ECS vectors v1.1.2 (by George) 19/06/2011

[George]

I´m with the idea behind, but I´d prolong the time frame.

What? Sorry, could you explain this?

[George]

A test file for new closure mechanism. Please test. Does it work as intended?

[wallyweb]

A test file for new closure mechanism. Please test. Does it work as intended?

I haven't had a chance to check this yet, but I do have a question about the power plant ... Its window says it can accept oil, but there are no tiles for oil. Also, where do I get the sulfur that I need for the chemical plant?

I also noticed that valuables have been replaced by gold and there is now a gold mine. I like that.

[George]

A test file for new closure mechanism. Please test. Does it work as intended?

I haven't had a chance to check this yet, but I do have a question about the power plant ... Its window says it can accept oil, but there are no tiles for oil. Also, where do I get the sulfur that I need for the chemical plant?
I also noticed that valuables have been replaced by gold and there is now a gold mine. I like that.

Accepting of oil should start a bit after the 1951-th as soon as one of coal storing parts is transformed into the tank (that should never happen if TTRS3 has era parameter set to 1, because it will always think that it is 1920-1950 now). Because all parts of your industry are not updated to era 3 (1991-th is your current date), I suppose it is a newly build one. Usually it takes 1-3 years for a tile to be renewed, so you have to wait unless your industry tiles come to era 2.

Gold mine is managed with a parameter.
0 (Default) - Replace VALUables with GOLD and make gold mine available
1 - Do not provide Gold nor Gold mine (slot 04 is taken anyway, the mine is displayed in the new industry list, but will not appear on the map), valuables is unchanged (if defined). May be it will also allow diamonds mine on the map (currently disabled)
2 - Do not provide Gold. Gold mine is available and produces as much valuables as gold.
Gold mine also uses a lot of vehicles (machinery) to boost the production. Too much of them. More than 8 times above other mines per ton of production. Me thinks it is a bit silly. Should I reduce the usage of machinery or remove it completely?

Sulphur is not produced (same as potash is not accepted by Glass works tiles) now. The question is that I don't like chemicals vector "as is" now. I also do not plan to make it beta 3 soon. All the support for ECS chemicals vector will be provided later. May be I shall specify production of sulphur for power plant without any production, but most likely I shall do it not. That's because of Cokes plant graphics by Zimmlock. Providing this plant requires to have one more cargo cokes that is used instead of coal.
Pro:
We have excellent graphics of Cokes plant by Zimmlock
Contra:
We have to drop out one of ECS cargoes, that breaks support by vehicles sets
We have to change cargo chains (steel mill should accept cokes instead of coal)
We do not have the accepting of cokes in the Basic vector (or we should replace acceptance of coal to acceptance of cokes at glass works). This moves glass works and steel mill from the second to the third level industries, that moves other industries to forth level. Fortunately, this does not move any industry to the fifth level, but we get many of them at the fourth that was not intended.
Sulphur and potash are the first candidates to be replaced.
But such solutions should not be taken fast, we have to think a lot first.

The main question is
WHAT DO PEOPLE THINK ABOUT NEW CLOSURE MECHANISM? SHOULD IT BE APPLIED TO OTHER INDUSTRIES TOO?

[wallyweb]

A test file for new closure mechanism. Please test. Does it work as intended?

I haven't had a chance to check this yet, but I do have a question about the power plant ... Its window says it can accept oil, but there are no tiles for oil. Also, where do I get the sulfur that I need for the chemical plant?
I also noticed that valuables have been replaced by gold and there is now a gold mine. I like that.

Accepting of oil should start a bit after the 1951-th as soon as one of coal storing parts is transformed into the tank (that should never happen if TTRS3 has era parameter set to 1, because it will always think that it is 1920-1950 now). Because all parts of your industry are not updated to era 3 (1991-th is your current date), I suppose it is a newly build one. Usually it takes 1-3 years for a tile to be renewed, so you have to wait unless your industry tiles come to era 2.

Thanks George. The towns are Canadian and the game is indeed a saved one in 1991. We will tell the captain to take his ship to the oil refinery at Fredericton Harbour until the power station evolves itself. Question ... will the oil replace coal or will it be added on to the Power Station's acceptance list? I think it should be added on.

