Road Pipe Dreams

[willrune]

"7 Days to Die" will eventually hit version 1 stable. Some ideas will just have to wait for "7 Days to Die II". It will never hit version 1 if it suffers from too much feature creep. Sadly, that is exactly what I plan to contribute today!

 

The pipe dreams in this thread will focus on roads!

 

I don't know if there are formal terms in place already, so I'm going to put some in place:

 

- HIGHWAYS: Large. These are the widest roads in 7DTD and stretch long distances. They get you from one corner of the map to the other

- STREETS: Medium. This is what you find in cities and towns

- PATHS: Small. Usually made with gravel or dirt. Leads away from highways and streets to points of interests that are more remote.

 

RETAINING WALLS

 

Applies to: Highways and Streets

 

When roads are constructed, some times you cut through a lot of ground. You don't have the property, funds, or time to level a significant chunk of land around you. What do you do to make sure the ground around your road doesn't landslide over some unsuspecting traveler? You build retaining walls! Maybe you cut through a ton of stone and it is stable enough to be its own wall. Sand, dirt, and gravel are another story.

 

Main roads (highways?) and town streets in 7DTD feel like they should outright cut through the terrain sometimes instead of trying to smooth the surrounding terrain (with sometimes some strange or dangerous results!). How would this look or feel right in game? Retaining walls!

 

Maybe these are cosmetic blocks that yield wood, stone, or iron when broken, but ideally I'd love to see them worked in tor road and street generation. I'm not sure if they would make sense for off road paths.

 

SIDEWALKS

 

Applies to: Streets (limited to larger cities?)

 

Exactly what it says. Perhaps leveraging a plate, 1/8th height block or 1/4 height block? I'm not sure how this would work as a terrain block. Don't some POI's already have some form of curb and sidewalk? I was wondering if this could be applied to the road generation code in places that would make sense for foot traffic.

 

TUNNELS

 

Applies to: Highways. Maybe streets?

 

When going over or around doesn't make sense? Go through or under the thing! Just drill a hole. This could pave the way for new construction site, train yard, or subway tunnel points of interest. Not to be mistaken for cave systems, though some caves could certain start from a breached tunnel wall.

 

BRIDGES

 

Applies to: Everything

 

Like tunnels, but when you need to go over that thing instead of through or under. Unlike point of interest bridges, these bridges would work with the road system and generate structural components in a procedural manner. They would need to be more than 1x1 blocks (at least near the ground) so a random wandering horde doesn't take the whole thing out.

 

RAILROAD TRACKS

 

Applies to: Railroad Tracks

 

Maybe railroad tracks could be a new kind of "road" that generates new POI's in the wild or where ever it intersects with a street or path.

 

Still not sure if tracks would intersect the highway or need bridges/tunnels to avoid intersecting.

 

This is not the place to start functional "mine cart" discussions. That opens a whole new can of worms!

 

 

 

 

Closing: A lot of these pipe dreams involve procedurally generated assets. Taking structural integrity into account makes the math around them that much hard. My guess is it would take a lot of work to get this kind of tech in place. We are currently looking forward to Alpha 18, so to be generous, this sort of thing could appear in Alpha 24? Alpha 26? Realistically? Probably 7 Days to Die's successor. It is a lot of work for what can be considered almost purely cosmetic. There are more engaging things to get done for this game hit Beta. That is why this is a pipe dream