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Joyride

Version 1.1 i managed to update the map and fixed the little tsunami at start of a new game and some minor stuff.

Theme/LUT: Realistic Temperate and Boreal by Reaper / RelightNeutral

Connections:
- 4 Highway
- 4 Train
- 4 Ship
- 3 Plane

provided Services:
- Power
- Water
- Observatory (you like tourists, right?)
- Garbage collection, reaching into the startsquare was unintended but required for the observatory otherwise it would constantly complain about garbage.... if you use the provided start intersection trucks should show up after a while, they just need to drive quite a distance.

Trees: 116k, mix between vanilla and low tri trees. Tried a more detailed look for the swamp but it would have ended up with 900k only for the reeds.
Props: < 5k

Clearly a fantasy map, everything was made by hand, no heightmap or plopped networks. I wanted this map to suit everyone including console users or low performing rigs, hence no mod requirements.

Description:
Joyride is a very fast forward map with lots of resources and all kind of fish. The map is optimized for leading traffic fast through the map to reduce agent count as good as possible, feel free to build big. The map features a 2km long flat land strech that is intended to house an airport with the runway lights pointing to the south west at exacrly the angle planes will come from and leave to so if you ever wanted to build a custom airport with planes coming in straight at your runways... you could ofc also just plop one. if you are doing a custom airport build on this map please share.

Backstory:
Your asssitant enters the office.
"Good morning mayor, first day in the office and already good news, the construction office called the dam is operational thus we have power and water now."
"Thank you becky that is good news indeed, i guess there is going to be a final meeting?"
"yes, i already scheduled a meeting. But there is one more thing mayor, the former mayor entrusted me to pass this on to you the day he passed away." she puts a letter on your desk
"he - passed away?"
"yes, drowned in his bathtube as far as i know."
"okay, thank you, let me read that."

Dear college,
if you are reading this then my worst assumptions came true and i am gone. This ofc is none of your business but i wanted to let you know what happened in the recent weeks when i was clled to sit on this chair.
When the government guy showed me around the land to inspect it i raised the question how it came to be that this land was not being settled on earlier. i was told that the magma chamber still has activity and after the last eruption causing the little island the governemnt wanted to make sure it would be safe. when i was asked when the last eruption was i was given the answer that this was some 600 years ago. Then the guy looked at me and said Listen, i do not care what rumors you heard or something i can just say there is nothing to worry about anymore and so there is no point in digging deeper with such questions.
I had an odd feeling about this. the following weeks while observing the dam construction i had some spare time and was permitted to use the helicopter to make myself more familiar with the surrounding. I discovered a hermitscave in the swamps the guy living there was an old grumpy native probably crazy though. was muttering something about the mountain groawning nd moaning and being cursed ground. i was obviously thinking to loudly into my beard that he is probbly a craze and i might be better of finding some of the farmsfolks which had settled here before. he looked up to me and responded. "farmfolk right! Ghosts they were, white with no faces, at dusk the steelhorse came, then they went into the mountain and soon after it started rumbeling again." before he started talking and petting the wildlife that seems to gather at his cave.
before i left the helicopter the pilot told me "mayor i suggest you focus on the tasks at hand instead of digging into superstitious nonsense." this was the first time he talked to me. Today i wanted to use the helicopter again to revisit the hermit the pilot went away made some calls and then came back telling me the weather would not be optimal for such a flight, we had a clear sky that afternoon. then i decided to write this down to let you know and instructed betty to only pass this on to you should something weird happen to me.

i wish you more luck than i had.

Maphistory / tips / what i learned:
i tried laying out the way the map took shape but steam obviously has a limit on how much description you can add to an item.
Development took about 5 month, i learned a lot from several sources on youtube, check out bonbonb's channel it is an inspirational goldmine. At one ppint i had to start over for a mod ruined the map and also the orientation in regards to the path of the sun was not as intended.
To not mess stuff up again i followed a different approach i'd call HWSRNV standing for Height, Water, Sand, Ressources, Networks, Vegitation. Meaning i started of by sculpting the maps Heigh/Terraint then looked out for possible Water spawnpoints the terrain would provide, then added Sand where sand could be...
Ofc i could still alter stuff later but this actualy helped me to get more in the direction the map was calling for - hope that makes sense. This way also the idea of a map looking great at night came up.
The landscape renderer for the editor and ingame are different, always test how it looks in the game!

if you are interested to in my let's play i suggest you head over to http://youtube.com/drakkart and subscribe
Thanks for reading and

Enjoy!