andreharv

TL;DR? Me will add In-Game road customization menu. Me will add more options. Me will be open to more road suggestions. Hey yall. Just chillin at work about to shovel some coal into the hype train and let you guys know about the NExT update! (I will light the coal when I get home and share some prototype pics :D) This update will include some things I have been wanting to add to this mod for a couple years now (literally) and now with help from the newer CS updates and knowledge gained through the last MOM update, it will one day (hopefully soon) come to pass. In short, I will be adding a GUI system which will allow for an open ended plethora of road customizations. For now, I will simply call it the "Road Tool". Currently, if someone wants to make any alteration to a road (with the exception of add/remove props or pillars), they would need to create a new road with the alterations (grass, barriers, etc) and put an icon on the appropriate menu. While these slightly altered roads are not memory or performance taxing (as they reuse most of another road...if done correctly), the main problem is that they quickly fill the menus with slight alterations fluff and people generally cannot find what they want. In place of new road icons, for say grass or tree variations of a road, the Road Tool will add toggles that will help you style the road you picked from the vanilla menu, based on what is available. For example, selecting the vanilla 4 lane ave (with median), you could potentially toggle between: parking extra pavement bike*maybe* bus*maybe* elevated and bridge types still considering whether paved vs painted median variations should remain menu items or GUI toggles insert frustrating variation idea here Additional pleasant speculations? The Road Tool will retrofit vanilla roads cuz...why not. The Road Tool options will appear based on the current elevation type of the road selected (ground, elevated, bridge, etc). There will probably already be tabs to separate these types like in the road editor but pgup/pgdn to the elevation will bring you there for convenience sake (yell if you don't like this). Unavailable options will be grayed out based on the initial road selected (extra pavement would not be available if the initial road lacked parking spaces, for example). The variation options will be split between the vanilla menu and Road Tool to prevent either from being overloaded with customizations (more on this later). Additional caveats...uhh...speculations? While the Road Tool will be optional, disabling it will hide any options that do not already have an icon in the vanilla menu (because there is no way I am making icons for all these options). Placed roads using the Road tool will not be affected if the Road Tool is disabled. Customization suggestions you make for future updates must be largely universal to be considered. I will not consider customization options that only benefit one or two roads. The idea is more for sweeping alterations. Bus, Bike, and Tram options (if ever made available) will require their respective expansion packs. NExT bus roads predate After Dark but they required T++ which is no longer supported. C'mon people, about 15usd will get you both snowfall and after dark (like 7 something each...or a fancy dinner for 2 at McDonalds). Don't be cheap. This update may push me away from releasing individual Road Assets as it increases the dependence of the individual roads on the NExT mod and to each other. If you want more controls over which roads are available you always have the mod opti...oh wait it's broken. I'm gonna fix the mod options, yall! Oh yeah...there's another upcoming feature I have in the works. Y'all will love it...buuuut I'll let you know more later today when I have pictures...I'm at work now so I gotta do like work and stuff.

I copied the wrong mesh folder for the update last night. I 'think' I corrected it. Had to do update on the fly this morning. See if it is better now.

New Year, New MOM The MOM update version 7.0 has been fixed and is ready to go! For those who need a refresher: New Track UI which allows users to mix and match the following options: Modern (formerly concrete) Style / Classic (formerly steel) Style Single Track / Double Track Oneway / Twoway New station types (ground, elevated) as well as rendered underground stations for new track types Introducing island platform station track and rendered metro station Introducing single underground station track and dual underground stations Slope and tunnel for Classic (formerly steel) Style tracks with optional center supports Underground station UI now has slider for Bending Underground Stations Improved underground station pathing algorithm. Rendered metro station tunnels now have cims enter by the stairs and not as much through the wall (lol). Better overall compatability with metro station assets. New ground/elevated station track UI which allows changing between Modern and Classic track styles for plopped stations New Classic Pillars as well as elevation specific pillars for classic pillars. We may also include 'pillar props' option that will allow for props modeled as pillars to be placed between existing pillars so that there are not large gaps between pillars as has always seemed the case. *Proven to be a lot of work and it is not worth prolonging this release. May revisit later. Bloody Penguin's MOM patch will be baked in. (As promised) pricing will be comparable to Passenger train pricing New classic bridge type, 'Pony Plate Girder Bridge' for Classic Style Known issues: Multi perpendicular tracks tend to 'helecopter' and are unchangable Lights not in correct position in classic tunnel

Yes, TAM is no longer in development. Network Extensions 2 is where all further development will go, for the time being. Welcome back.

