Why isn't there a One-way "STREET"

[EarnestErnest 4]

Attempting to create a realistic city, I would need to create low-density neighbors with one-way streets.In my city (and probably in many many others in the rest of the world) one-way streets as one-way roads are used. I know that streets don't generally lead to congestion, the reason I think Maxis did't bother to make a one-way version.. but as I said, I am attempting to create a realistic city...

I could not find any DLC that featured one-way streets. Do you know where to find it? Or how difficult would it be to create a mod for it?

Regards

[rsc204 21,808]

The simplest way would be to use one of the SAM slots to create a new OWR network, but that's going to be a PITA because they will require new paths to work in one direction only.

Is there a reason you need both OWR Roads and OWR Streets? Wouldn't one just be a cosmetic version of the other, i.e. functionally identical? As such, I'd stick with the original OWR, but if you needed them to look like streets, consider overriding the base OWR textures with streets. That would be a lot less work, since you could re-use some existing textures, but still no small feat unless you know what you're doing.

[matias93 7,535]

I second that interest!

Putting the idea on other terms, it would be possible to create a SAM override for the one way road, or more precisely, it is a reasonable task? 

[BugeyedDragon 412]

it would be nice to have streets connecting to neighbors, and perhaps better support for smoother curves with the SAM.

one way streets are nice too, down in belmar in nj the neighbors have one way streets.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

I have an interest in a similar way.

I'd like to have the SAM brick and cobblestone textures be able to overwrite Roads. Then I could have my dirt Streets thru the farm grounds and my tiny towns could have higher capacity brick (or cobblestone) Roads.

[rsc204 21,808]

1 hour ago, matias93 said:

Putting the idea on other terms, it would be possible to create a SAM override for the one way road, or more precisely, it is a reasonable task? 

Honestly, no. The reason SAM works is because the street network comprises of little more than 80-odd textures per SAM mod. Bear in mind each part of the RUL code needs to be duplicated for each SAM network (from the Streets), along with new paths, T21s and textures.

Take it from someone who's made two complete SAM mods, SAM doesn't really work for other networks, because once you hit a large number of pieces, it presents scaling issues. So it's very unlikely there will ever be an equivalent of SAM for any other NAM network.

1 hour ago, BugeyedDragon said:

it would be nice to have streets connecting to neighbors, and perhaps better support for smoother curves with the SAM.

You can already make Street Neighbour connections, they just require a little workaround. Smooth curves for SAM is being worked on, but I'm not sure where that's up to. Although it should make it to a future NAM release.

Quote

one way streets are nice too, down in belmar in nj the neighbors have one way streets.

This really comes back to my first point, what exactly is a One Way Street? Isn't a One Way Road the same thing? Just because SC4 uses Streets and Roads as separate items, they are really the same. So if you want a One Way system, what does it matter if it's streets or roads? It could be done, but don't hold your breath for anyone in the NAM team to make such a thing. We don't really do redundancy like this. To make a complete new network, just to have a second texture option is a serious ton of work.

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

I'd like to have the SAM brick and cobblestone textures be able to overwrite Roads

There's plenty of ways you could make such a thing happen. But the key issue is that SAM has 80 or so textures, but Roads need many, many more. So you'd have to cover all those pieces that don't currently have textures. In principle it's quite doable, but it would require a degree of dedication and ability with textures to achieve. Not to mention, ideally you'd want to port over the pathing and T21s to keep the alignments correct, although that's just re-IDing files.

I think the real point of all these requests is simply this. Unless someone wants these things for their own game, I wouldn't expect them to be created. Such mods are really lots of work, they almost necessitate a labour of love attitude to complete. So if you really want such a mod, the most likely way it will happen is to learn how and dedicate yourself to the task.

[EarnestErnest 4]

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Is there a reason you need both OWR Roads and OWR Streets? Wouldn't one just be a cosmetic version of the other, i.e. functionally identical?

 

24 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

This really comes back to my first point, what exactly is a One Way Street? Isn't a One Way Road the same thing? Just because SC4 uses Streets and Roads as separate items, they are really the same. So if you want a One Way system, what does it matter if it's streets or roads? It could be done, but don't hold your breath for anyone in the NAM team to make such a thing. We don't really do redundancy like this. To make a complete new network, just to have a second texture option is a serious ton of work.

