My colleague, Roman, takes a keen interest in road construction methods and materials. When, last year, I gave him permission to fill the potholes in the THC drive, I had no idea he was going to to use it as an opportunity to conduct an elaborate tarmac-versus-hoggin-versus-bonded-rubber-mulch experiment.
Unsurprisingly, Roman is rather excited about RoadCraft, a due-in-May road-building sim from Saber Interactive, the studio behind SnowRunner.
For 5 days last week there were 3-way traffic lights and a partial closure of the mini-roundabout to repair a leaky water-main. They were busy on the first day with their syphon truck and whatnot. There was a sole person there midweek. Then, on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, they were tamping down sand. They must’ve finished later that day as they had disappeared by the time I walked past on Saturday morning. There remains a pot-scar 4 inches deep and 4 feet long less than two feet from where they were working.
You can sim road-building, but the British navvy’s work methods are uncomputable.
I need to re-watch Falling Down. “What’s wrong with the street?”
All I’m asking for is an exploration game that lets me drive tracked articulated vehicles like the BvS10 / Beowulf. Like SnowRunner but with native tracked vehicle support.
We have an Italian ‘White Road’ to our house, which is pretty much compacted gravel. Our local comune refuses to help pay for any of it which they should do as it is a public right of way, and we also had to move a road that went between our two houses to around our Borgo instead.
So, i know quite a lot about road building!