Total Overhaul Mod Thoughts

Looks like you spent a lot of time thinking about this. I think it sounds like a good idea but damn that sounds like it would take a year to make. How long do you think something like that would take? 

28 minutes ago, Shroomblaze said:

Looks like you spent a lot of time thinking about this. I think it sounds like a good idea but damn that sounds like it would take a year to make. How long do you think something like that would take? 

Multiple modders are interested.

I would say about one month alone would be needed to analyse the code of the game.

The changes can be split up into different modules which can be published every 2 or 3 months.

The biggest challenge would be the balancing and the addition of new GUIs and data views.

It sounds great but it seems like it would take a really long time. I understand why it would not be compatible with other mods but I'd be torn on what to play, this or just a game with mods since I love all the mods I play with including, yours and Shroomblaze's. 

Since other modders are interested could you not do the same but make a "DLC" mod(s) and add other things?

It would not be generally incompatible with any other mod. Many of the visual mods should be compatible, same with traffic mods and stuff like terrain/tree tools. All assets (buildings, trees, vehicles) should be compatible as well.

Mods which affect the simulation, the handling of growables or service AIs will probably be incompatible. For example, any mod that relies on the 5 wealth levels, the low- and high-density zone types, the demand, Chirpy, the Unlock System, Taxes, the building upgrade system etc.

24 minutes ago, idk3625 said:

Since other modders are interested could you not do the same but make a "DLC" mod(s) and add other things?

What?

I'm really liking this. What I also like in sc4 is that a wealthy neighborhood can turn into a slum. Like before a high density building would abandon, low income residents will move in at higher capacities. If we are able to get at animations, it would be cool to introduce strikes which could happen before services get shut down.......I might launch my sc4 now

Will a proper rush hour be incorporated? PropaneDragon on board?

But yeah, this sounds really engaging. You have my full support when and however I can help

Oh awesome  thats good news. I'd be really excited to see this some to life, I would help if I knew how so instead upon its first release consider my donation sent. And I agree with @Mr_Maison I might just start up SC now.

Sounds like  a really great idea to me. I think for the longevity of the game it's important to get a more in depth and challenging simulation and it seems like CO won't pick up that pace.  From what I understand you will have 9 (3x3) levels of buildings for residential (or more?), how will you accomplish the difference in visual style without adding any custom meshes and will you make this compatible with your theme manager? I'm also wondering what requirements you will set for wealthand density levels. Especially for the higher levels, since currently the simulation doesn't add anything after 30k citizens. Although you do get a lot of transport options and stuff, since you already have lvl 5 high ress by that time, it reverts to a zone and zone more game.

And what will you do with tourism?

Most of those sound great though I prefer 4 default wealth levels (plus elite and impoverished eventually, from events).

If possible, moving hotels to a separate zone (could be purple or magenta) and moving density to a side button (like straight, arc, curve, upgrade) would be ideal. Separate demands for business hotels (generic hotels, demanded by offices) and holiday hotels (leisure or tourism specialty) would also be great.

Splitting up zones sounds complicated so why not have a lot comprised of multiple (recolor) buildings on one lot when you want to divide a lot?

Industrial Specializations don't need separate demands because generic industry chooses a random resource upon construction of each new factory; there's a data view for that with pie charts.

boformer. I see you're really overhauling the whole game and are open to "realism aspects"  and feedback so to speak.

There are two main zoning aspects that are a very frustrating in this game that you didn't mention:

• pop-balance mod and realistic building population and consumption mod are two that address the problem this game has with population of buildings. As you know, low-density RCI buildings have too many residents/workers while high density building have too few. Since I'm sure these mods will be incompatible with yuor total overhaul, I thought you should know how important these mods are bringing realistic populations to our buildings, and I hope that is your opinion as well. 
• Too much commercial zoning required in vanilla game. There seems to be an almost 33%, 33% and 33% area for zoning needed for the residential, commercial and industrial zones. There is always too much demand for commercial zones and too many commercial buildings in this game compared to residence and industrial. As a whole, shops should not exceed the total of 20% zoning requirements to make it at least believable. Please, I beg you adress this issue. An idea how to fix this issue would be to inflate the numbers of workers needed in the shops in comparison with industry and residence, so that we don't need to zone ridiculous ammounts of commercial zones on every corner.

