OpenTTD 0.6.0-beta1

[Roujin]

But there has never been a discussion regarding that, for as long as i remember.

Well, now there is a discussion, right here in this Thread. I just think that there should not be a type of track without standard vehicles available. Do you have any strong counter arguments?

[NCarlson]

I would assume counter arguments would be based on the fact that a major goals of the next (I think it's .7, correct me if I'm wrong) major version is a fully new set of graphics, which will likely be 32bit, making anything added not obsolete (personally I would prefer we stick with the current system to retain newgrf compatibility, but that really is a dev decision). Anyway, I think that this discussion has reached a point that the best thing would be to leave it be until a dev comments on it.

[Bilbo]

I do not know whether it is a bug, but how can a city that has 295 residents have a point of buses with 357 passengers?

Ever been to some touristically attractive places? Seeing more people than lives in the entire village on local bus stop is posible in reality, especially if it is small village and something interesting is nearby (ancient excavations, some landmark ... whatever ... )

And once 100 people visits the village (with 50 inhabitants) they want to go back, right? :)

So it is not bug, it is realistic behavior ;)

[dihedral]

i run my games with trams - and not just one tramset grf, using the openttdcoop grf pack, the openttdcoop publigserver includes trams, and i beleive there are a few more, Ammler's tt-ms.de server (german game) also uses the same grf pack and also includes various tramsets

[Mchl]

Just a question : why should that specific grf be included in the distribution? What can possibly stop anyone from downloading the grf themselves and add it to their own games?

An answer: Because it was designed to be consistent with other generic OTTD vehicles.
To the other part of the question: I often see questions which can be summarized as: 'I have tram tracks, but there are no trams... WTH[1]?' Downloading a grf set and adding it to a game, maybe actually something that beginner player might not be able to cope with.

---------
[1]: 'H' stands for 'hell' or 'heck' or whatever... I got bored with the f word.

[maartena]

Just a question : why should that specific grf be included in the distribution? What can possibly stop anyone from downloading the grf themselves and add it to their own games?

One word: Multiplayer.

Most multiplayer servers are using the original OpenTTD only without any newgrfs added. Only a few servers have newgrfs, and those will have to be manually installed. Now there may be another reason I can't think of why most servers don't include newgrfs, but I would think the main reason is to make it as easy as possible for others to join in a multiplayer game.

We have added new graphics for airports, why is it not possible to add the generic tramset to the game as a standard, so at least OpenTTD as a product comes with some trams. If people then want to add a German or UK tramset on top of that, more power to them.

As it stands right now, I do not believe that trams will be used much in mutiplayer. A generic tramset will prevent that servers will all load different grfs or that server will not load any trams at all. I would just be a shame that trams will not be used in multiplayer (or not much) because a few generic trams weren't included.

What can possibly stop the developers from including the generic tramset? It has been done before with airports, and the set has been made available by its creater for this purpose - afaik.

It would be nice to have trams included by default, for multiplayer games especially.

[sc79]

This ain't glitch. It's meant to be so. If you set your signal lenght to 2 then you get it 2, not three, because one signal could not be placed. If a signal can't be placed, it just skips it and continues

Probably not the place to be discussing this, since its not specific to the beta, however its not the original behavior of the patch. Originally, it placed signals at the first tile before and after bridges or tunnels, so the blocks were as close to the designated length as possible.

[mrMann]

i would like for someone to do new generic buses, company colours but real buses/minibuses/trucks/vans e.g. Ford Iveco Minibus/Van/Truck, Volvo 9700, more than before and refitable trucks and vans

[Maedhros]

Feel free. However, since you can change all of that with newgrfs, don't expect it to be included with OpenTTD.

[Valentijn]

Hi all,

Great work to have a new version (almost ) out there.

I am playing with it now, and I may have found an issue. If I have a track from station A via B to C, which picks up grain at A and has nonstop orders to unload at C (passing B), it will NOT unload at C. If I remove the nonstop from the orders, it will unload at C! (luckily for me B accepts no grain).
Same for livestock btw. See screenshot of full train coming in and leaving. I triple verified that the cargo is from A and you can see C accepts the grain!

