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Auto-link tunnels and bridges to nearby ways

Started by Fabio, April 12, 2013, 12:21:05 PM

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Fabio

Testing half slopes, I noticed that ways restricted to smother incline can't be used to start a tunnel, nor a bridge starting on a steep slope.
After you build a tunnel on a steep slope of course you can link it to the way.
It would be nice if a tunnel entrance or a bridge shoulder would automatically link to an adjacent way, so that a player doesn't forget to manually link them. It should work the same as with catenaries.

Ters

Catenaries are different, because they follow an underlying way. For tunnel entrances and bridge ends, it's more the fact that they can only connect in one direction. If these things were to work diagonally as well, autoconnect would not be possible.

VS

#2
Well... what would be the better way to handle the original problem then? I guess auto-connecting is not an optimal solution either; it sounds like use of a "temporary" type of way to create the bridges etc. is needed as first step :(

Anyway, diagonals are just a way to display certain ribis, in terms of tile connection they are still connection across the same tile-tile boundary. Unless you are taking the original idea a bit too literally ;) But I guess this is somewhat offtopic. Or not, if this is about auto-connecting instead of half-slope problems?


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kierongreen

Autoconnecting sounds reasonable, both as a solution to this problem and in general. Deleting tunnels should always remove ways on the slopes at either end as well then.

Ters

As I understood it, building the tunnel first seems to work. It is in my opinion the most intuitive way. When building tunnels in the real world, they don't build a road a few meters up the slope, and then tunnel through that piece of road.

Fabio

A softer way would be to build one tile of way outside tunnel portal (or bridge shoulder), the same way it builds one tile of way underground when ctrl+building only the portal. Of course removing a portal should delete the road on the slope as well.

(incidentally, I would switch default tunnel building to building only the portal - no ctrl needed and switching view to sliced mode; old behavior could be triggered with double click on a slope)

Ters

Quote from: Fabio on April 13, 2013, 10:08:35 AM
A softer way would be to build one tile of way outside tunnel portal (or bridge shoulder), the same way it builds one tile of way underground when ctrl+building only the portal. Of course removing a portal should delete the road on the slope as well.

Sound good at first, but if the tunnel entrance isn't at the bottom of a slope and the slope is too steep to build on, it can't build this piece of road. The scenario for this is when going directly from tunnel to bridge. I think it's better to never build this piece of way, as it's confusing that it sometimes appear, sometimes not, depending on the slope and whether the pak set supports steep ways of that type.

In my experience, Simutrans doesn't leave ways behind on the slopes when deleting a tunnel if there were no ways there when the tunnel was built.

Fabio

Hence autolink is the best option, IMHO. Always autolink a matching way, whatever the ribis, laying on the tile in front of a portal or a bridge shoulder. I honestly see no contraindications.

Ters

Actually, I think it's already done that way for bridges that end on a cliff.