Other comments:

• Quote

   

  • Industry will require more energy and water
  • Addition of clean high-tech industry

   

  Don't create industry too unpopular as it is. Industry is much more important to cities than commerce and offices, don't make this SC4 where industry isn't specifically needed.
  Clean high-tech will definitely need only highly educated workers and great land value. Correct?

Otherwise, nice idea Boformer, you're great.

Most of the suggestion sound pretty much like SC4, which is a good thing in my book., so not much to add there.

I agree with the last post that the SC4 model of residential:commercial:industry of 2:1:1 needs a bit too many commercial or industrial areas (industrial areas in SC4 were definitely too weak, and the same is true for this game). I assume rebalancing of residential numbers will be a given since medium density will be introduced.

If I understood it correctly, zoning density will behave like "max reachable density", like in SC4, which should give me all the flexibility I want.

I hope things like disasters and other random events are toggable in the options.

As far as difficulty is concerned, don't overdo it, or at least make it optional/scalable. I know that many people are clamoring for a more difficult game, but, while I sometimes like this, I don't want to have this all the time. The option to lose your city because your gamble on that big loan for your first metro was ill-timed makes it a very different game from just wanting to build a nice city. This worked very well in CiM1, but there, the city was done, and after bankruptcy, you just reloaded the same city and started again. I know there's still the option of unlimited funds I guess, but it's a principal question of what kind of game you want.

There is a certain clash of philosophies at work here. SC4 also did away with meaningful disasters or mishaps (you had to consciously invoke those) in order to allow you to actually build those huge city regions, which takes weeks, months or years. A similar approach works in C:S at the moment. However, games with meaningful disasters and the risk of loss tend to be short and limited in scope. The idea behind those is to just play a few hours, either succeed or fail, and in both cases start anew the next time you fire the game up.

C:S has no clear philosophy in this regard. You can see that everything is scaled for a small area and a short game, but it's missing the gaming aspect you want to introduce here. Workshop assets help with overcoming the insufficient vanilla assets for bigger cities at the moment, so that's a possibility. I still miss the better simulation aspects of SC4 that make up most of what you proposed above, but I don't think that the Tropico approach works with a big scale city (and I like Tropico, even when it still had some teeth).

1 hour ago, Darf said:

how will you accomplish the difference in visual style?

Right now there are 5x2 = 10 residential levels. Some of the L1 buildings look like medium-wealth buildings. Some of the low-density buildings look like medium-density buildings. It is much easier to assign the assets to the 3 wealth and 3 density levels (than 5 wealth and 2 density levels). You will clearly see the difference in style and density.

I think in total there are about 200 residential buildings (international style only), enough to fill 9 levels. Note that there must not be an asset of the same size on every level because of the smart lot splitting/merging feature.

Additionally workshop buildings would also be supported, so that won't be a problem.

1 hour ago, Darf said:

will you make this compatible with your theme manager?

Probably not. Instead, I would modify the styles system of the game. The complete revamp of the leveling system and the improved spawning algorithm would solve many problems of the original styles system. The only limitation is that you can only select one style per district, but I think that is ok. I would provide a tool that lets you add default buildings to the styles, so it completely replaces the theme manager.

1 hour ago, Darf said:

I'm also wondering what requirements you will set for wealthand density levels. Especially for the higher levels, since currently the simulation doesn't add anything after 30k citizens. Although you do get a lot of transport options and stuff, since you already have lvl 5 high ress by that time, it reverts to a zone and zone more game.

That's a difficult question. Pleasing the high-wealth people should be a challenge, especially if you want high-density skyscrapers. These buildings will require an extremely high land-value and good service-quality (125+%). One abandoned building in the neighbourhood and they will move away (and the people moving in will not pay for all the services and infrastructure you provided).

Zoning more and more only works when your economy is healthy (taxes!), because roads are quite expensive to build. Unemployed people will not pay taxes (but still raise your service budgets), and the constant immigration (especially in times of an immigration wave) will force you to build new districts. Otherwise houses will be overpopulated, which will raise crime rate, garbage rate and all the things you don't want. It will also make citizens unhappy.

Increased commute times caused by the growth of your city will make certain areas unattractive, so no high-wealth citizens will move there. Speaking of commute times, most high-wealth citizens (90%) will use their car, which is another challenge.

1 hour ago, Darf said:

And what will you do with tourism?

