There already are several custom airport POIs available. They are some of the absolute worst-performing POIs possible, due to size and complexity. Now, are they a blast to play? Yes, sure, if you have a beefy enough PC. But there is absolutely no way any console could handle even a moderately sized airport POI, and console limitations are unfortunately a consideration when it comes to game development. So are potato PCs, for that matter.
I've only used the airport mod from AH64_Jimbo, and it performs just as well as any other POI. But it is done as separate POI placed together and not as a single giant POI, which is where performance problems come in. His airport has a number of different layouts, where the largest is about 2000x2000, making it a pretty realistic size.
Holy cow. I just realized how freaking easy that would be to do using Teragon! I mean, I'm talking brain dead easy! Teragon allows you to create start- and end-points for custom roads. So you could simply build a reasonable Airport POI building and then match it up with a short section of paved road.
The airport mod I mentioned is already compatible with Teragon and can be placed with only a single command (plus adding a path to where it's located). There's even tutorial videos about creating and using "group" POI like that.
I didn't mean an airport on the scale of reality. It seems to me that something of average size would be enough (without fanaticism). This would be just within the framework of optimization. I think an airport would be an unusual poi for this game. Planes and helicopters have many uses outside of an airport.
Yeah an "actual" airport would be way too big of a poi. They could obviously have a terminal, the parking area for some planes, a parking garage, and the actual runway could be destroyed so it only goes so far out to save on space.
Hell have a crater right in the middle of the runway as if a bomb landed there.
Could also put a creepy underground installation underneath as if some nefarious wrongdoings were going down...
A small regional airport, like one near me in real life, and perhaps like might be in Navezgane (instead of Phoenix), has 1 gate and no Jet Bridge (Sky Bridge, Jetway) because you just walk out to the aircraft and go up steps. There's no parking garage because there aren't many people coming and going. The airport is mostly used by private aircraft or those training to be pilots.
But you're saying if the runway started off but then ended in a crater, you'd be okay with RWG possibly putting a big building or a bunch of trees right after the crater?
I mean, there are already half a dozen airport mods with 100 or 150 block long runways. Runways that short just don't look good. Even 200 block runways are barely acceptable, and as we know POIs that big cause a lot of issues with rwg placement. There's no way to make a 100x10 runway not look terrible.
It is alittle bit more work then "brain dead easy" I think.
Robert spent years trying to create believable cities through code and POI placement but it never reached the level of believability until the introduction of tile POIs. The answer was taking a step back and letting code do the broad strokes while letting level design do the finer strokes (e.g. tile framework and POIs/parts within them).
Technically, it is very easy to do that if you know how to use Teragon. Though I wouldn't do it the way it was suggested. I'd do it as a group POI, which is how AH64_Jimbo's airport mod is designed to be used in Teragon. Essentially, the airport is made up of a lot of different POI and tiles that are laid out in a specific way (with options to have alternate layouts). That layout is saved as a prefabs.xml file that includes all the relative positions of everything. Teragon then adds that as if it was a single POI in a location you choose. It maintains all relative positions while being placed in the location you choose. It can be done with a single command (plus one to point to where the mod is located) if you have the layout and POI already created. So it really is very easy.
I think this is also something RWG could look into in the future... the ability to use groups of POI that are placed in a specific layout so you can do things like large airports or to even do something like placing one of the Navesgane towns directly into a RWG map. It may not have a lot of value currently since most people making POI are only making individual POI that aren't intended to be used in a group, but if it was added to RWG, you'd start seeing some really large groups of POI being designed, I think. Imagine a 1km square military complex.
Now, yes... this uses smaller POI (no larger than 150x150) and combine them into a group, so that means that quests can't target the entire group and can only target individual POI within that group, but it still works well. I know you guys don't normally look at mods, but you might at least try one of the maps that AH64_Jimbo has for his airport mod or try one of the maps FluffyPanda has for his Mega Mall just to see how it works and looks. I think seeing it gives you a better understanding of it than my explanation.
