WIP Beta released A new *CITY* map - LOS INJURUS 2023-12-20

Just wanted to mention about a spot on a highway where it suddenly goes from three lanes to two. Another small thing don't know if it's been mentioned/fixed already or not, but the exit by the default spawn point kind of suddenly gains an extra lane.

 

Yeah the exit doesn't look right, I am aware of that. It was a side-effect of texturing it through text editor or something like that (I create objects, then apply a default texture, then when a whole set is created, I make a copy of the set and apply another texture to it via a text editor - that one didn't work out so well as you can see for that specific piece). I have to get to fixing that, it's a real mess that one.
The part where it goes from 3>2 lanes needs to be re-striped a bit, don't know if I forgot or if there's a priority issue with the striping supposedly on there already. I will make sure to address this as soon as I can sit here properly again.

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Speaking of which, I haven't gotten jack done since Tuesday night since my back decided to kink due to the muscles tensing and not letting go. I can't get it to relax to the point where it'll let go of my spine enough for me to un-kink it through twisting motions. When you have 2~3 vertebrae that have KINKED it is some of the most pain a human can ever feel.
In other words, being physically disabled SUCKS, especially when THIS happens.
When I get the highway I'm working on fixed up enough to drive on, and iron out a few AI implementation bugs, the update will come out.
If this fails to happen within the next 8~10 days, then I will release a Patreon-member update in the mean-time.
This goes without saying that I'm slowly implementing a reduction in resources and trying to implement a link system where needed, don't know what progress that'll be at but I'm working on it is all I can say. It's just quite slow going with my back deciding to cast the spell of pretzel upon itself, since I can only sit here a few hours max at a time, then I have to lay down for at-least that many hours. You can't even sleep until you've laid down a few hours for the pain to subside.
Want to know the best part? About 4~5 years ago, I went to the local spine and pain doctor. Well I didn't get a doctor. I got JOEL STEVENS a police detective (pretending to be a doctor) who interrogated me about my condition, while monitoring my blood pressure like I lie-detector, who then told me to go get 'mental help' for my physical pain. Well MR KNOW-IT-ALL doesn't know that when you have been medicated with blood pressure pills due to the severity of pain alone ramping blood pressure levels to the point of nearly causing hospital-visit worthy levels of blood pressure, you don't test properly on lie detector tests (yes seriously, ANY added level of stress would nearly get the ambulance called whenever I went to the doc, to the point they wouldn't let me leave for a while at times). My PTSD alone (which also makes hell of lie-detector tests!) can put my heart rate up over 100bpm just sitting in a waiting room... let alone what driving in traffic does to it. Blood pressure readings have come back 144-over-something (85~95 range, forget the specifics) WHILE ON BLOOD PRESSURE MEDS, sheesh. Needless to say I got NO help from the doc, not even after a urine test (of course the doctor needed that, right? Yeah, OK). That doc never called me back, never billed the insurance, never another appointment... I have all the time in the world - but none to waste.
That's right folks. A human right - basic human right - to not be tortured with cruel and unusual punishment - to not have to sit here in agony - denied to me just so someone who's family hates mine can get retribution on me for reasons I still do NOT know or understand.
SO MUCH FOR HIPPA PROTECTIONS. Yeah. That's part of the lawsuit, too. This country is so F'ed up it's not even funny. I still would love to know what the heck I did in the first place to make Stevens hate me so much. Even his sister is down here doing all the stuff he can't do while holding a badge (read: illegal stuff, his sister got busted for using stolen license plates on her vehicle in 5/2024, same one she was stalking me with). I don't even break the law but these weirdos show up wherever I go. Tell me what the chance of the Bethlehem Township (by where I used to live) police detective's biological son working in the very same city I live in, now 750 miles away, is?
Land of the free my hide. DON'T EVER MOVE TO USA. THERE ARE NO RIGHTS. EXAMPLE: Here in the land of the free, they can literally pull you over, take all your (cash) money, leave you with nothing (really bad if you're not in your home state), and keep it with nearly no recourse available to you even if you are never charged or convicted of a crime. While THAT last bit hasn't happened to me (the cash taking part), it's happened to a lot of people.
So yeah, this is why I've not been too thrilled lately, sorry if that's spilled over into my progress blog a bit too much. Not a crazy person, but I am living with a heck of a lot of agony right now, can barely get around, can't stay vertical for more than 2~3 hours at a time, and let's just say that's not a fun life to live. It's hospital time soon. So if I go quiet for a while it's not the boogeyman, it's just me likely having a hospital stay or something along those lines.
KEEP THOSE BUG REPORTS COMING!
--That is all for right now
-The Bob
Oh, and the mower is sitting in the middle of the yard busted again. It was just fixed (x3). It's going to be sitting there for a long time, too, because I can't even get out that far into the yard to look at it (I wasn't the one who's been mowing the last 2 months). It can sit there until spring time for all I care at this point, I put out all the money that I could put out to fix the thing already this month. I need to move for my own safety (not to mention sanity) anyways.

