Can someone please explain the obscure curved-roads construction mechanism?

Home Forums Support Can someone please explain the obscure curved-roads construction mechanism?

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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  • #17765
    electricmonk2k
    Participant

    Hi,

    Whilst trying to build roads, I accidentally stumbled upon a hard-to-find mode for building curved roads. Whenever you start building a road where the purple start-node snaps into place, I found that depending on the position of the mouse-cursor relative to the position of the snapped start-node when the start of a drag takes place, the road will either be a straight road from A to B (with perhaps a very short curved part at the start), or a very curved road. I can’t figure out what the rule is for building curved roads – I keep experimenting by moving the mouse-cursor around once the node is snapped into place, and then making several attempts to drag the road until I see the right type of curve. I can’t figure out a pattern to this apart from starting the drag in the centre of the purple node is more likely to produce a straight segment. Is there a more precise explanation for this obscure road-curvature-mode that I’ve stumbled across? Is it just either straight or curved roads, or can I also control the degree of curvature? And so far, I’ve not observed similar behaviour when building a railway.

    #17766
    simonmd
    Participant

    I know what you mean, the road building tool acts totaly different to the rail one. You just have to be careful at what angle you drad the road out from the connection point. close to 90deg and you’ll get a straight road, pullit out at an angle either side and it will curve dramatically.

    #17776
    electricmonk2k
    Participant

    I was wondering if anyone had a more precise explanation that was based on how the game was supposed to work, rather than just experimentation. Also, are there just 3 modes (straight, left-curve and right-curve) or can the degree of curvature be controlled.

    IMO a better way of controlling the curvature would have been to directly manipulate the node-orientation. To do this, a smaller circle that resembles the end-node circle should be at a fixed distance from the end-node marker, and this smaller circle can be rotated round the big circle using the mouse to drag it round.

    #17789
    Person012345
    Participant

    I’m not sure if I understand what you’re asking, but if I do:

    Assume the box is an existing piece of road and you want to make a road going off to ahead and left. If you click the end of the road and move the cursor as on the left, you will end up with a sharp turn at the node and a straight road to the destination. If you move the cursor as on the right (forward until it snaps out and then up and to the left) you will get a curved road:

    #17791
    Person012345
    Participant

    Oh, and if you drag it to the left until it snaps out, then up, you’ll get a sharp left then a curve in the opposite direction.

    #17792
    Person012345
    Participant

    Each section curves depending on what angle you initially drag it out at (which one it snaps to) and where you’re going. To control how much the road curves in certain places you just do it section by section. Sorry for the triple post, for some reason it won’t let me edit my other ones.

    #17801
    electricmonk2k
    Participant

    I just tried experimenting by dragging the roads according to the arrows in Person012345’s diagram, and while most of the time it works, I still sometimes get a curved road even if I immediately drag diagonally (like with the first diagram). Maybe I’m actually dragging in a pattern similar to the second diagram but with a really small first arrow? Perhaps the true answer is a hybrid of our theories. But even so, each time I get the road to go in curved mode in one direction, the amount of curvature is always the same whenever I move the end-node to it’s final destination.

     

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