PS I am new to non stop orders, so I might be overlooking something! Please let me know if this is a bug and whether I should post it somewhere! Thanks!

[Mchl]

That's because 'Non-stop' order tells the train to skip the station, where this order is assigned. Just give the train orders to load at A and unload at C and everything will be fine. You may just add a non-stop order at B.

[Valentijn]

That's because 'Non-stop' order tells the train to skip the station, where this order is assigned. Just give the train orders to load at A and unload at C and everything will be fine. You may just add a non-stop order at B.

you're right, I reread the docs and I misunderstood. I think because I would expect it to work the other way around. I thought the order was 'Go non-stop to C', but it's like 'Go to C, but do not stop there! (And if TTDPatch like non-stop handling is disabled, please stop at all stations you come across)'. Clear now.

A little bit strange that you select non-stop together with (un)load/transfer????

[Maedhros]

If TTDPatch-compatible non-stop handling is disabled, you were right the first time (i.e. non-stop means go to this station, and do not stop anywhere in between). If it's enabled, non-stop means to go through that station, but not stop there, and also don't stop at any stations that aren't in the order list.

[Bilbo]

If TTDPatch-compatible non-stop handling is disabled, you were right the first time (i.e. non-stop means go to this station, and do not stop anywhere in between). If it's enabled, non-stop means to go through that station, but not stop there, and also don't stop at any stations that aren't in the order list.

Perhaps the text should be re-worded. When the nonstop mean "go to station and do not stop anywhere on the way" I think the text on button and the "tag" (or at least on the tag) in the order list should be for example "Non-stop way".
When it mean "go thru the station without stopping", the text should be for example "Non-stop station". The texts should differ to help you recognize the cases.

Some multiplayer server have TTDPatch-compatible non-stop handling on, some off. You can't override it, as it is server setting, so it would be nice to see which one is used without having to look into patch options.

[DaleStan]

TTDPatch added a string that equates to "Go via {STATION}", if I'm remembering my OTTD string usage properly. It is used for waypoint orders, which satisfy at least one of (1) station was constructed as a waypoint, or (2) order uses the non-stop command with TTDPatch's nonstop handling enabled.

[Bilbo]

Yes, "go to station (non-stop)" and "go non-stop via station" or something alike perhaps may be good as the strings for these two modes ...

[electricmonk]

Hi,

After a long absence from OTTD, I decided to try the new 0.6 beta 1 (Windows version) and get my hands on all those lovely new industries.

I've not done much experimenting with the NewGRFs. My choice of which ones to include was based on the ECS Compatibility list at http://wiki.ttdpatch.net/tiki-index.php?page=ECSSupport

Here are my GRF files in order:

ECS. Town Vector Beta 3 (24 Nov 2007)
ECS. Basic vector for arctic (13 Jan 2006)
ECS. Chemicals vector (21 Oct 2007)
ECS. Machinery vector Beta 3 (23 Nov 2007)
ECS. Wood Vector Beta 3 (22 Oct 2007)
ECS. Agricultural Vector Beta 3 (24 Nov 2007)
UK Renewal train set v3.04
Newships
av8 AH-64 Apache
Long vehicles v4 (07 sept 2007)

When running in the Arctic climate (have not tried any other climate), these sets work fine. The only warning I get is from the "Long vehicles v4" set warning about road traffic that's supposed to be on the right. However, I also tried the "ECS. Construction vector by Pikka (18 Oct 2007)" (placed between the Wood and Agreicultural ECS vectors), and when I use that, I get the following error: "ECS Construction vector by Pikkabird is incompatible with ECS construction vector" even though I don't have "ECS construction vector" installed. As well as the "ECS. Construction vector by Pikka (18 Oct 2007)" being disabled, the "Long vehicles v4 (07 sept 2007)" set also becomes disabled with Pikka's ECS construction vector. I have not tried the non-Pikka construction vector (the other 6 ECS vectors are proving to be quite a handful so have not bothered with the 7th).

