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

Italy has a few roads like that - possibly more than a few.
There is/was a map dedicated to that back not long ago.
Nevada interstate has a road or two that mimics that.
This map will, too. It will have quite a few, actually. Where I can work them in logically, I will surely add them, as I enjoy them too. So look forward to lots and lots of that, as this map is quite mountainous with the exception of the industrial area and most of the central lake area, both of which are relatively flat.

 

I should have the next beta online around the 14th of this month. LOTS of new roads will be in by then - otherwise it's essentially a bunch of roads to nowhere.
If there are issues remaining with downloads from Mega needing a 'key', then I will acquire a new distribution/download service at cost to me.

 

Plenty of rough and unfinished stuff, but lots of miles of re-done and NEW roads will be featured, along with a lot of re-done landscape in the next supporter beta that comes out this week, toward the end of the work-week. The wait will be worth it, surely - especially if you want somewhere new to drive.
First two shots is where I am most busy. That road will wind along the mountain on a narrow/precarious journey downward with lots of twists and turns, and a nasty drop-off in plenty of spots. So entirely, there should be around a dozen new/redone miles of road in the next beta - if it's a little shy of that, it'll be close enough - and there will be many square miles of refreshed landscape. It should be much more complete looking when you get your hands on the beta.

 

More of that curvy/swervey/twisty road.

This should bring back what a lot of folks loved about Tail of The Dragon (Deal's Gap), to this map. There will be NO shortage of roads like this one, for that matter.
Please excuse the unfinished and rather awful looking area below the road (where there isn't parking lots or development / buildings there yet), it's work-in-progress as always. I still have yet to finish it off, I just finally got this stupid road done, so I wanted to post progress.
After I last posted, I got all the AI added in for the new roads. So that's all caught up and works almost perfectly (okay, there's a few spots, but I'll have those nicked soon enough). I still need to do a lot of detailing and such, wearing / tar lines / cracking and so-forth on the newly made sections.
The road pictured above lets out where (on my previous post) I took the last screenshot above this post, after crossing the highway (twice).
I'd say sometime early Thursday morning I will be uploading this supporter beta, so look forward to lots of NEW roads (and existing ones that are completely re-done) that will be featured as fresh material for the next beta. It's always refreshing when there is lots of new content you can actually see VS all the behind-the-scenes stuff that was getting done before.
--That is all for now.

 

Man, you're making good progress. I have a question, have you considered adding billboards with bikini models on them in this map or no? Keep in mind that this is just my teenage take on this.

UPDATE: He said no. Nevermind this post.

 

Binkin? what the hell.........

 

I know right, I'm a sad teenager who happens to like women.

 

No, references to off-topic things like that will be avoided. I already skirt the censors enough with my maps, walking the line a bit too often. I don't feel that they would have anything to do with the main mission objective here - cars, crashes, immersive map, etc. That would be distracting, if a bit distasteful.
I'm almost 40, I've had my fun in my days - plenty of that fun, so this is not the time nor the place - nor am I at a loss for it. I had seen another map (likely made by a lonely pre-teenager) that had it, as if to make up for a lack of talent and originality; and it was distracting and out of place entirely - and a lot of reviewers who were older than 12~14 years old agreed. While I certainly won't say anything is wrong with liking women as any man or male teenager would know, this just isn't the place for it.
There will be billboards certainly (when I get around to it, like everything else in the endless to-do pile), they won't have scantily-clad women on them (or men!).
If you feel at that much of a loss for something of that nature, this website / place isn't the place to satiate nor discuss such a matter. Socialize more (not being mean, dreadfully honest - why certainly yes, but mean, no).

---

So anyways, got a bit more detailing done on the hillside here as you come up the highway, as it looked exceptionally hideous prior to doing this.

Still so much more to do, but every little bit is helping it head in the right direction.
Additionally, another entrance ramp was added, and I corrected any AI bugs I could find on the new stuff.

 

Well, I mean. The girls don't have to be in bikinis. They can be wearing t-shirts and jeans, but you don't have to add women at all if you don't want to.

UPDATE: Forget it T_T

 

Unless I'm going into marketing, I won't need to add something that has nothing to do with a car crash simulation. If you think women in bikinis needs to be all over everything, you either are over-marketed, or you have lost sight of the mission objective (of this simulation).
I don't find a common link here. I mean, suggesting Wal Mart store facsimile or a new Burger joint, yes, but ... women? In a game that doesn't even have pedestrians?