Here's a screenshot showing one layout of that airport mod when placed on the map (not in-game). It isn't the best example and is an older version, but it's the first screenshot of it that I could find and I didn't feel like generating a new map just for an example. The runways don't show on the tiles in the preview, but they are laid out in an upside down "T" format in this example. The main buildings are on the other colored tiles, while other buildings can be seed on there. A lot of those gray rectangles are parts related to the runway to allow for variations. This entire thing can be placed with a single command.
I mean, there are already half a dozen airport mods with 100 or 150 block long runways. Runways that short just don't look good. Even 200 block runways are barely acceptable, and as we know POIs that big cause a lot of issues with rwg placement. There's no way to make a 100x10 runway not look terrible.
I wouldn't say that you can't make it not look terrible. However, as ZZTong pointed out, if other things get placed right next to (in the path of) the runway, then it will look bad. If nothing is placed there, you can have runways that fade out into dirt/sand as if covered over time or something like a crater or whatever to make it look like it used to be a longer runway and still have it look good. But I do personally prefer just using a full-sized airport. That just isn't an option in RWG.
I've only used the airport mod from AH64_Jimbo, and it performs just as well as any other POI. But it is done as separate POI placed together and not as a single giant POI, which is where performance problems come in. His airport has a number of different layouts, where the largest is about 2000x2000, making it a pretty realistic size.
I've used a bunch, including Zyncosa's old 200x150 monster. Almost 5 million triangles, IIRC. I'd say most of the airport POI's I use have an average of around 3 million triangles, and anywhere from 250 to 500 sleepers. They're fun, but omg the performance is terrible.
The airport mod I mentioned is already compatible with Teragon and can be placed with only a single command (plus adding a path to where it's located). There's even tutorial videos about creating and using "group" POI like that.
I'm thinking more along the lines of DIY. If you have a decent little control tower and a hangar that would all fit in a 60x60 POI, you set the spawn point for it next to a manually-created section of road, maybe 200 or 300 blocks long. Wa-la! Instant rural airport with a decently long runway.
With your experience in Teragon, you could probably have something like that whipped up in 10 minutes. In fact, it might take Teragon longer to generate and render the map than it would take you to place the POI and runway(road).
I've used a bunch, including Zyncosa's old 200x150 monster. Almost 5 million triangles, IIRC. I'd say most of the airport POI's I use have an average of around 3 million triangles, and anywhere from 250 to 500 sleepers. They're fun, but omg the performance is terrible.
Yeah, that's because of the limitation of RWG for placing POI next to one another, so they make it all as a single POI. Take a look at AH64_Jimbo's airport mod. You'll need to either use one of the maps that already have it placed, or else use Teragon to place it on a map, but you'll find it works really well.
I'm thinking more along the lines of DIY. If you have a decent little control tower and a hangar that would all fit in a 60x60 POI, you set the spawn point for it next to a manually-created section of road, maybe 200 or 300 blocks long. Wa-la! Instant rural airport with a decently long runway.
With your experience in Teragon, you could probably have something like that whipped up in 10 minutes. In fact, it might take Teragon longer to generate and render the map than it would take you to place the POI and runway(road).
Yeah, you could place a single tile or POI or even multiple POI somewhere and draw a road. However, roads in Teragon aren't going to necessarily be straight between two points. They may curve. So it's not necessarily the easiest option. Group POI are still going to be best, even if you just set it up as a series of tiles for the runway all placed in a row with a single tile or set of POI next to it. That can be done very easily. Just place everything in World Editor (or do it by editing prefabs.xml if you're comfortable doing it that way, though that's more challenging to get the numbers right) and save the changes. This is best done on a map with no other POI, but you can also just remove all other POI from the prefabs.xml file that you get after saving those changes. That's the majority of what is needed to use group POI in Teragon, so it is still relatively easy to set up on your own. There is a tutorial video that shows how to create your own group POI.
