To allow elevated ways to pass bridges

[Václav]

I don't know if it is intended or not - but it would be good if elevated ways could pass bridges.

Currently elevated ways can be in many floors - but they cannot pass bridges. Why, if it is intended?

[Ters]

I have no problems passing an elevated way under a bridge, nor building bridges passing over elevated ways, as long as the bridge is higher than the elevated bridge.

[Václav]

Oh, I thought building elevated way over bridge - in direction of bridge. For example for purpose of building of alternative way for trucks in city - if building of tunnels is not possible for some reasons - like heavy usage of underground by else types of ways - or underground broken by deep digs with channels.

[Vonjo]

...it would be good if elevated ways could pass bridges.

I agree.
All bridges in Simutrans should be designed to be able to support any elevated ways above it.

Another request: connecting elevated ways using bridge.

[Václav]

Another request: connecting elevated ways using bridge.

Sometime it would be useful - but on other hand, you need ways with the same graphics - else it does not look good.

[The Hood]

Personally I feel it would be best if we did away with the distinction and just had elevated ways, building them rather like underground mode, and the appropriate pillars/slopes just got added in automatically.

[Ters]

I agree with The Hood. It would open up for many possibilities: curved bridges, forking bridges, bridges that are higher in the middle where ships can pass under (not that Simutrans cares, yet anyway). Just retain a tool that builds simple straight bridges just like we still have a tool for simple straight tunnels. That should preserve ease of play for beginners. Compatibility with existing pak sets is however am issue I haven't thought much about, and which may or may not be a problem.

However, not all kinds of bridges would realistically be able to support an extra level. Some flag would solve that, but it would likely default to prohibit for all existing paks.

Sometime it would be useful - but on other hand, you need ways with the same graphics - else it does not look good.

Not necessarily. For anything but very short bridges, there should perhaps be special graphics for the tile at the end of the bridge. Even today it looks odd when some bridges are connected straight onto elevated ways or cliffs.

[Václav]

Even today it looks odd when some bridges are connected straight onto elevated ways or cliffs.

If there is lack of objects suitable for using them in this way.
Some types of bridges are not suitable for this - but still, sometime it is only one way.

But there is a problem of space below bridges and elevated ways. It is not rare, that below elevated way or bridge appears building that is higher than elevated way. I had idea to set order real_height that this problem could solve at least a partly.

[neroden]

Personally I feel it would be best if we did away with the distinction and just had elevated ways, building them rather like underground mode, and the appropriate pillars/slopes just got added in automatically.

The key problem is building "end slope" pieces.  Currently you cannot easily build those with elevated ways.

However, there are a lot of other questions to answer when rewriting this code.

* I have suggested previously that the bridges and tunnels should be separated from the ways, so that you can retrofit a bridge from a road bridge to a rail bridge by taking up the asphalt and putting down tracks.

* Vaclav's point about the "real height" of buildings is important.

* In simutrans-experimental, various types of bridges have length limits, while elevated ways can't be built over deep water or at great heights.  I'm not sure how to reimplement this  sort of stuff if we remove the traditional "bridge".

* The pillars for bridges, and for elevated ways, can look very odd when they stand on top of (and appear to block) other ways.  The correct solution is really to allow pillars to be "skipped" where they would block ways underneath.  It is already possible to click on a pillar to delete it, but the deletion isn't saved.  Fixing this would require tracking pillar locations more carefully,...

* Thinking along the same lines, it would be nice to have the possibility of a tunnel mouth which comes out of a vertical wall and can be built on top of.

I may do a major reinvention of the bridge/tunnel system at some point, but I have a lot of other projects which come first...

[Václav]

* Vaclav's point about the "real height" of buildings is important.

Thanks for support.

It looks really strange when building height one tile (all buildings have at least one tile) appears below bridge elevated only one tile. But on other hand it would be good if there some buildings could be built - at least some parks. They mostly don't use minimum height of one tile fully - and so they would appear below bridges elevated one tile above land.

So, for this would be good if in dat file could be line with at least partial specification of building's height.

[kierongreen]

I have got a longer term plan to combine elevated ways and bridges also...

[Ters]

* I have suggested previously that the bridges and tunnels should be separated from the ways, so that you can retrofit a bridge from a road bridge to a rail bridge by taking up the asphalt and putting down tracks.

While sometimes nice, it doesn't always make sense. Certain bridges have a very tight intergration with the "road surface", especially aqueducts.

* Vaclav's point about the "real height" of buildings is important.

Long time annoyance that should be relatively easy to fix.

* In simutrans-experimental, various types of bridges have length limits, while elevated ways can't be built over deep water or at great heights.  I'm not sure how to reimplement this  sort of stuff if we remove the traditional "bridge".

Depth restrictions should be easy to handle. Just add it as a parameter for the foundations and set it to zero for typical elevated ways. For length, one could do a search along the bridge and count the tiles until land or the limit is reached, or even some type of foundation that can act as land. (For the latter, you could have free spans of one or two tiles, then you need a tower, followed by another span.) Could be complex/expensive, especially since elevated ways (and with this also bridges) allows intersections.

* The pillars for bridges, and for elevated ways, can look very odd when they stand on top of (and appear to block) other ways.  The correct solution is really to allow pillars to be "skipped" where they would block ways underneath.  It is already possible to click on a pillar to delete it, but the deletion isn't saved.  Fixing this would require tracking pillar locations more carefully,...

Skipped pillars can also look odd. With a tile based bridge building, there could be special foundations for passing over roads, but this only works for right angles. For diagonals and other complex designs, the game might need more pilars to choose from. On the other hand, some pillars should really block, that is occupy the ground tile (and every other z value up to the bridge, and perhaps a bit beyond, but not the bridge deck itself of course).