Gold mine is managed with a parameter.
0 (Default) - Replace VALUables with GOLD and make gold mine available
1 - Do not provide Gold nor Gold mine (slot 04 is taken anyway, the mine is displayed in the new industry list, but will not appear on the map), valuables is unchanged (if defined). May be it will also allow diamonds mine on the map (currently disabled)
2 - Do not provide Gold. Gold mine is available and produces as much valuables as gold.
Gold mine also uses a lot of vehicles (machinery) to boost the production. Too much of them. More than 8 times above other mines per ton of production. Me thinks it is a bit silly. Should I reduce the usage of machinery or remove it completely?

Interesting. I'll test the parameters. Keep the machinery as the other resources have it and it is logical, but, yes, I would reduce the usage so that it is the same as with the other resource industries. This makes for a very interesting challenge as the player has to deliver small quantities of a product (machinery/vehicles) to many locations instead of a large quantity to one or two locations. It is quite realistic. Well done.

Sulphur is not produced (same as potash is not accepted by Glass works tiles) now. The question is that I don't like chemicals vector "as is" now. I also do not plan to make it beta 3 soon. All the support for ECS chemicals vector will be provided later. May be I shall specify production of sulphur for power plant without any production, but most likely I shall do it not. That's because of Cokes plant graphics by Zimmlock. Providing this plant requires to have one more cargo cokes that is used instead of coal.
Pro:
We have excellent graphics of Cokes plant by Zimmlock
Contra:
We have to drop out one of ECS cargoes, that breaks support by vehicles sets
We have to change cargo chains (steel mill should accept cokes instead of coal)
We do not have the accepting of cokes in the Basic vector (or we should replace acceptance of coal to acceptance of cokes at glass works). This moves glass works and steel mill from the second to the third level industries, that moves other industries to forth level. Fortunately, this does not move any industry to the fifth level, but we get many of them at the fourth that was not intended.
Sulphur and potash are the first candidates to be replaced.
But such solutions should not be taken fast, we have to think a lot first.

My suggestions:
- Replace "sulphur" with "coke".
- The coal for the steel mill would go to the coke plant instead.
- Try to preserve potash for fertilizer production.
- Try to preserve the Chemical Pant.
I haven't counted recently. Have you used all 32 industry slots? Do you need to drop one to make room for the Coke Plant? Maybe this is the wrong question. Perhaps I should ask if you have reached a limit for cargoes.

The main question is
WHAT DO PEOPLE THINK ABOUT NEW CLOSURE MECHANISM? SHOULD IT BE APPLIED TO OTHER INDUSTRIES TOO?

To keep things relatively simple,all industries should use the same closure mechanism except for mines and wells. If mines and wells run out of reserves and no new reserves are found, then they should close as soon as possible. However, if a mine or well is not producing simply because it is not being serviced, it should remain available for future demand.

[michael blunck]

Providing [the coke] plant requires to have one more cargo cokes that is used instead of coal.

Pro:
We have excellent graphics of Cokes plant by Zimmlock

Contra:
We have to drop out one of ECS cargoes, that breaks support by vehicles sets
We have to change cargo chains (steel mill should accept cokes instead of coal)
We do not have the accepting of cokes in the Basic vector (or we should replace acceptance of coal to acceptance of cokes at glass works). This moves glass works and steel mill from the second to the third level industries, that moves other industries to forth level. Fortunately, this does not move any industry to the fifth level, but we get many of them at the fourth that was not intended.

I always felt the introduction of "coke" to be problematic. In addition to your "cons", IMO, the introduction of "coke" seems to be superfluous: the basic game used "coal" for such a long time that it turned to be the logical ressource for all energy-intensive production, incl production of steel. I bet that most of the people don´t even know that steel production uses coke than coal.

The other point is that in nearly all cases, coke plants are associated to steel mills, hence no real "transport" by train is needed (only intra-plant transportation).

So, I´d prefer to keep "coal" as an ECS cargo and don´t add another similar one (namely "coke") in favour of one of the existing minerals.

A similar situation can be seen with Pikka´s "clay". That´s also uncommon over here. Brick works are usually built directly at a clay pit, so there´s no need to transport it by rail. That´s why I like it as an addition, but not as an ECS component.

