[Patch] Better land owner smallmap colours

[jez]

I don't know about anyone else, but when I look at the 'Land owners' display on the small map, it's a bit confusing sometimes about what different colours mean; you can confuse industries (light grey) with the grey or white player, towns with the red player, and as for the dark blue player, their colour is *identical* to the blue 'water' colour (see illustration below)!

When I started implementing these different colours, I thought I recognised them. Then I fired up the original Transport Tycoon in DOSbox and realised that they were pretty much the ones Chris Sawyer came up with in the original game! In TTD, he 'brightened up' the land and sea colours presumably to make them less depressing, which is fine for most smallmap screens, but I think that using the 'duller' colours for stuff not owner by players makes the 'Land owners' smallmap display much clearer, as you know that dark stuff is not player-owned, and light stuff is. Colours also clash a lot less.

With this (small) patch, the colours of the land, sea, and towns are dulled/darkened, and industries appear as black. This does make them stand out a bit, but you sure don't confuse them with any player-owned stuff; if it's black, it's an industry!

[kaan]

I would never have thought of this. Nice catch

[athanasios]

10 times better!

[Grolsch]

Looking great! I'd say: merge

[DaleStan]

How does this effect the visibility of industries on the industries-display minimap that very carefully do not use the old minimap colors, and happen to use one of the new ones instead?

[jez]

It doesn't, because the land/water/town/etc. colours are only modified for the land owners minimap.

[Bilbo]

Good, now blue player can no longer masquerade their construction as water :)

[belugas]

A few notes about this patch
1) I personally do not like the colors proposed. And I know i am not the only one
2) because of this, it should be made that the colors could be changeable, without the need of a patch option
3) comments at the end of a line are in the form of "blabla; // Something to say"
I know, it is not the case all around the trunk. But you just spot one of many places that need fixing.
By the way, have you spotted the stange pattern of colors in there?

Code: Select all

MK(0xC8, STR_0126_WATER),
_owner_colors[OWNER_WATER] = MKCOLOR(0xC8C8C8C8);     /* Water */

Maybe that C8 value can be better used, than just repeated... Dunno, but... there might be the subject of a usefull patch there...

[jez]

A few notes about this patch
1) I personally do not like the colors proposed. And I know i am not the only one
2) because of this, it should be made that the colors could be changeable, without the need of a patch option

That sounds like bigtime overkill to me. I don't know why you don't like the new colours, but they just seem better to me as you can more easily see the player colours highlighted.

3) comments at the end of a line are in the form of "blabla; // Something to say"
I know, it is not the case all around the trunk. But you just spot one of many places that need fixing.

I'm not sure what you're saying here; the comments are wrong?

By the way, have you spotted the stange pattern of colors in there?

Yeah, it seems to define 4x8bit palette values that determine a 4-pixel 'pattern' on the map. Having them all the same colour seems to be the most visually pleasing on the landowners map so I kept it that way.

[belugas]

That sounds like bigtime overkill to me. I don't know why you don't like the new colours, but they just seem better to me as you can more easily see the player colours highlighted.

You already have users who do not like the new scheme. What are we going to say to all the complains that might occur about it? There has to be a way to please everyone on the matter. The fact that YOU like it does not means EVEYBODY MUST like it. After all, CS himself changed it...

3) comments at the end of a line are in the form of "blabla; // Something to say"
I know, it is not the case all around the trunk. But you just spot one of many places that need fixing.

I'm not sure what you're saying here; the comments are wrong?

not the content of the comment. The code style of the comment. You wrote "/*blabla*/" while, at end of line, it should be "//blabla".
It is part of our coding style

Yeah, it seems to define 4x8bit palette values that determine a 4-pixel 'pattern' on the map. Having them all the same colour seems to be the most visually pleasing on the landowners map so I kept it that way.

I meant that onthe current code, there is a definition for one color byte (0xC8) which is then repeated 4 times (0xC8C8C8C8) in a macro. I am thinking in making it so there would be no need for that repetition. Maybe i'm expressing myself badly...
Would not be the first time

[Grolsch]

That sounds like bigtime overkill to me. I don't know why you don't like the new colours, but they just seem better to me as you can more easily see the player colours highlighted.

You already have users who do not like the new scheme. What are we going to say to all the complains that might occur about it? There has to be a way to please everyone on the matter. The fact that YOU like it does not means EVEYBODY MUST like it. After all, CS himself changed it...

Make the colors changeable seems a bit overkill to me too. What about making it an option to use the new colors? People who don't like the new colors can stick to the old ones that way, without making the patch unnessecerily complex.

[Bilbo]

I have also thought of one colour scheme for owner map that may also be usable. So that your tracks would be for example orange and track of competitors would be in some shades from bright green to bright blue. While it will make harder to distinguish between competitors, it would be easy to distinguish your tracks from competition and from the terrain around it.