Fake Subways 0.3

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Fake Subways 0.3

Post by Supercheese »

Fake Subways 0.3
A subway consist on the map
A subway consist on the map
3.png (34.69 KiB) Viewed 53139 times
This Fake Subway Road Vehicles GRF provides articulated "road" vehicles that are intended to mimic subway trains running beneath the road surfaces. They show up on the map as "shadows", to give the appearance of being underground.

This NewGRF is available from OTTD's BaNaNaS content downloader; search for "Fake Subways".

Nightly builds can be found here: http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/fake-subways/

It's generated with NML r2063, and should be compatible with OTTD versions 1.2 and upwards.
Compatibility with TTDPatch is untested, and is doubtful at best.

Vehicles included in version 0.3:
Vehicle list.png
Vehicle list.png (4.58 KiB) Viewed 48002 times
  • London Underground 1903 "Gate Tube"
  • London Underground 1938 "New Works Tube"
  • London Underground 1967 "Victoria Tube"
  • London Underground 1992 "Adtranz Tube"
  • Futuristic 2042 "Shinkū-eki" Double-Decker Subway

You may recognize these from the UKRS2 Addon Set, as they share the same sprites and similar specs.
The graphics were drawn by oberhümer, are used with permission in this GPLed grf.

You may also recognize the futuristic subway from the Vactrain set, as the sprites (and name) are based on that set.
[It's not intended to be a vacuum-tube subway, just a regular deep-level tube.]


GRF Features:
  • Each type of subway is available in 2-8 carriage consists, selectable via refit option. Unfortunately, since they can change lengths with refits, they are not compatible with Auto-refit.
  • The subway vehicles show up in CC (2CC for Victoria, Adtranz, and Double-decker) when visible; when underground you naturally can't see them.
  • By default, subways are regular road vehicles, and can be built from regular road depots. If you set the appropriate parameter, they can instead be trams, and must then be built from tram depots.
  • The refit cost reflects whether you are adding carriages or taking them away; refitting to a smaller consist will refund money, whereas adding carriages will cost money.
  • When displayed on the map, they show up as "shadows", to give the impression that they are underground. While in the depot view or vehicle information window, however, they show up as fully visible.
  • All vehicles vary in power, weight, running cost, and overall length based on number of carriages in the consist. All vehicles have maximum loading/unloading speeds, taking only 2 "ticks" to fully unload and then fully load.
  • Somewhat like UKRS engines, the subways have variable running costs. When not moving (speed=0), their running costs are reduced to 1/4. The default, moving running cost is shown in the purchase menu.
  • Unlike UKRS Tube trains, all carriages of these subways are powered. Each carriage also has a slightly higher purchase price and running cost than their UKRS equivalents.
  • All subways have lower-than-default cargo age periods, meaning they incur late penalties for profits faster than regular vehicles. This reflects the fact that subway vehicles are more cramped & less comfortable than other methods of transport. Later subways have less of a penalty than earlier ones, reflecting advances in passenger comfort such as air conditioning.
  • Parameters:
  • Parameter 1, "Vehicle capacities", determines whether the subways' capacities reflect seated-only capacities, or seated plus standing room capacities (which are rather much larger). The default setting is seated + standing-room capacities.
  • Parameter 2, "Regular RVs or trams", determines whether subways are regular road vehicles or trams. The default setting is regular road vehicles.

Known Issues

Currently, due to limitations in OTTD, there are several issues with these "fake" subways. They include but are not necessarily limited to:
  • Subways can only traverse roads. They cannot go underneath buildings, industries, or anything else (unless employing a normal road tunnel).
  • Subways cannot pass under other surface road vehicles, and can be blocked by them if they are traveling too slowly or are stopped.
  • By default, no additional infrastructure is required to run subways (i.e. you don't need to dig tunnels or lay tracks or anything)*. Regular roads, road depots, and drive-through road stops (subways must use drive-through stops like all other articulated vehicles in OTTD) are all that is required to run subways. To compensate for this, running and purchase costs are higher than their UKRS counterparts.

