FIRS Industry Replacement Set - Development

[andythenorth]

Another revision on the aluminium mill: new roof line, slightly narrower building, revised conveyors, added a loading dock. The loading dock is grabbed from ISR, which is allowed under GPL, but the graphics will be tweaked so players can tell stations and industries apart.

test_aluminium_mill.png (145.89 KiB) Viewed 8943 times

[Eddi]

hm, i think i liked the lower variant a little more, but maybe you should see it in relation to some of the ISR warehouses

[trainmaster611]

I like the more compact design (the hand drawing). The aluminum industry, although not insignificant, is not exactly an industrial powerhouse. Maybe a smaller Aluminum plant might reflect the smaller capacity required to for the industry.

[andythenorth]

@ Eddi - here's a version with ISR tiles around it.
@ trainmaster611 - I also prefer the hand drawn version, however I drew these when I was on holiday and didn't have the game for reference. Unfortunately my memory of the game grid wasn't very accurate, so the sketches aren't going to be exactly reproducible. Also, have you seen how big an aluminium plant is They are enormous, some pictures here.

test_aluminium_mill_3.png (86.05 KiB) Viewed 8665 times

And for comparison, the 'original' lower version:

test_aluminium_mill_4.png (83.12 KiB) Viewed 8678 times

I'm not done trying variations on this yet though. I want to include a greater variety of buildings in the plant than just the main shed, and I might yet redraw the main shed to be closer in proportion to the sketch.

First though, a question: how many tiles should a major processing industry occupy? I like that small industries are easy to site, but I like the detail possibilities of larger industries.

My plan has most FIRS industries quite small (due to my grid error), but I think that some should be larger, at least equivalent to TTD industry sizes. Opinions? Anyone want *really* large industries?

[broodje]

The problem with small industries (for me) is that the trains transporting goods to and from them are much longer as the industry itself. I know, scales should not be compared, but smaller industries do make it much more obvious. Because of this I like the power plant and coal mine graphics in George his ECS set.
So to answer you're question: Yes I'd love to see 'huge' and ttd sized industries, much more as small industries.

[CommanderZ]

I think these huge industry complexes we have today weren't around before 20th century. AFAIK most secondary industries used to be situated in towns which should be reflected in the set.

Generally - secondary industries would be rather small and would be almost exclusively situated in towns till cca 1950s. Then they would begradually replaced by larger complexes situated always outside towns.

I will illustrate my idea on a generic factory.

Early factory could have smaller size like 3*3 It would be a brick building with tall windows and tall smokestacks...like this.
Modern factory would be larger (4*4 or 5*5) and would be always located at least 10 or 20 tiles from a town. Maybe it could have better something-to-goods conversion rate. It could look more like this.

Regarding primary industries, is it possible to make their size reflect their initial productivity? Like small 2*2 coal mine would initially product 40 units of coal while larger would make more.

[Eddi]

yes, i agree with that, the available industries should grow in size during the centuries

18th century industries would be very small, 1x1, 1x2, 2x2. (farms, wood mills, manufacturing industry)
19th century industries should be medium size, 2x2, 2x3, 3x3, 2x4 (iron/steel industry, factory)
20th century industries should get quite huge, 3x4, 4x4, 4x5 (... more?) (big factories, oil industry)

[athanasios]

Aluminum Industries consume huge amounts of electricity. Some transformers (?) would fit in there.
Look here, for 2 photos. One when the company (PECHINEY) started in 1963 and one as it is currently:
http://vivl-livad.voi.sch.gr/GREEK/VIOT ... chiney.htm

Google translated last part:

Located in a region rich in bauxite deposits of the integrated * site of the company include:

- A processing unit bauxite for alumina production
- A processing unit alumina for aluminum production,
which are governed by the Conservation Areas, Quality-Safety - Environmental, Logistics, Research-New Works and Human Resources

Capacity
Processes: 1.400.000 t Greek bauxite and bauxite Tropical 200.000 t
Produces: 750.000 t of alumina Aluminum & 160.000 t



* This is almost unique in the world, combining in the same area alumina plant and aluminum production facility.
The factories built near the alumina bauxite ore and aluminum factories near major power-centers.
The coexistence of these elements, in the case of Aluminum of Greece 'is a positive factor for competitiveness.

