AI paths

  • At LOTUS, road traffic takes place on the so-called AI-road paths. These must be laid independently of all other road elements in the MapEditor, and they are also used to tell the road traffic according to which rules it should behave.

    1 Lay paths

    To lay or edit AI paths, you have to switch to the "Street" tab on the left. With the buttons "New street path" or "New parallel street paths" new street paths are created - just like all other spline types.


    In the section "Line construction" the following properties can be preset:

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    • the width that the vehicle can use
    • the "passability" of the left and right outer edge of the path: is it allowed (green, overtaking, if necessary also on the opposite lane, and lane changes are allowed), forbidden (yellow, continuous line, but passable in an emergency, e.g. wheel or hard shoulder) or impossible (red, e.g. curb, parked cars, wall, fence...)

    2 Edit path properties

    Like all other objects in the MapEditor, the properties of the AI road segments can be opened via the context menu or by selecting and :properties:. Apart from the "usual" properties for lines there are the following parameters:

    • the already mentioned traversability can be set here again
    • Priority: If two paths with the same priority intersect, then "right-to-left" applies there, otherwise the traffic with the higher priority is preferred. Negative numbers are allowed!
    • Indicator: How should the vehicles indicate when they cross this path segment? Of course the vehicles start flashing before that.

    2.1 Traffic density

    On the left in the "Road" tab, the individual vehicle groups are also defined and their density is specified. In vehicle groups, different vehicles are combined, which generate a common traffic density, e.g. passenger cars, trucks, ambulances, ...


    The vehicle groups are also called "NST groups", NST = non-scheduled traffic. With the [+] button another group can be added, with [-] only the last group can be deleted. If a vehicle group is selected, the wagon sequence sublist can be selected from which the vehicles to be generated are randomly chosen.


    Below this, the corresponding traffic density can be displayed and set using the "Traffic density" box: As soon as road paths are marked, the traffic density set for these paths is displayed there. If paths are already marked and a different value is set here, this value is used for all marked paths. Finally - if no paths are marked and a different value is set, then all paths in the visible section are marked secondary ("blue"), which have the same traffic density.


    2.2 Traffic lights

    To link a path to a traffic light, simply mark the path and then select the traffic light on the left. Now click on "Mark. Add object to the system" and select the corresponding intersection direction. With the button "Mark objects with this plant" the paths assigned to the marked plant and the selected direction can be marked secondary ("blue").

    3 Important:

    At least for the moment it is necessary that there are no open path ends!