Version 2.0 - Look to the Future

[nighthawk_c_m]

Any change to the industry should and can be done via NewGRF's, thats not a goal/aim for the core game.

I'd love to see openttd catch up with a few ttdpatch features still, conditional signals and building over tunnels being two of those.

So justa question to the developers, already any goals for 2.0?

[aantono]

If we're dreaming here. . .

Fantasy stuff? How about power lines, a' la' Simutrans? Give the power stations a reason to exist other than to suck up coal. Hey, it IS transport, after a fashion. . . You'd have to monitor the "congestion" of the grid, add more/heavier lines, transformer stations, etc.

And on this line, what about pipelines? Hideously expensive to build, but once built a faster, cheaper way to move oil (a solution to not being able to run long rakes of oil tankers on MAGLEV tracks, perhaps?)

+1

Would be especially useful and increase gameplay with industry sets like FIRS where you have lots of heavy industry like an Aluminum Plant, Smelters, Oil and Chemical refineries, which all would require LOTS of electricity and oil supply, as well as supplying power to the electric train lines and cities, so having to make sure those are provided would make the game a lot more interesting.

I don't necessarily need power lines clogging up my landscape (I already tend to disable the overhead lines on rails & trams), but giving the power plant more to do would be helpful. For example, having a power plant within 'x' tiles of an industry will boost production. Then again, that could probably all be accomplished with a NewGRF that modifies how power plants and industry behaves...

After reading a few more posts regarding the power-lines, etc it made me think that there is definitely a desire to start adding additional "infrastructure"-like elements to the game. So maybe not necessarily have it be part of the game itself, but expose a section via GRF support that would allow the creation of GRFs that would provide others with ability to build things like power lines, oil pipelines, etc.

I think it could bring a whole new interesting twist to the game if you could state that the towns now require power to grow pass certain limit, or transport oil from a well to a tanker terminal on a shore. It is all about transportation, so why does it have to be via moving means, who said it can't be done via wires, pipes, etc.?

So maybe that could be the focus of the 2.0 line - adding ability to provide infrastructure things, and maybe, more expanded support for Towns - in a sense that it could be configurable as to what resources and it what quantities the town needs to grow and evolve, etc.

Those are just thoughts, would be happy to hear what others think on that.

[Eddi]

power lines etc. can be done with "NewObjects", which is already implemented in TTDPatch, but a similar implementation in OpenTTD was stalled due to lack of developer time. These won't have an effect on town growth and other stuff, though...

[michael blunck]

power lines etc. can be done with "NewObjects", which is already implemented in TTDPatch, but a similar implementation in OpenTTD was stalled due to lack of developer time. These won't have an effect on town growth and other stuff, though...

Or by misusing "railtypes".

regards
Michael

[Emperor Jake]

I think the most asked for feature, even if some don't know it, is a new map array. I realise that this is a lot of work, but it is a nice big satisfying goal to set our sights on for OpenTTD 2.0. Many hours have been put into this game so far, especially with large projects like OpenGFX, the NoAI, the myriad of GRFs, and the old features we now take for granted, such as multiplayer and GRF support. I believe we can make a new map array, as it would enable so much more flexibility and gameplay options. Think about it: Diagonal bridges, underground and elevated tracks and roads, higher retaining walls (at high cost), and so on...

Just look at the picture here, it is sure to spark inspiration in our devs' minds and have players drooling at the possibilities...
http://homepage1.nifty.com/Ferrari/map/newpage1.htm (Warning! Not for slow internet connections)

- Jake
(sorry for bumping, but I had a nerdgasm when I saw that picture hand had to share it)

[Eddi]

err... are you from like 3 years ago?

firstly, there is a new map array since then, it's just not using up all possible features yet.

and secondly: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=31164

[Lord Aro]

Yes Eddie, but by now a (new) new map array would be useful, for many reasons.
Most of the suggestions in this thread need a new map array
Examples:

Diagonal bridges, underground and elevated tracks and roads, higher retaining walls (at high cost), and so on...