    * unless the parameter to make them trams is set, in which case tramways must be built for subways to run on.
  • Subways "rise up" like any other RV when going "over" bridges. This looks somewhat silly, but just pretend they're really changing tunnel depth or something right under the bridge.
  • If caught on a level crossing and a train contacts the subway, it will result in a collision and the subway will be destroyed, like with any other RV impacted on a level crossing.
  • Subways can be ordered to perform a U-turn at virtually any time, and will comply. There apparently are a LOT of tracks under those roads ;)
  • The refitting to add/remove carriages feature introduces an unfortunate side effect: if you have refitted to a larger consist and then go to sell that consist you are NOT refunded the money you spent on the extra carriages -- unless you first "sell" the extra carriages via refit, then you are refunded the full amount you paid -- which introduces yet another side effect, in that the carriages do not lose value over time when you sell them at a later date; they are always "sold" for their full value. Still, I feel these are fairly minor in the grand scheme of things.
  • As with any other road vehicles in OTTD, subways can pass through each other under certain circumstances, most often observable at intersections where two meet in perpendicular directions of travel. This is actually less of an issue for subways as for other RVs, though, as it is easily explained as the subway tunnels being at different depths, something which frequently occurs in real-life subway networks.


However, if one is willing to suspend disbelief a bit, I think these fake subways are really cool and useful. ;)

License

This GRF is distributed under the GPL v2 license.

Click here for the most recent (v0.3) sources; included are instructions on how to build the .grf from source.

Credits

As mentioned earlier, the excellent sprites for the London Underground vehicles were drawn by oberhümer, are used with permission in this GPLed grf.

The Shinkū-eki double-decker subway sprites are derived from sprites from the Vactrain grf by EmperorJake.

Thanks are extended to the extremely talented PikkaBird, for his wonderful GRFs that inspired many to create their own works, including this one.

Many thanks are additionally extended to FooBar for the NML tutorial, which was immensely helpful when coding this GRF.

Many, many thanks are also extended to the developers of OTTD for creating and maintaining such wonderful free software. :)



Please report any bugs/comments to this thread. Enjoy! :D
Attachments
Fake subways.zip
Version 0.3
(17.54 KiB) Downloaded 2287 times
Last edited by Supercheese on 17 Sep 2013 21:14, edited 14 times in total.
Eyecandy Road Vehicles | Fake Subways | Supercheese's NewObjects

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Re: Fake Subways 0.1

Post by Supercheese »

Attachment limit reached, here are the sources:
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Fake Subways Source.zip
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Eyecandy Road Vehicles | Fake Subways | Supercheese's NewObjects

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Re: Fake Subways 0.1

Post by Supercheese »

FooBar wrote:I like this approach, well done! :D
Thanks! :D

I discovered as I was making this GRF that part of the NML tutorial is now incorrect:
NML Tutorial [emphasis added] wrote:The method used to do this is actually the other way round than the user will think from the behaviour ingame. The train will be changed to a four part EMU. For the (default) three part refit one of these four parts will be hidden. A lot of switches will be used to make the train look right, make it have the correct capacity, power, weight, running costs and tractive effort.

There are some drawbacks to this method. There's no way to charge the user for puchasing the extra vehicle part.
Ah, but there is a way to charge the user! However, as mentioned under the known issues section, it is not without drawbacks. I'm not sure if I should edit the tutorial and put my method in there, or simply say "there is a method to charge the user but it has some problems", or both. Since you're the primary author of the tutorial, I thought I'd ask which way you think would be best.
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Re: Fake Subways 0.1

Post by FooBar »

I suppose you're using the refit cost callback? That was indeed added after the tutorial was written, it has never been updated.

If your method makes sense as part of a tutorial (i.e. it musn't be more difficult to understand than the rest of the train tutorial, which is already rather complicated) then feel free to add it. But if you think adding it will result in more questions than answers, then it's best to just mention that there is a method to charge the user for length refits and that they can find an implementation in the source code of your grf.