Well, streets are functionally different than roads.
1- They generate less traffic noise and are suitable for low-density residential zones(these won't complain at streets, but will at roads)
2- Cost and Maintenance
3- Allow less traffic density?

I didn't imagine it would take a lot of work. I do not know how to mod these things, but I thought that you could simply clone the one-way road "file", change the texture and force one direction, and clone the other street's properties.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

I think the real point of all these requests is simply this. Unless someone wants these things for their own game, I wouldn't expect them to be created. Such mods are really lots of work, they almost necessitate a labour of love attitude to complete. So if you really want such a mod, the most likely way it will happen is to learn how and dedicate yourself to the task.

Yep. I kind of figured that'd be the option I'd have to do if I want them. I did look into the .dat files a wee bit enough to know it'll have to be way in the future before I tackle it. The two mods I've done so far were relatively easy in comparison.

Once I know better specific questions to ask, I'll pester you again. Prolly in a year or more.

[matias93 7,535]

A relatively easy way to do this could be to simply replace OWR textures with concrete-themed ones (extra skill for changing the road width, including the alphas for sidewalks) using Rivit's GoFSH (its user manual even includes instructions to change networks textures) and an image editor (photoshop, paint dot net, etc). The result could go from seamless with maxis strets to an improved, more realistic design, even to a thematic texture as cobblestones.

Now, the issue is, all OWR would be automatically changed to the newer textures, so while they would match well with small residential neighbourhoods, they would look arkward on more urban and modern environments. An useful countermeasure would be to use NWM OWR on those cases, which would keep the asphalt look, but are less flexible, particularly lacking smooth curves on puzzle pieces.

[Tarkus 6,932]

The idea that's been floated in regard to One-Way Streets has been to convert the NWM's 1-lane One-Way Road (OWR-1) to use a non-OWR base.  There is one functional benefit to this, in that it'd create capacity differentiation, which is something we aim to do with any additional network widths.  We're generally not satisfied with mere eyecandy.  However, you would lose access to the tidal flow system that exists with the OWR network by default--rather than simply dragging the network in the opposite direction to flip its direction, you'd have to completely demolish and re-build it. (I'll add that the tidal flow is also the reason that the OWR does not have traffic signals, except with the SITAP workaround we introduced in NAM 34.)

We actually proposed conversion of the OWR-1 to a Street-based OWS-1 on a couple occasions.  However, the last time it was received intense public discussion, back in 2010 in the NWM thread at SC4D, it received a mixed response, which led to the idea being moved down the list.  The biggest issue was the fact that the Street network does not natively support diagonals, which would require use of the NAM's helper pieces or draggable workaround, in addition to the loss of the tidal flow.  SAM interaction also has the potential to be very complicated, and worst case scenario, we may have to completely re-implement SAM intersection functionality.  It's an unknown, as we've never actually created a prototype for an OWS-1.

The other proposal that has been floated is conversion to a Road-based network.  This would still allow functional differentiation (to a lesser degree) and diagonal support, and avoid the potential SAM conflicts, but you'd still lose tidal flow.  A similar idea has also been considered for the OWR-4 as well, as it'd also kill the crossover path issues that the automata obsessed love to complain about.

If you're wanting neighbor connections, it's presently a no-go, even if we switch to a Road base, due to the pathing.  It'd require a solution similar to what we've done with the RHW, but more complicated.

-Tarkus

[APSMS 1,892]

6 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I have an interest in a similar way.

I'd like to have the SAM brick and cobblestone textures be able to overwrite Roads. Then I could have my dirt Streets thru the farm grounds and my tiny towns could have higher capacity brick (or cobblestone) Roads.

If you are willing to accept that Roads will never have a SAM-like setup, and therefore can only ever show one texture set at once, PM @vortext about the idea. I'm sure he will be able to help you out, or at least give you a heads up.