Many more! just start searching the suggestions thread

[Eddi]

Actually, that's a myth. None of the changes you listed require major changes to the map Array, only slight additions. And these are not the main problem at implementing them.

[Donoteat]

What exactly is on the development roadmap now?

I see nothing in the development roadmap on the wiki. I admit, there's probably somewhere else to find out what's going on that I have managed to miss, but it doesn't seem terribly clear to relatively inactive people exactly what sort of development is going on right now.

[Eddi]

that's because the page is misnamed. it isn't a development roadmap, because a) it's a completely user generated page, the devs don't even look at is, b) the development is not design driven, and c) the developers or patch writers do their own thing, and either manage to get the patch in or not. to look at active patches, check the development forum.

[Lord Aro]

no, the pages are locked to normal users. only admins can edit them
and it does clarly state that the pages do not represent what might actually be in the release

would be nice if the devs could add some more to it though...

[Willsims]

Well done to the developers so far. You have produced a game that can cope with many different playing styles, and long may it continue. Not for me are the 40 platform stations, 6 track main lines and huge "cloverleaf " junctions, that would cover half a small county if translated into real life, and that can cope with hundreds of trains at a time. I prefer things to be much more life-like, using double track main lines only, with relatively simple turnouts to branch lines. I also still use absolute block signalling, but without pre signals, and stations that rarely consist of more than 6 platforms, and usually only 2. Trains tend to max on 8 tile lengths, but will often be shorter if traffic is light, or money tight.
In this quest for realism, my "wish list" for V2.0 is relatively simple. Perhaps I should say short instead of simple, as I'm sure it will be far from simple to include. The list is as follows;

1, Diagonal bridges and tunnels

2, Signals on bridges and tunnels ( probably more important than 1 actually )

3, The ability to have "running rights" over competitors rail lines, at a cost of a proportion of the income generated, ( See also 5 )

4, A better economic model, once you,ve got through the first 10 years or so reasonably successfully, money becomes no object, and you can build almost anything, and terraform to your hearts content. Perhaps the costs could escalate considerably after a preset period.

5, A better business model. At the moment, you can own 75% of another company, and have no control over it, not even the aforementioned running rights. As the majority shareholder, you should be able to direct it to build, or not build as you wish. I would also like to be able to buy or sell just parts of a company. I am only interested in rail operations, and is is frustrating, when having taken over another company, to spend the next 2 years shutting down road and air networks, rather than being able to offload them as going concerns. Better still, just buy the rail operations in the first place.
It would also be nice if you could buy existing industries, as well as fund new ones, and take the profits therefrom. The price would depend on the profits/losses being made, thus providing another incentive to keep them fully supplied. The base cost should never be lower than the construction cost of a new industry of that type.

6, Sub-surface lines and stations. Once a town has developed, it is virtually impossible to put a station anywhere but on the edge. This mirrors real life, when citizens would be rightly upset by whole swathes of their cities being razed to put in a new railway. This is accomplished these days by tunnelling a la HS1 into St Pancras, or Crossrail. We should be able to do the same, but at the equivalent very high cost.

7, Much better AI's. This is in no way meant to denigrate the current AI's, the writers of which possess a skill which I do not, but they do sometimes tend to chose some very peculiar track layouts; having a terminal station facing the "wrong" direction so that the track has to effectively turn through 180 degrees before setting off towards the target seems to be a very common occurance. The track also seems sometimes to wander at random over the landscape, rather than take a direct route. This characteristic makes sharing tracks less appealing, but sometimes the ability to use a station without buying the company would be nice. Again, I don't mean to be disrespectful of the current AI authors, I do not know whether the above are due to the limitations of the present game or not. But if they are, would it be possible to overcome them in V2.0

I have no ability to write code, so can only ask that you consider these wishes, and hope that you don't think I've wasted your time. Whatever is included in V2.0, if it gives me as many facinating hours of gameplay as the versions so far have, I'll be well pleased. Keep up the good work

[Kogut]