OTOH, sulphur and escpecially potash are very important cargoes for trains in Europe. So, I´ll keep them in the ECS scheme.

regards
Michael

[belugas]

George, what if i provide you a variable that will tell you the size of the map? Not like 512*512 or else, but more in the idea of a range, from 0 to 12.
This could allow you to make it so the closure would be proportional to the map's size. The bigger, the longer before it closes.
I do not have the code with me right now, though.
If I remember correctly, TTDP is going to use the range 3, which stands for 256*256 (or any combination that gives the same amount of tiles).
Just a though.
I've worked on that in order to find a way to allow adapting numbers of industries and towns in another way as the current relation with map size that we have. But if it could give you more flexibility, i'd be happy to code and commit the variable.

[George]

The other point is that in nearly all cases, coke plants are associated to steel mills, hence no real "transport" by train is needed (only intra-plant transportation).

Idea:
Not to create any new industry or cargo, but add cokes plant graphics as a part of steel mill graphics. Then we negate all these logical cons and keep our pro!

What do you think?

P.S.
Michael, I'm a bit confused with sulphur. In ECS it has only one source (Power plant) and one destination (Chemicals plant). But you say it is very important for transportation in Europe. Does it have other sources / destinations?

Question ... will the oil replace coal or will it be added on to the Power Station's acceptance list? I think it should be added on.

Added, the store place for coal will be reduced. If you provide lots of oil, you can decrease capacity for coal by half, while the realised spaces would be used to store oil.

Keep the machinery as the other resources have it and it is logical, but, yes, I would reduce the usage so that it is the same as with the other resource industries.

Impossible. I can't skip more than 255 loops easily. So it will use twice more machinery than other mines.

This makes for a very interesting challenge as the player has to deliver small quantities of a product (machinery/vehicles) to many locations instead of a large quantity to one or two locations. It is quite realistic. Well done.

It's a head ash. Wee need a new type of orders in orders list - skip station if it does not accept any cargo in the consist.

My suggestions:
- Replace "sulphur" with "coke".
- The coal for the steel mill would go to the coke plant instead.
- Try to preserve potash for fertilizer production.
- Try to preserve the Chemical Pant.
I haven't counted recently. Have you used all 32 industry slots? Do you need to drop one to make room for the Coke Plant? Maybe this is the wrong question. Perhaps I should ask if you have reached a limit for cargoes.

37 industry slots. There are 2 left. But there are 32 cargo slots and they all are used.

To keep things relatively simple,all industries should use the same closure mechanism except for mines and wells. If mines and wells run out of reserves and no new reserves are found, then they should close as soon as possible. However, if a mine or well is not producing simply because it is not being serviced, it should remain available for future demand.

Does it mean that you've tested the new closure mechanism and satisfied with it? Does it mean that closure issue has played out and can be closed? BTW, I used 24 months warning, 30 is the maximum (I used 5 bits to store it and 2 values are special). Should it be 30, 24, 18 or 12 months warning? Or may be we need several warning?

2Csaboka: how do strings use the stack? If string 1 is "bla \80 bla \7b" and string at \80 is "bla bla \7c", would 2 or 3 values be taken from stack? If 3, what order would they have - \80\7c\7b or \80\7b\7c?

[George]

George, what if i provide you a variable that will tell you the size of the map? Not like 512*512 or else, but more in the idea of a range, from 0 to 12.
This could allow you to make it so the closure would be proportional to the map's size. The bigger, the longer before it closes.
I do not have the code with me right now, though.
If I remember correctly, TTDP is going to use the range 3, which stands for 256*256 (or any combination that gives the same amount of tiles).
Just a though.
I've worked on that in order to find a way to allow adapting numbers of industries and towns in another way as the current relation with map size that we have. But if it could give you more flexibility, i'd be happy to code and commit the variable.

Well, why not have it. But how should closure chance change on 512x256 map (size x 2) or 128x256 (size / 2) in comparison with 256x256 map? I think they should be the same

[michael blunck]

Idea:
Not to create any new industry or cargo, but add cokes plant graphics as a part of steel mill graphics. Then we negate all these logical cons and keep our pro!

What do you think?

