Highways and outskirts
Roads is the opposite of cities: the scatter is two and a half times wider, so the panorama usually lands on a highway or in an industrial zone. No signage, no people — you have to read the road itself.
Roads is the opposite of cities: the scatter is two and a half times wider and the search radius doubled, so you usually land on a highway, in an industrial zone or on the way out of a village. No signage, no people — you read the road itself. It is the hardest of the geographic modes.
Centre line colour, solid or broken, the presence of an edge line — all standardised nationally and different even between neighbours.
Barrier type, the shape and colour of roadside posts, kerbs and drainage ditches differ markedly and do not vary from town to town.
This works better here than anywhere: a sign with a place name or route number is often within two hundred metres.
On a highway, markings and barriers do the work: the colour of the centre line, the shape of the crash barrier, the type of roadside posts. Then vegetation and terrain, and among man-made things road signs date a country best — shape and typeface differ even between neighbours.
Out of town, nature counts for more. Forest type, soil colour, terrain and the state of the grass narrow you to a climate zone, and the markings take it from there.
A route number on a sign is the prize of this mode. Numbering formats are national: a letter with digits, digits in a shield, background colour. One such sign closes the round outright.
| Centre line colour | Yellow in North America, white across Europe and most of Asia. |
| Crash barrier profile | The shape of metal barriers differs between countries and barely varies within one. |
| Roadside posts | Colour, shape and reflector placement are nationally standardised. |
| Route number on a sign | Numbering formats are national: a letter with digits, a shield, a background colour. One such sign closes the round. |
| Roadside vegetation | Narrows you to a climate zone faster than anything else in an empty frame. |
| Drainage ditches and kerbs | Their presence and shape differ between neighbouring countries more than you would expect. |
| Rounds per game | 5 |
| Time limit | none |
| Camera restrictions | none |
| Anchor points | 147 |
| Available in duels | yes |
| Hints | yes |
A direct hit is worth 5000 points per round, and the score falls off exponentially with distance. A five-round game is worth up to 25,000. Distances are measured on the server against its own copy of the locations, so a result cannot be forged from the browser.
| Miss | Points per round |
|---|---|
| direct hit | 5,000 |
| 1 km | 4,998 |
| 10 km | 4,975 |
| 50 km | 4,877 |
| 200 km | 4,524 |
| 500 km | 3,894 |
| 1,000 km | 3,033 |
| 2,000 km | 1,839 |
| 5,000 km | 410 |
| other hemisphere | 34 |
What the pool for this mode is made of:
| Europe | 29 |
| Asia and Oceania | 26 |
| The Americas | 20 |
| Africa and the Middle East | 10 |
| Russia and the CIS | 62 |
Sometimes — walking along the road is allowed, and a sign often turns up within a couple of hundred metres.
Of the geographic ones, yes — it has the fewest tells.
So a panorama can be found away from built-up areas, where capture points are sparser.