Development on version 2.x (Southern Scandinavia)

[jdenm8]

Is it necessary? Because when I drive over a custom interchange, there's always traffic in the merge lane, and they're not moving, they are trying to merge. Or there's a longer merge lane, so AI trucks go there, and after 50 metres they have to go back. And when the traffic actually merges from standstill, I have to slam the brakes if I'm not in the left/middle lane. It's really, really annoying.

This happens on the vanilla prefab interchanges too. Certain ones are notorious for this kind of behaviour.

[adgjl]

In the meantime a little teaser for Sweden
<awesome model>

Immediately recognisable from my holidays in Sweden!

[Bramzel]

Plykkegaard teasing his Willy:s sign, that sounds so wrong Great work nonetheless!

[MandelSoft]

Is it necessary? Because when I drive over a custom interchange, there's always traffic in the merge lane, and they're not moving, they are trying to merge. Or there's a longer merge lane, so AI trucks go there, and after 50 metres they have to go back. And when the traffic actually merges from standstill, I have to slam the brakes if I'm not in the left/middle lane. It's really, really annoying.

This happens on the vanilla prefab interchanges too. Certain ones are notorious for this kind of behaviour.

Indeed. Most of the standard prefabs we want to replace have these ridiculously short merging lanes. In fact, all of the interchanges in Scandinavia that aren't custom have ridiculous short merging lanes. In that regard there is no change there. Something that has been positively changed on this particular intersection is seperate left turn lanes, so you don't have to slam on your brakes when a vehicle is waiting to make a left turn. This is also applied on the E4 between Gävle and Sundsvall. This is where I noticed that left turning traffic became a real hindrance on roads where you come cruising in at 90 km/h onto a line of stationary vehicles. That's when I decided to experiment with left turning lane prefabs, and this was the result:


I do notice that the traffic on the merging lanes does not always detect traffic correctly on the main lanes and I need to look into this again. I thought I sorted it out before the 2.00 release, but apparently there are still some problems. It is really tricky to get proper merging behaviour right on prefabs.

About the AI changing to the right and then change back again; this only happens on longer merging lanes and we can't tell the AI that changing to the right is not allowed. If only there was an option to do that...

[Peterson]

This is mostly Germany's problem, yes. I think that it's because the merge lane ends all of a sudden, not progressively. Standard "mergers" from 2+2 to 1+1 work well, AI even applies zipping rule in case of large traffic. But when you exit Warszawa, you'll see the exact opposite, it's too steep.

Sweeden was well made indeed, you got it right. I never had to brake too much, which is nice. Take that France, Germany, Poland...

[Bramzel]

About the AI changing to the right and then change back again; this only happens on longer merging lanes and we can't tell the AI that changing to the right is not allowed. If only there was an option to do that...

At least they have the courtesy of briefly flashing their hazard lights when they do that

[realdeal350]

Yeah, Realdeal and me arent going to use standar intersections, only custom, and i think Erymant too

Screw standard intersections!
(But back on topic.. )

[MandelSoft]

Is it necessary? Because when I drive over a custom interchange, there's always traffic in the merge lane, and they're not moving, they are trying to merge. Or there's a longer merge lane, so AI trucks go there, and after 50 metres they have to go back. And when the traffic actually merges from standstill, I have to slam the brakes if I'm not in the left/middle lane. It's really, really annoying.

Coming back on that point...

You may not have noticed it (and most players will be oblivious to this), but there are two types of merge prefabs for custom interchange currently in ProMods.

• The old 30 meter long FLD based width transition prefabs
• The new 60 meter long width transition prefabs I made, with country-specific road markings.

We are phasing out the first one more and more and replace it prefabs from the second group. This is still an ongoing process and I'm afraid we are not even halfway with that. We also don't have the prefabs for all countries and all layouts yet, but I'm working on that.

Why the length difference? Well, one of the main reasons is the one you described above: when a vehicle wants to change lanes at FLD's width transition prefabs, they slow down to 20-30 km/h, and then change lanes. This is something I hate to see and it's related to the curve radii of the paths, which is too tight to allow higher speeds. Therefore, the solution was to make the prefabs long. I picked 60 meters, which is the same length as the Scandinavia DLC prefabs. Here is a size comparision


While I was analysing my current prefabs, I came to the shocking conclusions that I had REVERSED all merging priorities! Instead of the main line having priority, the merging lane has priority, which leads to vehicle collisions, because they don't expect that this occurs. I've tried to fix it, but even with the correct priorities, this issue seems a bit more stubborn. Still better than slamming your brakes, though...

[smith121363]

MandelSoft, I would like to thank you for explaining what is going on with the traffic/prefabs. I have complete faith in your ability to get your prefabs working the way you want them to. I had noticed the new prefabs, but didn't know you were replacing all the old ones.
Could the merging priorities be reversed in the entrance merging lanes in some of the custom interchanges?

[HenryJensen]

So that means that the "stupdity" I guess we all have observed by the AI traffic, it is not only made from gamecode/programming but also comes from how you make the maps. My big wish is that someday the AI traffic here in the game will be just as smart as a human.