Idea: Traffic Accidents

[kewleus]

Overview

Would be neat for different road sections to trigger accidents at different probabilities. Accidents could require different emergency services or all based on pseudo random probabilities and different road blocks could incur increased or decreased levels of accidents (and their severity) such as intersections or high/low volume areas.

I haven't looked at what's possible yet so let me know if this is way out in left field but I think it would be neat to try. Also as far as I know there are no accidents currently in the game so it may not be possible to add.

Details

• Examples of different probability zones
  • Highways (with lower probability of occurrence and higher severity probabilty)
  • Intersections (Higher probability of occurrence but severity depends on road type)
  • Intersections (with pedestrians)
  • Bus Stops (increased probability, only pedestrian)
  • etc.
• Emergency Response (based on severity, have different emergency services respond)
  • Low: Police / None
  • Mid: Police / Ambulance
  • High: Police / Ambulance / Fire
  • Death: Police / Ambulance / Fire / Hearse
• Difficulty
  • Blocks up to N lanes of traffic based on road type and severity roll
  • Ties up emergency services

    More

I'll try to contribute or look into different options for this, but I'm in the process of moving and house renovations so my time is currently limited.

[joaofarias]

This is one of the first things I thought of doing but is also one of the more complex. It's certainly possible, though.

I'd love to dedicate my time to this but I'm currently buried in other features that, in my opinion, have a bigger priority at this point.

But feel free to go ahead and search for a solution. If you need any help, let me know and I'll try to get back to you ASAP.

[originalfoo]

IMHO it would be better to start with vehicle breakdowns (as that would be a bit easier and cover some of the prerequisites for accidents):

• random chance of breakdown (very low by default, increases in traffic jams or on highways, varies by vehicle type, driver wealth, journey length?)
• vehicle pulls to side of road (this is doable - just like parking or making deliveries)
• smoke effect from car (already doable using steam/smoke props)

Initially car would remain broken down for random amount of time, then magically become fixed and start driving again. Later upgrade would be to send out a repair truck (ideally from a car garage?) to repair vehicle. Random chance that car could be 'written off' and towed to a dump / scrap yard.

Once that's in place you are more or less ready for accidents:

• vehicles could lose control at sharp road bends (especially if speed limit set higher than road default)
• later extend to vehicles colliding with each other (might be quite CPU intensive)
• minor accident: treat as car breakdown + police called to scene
• medium accident: as above + ambulance called to scene
• severe accident: as above + car on fire + fire engine called to scene

Would likely also need ability to do lane closures (complete with props, maybe placed when emergency services arrive). If multiple emergency service vehicles on scene would probably want to limit how their light sources work to reduce GPU load.

Could then further extend to things like police chases which in turn could be another source of accidents.

Cars cutting across more than one lane, or driving in to road (after being parked) on busy roads could also be sources of accidents.