If you find it hard to decide which option is best then let me know and I'll try to find some time to look into your source code (I'm quite busy with real life at the moment).
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Re: Fake Subways 0.1

Post by SkiddLow »

I Sure Create the London Undergorund 2009 Stock now Inuse for Graphic, thanks.
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Re: Fake Subways 0.1.1

Post by Supercheese »

Updated to version 0.1.1:

- Fixed a silly rounding error involving a misplaced negative sign.


See first post or BaNaNaS for the .grf bundle. The updated sources are attached to this post.
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Fake Subways Source 0.1.1.zip
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Eyecandy Road Vehicles | Fake Subways | Supercheese's NewObjects

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Re: Fake Subways 0.1.1

Post by jor[D]1 »

Idea is nice, but isn't it possible to use tramtracks as subway?

It would only make trams unusable.
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Re: Fake Subways 0.1.1

Post by Supercheese »

jor[D]1 wrote:Idea is nice, but isn't it possible to use tramtracks as subway?

It would only make trams unusable.
Entirely possible, but the side effect of having to build tram tracks everywhere with no trams running on them is undesirable for me. Still, if you want it, I can easily add a parameter to make them trams rather than regular RVs.
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Re: Fake Subways 0.1.1

Post by kamnet »

Supercheese wrote:
jor[D]1 wrote:Idea is nice, but isn't it possible to use tramtracks as subway?

It would only make trams unusable.
Entirely possible, but the side effect of having to build tram tracks everywhere with no trams running on them is undesirable for me. Still, if you want it, I can easily add a parameter to make them trams rather than regular RVs.


I think that would be nice to have subways that don't have to follow roads.
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Re: Fake Subways 0.2

Post by Supercheese »

kamnet wrote:I think that would be nice to have subways that don't have to follow roads.
Well, they have to follow something, in the case of trams it'd just be tramtracks rather than roads.

As I said, though, it was easy to add a parameter to let them be trams, so I present version 0.2, available from BaNaNaS and/or the first post of this thread. Sources are attached to this post.
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Fake Subways Source 0.2.zip
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Re: Fake Subways 0.2

Post by Nite Owl »

I believe it was Quast in his ISR New Object Set that came up with industrial graphics that cover roads and tram tracks and yet still allow vehicles to visibly drive on them. Would it be possible to do something similar with this set so that one could have a collection of overlay tiles for the roads and tram tracks that portray grass and buildings and something that might look more like a subway station and just about anything else that could be useful? Just a thought.
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Re: Fake Subways 0.2

Post by Quast65 »

I would not advise that, overlapping tiles are very unstable. They tend to glitch a lot. That effect is not very irritable with flat tiles, but you will notice it a lot when you have buildings as graphics. Also all "normal" vehicles can still drive through them, which is not a desireable effect ;-)
I think it is best to just develop either a stationtile or an objecttile with a suitable underground entrance graphic that can be placed next to a normal roadstop.
Still, too bad that it is not possible that these vehicles can drive through other roadvehicles. I do think that is a major problem of this set, because I do like the invisible effect. I like it that it is possible to keep track of where the vehicle is when "underground" as opposed to a large tunnelnetwork where you can't see where your vehicles are.
Maybe a stupid idea, but isn't it possible to code it as a helicopter? With a graphic that replaces the 1-tile helicopter pad with an underground station? That way it doesn't have to follow the road network.
EDIT: Replacing the 1-tile pad won't work, you need a depot where this vehicle can be made, so a replacement of one of the multitile helicoperpads is needed then.
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Re: Fake Subways 0.2

Post by bjgttd »

Quast65 wrote:isn't it possible to code it as a helicopter?
I was thinking about ships. They can pass through each other with no problem. But a road vehicle with some ship's qualities (or a ship allowed to use roads) is probably beyond newgrf and requires changes in the game.
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Re: Fake Subways 0.2

