Mod request: Urban tram tracks

[Broadsword56]

Those who have tried to use the CMBN RR tracks on urban streets say it doesn't work -- the sleepers and ballast of the rail tile look too much like regular railways to double as tram tracks in a European city.

But trams were/are everywhere in urban Holland, and they'd appear increasingly as the action moves into Germany and the cities of the Soviet Union.

Maybe this mod has been tried and abandoned already? Perhaps the skeleton of the rr bed and sleepers, etc., make it impossible to simply re-skin them as urban tram lines.

But it would add a great dose of realism and immersion to city maps -- which we'll all be seeing more and more of, now that urban combat in CMx2 will be benefiting from a number of game engine improvements.

I'm imagining the same rails as the railway tile, but re-skinned so that the ballast is simply a paved or cobbled flat surface without ballast or sleepers.

It would be interesting to see how this looked in-game, running along a broad urban boulevard, with streetlights, trees, etc. Perhaps the existing telephone poles could be creatively placed to look like the overhead electric trolley wires, or reskinned into metal or concrete if that made them work better.

Of course you'd only want to load this mod when it's an entirely urban map, and even then only if you don't have a train station or a real railway running through some part of the map.

[Erwin]

Sounds like it needs to be part of an optional city road mod.

[mjkerner]

I just looked into it, Broadsword. Either the RR track bmps or the cobblestone bmps could be modded (put the cobblestone textures on the RR file, or the tracks--with no ties-- on the cobblestone), but as you noted, all the tiles of whatever one was modded would have the tracks.

I might give it a go, if I ever get the Crete stuff done.

[Broadsword56]

I'd definitely vote for cobblestone texture on the RR tile. That way you can still have plain cobblestone streets on the same map -- which I think would be necessary. And I don't think it would not look bad or unusual, either, to have a cobblestoned tram route running down the middle of a paved city street.

[Erwin]

Now, if we could have trams running down that street, that would be something!

[mjkerner]

Now, if we could have trams running down that street, that would be something!

Lol, I'd settle for a tram as a flavor object.

@Broadsword; yeah, that's the way I see it, too.

[John Kettler]

Erwin,

Very cool, but I'd want to stop them, fill them up with rocks and use them for street barricades! Reminds me of another idea of playing miniature warfare with Micro-Armour™ and using Z Gauge trains to deliver reinforcements and generally make the landscape look better.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Erwin]

I frequently imagine CM coupled with a WW2 train simulator game.

[Broadsword56]

I frequently imagine CM coupled with a WW2 train simulator game.

It could be something like "The Train," with Burt Lancaster -- one of my all-time favorite war movies.