Measurement and Sixths -- Nodes Not Equidistant?

[Bedawyn]

How do you guys measure anything over large distances?

My goal is to have the outer rings of my city divided into sixths and twelths. Eighths would be easy, but I love hexagons. The game, however, does NOT seem to love hexagons. Getting anything to snap to 120 degrees seems incredibly difficult; it will stay there for perhaps a split second, not long enough for me to click, or else it skips over it entirely, going from <120 to >120 without ever actually hitting 120. Adding Precision Engineering (the guides I saw that claimed it was an optional mod rather than an essential one LIED) helped a lot, but still didn't resolve the problem. And while the difference between an angle of 119.9 and one of 120.2 may be barely noticeable at the center, by the time I draw the spokes out to the edge of the city, it's VERY noticeable. I ended up with six areas, all right, but they were blatantly unequal sizes.

So then I tried starting from one of the outer rings; figured I could just draw hash marks out from the nodes to count how many were in the circle -- hopefully 360, but I thought I'd be able to work with whatever the number ended up being, just divide by 6 then count out hash marks to make my areas equal sizes. Instead, I found that the nodes aren't equidistant -- they might be anywhere from 6 to 14 units apart, on the same ring! I could still just pick a number and manually inch out the hash marks at exactly that length, without snapping to the nodes, but even with Precision Engineering, that's taking me several seconds of peering closely at the screen just for one little segment -- it would take days to finish an entire large ring!

The zoning grid isn't helpful either, since it doesn't show up in the map editor, and even in game is only consistent on perfectly flat ground. And even then, you can't realistically count individual tiles when you're zoomed out large enough to see the areas I'm working with. :-(

There must be some trick here that I'm missing. What is it? And why are my nodes seemingly placed at random distances from each other, when I drew the circles using a consistent technique? Is there any way to make them reset, so that they're accurately reflecting the degrees in the circle?

[~\\Savarast//~]

Precision Engineering mod might help you with better angles, as will keeping the land as flat as possible. You might even find use with the Measure It mod.

Also, exact precision is pretty difficult just in general, even with small spaces. I can only imagine the problem being exacerbated if you are doing huge map-spanning perfection. Might be easier to start at the smallest rings, and work outward? Nodes -usually- follow pretty specific patterns of 12 units so I can imagine it it isn't divisible by 12, they'll stray in one way or another.

Edit: Didn't read that you used Precision Engineering, Are you holding ctrl or shift to snap to angle?

[MarkJohnson]

I find hilly ground will throw off any angle. Every map does this with even square 90 degree angles.

Like Savarast said, landscape the ground perfectly flat works best. If you like hilly ground, then you may have to make sacrifices.

[Bedawyn]

Yeah, I'm using Precision Engineering and completely flat ground. I originally started on a workshop map with a circular moat already built, but every time I crossed the water, the angles went kerfooey too, so I gave up on that and started over on a fresh blank map. It's better, but still not what I'd call good.

Haven't tried ctrl or shift-snapping yet, too many mods to learn all their keybindings yet. :-( Will give that a try, thanks. I'm not impressed with the base game snapping; it always seems to snap to everything EXCEPT what I want it to snap to, and playing with which snapping options are enabled hasn't helped much. I suppose I'm just trying to do more precise drawing than beginners are intended to, before they've got the hang of everything.

[~\\Savarast//~]

Originally posted by Bedawyn:

Yeah, I'm using Precision Engineering and completely flat ground. I originally started on a workshop map with a circular moat already built, but every time I crossed the water, the angles went kerfooey too, so I gave up on that and started over on a fresh blank map. It's better, but still not what I'd call good.

Haven't tried ctrl or shift-snapping yet, too many mods to learn all their keybindings yet. :-( Will give that a try, thanks. I'm not impressed with the base game snapping; it always seems to snap to everything EXCEPT what I want it to snap to, and playing with which snapping options are enabled hasn't helped much. I suppose I'm just trying to do more precise drawing than beginners are intended to, before they've got the hang of everything.

