Sign in to follow this  
HughMongus

Highway Lighting and Spacing Ettiquette (voluntary)

Recommended Posts

Back in 2016 when Cats Eyes Highways were 1st introduced, my good friend the late Zorako and I worked out a Lamp Spacing Etiquette that has been applied to all of the major Named Highways of Indy on which we have put blessed street lamps.

 

We did this with keeping in mind that folks like Wurm for the challenge AND the element of risk, danger when travelling.


SO to keep the element of some danger at night,  Zorako and I came up with the following to ensure Hwy lamps show where a highway goes......


...... but are far enough apart so as not to put a heavy burden on the graphics engine for those folks operating with older, slower computers, as well as keeping night travel slightly dangerous.

 

Lamp Types To Use.

It is recommended that Lamps with big Lantern style heads, like Iron Lamps,  are used.  Their lamp heads are more easy to see at night as small yellow blobs in the far distance then the fancy "genie" style hanging lamps or Torch Lamps, or the enclosed bronze lamps, which are nearly invisible when looking 40-50 tiles off into the distance to see where a road goes.


So.. how did we do it....


1..... 50 QL for the lamps is good enough.  Gives enough illumination to see where the highway goes but low enough to still keep the challenging with pools of darkness between.  As experience has taught me, making 60 lamps up to 50 QL is about a 6 hour job with two avatars who are 85+ Blacksmithing skill. (this includes lunch and bathroom breaks).


Even spacing is important to give people a good sense of distance and where the highway is going...


2..... 10 tiles apart  on North- South Highways and East-West highways  AND...


3..... 08 diagonal tiles apart on diagonal highways.


Of course not all highways are spaced with even counts of 10 between intersections.  In these cases one adjusts the last few lamps to 9 apart or 11 apart to keep the visual spacing even to look at, to give a good visual distance interpretation.


4...  Marking Major Junctions or Intersections with other highways visible, both Cats Eyed and Non Cats Eyed.

4a ....   One lamp goes in the middle of the intersection (Off set from the Way Stone please so its directions are readable)

4b .....  AND then single lamps are set 5 tiles out to each side of the intersection, so as to make the intersection more visible, so someone does not miss the corner when running from a Troll with large dents in their plate armour. (grin).


Then you start counting 10 tiles between lamps.


5.....  We NEVER put lamps across any of the open steppe or tundra Hunting Areas.


Hunters like it Dangerous!!!  This rule Zorako and I developed in response to requests from Hunters to keep those areas dark and dangerous.

This rule has been applied to The Grand Steppe, the Eastern Plains, the NE Praires, the SE Steppe, Gurubears Crater, the Western Deserts and the south Inner Sea Tundra, located at the NE end of the Kinoss Cave Canal.


There is an Exception...  YES, you can put in Intersection or Junction marker Lamps at major intersections with other major highway junctions in Hunting Areas.


Examples of how this is done can be found at 4 Oaks Corner on The Grand Steppe as well as the north Grand Steppe junction and at two mid- NE Prairies highways intersections.


Finally.... please put the Highway Name on your Street Lamps.  Helps travellers to stay "un-lost".

 

Please Note... If you put lamps on both sides of a Highway to make it look like a boulevard, after planting on a Tile Corner, do give them three Pulls onto the Hwy to make sure they are inside the Cats Eye protected area to prevent decay.

 

This is a community project, and all recommendations are voluntary, not mandatory.  Most folks have been using it since CE Hwys were first introduced.

 

Good luck with your highway lighting project.


Kindest regards,

Hughmongus

Cartographer on Indy since 2013

Co-Administrator - The Albia Roads Map of Indy (The Indy Community Map since 2016)

Edited by HughMongus
added Western Desert to the Hunting Areas list and grammer corrections
  • Like 5

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this