Much better AI's. This is in no way meant to denigrate the current AI's, the writers of which possess a skill which I do not, but they do sometimes tend to chose some very peculiar track layouts; having a terminal station facing the "wrong" direction so that the track has to effectively turn through 180 degrees before setting off towards the target seems to be a very common occurance. The track also seems sometimes to wander at random over the landscape, rather than take a direct route. This characteristic makes sharing tracks less appealing, but sometimes the ability to use a station without buying the company would be nice. Again, I don't mean to be disrespectful of the current AI authors, I do not know whether the above are due to the limitations of the present game or not. But if they are, would it be possible to overcome them in V2.0

Most pathfinding problem are caused by limitations of computers and programs itself. Some things easy for humans (image analyse - is it a chair or a plane?) are very hard for computers, things easy for computers (7337367366373637367363*625262562525+82782728) are time consuming for us. Pathfinding belongs to first group (especially efficient pf with good looking effects).

[TERdON]

+1 for new (or updated, if found sufficient) map array. I can add one more benefit: there are several situations where it would make sense to have the same cell co-owned by competitors (e.g. it would make it possible for competitors to run diagonal tracks from competitors directly next to each other, and not separated by 1 square, or you can more clearly decouple road, tram track and rail track ownership, which sometimes get mixed, e.g. if built on top of each other).

Further ideas, that don't primarily involve the devs (sorry for slight repetition):
* Scripted tutorials is a must. The game is (and SHOULD BE) hard to learn, but that does not mean we should make it even harder
* Better documentation, e.g. there is not a very easily COMPLETE list of shortcuts and "tricks" available. Specifically, unless you know about them, you probably won't use the shift and ctrl modifiers...
* Balancing of vehicles and industries. Today there is one standard, and if you don't like that, you have to find a set of GRFs to your liking that end up working well together. To a beginner, it is not obvious which that choice is... Of course, there is the standard "classical" sets, but maybe it would be possible to include a number of custom GRFs as "standard" choices, giving e.g. the FIRS industry set together with a suitable (balanced) set of vehicles as part of the standard release? This could maybe be coupled with some kind of presets for new games (GRFs, difficulty setting, etc), and maybe even a whole new (as discussed previously in this thread) type of system for scenarios/missions.
* Preconfigured missions as part of the standard configuration (e.g. "conquer the wild west" with steam trains, horse carriages, and gold rushes, "1800s England" with very early trains, "Chunnel", etc.)

* I agree on the smarter AIs. A common situation is that the AIs tend to run parallel roads in parallel, leading to a lot of unused roads (especially after they go bankrupt...). Additionally, maybe some kind of "degrading" functionality could let unused roads far from the towns degrade over time and eventually vanish completely?

* Finally, it would be nice to not always share roads completely - one proposal is to include toll booths in the default setup (assuming IS2 is not included), giving the possibility to let competitors' vehicles use your road, but only if they pay you? However then you would need to stop competitors from connecting their road to yours behind the toll booth somehow. Maybe this could be done with different road types (e.g. toll booths only available for highways, where no direct crossings are allowed).

[Alberth]

* Preconfigured missions as part of the standard configuration (e.g. "conquer the wild west" with steam trains, horse carriages, and gold rushes, "1800s England" with very early trains, "Chunnel", etc.)

The simplest way to realize this imho is to have a collection of scenarios or savegames somewhere (or just link to existing ones), with a task description.

* I agree on the smarter AIs. A common situation is that the AIs tend to run parallel roads in parallel, leading to a lot of unused roads (especially after they go bankrupt...). Additionally, maybe some kind of "degrading" functionality could let unused roads far from the towns degrade over time and eventually vanish completely?

In general, smarter AIs ain't gonna happen.
In the world, millions are spent each year on such research. No way OpenTTD is going to make a break-through there.
That said, that does not mean it is impossible to make progress here and there. If you write a nice path finder library that reduces duplicate roads, chances are that NoAI authors will use it, improving the situation.

For slowly degrading roads, you probably need to find a better way to store roads first, such slow processes cost a lot of bits, probably much more than available in the current map.
(and extending the map with more bits is possible, but not nice, since at 2048x2048 a few extra bits sum up to a huge amount of data that you have to send over the network in MP, and/or store in save games.)