I'd suggest playing around with the roads and learn node manipulation. Its also a good idea to change the road snapping settings (the ones built in the game) depending on what you are doing. Road Anarchy can also let you create otherwise "illegal" road connections

Edit: just tried this in asset editor, hexagons are easily done with road precision and flat terrain:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2076196468

[Bedawyn]

Originally posted by ~\\Savarast//~:

Edit: just tried this in asset editor, hexagons are easily done with road precision and flat terrain:

There's actually an intersection like that in the workshop, it was the first asset I downloaded and the first technique I tried. It looks fine at the starting-tile level, but once I draw the spokes out to nine tiles, it becomes obvious they're not really equidistant. I even tried convincing myself it was a visual illusion, but nope, Precision Engineering even measures them as clearly different distances between what should be equal points on the map. :-(

I'll give it one more try tonight, and if it still doesn't want to work, I suppose I'll settle for unequal sections. It goes against the grain to give up, but I've spent a week now drawing lines and bulldozing them again segment by segment, and I do have other things I ought to be doing.

[~\\Savarast//~]

Id suggest instead of extending the spokes the whole distance, extend by the distance between sides. In my example it was 10 units. So i drew a 10 unit extension to each spoke, connected points, extend by 10, connect points, ad nauseam. That way you can catch where the misalignment starts, because if the center hex is perfect, and the map is perfectly flat, it will work.

[Bedawyn]

Argh! I was thinking I couldn't quite do that, because I'm not actually drawing a hexagon, except in the very center -- most of it is concentric circles divided into sixths. But using that suggestion, I was able to confirm that at least one of the circles itself is wonky, not having the same radius consistently throughout. And this is after I drew it using one of the techniques I found online that's supposed to draw perfect circles, and that had seemed to work. At least that would explain why the spokes are wonky, but if I do the spokes first, I have no idea how to get the circles, since the techniques I've seen all rely on quarters, and none of my attempts to get a smooth curve based on sixths have been remotely successful. *headdesk*

[~\\Savarast//~]

So you aren't making hexagons, but circles with six spokes? It would be do-able, but would be quite a bit more finicky, especially at the larger radii. You'd have to use the curve tool and figure out the exact center of the desired segment, click, then complete the segment at the exact same number of units from the last segment

[Bedawyn]

Yeah, that's why I was complaining about the nodes not being equidistant. I couldn't figure out how else to determine the exact center of the segment, if the nodes aren't a reliable guide. I'm usually all about the hexagons, but this time I've got a hexagon in the center, surrounded by circles in eighths, then by circles divided in sixths, twelvths, and eighteenths. If I can get the sixths worked out, the twelths and eighteenths shouldn't be a problem, but I'm afraid my circular geometry skills aren't quite up to par.

Thanks for helping work this out. I'm not sure whether to be relieved that you agree that it's finicky or dismayed that there isn't some obvious easy solution.

[~\\Savarast//~]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2077257066

This'll get you perfect circles around six spokes

[Bedawyn]

How do you tell where to put the mid-point in that picture?

I've finally got the sixths (and twelths and eighteenths) down acceptably. They're STILL not perfect, despite being meticulous about all the measurements. But at least the variance is only 2 to 6 meters on the outermost ring; that's not noticeable just by eyeballing it, and I'm not entirely convinced that it's not just measurement error, based on the fact that if I'm zoomed out far enough to see the units, I'm also zoomed out too far to be 100% certain my origin and end points are in precisely the right spots, since I can only see part of the segment at a time and still read the fonts. So I can live with that.

But of course, in trying to get the spokes right, I had to demolish the existing rings. Which is just as well, because they always did look just a little squished to me. I'd convinced myself it was a visual illusion, because I was carefully following the quarter-circle technique all the videos say to use. But once I started measuring the radii, nope, it clearly wasn't correct even on the smaller rings. Rings based on six spokes would probably be better if only because it provides more points, but my end points are too far apart to just eyeball the center with any precision. And I can't draw a guideline because it would just have to be demolished before laying down the curve anyway. (This would be so much easier if we could just draw roads across one another without having to stop and start the line, and with the angle resetting at every intersection.)

[Mooks]

Roads were always wonky for me until I started drawing them with Road Guidelines turned off in snapping.
- Angle on
- Road Length on
- Grid on
- Road guidelines OFF

[DavesBrain]

Originally posted by Bedawyn:

How do you tell where to put the mid-point in that picture?

Here's how I did it.

Build your main radial roads to equal lengths, so they're where you want them (say 10 markings each).
Now, back up a road marking or so, to 9 or 8.
Build a temporary STRAIGHT road at 90 degrees from BOTH of your radial roads. These straight roads will intersect at the midpoint between them.
Now, go back to marker 10 and build your real concentric road at marker 10, you will know where to place the middle node (it will take a bit of practice and tweaking - but you obviously know what you're doing).
Then, of course destroy the temporary roads.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2078670274

Alternatively, for better accuracy, you could build your temporary roads BEYOND your concentric road.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2078676338