What it is
7 Days to Die builds its random worlds from 150-block tiles and routes simple roads between towns. TWC Procedural Interstate Network adds a real interstate to that: a divided highway network, built new into every world when the world is generated. Pick its shape on the Interstate setting in the world generator, generate a world, and the network is there, joined to the towns at its own junctions. The game’s own highways and country roads keep doing what they do.
It is one mod folder: the planner that lays the network, and its tiles. It is server-side only: a server needs it to build the world, and players joining that server do not.
The settings
Interstate (the shape):
| Setting | What you get |
|---|---|
| Two rings large / Two rings small | An outer and an inner loop with spokes between them and the cloverleaf hub. |
| One ring large / medium / small | A single loop around the map. |
| Cross | Two interstates, north-south and east-west, edge to edge, crossing at the center. |
| Grid | Interstates across the whole map in a grid, bending around the towns. |
| Wild | No set shape: the interstate joins the towns to their neighbors by the cheapest roads the land allows. |
| Surveyor | The Wild network with every town a stop on it. |
| Skyway | Scenic on steroids: a network that stays up in the air over the deepest valleys, lakes and rivers it can find, always on decks. Fewer ways on and off; you get on the Skyway for the view. |
| Off | The game’s own highways only. |
Interstate terrain: Around (bends around the mountains), Through (keeps straight, with tunnels and tall decks), or Scenic (goes looking for the hills, the valleys and the water).
Interstate build: Mixed (decks, ramps, tunnels and low bridges, with ground tiles where there is no room for a deck), or Deck only.
What a world gets
- A 28-block divided interstate: two roadways, one each way, a median, shoulders, lane paint and guardrails. Vehicles drive every ramp, loop and deck.
- Decks on piers that reach down to the ground, so the land rolls on underneath; tunnels through the hills too big to cut; risers, low bridges and cuttings where the land calls for them.
- Diamond interchanges where a town’s road passes under the deck and ramps up onto it; toll booths at the town gateways; city bypasses around the bigger cities, their lots filled from the city.
- Ways on and off along the line: the toll T on the straights, the climbing toll T on a rising deck and the curve fork on a deck curve, each with a corkscrew down to its own road, spaced along the line and closer together in the forest where players start.
- The Commandery Gateway: the Commandery Plaza and its trader across from a roadside hotel. No vanilla trader stands at any gateway of the interstate, so the towns along the line keep their chance at a trader of their own.
How it was tested
Thirty worlds were generated for the release, all at 10240 with towns set to Many and the terrain settings changed in every world: every shape, on Mixed, on Deck only and on Scenic. Every world was loaded and measured piece by piece. In all thirty, every piece the planner placed is in the world. The download itself was then proven against the tested build: the same seed generated with each places the same world, decoration for decoration.
It was run on a dedicated server with two players, and a player without the mod joined and played. The V2.6 build went through every shape on V2.6 and a dedicated V2.6 server, with a second machine joining without the mod.
Honest limits
- It is random world generation, so every world rolls the dice. Expect the odd dead end, a step where the land beat the road, or a town road that meets a diamond off its line.
- Two rings small on hilly maps: where the inner ring runs high above a low center, a spoke can step up sharply beside the hub. The fix is planned for 1.1.
- The Skyway trades ways on and off for the ride: some long stretches have no exit.
- A dedicated server has no world-generation menu and builds Two rings large. For another shape, generate the world in single player with the settings you want and put that world on the server.
- Other mods that carve terrain after the roads are laid (canyons, rivers, craters) can cut pieces of the interstate out.
- EAC must be off: the planner is a code mod.
How it got here
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 13 Sep | The River Crossing Pack, the first download from this lane: one tile. |
| 15 Sep | The world generator places the lab’s own tiles in a fresh world for the first time. |
| 20 to 28 Sep | The closed ring, the viaduct, variable piers, the double ring, deck over deck, the hub, the gateway, cuttings and the first tunnels. |
| Oct | Cross, Grid, Wild and Surveyor; decks that keep the ground under them; diamond interchanges and toll booths at the towns; city bypasses; the Commandery Gateway and its Plaza; the Skyway. |
| 18 to 19 Oct | Junction exits along the line, the roadside hotel at the gateway, the thirty-world release test. |
| 20 Oct | 1.0.0 released for V3.3 and V2.6 as TWC Procedural Interstate Network. Until then this lane was called the Interstate Framework. |
Gallery
Proof shots
Videos
On camera
TWC Procedural Interstate Network | 7 Days to Die
Ninety seconds in game on worlds from the release test: the M6 and the Roadmaster under the piers and up onto the decks, through the tunnels, over the lake, past the toll booths and across the snowy deck network, cut on the beat with dissolves to Interstate, an original track.
