Custom Roads for RWG?

[Svarii]

I was wondering about making custom road tiles.  I figured I should ask question before just jumping and wasting time.

If I wanted to make, lets say a residential street lined with big trees and cut outs for driveways.  Or a bridge that always has water under it and connects to the rivers in the world.  Can this be done in the RWG?  What are the requirements such as file name, tile size, etc?  Does anyone have any good YouTube tutorial links for making custom roads for the RWG?  Can a quest be put on a road tile the same way it's done with a Prefab POI?  Maybe a treasure quest? (idk how to do that one yet)

 

[zztong]

There is no way to connect to the rivers of the world, though that would be neat. IIRC, rivers are stamps and do not integrate with Tiles.

Quests cannot be assigned to Tiles.

Tiles are 150x150 blocks in size. They are built in the Prefab Editor like POIs and you place "POI Markers" (similar to Parts) to denote where POIs are to land. The file names start with "rwg_tile_" and then the name of the district to which the Tile belongs, then the shape of the roads on the Tile, and finally any unique identifier (if needed). In short:

rwg_tile_commercial_cap_svarii_01

rwg_tile_commercial_corner_svarii_01

rwg_tile_commercial_intersection_svarii_01

rwg_tile_commercial_straight_svarii_01

rwg_tile_commercial_t_svarii_01

There's a special district related to the entry points to settlements and places in the road system between settlements.

rwg_tile_gateway_intersection_svarii_01

rwg_tile_gateway_straight_svarii_01

rwg_tile_gateway_t_svarii_01

The best way to start a custom Tile is to just copy a TFP Tile's files and then clear off its Parts, Markers, and blocks, leaving the road and sidewalks.

Each District has design considerations that specify street widths, the placement of sidewalks, and sometimes the placement of alleys. There is a document by TFP that covers this. I'm trying to recall where you might find it. IIRC it is pinned in a CompoPack discussion. It might be pinned here in this forum. I'm certain I have a copy tucked away somewhere.

TFP does not have POIs for all sizes for all Districts. For example, they don't have 25x25 (XS) POIs in the Rural District. Adding a size they don't support means you need a strategy for how often the Tile will appear and how many alternative POIs you make available for that size.

POI Markers on Tiles can have Tags. If so, the POIs have to have a matching tag to be eligible for placement. Look at the CountryTown district, for example. Also the Gateway district.

Driveway Parts are defined to match those specifications and generally are sized to wipe out street lights and sidewalks on the Tile to make way for the driveway. In the Residential district there are "driveways" for the alleys in the back which create a gap in fences.

On Gateway Tiles, there are some Parts related to the transition between roads or settlements.

Treasure quests ... if you mean the maps that drop as loot ... are not pre-placed. You can make a custom note but the location will be randomized. Similarly, the buried treasure quests from a Trader have randomized locations.

That said, with a little modlet you can have the chests (blocks) used in buried treasure quests and you can place them. If you wanted to bury treasure on a Tile you could, though players would just have to get lucky to find them. (I've done that with a Decoration, oddly enough.)

 

[Svarii]

So, basically to make a custom road, I would have to make a custom RWG tile of a size of 150x150. name it like: rwg_tile_wilderness_straight_svr_01.  Then I could put a POI Marker for a specific sized prefab on the tile, like a spot for a 60x60 where the road lead up to?  And if I was going to try to make a dirt road for wilderness tile, then I would just need road exits and no driveways, right?

 

[Riamus]

ZZTong already answered this really well, so I'll just add that you can create a river within a city if you are creative in your tile design.  The main thing is to find a good way to end your river without knowing when it will end.  That could be done with something like a fallen tree or boulder in the river at the edge of the tile so it can continue on and look okay or stop and look okay.  But you'll want a variety of different options for each edge of each tile to avoid it looking too repetitive.  It isn't necessarily something you could do and make look really great, but it could still look decent.

 

[zztong]

So, basically to make a custom road, I would have to make a custom RWG tile of a size of 150x150. name it like: rwg_tile_wilderness_straight_svr_01.  Then I could put a POI Marker for a specific sized prefab on the tile, like a spot for a 60x60 where the road lead up to?  And if I was going to try to make a dirt road for wilderness tile, then I would just need road exits and no driveways, right?

Wilderness is not a District so RWG would ignore your Tile. If you want a "straight" road section out in the wild, use the Gateway district but know that sometimes it will also get used as the entrance to a settlement.

I'd be cool if TFP broke out "Wilderness" from "Gateway" so that only settlements used "Gateway."

If you just want a 60x60 POI in the Wilderness with a road leading to it, then you don't need a Tile. You would just tag it as "Wilderness" and put a RoadExit on your POI.

ZZTong already answered this really well, so I'll just add that you can create a river within a city if you are creative in your tile design.  The main thing is to find a good way to end your river without knowing when it will end.  That could be done with something like a fallen tree or boulder in the river at the edge of the tile so it can continue on and look okay or stop and look okay.  But you'll want a variety of different options for each edge of each role to avoid it looking too repetitive.  It isn't necessarily something you could do and make look really great, but it could still look decent.

He's right. If you want a river to be self-contained within a settlement, look to TFP's Industrial District Tiles as an example. (You can even find the Tile that has the "Bridge To Nowhere" on it.

By the way, I keep editing that Tiles post above as I remember things, so if you read it before I was done editing, you might find new material was added.

 

[Riamus]

So, basically to make a custom road, I would have to make a custom RWG tile of a size of 150x150. name it like: rwg_tile_wilderness_straight_svr_01.  Then I could put a POI Marker for a specific sized prefab on the tile, like a spot for a 60x60 where the road lead up to?  And if I was going to try to make a dirt road for wilderness tile, then I would just need road exits and no driveways, right?

Wilderness doesn't use tiles.  Technically, they did do some wilderness tiles but they are basically just gateway tiles that aren't connected to towns.

As far as custom roads, make sure the filename correctly matches your custom road.  If the road has exits on two opposite sides of the tile, it is labeled straight, if it has exits on two adjacent edges, it is corner, if it only has one exit, it is a cap, etc.  Regardless what you do with the road on the tile, the names need to fit it or it will not get placed properly in the town.

I know Stallionsden did a really good tutorial video on YouTube, but I don't have a link right now.

 

[Svarii]

Thanks for the info!  This should be enough to get me started on some small projects and see if I can get a custom road to spawn