Make it a challenge, I guess. Tourism would heavily depend on pollution (which is also caused by hotels and slowly accumulates until it becomes critical), crime rate and many other things. My current main concern is that there is no feedback how tourism is developing (and why). That's where the news system will be useful. I think it makes sense to lock the tourism features until your city reaches a certain "popularity number".

1 hour ago, OcramsRzr said:

Splitting up zones sounds complicated so why not have a lot comprised of multiple (recolor) buildings on one lot when you want to divide a lot?

Splitting and merging zones is not so hard.

1 hour ago, OcramsRzr said:

Industrial Specializations don't need separate demands because generic industry chooses a random resource upon construction of each new factory; there's a data view for that with pie charts.

Maybe you are right, though it would be interesting to make the demand depend on the global market (e.g. in one decade oil is cheap on the market, so exploiting an oilfield does not make sense). The taxes paid by the special industry would also depend on the resource price.

32 minutes ago, idcaf said:

pop-balance mod and realistic building population and consumption mod are two that address the problem this game has with population of buildings. As you know, low-density RCI buildings have too many residents/workers while high density building have too few. Since I'm sure these mods will be incompatible with yuor total overhaul, I thought you should know how important these mods are bringing realistic populations to our buildings, and I hope that is your opinion as well. 

I agree, the home/job count must be revised (maybe it should depend on the 3D volume/height of the buildings). It should range from <10 to >1000/2000.

32 minutes ago, idcaf said:

too much commercial zoning required in vanilla game. There seems to be an almost 33%, 33% and 33% area for zoning needed for the residential, commercial and industrial zones.

I guess it should be based on real numbers. 15 or 20% would make sense. Also, it is kind of hard to define the difference between high-density commercial and office zones. That's something that must be discussed.

46 minutes ago, idcaf said:

Don't create industry too unpopular as it is. Industry is much more important to cities than commerce and offices, don't make this SC4 where industry isn't specifically needed.

Industry also generates a lot of taxes and jobs. I think it is important to leave a choice to the player. Every job provider must have advantages and disadvantages. Still, there must be some kind of balance that makes every option desirable, including events that boost or hinder the development.

The whole balancing is the biggest challenge and requires a lot of planning and conception, mathematic calculations and testing.

Clean high-tech will definitely need only highly educated workers and great land value. Correct?

That would make sense.

Just an thougt, if you change, the classification of zones, you need to change the classification of the asset?

so the "foreign" assets would work, but could have the wrong building class?

in German:

da du ja deutsch sprichst, so vielleicht einfacher  du veränderst ja die Zonen. Aber die ganzen Assets wären ja dann wahrscheinlich insofern inkompatibel, weil sie dann nicht die richtige Zone eingestellt hätten?

All aspects of this sound good except the industry part. I have grown up in areas that are mixed industry residential. I'd love to see warehouse light industry not create pollution that makes people sick. Especially because in most major cities those buildings have been turned into hipster warehouse apartments. 

9 minutes ago, sachizm said:

All aspects of this sound good except the industry part. I have grown up in areas that are mixed industry residential. I'd love to see warehouse light industry not create pollution that makes people sick. Especially because in most major cities those buildings have been turned into hipster warehouse apartments. 

 

 

I agree. Some kind of warehouse or light industry would be good.

As someone who came from sc4, I support almost every aspect you mentioned.

Cities in its current state feels like a beautiful sandbox but not like a game at all.

Obviously this is a long list that will take a lot of time to program, so I wonder what happens when the devs decide to release further updates. (prob not gameplay related)

A part of Nams success was that EA never released any updates after Rush hour that potentially crash the mod.

I think this is an important thing for a successful overhaul just like balancing all the new elements to guarantee a fair challenge at every point.

Mod compatibility is also something really important, either by integrating the major ones or getting into contact with the modders and ask them to develop compatible versions.

This could also be a big chance to increase the performance of the game if you just need to install one mod instead of up to 50.

If this mod is successful, I hope CO give us a way that we can skip any automatic updates in case this mod gets broken. Perhaps this can be called CSL: Mod Edition and we agree that by using this mod, we receive official updates at our own risk. So by default, automatic updates are turned off except for workshop items made by the community. I say this because this would be an entirely different version of the game and should be considered a separate "spinoff" from the official builds. Just a thought.

