Highway Starter Pieces (transitions, ramps, interchanges, etc.)

[MagicChicken19 43]

So I've seen that the 3-way highway interchange piece (however badly flawed it is), has been modded into player use. No one really likes it, and UDoN definitely has much cooler options for interchanges, but still, its nice to dream for more! I'm not a coder, so I just wanted to throw some ideas out there, and see if it sticks.

1) Would it be possible to mod in some more standard interchanges (maybe a 4-way? maybe avenue to highway? maybe UDoN highway to Regional Highway?). I imagine there may be a way to use the codding in the 3-way interchange and just adapt the cosmetics and the end pieces to make it look right ... yeah?

2) Would it be possible to mod in some starter pieces for ramps? This is a very SC4ish request, but the UDoN ramps-to-highways have just enough imperfections to catch my eye every time. On top of that, creating that perfect "merge" angle is tedious task. I imagine (again, I'm not a coder), that the code of the same 3-way regional interchange could be used and altered to make UDoN placable ramps?

Thanks guys, I absolutely LOVE the work you do, and hope to see more of it. It's really opened up so much for me, and I can't thank you enough!

[TheCraftKid 52]

NONONONONONO - It already sounds too SimCity 4-ish!

Sorry for the negativity, (and realism) but since you're not a coder, (don't mean to sound like an ass) you don't get the fundamentals with the engine of the game.

 

If we cracked the code (play on words) behind the pre-fab interchange, maybe, and I mean just maybe, we could actually fabricate some tests and see if plop-able roads add-ons are possible. I'll be very frank, though: that's extremely unlikely in the 1% accuracy range. It's not as easy as "re-coding" and "re-adapting."

Customizable pre-fab is already impossible, though. The Plop-able Interchange Mod by CapTon showed that even the Maxis interchange could only be plopped in direction, and we don't know much about making spline-based networks plop-able.

 

When someone asks if we can... say... Make a new building, it's not as easy as modeling a building and plopping it into the game. Someone has to make a lot texture, raster files, import the model into SCP, which takes a couple steps on its own, make a menu item for said item, and configure the in-game lot function for that said item.

UDoNs are even harder! They need not only menu items, but a lot of other stuff we are really just copying from Maxis and don't know how it functions. Lane configuration, path configuration, special properties which define a certain road and etc. are needed to make UDoNs function. I didn't know the complexity of the game until I looked under the hood in SCP and tried to see how easy it was to mod.

 

Why would you need starter pieces, though? You can already drag the network you want with no overrides necessary! The intersections probably won't get any major overhauls, but some cosmetic things might be done, if possible.

 

It's very nice you came with this humble request. We (the SUGC modders) thank you for using UDoN and loving what the community has done, but this request is on a highway to impossible with no exits within a hundred miles.

 

TL;DR: We can't really "mod" something which has no template.

[MagicChicken19 43]

Thanks for the feedback anyways. Like I said, I know nothing of what's possible, just figured I throw ideas out there. TBH, I kinda like the adaptability of making my own ramps, its just the aesthetics of the merge itself that bugged me ever so slightly (ie, no merge lane, ramps going over sidewalks) and the transition between certain pieces (ie. regional highway to ramps or really anything non-avenue). I'm sure its low priority, but if that's a "maybe one day" idea, that'd still be awesome!

Thanks again for all the hard work! I keep telling myself I'm going to post screenies of my work with the tools you guys have given, but I just cant' stop building new stuff! :-P

 

edit: and I just realized, I prolly shoulda put the original request in the "mod request thread" ... my bad

[TheCraftKid 52]

I love the customization of UDoNs, and I would never go to pre-fabs.

 

Xoxide and others who coded UDoNs sort of had to fudge the game to get the paths to work, so the intersections are unlikely to change without an engine overhaul.

 

Thank you for just making the request, even though it was a bit futile. This type of interaction drives the community forward, and we need more of this!