Mop Generic NRT Road Vehicle Development (was Trolleybi)

[supermop]

Updated version:
-Fixes most alignment/sprite issues that I am aware of.
-Adds Boxcar Industrial / Harbor trams.
-Improves how some year-dependent liveries are handled.
-Fixes Purchase Menu sprites for trucks and buses (trams to come):

trucks1.png

(93.23 KiB) Not downloaded yet

trucks2.png

(118.47 KiB) Not downloaded yet

[colossal404]

I get an error with both of them :S

Sorry, I'm retarded, at first I try to load the grf into stable versions instead of roadtypes patched... Sorry...

First impression is WOAH, SO MANY VEHICLES! Second impression is that it is good to see that some road vehicle grfs are still being produced, I like the road trains!

[supermop]

I get an error with both of them :S

Sorry, I'm retarded, at first I try to load the grf into stable versions instead of roadtypes patched... Sorry...

First impression is WOAH, SO MANY VEHICLES! Second impression is that it is good to see that some road vehicle grfs are still being produced, I like the road trains!

Thanks!

Do you have any thoughts about the running and purchase costs - costs for Road trains probably need a lot of adjustment still. I've also been thinking that they need more power, but maybe less speed. As is, they are very slow to accelerate (realistic) and rarely hit the top speed anyway, so more power might be useful.

For the trams - most trams actually have the same placeholder costs tight now, so I really need to think about how to position these relative to each other and to buses and trains (the tram capacities are high enough to compete with trains from most sets, which feels broken).

[Lesarthois]

It's what I was discussing with Snail in his French set - in France, many metric tracks were used as train/trams - for example between Mamers and Le Mans in Sarthe, there was a metric train line that was used in Le Mans as a tramway, then drove 50 km to Mamers as a train service.

It even shared a standard gauge train track with 3 rails

It isn't odd to have a "big tram" in this perspective; even steamers trams, but you should adjust them to have stats geared as being more efficient for long distance services (I think pax loading times can be adjusted, right?). It's usually what I do with the Road Hog trams, especially the steam ones, as they are too big and costly to be useful in a town that early in the game, but they are usually doing a gread job for shuttle/short to medium distance passenger service between cities.





You can see that even the stations are closer from bus station than train stations

In this fashion, maybe after 1910, making non-electric trams being more costly, but faster and higher capacity, so they are pushing the player to use them as "local trains" and making electric ones smaller, slower but cheaper.

In the same idea, your freight tramways are already absolutely fitting the "local metric freight service" locomotives that were used in France in rural areas, up to the 1970's (some of them with steamers from the 1920's no less )



In general I'd say that your tram set can easily fit an European train set.
And your road set with the road trains, maybe a more American/Australian set?
In the end, it's up to the player's choice to use or not use the vehicles that fit or doesn't fit their tastes and desires.

[supermop]

It's what I was discussing with Snail in his French set - in France, many metric tracks were used as train/trams - for example between Mamers and Le Mans in Sarthe, there was a metric train line that was used in Le Mans as a tramway, then drove 50 km to Mamers as a train service

I think the longer old trams can certainly work that way, and I often use them like that. I need to find good values for capacities or costs though, as currently the trams are fairly cheap compared to most trains. I like the idea of faster and electric tramway tracks having higher costs, but of course there is no guarantee that the user will use a tramtype set with those costs. As is, when playing a small map with this set, you can almost not use trains at all.

The trams are mostly Australian/Melbourne influenced with some additional American and European styles, hence the trolley poles used until the 80s, and the overlap between single car trams and short articulated trams.

I did try to split the late articulated trams to be long distance for diesel (higher comfort, lower capacity) and inner-city for electric (high power, fast loading, cargo decays faster when heavily loaded). I don't know if the costs bear out the concept though.

NEW VERSION:

Adds purchase menu sprites for trams, some other fixes and improvement. Tram list attached.

trams.png (23.38 KiB) Viewed 3324 times

moprv46.grf

(1.83 MiB) Downloaded 357 times

[Lesarthois]

I tested you set for a while, I like it A LOT.
Non-electric trams do wonders and look more natural for small industry setups, and are more convenient that setting up small train lines.

