Planeset

A new aircraft set for TTDPatch

Co-operative development by TT-Forums members

July 2004

Public BETA release; 25/Aug/2004

What is the "Planeset"?

The Planeset is the first comprehensive TTDPatch airplane set available. It is designed as a complete replacement for the original TTD airplanes. Its aim is to offer more diverse selection of airplanes compared to original TTD airplanes; to give a unique graphical look for them; and to offer more real-world airplane running specifications. Original TT had real names for the airplanes, but for some reason they were "mutilated" for TTD. For instance "Boeing 727" became "Darwin 100", "Lockheed Tristar" became "Guru Galaxy" and so on. The planes in Planeset have the correct names. The passenger/mail capacities reflect the actual aircraft size better without such anomalities such as A300 with passenger capacity equal to B777 and higher than the A330.

With Planeset, you should always have an appropiate airplane available for any air route you decide to run. However, the number of planes allowed is limited by TTD to 41 planes, so don't lose your head if your favourite airplane isn't included in the set.

The set is currently under development. Some aspects in the set are wrong and some things are undone. See the "To do" part of this document for more information. As the development progresses, these problems will be addressed.

Who is developing it?

The Planeset is being developed by some members of the Transport Tycoon Forums (administered by Owen Rudge) with interest towards getting proper airplanes for TTDPatch. On some parts it might include some elements previously developed by others. If you believe your work has been used and you are not properly credited, please post your concern in the forum for immediate attention. Second-hand complaints will be disregarded; specific complaints with evidence will be rectified as soon as possible. Please bear in mind that the TTD vehicle sprites are very small, and as such there is unavoidable similarity between similar vehicles. The original TTD sprites have been used as the basis of the work to retain similarity in graphical style when compared to original TTD airplanes.

If you wish to comment on the released set or if you want to contribute to development, use the "Planeset (official topic)" thread located in the Forums.

When the set will be finished?

This set will be ready "when it's ready". One day there'll be a release with the beta status lifted. Further developing may still take place after that day. If you don't like the slow progress, please contribute! :)

What climates can you run it on?

Temperate, Arctic and Tropical. It's mainly tested under Temperate so if you find something really weird in Arctic or Tropical, report.

What files are included in the package?

• origprices.xls - Airplane purchase costs for original TTD vehicles.
• planeset.xls - Plane speclist as Excel spreadsheet.
• planesetw.grf - The Planeset graphic file.
• planesetw.nfo - The Planeset NFO file (text file) which this release of Planeset is built from.
• planesetw.pcx - The Planeset PCX file (graphics file) which this release of Planeset is built from.
• readme.html - This info and documentation file.
• ttdwin.pal - The JASC palette file.

How is the Planeset built?

The Planeset is built from planesetw.nfo and planesetw.pcx file using Josef Drexler's GRFCodec program. If you are planning to do any modifications or further development for the set, please base your work on these files. The PCX has right palette and the NFO is made slightly easier to look at than the NFO you'd get if you decoded the GRF file. The PCX file is manipulated with i.Mage 0.98 and the NFO files is manipulated with... Windows Notepad! The NFO file requires some understanding how it works, TTDPatch NFO Foundations (link below) and the NFO file are the best documentation for you.

The PCX and NFO files are included because they are first-class development reference for those who want to learn drawing and coding. With them, you can with least trouble experiment how to do things and especially how to not do things!

I want to draw new graphics or liveries to the set. What should I do?

I: You need an appropiate drawing program. Windows Paint will not do. The program that was used in Planeset graphical development is called i.Mage. It's slightly buggy, tricky to use and hard to understand at first - in other words it has the perfect development tool feel! ;) Maybe the best feature of the program is the fact that it doesn't have too much features but everything needed in the editing can be found. In other words, you won't drown in the sea of menus and submenus.

II: The right palette. In i.Mage the ttdwin.pal can be loaded and it works but I recommend the following for beginners: just open the planesetw.pcx and all the planes currently in set pop right to your eyes in the form they exist when they are coded for a release of Planeset Beta with the right palette!

III: With patience, start to draw. If you are drawing new models, consider using the TTD built-in planes and the planes already drawn for Planeset as a reference and basis for new work. Extracting built-in planes out from TTD data files is most easily done with GRFCodec operated by GRFWizard GUI. Whether it is for a completely new design or company livery for existing model, the way you'll learn drawing is trial-by-error. At the Forums there is an explanation how palette colors work. There are many "magic" colors in the palette that are more than just a color in a picture. For instance there is the "magic company color blue" (color #198-205) that identifies your vehicle in the game from your competitor and the blue color #0 you see around every plane that stands for transparency. Don't misuse magic colors!

For new liveries, please avoid changing the shape of existing plane. In getting the right isometric shape for new designs all existing work and using "drawing wires" technique will prove very valuable!

I want to code a plane. What should I do?

Take a look to TTDPatch NFO Foundations and learn it yourself. There's a walkthrough that can be applied for airplane creation process as well. See the included planesetw.nfo file for reference how different planes are coded whether if they used a new sprite or if they reused existing TTD sprite.