Good point. I guess that makes sense. I admit I haven't spent a ton of time using the tool but for tram/bike/bus road variations, single road assets are perfect.

lol hence me feeling bad ALL THE TIME! lol jk. Sometimes setting deadlines is a good way to stay on track and not forget your path to success. The ultimate goal of this project is to allow users to enjoy metro at least as much as rail and roads (which is hardly the case). It brings us great satisfaction to know that our little creations can bring playability and realism to this game. @wasmic Don't worry. It's been nearly a year since our last update and I have been working on this project, for the most part, since then. Nothing is hard and fast for a ETA and we have not spared any details for this next release (except for a couple things that would push things back significantly further). I can speak for everyone on this team when I say we love what we do :). Thanks guys for your unreal patience...The team is literally having fun building this mod while yall wait for us to be done lol. Stay tuned...

Fair enough. Short answer, 2-3 weeks Longer answer: I am currently on a business trip but I am still feverishly working. About 2 weeks ago @Tim The Terrible and I decided to stop working on new stuff and get this release out already...When it is all said and done, here is what to expect (bold stuff is new): New Track UI which allows users to mix and match the following options: Modern (formerly concrete) Style / Classic (formerly steel) Style Single Track / Double Track Oneway / Twoway New station types (ground, elevated) as well as rendered underground stations for new track types Introducing island platform station track and rendered metro station Introducing single underground station track and dual underground stations Slope and tunnel for Classic (formerly steel) Style tracks with optional center supports Underground station UI now has slider for Bending Underground Stations Improved underground station pathing algorithm. Rendered metro station tunnels now have cims enter by the stairs and not as much through the wall (lol). Better overall compatability with metro station assets. New ground/elevated station track UI which allows changing between Modern and Classic track styles for plopped stations New Classic Pillars as well as elevation specific pillars for classic pillars. We may also include 'pillar props' option that will allow for props modeled as pillars to be placed between existing pillars so that there are not large gaps between pillars as has always seemed the case. *Proven to be a lot of work and it is not worth prolonging this release. May revisit later. Bloody Penguin's MOM patch will be baked in. (As promised) pricing will be comparable to Passenger train pricing *EDIT* Forgot to mention, will have new bridge type, 'Pony Plate Girder Bridge' for Classic Style Sorry but caternaries will not make this update, sad to say. I will be working with @Tim The Terrible to get those out in a timely-er fashion.

lol I will *EDIT* After looking this over, there is a vertical offset to the tracks themselves that I had not set. This will be corrected in the next update so @jasonsmithgoat nothing needs to be done on your end.

@Tim The Terrible I mean I have not personally tried this but the current Metropolitan Depot is simply a metro building. Try remodeling it in the asset editor...Looking forward to seeing what you come up with

I'm pretty sure that is the first time I have ever, and may ever hear a depot being judged based on it's beauty...I mean it is a depot...which is pretty much summarized as a dirty sketchy industrial building used mainly for servicing/building dirty vehicles by day and comic book skirmishes by night. But as @Bad Peanut has already mentioned, depots are just a type of building (like a train station or hospital) so people can choose to make newer sexier buildings that do the same kinda thing. Otherwise depots are here to stay

Duly noted

@BadPeanut Nah. Only underground paths are removed. Even partially underground paths (one node in and one node out) will be saved. For stations that do not apply (and do not have the station selection UI pop up) their paths will stay intact. Good question. @wasmic The metro will be more expensive than rail as it is more versatile (offering widespread above and underground stops). In addition, at least in the US, metros/light rail are at least 2x more expensive than commuter rail as discussed HERE. I'm not going to follow those same proportions as that would be rather silly in game. A slider may be a bit much...unless there were sliders for the other transit types as well which would be another mod altogether.