 

I don't think women in bikinis need to be all over everything. I think it would be nice if there were like 1 or 2 billboards with a picture of a hot girl wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but like I said. You don't have to add it if you don't want to. I don't blame you for not wanting to add it in a game that doesn't even have pedestrians.

Update: Forget it T_T

 

You know they have other "websites" for what your looking for right ?

 

Yeah, I do. I was giving Bob an idea and he didn't approve of it. That's totally fine. He can do whatever he wants with the map. It's his map, not mine.

 

So the progress is looking good, as always. However, I do have a question; do you plan on marking the on-ramps to highways from surface streets with signs that mark the ramp being a freeway entrance, the route number, the direction, and an arrow pointing to the ramp? I know it's not exactly a common thing here in the US, but if you look at freeway on-ramps in California and Nevada (at the very least, I haven't looked at all 50 states) they mark those ramps with the highway they go to and the direction.

I don't know if you have any ideas or any plans to number the highways and any of the other roads (other than the ones you have named on your current signage), but if you do it would add a ton of immersion if you marked the ramps. Since this isn't any one particular state, I would imagine if you did indeed go ahead with this you could use the standard MUTCD sign for the route number, and this to mark the beginning of the ramp.

Just a rather minor and insignificant suggestion in all reality, and something that could be put off well until you're satisfied with everything else otherwise.

 

That's a fine suggest and one that will definitely make the cut in the final version(s) of the map. As for WHEN they will go in - I have absolutely, positively no idea - as that's an entirely different story.
There's more to this and it's actually more about 'me' so to speak in general and my plans and how well I stick to them. I would have made a general road-map already of what features will be in, how much, etc... but since it's just ME working on this (aside of a kind few who DO donate to the map or donate models/time/graphics etc), and since there's always new suggestions pouring in, and various game updates that may enable new features or throw a wrench in the gears of existing ones... it goes like this...
I have absolutely, positively no clue how long this map will take.
I have absolutely no 'time limit' as I am disabled physically and often stuck at the computer, and aside of occasional health issues getting in my way, I will be stuck here for eternity so might as well 'do something constructive' (that I also enjoy) with my time.
It's not just one place or settings - as you've said - it's a melting pot of many American cities, or at-least it will be when it's done.
I have no idea what features will be added when to the game, or to the map. Things come up, new wonderful things happen with game features, and sometimes an update just causes the map (or the AI like in the last version) to self-destruct. I avoid committing to things I can't 100% control or promise, short of just 'finishing' this map and then eventually Roane County too. Just finishing these two maps could and likely will - as far as I can see - take years. So will the game, so that's a non-issue, I'd have to update it anyways as new features were added, so I don't mind. It's not like I'm doing anything else when I'm stuck here, and playing games while Okay for an hour or two a day, isn't nearly as fulfilling as making them.
So TL DR I can't say exactly WHEN things will be added, and some things I don't know if they will ever be added, but I can commit to saying this will have FULL U.S. DOT Federal Highway Commission signage when it's done. Route numbers, directions (though some will be marked 'loop' as some highways are loops), landmarks, exit conveniences (food, gas, lodging etc) will all be marked. Street signs for every road (or just about) will also be added, and they will (if I can help it) pop up on the mini-map and such when you get on them - though I need a script genius to make THAT portion work.
I'm waiting until a bit later as right now I'm up against the video RAM limitations a bit and have to do some more optimizing (read: root out all the old junk) before I can go full-on and add many more pages of signs. There's lots of old junk to remove so no big deal there, should be easy to fit plenty of sign pages in; just like how Roane County has over TWO DOZEN pages, with up to a dozen signs on each 'page'.

---

Map progress update:
I worked a bit (read: few hours) on the area where I'll be building my route 1 project in the coming weeks/month. I got the beach looking decent and started placing some sea wall around the airport (it's not nearly done, and the airport is still missing it's two longer runways).
I am cutting off map progress right now after I post this, and will be shipping it 'as is', but otherwise fully functional. This has gone on getting delayed long enough, time to put out something worth playing. Expect to get a supporter beta link Thursday some time US-time in the afternoon. I will be very busy tomorrow as I've been putting lots of things off, so don't put me on blast if the links come out Thursday evening, or possibly in the wee hours of Friday morning for those in Europe/Asia.
I will however do the best I can here. I will be returning to a two week cadence between supporter releases, as soon as possible.
--That is all.

 

Don't worry, Bob. Take as long as you need to for these maps. Your attention to detail is already amazing as it is. And as I said, my suggestion is a minor one that can be done well towards the end. The fact that you alone, for the most part, have done these maps to such detail and such size is awesome as well.