In any case, if you don't want to do group POI, your easiest option is to just place the airport POI that you're going to use on the map and then open World Editor and place a series of tiles for the runway in a line. That can be done very quickly if you have a tile or set of tiles to use for the runway. And considering making a runway tile wouldn't be hard if you're just placing the runway on it and nothing else, that's not hard to do on your own either.
I mean, there are already half a dozen airport mods with 100 or 150 block long runways. Runways that short just don't look good. Even 200 block runways are barely acceptable, and as we know POIs that big cause a lot of issues with rwg placement. There's no way to make a 100x10 runway not look terrible.
That's been my take for a while now. I made a "Gyroport" POI on the reasoning that a group of Gyrocopter enthusiasts could come together and that because of the way a Gyrocopter works it didn't need a long runway. I could kind of believe that.
I wouldn't say that you can't make it not look terrible. However, as ZZTong pointed out, if other things get placed right next to (in the path of) the runway, then it will look bad. If nothing is placed there, you can have runways that fade out into dirt/sand as if covered over time or something like a crater or whatever to make it look like it used to be a longer runway and still have it look good.
Personally, I'd get a laugh out of a wilderness POI's runway terminating in a skyscraper from a city and I could overlook it being a gravel road leading to the airport. Where I've had trouble personally is that a runway would be the same size as a parking lot of a nearby POI.
I did a Tile with a railroad crossing on it. Naturally, people should be asking "where did the railroad track go?" On one end it was a terminating line with a barrier and some cars. On the other end there was construction removing the tracks, as it the line had been discontinued and was being reclaimed, leaving the cars to be something like a museum. -- I don't know how to do that with a runway of an active airport.
My city also has an old runway that was discontinued. You'll find a mall, Walmart, Kroger, and other businesses built on it. You can't even tell it used to be a runway except one of the old hangers is still there being used as a city garage.
I'm thinking more along the lines of DIY. If you have a decent little control tower and a hangar that would all fit in a 60x60 POI, you set the spawn point for it next to a manually-created section of road, maybe 200 or 300 blocks long. Wa-la! Instant rural airport with a decently long runway.
Or, an area you've been experimenting with ... custom settlements. The OldWest settlement is small and tends to have a predictable pattern to which Tiles it uses. Stallionsden and others have made use of single Cap Tile settlements since a 1-Tile settlement will always use a Cap Tile. I've wondered if perhaps a 3-Tile settlement might be a predictable combination: Gateway - Straight - Cap. It would mean having RWG respect a pre-selected Gateway Tile for the Settlement, which I think would be a nice feature for the OldWest Settlement, BTW.
Yeah, you could place a single tile or POI or even multiple POI somewhere and draw a road. However, roads in Teragon aren't going to necessarily be straight between two points. They may curve. So it's not necessarily the easiest option.
Probably not the best option, but definitely the easiest if all you want is quick and dirty. Tbh, I'm absurdly OCD about certain things, but in this case "good enough" would be good enough (for me).
Group POI are still going to be best, even if you just set it up as a series of tiles for the runway all placed in a row with a single tile or set of POI next to it. That can be done very easily. Just place everything in World Editor (or do it by editing prefabs.xml if you're comfortable doing it that way, though that's more challenging to get the numbers right) and save the changes. This is best done on a map with no other POI, but you can also just remove all other POI from the prefabs.xml file that you get after saving those changes. That's the majority of what is needed to use group POI in Teragon, so it is still relatively easy to set up on your own. There is a tutorial video that shows how to create your own group POI.
In any case, if you don't want to do group POI, your easiest option is to just place the airport POI that you're going to use on the map and then open World Editor and place a series of tiles for the runway in a line. That can be done very quickly if you have a tile or set of tiles to use for the runway. And considering making a runway tile wouldn't be hard if you're just placing the runway on it and nothing else, that's not hard to do on your own either.