I tried adding the "Generic Tramset v 0.3" to the mix. If it's included before "Long vehicles v4", the "Tramway construction" menu-entry is greyed out (presumably, the long vehicles override all the trams). I tried placing the trams last, and then, I do get trams, although I'm wondering if some of the road vehicles from the "Long vehicles v4" set were overridden, so I decided to not include any trams. I'm wodering if I should use the "Generic Road Vehicle and Tram Set" instead of "Long vehicles v4", but according to the "Still todo:" list in the first article, the "Cargo translation table" still needs doing (I'm not sure what a cargo translation table is but I'm guessing it has something to do with the new cargoes).

Someone mentioned that the trams should be included as default. However, as I found out, if I'm using "Long vehicles v4", it seems to clash with the "Generic Tramset v 0.3", so that's a reason why it shouldn't be included as default (at least until clashing vehicles have been sorted out).


My biggest gripe with this version (using the ECS industries) is that the industries close down too early. I've spent ages building a supply chain, and then, a vital industry closes down . It's too early in the game to build long-distance train routes and already I have to hope that I can find an alternative industry to supply the other industries that would close down themselves thanks to lack of products. I think it should be possible to prevent industries from closing down until at least 30 years after the game has started. Come to think of it, there could be a patch setting to prevent industries from closing down (not sure how this would effect oil-wells being replaced by oil-rigs in the temperate climate). One idea I had was that if an industry was about to close down due to supply problems, instead of closing down without any warning, there should be a message that says that unless industry X recieves supplies within a year, it will close down (this mechanism could be similar to subsidies ecxept that the industry closes down if no supplies are recieved).

Another major gripe is that the news-messages are flooded with industry production changes (I'm running a 1024x1024 map). Even with the "smooth economy" patch turned off, there's loads of messages about secondary industries "decreasing production essentially!". If I go to the message-settings dialog and switch off the "Other industry production chages", I find that some important messages (such as subsidy offers or new vehicles becoming available) are buried because there seems to be some kind of maximum limit of about 30 for howmany messages are remembered/displayed. I would appreciate it if the message history length was increased, or if the number of industries that are "decreasing production essentially!" per month are reduced. I hate having to manually check the Subsidies dialog once a month . Also, I noticed that industry-closing-down messages are in the "production changes" message category. How about creating a separate category for "Industry closing down" so I don't miss closing industries if I've got production-changes turned off. While on the subject, an idea I had is that instead of having just two types of economic smoothness (Original TTDLX's economy and the OTTD "Smooth economy"), there could be several levels of smoothness in between these two, eg, a limit of one primary industry changing it's production per month. The reason I don't turn on the smooth econimy is because I'm overwhelmed by production-change messages.

One thing about the PBS industry sets that I think shold change is that there should be at least one food-producing industry that works at high altitude. At the moment, food plants, tinning factories and breweries require access to nearby water. One of the reasons why I choose to play the Arctic climate is that I like placing food-processing plants in a town above the snowline and then distributing the food to the town and nearby towns without the need for high-powered trains to climb the hills. One idea could be to transport water as a cargo so that any industry that needs to be located near water can work away from water provided it is supplied with a supply of water. Also, I think I heard that the TTD-Patch guys are working on rivers. Not sure if this means I can have water at a high altitude.

