Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-27831234-20160513134234/@comment-25101089-20160520054125

AlteOgre wrote: Based on the latest FB Update new flash, it seems that a significant part of this wish list is answered to. :)

Check the additional answers at FB. Shall we tag this [Closed:Implemented (part.)]? Yes, please. The new post is probably as complex as the bridges are going to get.

Stone bridges, and anything like that, are probably impossible under the current system. It is not like a generated structure where you can handle the whole structure at once and decide which blocks it uses or what patterns it will take. Bridges and roads are just generated as part of the terrain, not a complete structure on top of it. The idea of changing properties of a bridge based on how long the bridge is would be analogous to, hmm, suggesting that all hills bigger than 200 blocks in size are covered in gold blocks. Which would of course be impossible since the hill generates by parts and no individual chunk can know about the 'whole thing'. Indeed, any idea of the 'whole thing' is just a human observation, not backed up by what the code can know about or deal with.

Straight bridges also seems unrealistic since that would demand all bridges to align perfectly with the X or Z axes. This would in turn demand all roads to only align with the axes (which is obviously impossible, given the various positioning of the waypoints, and would look terrible on the map anyway). Either that, or complete disconnection between roads and the new straight-aligned bridges, since there is no way in Arda the road generation system could accurately predict everywhere that a bridge would appear and alter the road paths accordingly (remember that the bridges do  not just appear over the pre-defined rivers on the map, but also over the randomly generated rivers and ponds and anywhere with water).

Prodecural generation just isn't good for things like this. I am actually quite astonished that the roads and bridges have even managed to reach this level of complexity, since the methods I've had to use are unintutive and difficult and completely different from how normal 'structures' are coded. Sorry guys, at least you have the kebab stands.