Need Help With Traffic Game

[rocketappliances]

Hi Everyone,

I am working on a traffic type game and I am getting super confused and need some help. The game has traffic enemy ai cars. I want to program the cars to drive forward forever unless they run into another car or obstacle. I made a system where I can give each car a target x and y coordinate and it will drive to that coordinate. I made this assuming I might need pathfinding for my AI. But I think I wouldn't since I would just want the car to go forward or change lanes if it gets stuck.

I have a tilemap to tell me what is road vs no road so that part I can easily detect. The problem for me is figuring out how to do collisions between cars. Also how do I make it so the car tries to stop if their is a car that cuts it off? Any examples or ideas on how I can structure and program this?

[schrodinger]

Never approached a traffic-jam system,
that seems to pose an interesting set of things to figure out!

First of all,
I think we should know what kind of movement you used for your cars / could you change that?

And secondly,
all could become lot different if you plan pathfinding or not,
if cars can just roam around randomly (going straight-steering-stopping, etc.)
or if you need to give them a "destination" (wich I think not)

[rocketappliances]

The movement I use is custom float movement. I do a for each loop and call some fast loops to calculate the movement and perform collision tests with my tilemap. I was going for a move to target like movement system where I would tell each car where it's target x and y would be and it would move to that location. Problem I found is that doesn't work if there is an obstacle in the way or someone cuts off the car.

The destination is just to get to the top of the screen. I think logic to either move forward or change lanes if blocked will work well enough for my game.

[schrodinger]

I must admit,
I've driven all way back home from work studying traffic jam,
considering wich active objects taking into account (other cars, road conformation, traffic signs),
thinking which alterables values I was modifying in my car to give it the correct behaviour
It was too challenging not to try!

Then, back home, I started to build up something...
...and I came out with a complete mess

Sorry not being more helpful, but there are really many things to take into account,
and unless you're going to make a strictly predetermined (-> path) movement for your cars
I guess it's going to be a longer study to put down than an hour or so.

But it's too funny not to post... so here it is:

traffic.mfa

Raw, messy and unpolished.
It may give you another viewpoint... or maybe an example of what not to do!

Hope you don't get too many explosions

[Vetmora]

Here's something I've developed in the past. It's something that I've expanded onto originally coded by Sketchy from The Daily Click.

Cars X.mfa

It's pretty simple and doesn't cover traffic jams or changing lanes, etc. Only really traffic lights. It may be of some use.

[rocketappliances]

Whoa, these examples are way more advanced then what I had in mind. But it gave me a bunch of ideas on how to make what I need for my game. Thank you to you both. I will report back after taking another swing at it.

[natrey]

please try and throw in some road ragers for added danger.....cut him up...hes gonna chase you down sort of thing