It’s a bit “hackish” but a “macro concept” could work immediatly. Similarly as what some MUDs allowed in the past were known and safe routes were recorded as macros of linked movement orders.
At its essence following a road on a vehicle could be recorded as a combination of maneuver commands (INCLUDING the wait commands for the vehicle to move at a given speed). OFC, some “sanity” should be expected and incorporated to the “route” definition mainly 2:
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Starting Location. Bringing close the vehicle to the starting point could allow it to be “hooked” into the route itself.
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Speed. The vehicle needs to be able to keep the speeds used on the original route (min & max, mainly).
In fact, with macro recording external software, for as long as the vehicle isn’t modfied… You can achieve something similar currently if you mark the starting point with an easy to align matrix of droped items.
You would only have to create 2 new options:
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An optional “time compression” were series of X(Num 5) “wait commands” are piled together and executed without frame updating so Real Time is less than when tracing the route for the 1st time.
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Partial “safety” were the system offers the option to stop if a MOB is 3 turns away in the direction of movement. Players, depending on how aggresive their vehicle fronts are, may or may not choose to stop.
Alternatively you can use a player defined rail system where the recorded player-driven route do not generate maneuver commands but a trayectory described by the vehicle CoM. Later when the player wants to “drive on rails” you suspend any kind of simulation and just make the vehicle follow the rails at the average speed calculated by the distance/time spent originally creating the route.
