TaI - introducing the scrabble board

Eddi · **Joined:** Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:14 am **Posts:** 7121

At the start of the game, the earliest house that appears is calculated, and all houses introduced at that date will be available from the beginning of the game. "Old" house sets usually define houses from 1930 onwards. So if one set defines houses before 1930, then only those houses will be available before 1930.

PikkaBird · PostPosted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 11:32 pm

Population limits!

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The current linear model.

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The planned exponential model.

Gotta knock over the last few vehicles for UKRS, then work begins on proper 19th century buildings.

And those town halls we mentioned...

Michi_cc · PostPosted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 2:10 am

Played around with it a bit, and yes, it is very nice that not every town will grow like crazy just because of some buses driving around

Can't think of much else that wasn't mentioned already, but I do think taking the OpenTTD city flag into account to profit from the different grow rates would be nice. And it would also indirectly allow players to balance the amount of TaI cities and towns. (A matching GameScript that controls town growth would be the absolute best, but of course a lot more work).

-- Michael Lutz

PikkaBird · PostPosted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 3:41 am

Michi_cc wrote:

but I do think taking the OpenTTD city flag into account to profit from the different grow rates would be nice.

Sure, I would love to make sure every "(City)" was one of the "City" classes, but that flag isn't exposed to newgrf (or if it is, it isn't in the spec). Anyone seen an OpenTTD Developer around here?

Eddi · **Joined:** Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:14 am **Posts:** 7121

so what does var40 do then if not giving the city flag?

PikkaBird · PostPosted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 5:25 am

Huh. Perhaps.

PikkaBird · PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:21 am

Ladies, Gentlemen, and Filth,

One of the most common complaints about TaI is the way in which towns keep building roads, even when the set prevents them from building houses. The resulting "empty network" of roads surrounding the town, while not necessarily unrealistic, is an eyesore and a pain to build around, critics say.

Today I did a little experiment with TaI to see if I could reduce that over-production of roads. I built 3 identical towns in the scenario editor like so, each a "medium" town with 3x3 road network;

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and each with a different grf-coded behaviour.

One town grew as normal, as a control.
One town would stop building houses after one year, using the current TaI method.
One town would stop building houses after one year, use the new experimental code.

Each town was provided with 4 bus stops and a bus, to stimulate growth.

Please find the results of the experiment, after running the game on fast-forward for 30 years, attached below.

FooBar · PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 7:40 am

The experimental code appears to be doing what it's supposed to do. Well done!

planetmaker · PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 7:47 am

Sweet, the result indeed looks much better (yes, I'm probably one of those mentioned critics of the empty road networks ;-)

). How does your new method work? Destroying houses at the same pace?

PikkaBird · PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:30 am

planetmaker wrote:

How does your new method work? Destroying houses at the same pace?

Indeed. It builds "non-houses" which it immediately* removes via callback. I had my doubts that this would prevent road construction, but it turns out it does.

*where "immediately" means "within 256 ticks". At the moment I'm using the rough ground sprite as the graphics for the non-house in TaI, and there is a slight chance that players could "bump into" them while constructing around towns. Whether it would be better to use a more distinctive graphic I'm not sure; making them more obtrusive might make them even more confusing!

(note that the rough ground in the screenshots above is actual rough ground from cleaning up in the scenario editor, not a profusion of non-houses).

bokkie · **Joined:** Fri Jan 19, 2007 7:26 pm **Posts:** 326

Make it a caravan? That way it's not weird if it's temporary and unbuildable. Just a random thought

Leanden · PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:15 pm

Or brown ground tile with an excavator, so its like landscaping?

supermop · PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:14 pm

Fenced or other otherwise marked vacant lot - to simulate owned but undeveloped land?

FooBar · PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:55 pm

I'm not sure how long 'max 256 ticks' is in real time, but on average it's probably just a few seconds. That means anything put on the tile will be gone very quickly. I'd put nothing on it, or maybe a small marker of sorts in transparent mode.

PikkaBird · PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:34 pm

FooBar wrote:

I'm not sure how long 'max 256 ticks' is in real time, but on average it's probably just a few seconds. That means anything put on the tile will be gone very quickly. I'd put nothing on it, or maybe a small marker of sorts in transparent mode.

Indeed, that's my thinking.

If you know it's happening, you can see it - the rough ground tile appears, then it goes brown as the house is removed. If you don't know it's happening, it's probably best that it's as unnoticeable as possible, right?

andythenorth · PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:45 pm

Put a UFO on it.

Or a dust devil (whirlwind).

:twisted:

PikkaBird · PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:53 pm

Or a dust devil (vacuum cleaner).

PikkaBird · PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:36 pm

Welcome to the rookery; come for the filth, stay because you died of cholera.

Comm Cody · PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 9:08 pm

Slums?

1860-1900 London, Here I come!

Bob_Mackenzie · **Joined:** Thu Mar 25, 2010 1:36 pm **Posts:** 823

Nice sprites

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TaI - introducing the scrabble board

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