Latest on the crazy stuff I have been cooking up. May not seem like a big deal but it drove me half crazy figuring this out. Anyway, from the underground metro station customization menu, you can now choose from side platform, island platform, or dual-single stations. I will probably add a single-single option as well. For this to work properly, I had to abandon the ped connection generator I had and create a new one. This time, it removes almost all of the ped connections in the station and procedurally redraws them based on the location and direction of the existing (and generated) underground station tracks. This will dramatically cut down on the number of incompatible or erroring metro stations. In addition, (not tested) creating a metro station will be a lot easier with this mod installed. Just model your station, place a single ped connection leading cims into the entrance and then draw your tracks...the mod 'should' do the rest. I will have to test this to make sure I'm not missing something. Last but definitely not least, cims will now enter and exit station tracks using the stairs (rather than clipping through the wall). I just have a few misc track junctions to model, revise some LODs, and we will be ready. Stay tuned *EDIT* Also, talked with @BloodyPenguin and we have decided to GREATLY reduce the cost of the metro. It will still be more expensive than rail but now you probably won't need unlimited money anymore lol. If you like the pricing of the metro or you like the challenge it brings, please petition here and I will add original pricing as an option.

@wasmic Thanks. I will have to fix that track. Anyway guys, here are some teasers of what I am working on now. Inching closer to an update!

Looks amazing! Well I took the hint...One way two lane tracks coming up. (Stations tracks are technically already two way in each lane so I may not need to alter those). So keep it up. I will work around you .

The ped paths will be 2x 3m ped paths. I think I could make it 1x 6m if that works better...

I will increase the platform width to 6m. Tram platform stations that will soon be featured in NEAT will be 4m. Sound good?

Ok. It 's 14m (for a 4m platform)

Just an update on what I am working on now. Underground platform stations are another option on the subway customization menu. Ground and elevated island platform station tracks will be available to asset creators. And of course single tracks. Should I make a two way version? People really seem to like the two way single rail track so...Anyway, just a 10 second teaser...Oh yeah and a few fixes from @BloodyPenguin and myself. Hope to get this out soon...stay tuned.

Awesome! I will look into this. Ideally I would like to have a tool that allows users to choose where they want the tracks to be but I will have to flesh out the feasibility of this. Thanks for sharing.

Oh...thought that ped crossing was part of the station...gotcha

Thanks for sharing! I see that on one side of the road there is a small 'island for passengers to wait on the tram in the center of the road. However one side (on the left) seems to have passengers waiting on the pavement and crossing to board the tram...So I will consider it. Problem is that even if I did want to do this, I don't know if I can separate the gathering place from the boarding place by that much space in the game...But for your troubles I can look into it as a possible option.

Loving the discussion. Just a point of clarification. I was only speaking for one tram road. The first road I am retrofitting is the small avenue because it appears to be one of the most widely used NExt road used today. Other roads will have different configurations. It would actually be preferable to have tram in the median as this is the way it is currently implemented on larger multi-lane road. For the examples I looked at in Toronto, Berlin, Helsinki, and a couple other places, it looked like for similar roads, the stations were still on island platforms in the middle of the road which is simply not possible with the 4 lane ave (4x 3m lanes + 2x 2m sidewalks = 16m) and I did not see a single example of a stop being on the side pavement and the actual tram stop in the middle of the road (please send examples of this). Main takeaway is that the configuration pictured above is for this particular road (4 lane small avenue). There will be many other roads that will have other/optional configurations.

While it may be possible, I am not going to do it that way. At least not for this road. Reason being that if cims have to cross the street then you are potentially jamming up multiple lanes for each tram stop whereas leaving the stop on the side potentially just jams up one lane. TBH I will know for sure as I am making it (that's kinda how these things go)

@ghosty20: Stay tuned @charlesnew: Thanks. I know I am probably making CO money by doing these but I def wouldn't if it wasn't so fun. Get the EP. Most places have it for less than $10. @FilipposRoads: That was my first thought until I realized there would be no way to place a station because there is no space for a platform. I don't want to restrict people. HOWEVER, this is a situation where a road customizer would be nice because it would allow you to choose to place the road in the center but lose the ability to place stations on said road. What do you think? @poshbakerloo:I have literally been chipping at this issue for over a year now...I have created a highway like you are referring to which is one road that plops a strip of grass or median or whatever in all the intersections so it appears that the road continues. This game does not allow you to set that so you have to make it work. I got stuck on restricting the paths (no left turns for right hand driving). Pathfinding is the last thing on my list of headaches to sort out.