I like warehouses. If density becomes a side button, low density would be extraction or storage/warehouse, medium density would be typical factories, and high density would be huge factories, hiring 1.5x workers, workers, producing more (1.2x) output per input (requiring 1.5x input), and polluting more per output. High Tech industry wouldn't generate air pollution though some factories might produce noise pollution. Low density warehouses would import, export, and provide logistics without polluting or producing. Medium-density warehouses would also produce consumer goods (in small amounts) while polluting half as much per good (vs medium density factories of the same tech level). Logistics would be mostly provided by offices, demanded by all factories but demand goes up more (not linearly) with higher growth stage or tech level.

Low density offices would be 2 story wall-to-wall buildings, narrow 4 story buildings with parking lots and plazas, or somewhere in between.

The problem with that is the need to use new models for warehouses, huge factories, and high-tech industry. Re-lotting residential to get 3 wealth levels and 4 growth levels per zone (total of 12) might be a bit difficult because the jump from the biggest low density to smallest high density building is so high that new models for (medium density) growth stages 2 & 3 will be needed. Changing textures and props on some low density commercial and residential might be good candidates for low density offices.

Since you will be changing RCI so much already, I suggest allowing 8-tile deep zoned lots (still 4 tiles wide) and putting the nearly wall-to-wall skyscrapers on lots with parking garages (new model needed) and plazas.

I realize now that wealth level 4 can only be done with new models, unless tier5 housing gets re-textured and re-lotted on deeper lots with fancy props. However, wealth 4 shouldn't require special events, only wealth 5. Higher wealth levels would have smaller households taking up more space. A wealth 4 mansion would hold a couple and their only child in the space of a condominium with 5 working-class households.

You mentioned poverty (poorer than typical wealth 1) from events. Why not have the first 4 growth stages (low density) consume no water, and never require water for leveling up? The 3rd growth stage would require a little electricity to upgrade to the 4th stage. Medium density would require water, sewage, and electricity, but always far lower per capita than wealth 1. Poverty, being a special occupant type, would only ever hold uneducated Cims and would cram twice as many into the same space (and growth stage) as wealth 1.

I would pay/donate gladly for this project in excess of what I payed for C:S and it's DLC.

I'd echo the sentiment that everything about making C:S feel more like SC4 is a good thing. I liked that in SC4 building and cities felt alive and dynamic, but left certain aspects of transportation simulation desired. In CS:S it feels almost opposite. The roads and rails and etc are much more dynamic, but simulation of cities feels hollow. If there's overwhelming demand for low skilled workers it would make sense that the city would create low wealth housing. But you have to create areas without proper education, or health or parks, and that makes the play style feel pigeon-holed at times.

I also miss medium density just about more than anything. I also miss being able to force lot sizes from SC4. I know at this point it might be unrealistic to ask for, but larger lot sizes would be wonderful. What's the point of having an 8x8 zoning area if it's just gonna fill up with 4x4 lots?

I'd also like to mention that I play more in sandbox mode than in true micromanaged fashion, so I wouldn't want something terribly hardcore/unforgiving.

tl;dr If you could bring the level of simulation fidelity in the building/RCI/etc up to the same standard as cars/vehicles/etc then I would be a happy camper. And yes I know the stock version had it's issues but mods have given us much smarter AI and along with proper building techniques we've come a long way from a line of cars starting in the city to the edge of the map.

11 hours ago, DaHindi said:

Just an thougt, if you change, the classification of zones, you need to change the classification of the asset?

That's easily possible. The mod would change the "ItemClass" of the buildings in the loading process of the city (according to an internal database).

10 hours ago, sachizm said:

All aspects of this sound good except the industry part. I have grown up in areas that are mixed industry residential. I'd love to see warehouse light industry not create pollution that makes people sick. Especially because in most major cities those buildings have been turned into hipster warehouse apartments.

The mod does not have the goal to make the simulation entirely realistic, just more challenging and diverse

4 hours ago, OcramsRzr said:

The problem with that is the need to use new models for warehouses, huge factories, and high-tech industry.

It might be possible to add some kind of warehouse industry, there are a few smaller industrial assets that look like warehouses. The question is what would be the stats of those warehouses, compared to high tech industry (CO added models for that) and dirty industry? What would be the advantages and disadvantages? What kind of jobs would it provide, what kind of services would it need?

4 hours ago, OcramsRzr said:

Since you will be changing RCI so much already, I suggest allowing 8-tile deep zoned lots (still 4 tiles wide) and putting the nearly wall-to-wall skyscrapers on lots with parking garages (new model needed) and plazas.