As I do my own mods for games such as this and others, I do a lot of my own QA as a result to make sure everything is how I want it to be. If you need someone to help test your maps for QA reasons, I would be more than happy to assist. You can find me on Steam (ascendancy1517) if you use that platform. If not, I'm just really appreciative of you releasing maps for the world to enjoy that have this kind of scale. They have given me a lot of joy while playing Beam.

Again, thanks for releasing these maps to the world. I know I'm certainly not the only one who has been given such joy to be able to be immersed in these big environments to get lost driving in.

 

Bob, I'm sorry for the billboard thing, but I have a question. Is this okay with Roane County?

 

ot:
Cant wait for the map to be finished, It looks awesome.

 

You're quite welcome. Large maps are almost a given in games these days, but this simulator didn't have much of these until ITALY landed.
I initially published Roane County TN as a concept to see just how big I could go. While it lacks fine-details like road imperfects / pot holes / high-res terrain sculpting that most modern games do - it does dwarf many game environments in size by itself. When first published, there was a lot of hitching, almost murderously so with AMD FX processors and HDD's (either). 0.8.x and 0.9.x drastically improved streaming and game functionality to where this was very playable on any semi-recent intel CPU and an SSD. Yes, Roane County was the map that gave the developers a good enough reason and testing ground for improving in-game asset/data streaming. So it's definitely has it's useful times. It also broke the 4000 item limit and caused the first 65536 node crash - both have been fixed now! It's still the largest map out there, with the second largest being Iheartmods' Desert Highway, and then American Road being third.
Los Injurus, while definitely the largest map by long and far in size on-disk or download, isn't the largest surely, but it's likely the 5th or 6th largest map size-wise in the game. I am glad everyone has enjoyed the map as much as I have had making it, if not more (I hope more!). I really hope it is an excellent concept showing that simulated interiors (like ECA / UTAH / small island have!) are possible, full-fledged subway tunnels and other hidden but explorible interiors (the abandoned mall) are possible too.

---

Work again on the map should restart in earnest this weekend sometime, as I'm starting to feel better now. About 12 days ago I came down with some severe tonsillitis, which after several days I cured with Q-tips and alcohol for a few nights before bed. Yes I literally stuck q-tips in my mouth and scrubbed it off... but then...
EEEEK! There's a Fungus among us!
My tongue was growing something. Something very bad - not good at all. I think between doctor visits and Rx meds I've purchased resultant from said-visits, I must have burned through 200$ easy. Getting better though and can think better now. It's not showing symptoms of Corona, though, oddly enough.
Through all of this my temperature was up, heart-rate sustained over 100 bpm for 10 days straight is NOT good... after almost 10 days of that, I finally went to the doctor so my heart doesn't decide to give up the ghost again. Yes, that's happened before, but I've been good for 6.5 years in that department. Would like to keep it that way.
So entirely, expect some pictures before the weekend is over (or right when it is). I should have between now and the end of the month free aside of about two days of that time, to pull all-nighters working on the map.
When it rains, it pours (and it's been doing that too).

---

@Grind86 I don't put billboards of scantily clad women on them in my map, because I do not need to resort to doing that just to try and 'fit in' or 'be cool*', or make up for lack of general talent (which is primarily the reason marketing tries to 'sell it with the allure of sex' because otherwise no one would want or like the product in question).
When you have a good map and a decent amount of talent (I won't rudely toot my own horn, I'm generally quite humble, always feeling I can improve), you don't need those billboards which would otherwise be completely distracting for the rest of us. With being a family-friendly forum generally, what would I be expected to do other than have a woman with a pickle barrel around her middle to cover up the out-of-rating portions? That'd be entirely defeating the point. Plus, pictures of people without clothes is a crime here in Tennessee USA - yes it's actually against the law! That request just needs to be put-down sadly.
You can try to think of something else, though.
*Never really had to 'be cool' in my younger days, always had plenty of friends the way I was from the get-go, partly but not solely because I was the kid who could 'fix almost anything' and was always busy with something or someone.

Bwahahahaha, I got a good laugh out of that. Perfectly placed.

 

It's okay. I'm already over that. I apologize for my awful suggestion. Here's a new suggestion, maybe put some current and future stuff from this map into Roane County. Also, this map feels kinda empty in places, so maybe you could fill it up. That's just my suggestion. Do whatever you want with the map. It's your map. I can't control what you do with the map.