Check out this thread for why

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 hour ago, APSMS said:

Check out this thread for why

Amazing. And this explanation by @rsc204 intrigues me as well:

Quote

... if I am following correctly Erik has used different road textures by assigning the cobblestone roads and rural variant different wealths, you could in theory have 4 different road textures and still be able to utilise all the FAR/WRC pieces too, if you can keep the adjacent wealths in check, nice  .

 

But, I'm just getting my toes wet and gathering ideas and linkys. While I might pursue this someday in the future, it's not as pressing on my learning agenda as other things. Thanks for the great linky.

[Tarkus 6,932]

Jumping back in here:

8 hours ago, EarnestErnest said:

I didn't imagine it would take a lot of work. I do not know how to mod these things, but I thought that you could simply clone the one-way road "file", change the texture and force one direction, and clone the other street's properties.

Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple.  There is no single "file" for the One-Way Road (OWR), or for any other transportation network.  Their implementation is scattered throughout the game's files, with some aspects being accessible, and others hardcoded and buried in the dark recesses of the executable, including the actual bits of the game that instantiate the new networks.  The tidal flow mechanism that allows one to flip the direction of an existing One-Way Road by simply dragging part of it the other way is one of the hardcoded things.

While we cannot add truly "new" networks, we have successfully been able to fake it through the use of "starter piece" technology, which has been deployed as part of the Network Addon Mod (NAM) since the introduction of Draggable Ground Light Rail in the Version 21 release (June 2007).  Essentially, this technique involves creating some sort of syntactically valid but normally unbuildable network tile, and then using the mechanism originally intended for building highway interchanges to place this unbuildable setup as a piece.  A normal network, usually referred to as the base network in this situation, can then be dragged through this unbuildable setup, transforming it into something else--an override network--provided enough RUL2 code (a game-specific code type for handling network overrides). 

The override network inherits the properties of the base network, including any underlying tidal flow or auto-connect mechanisms, zone support, diagonal support, neighbor connection support, and capacity and speed.  We did actually find a method to boost capacity (by tricking the traffic simulator), and it is possible to path an override network to have one-way traffic while its base network is two-way (however, the opposite cannot be done, at least with draggable functionality).  It's also possible to take an elevated network and make a ground variant, or vice-versa.  However, that's the limits of it, and there's no way for us to adjust the networks beyond that.  The only way we can give an override network a tidal flow is to use a One-Way Road base, and we can't drop the capacity of a network below what is specified in the Traffic Simulator.  Similarly, the only way we can get the "calm" of a Street is to use a Street base.  We can't create a draggable network that inherits both.  A Street with pathing in a single direction will inherit the qualities of that network, both desirable and undesirable.

There's currently 70 override networks included in the NAM, as of the current Version 34 release (December 2015), and it takes a lot of code to get them operational.  It doesn't take a ton to get base functionality in place (relatively speaking--it's still in the thousands of lines), but the adjacency cases cause exponential growth.  For instance, it's relatively simple to take a Road-based override network, and set it up such that the override carries through an intersection with a Street.  However, if the user decides to stick a Rail line right next to that Street on either side, the override will break, unless the situation of Override Network x Rail next to Road x Street is explicitly handled with its own code. 

The file that the game designates to handle RUL2 code was 1121 lines in length for vanilla SC4 Deluxe/Rush Hour.  The NAM 35 development build I have currently sits at 1,317,997 lines.  Unless we decide to shelve some features for NAM 36 or later, it'll certainly pass the 1.32 million mark by the time we get to release.

Also, for those of you who have been following the move away from static puzzle pieces, it's worth noting that FLEX pieces are really just larger, more exotic starter pieces that result from the accumulation of multiple unbuildable setups triggering overrides.

-Tarkus

[Fantozzi 4,067]

I never did try it - but couldn't be MIS Ramps (RHW) used for this purpose?

[APSMS 1,892]

@CorinaMarie If you are really interested in a Rural Road setup, PEG has some interesting stuff. It's outdated; it hasn't been updated or maintained since at least NAM v30 (IIRC), but it may work barring the newest features. Let me see if I can pull it up on the STEX/PLEX (or find it in my files; I think I downloaded it at some point)........