I use much less the trolleys, mostly because going through cities require replacing original roads with roads that belogn to your company, which towns tend to dislike - I know it's not your own fault but this is quite a slowdown to use trolley vehicles.

One thing I noticed is that you release quite a lot of trucks for an era with different designs - rather than changing the design of the cargo like you can see on the HEQS tram trailers.
Is that on purpose - easier for you to program, limitation of the road vehicles?
I don't mind it to much, but it might be easier for the player to replace vehicles if they had consistent naming.
What I mean is that trucks brands seems a bit random :

in 1960 for a tanker trolley, the DuNord offer the bigger load.
in 1990, the DuNord is the smaller option
in 2025, DuNord is again the bigger option

I like that brand change over time, some vanish, other rename themselves.
But given the massive offer you provide, it would be more player-friendly to have brands being consistenly offering the same option - DuNord for the bigger road trains, Lupo Carelli for the middle option and Bufo Motive for the smallest (just suggesting ).

I alos noticed that several vehicles have the same specs (or almost) but are separated by a few years - but I guess that those are placeholders or tests.

[Diesel Power]

I've just started using this set (started at 1900, only up to 1910), love it so far! The dump truck road trains are great for hauling scrap metal out of towns to nearby stations. I've got the capacity parameter turned up to max and they're struggling with power, only achieving 13mph on the flat and 6mph on the hills (steepness 5%). A Little more power wouldn't hurt. The other option is to increase the power alongside the capacity on the parameter swich.

I'll let you know how i get on later in the game...

[supermop]

I use much less the trolleys, mostly because going through cities require replacing original roads with roads that belogn to your company, which towns tend to dislike - I know it's not your own fault but this is quite a slowdown to use trolley vehicles.

Yes it is fairly annoying to only have electric RVs on newer built surburban roads, but it is an issue that is being (slowly) addressed in NRT. Actually the original impetus for Trolleybi, which evolved into this set, was that there were not yet any trucks or buses that used 'ELRD' roadtype, which made playtested NRT to see if their were issues impossible. I consider it a success that these vehicles were able to shine a light on this problem.

One thing I noticed is that you release quite a lot of trucks for an era with different designs - rather than changing the design of the cargo like you can see on the HEQS tram trailers.

This is largely intentional for a couple reasons, but I admit it can clog up the purchase list. While trucks similar to HEQs trams might be more realistic and flexible, as in real life one semi-tractor can haul almost any type of trailer, it kind destroys any specialization among vehicle types. Generally I aim to have one vehicle of each 'consist' type (rigid, semi, road train) and cargo body type (refrigerated, hopper, etc) per generation, similar to eGRVTS. If we could build trucks like trains, that might help the situation a bit.

I like that brand change over time, some vanish, other rename themselves.
But given the massive offer you provide, it would be more player-friendly to have brands being consistenly offering the same option - DuNord for the bigger road trains, Lupo Carelli for the middle option and Bufo Motive for the smallest (just suggesting ).

I generally tried to 'create' a handful of manufactures that each had a certain style of name, and that produce vehicles for a certain, but I wanted there to be variety between brands over the various types each generation, so each brand would at least show up once per generation and type. I see your point though about giving a market sector to each brand - but the risk would be that you'd end up with only one brand for road trains etc.

I alos noticed that several vehicles have the same specs (or almost) but are separated by a few years - but I guess that those are placeholders or tests.

Can you elaborate a bit more? For each generation, the various vehicles have their intro dates randomized by the game, so there may be some trucks with same HP that come out a few years apart.

I've just started using this set (started at 1900, only up to 1910), love it so far! The dump truck road trains are great for hauling scrap metal out of towns to nearby stations. I've got the capacity parameter turned up to max and they're struggling with power, only achieving 13mph on the flat and 6mph on the hills (steepness 5%). A Little more power wouldn't hurt. The other option is to increase the power alongside the capacity on the parameter swich.

I'll let you know how i get on later in the game...