NOW you're cooking with gas! Runway tiles. I hadn't considered that. I mean, I have, because I think zztong and stallionsden have both suggested them in the past, but that was in the context of vanilla RWG. Using runway tiles for manual placement in Teragon? That's way better than doing it by generating short roads. AND it's something a lazy person like me would actually do, because there's no way I'm diving into AH64_Jimbo's method. That's would require way too much motivation.
I did a Tile with a railroad crossing on it. Naturally, people should be asking "where did the railroad track go?" On one end it was a terminating line with a barrier and some cars. On the other end there was construction removing the tracks, as it the line had been discontinued and was being reclaimed, leaving the cars to be something like a museum. -- I don't know how to do that with a runway of an active airport.
I really like that tile. Sure, it seems odd that the tracks end, but I don't really pay attention to that. It just looks good to have it there, imo. I wouldn't mind seeing variations of that in the future. Of course, I appreciate any and all new tiles as it really improves the variety in towns.
Yeah, that was interesting. Regardless if the changes would delay bandits or not, that's something that should go without saying...but saying it is something that just fans the flames. Not a good PR move.
AND it's something a lazy person like me would actually do, because there's no way I'm diving into AH64_Jimbo's method. That's would require way too much motivation.
Lol. I think you should give that a try, honestly. It really isn't too difficult. Yes, it can take a bit of time to set up initially because you have to hand place everything in the layout you want, but that's a one-time thing when creating a group of POI. After that, you can add the entire group to all maps you make with single command (under 1 minute of effort). In the end, it's less work than trying to make the airport by hand on every map, though you of course can change how it looks on each map if you do it by hand each time, so there is some benefit to that.
If you look at the tutorial video about creating group POI, you'll see that I made a basic group POI very quickly.
That's been my take for a while now. I made a "Gyroport" POI on the reasoning that a group of Gyrocopter enthusiasts could come together and that because of the way a Gyrocopter works it didn't need a long runway. I could kind of believe that.
Personally, I'd get a laugh out of a wilderness POI's runway terminating in a skyscraper from a city and I could overlook it being a gravel road leading to the airport. Where I've had trouble personally is that a runway would be the same size as a parking lot of a nearby POI.
I did a Tile with a railroad crossing on it. Naturally, people should be asking "where did the railroad track go?" On one end it was a terminating line with a barrier and some cars. On the other end there was construction removing the tracks, as it the line had been discontinued and was being reclaimed, leaving the cars to be something like a museum. -- I don't know how to do that with a runway of an active airport.
My city also has an old runway that was discontinued. You'll find a mall, Walmart, Kroger, and other businesses built on it. You can't even tell it used to be a runway except one of the old hangers is still there being used as a city garage.
Or, an area you've been experimenting with ... custom settlements. The OldWest settlement is small and tends to have a predictable pattern to which Tiles it uses. Stallionsden and others have made use of single Cap Tile settlements since a 1-Tile settlement will always use a Cap Tile. I've wondered if perhaps a 3-Tile settlement might be a predictable combination: Gateway - Straight - Cap. It would mean having RWG respect a pre-selected Gateway Tile for the Settlement, which I think would be a nice feature for the OldWest Settlement, BTW.
I have given some thought on how to do that with a 2-tile cap and straight. The straight could flip either way during connection, if I'm not mistaken. So the trick would be to simply create two runway sections on BOTH tiles, with the airport buildings between them. That way, no matter which way the straight tile flips, the runway sections will line up with the cap and the straight tiles.
Yeah, that was interesting. Regardless if the changes would delay bandits or not, that's something that should go without saying...but saying it is something that just fans the flames. Not a good PR move.
I can agree with you on that. Stating it would delay 3.0 would have been enough without placing the blame on people who complained. That did go a little far. But I'm used to the things that come out of their mouths at this point. They don't really script things and just say what they think of, and that often leads to things being said that probably shouldn't be said. I personally just ignore those things, but it does upset people.