Very good idea, I´d do it this way. But didn´t we came to that conclusion some time before?

Michael, I'm a bit confused with sulphur. In ECS it has only one source (Power plant) and one destination (Chemicals plant). But you say it is very important for transportation in Europe. Does it have other sources / destinations?

Well, until SO2 reduction in power plants was developed, sulphur had to be mined.

There are still large mines in many countries (US, Brazil, Ukraine, Iraq, Indonesia, ...). OTOH, meanwhile most European countries draw nearly all of its sulphur from SO2 reduction in power plants.

Historically, Europe´s most important and reknown mines were those of the island of Sicily, Italy. Unlike today, where sulphur mining is done by injection of vapor to get liquid sulphur, mining on Sicily was largely "by hand" and has been documented in quite a couple of books and movies.

Another large and reknown sulphur mine was in existence near Tarnobrzeg in Poland, but has been closed by now as well.

Regarding "destinations", sulphur (sulphuric acid) is a most important basic product for the chemical industry.

regards
Michael

[George]

Idea: Not to create any new industry or cargo, but add cokes plant graphics as a part of steel mill graphics. Then we negate all these logical cons and keep our pro!

Very good idea, I´d do it this way. But didn´t we came to that conclusion some time before?

No. I could not forget such interesting idea (Uniting graphics from different artists at one industry is a very interesting task, it is impossible to forget it ).

Michael, I'm a bit confused with sulphur. In ECS it has only one source (Power plant) and one destination (Chemicals plant). But you say it is very important for transportation in Europe. Does it have other sources / destinations?

Well, until SO2 reduction in power plants was developed, sulphur had to be mined.
There are still large mines in many countries (US, Brazil, Ukraine, Iraq, Indonesia, ...). OTOH, meanwhile most European countries draw nearly all of its sulphur from SO2 reduction in power plants.
Historically, Europe´s most important and reknown mines were those of the island of Sicily, Italy. Unlike today, where sulphur mining is done by injection of vapor to get liquid sulphur, mining on Sicily was largely "by hand" and has been documented in quite a couple of books and movies.
Another large and reknown sulphur mine was in existence near Tarnobrzeg in Poland, but has been closed by now as well.
Regarding "destinations", sulphur (sulphuric acid) is a most important basic product for the chemical industry.

We have 2 industry slots left. May be we should Use one for sulphur mine in ECS Chemicals vector? That would solve the problem of defining Sulphur in one vector and using in the other. With Sulphur mine the sulphur mine - chemicals plant would be the main cargo chain, and the power plant - chemicals plant would be the addition.

P.S. how much sulphur should power plant produce from 1 ton of coal (1000 litres of oil)?

[wallyweb]

Idea:
Not to create any new industry or cargo, but add cokes plant graphics as a part of steel mill graphics. Then we negate all these logical cons and keep our pro!

What do you think?

Interesting way to save and use some nice graphics.

P.S.
Michael, I'm a bit confused with sulphur. In ECS it has only one source (Power plant) and one destination (Chemicals plant). But you say it is very important for transportation in Europe. Does it have other sources / destinations?

Sulphur is also a by-product of oil refineries.
EDIT: But you already have two products from the refineries so the sulphur mine would be a good solution.

Keep the machinery as the other resources have it and it is logical, but, yes, I would reduce the usage so that it is the same as with the other resource industries.

Impossible. I can't skip more than 255 loops easily. So it will use twice more machinery than other mines.

I'm not a coder, so this confuses me. I would have thought that each industry has its own actions, even if they are similar to those of another industry.

This makes for a very interesting challenge as the player has to deliver small quantities of a product (machinery/vehicles) to many locations instead of a large quantity to one or two locations. It is quite realistic. Well done.

It's a head ash. Wee need a new type of orders in orders list - skip station if it does not accept any cargo in the consist.

I think you misunderstood me. I may have an area on my map where I have several industries (coal mine. iron mine, sand pit, farm) that accept vehicles. What I do is build a transfer station that is near to all of them and give my train an unload order for that station. Then I use a truck to draw on the vehicles at that station and deliver them to the industries. It is a distribution solution that avoids the problem of one industry having more vehicles than it can use. That way I can have regular service from the auto plant.

