Triple Track Rail (TTR) is Coming!

[dedgren 830]

The Railway Addon Mod (RAM) team is pleased to announce the planned release during the first half of this year of Set 1 of TTR.

Development of this new addition to the SC4 rail transit menu has been underway since 2009, but is proceeding in earnest since the first of the year.

For updated information on TTR progress and to watch for beta testing opportunities, check in over at Three Rivers Region [linkie]. See you there!

David

[Will13 2]

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOL

[Jazzmaster 716]

Great!

I'm sure this information will come later, but I'd love to know a couple basic things...such as how involved will the first set be (what types of intersections with other networks will be doable, how is diagonal vs orthogonal functionality, will there be FARR pieces, etc.). Also, it seems this new network oveRRide ( ) will only take up one tile, is that true as well? In any case, my urban railways are going to get some upgrades when this is released. Cheers!

[emperordaniel 1,281]

*drools over new upcoming release*

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

Whoa!This is an amazing project!

[Ferrariguy1000 43]

Will there be stations deticated to TTR?

And I'm not sure if this is possible, but any plans for a Quad Track Rail?

[pahs1994 6]

Im not a mod person, but i think Quad track would probably have to be a two tile wide network. so why not just drag two double rails side by side?

Edit: well i guess higher capacity on one network would be one reason to do that now that i think of it...

  Edited January 16, 2012 by pahs1994  

[Jazzmaster 716]

Im not a mod person, but i think Quad track would probably have to be a two tile wide network. so why not just drag two double rails side by side?

Edit: well i guess higher capacity on one network would be one reason to do that now that i think of it...

Quad track, if implemented, will probably be a single tile network.

There's already textures for quad track on the STEX (look up Railyard Textures by North Country Dude) and the four parallel track textures only take a single tile, although they take up a great deal of it.

[Lucario Boricua 7,028]

While using four tracks on a single tile may work for orthogonal situations, the diagonals may not look appropriate that way--I'd rather have it with two tiles. Remember that larger traffic networks will need ampler space to the sides for safety reasons. Now, one thing any of these multiple track arrangements may need is the track switches--that may be the complicated part.

[dedgren 830]

Back again.

@Dragonxander- TTR will use entirely puzzle piece-based switches.

It takes anywhere from a half hour to several hours to build a puzzle piece, and there are about 40 in the initial set. It is a single tile override-based network otherwise, and ortho and diagonal stretches of track are fully draggable.

There's a lot more info on progress over at 3RR [linkie], where we are closing in on our millionth page view. See you there!

David

[bwong 36]

Fantastic stuff!

Looks like I should start BATing TTR-compatible stations

[Alejandro24 575]

Oh yeah! Finally, great news, I like it. Is just what I was waiting for.

[dedgren 830]

Another puzzle piece completed.

And another.

Getting it down to a routine now. We'll be looking for beta testers in not too long.

David

  Edited January 30, 2012 by dedgren  

[bwong 36]

W00T! (forgive my multiple useless posts here)

[dedgren 830]

Quite a few more puzzle pieces completed as of today. Here's a few.

There's always more to see over at 3RR [linkie]. See you there!

David

[Jazzmaster 716]

Looking good! I suppose the stations for these won't be so hard to make since they don't technically have to be transit enabled...they just have to touch the tracks. The platforms would have to be moved around a bit but that's just some simple LE work, plus there's always the possibility of having one line towards the outside to add a little variation.

But in any event, I don't want to clog up this thread with my ramblings, I'm just a little excited since I'm such a huge railroad geek.

  Edited February 4, 2012 by Yoshiisland  

[packersfan 666]

Nice, always good to see new and interesting things...I mean we this all the time in real life...you know the number one problem for anyone trying to make the NEXT simcity? Competing with all the amazing stuff you dedicated guys have come up with.

[RobertLM78 1,597]

I'd really like to see this happen, but unfortunately I don't know a thing about NAM 'under the hood'. 

[Tarkus 6,932]

The last post here was almost six years ago, which is quite a long time for a bump.

I suppose since this thread has washed ashore again, it would be worth mentioning what the status is here.  Triple-Track Rail (TTR) hit a reef over pathing/automata "track-jumping" behavior back in 2012, in the wake of the development shown above.  There was another brief attempt to revive it by doing the pathing a bit differently in 2013, which showed at least some promise, but at the same time, the RealRailway (RRW) specifications were also gaining traction.  TTR is not really on the radar on the RRW side, as there's been no firm specification decided for it.  The NAM Team is also done releasing Maxis Rail content, so the earlier TTR prototype will not be revisited.

-Tarkus

[RobertLM78 1,597]

2 hours ago, Tarkus said:

Triple-Track Rail (TTR) hit a reef over pathing/automata "track-jumping" behavior back in 2012, in the wake of the development shown above.

That's unfortunate to hear.... hehehe - though I wonder if the jumping could have been any worse than this (which is pretty bad, in all honesty )??:

 

[Eggman121 1,035]

If TTR was to come into development it would be a 2 tile network with Diagonals using the dual diagonal Piece.

As @Tarkus mentioned above the pathing issue is really the sticking point here.

I have tried my best to try to mitigate path jumping but to do that one has to make sure exits and entrances of the paths exit on dedicated tile sides and that is not an easy feat.

-eggman121 (NAM Team Member)

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

You could have only the outer tracks carry automata, leaving the center track as eye-candy path insulation. What would be especially cool is if there were a way to say, right-click on TTR and select cars/engines to sit on the center track looking pretty.

[kschmidt 6,164]

Eyecandy, triple track would be nice on the El networkss aswell as in real there be a express track in between the slow up-down town tracks. Most El do have one like Newyork !