Lol. I think you should give that a try, honestly. It really isn't too difficult. Yes, it can take a bit of time to set up initially because you have to hand place everything in the layout you want, but that's a one-time thing when creating a group of POI. After that, you can add the entire group to all maps you make with single command (under 1 minute of effort). In the end, it's less work than trying to make the airport by hand on every map, though you of course can change how it looks on each map if you do it by hand each time, so there is some benefit to that.
Another approach I've thought about is making a settlement district. For instance, an "Airport" district of a city. The trouble, again, is you cannot predict or specify which Tiles will be used or their orientation with each other. That's the charm of RWG Tiles.
I just cannot come up with a scheme that lets RWG throw together airport Tiles. While you can make the buildings kind of feel okay next to each other, you can't have parts of runway going various directions, unconnected... unless you make the runway run down the center where Tile roads would normally connect. You might get a long runway with a couple of stubby crossing runway "things" or a runway that turns a corner.
Something like a "University" district is appealing, though I envision a University with more connections between Tiles than just roads down the center. My own university has elevated walk ways, steam tunnels, walking paths, etc. Those would just "end" at the boundary to another district as there's no way to adjust Tile content based on what a neighboring Tile is.
Hey, and this is tough stuff with limited applications. I'm not blaming RWG's creators here. It's just been a fascinating subject that maybe we should take to another discussion if it doesn't burn itself out in a few messages.
But seriously, wouldn't it be way too big, even with a smaller airport?
TFP has to think about performance for lower end PCs and Consoles and any huge POIs would tank the FPS on those systems. Plus, they would need to create airplane models and all to make it look realistic; all those extra models for just one POI?
What TFP could do is create a few crashed airplane models that they could scatter around the world. We have airplanes that drop loot, so why not loot some dropped airplanes? (see what I did there?)
Another approach I've thought about is making a settlement district. For instance, an "Airport" district of a city. The trouble, again, is you cannot predict or specify which Tiles will be used or their orientation with each other. That's the charm of RWG Tiles.
I just cannot come up with a scheme that lets RWG throw together airport Tiles. While you can make the buildings kind of feel okay next to each other, you can't have parts of runway going various directions, unconnected... unless you make the runway run down the center where Tile roads would normally connect. You might get a long runway with a couple of stubby crossing runway "things" or a runway that turns a corner.
Something like a "University" district is appealing, though I envision a University with more connections between Tiles than just roads down the center. My own university has elevated walk ways, steam tunnels, walking paths, etc. Those would just "end" at the boundary to another district as there's no way to adjust Tile content based on what a neighboring Tile is.
Hey, and this is tough stuff. I'm not blaming RWG's creators here. It's just been a fascinating subject that maybe we should take to another discussion if it doesn't burn itself out in a few messages.
This is where I would really like to see my suggestion from a long time ago looked at for RWG... the ability to limit what tiles can connect to what other tiles, including orientation. Below is one of the topics I made about it. I think I had done a different variation of my idea as well in another topic, but this at least gives an idea of what I'm talking about.
In short, you have a way to state that something like rwg_tile_airport_straight_runway_01 only connects to either rwg_tile_airport_straight_runway_01 or rwg_tile_airport_cap_runway_01 (or others if more tile options are available) on either end of the straight, while the sides that don't have a runway can connect to tiles like rwg_tile_airport_straight_hanger_01 or rwg_tile_airport_straight_terminal_01 or whatever. That example would be an airport district that could then be used as the only district in a new airport "town" type. That's a very short way of explaining it, but the link gives more specific details and examples for anyone interested.
This can be used for more than just airports as well.
I have been thinking about tiles and the benefits and limitations of them. They are a great way to allow for interesting and somewhat realistic designs of cities, but you can only do so much with them. I have a suggestion that I believe offers a significant increase in value of tiles. I apologize for the length of this, but in order to understand what I'm talking about, it needs a lot of explanation and examples. Please bear with me.