37 industry slots. There are 2 left. But there are 32 cargo slots and they all are used.

So you have room for a coke plant industry and all you need to do is replace one cargo with coke, but if you follow the suggestion in the first quote above, this will not be necessary. I must both disagree and agree with Michael though. Yes, in most cases the coking operation is located on site as a part of the steel mill, but often the coking plant is a separate operation and even if it is close to the steel mill, it still requires a transportation solution and that is the function of Transport Tycoon is it not?

Does it mean that you've tested the new closure mechanism and satisfied with it? Does it mean that closure issue has played out and can be closed? BTW, I used 24 months warning, 30 is the maximum (I used 5 bits to store it and 2 values are special). Should it be 30, 24, 18 or 12 months warning? Or may be we need several warning?

I usually play my games with Economy set to Steady in the Difficulty settings and stableindustry on in my patch cfg. I don't know if these are available OTTD. I used this because industries closed down too quickly and too often and it was very frustrating, even with warnings and the patch's 256x256 map, especially because of the excessive cost and unpredictability of prospecting for new resources. Even with the larger maps available in OTTD, I would think that 24 months would be enough for processing industries, but I still think that resource industries should not shut down as long as they have reserves. Resource industries should only shut down when their reserves are exhausted.

[michael blunck]

May be we should Use one [free slot] for sulphur mine in ECS Chemicals vector? That would solve the problem of defining Sulphur in one vector and using in the other. With Sulphur mine the sulphur mine - chemicals plant would be the main cargo chain, and the power plant - chemicals plant would be the addition.

P.S. how much sulphur should power plant produce from 1 ton of coal (1000 litres of oil)?

Well, that depends on concentration of sulphur in the fossil fuel:

- lignite (brown coal) 0.5 .. 3%
- other ~1%
- crude oil: 0.1 .. 4%

Typically, Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) will remove 95% or more of the SO2 in the flue gases.

[coke] still requires a transportation solution and that is the function of Transport Tycoon is it not?

Well, yes. As long as we depend on trains, trucks, ships and planes.

regards
Michael

[George]

P.S. how much sulphur should power plant produce from 1 ton of coal (1000 litres of oil)?

Well, that depends on concentration of sulphur in the fossil fuel:
- lignite (brown coal) 0.5 .. 3%
- other ~1%
- crude oil: 0.1 .. 4%

How much sulphur should sulphur mine produce? Will it make sulphur production of power plant useless? 10 train consists of coal (10 wagons) means 1 truck / wagon of sulphur produced. Extremely low value.

[Korenn]

A test file for new closure mechanism. Please test. Does it work as intended?

I'll give this one a try in the next multiplayer game we try.

[George]

Belugas

The last version of ECS Basic vector crashes OTTD r11654 map generator. Could you have a look? (The GRF and crash log are attached)

[athanasios]

Here in Finland power plants also use peat for fuel.

Here in Greece we use lignite. And we will be using for many years since the reserves will last for long and it is cheap to mine. (Anti-Eco )

a usually brownish black coal intermediate between peat and bituminous coal; especially : one in which the texture of the original wood is distinct —called also brown coal

To my opinion all these should be considered as coal in game. I like the 'waste' cargo.

[belugas]

Belugas
The last version of ECS Basic vector crashes OTTD r11654 map generator. Could you have a look? (The GRF and crash log are attached)

Found out why, I've got a fix, but i need to make it cleaner.
It's the use of variable 7F in cb 22 that broke it.
Dont ask, just wait

[belugas]

Ok, fixed in r11797.

[George]

Beta 4 now contains new closure mechanism.
I'm waiting for new bug reports.

Important! Some translations are missing. I hope to add the requests on ECS translation wiki pages soon.

Important 2! I'm in trouble with new texts in fund new industry window. I'm in doubts, what should I write there. For example, what should I write for a mine while a player CAN'T to build one. He can only prospect one and the location conditions are not important for him, he can't manage them anyway. The only thing he may use is the success probability, max, average and min capacities. What else? So, I'm waiting for your suggestions for new industry window.

2Wallyweb:
Could you please try to create wiki pages for new industries and features? I'm a bit busy now, but I hope I shall find time to fix mistakes if you'll make any.