Smoking ships: Is it possible?

[Sokko]

I wonder if it would be possible to make ships smoke and emit diesel fumes when starting up, like trains. After all, the old ships were powered by steam (remember the Titanic's engines?), and nowadays most big ships are diesel-powered (having recently been on a ferry myself, I can confirm this). Is it at all possible? If so, then all ships introduced after a certain date (say the date that the first diesel engine comes out) should be diesel-powered, and the ones before that point should be steam.

[Petae]

/me likes it, though I think its not possible

[krtaylor]

I'd like it, but you'd have to have a flag for the ship as to whether it was supposed to smoke. MB is doing some sailing ships which you really wouldn't want to smoke.
But you'd also have to have some sort of indicator as to where the smoke is supposed to come from. With the trains it's not so hard as they move pretty fast and are small, so just emit the smoke from more or less the front of the loco and leave it at that. But the boats are bigger, slower, and have more variety as to where the smokestack is. You'd have to have something like a special-color pixel to indicate the source of smoke.
Depending on how the code works, it might be possible. I'm not qualified to answer this. Any answer from someone who is?

[Sokko]

Good point; some are better off having smoke/fumes come from the middle, while with some it looks nicer from the back. In fact, when you think about it, these are the only two locations you'd really need.

So, you'd need three extra bits for each ship: XXY

XX:
00 = No smoke, sailing ship
01 = Constant puffs of steam, like steam trains
10 = Diesel smoke at below-average speeds, like diesel trains
11 = Unused

Y:
0 = Smokes from the middle of the ship
1 = Smokes from the back of the ship


I sure hope there's a few bits of "free space" in the vehicle data structure, or the whole thing would have to be changed which would mean lots of work.

[SHADOW-XIII]

should be an action with ALL VEHICLES ... that allow you to choose if,when it smoke and what type (electric, steam, diesel, breadkdown smoke)

[Sokko]

Hmm, that's a good idea... we could have diesel smoke on road vehicles! But you'd still need the "location" bit for ships because the exhaust location varies.

[krtaylor]

Do we really want smoke from road vehicles? Most road vehicles don't really give off clouds of smoke that would be visible at the scale TTD uses.
Also, the trucks would need the locator bit, since the smaller trucks' exhaust is at the rear, but larger trucks have those exhaust stacks behind the cab.
And I don't know how TTD would handle the long road vehicles, can it tell where the end of the graphics is?

[SHADOW-XIII]

and what about road vehicles from, let's say 1914 year ??

[krtaylor]

I think they have the exhaust at the rear, don't they?
Cute - A Ford Model T truck, what would its capacity be? Would it even be worth wasting time with? I almost never use road vehicles anyway as they are so annoying. When the big busses become part of an official set I'll probably use them in cities where there's no room for anything else, but I never use trucks.

[Petae]

hhmmm...

some ppl do have other opinions... George even made a longvehicles set!

[krtaylor]

That's what makes TTD so great, it can cater to so many people's personal preferences. It's also what makes a multiplayer game enjoyable, and I hope that eventually is fixed and reliable.

I have looked at George's long vehicles, and they do have a certain appeal. I will probably install them in a bit, after they are stable and tested, and there are more of them spread out over a larger period of time. I do have the double-decker busses installed, and they are large enough to be somewhat useful. I found the original buses terribly annoying because it was all too easy to get a bus station with way more passengers than you could ever handle, and that hurt your ratings. The new vehicle queing has helped with that, as have the bigger buses. I notice the newer vehicles are more reliable so they don't break down all the time the way the old ones did, which helps even more. Plus they're faster.