 

So having given up on the Road Architect, being that it was more like "Road to Insanity", I chose on this dark and dreary day to give the recently introduced 'Road Spline tool' a try.
MISTAKE.
33 Minutes ago I tried adjusting ONE node. 33 minutes ago. It's still trying to process the adjustment.
1/4th mile / half kilometer length, two lanes, nearly default road style, 9 nodes in a bow shape to make a nice curve along the very perilous cliff like most my highways seem to be.
MISTAKE MISTAKE MISTAKE.
In-fact even trying to move a single node would lock the application for a solid minute in 10 second intervals.
So my experience of 0.37.x is this:
1.) Adjust terrain = lock the whole computer solid. Not even caps or num lock toggles work.
So I must use the inherently slower DX11 mode here that's frequently lagging/hitching on editing making fine terrain adjustments pretty much impossible.
Use Road Architect: This thing is fail in the truest sense of the word.
I can't believe this thing still DOES NOT work.
Use Road Spline Tool: This thing just locks the application up. It's been 36 minutes as I'm typing this now and it's still trying to adjust a single node width. FOR OVER HALF AN HOUR!!!
Did anyone test this? It's supposed to make a multi-lane road how? I don't see ANY way to change it from default 2-lane bi-directional road configuration!
This is supposed to be better than clicking a node, clicking the width box and typing something into the box and pressing enter.
For crying out loud, I'M GETTING OLD OVER HERE! What's worse? I CAN WATCH THE DUST SETTLE ON MY NOSE waiting for this thing.
What in good-grief caused me to ever leave editor 1.0 in the first place? I loved editor 1.0. It just worked. Did what it says on the tin.
This editor is plainly put a train-wreck. I've never in 30+ years of game editing since Doom, used any single application that was this bad for 'editing levels'. It's BAD.
They REALLY, REALLY have to work on this thing before I can do much with it.
Sure, I can ship things out as-is but that's really lowering the bar for quality.
--Not very happy.
-The Bob
45 minutes and it's still lagging hardcore. on that SINGLE adjustment. It's trying, supposedly.
My only consolation is that with the buckets of spiders and army of bees I've been fighting all summer and fall, it looks like it's going to be one hell of a bad winter. Well, I'll be very warm while I attempt to adjust this one single node of one roadway all winter long.
EDIT: After 1.5 hours of waiting for it to adjust this node and no more patience or ability to sit here waiting for it, I force-closed BeamNG Drive. I need to find another game-engine to port this level into, plain and simple. This editor is a MESS and I just can't do anything with it anymore, or need a better CPU to do it with, and with RAM prices, I'm not going to find anything for what I can (or am willing to) spend.

 

I feel your pain so much... Im working on a level and unsurprisingly alot of the new tools are very finicky or just plainly dont work. Dont use mesh spline because the objects might dissapear into the ether between sessions! The building architect tool is like trying to operate an alien space craft, I made a whole building out of mesh roads instead one time lol. It sucks that the new tools designed to spend less time on repetitive tasks only works some of the time. Some of the tools I will never touch again because they simply just crash my game. Anyway, your definetly not alone in your pain, I am procrastonating my own project alot because of the same things you mention. Take all the time you need

 