Downloads
Releases and prototypes
TWC Procedural Interstate Network for V2.6 v1.0.0
The same interstate network 1.0.0 built for 7 Days to Die V2.6 (b14), the game's v2.6 branch on Steam: every shape, the same tiles, the same menu settings. Server-side only. On V3.3, use the main download. 6.6 MB (about 2.2 GB unpacked).
Built from 1.0.0 for V2.6 and checked in the V2.6 game's own code: V2.6 runs world generation differently, and builds the ground under road tiles by an older rule, and this build meets both. Tested on V2.6 on every shape, with every planned piece placed, and on a dedicated V2.6 server: a second machine without the mod joined and played. On V2.6 the Commandery Plaza flies the trader's flag pole and one locker is the plain one (two V3-only blocks). sha256 2f4753e082dc940951acc2a0ad9f406800f25fd01bf08c94da4aec0e2606bf5e, also beside the zip.
TWC Procedural Interstate Network v1.0.0
A divided interstate network for your random world, built new every time a world is generated. Pick its shape on the Interstate setting: two rings, one ring, a cross, a grid, Wild, Surveyor or the Skyway. Decks, tunnels, diamond interchanges, toll booths, junction exits and city bypasses, over 500 custom highway tiles built from vanilla blocks. One folder: the planner and its tiles together. Server-side only. For V3.3; on V2.6, use the download below. 6.6 MB (about 2.2 GB unpacked).
1.0.0: the first public release. Ten Interstate shapes plus Off, with Interstate terrain (Around, Through, Scenic) and Interstate build (Mixed, Deck only). Tested on thirty 10240 worlds on V3.3, every shape on Mixed, Deck only and Scenic, with every planned piece placed in all thirty; the release build places exactly what the tested build places, world for world. Tested on a dedicated server with two players: a player without the mod joins and plays. It is random world generation, so expect the odd dead end or step. sha256 16d24d62608339030666bc37979627d58901028b4e42d383c4939d2de3807aca, also beside the zip.
Baby Warlock Gateway River Crossing V1 v1.0.0
Superseded: the river crossings are part of TWC Procedural Interstate Network 1.0.0. The first download from this lane, kept for the record: the river crossing tile (revision d4c6b1a) as a drop-in Mods folder: ModInfo, rwgmixer counts (2 to 6 per world) and the six prefab files. 150x19x150, elevated concrete deck, authored water basin, eleven pier stations.
Placed by RWG in three fresh worlds (16 placements in the last). Vehicle drive proven in the Prefab Editor, not yet in a generated world. Rotations 1 and 2 only so far. sha256 ff850ca7080c082b…; full hash beside the zip.
Field reports
Filed against this project
The interstate in its first collections
Five days after release, two players put my TWC Procedural Interstate Network into their own Nexus Mods collections, the curated mod lists people install in one go. It's the first time anything I've built has been picked for someone else's list.
TWC Procedural Interstate Network 1.0.0: a divided interstate in every random world, on V3.3 and V2.6
The interstate is out. One mod folder adds an Interstate setting to the world generator and builds a divided highway network into every world it generates: two rings, one ring, a cross, a grid, Wild, Surveyor or the Skyway. Over 500 custom highway tiles built from vanilla blocks, server-side only, for V3.3 and V2.6.
The Interstate Framework: two weeks in the Commandery Forge
On 15 September the world generator placed the lab's own tiles for the first time. By 28 September a menu option lays a divided interstate across a random world from 261 tiles: rings, a hub, trader gateways, viaducts vanilla roads pass under, cuttings and tunnels. What got built, how it was judged, and what is still missing before anyone else can play it.
The gate that could not pass the thing it was built for
The smoothness gate that certifies road geometry as drivable had no concept of levels. It read every overpass as a nine-block cliff, so no crossroad over a mainline could ever pass, which is the whole point of an interchange. Below it were two more allowlists nobody could see from the config. Three layers, one deploy.
River Crossing Pack v1.0.0: the first download
The owner-accepted Gateway River Crossing tile is now a drop-in mod. Beta: placed by RWG in three fresh worlds, driven in the editor, honest caveats in the README.
Gateway River Crossing V1 accepted
The straight river-crossing tile passed its visual review and an in-editor drive in a vanilla truck. It is tagged, frozen, and will not be rebuilt. The next crossing is a new tile.
The Gateway Viaduct drives like a real road
First Warlock carriageway to pass a drive test. A 4x4 crossed the viaduct transition without a bump, and the basin below it holds nearly 24,000 authored water cells the game renders as water.