So, right now, tiles are placed based on whether or not it is allowed in that location (based on district settings) and in that size town/city and if it...
The problem is that RWG has no way to force tiles to be in a layout that makes sense. You could end up with a terminal in the middle of a runway or a runway that is not straight. And tiles can be rotated, so even straight tiles might cause things to be on opposite sides of the runway when you don't want that to happen. You can do it manually, or use the methods I've mentioned with Teragon, but RWG just doesn't offer anything you can really use for it. The closest is to do a 2-tile "town", but that is still too small.
This is where I would really like to see my suggestion from a long time ago looked at for RWG... the ability to limit what tiles can connect to what other tiles, including orientation. Below is one of the topics I made about it. I think I had done a different variation of my idea as well in another topic, but this at least gives an idea of what I'm talking about.
In short, you have a way to state that something like rwg_tile_airport_straight_runway_01 only connects to either rwg_tile_airport_straight_runway_01 or rwg_tile_airport_cap_runway_01 (or others if more tile options are available) on either end of the straight, while the sides that don't have a runway can connect to tiles like rwg_tile_airport_straight_hanger_01 or rwg_tile_airport_straight_terminal_01 or whatever. That example would be an airport district that could then be used as the only district in a new airport "town" type. That's a very short way of explaining it, but the link gives more specific details and examples for anyone interested.
This can be used for more than just airports as well.
I have been thinking about tiles and the benefits and limitations of them. They are a great way to allow for interesting and somewhat realistic designs of cities, but you can only do so much with them. I have a suggestion that I believe offers a significant increase in value of tiles. I apologize for the length of this, but in order to understand what I'm talking about, it needs a lot of explanation and examples. Please bear with me.
So, right now, tiles are placed based on whether or not it is allowed in that location (based on district settings) and in that size town/city and if it...
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The problem is that RWG has no way to force tiles to be in a layout that makes sense. You could end up with a terminal in the middle of a runway or a runway that is not straight. And tiles can be rotated, so even straight tiles might cause things to be on opposite sides of the runway when you don't want that to happen. You can do it manually, or use the methods I've mentioned with Teragon, but RWG just doesn't offer anything you can really use for it. The closest is to do a 2-tile "town", but that is still too small.
As I mentioned earlier, a 2-tile settlement (or 3-tile with a gateway, as zztong suggested) done correctly would reliably give you two 300-block long runways. 250 - 300 blocks is where I personally think runways have to be, minimum. Of course, I haven't tested this cap + straight combo to see if it would actually work. But I think it just might.
Another approach I've thought about is making a settlement district. For instance, an "Airport" district of a city. The trouble, again, is you cannot predict or specify which Tiles will be used or their orientation with each other. That's the charm of RWG Tiles.
I just cannot come up with a scheme that lets RWG throw together airport Tiles. While you can make the buildings kind of feel okay next to each other, you can't have parts of runway going various directions, unconnected... unless you make the runway run down the center where Tile roads would normally connect. You might get a long runway with a couple of stubby crossing runway "things" or a runway that turns a corner.
Something like a "University" district is appealing, though I envision a University with more connections between Tiles than just roads down the center. My own university has elevated walk ways, steam tunnels, walking paths, etc. Those would just "end" at the boundary to another district as there's no way to adjust Tile content based on what a neighboring Tile is.
Hey, and this is tough stuff with limited applications. I'm not blaming RWG's creators here. It's just been a fascinating subject that maybe we should take to another discussion if it doesn't burn itself out in a few messages.
(just throwing out an idea to go Idk if it is practical) at first I thought "that airport idea would really work in a dlc"
but listening to the idea get bounced along made me wonder if a Large Airport Tile could be tied to trigger once in the wasteland only, where there is the most map room and the largest cities?