Thanks for the feedback! I guess early vehicles could be more powerful, but it does diminish the progression to the truly modern trucks? The 1900-1920 period is kind of the infancy of gasoline and diesel trucks, so they are intentionally weak compared to the trucks coming out in the 30s-50s. Keep in mind, that mineral road trains at the maximum capacity setting are hauling a similar load to a small train, so it makes sense that they may struggle a bit (13mph actually sounds pretty good for a 1900-ish heavy truck). My thinking was that in the pre-war period, trams would dominate, with trucks displacing them from mid-century onwards. I might add a bit more power though.

[Diesel Power]

I'm now up to the 1930s and the progression with the horse power now makes more sense as it is. I now agree that the road trains should be slow, you gain more speed with the single semi trailer trucks (at the price of a higher running cost pet tonne), and you have the small trucks for express fright. But I do think the road trains should have lower top speed rather than limiting their power. I think they should be able to achieve at least 80% of their top speed when fully loaded. I'm going to restart my game (due to various updates not being compatible and the RATT roads clash) and will try with the vehicle capacity turned down a notch.

I use the trolley trucks for any uphill routes but it is annoying that you can't upgrade town owned roads with cantenary in the same way as you build tram tracks over town roads. It's also a shame that RATT roads aren't compatible with the electrified roads, the two sets would compliment each other beautifully

I'm yet to use any trams but I have noticed that the lead engine carries part of the load of the first trailer (or that's the impression). While this is true with road trucks, it looks from the graphics like lead engine is purely a locomotive (so is not carrying any part of the lead trailer) and therefore wouldn't gain any tractive effort bonus from being loaded as trucks do.

This is a great set and I'm so glad you made it. I was getting bored of EGRVTS!

I will report back my findings in due course.....

[supermop]

I do think the road trains should have lower top speed rather than limiting their power. I think they should be able to achieve at least 80% of their top speed when fully loaded.

This is a good point, and makes sense to me - conceivably even if the tractor was almost the same, you would gear a truck differently for pulling a road train out of a mine vs pulling express goods - I'll look into adjusting this for the next release.

it is annoying that you can't upgrade town owned roads with cantenary

This is being worked on at the moment, and will likely be solved in a future NRT release.

It's also a shame that RATT roads aren't compatible with the electrified roads, the two sets would compliment each other beautifully

Can you provide a bit more info? just an issue of not enough slots to load both road grfs? or something else? I might make a new 'roster' for unspooled that will ad only a minimal set of types, to work with other grfs.

I'm yet to use any trams but I have noticed that the lead engine carries part of the load of the first trailer (or that's the impression).

The early passenger and mail 'tram and trailer' consists are meant to be a short tram with its own cargo pulling a few unpowered trailers, so all parts have cargo. The industrial trams are meant to be minimal gauge dockyard trains or similar, with a locomotive pulling wagons. A quick look on my end showed no cargo in the locomotives on my end as intended, but maybe I made an error and missed one of the trams. Let me know which ones seem to have the problem. There is a bif of an offset error on my part where the bodies of the wagons are too far forward, and I've yet to release the fixed version.

This is a great set and I'm so glad you made it. I was getting bored of EGRVTS!

Thanks! I'm glad you like it so far. I too like egrvts for is broad vareity of generic vehicles, but after many years I wanted something similar but slightly different.

[Diesel Power]

As requested...

As you can see, all road types a available but the road under the canterary is missing. vehicles are still able to use the road, it's just a graphical thing. The fault remains if I remove "country roads", so it's only a clash with RATT Roads.

[supermop]

As requested...

As you can see, all road types a available but the road under the canterary is missing. vehicles are still able to use the road, it's just a graphical thing. The fault remains if I remove "country roads", so it's only a clash with RATT Roads.

Not 100% sure, but I think this was maybe Andrew350s roadtypes grf - so you may want to report the issue in his thread. If you don't want to use Unspooled, for graphical reasons or otherwise, I am planning on a minimal parameter setting for it - so you could load both Unspooled and another grf that doesn't provide ELRD, and at least get the electric roads from my grf. I based my road sprites on Andrew350's American Roads, so there should be a stylistic cohesion. Other option would just be to request ELRD support in the RATT Roads thread.

