Las Vegas thread

[Sora]

To clarify my last post: the only thing about Vegas that bothers me is the borderline-nonexistent signage.

I'm perfectly fine with the city itself; it's honestly better than what I expected. But the ATS team surely knows how important signage is at this point; releasing the city without proper signage is just unacceptable for a game that has otherwise done a lot to learn from its mistakes. I could tolerate it being unfinished for the release of the beta, but by the full release? By the following update? Come on.

I started my Las Vegas rework after looking at the Tonapah mod. I still much prefer that mod to SCS' excuse of a rework.

...what did you actually expect from a Tonopah rework lmao

It's a literally nothing city in real life that would be scenic at most if it were anywhere else on the ATS map. If it had had a garage, it would've been by far the smallest and least important city with a garage on the entire map - probably for the rest of ATS's lifespan. That it lacks one isn't the fault of Tonopah, but of the ATS design decision that -- for better or for worse -- only a few select cities are allowed to have garages. Still, even in ETS where this isn't the case, there are still far more significant cities that don't have garages. Esbjerg comes to mind.

At the current game scale, the only thing I'd really say Tonopah could've used was some trash depot like a Tidbit. But even then, it isn't like having two depots (the farm and the gas station) is unusual for a small city; there have been cities that small as late as Washington, which had Longview and Omak. Which are incidentally both far more significant than Tonopah. Tonopah itself is practically irrelevant and the only reason it needed a rework was because a critical route happened to pass through it; this (alongside a few geographical mistakes) was fixed about as well as it could've been.

[TomDooley]

Well, my issues are 1) I-10 and 2) NV-95.
The I-10 South of Vegas is abynmal. They should rather have made Primm a "whistle stop" (not a city of its own, but an outlying load point), and continued I-10 up to Baker, (or better to Barstow, with a better I-40 connector), including either Yermo of the new stateline PoE. Further, where is McCarran and the I-215 / NV-146? Ah right, we'll get the next airport in Denver...

Second, East Vegas (Henderson etc). In real life, NV-95 bustles with traffic from/to the South and connects to what's now I-11.

Further issues... SCS interpretation of the Vegas Monorail has always been less than 1% correct, just left the %&"(! from ATS 0.9 in the scene. The scale around the Strip / Downtown is still a catastrophe. Oh, and since the omitted the Eastern 215, they omitted the larger Western 215 beltway just as well.

On the positive side... they made the I-10 through Vegas a little bit better (express lanes vs right on/off lanes) The 515 could also have been worse (though I still miss another exit).

It's a real pity you quit, BobGrey, I would have rather skipped on some DLCs for your really improved Vegas.

[flight50]

^I-10 doesn't go thru Baker, Barstow or Vegas though. I assume you meant I-15 the more I read of your post. I definitely agree with the interchange at I-15 @ I-40 though. Back then, interchanges was just something thrown together. Over the years, ProMods and others have made better interchanges and SCS caught on. Now they are much better. Luckily for ATS, the base map is small enough that incremental changes can happen all over the map for roads/junctions and ramps.

Now with Vegas redone, if they expanded out from Vegas updating it, things will improve heading into more base map territory. I-15 South of Vegas heading into Cali, some retouching on US-95 Northwest of Vegas. It seems like US-93 leaving Vegas got a little bit of love. All in all, textures and 3d models is about all I'd start changing mostly for the base map. The road layouts are feasible but not of the them. Some places can get updated road prefabs or just redone to be more accurate. Grades is one of the biggest changes but that can lead to a bit more work.

In the game, if you look as Vegas, it takes up a lot of space compared to other cities. I wanted some depots West of I-15 as well but if they gave us the 215, Vegas would have been unrealistically large compared to other cities in the game and even larger cities to come would struggle to be larger than Vegas. There is tons of space West of I-15, but it would proportionately be off. A mod would have to make Vegas larger imo.

[bobgrey1997]

...what did you actually expect from a Tonopah rework lmao

Tonapah is a rather insignificant town, but in a state that only has 19 towns in reality.
Nevada needs whatever it can get in ATS to remain a decent state.
As for the rework, I expect anything SCS does to be of higher quality than a random mod, and I don't see that with Tonapah. The old mod was higher quality than what SCS gave us.

[rip_c_bennington]

We really need the US 95 part east of Las Vegas to the I-40 in Cali.

[bobgrey1997]

Not really. That puts you on 40 only a couple miles in-game west of Kingman, where you meet 40 from 93.
Not to mention that adding 95 would require Boulder City (or at least its bypass) which, while would technically fit in the current scale if you push the entirety of Vegas further west, is not at all practical.
There is nothing of use from that road in-game.

[TomDooley]

@Flight - indeed, typo (not the only one), I meant the '15 of course.

@Bobgrey - I respectfully disagree about the 95's significance/use, but let's agree to disagree

And yes, the old Tonopah mod was indeed way better.

[flight50]

I've seen the request several time to add US-95 linking I-40 to I-11 (at the time US-93) quite often. Its another link of road that adds to a US highway that is missing parts. US-95 imo is really only useful for continued travel on US-95. It splits US-93 and I-15 and without a deliverable city in between. I have to agree with bobgrey on that part. Even if scenic cities came along that route, its only a short-cut in not having to go to US-93 nor West to I-15 when coming from South Arizona. But I don't think Boulder is necessary. If its not there now and we are only connecting from the South from I-11, not US-93, we don't need Boulder.

[Felk]

If they cutted out Primm, a lot of space would be freed to add more interesting things like I-11, I-515 completing a loop with 15 and 215, a possibility of company in LAS and the correct elevation in CA-NV border.

Primm as a scenic, with a truckstop make a more lot sense than what it is now.

[bobgrey1997]

@Bobgrey - I respectfully disagree about the 95's significance/use, but let's agree to disagree

Just going to put this out there, simply saying "I disagree" is kinda useless. Do you know of any specific reasons why this road is worth adding, despite how short it will be and how close it is to other alternatives?
Who knows, you may have just the reason that convinces SCS or whoever does a mod to rework the area to add it in.

As for Primm, it is very useless. It should have never have been added to the game as it currently is (maybe as a small scenic town, at most). I have been tempted to remove it in my rework, but decided if it could be moved far enough away to give enough room for Vegas, but close enough that it won't cause any issues with areas further west, then it is worth keeping for now. I have thought about reworking it after Vegas. It likely wouldn't take long.