Make it possible for traffic to be swerved through based on how high your driving skill and relevant stats are.
banner art by Michal Lisowski
For example… no cutting through traffic in a town car/limo. Only at very high speeds (meaning if you're stopping constantly to get a look at what's happening in the tube, you're going to get stuck). Once you hit traffic, you're stuck again... meaning traffic jams still create a problem.
However, based on feedback in the below threads traffic is by design to limit the ground vehicles from traversing too fast, and it being all but impossible to catch individuals out in the open between super safe Green Sector living and Gold Sector corporate towers.
https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/tube-traffic-rebalance-2630/
https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/traffic-speeds-1897/
https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/driving-expressway-suggestions-1871/
https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/make-driving-the-express-less-of-a-mess-1499/
Vehicle combat, Player vs Vehicle Combat, EMP grenades, Surface to Air (Javelin-missiles), etc. The key differentiator is when a ground vehicles stops working - it stops. When a aero stops working - it drops out of the sky and can kill its occupants.
The tools exists.
Since that's also the subject of this thread, I definitely support some kind of means to counter traffic with skill. At the bare minimum, it'd be nice if getting stopped by it didn't ruin queued pathing.
I think the disadvantage is by design due to cost, availability, usage, and a number of other factors. Much like ranged vs close-combat weapons they each have a balance to them.
For instance, if you stall out in a ground vehicle - you stop. If you stall out in an aero, you begin to plummet to your death.
In short, there is a wide gauntlet of advantages and disadvantages to account for here beyond traffic.
Not trying to derail this topic but it seemed like a good opportunity to highlight some of the other glaring imbalances between ground vs air vehicles aside from just traffic.
It tends to only happen with newer pilots because the seasoned ones invest wayyyy more ue in piloting than most do in driving. To be transparent, you can the "E D C B"
That said, I think we've broached the topic pretty heavily. I'm open to any feedback to rebuttal you may have but just want to thank you for the constructive discussion despite us not agreeing.
Ultimately, an aero can access almost any tile on the game board and vertical movement alone is a massive advantage. They are less accessible to theft, graffiti, and combat, and give PCs almost boundless access to the map. They can also cross vast distances faster without having to navigate around obstacles in other maps.
They are not restricted for their size, they are subject to less scrutiny for their appearance (I could never make sense of high profile corporate citizens using what is described as a cargo aero as their personal vehicle) but I'll add on that there are less of them to choose from overall so that may be a factor, and to touch on something you said earlier:
However, based on feedback in the below threads traffic is by design to limit the ground vehicles from traversing too fast, and it being all but impossible to catch individuals out in the open between super safe Green Sector living and Gold Sector corporate towers.
That means ground vehicles have an ADDITIONAL obstacle to a quick getaway than aeros do, because they are subject to all the mentioned methods of trying to stop them through player or vehicle-initiated combat, plus this, without the luxury of floating up and away to avoid being pursued through the tailing mechanic.
They are. Parking is finite, aeros take up a lot of space, and piloting checks are influenced by factors depending on where you are and what's going on there. Also, ground vehicles typically accommodate far more occupants for your chyen than a aero does.
Otherwise, I concur. Aeros are pretty sweet. Yet the rub is for all that sweetness ground vehicles dominate the game. I feel like the game has a solid amount of balance between accessibility to aeros, annoyances of traversing the tubes, and market domination of ground vehicles due to less overall risk and affordability.
The tubes do suck and I think they should. Aeros do rock but at considerable cost and consideration of the user.
Also by restricted for their size I meant legality, as you're free to pilot an aero the size of a small apartment through a city full of high rises no problem but the largest vehicle accessible to players (to my knowledge) is banned due to having an extra pair of tires.
Extra Pair Tires is the nice IC way of saying it has more hardpoints than any other vehicle in the game and will roflstomp whatever it wants if properly crewed.
You can also tote a gun around on you regardless of the restrictions, easily hidden or out in the open in areas where no one cares. You can't hide a car in your inventory, and speaking from experience you also can't park it in said area without people still threatening to have it towed :)
If you truly want to get into illegal vehicles and combat - it's all right there waiting for you. Albeit, I'm still waiting on a handful of key changes and revisions to make it a hundred percent viable to operate a nomad gang in the badlands.
Another key delta between aeros and ground vehicles which failed to come-up - aero cannot blockade but ground vehicles can. Aeros are clearly designed for escape, evasion, drop-in, drop-out, and tactical strikes. Ground vehicles thrive in swarming the ground with meat to fight, blockading the tubes, and battlefield control.
A lot of thought and planning went into dividing the two up, but the game really has yet to experience a level of praxis with vehicles combat to demonstrate this. I hope this can change.
Vehicles like the two-seater bikes and light aircraft all become much more unattractive options if traffic became depreciated, though if we were talking about like a curve of mitigation up to A skill so that only the most extreme investment could mitigate traffic then I would see no problem with it personally. I actually believed that was already the case but I don't play drivers enough to know how effective elite skill and stat investment is.
There are times when it is literal stop and go every. single. tile. And no matter how realistic, this is utter agony to get through as a player. It used to be that you could at times push through the traffic, I assume based on skill, so there is already a base means to do this but somewhere along the line it seemingly was nerfed or changed because the rate at which I'm able to do this has gone down to almost never.
@ReeferMadness Yes the experience I mentioned was while keeping it in one of said exterior out-of-the-way garages, but maybe that was just a one-time issue.
I think it makes complete sense for professional drivers to have fewer traffic penalties.
Eventually extremely high level driving will become more desirable as vehicle combat sloooooooowly becomes more of a thing, but it wouldn't hurt to jumpstart those encouragements in the meantime. I thought they existed, but if they don't, they ought to!