Hmm..... ah yes, it seems to be here:

It's not the most recent mod, and lacks support, but maybe you could even pass it off to Robin (or work on it with him and GoFSH) and bring it up to speed (or at least, NAM 34 compatibility). That would be pretty neat.

It's not cobblestone roads, but it is a proof of concept working version of that idea you were having.

@Tarkus Alex, at this point, I would be willing to accept @matias93 's idea of simply making the current OWR-1 with street based textures (i.e. concrete/light asphalt) and make the street itself wider (since OW-Streets are typically in residential areas). I know the textures would need to be made, but I think an interim solution of actually using the current street textures with model-based arrow overlays (the current method?) would work fine for me, and satisfy the low-capacity residential street illusion. I know, functionally, that it would be substantially different, but right now my main problem with OWR-1 is the fact that it lacks a MIS interface, is absurdly narrow (MIS being narrow makes sense, but OWR-1 doesn't), and doesn't match visually with the areas I'm most likely to use it in.

I know capacities are tile based, so of course a OWR-1 has the same capacity as the OWR-2 base network, but I think a big part of the NAM is visual functionality (GLR is mostly a cosmetic alteration, with a few additional user features compared to El-Rail, and the same can be said for a lot of the NWM networks as well; the differences are extremely subtle), and giving the OWR-1 street based textures would still make it narrower than the OWR-2 network, and make it appear to be the lower capacity network that it's designed to simulate.

  Edited August 13, 2016 by APSMS  
Added thoughts about OWR-1 cosmetics

[Tarkus 6,932]

1 hour ago, Fantozzi said:

I never did try it - but couldn't be MIS Ramps (RHW) used for this purpose?

The MIS has an even higher capacity than the base One-Way Road, and it cannot support residential zoning.

1 hour ago, APSMS said:

 

@Tarkus Alex, at this point, I would be willing to accept @matias93 's idea of simply making the current OWR-1 with street based textures (i.e. concrete/light asphalt) and make the street itself wider (since OW-Streets are typically in residential areas). I know the textures would need to be made, but I think an interim solution of actually using the current street textures with model-based arrow overlays (the current method?) would work fine for me, and satisfy the low-capacity residential street illusion. I know, functionally, that it would be substantially different, but right now my main problem with OWR-1 is the fact that it lacks a MIS interface, is absurdly narrow (MIS being narrow makes sense, but OWR-1 doesn't), and doesn't match visually with the areas I'm most likely to use it in.

I know capacities are tile based, so of course a OWR-1 has the same capacity as the OWR-2 base network, but I think a big part of the NAM is visual functionality (GLR is mostly a cosmetic alteration, with a few additional user features compared to El-Rail, and the same can be said for a lot of the NWM networks as well; the differences are extremely subtle), and giving the OWR-1 street based textures would still make it narrower than the OWR-2 network, and make it appear to be the lower capacity network that it's designed to simulate.

Durfsurn actually did make some prototype OWS-1 textures awhile ago, but they are the same width as the OWR-1 set, just gray like the Streets.  The design we used for the original OWR-1 was loosely based off a puzzle piece-based prototype that I believe GoaSkin did sometime in 2005-2006.

As far as MIS interface, do you mean an MIS-OWR-1 transition?  The texture's been around awhile, and I believe it's already in the .dat, though its activation has slipped through the cracks, in no small part because of the OWR-1's identity crisis.

-Tarkus

[rsc204 21,808]

@CorinaMarie I didn't think of it before, but perhaps you might want to speak with @vortext. He's made just about the most rural road/streets there are, albeit with a medieval theme in mind. Cobblestone roads are at the heart of this. Currently these files are not released publically, but I think you could get your hands on them if you ask nicely.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

@APSMS and @rsc204 Thank you both for your replies.

I have enough information to get started (at some point in the future). It's just the first couple of posts triggered my memory for this desire and so I posted. I feel, however, that I've unintentionally hijacked the original intent of this thread. For that I apologize.

 

[EarnestErnest 4]

@Tarkus oh  . Thanks for that description about modding. Now I can imagine the complexity of the solution needed. Hardcoded files are a put-off  for me. I Thought there was a special IDE to mod the game in an easier way. I guess I'll drop it then.
@CorinaMarie Nvm, no offence caused