Also, if you use NRT with no Roadtype grfs, you will at least get basic ROAD and ELRD with base set graphics.

[Diesel Power]

first of all, an apology. Just been playing with the trams for the first time and you were right, the leading engine does not carry any load from the first trailer as I said. I failed to spot the fact that the trams have 4 trailers and the road trains have 3, my mistake.

I'm happy to lose the speed limited roads for the time being, I'm hoping that when the "catenary over town owned roads" problem if fixed it will also fix this issue as well.

I've started a new game with the vehicle capacity set to medium and my early impression is the power to weight ratio is spot on. The piece goods road trains can just hit their top speed with a long enough straight which is perfect. I'm yet to use any of the mineral trucks but I'm guessing they'll fall just short of thier top speed, which is also perfect.

I've noticed a small bug. Like I said i've started a new game with the vehicle capacities set to medium, but the buy menu still displays the higher capacity. see attached screen shot. It does seem like only the trams are affected. I will dig futher to see which vehicles are affected to see if i can spot any patterns.

I had a sneeky peek into the future, the bi mode trucks look amazing! so many possibilities! You could only have catanary on hills and in the acceleration phase, can't wait to get there!

[Diesel Power]

Just found unspooled. No idea why I didn't notice it before! it's everything I've been looking for from a road set. The graphics look incredible. I'm gonna have to start another new game now!!!

[supermop]

Another update:

I've changed the way wagons and cargo are drawn for the industrial trams, which fixes the poor alignment and also has let me introduce more and better sprites for wagons and cargos. I've also added flatbed trams as part of this effort. I've reworked some of the naming for industrial trams as well.

Trams49.PNG (44.63 KiB) Viewed 3324 times

Still to do:
-adjust running and purchase costs for trams
-better names for passenger and parcel trams
-cargo graphics for parcel trams
-fix spark and smoke positions
-adjust Road trains as mentioned above
-better steam dummy sprites
-cargo sprites for slag, electrical machinery, and vehicles
-lots more stuff.

[Diesel Power]

Just a couple of quick things I've noticed...
There are 2 trucks with the same name: "Tama Type 5 Covered Hopper Truck".
The "Kurokawa E60 Tanker Trolley Truck" seems to be set to the wrong cargo class.

The testing goes on...

[supermop]

Just a couple of quick things I've noticed...
There are 2 trucks with the same name: "Tama Type 5 Covered Hopper Truck".
The "Kurokawa E60 Tanker Trolley Truck" seems to be set to the wrong cargo class.

The testing goes on...

Thanks! These sorts of errors are easy for me to miss - I'll try to get a fix out soon!

[supermop]

A new update, bringing the new sprite organization from industrial trams to trucks, and some other changes:

- New and (hopefully better) balanced running and purchase costs
- New trailer sprites with new and improved cargo and loading sprites, including new sprites for pig-iron, electrical machines, pipes, etc.
- More tailored cargo compatibility specific to truck types
- Fixed some various smaller errors, such as with duplicate vehicle names and wrong cargo compatibilities


Still to do:

- The early diesel road train generations (1910s & 1920s) currently draw the wrong trailer
- I want to bring my new cargo sprites to the parcel trams
- Smoke is still generally in the wrong position
- Need to draw vehicles cargo sprites
- Want to add drive-side dependent doors for buses (these already exist for trams but are not enabled at the moment)
- Nicer sprites here and there
- I need a better name for the set before it can be 1.0

Best,

[supermop]

Few more small fixes in this update, mostly cargo compatibility for rigid trucks, and added steam flatbed rigid trucks.

[acs121]

Hi,

I'm having an issue with this road vehicle set.
When i put it in my GRF list, then start a new game, it replaces all default vehicles and so deletes them. It shows no error message.
It says "Generated too many strings" in the console. If it is referring to language strings, i am using French.
I am using RATT version g186b12b9.