes. Or the transition of 2 lanes to 4 lanes.

(Sorry for my bad English)
Regards

[gn_leugim]

I have seen this before, and wondered. As far I can see, using the TuLePs only changed the spot where the traffic builds up, from the intersection itself to the rear, where the TuLeP begins, isn't right?

[kj3400]

I sort of hate to revive this thread that's been dead for 5 months, but I have a question.

Of course this thread is about turning lanes. But what about turning restrictions? Is this something that could be done, or am I just thinking crazy thoughts?

[Tarkus]

I sort of hate to revive this thread that's been dead for 5 months, but I have a question.

Of course this thread is about turning lanes. But what about turning restrictions? Is this something that could be done, or am I just thinking crazy thoughts?

The thread's not dead, so much as "in hibernation".  But as my development plans will be focused less on the RHW and more on the NWM/TuLEP/Turning Lane side for NAM 32, it's as good a time as any to get it stirring again.

Turn restrictions are definitely something I had in mind when launching TuLEPs--you're not the least bit crazy on thinking about that.  We're still kind of sorting out what all we'll be developing this go-around, and there may be some rather exciting implementation-related things going forward.

-Alex

[kj3400]

Well that sounds great. I can't wait.

[Kuewr665]

I've noticed that plopping the TuLEP intersection without the turning lanes acts as a turn restriction.

[j-dub]

Well, yeah, it does, for the 2 tile, 4 lane based networks.

http://www.youtube.com/v/KVShlqIY33M

But lets talk about a Road X TuLEP though, for the side you don't want to have the center turn lane, I end up having to put that TuLEP down that has the middle lane restricted. I got a mod that cross hatches that out all together, and that is how I have seen them do it in reality.

[Sirron-kcuhc]

Hi, I am currently working on a major city for my CJ, but I happened to come across this: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87123741/Request.png

There doesn't seem to be turning lanes for a 6 lane road or an intersection for 4 lane/6 lane fusions. Would there be any possibility that you guys were to be working on any of those?

Also I really love your work, TuLEP has made my cities so much better and I thank all of your guys work!

[MandelSoft]

No, there are no TuLEPs for the RD-4 and RD-6 yet, but I'm actually surprised how aesthetically pleasing this intersection looks. Good job!

[Sirron-kcuhc]

So there are no plans of a development of the turning lanes or intersection? Also thanks. :p