[Eddi]

before you divert too deep into drawing and detail-questions, may i ask for a sketch of the intended cargos, and industry chains? i believe there were still important questions open wrt ECS compliancy.

there are two problems with using non-ECS cargos:
a) vehicle set developers must allow for vehicles to carry the cargos [this is mostly solved with cargo classes)
b) vehicle set developers must provide graphics for the cargos [this is a problem for cargos which are typically transported in open wagons, also possibly for station sets which display waiting cargos]

so i'd like to have a discussion base for deciding if the non-ECS cargos are really needed, or if they could be replaced by vaguely similar ECS production lines, without discarding an entire production chain

[Zephyris]

I would say there will be very few problems with vehicle set compatibility so long as the vehicle set was sensibly designed... Using only generic cargo classes for refitting allows support of any industry set - eGRVTS only uses generic cargo classes for refitting. Careful design of the cargo translation table can also give extensive cargo graphics support - for example the eGRVTS set could use just 17 cargo translation table entries to support all default cargoes, and just 11 excluding toyland, that leaves quite a lot spare if I wanted to add graphical support for other cargoes!

[andythenorth]

before you divert too deep into drawing and detail-questions, may i ask for a sketch of the intended cargos, and industry chains? i believe there were still important questions open wrt ECS compliancy.[...snip...]
so i'd like to have a discussion base for deciding if the non-ECS cargos are really needed, or if they could be replaced by vaguely similar ECS production lines, without discarding an entire production chain

It's a fair point, but the answers are:
1. yes, we intend to post a list of cargos and chains soon
2. the non-ECS cargos are a necessary part of the design of the set. This set is deliberately different to ECS, with some specific gameplay goals. For those who want an ECS industry set, George has put a lot of effort into ECS by George, and if I've understood correctly, Michael may ...one day... release an industry set. In the FIRS design, where ECS cargo is same, or sufficiently similar, that has been used.
3. Vehicle support has been and remains a concern. I can guarantee RV and ship support. As Zephyris said, vehicle sets should support FIRS if they implement cargo classes well. As an aside, I know some authors want to keep control of their sets, but if more sets were GPL, this would be less of a concern because the support could be added by other people relatively easily.

But yes, expect to see a cargo schema in a short while

[andythenorth]

Aluminum Industries consume huge amounts of electricity. Some transformers (?) would fit in there.

Have a look at the back right tile of the existing concept sketch. Ok, it's a bit blurry, but that's a transformer

[andythenorth]

Been working on the aluminium industry some more. I don't have a particular thing for the aluminium mill, I am just working out a general approach here...

Based on the feedback about large industries, I've done some more tests. In the same way as TTD does with some industries, I'm creating blocks of tiles that can be rearranged in different layouts and sizes. For the aluminium smelter these tiles are:
- mill building (chimney is from TTD and needs replacing due to copyright)
- covered stockpile / head of conveyor
- uncovered stockpile with stacker / reclaimer
- tanks (adapted from ISR, will comply with GPL)
- electrical substation tile (from TTD, needs replacing due to copyright)

test_aluminium_mill_layout_1.png (24.02 KiB) Viewed 8098 times

test_aluminium_mill_layout_2.png (19.51 KiB) Viewed 8106 times

test_aluminium_mill_layout_3.png (18.49 KiB) Viewed 8102 times

I'm much happier with this approach. In the case of aluminium, this is coming out as a very large industry, but a small layout can be included to make placement easier where space is limited (industry layouts are chosen randomly by the game when building an industry). We can also look at which tiles are allowed to be on slopes as this can affect ease of placement.

The stockpile elements can be reused with other industries that accept minerals, such as coal power station, and steel mill. Depending on my fellow collaborators, it can probably be animated, and could reflect the amount of cargo waiting to be processed

cheers,

Andy

[broodje]

ah, yes that is so much better! now it really looks like a big heavy industry site.

[Zephyris]

enjoy

[CommanderZ]

Oh, this is exactly what I meant. Now it looks like real industrial site

[Eddi]

the electricity bit could appear on all (modern) industries that require to be near a power station. earlier (19th century) industries could instead be delivered with coal, when they are not near a power station. very early (18th century) industries might not need power at all, or accept (processed) wood

[andythenorth]

I was thinking that possibly the original TTD industries were quite small so they were proportional to the small original map size. With today's much larger maps these bigger industries are more appealing (although I have recently found playing smaller 128x128 or 256x256 maps to be more fun). It could also be a factor that smaller industries don't need much flat land for a site. As in real life, the number of places where an aluminium plant can be built is going to be limited...

By the way, I hope it's obvious that the colours in my sprites are for mockup purposes only!

@ Zephyris, thanks, I'll substitute that sprite soon.

the electricity bit could appear on all (modern) industries that require to be near a power station.

You're quite right, the electrical substation will appear on the most energy intensive industries that need to be near a power station. For example it's used in the fertiliser factory (sketch in the first page of the thread).

The coal / wood idea is interesting, but due to the limited number of accepted cargos (maximum of three) per industry, it can't be implemented consistently. However it will be used for some industries, steel plants for example.

cheers,

Andy

[2007Alain2007]

This is sounding realy great and looking evern better is there any way of use helping you out

[Zephyris]

And some animated stockpiles... They are in the 8bpp palette; if you recolour them I'm sure they can be a useful resource!