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Sliced underground view and viaducts / elevated ways

Started by Lord Vetinari, November 04, 2009, 01:18:04 PM

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Lord Vetinari

I couldn't think to a better title, sorry.

In games like Locomotion or A-Train there is a usefull height level control which lets you build ways at any hight with a single way tool. I mean, choose the road or rail, choose the level, drag the way on the map and the game automatically keeps the way at the choosed height and adds pillars or foundations to the way when needed, depending on the ground surface.

Since now Simutrans supports the sliced view, is it possible to use it to achieve something similar?
It would be a major addition to the player's options as it will allow diagonal bridges and viaducts, bridges and tunnels starting and ending on orthogonal walls, etc.
Also, since the sliced view is optional, you can still choose the standard building system using the standard view.

prissi

Elevated ways are in sumutrans since some time already, but only as an addon (or for Monorail). Those are single height only (but can be stacked). Using the slice mode such constructions are possible, albeit the Locomotion roller coster chaos I would like to avoid.

The Hood

Quote from: prissi on November 04, 2009, 03:44:05 PM
Using the slice mode such constructions are possible, albeit the Locomotion roller coster chaos I would like to avoid.

Is it the huge mass of unrealistic elevated spaghetti junctions /tracks or the actual building method itself you refer to as chaos?  If the former, then the obvious solution to that is to make it so expensive to build double+ heights with curves/junctions that it isn't worthwhile unless you have bucketloads of cash...

Personally I'd be in favour of an expanded elevated track mode like Lord Vetinari suggests.

Lord Vetinari

I knew about the addon. Actually, the idea came because I was using it.

Maybe it's a problem for the AI that starts building strange viaducts, didn't though about that, but players can already make some horrible spaghetti junction; it just requires imagination and some terraforming.

I made this, for example:


VS

The chaos can be seen in quite a lot of screenshots...


My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

The Hood

@VS - That's what I meant, a picture paints a thousand words.  That tells me locomotion is balanced wrong, because there is no way that should be even slightly affordable...  But it isn't a problem with the concept of aerial building.

@Vetinari
Is it possible to start bridges like that then on elevated ways?  If so elevated ways are more flexible than I thought...

Lord Vetinari

#6
Quote from: The Hood on November 04, 2009, 05:01:03 PM@Vetinari
Is it possible to start bridges like that then on elevated ways?  If so elevated ways are more flexible than I thought...

Not really, but you can exploit a glitch (hope it won't be fixed, it's very usefull ;D):  you can terraform the area with the artificial slopes, drag the elevated ways over them and then destroy the artificial slopes without affecting the viaduct (normal terraforming tools won't work, though). So, first I built the tracks on the second level and the ramps, then I removed the slopes and built the ones at the standard height.
The same for the rail over bridge on the left side of the screenshot: you can't drag elevated ways over a bridge, but you can build a small stretch of land, drag the el, remove the land and build another standard bridge under the floating viaduct. I made a whole Chicago L-like network and avoided all the flat junctions with those tricks.

It worked in past versions as it's still doable in the last nightly.

A player ca already make that horrible mess in VS's screenshot (where is it gone, btw?), it's just a metter of patience.

EDIT, I forgot: a bridge requires at least a piece of standad ground track on at least one side, so you need to connect the elevated way to the ground before being able to use a bridge.
Usually I do this when I need to cross a river or a valley with an elevated way:



Viaducts on both side of the river, two artificial slopes on one side, ground road on the slopes. Then bridges start from both slopes and connect to the viaducts.

rsdworker

i think its good idea because the elevated is useful because you can create overhead railways or tramway or busways

Matthi205

I had that patch but I didn't use it because I needed bucketloads of money/freeplay mode,which both I don't wanna have ;D
The Green Mage of Darkness living in the summer hell and in the country where it snows till May with -21 *C  ;D