That won't happen. All I could imagine are wider lots (e.g. 6x4, 8x4), but the mod builds up on what we have: A 4x4 limit, and existing assets with sizes ranging from 1x1 to 4x4.

4 hours ago, OcramsRzr said:

You mentioned poverty (poorer than typical wealth 1) from events. Why not have the first 4 growth stages (low density) consume no water, and never require water for leveling up? The 3rd growth stage would require a little electricity to upgrade to the 4th stage. Medium density would require water, sewage, and electricity, but always far lower per capita than wealth 1. Poverty, being a special occupant type, would only ever hold uneducated Cims and would cram twice as many into the same space (and growth stage) as wealth 1.

The process of "leveling up" would no longer exist in this mod. Just "growth". I think that low-wealth low-density buildings (at least residential) should not require electricity or water to grow. But citizens will be happier if you provide it. The special "ultra-poor" citizen class would of course also not require these services. My big dream would be a "slum/ghetto" system that automatically generates small huts (even outside of zones) when there is not enough police presence.

1 hour ago, AJ3D said:

Following the preaching of BP, it might be a good idea to keep things modular, and work with existing mods that add features we want.

The question is how deep the simulation changes would be. It might be required to rebalance all zone types, so modularity would be difficult to achieve. At least there should be options to disable certain features like random events.

this is such a great idea! even simple things like water pumps being prioritised when there's a power shortage - doh!

is it possible to implement agriculture in a better way? i'm unsure how you'd make it more like SC4 farms, but that's my dream

different industrial zone types would be amazing. building themes does a great job when you want warehouse/high-tech industrial districts, but that's only cosmetic and besides - zoning is more intuitive than district specialisation.

so i'm just clarifying; this mod would do away with district specialisation all together, would it? (leisure, tourism, oil, forestry)? these would all be assigned their own RCI's?

Just now, Chesh said:

so i'm just clarifying; this mod would do away with district specialisation all together, would it? (leisure, tourism, oil, forestry)? these would all be assigned their own RCI's?

Probably not. I'm not even sure if a medium-density zone would be feasible (alternative would be a high-density zone with "no high rises" policy).

What would be the benefit of separate zones?

1. Warehouses would import (and export) in higher capacity trucks (less congestion, models already exist on workshop) and produce logistics (less than offices). Big Warehouses on medium density zones might make a few free consumer goods (assume that disappeared freight trucks are smuggled, if you wish).

2. If you find out how to increase depth to 8 tiles, then farm fields, working forests, and re-lotted buildings (with added plazas, green space, or parking) could be vastly improved. New models wouldn't be needed because we (even me) could put existing large footprint (occupying most of a 4x4 lot) buildings onto 8 deep (4 wide) lots. Props and mini buildings could be taken from the Workshop with permission.

3. Densification and social climbing would be the new level-ups. Low density poverty wouldn't consume or request utilities but medium density would request and consume electricity (but medium1 wouldn't abandon). High density would consume and demand water, sewage, and electricity because they would amount to public housing projects. Education would turn impoverished Cims into manual laborer/working class.

4. If medium density cannot be implemented, then it might be possible to make each zone type (Residential, Commercial, Industry, Offices, Hotels) have only 1 density and 12 growth stages (obviously separate from wealth levels). It's really easy to add and remove floors/storeys in 3DS Max. If you want to include supertall (anything with more than ~50 occupied floors) zoned RCIOH/CHOIR buildings, the residential and office zones could conceivably have up to 20 growth stages. District policies for height limits (bans on skyscrapers, high rises, or mid rises) and density limits (wall-to-wall ban, multi-occupancy ban, only detached buildings (houses and small businesses), limit 3 households/businesses per lot) could then replace density zoning (and do a better job).

the benefit of seperate zones, instead of the district zoning system, is that you would then have finer control over building placement. for example; this would allow you to alternate generic and forestry zones instead of having one huge forestry sector. the same logic applies with tourism and leisure. this was talked about when AD came out, and wasn't well received i think. since then i've resigned myself to the way things are. but really, more zone types would be such an improvement. i'd much rather see the districts tool be used for parks, farms and national forests, as well as policies implementation

it would be really cool to have a button interface for zoning (like the curved, straight and free form road buttons). this would basically be like adding new zone types without actually 'adding' more zone types to manually put down. an example of what i'm talking about - for industry the buttons could be; warehouses, dirty/extraction, manufacturing, high tech

coming back to the benefit of seperate zones, with this idea you'd be able to make resource specific warehouses and high tech industry. this would make cities look and feel more diverse, if instead of just zoning industry and designating it 'ore', you select the ore zone (probably grey) and choose where the ore storage goes, where the extraction takes place etc. 