When you create something, with the road architect or the mesh spline tool, and you're done with that road, this is what you do:
Go into the object selector / editor, where you can see the whole entire entity tree of the entire level (all things, like the terrain, objects, decal roads, mesh roads, player spawns and such), select the things that are in the road_architect folder (or whatever the SPLINE ROAD TOOL calls it, might be road_spline or spline_road_1), and put them in another folder, or move them out into the main level folder structure where all the loose objects that haven't been organized are. Now, see if the objects then won't disappear anymore. The road architect used to do this as switching back and forth between rendering and designing when you're on your 2nd or 3rd (basically, anything after 1st) road with OBJECTS, would end up transitioning some of your 1st roads objects from being objects to merely potential design elements/plans as-if it was part of the 2nd or 3rd road now in-stead of leaving it alone like it should. Try that. Sorry it's not perfect but I've never, ever been able to get a usable road out of the road spline tool. If you make a special folder for completed roads, and objects, you can put them in there, just don't name it anything to do with roads, just call it COMPLETED STUFF. Then you can back up the file in the level structure under the name you gave it, which is under /LEVELNAME/main/missiongroup/GROUPNAME/items.level.json. LEVELNAME is your level, GROUPNAME is whatever folder you called it, where you put the stuff. Don't leave it in a ROAD_ARCHITECT or ROAD_SPLINE folder or it can get injured there. Regularly back up your files and make sure to check them out to see if they're shrinking at all (they shouldn't! but who's to be sure). If you give each one it's own name like "Guiderails_on_mountain_pass" and throw all the guide-rails in there (and/or the road stuff with it), once you're done with it and have saved it, you can back that file up and do whatever you want. Name the next folder something else and put your next road's stuff in there, and back up THAT file then too. Keep going like this, so if it ever eats one, then you can go ahead and restore the file. Also make sure none of them double, as saving road_architect sessions within your level structure can do. ALSO, if you make a road, then further modify the decal roads or other things within the decal road tool, DO NOT re-enter said tool you made the road with such as road architect, WITHOUT moving the stuff out of the folder it was created in and putting it in your OWN folder, and backing up said folder items json file. Seriously!
Use tool > make stuff the way you want it (well, try to) > render/finish the tool up > go to object editor and move stuff out of road_architect folder (or road_spline folder) into your own named folder > back up file > feel free to modify things as you wish > back up file again making sure your new file isn't wildly smaller than the old one. SAVING SESSIONS WITHIN THE TOOL IN YOUR LEVEL STRUCTURE CAN/WILL CAUSE DUPES ON EACH SUBSEQUENT LEVEL / EDITOR LOAD, BE CAREFUL & MOVE THEM OUT OF YOUR LEVEL STRUCTURE. The sessions are those created by the tool itself IF you push the save session button and tell it where to save.
I can barely get anything out of that editor. It's absolutely a dumpster fire. I love the team but I CAN NOT STAND THAT EDITOR, so I couldn't show any anger towards anyone that can't stand it either. I used to love editor 1.0. I could fly with that thing, it was like wings compared to this new editor. I can't even get an icon to access all the modes because the toolbar doesn't show up entirely, cutting off the decal road tool, object editor, and some other things, into a submenu I have to go into constantly. Whoever designed this thing ... [well I shouldn't leave this in], but this editor is really in a bad way. Bad as in: I've (not only) NEVER seen it THIS bad, I've never actually USED anything this bad in my 30+ years of computing / game-editing. I've been doing this since MS-DOS 4 or 5 and Windows 3.11 For Workgroups, using things like DCK (Doom Construction Kit 2.2f, later Shareware 3.x versions), even EDMAP wasn't that bad (EDMAP was terrible compared to DCK, but hey I was new to computers and was using whatever I could find on those D!Zone and D!Zone2 CD's I bought with Doom / Doom II, and I found EDMAP 1st).
I SURE MISS MY 486 dx/2 66! I WISH I NEVER GOT RID OF IT! I HOPE THEY HAVE A 486 IN HEAVEN FOR ME! Wait, can I even play Doom up there? The only thing I didn't like about my 486 was trying to play Doom over a modem. You needed 33,600bps at-least to have Doom without a pause every 2 seconds. 14.4 didn't do it, 28.8 almost could do it over a modem... that I don't miss. When my buddy got a new computer (A Packard Fudge Bell) Pentium 120mhz or so, we could finally play at full speed.
OOPS, Got on a rant again. Don't get old folks.
But yeah, I've never used anything this bad. That editor makes me so angry/tense/frustrated I think it's causing my back (muscles) to lock up (causing it to kink under my rib cage, super painful) and my migraines to happen more often. That's why I just close it out when it gets stupid. If I fail to get the highway bit finished before I throw a release out, I'll try to make a semi-believable construction zone or something, and try to keep the AI from falling off the cliff.

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I was just trying to address the issue with a section of highway missing median barriers until I realized I hated that section / was too snake-like for a highway - even a California highway.
I will put some more (likely frustrating) time into it this week and see if I can figure out how to do anything with that infernal tool set they provide me. Let's just hope they don't start making power tools, or nukes, otherwise we're very very screwed. *cuts to show the shot of the earth exploding*

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In other GOOD news, I'm going to be taking the food from the church down to the food bank in the first half of this week, to help off-set the issue with SNAP (gov't food stamps / money for poor or disabled/disadvantaged folks for food) benefits being stalled due to the US government's dictator not being a very good dictator. I don't usually get political for reasons, most of which should be obvious; but I'm more than a bit miffed that children / families are going hungry plus our military members still are expected to serve and then not even be sure they'll get paid or not. NO ONE should live like that, NO ONE. People starve while the elites fuss and fight in congress, all while the dictator builds a party palace on the White House. Sheesh. I cannot believe the times we live in here. They will cause riots very soon, and have already caused much protesting in many towns thus far. I wish it wasn't true, but it's not going to get better by starving folks!
IF anyone has any food in the back of their freezer, or in the back of their pantry, and it's still good, please take it down to your food bank at the earliest possible convenience. Even if it's just a few things. If everyone did that, they'd have more than they know what to do with. Right now reality is the opposite. Just putting it out there. If you're not from the USA, you can ignore this plea (or, you can help out wherever you are, and it makes you feel good wherever you are).
That being said, I hope our gov't and dictator get their ducks in order, before the gov't loses control of the constituents they're supposed to be SERVING the interests of. I don't like seeing anyone suffer.
--That is all for the moment
-The Bob

 

I had a Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V, I miss that one.

