I haven't played OTTD for a while,
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I wrote some comments, only to find that 0.2 was released on Friday - so some stuff may not be applicable, so I'll have a quick play before I send this and add .....
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On looking at the forums the First thing I saw was FIRS, so having downloaded the RC1 & new sound & graphics I loaded my old grfs & FIRS & started playing. I start in 1590 with Tudor houses & farms with transport to match, 1024x1024, temperate, 40 towns and no industries ie Towns start as self-sufficient..
All went well until a Dairy appeared, and I noted that a "Gen Store" (Why not "Shop"? -(or Shoppe for me!!) was available - I then discovered that the Shop didn't take milk (nor seemingly did anything else, and the same for livestock.
Looking at .
http://tt-foundry.com/sets/FIRS/schema/industries, it appears that a dairy only appears in 1892 and livestock had to go to a 'meatpacker' in around 1867. Since the meat would probably go off waiting around in a wagon for 250 years, I decided to stop the game, & look at the schema - I couldn't find any network diagram (?), so I did a quick visio of it.
Very few people would wade through the 80 pages of the development thread, the 1st entry of which was last edited in July 2009, and the summary on the TT-foundry page doesn't give much away!! It would be useful if the philosophy and current position of the set was on a page linked from the schema one, which would help to see/playtest the set from the designer's perspective.
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Please just see the following as comments from someone new to FIRS (particularly at 0.1(now 0.2) and in flux) - with no pre-conceived ideas, other than my own proclivities. Comments on the schema & a couple of quick games using 0.1 & 0.2 - no doubt things mentioned before, but just in case:
Is having the Store/Shop / Petrol Garage the best approach - as the industry algorythm (if still as I think it was) will tend to produce many of those over the longer term, to the detriment of the out-of-town industries (particularly when using the multiple industries switch). Could you not use a supplementary house set, to give you the effect you require - rather than micromanage the retail bits?
The Farm/Engineering/Manufacturing supplies idea - I'd prefer something more specific where warranted, but I presume the reason for them is to generate more flow, but it seems a little clumsy if a named cargo could be used instead.
The Machine shop produces FmS & ES - could it not start a bit earlier and produce Cans - which would go to the Meat Packer?
Some of that wood/lumber could go to the coal mine rather than the 'ES'. Certainly old pokey mines used a lot of wood.
Do both the Metal Foundary & Blacksmith need a fuel source such as coal or wood?
Anomalies
0 Coal Mine Produces coal
1843 Steel Mill accepts coal
1881 Power station Accepts coal
1902 Cement plant accepts coal
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0 Iron Ore mine produces Iron Ore
1843 The Steel Mill accepts Iron Ore
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1762 The Metal Foundary accepts Steel and Aluminium
1842 The Machine shop accepts Steel & Aluminium and Fuel Oil
BUT
1843 The Steel Mill produces Steel
1884 The Refinery produces Fuel Oil
1923 The Aluminium Plant Produces Aluminium
Why not a Smelter/Blast furnace where the coal & iron ore (& scrap) can go to produce pig iron - which then goes to the Bessemer Convertor where the steel is made. Even better would be to have the coal going to a Coke oven - the coke then goes to the Smelter (with iron ore & gravel) (forget the scrap). The hydrocarbons from the coking process go to the Plastics Plant. - see 5 years living near Scunthorpe wasn't wasted after all!
A smelter could also produce wrought iron for the blacksmith to make goods from, using coke fuel.
Coke could go to the Glass works to provide the heat to melt the sand.
Presuming the gravel instance is limestone and goes to the Cement Plant fine(or via a Kiln to make the lime), but there seems no reason for sand to go to the cement works.
A junk yard? Producing scrap metal from manufactured "engineering supplies", which are also used in mines, quarries, forests etc etc ... sorry, I can't get my head round that one ... ((Lumber yard to Junk yard = scrap metal ?? A version of the philosophers' stone maybe.)).. nice graphics though, for an open cast iron ore mine.
Why not just have the Fertilizer plant produce Fertilizer and have oil and coal as inputs?
The Shop could sell milk as well as Goods & food. (Alternatively Milk & 'drink' could be delivered to a Pub in a house set)! and the system does generate a lot of those shops - 2 towns of 600 or so population had 3 each.
It depends upon definitions, but shouldn't the Petrol Garage(Gas Station) sell petrol/gas only, rather than being another outlet for food/goods. - fuel oil being something different of course ie the Oil refinery could produce petrol & fuel oil... petrol to the garage, and fuel oil to industry.
Could Crude Oil be called Crude Oil?
The oil platform could have a steel input
Papermill ?
The furniture factory could take livestock direct, (tannery?)
There are lots of Farms - all of which seem to need farm supplies (fertilizers) for some reason.
1) Traditional dairy farms don't need it, ((and dead sheep were only fed to beef cattle!!)) - I don't know what the role of the separate dairy is - of course it could take in Fruit to make food(yogourt)
2) Arable Farm - Grain could also go to the animal farm.
3) Fruit Plantation - would 'Fruit Farm' or 'Orchard' be better?
4) Mixed Farm - a Farm Too Far?? - having said that, I do like the graphics
5) Sheep farm - doesn't need any input
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0 Grain, Milk, Livestock, Wool, and Fruit & Veg are produced
1640 Brewery accepts Grain & F&V
1762 Textile Mill accepts Wool
1836 Bakery Accepts Grain
1867 Meat packer accepts Livestock
1892 Dairy Accepts Milk
Like the Blacksmith, the Wholesale Market (in the Town?) may make for a more playable version (0.3?)
Finally I noticed that the first 'Gas Station' appeared in 1590, rather than in 1909 - which, I presume was for the benefit of playtesting. Although it does seem that the schema may need adjusting, it would be useful if most of the industries already 'done' could be set to start at 0 to check playability. The dates could then be re-inserted as each particular network was nearing completion... .or has that already been done?
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Oh & re the comment above, the low production is fine for strings of horse drawn transport
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I'm playing with UKRS and eGRVTS. I can use all the small engines that are normally of no use, and just a few trucks are enough for each farm.
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