Some very good ideas presented here. I'll just note two that stood out that I'd not be that fond of.

The first is "It will be impossible to create cities with only high-wealth citizens or only high-density buildings " - why? Making that very challenging is one thing, making it impossible by design though seems like taking away what might be someone's desire \ ultimate challenge, it certainly was mine with many but not all SC4 cities.

The second is I think someone mentioned more or less to require a city have industry, that's a mistake in my opinion, plenty of players want to build cities that have little to no industry, as many exist around the world.

Not sure I follow the stable\instable state thing entirely.

Also a random comment that plays into commerce and light\non-polluting industry of sorts - warehouses. This game needs distribution\cargo warehouses option so that goods can be further pushed out even closer to commerce areas.  I also second the comments about the C in RCI needing to be tweaked to the lower side.

It's quite an ambitious project to undertake and one that might be better delayed till updates slow in pace, last thing you want is the ground underneath you changing mid development, then again I'm a bit of pessimist so maybe just ignore that.  It's too bad we don't have a sort of road map from CO that at least hints what's next on their agenda, or any visibility into their own 'wish list' as it would help know what areas might be changing or getting additions in the future.

/2cents

10 hours ago, Chesh said:

the benefit of seperate zones, instead of the district zoning system, is that you would then have finer control over building placement. for example; this would allow you to alternate generic and forestry zones instead of having one huge forestry sector.

An alternative would be the addition of a generic industry and general commercial "specialisation" that can be applied to districts. Then the game would decide (based on demand) how to fill the district.

In general I don't want to give the player too much direct control. All you should be able to do is specify a max density and one or multiple specialisations. The finest control I can image is the proposed "lot size slider".

7 hours ago, knighthawk75 said:

The first is "It will be impossible to create cities with only high-wealth citizens or only high-density buildings " - why? Making that very challenging is one thing, making it impossible by design though seems like taking away what might be someone's desire \ ultimate challenge, it certainly was mine with many but not all SC4 cities.

City services, industry and commercial will always need some low-wage "uneducated" workers. High-wealth citizens can do these jobs, but that raises the chance that they loose their wealth.

That means there will be some natural limit (maybe 80/15/5) for the wealth distribution. I guess this limit would be bi-directional.

Also, there is always some demand fluctuation (not only caused by events).

I love the potentials of this idea.  There has been a lot of talk about SC4.  What about Cities XL?  While the game was pretty static as far as random events were concerned, it did have a really nice interdependence system for zone types.  Pretty much, dirty industry drove manufacturing demands, manufacturing drove hi tech and all industry drove office demand.  Farms (but in our case I would make it all industry) drove retail.  This gives the player a sense that the RCI demands are actually meaningful.  I would be willing to help however I can.  Good ideas all around!

I would like ploppable mixed use (with specialized industry on empty/depleted land) including skyfarms (offices with few workers but produce raw/extracted agriculture resources AKA food crops), recycling centers (incinerators that use (instead of generate) electricity when processing garbage but produce refined mining (scrap metal and aluminum), drilling (plastic), and forestry (paper and engineered wood) products, and (yeast/algae/microbe) food vats (sewage treatment plants that produced refined agricultural products AKA processed food). Modders already made recycling centers, greenhouses, and giant vats/storage tanks; it would be rather easy to expand upon the concept. I don't know much about 'Ploppable RICO' (which might do this already) and I would like to see hotels as their own distinct occupant type/zone (RCI-->RICO-->CHOIR)

Any chance we can get other things in the game fixed such as the angles of which roads are allowed to merge from and to another road? They're alittle too sharp. This makes Highway exits unrealistic. American style traffic lights would be nice too. Also the way roads convert from less to additional lanes or vise versa is also inconsistent, the lanes don't match up, no taper.

Changing the network system (like adding merging lanes, allowing sharper junction angles in a less hacky way) would be out of scope.

That's something that could be handled by a completely separate mod.