Roads! v4.21

13 Oct 2022Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

It's finally here!
4 years and 150 total updates later, Rolling Line is getting a full dynamic road system! With tons of customization and even drivable vehicles.

The last few updates have contributed to making this possible, by adding things like track style customization, side-snapping, track grouping, and multi-lane track generation.

That's because roads are essentially just different kinds of track!
The new roads system is basically just track with a new visual look, and "cars" are actually "trains", but instead of running on "track" they run on "roads".
This means that roads and cars have all the same functionality as track and trains.
You can make cars follow AI triggers, and you can create your own modded versions of both.

Before I go into too much detail, here is a full guide which explains everything you need to know about the new roads system:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2874171297

How to get started with roads

There are a few different ways to make roads, but the easiest is to use the automatic road generator.
You can find this in the new "roads" category:

You can use this generator to make simple roads like curves, or more complex groups like intersections and lane-change segments:

You can customize the visual style, number of lanes, and shape of roads inside this road generator.

Building custom intersections manually

There is also a more complex "lane generator" which you can use to make individual pieces of roads to create your own advanced intersection designs!
(this process is explained in detail inside the guide mentioned earlier).

Road styles

Just like with track, you can customize your roads in a whole bunch of ways!
Like road markings, cycle lanes, roadside barriers, parking spots, and more.

There are a ton of different "style painters" in the various drawers in the "roads" category:

And of course you can also manually edit styles using the popup window.
Press Q when hovering over a single lane of road to open the "style options" window.
From here you can fully customize everything like markings, bike lanes, edges, etc.

There's even a drawer with some "group painters" which you can use to easily copy a whole style onto a whole road group:

Props

This update also includes a ton of roadside props, like road signs and functional traffic lights.

You can find a whole bunch of road signs (some new ones plus the old ones which have been converted to be multi-paintable) in the "roads -> road signs" drawer.

More types of signs will be added in future updates too!

In the meantime, there are also lots of mods on the Steam Workshop which add more kinds of road signs:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2874292686&searchtext=

There is also a drawer full of road markings ("give way" "bus lane" etc) which you can freely place anywhere on roads:

There are also pieces you can use to create pedestrian islands:

Traffic lights

You can find traffic lights in the "roads -> traffic lights" drawer:

Each piece of the traffic light head can be snapped together to create different kinds of lights:

They can be painted to look like other styles of traffic light too:

Each traffic light head has a switch on the top which you can click to change the colour of the lights:

Vehicles

Along with the new road system comes drivable vehicles!

These work exactly like trains, which means that you place them down on a section of road and set their speed with a hand-held controller (or in the driver's seat).
They will follow the "track" just like a train, so the way cars behave is entirely based on the design of the road they run on.

You can find drivable versions of all the cars in the "vehicles -> cars [drivable]" drawer:

These vehicles can all be painted too:

The trucks, tractor, bus and station wagon all have proper interiors now too!

Modding

You can create both road styles and vehicles using the pre-existing mod tools!
Since "roads" are just "tracks" and "cars" are just "trains" the mod system for both can easily be used to create roads & cars, all you have to do is make a few minor adjustments.
Here is a guide which explains how to create your own vehicles and road styles using mods:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2874140634

As mentioned in the guide, there are also now some new example mods which you can find in the "Rolling Line / Modding / Templates" folder, for both road styles and vehicles.

You can find these example mods on the workshop too:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2873885648&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2874138272&searchtext=

Cab preset

There is also now a new cab preset included for train mods which is great for vehicles:

Official maps

Please note that the official maps (e.g. Top of the South, Santa Fe, etc) which featured roads before this update do NOT support driving vehicles.
These roads were made using simple 3D models and are not made with this new system.

Future maps will feature fully functional dynamic roads though!
In fact, I am already planning a new official map which shows off this exact feature...

But more news on that will be coming in the future!
In the meantime, you can try out a preview of this map right now on the Workshop:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2874534650

Other minor fixes

This update also includes:

When track groups are held in-hand they are rotated to be less in your way.
Fixed major issue where copying a track group would break the track connections of the piece that is being cloned.
The preview track which spawns for track style mods in the modding manager now shows up as a road when you are creating a road style mod.
Train mods will add the "vehicle" tag automatically (instead of "locomotive") if you are making a vehicle instead of a train.
Fixed visual alignment issue with the underside of all table props.
Copying dynamic track data into the road generator no longer copies the "separation" value, since this breaks the alignment of multi-lane roads.

Remember, please have a look at the full guide which explains everything you need to know about the new roads system, as I couldn't describe it all in this news post: