Road and Horse Network

Road & Horse Network
Survival 4
RHN Logo
Project
Type	Server-wide Project
World(s)	Survival 4 (Husky)
Leader(s)	_edo

The Road & Horse Network (RHN) is a group project focused on building and maintaining over 30 kilometers of roads across the Survival 4 Multiplayer worlds of the Dogcraft Server. The current network is mostly around the larger Husky spawn area, but ever expanding. The roads are the primary way to travel by horse, donkey, mule, foot or pig to visit all the connected cities, towns and player bases. A similar project, the .Path Network Group operates a road network on the Beagle world.

The RHN can be seen as the younger, smaller, and less organized nephew of the other travel networks: SRN (Survival Railway Network) and NTN (Nether Transport Network).

RHN roads map as of 30 July 2021. (by _Shako)

History

The project was first imagined as a semi-serious suggestion by  _edo (who also founded the SRN and the NTN) to add another discussion channel on the Discord SRN/NTN server, to talk about the planning and building of a road network that would go alongside the Survival Railway Network. Two roads, present-day Takeshi Road and Gaia Road, had already been built and there was potential for more. The suggestion was kindly dismissed. So instead, on July 14th, 2020, 3.5 months after the start of the Husky world, _edo started a new Discord server solely for the creation of a roads network.

Since then, the RHN has steadily grown. As of July 2021, the RHN Discord server has 67 members, 17 of whom have actually built parts of the network, and the network of roads reaches up to 7.5k blocks away from spawn. Notably,  _Shako built a large section of the newer roads (Stone Exchange Road, Eagle Road, Lotus Isthmus Road, Flower Hills Road) and upgraded many of the older roads.

The Builders

These 17 players, often locals who have their residences close to the roads, have built the RHN (as of July 25th 2021, in alphabetical order):

 _edo  _Shako  Aeghu  ArchitectEagle  DouglasWiller  Elednor  expedtadam  FangsofAmber  IhopEnchiladas  Kinda_lost  LoLoBooM4k  Montenator  Skelleton123  StenLLuk  thePineapple0  TheWhiteTiger  TyrantrumGOD

What is built

The built projects consist not only of public roads, but also many bridges, signposts, more than two dozen public shelters. In Spawn City is the RHN Centre ^{(view in map)} which, alongside public stables and shelter, also has general info about the RHN, a shop selling everything needed for horse riding, a horse testing range, and more.

The RHN facilitates everything needed to make it easy and enjoyable for everyone to travel by horse (and also by donkey, mule, foot or pig).

For a comprehensive overview of all roads and shelters, see this list of roads and paths and list of shelters.

How to participate

The RHN is an active, ongoing project. Everyone can help with building and maintaining the network! The best way is to join the RHN Discord server. Ask any of the above players in game for an invite, or search/ask for a public link on any of the other Dogcraft related Discord servers.

Design Guidelines

Roads RHN roads need to be both passable and comfortable for horse traffic. This means the roads are at least three blocks wide with four blocks of clearance above. Most RHN roads however are four blocks wide, five blocks high. The most common surface materials used are grass path blocks and spruce slabs. Sometimes though, especially through settlements, other local styles are used.

Shelter RHN Shelters provide the travel with a place to rest. It should be mob-safe. It needs stables to park a horse, beds, an ender chest, a public chest (players can leave food for others), a crafting table, a furnace, a lectern with a logbook for travellers to write their name and date of visiting, a small map of the local area. For recognisability, the shelter needs a lime green vane on a pole on its roof and the "RHN" banner letters, which can be acquired in the RHN Centre. Signs should be dark oak with lime green font. Skeleton horses can be left in the stables, optionally with a saddle. They can't be owned by players; they are for public/shared use. The claim-protected shelter should have /containtertrust all, so that everyone can use doors, beds, chests, logbook and available skeleton horses, etc. If so desired, you can protect a maintenance area from public access with the Sticky Locks plugin (/sl info). The reference RHN shelter seen in the images can be visited in-game at Huksy, x:110, z:-840 (view in map).

Signposts Directional signage, placed at each intersection of two thoroughfares, consists of dark oak signs stacked vertically, with lime-colored text (white on older signs), placed on a lime concrete block surrounded by a dark oak plank base. Each sign provides directions to towns and bases along the route using arrows, text, and a number representing the number of kilometers (to the nearest 1/10) to the destination. Minor roads leading to single destinations may be marked with only a single dark oak sign on a dark oak fence, but this is not officially specified. No more than one signpost at an intersection, and no more than three stacked signs per signpost.

Kilometer markers Kilometer markers, or "slab signs," are placed every 1/10-kilometer (100 blocks) along every RHN road and at each road's beginning and end points. They consist of a dark oak slab with a dark oak sign with white text. The four lines of text on each sign are as follows: ROAD NAME NAME SUFFIX (e.g. ROAD, AVENUE) - DISTANCE - (e.g. - 1.7 -, - 2.4 -, - begin -) RHN.

Documentation spreadsheet for Eagle Road, showing the road's coordinates set, the length algorithm, and a map.

Road Documentation

The entire RHN system is documented on maps produced regularly by _Shako.

Road distances are measured by _Shako using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet in which the coordinates of each vertex (or other change of direction) in a road's geometry are entered and a Pythagorean Theorem algorithm outputs the length of each segment and the cumulative distance for all of the entered segments. Every road has its own spreadsheet.

Media

Gallery

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  Lotus Isthmus Road 2 (by _Shako)

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  Lotus Isthmus Road 1 (by _Shako)

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  Mountain March Road near HeavyDork's base (by _Shako)

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  RHN Centre in Spawn City (by _edo)

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  RHN Shelter at SRN East Station (by StenLLuk)

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  RHN Shelter at M-Bay (by Montenator)

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  RHN Shelter along Eagle Road (by ArchitectEagle)

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  1.17 signpost style

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  Outdated signpost style

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  Bridge near Takeshi

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  Bridge (by _Shako)

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  RHN Shelter along Takeshi Road (by LoLoBooM4k)

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  RHN Shelter along Prosperity Road (by _edo)

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  RHN Shelter in Vitruvius (by _Shako)

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  RHN Shelter in The Haven (by _Shako)

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  Lotus RHN Public stables and welcome centre (by FangsofAmber)

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  Aria RHN underground station (by Kinda Lost)

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  RHN Shelter along Edo Bridge Road (by _edo)

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  Edo Bridge over the southwest part of Spawn Sea (by _Shako and _edo)

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  Lotus Isthmus Road facing north toward Vitruvius (by _Shako)

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  Desert Islands Road before the construction of the bridge to the Confederation of Desert Islands (by _Shako)

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  Land Bridge Road westbound from the intersection with Takeshi Road

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  Land Bridge Road eastbound from the intersection with Spruceland Road

Videos

Youtube video: Horseback riding on RHN Roads, by Shako

Youtube video: RHN Christmas Party 2020, by Shako

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