Anyway, I've noticed a few bugs and graphical glitches:

• When I'm in the scenario editor, I'm having trouble placing certain industries. For example, if I've deleted a sawmill and made a bump in the landscape to prevent the sawmill from being rebuilt at exactly the same spot, I end up with messages such as "Cannot build sawmill here, sawmill in the way" even though there is no sawmill to be seen. Also, I'm told "This industry requires flat land" even though the land in the surrounding tiles in all directions is flat. I notice that sometimes when I place an industry, the land is terraformed so it becomes flat enough to place the industry, so why do I still end up with "This industry requires flat land" messages?
• The "modify production values" cheat does not work when using the PBS industry-sets (although it works for oil-wells in Arctic climate (not tried any other climates)).
• If there are lots of industries, the minimap default size is so small that some of their names overlap the buttons. Also, in the "Industry directory", the text overflows the box and when moved to the left, glitches are left behind.
• When using the "NewStations 0.4.2 05.09.05" GRF, the stations drawn with lots of magenta pixels.

Here are a few assorted ideas:

• In the NewGRF list, there should be a means of displaying which vehicles (be they default vehicles or vehicles from GRF sets) have been taken over by vehicles from other GRF sets. This should also include mentioning multiple takeovers (eg. vehicle A in GRF set 3 takes over vehicle B in GRF set 2 which in turn takes over vehicle C in GRF set 1 which takes over vehicle D in the original game)
• If a vehicle is in a group, it should have a button for bringing up the window for the group it is in (and some indisction of which group it is in).
• I notice that Autosaves are saved in the "My Documents/OpenTTD" folder whereas regular savegames are saved in the game's directory. It should either be possible to select the default directory for autosaves, or there should be a button in the file-selector that jumps between the "My Documents/OpenTTD" folder and the game's installation directory.
• If a piece of track is selected in track-lay mode, the mousewheel rotates it.
• Scenario editor: As well as "Many random industries", there should be a "Many random industries of this type". This is useful if you've just installed an extra PBS vector on top of your existing PBS vector and you want to add these industries to an existing scenario.
• Scenario editor: If placing many random industries, there should be a progress indicator. This takes ages with the PBS indstries.

As for the PBS industries, the available tourist resorts should depend on the climate. In the arctic climate, instead of having a caino resort, there should be a ski-resort instead.

And finally, just a quick question: Why is YAPF for ships off by default?

Anyway, I hope the I hope the "small map industry selector" patch makes it into the next beta - those colours are just too similar.

Keep up the good work!

[DaleStan]

<newindustries yammer>

Bother George. It's not an Open bug. That's what they're supposed to do. (Try it in TTDPatch too. If the behaviour is the same, the behaviour is as coded. This applies to all newgrfs unless the grf coder explicitly tells you otherwise.)

smooth econimy

is disabled for newgrf industries.

<Further newindustries yammer>

And this time, bother Pikka. If you're using newgrfs and you don't like the way things they define work TALK TO THE GRF CODER. NOT THE OPENTTD CODERS!

When using the "NewStations 0.4.2 05.09.05" GRF, the stations drawn with lots of magenta pixels.

You obviously know nothing about GRF. Please research the difference between DOS and Windows GRFs, and determine which of the two you require.

In the NewGRF list, there should be a means of displaying which vehicles (be they default vehicles or vehicles from GRF sets) have been taken over by vehicles from other GRF sets.

That's 256 entries. Are you serious?

This should also include mentioning multiple takeovers

... per GRF. Are you really serious? And what do you do about grfs (like DBXL_ECS), which are *supposed* to modify the properties of vehicles of some other set (like DBSetXL), while leaving the graphics alone?

PBS

Please find the correct acronym. PBS is "Path Based Signalling". Pikka's industries are PBI.

And finally, just a quick question: Why is YAPF for ships off by default?

Turn it on, and find out.

[dihedral]

And finally, just a quick question: Why is YAPF for ships off by default?

Turn it on, and find out.

LOL

[Bilbo]

And finally, just a quick question: Why is YAPF for ships off by default?

Turn it on, and find out.

LOL :-D

Find out ... heh ... build 10 ships with routes from one corner of large map to another and you will quickly find out (just check CPU usage :)

Problem is, that YAPF is very slow with ships and large distances. Somewhere I saw a patch that tries to fix that (sort of hierarchical pathfinding algorithm), but I think that patch have not made it (yet) to the trunk (it was unfinished last time I checked)