 

65535% with you on that one! Gateway 2000 was the cream of the crop, and always used those good Toshiba CD-ROM drives too. Definitely a lot better than the other no-names out there. Didn't usually stick you with no-name cards that it was impossible to find drivers for, either.
If I was any more able I'd try to dig one out of the dump, but I also know better that they're corroded beyond hope after a few months in any temperate climate.
May you find another one day, here or beyond this mortal plane (regardless of your belief system, if applicable).
*looks and sees the 12mhz AMD-produced 286 chip for a profile picture* Shouldn't expect anything less, I suppose!

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For those following the blog, yes, I did get the food bank run from church done. Took over 20 Blessing-bags (bags of goodies for those less fortunate!), and over a dozen cases of food, along with lots of misc items. We only have a small church with a little over a dozen regular attendees - basically half of us are just big families and the other half are a few elderly couples. That said, we are one big family any time we go.
After discovering a young woman's vehicle broken down on the side of the road, whom I knew from church, and saw the 'don't tow, I'll be back this afternoon for this' note on a check receipt from a restaurant, I went to see her at her work. Thus, later, I sat on the side of the road on a bucket in the rain (this was several years ago), to change a wheel (with a stuck lug), and I never questioned any of it. A mess of quickly-rusting hand-tools later, after a trip to the tire shop, I had her all set (and just like that, she pulled up in another vehicle driven by her mother, to pick up her Jeep). She was so happy. It makes it all worth it in the end, though driving home looked like the world was ending - cloud to ground lightning coming down all around me and the sky was very dark for 4pm, greenish dark grey / black. Got home to find out it's a tornado warning, which surprised me none. Would I do it again? Yes - for anyone I know, and even those I've never met. I'm that guy - when you have no one else - I won't leave you stranded. I have a few tools, jumper cables, temporary flat fix kits, extra water / oil / coolant and things like that. Not boasting or bragging, but I am that person because it makes me feel good - no matter how bad I hurt before or after - for doing such things. This doesn't make me a good person per-say, it makes me FEEL good. If you feel good, and people know you do right by others, then you CAN be that good person. But, why? Well, one day you might be broken down on the side of the road, waving a white shirt (like a white flag) in the 105 degree F heat, and need a ride to the next exit on the limited-access freeway. I was that person in 2012. A marine gave me a ride to the next exit. I offered him some money, but he wouldn't take a penny. I got a ride to civilization (all of 3 minutes ride but a long and dangerous walk on the shoulder with my back to traffic), got my vehicle towed, got a hotel for the night (and spent a long time in the pool) and got the vehicle serviced thus left the next day. That marine in that 15 year old white F150, thanks man, I was the guy with the white Sable - if you're out there and you ever read this, thanks.
For what it's worth, my bench-mounted wire wheel made short work of any rust, sitting on a stool with my box of rusty bits.
Help someone. Make a difference. There's a whole world out there, and it's yours to make a difference in. Even if you don't have much, all you need is a little time, a little knowledge, and a little motivation. Someone might not get hit by a car on the shoulder. Someone might make it home in time to their kids for dinner. Someone might even have food to make for dinner, who otherwise wouldn't have. Sometimes all someone needs is a good listener for a few minutes, to help sort their seemingly overwhelming pile of problems they got swamped with.
Even if your life SUCKS, your car is OLD and held together with duct tape, hope, and prayer, you can barely get around most days, there's still a place and a duty for you on this earth no matter how great or small. That's just as important as what happens when you do it. YOU feel better. So helping others is really helping you.
So just remember that next time you have an issue, or life is overwhelming you, or you just need to get away. Go make a vacation day of helping others. It can help you every bit as much as a vacation - if not more - in most cases. I am physically quite disabled and I still manage, but that's what you do here in Tennessee, The Volunteer State.

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The person who got to the bottom of the 'invisible building' and 'no-see-ums objects' issues with Los Injurus is assisting me with a few more things with the level, so shout out to Car Killer. I am not at liberty to say what or how yet, but all reveals in due time.
--That is all!
-The Bob