Because the planes each need their own hard-coded ID, and there aren't very many, individual airplane files aren't very useful. It's better to have a complete file with as many aircraft as possible in it, which is what the Planeset is for. Appending new, individual airplanes into Planeset is easy as long as the graphics are in right format and code has been proven to work.

How do I install the Planeset?

1. The Planeset is being developed with latest TTDPatch Alpha versions. Please obtain the latest TTDPatch Alpha version to make sure Planeset works properly with you.
2. Copy the "planesetw.grf" file to the "newgrf" directory in your TTD main dir.
3. Add the entry "newgrf/planesetw.grf" to your "newgrfw.cfg" file.
4. Make sure that you have "newplanes on" set in the "ttdpatch.cfg" file.
5. If you like the planes to have speeds relative to other TTD vehicle ground speeds, you may set "planespeed on" in the "ttdpatch.cfg" file. This makes the planes go VERY fast though. Don't count on catching the Concorde except when it's on the ground!
6. The Planeset replaces all planes in the game. It can not be used with any other replacement graphic set that alters airplanes in any way.

THIS RELEASE IS FOR TTDPATCH WINDOWS VERSION ONLY! Eventually a DOS version will be released, after further testing.

I've activated the graphic set. Why are the plane purchase and running costs weird? Why are the airplanes taxiing on grass?

See the "To do" list. This set is under development and everything hasn't been adjusted and done yet.

To do/fix:

• There will be two releases of the set. First one is with liveries where airplanes are painted in colors of famous companies that have used them. The planes in this set should look better. Second one is with company colors because with liveries you can't differentiate between different companies' planes midair. The company color set will be especially useful once OpenTTD (an TTD open source clone that has new features including network multiplayer) gains better compatibility with new graphics. Currently the set has planes using company colors.
• Airplane specifications, especially for the pricing, are being evaluated - the current values may change. If you have any comments about them, please tell us. The pricing can be looked at in the planeset.xls. The file origprices.xls includes pricing information of original non-future TTD airplanes for reference. As you can see, many planes, regardless of their size, have their running cost set on the top end of the scale for unknown reasons. We've tried to set the running costs so that bigger and older planes (in real world: more expensive to fly) are more expensive to run and newer, smaller planes are cheaper. Still, all planes have been tried to do profitable.
• The xrel and yrel values for airplanes have been adjusted but anyone is welcome to voluntarily make them look better while simultaneously not making the plane "jumping" around in taxiway and midair. Some of original planes of the TTD weren't good at keeping in the middle of the taxiways, so we'll have to make compromises when setting these values - making them look perfectly positioned in still pictures may cause the animation itself to be horrible (planes "jumping" around when turning).
• Some planes that have been selected for use in this set haven't been drawn or coded yet. You can see the list. Consult the planeset.xls file for any problems with existing designs.
• All existing graphics that haven't been included in this set have the wrong palette. The right format is 8bpp PCX or PNG with the same palette that the planesetw.pcx has (ttdwin.pal is extracted from it, good for use as well).
• The set is planned to have some German pre-WWII airships (that are operated as helicopters) and wider variety of helicopters than TTD originally has. People don't seem to be drawing them. If things stay this way they might need to be replaced with more conventional airplanes. If you have ideas about drawing them, please contribute!
• More realistic cargo carrying capacities need to be coded for planes. This requires a skilled coder to use the cargo capacity callback abilities for planes. Currently, the values that are derived directly from passenger and mail capacities are too large and make other forms of cargo transportation less competitive since in their current form Planeset 747's are murderously overefficient in moving cargo.

Note these limitations of original game:

• You cannot set exact service entry dates for TTD vehicles. You can only set "date of introduction" for a vehicle and the service entry is randomized around that date.
• The cargo carrying capacity of an airplane can't be decided separately, it is calculated based on original passenger capacity of airplane. Future TTDPatch versions will change this behavior if we find coders able to help us.
• The absolute maximum amount for airplanes in the set is 41. That's the amount of planes that were present in TTD originally. It's technically impossible to include more planes.
• Running cost adjustment range is a digit between 0 and 255 with small multiplier on it. This allows fine adjustments for running cost but the adjustment range is way too small, especially for the bigger planes. That means the general level of running costs for airplanes is low.
• With planespeed off, the slower airplanes (speed below 216mph) become faster when they break. Fixed value for airspeed of broken planes is 216mph.

Beta releases:

• 18/Aug/04: Initial release.
• 20/Aug/04: Fixed documentation slightly.
• 25/Aug/04: Fixed some bugs and graphical glitches found in playtest, lowered running costs for slow planes and lowered mail capacities for certain planes.

The Planeset staff (with their respective forum usernames):

• krtaylor - co-ordination, adminstration, homepages and original techlist
• 459 - graphics, coding, techlist historical accuracy and beta builds
• zero1000 - graphics and coding
• dinges - graphics and coding
• scottishasttdx - graphics
• CyberBoy - graphics
• way2good - graphics
• RPharazon - graphics

The final version will contain a detailed list of credits, noting who drew what.

Links:

Planeset homepage

TT-Forums official Planeset thread

TTDPatch site

i.Mage site

TTDPatch NFO Foundations