[Lord Aro]

* Preconfigured missions as part of the standard configuration (e.g. "conquer the wild west" with steam trains, horse carriages, and gold rushes, "1800s England" with very early trains, "Chunnel", etc.)

The simplest way to realize this imho is to have a collection of scenarios or savegames somewhere (or just link to existing ones), with a task description.

While this is the simplest solution, it is certainly not the best.
A better way would be ro provide tutorials similar to original TT[O¦D], videos perhaps would be easiest

[eightspoons]

I felt the need to register solely to pass on my 2-cents - I've been lurking around here for some years now and have been playing O/TTD on and off since its release 16(?) years ago.

Looking over the posts so far, it seems to me that all of the changes noted so far would constitute more of a '1.5' so, as a grand aim for version 2.0, how about extending the gameplay over a global scale using a region based system similar to that in SimCity 4, having multiple scenarios making up the 'countries' and linking them with each other by operating international flights, and perhaps making tourism deals and operating cruise ships - at a massive expense preferably to give players something to spend all that cash on.

Of course, I don't even know if such a thing is even realistic (or possible) as I haven't the foggiest when it comes to development. I just think this is a good idea because, as large as the maps are in OTTD compared to the original, in later stages I tend to run out of space to (easily) expand my networks, as well as everything slowing down slightly with 2,000 vehicles on the go.

Anyways, feel free to blast my suggestion. I don't mind.

[Sidcom]

This gave me an idea (maybe somebody already had this one):

Scenarios, where you have a world/continent/region - "map", where every country is a playable map.
You start at one (random/chosen/predefined) country and to access the next country, you have to import/export a certain amount of passengers, wares, certain goods,... (or mixed) - different for every country.

To import/export you'd have to connect a road or railway to the border and then pay a certain sum for the rest of the way to be built (i could go into detail here, like in the other country there will be a KI-placed track/station,... and where and so on...)

Or you could use ships and planes - if you have some with enough reach and the right airports (international/intercontinental).

There are a lot of things, you could do with that system.

e.g:
- if (in a historical scenario) you start in england, france,... you could get access to the colonial states once you are "first" in the home country. (And then you have to fullfill certain requests, like import enough resources from the colonies to the homeland...)

- if you enter a new country, where there's already a railroad, they might not be of the same size/norm - so you can't use them. After a certain time (or if you become very dominant) the government decides which railsize has to be used. All others have to be rebuilt.

- for the U.S. you could make this a raze - the first player to have a closed line of states from east to west-coast will have his tracks to be chosen the official ones. All others have to rebuilt theirs.

- there could be wars, taxes,... between countries - influencing your import/export.

- The more you import/export between two countries, the more stable their relationships become.

- If there's war between two countries, you can't cross the borders with your vehicles and tracks at the border might be destroyed. If your company "entered" the country from the opposing one, all your infrastructure might be seized/destroyed.

- your imports might directly influence a countries political system. So if a country asks for a lot of weapons, that might be an indicator for war. If they want steel, you don't know if it's for weapons or railtracks, industry,... This takes a lot of balancing, but could turn out great.

what else....

ah, yes: region managers - after some time you should be able to hire region managers - a KI that does your job, so you don't have to look after every country yourself. Especially ones you have already built up or colonies. The trick would of course be, to make them have different skills. Plus they should make mistakes (and sometimes even ask the player for help) - so it's not like the PC does your job entirely.

[CharlyHRO]

I wonder if it would be possible to have the viewport "rendered" by the GPU without adding unneeded 3D elements. Just as an idea to unload some work from the CPU. Don't misunderstand me, I agree to the point that OpenTTD doesn't need shiny 3D graphics. The idea is to just "misuse" the abilities of todays GPUs to place the sprites on the screen. I think it's possible but I don't have any idea what a hell of a programming job that would be...

[CommanderZ]

There is hardware accelerated version of OTTD, but it was not that much of an improvement (and is now grossly outdated).