How come we never see taxis be spawned by default in AI traffic? Busses and semitrucks with trailers are understandable, because of their non-flexibility, but taxies are just sedans painted yellow with some ads and a small sign reading "TAXI" on top. It would be cool to see this in big cities and maps like West Coast USA and would make the game feel more natural and add more variety. Also it just wastes a lot of car's taxi versions, and it would actually put them to use. Even if they didn't actually do what taxies do in real life such as pick people up and drop them off, it would still be cool to see them while stopping at an intersection in the middle of a city street. An example of what this might look like-
really? i thought i'd seen a few, maybe not with simplified traffic on but i have seen a fair share of taxis in AI traffic.
the closest thing you can get is that one setting that allows all configs of a car to spawn. but then youll get the fuckin ram plow t-series in a parking lot and i dont think you would want that
I really don't know why the devs haven't added this because it seems like such a necessary yet overlooked mechanic. I'm not sure if I'm wrong, but wouldn't they just have to change a few of lines of code to make taxis naturally added in ai traffic spawning? It seems like the only options to see taxis are to manually spawn them or have random traffic.
Pretty sure its the same mechanic that prevents Police cars from spawning when you select "no police" or whatever the button is in traffic. Cars are sorted by several different methods but one of them which isn't visible for viewing is a vehicle type which designates what sort of role said vehicles plays. I haven't dug into the files for this sort of stuff or anything but as far as I can tell vehicles are sorted into 3 different categories, those being: -Police -Civilian -Aftermarket Police is self explanatory, they are vehicles that are designated to behave like police cars. If you have ever spawned a mod car in and it is either a civilian vehicle pretending to be a cop in AI traffic, or a cop car that doesn't respond to you breaking the law, the issue with it is that it hasn't been given the correct designation Civilian is also simple, but not as simple. This is a category referring to any stock vehicle that would be available for purchase from the dealer. These consist of all normal vehicle configs that you would have expected to be sold as-is new from the dealer floor. This category notably excludes any and all factory-made race cars, as as far as the game is concerned they aren't technically sold as is. This category is generally just the "Factory" nameplate when configuring vehicles, although I could be wrong on that one. Aftermarket would be exactly as the name implies, these are vehicles which have been modified, this includes your ram plow T-Series, Hero Wentward, Beater configs, and any vehicles which wouldn't have been available for sale from dealer lots, like the BeamCom van, TurboBurger Pessima, and Taxis. Enabling aftermarket vehicles to spawn (turning off smart selection) basically just includes this 3rd category into the selection pool without actually allowing you to subdivide it further into road-worthy aftermarket and non-road-worthy aftermarket. If the devs were to want to add taxis and the other relevant vehicles into standard AI traffic without having goofy configs as well, they would need to overhaul the category system of the vehicles to allow for a fourth or even more categories. Ideally, a category system would function as so: -Common Civilian (Affordable and practical vehicles, ranging from 3-8 years old) -Uncommon Civilian (Perhaps pricier models, models that are much newer or much older) -Heavy Industrial (things like the T series) -Light Industrial (things like the H series uplifts) etc, etc.... This would even allow for vehicle spawns to be better tailored to specific areas of the map. For instance, currently the only thing which dictates if a vehicle will spawn on a road is its road width on the AI pathway. If a road is deemed too narrow for a vehicle, it will not spawn on said road, or drive around it. Expanding upon this system to make, say, a T series not spawn in the middle of a residential neighborhood, or stop a Bolide from spawning on a dirt road, would greatly improve upon the immersion as well I know this was a bit off topic but just thought it would help shed light on why some vehicles don't normally spawn when it seems logical that they should, hope this helps!
It would be nice if they could add more skins to show what company owns the taxi too, and if they had some taxi companies be more popular in certain areas as well. Like you might see some of these on the same road. And if they put taxis in certain parking lots that are gated. But the cars would have be like parked cars, except with no collision so they don't lag the entire game. Mostly just for show. There could also be specific cab lanes that they only appear on just like on some real streets. Some of the cars shown are mods, but Beamng doesn't really have many options for taxis.
That would be a cool idea actually. The way they could do it, is let’s say have these config types: taxi_brand, where brand is the name of the taxi company. And so then, they can choose which taxi companies are the most popular in which map.
Yeah, they could make another category of AI selection just as Car8john said, probably titled "transportational" and insert each company for it to choose. The category would also be helpful for if they decide to make a map specifically designed for busses in the future and need a place to put them. Although they'd have to make a lot of skins for new taxi brands, and do some rearranged coding, the idea of taxis in AI traffic sounds like an element to bring into the next big update.
