Airports

[EvilPolygons]

And this is the part that acts as both a runway termination point AND a driveway for the dirt road connection. It's actually placed into the cap tile with a 130 block offset, so that it spawns over the final 10 blocks of the runway on the adjoining straight tile. Why do it like this? Because the cap tile NEVER rotates. It's fixed. But the straight tile can rotate 180 degrees whenever the townplanner feels like it. A patch like this requires a fixed point of reference, and the only fixed point we have is the cap tile. So, yes -- now I can get rid of the dirt stripes on the straight tile, as they are no longer needed.

 

[EvilPolygons]

So the driveway-style patch got me thinking... What would happen if you stuck the entire runway extension in a part file? And then used a fake entry in rwgmixer for the straight tile -- without using an actual rwg_tile_straight prefab at all? Would it work? Here's the answer:



This is a custom version of the old Army Airport POI (not sure who the original creator was). A couple weeks ago, I rearranged it a bit to fit on a 150x150 tile, but of course that meant the runway was cut really short. The runway is off-center, so placing the runway directly into a straight tile wouldn't work due to the chance of a 180 degree tile flip.





So to recap, this is a 2-tile airport with only one ACTUAL tile prefab (a cap tile). The straight tile is sort of "virtual" in that it's defined in the rwgmixer but there's no actual corresponding prefab file. The townplanner doesn't care about little details like that, though, so it happily draws a road to the non-existent straight tile anyway. The runway extension and dirt road connection you see here are built into a HUGE part_ which is spawned by a partspawn marker on the cap tile.

 

[HammerDano]

I'd love to roll up on this little airport in the wild, it looks great...don't get me wrong, the big airports look amazing, and that's before they get the curtains and drapes applied. thank you for frigging with it...and frigging with it...and frigging with it...did you ever get that other stuff done?

 

[zztong]

So to recap, this is a 2-tile airport with only one ACTUAL tile prefab (a cap tile). The straight tile is sort of "virtual" in that it's defined in the rwgmixer but there's no actual corresponding prefab file. The townplanner doesn't care about little details like that, though, so it happily draws a road to the non-existent straight tile anyway.

Do I understand this correctly? You count on RWG leaving the second tile spot blank since it doesn't have a tile to use. Then you use a part on the first tile arranged such that it extends from the first tile into the flat space of where the second tile would have been?

If I have that right, I expect the part extended beyond the Tile to keep working as TFP counts on that for POIs with driveways and for how the checkpoints put content out onto the road. But if it failed, it would be because there was a change to Parts on Tiles but not Parts on POIs.

The behavior of RWG (Townplanner as you say) could change such that it does something different when it wants to place a Tile but doesn't have one to use. Or, if it doesn't have a Tile to use it could stop flattening the area in preparation for a Tile. I don't know that either of those risks is large, but I'd say it seems to be picking on unintentional behavior ... well, as most of this topic does. So, rock on.

 

[EvilPolygons]

I'd love to roll up on this little airport in the wild, it looks great...don't get me wrong, the big airports look amazing, and that's before they get the curtains and drapes applied. thank you for frigging with it...and frigging with it...and frigging with it...did you ever get that other stuff done?

Yeah, but I keep getting pulled back to the airports. I think I'm happy where they're at though. There are some pretty cool tricks you can pull with the tiles and part spawn markers to get around the townplanner and get the results you want.

 

[EvilPolygons]

Do I understand this correctly? You count on RWG leaving the second tile spot blank since it doesn't have a tile to use. Then you use a part on the first tile arranged such that it extends from the first tile into the flat space of where the second tile would have been?

Exactly. It's a neat trick, but honestly I think the 130-block marker offset from the prior airport experiment was more impressive. I still can't believe the game let me do that!

If I have that right, I expect the part extended beyond the Tile to keep working as TFP counts on that for POIs with driveways and for how the checkpoints put content out onto the road. But if it failed, it would be because there was a change to Parts on Tiles but not Parts on POIs.

I highly doubt that behavior will change with either POIs or tiles because certain streettiles use different partspawn markers for their connection points. I can't remember the specific tiles off the top of my head, though. Rural tiles, I think? Anyway, I wouldn't count on any changes happening there.

The behavior of RWG (Townplanner as you say) could change such that it does something different when it wants to place a Tile but doesn't have one to use. Or, if it doesn't have a Tile to use it could stop flattening the area in preparation for a Tile. I don't know that either of those risks is large, but I'd say it seems to be picking on unintentional behavior ... well, as most of this topic does. So, rock on.

That's definitely a possibility. What I did with the Army Airport was an abuse of the system, no question. But it was really just an experiment to see if it would work -- which it did. But there's no guarantee that it will keep working.

So no, I probably won't do that again. However, it does show that you can get good results from relying on partspawn markers to do some of the heavy lifting. All that needs to be added to the Army Airport in order for it to be a "proper" settlement is an actual straight tile. BUT that straight could be totally blank because I don't need it for the runway and dirt road at all.

 

[EvilPolygons]

Here's the final version of the Army Airport broken up into its individual sections. I'll post the xml afterwards.

The airport POI (148x148):


Cap tile:


Blank straight tile:


runway part (151x90):

 

[EvilPolygons]

The xml is super simple. It's just like an Old West town.


<!-- ARMY AIRPORT TEST -->
<append xpath="/rwgmixer/world[@name='tiny']">
<property class="aap01">
<property name="count" value="1, 1, 1"/>
<property name="tiles" value="2, 2"/>
<property name="distance" value="2"/>
</property>
</append>

<append xpath="/rwgmixer/world[@name='small']">
<property class="aap01">
<property name="count" value="1, 1, 1"/>
<property name="tiles" value="2, 2"/>
<property name="distance" value="2"/>
</property>
</append>

<append xpath="/rwgmixer/world[@name='medium']">
<property class="aap01">
<property name="count" value="1, 1, 1"/>
<property name="tiles" value="2, 2"/>
<property name="distance" value="2"/>
</property>
</append>

<append xpath="/rwgmixer/world[@name='large']">
<property class="aap01">
<property name="count" value="1, 1, 1"/>
<property name="tiles" value="2, 2"/>
<property name="distance" value="2"/>
</property>
</append>

<append xpath="/rwgmixer">
<township name="aap01">
<property name="spawn_trader" value="false"/>
<property name="spawn_gateway" value="false"/>
<property name="biomes" value="desert,snow"/>
</township>

<district name="aap01">
<property name="tag" value="aap01"/>
<property name="prefab_name" value="aap01"/>
<property name="spawn_weight" value="1"/>
<property name="required_township" value="aap01"/>
<property name="preview_color" value="0,0.5,0"/>
<property name="poi_required_tags_all" value="aap01"/>
</district>

<streettile name="rwg_tile_aap01_cap">
<property name="mintiles" value="1"/>
<property name="maxtiles" value="1"/>
<property name="maxdensity" value="3000"/>
</streettile>
<streettile name="rwg_tile_aap01_straight">
<property name="mintiles" value="1"/>
<property name="maxtiles" value="1"/>
<property name="maxdensity" value="3000"/>
</streettile>

<prefab_spawn_adjust partial_name="Army_Airport_01" bias="20" biomeTags="desert,snow" min_count="1" max_count="1" />
</append>