Post by planetmaker »

bjgttd wrote:
Quast65 wrote:isn't it possible to code it as a helicopter?
I was thinking about ships. They can pass through each other with no problem. But a road vehicle with some ship's qualities (or a ship allowed to use roads) is probably beyond newgrf and requires changes in the game.
Indeed, that's beyond what a NewGRF can do. And if one starts changing the game one might then go directly at tackling subways in a sound way (whatever that might exactly be in this case; most likely it includes something like a 3D map array).
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Re: Fake Subways 0.2

Post by Supercheese »

Quast65 wrote:Maybe a stupid idea, but isn't it possible to code it as a helicopter? With a graphic that replaces the 1-tile helicopter pad with an underground station? That way it doesn't have to follow the road network.
EDIT: Replacing the 1-tile pad won't work, you need a depot where this vehicle can be made, so a replacement of one of the multitile helicoperpads is needed then.
There would be no way to make the consist turn one-by-one if it's coded as a helicopter, it would turn as a block. Also the idea just sounds silly to me; subways are [beneath the] road vehicles, not aircraft! :P
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Re: Fake Subways 0.2

Post by Quast65 »

True, it was just a little brainstorm as this vehicle is all about making the impression of being underground and even though it actually flies over buildings and roadvehicles, it would give the impression of being underground. I tried to think of a way how to make it possible that it could be able to pass through roadvehicles and/or buildings with the current limitations of the game. The point you have about it turning is very sound and also I think it would look silly when it arrives at a stop (as it would land). Scrap this idea, back to the thinkingroom. ;-)
So there could be a couple of other possible solutions:
1. The enablement of multiple road/tramtypes (but I think that is still very very far away)
2. The idea of ships could work if it is possible to have multiple river/canaltypes (no idea if that is even possible and it would still be a workaround and not a solid solution. Also same problem with the turning as a block)
3. A new railtype with urban graphics on it (but the question is will you still be able to see the vehicle run then without major glitches) and then not like Foobars one that has to be built underground but on normal groundlevel.

But I think all these suggestions are a lot of work. For the moment the solution of them using tramtracks is already a great improvement as you can now force them to use a different route as the other roadvehicles and so try to keep congestion to a minimum.
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Re: Fake Subways 0.2

Post by jamvanderloeff »

Very nice GRF. :D
Would it be possible to have the sprites swap to visible when on tram-only tiles and shadow/invisible when on tram/road tiles?
Also probably unlikely but would it be possible for underground trains to not affect road vehicle queuing?
This would a nice way to kinda simulate the underground and above ground sections of the tube
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Re: Fake Subways 0.2

Post by Supercheese »

jamvanderloeff wrote:Very nice GRF. :D
Would it be possible to have the sprites swap to visible when on tram-only tiles and shadow/invisible when on tram/road tiles?
I'm glad you like it :). I don't think that is possible in OTTD, from what I gather. I could be wrong, though; I just don't see a vehicle variable that would let me determine that.
jamvanderloeff wrote:Also probably unlikely but would it be possible for underground trains to not affect road vehicle queuing?
This would a nice way to kinda simulate the underground and above ground sections of the tube
That would be nice, but it is not possible in OTTD at the moment. Believe you me, if it was, I would have made this grf with that feature a lot earlier. :wink:
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Re: Fake Subways 0.2

Post by NekoMaster »

Hey, I like this sets idea for handling subways, A LOT more flexiable and easier to build then destroying the city just to lay down Subways.

One thing though, could we perhaps get above ground versions to use as Rapid Transit/Light Rail, like the one on Scarborough's above ground rapid transit line?

Above ground LRT's would run on tram tracks only but can run on road and off road (so dedicated lines can be built), using tram tracks for LRT instead of rails would be a lot easier to build, cost less, and be a bit less time consuming while offering a mass transit option for your company.

As far as I know most LRT's look similar to subway trains and some are just above ground connections on light rail
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