TARS Industries Development

[planetmaker]

I'd accept sprites to that end

[Eddi]

i imagine that synchronizing animation between separate tiles is major mindfuck

[SwissFan91]

I think you mean "mindf*ck", there Eddi

I'd accept sprites to that end

You what now?

[planetmaker]

i imagine that synchronizing animation between separate tiles is major mindfuck

Using nearby_tile_animation_frame will probably help a lot Not sure whether it's needed, but one could make it an elongated object like 1x7 tiles or so - I'd prefer to make it one-tile objects, though which adjust to adjacent object tiles

I'd accept sprites to that end

You what now?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/to_that_end

[Eddi]

I think you mean "mindf*ck", there Eddi

i suggest you disable the word filter in your user settings

[jvassie]

Rails - Again, probably even less of a priority than roads, and as we may never see catenary on narrow gauge rails, this is probably best left to a good rail set such as YARRS.

Nothing stopping you making a .grf which includes NG Electrified rails as far as I'm aware..

[michael blunck]

Rails - Again, probably even less of a priority than roads, and as we may never see catenary on narrow gauge rails, this is probably best left to a good rail set such as YARRS.

Nothing stopping you making a .grf which includes NG Electrified rails as far as I'm aware..

There´s a French NG rail set somewhere:



regards
Michael

[oberhümer]

...i.e. somewhere in mb's list of unfinished or unreleased GRFs, I'd guess more towards the end.

[Eddi]

... and i tried so hard to hold back with a side remark this time

[SwissFan91]

Please, not in this thread.

[michael blunck]

...i.e. somewhere in mb's list of unfinished or unreleased GRFs, I'd guess more towards the end.

Nah. This time, it´s definitely not in my list.

regards
Michael

[Emperor Jake]

No, it's in my list of unfinished GRFs. ToE-Tracks will eventually have narrow gauge rails in it. With electrification plus rack railways.

I will put a little emphasis on the "eventually" but it's not like this project will be released any time soon either. Anyway, good luck with this, SwissFan

[michael blunck]

As requested, some information about Switzerland´s economy.

Raw materials
Gravel, lime stone, clay, granite and salt are the most prevalent raw materials today. In the past, smaller deposits of iron and copper ore have been mined.

Agriculture
Currently, only 4% of the total workforce are employed in this sector. Main sectors are cattle breeding and dairy farming (118,978 ha). There´s also farming of grain (1 million t), potatoes (518,000 t) and beets (1.4 million t), as well as some fruit (7,808 ha) and wine (13,485 ha).

Industry
Switzerland has an extensive industrial sector present worldwide, with companies in different industrial sectors like food processing (Nestlé), chemical (Roche, Sandoz), pharmaceutical (Novartis, Hoffmann-La Roche), etc; among many others (watches (Breitling, Chopard, Patek Philippe, Rolex, Swatch Group), precision instruments, manufacturing (ABB, Schindler Holding), medical devices, biomedical engineering, etc, pp.).

Trade, Transport & Logistics
Apart from industry, trade has always been the key to prosperity in Switzerland (Glencore, XStrata, Migros, Panalpina, SBB Cargo, Swiss, Jet Aviation, Crossair (extinct), Adecco, Kühne + Nagel come to mind)

Tourism
Switzerland has a highly developed tourism infrastructure, especially in the mountainous regions and cities. Tourism is the third largest sector of Switzerland´s economy.

Energy
Hydroelectric energy is an established part of Switzerland´s ecomomy.

Banking&Insurance
Switzerland has a very large financial sector with an estimated 11.6% of Switzerland's GDP (Banks: UBS, Crédit Suisse, Raiffeisen Schweiz, Zürcher Kantonalbank, HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA, BNP Paribas (Suisse) SA, Julius Bär; Insurances: Zurich Financial Services, Swiss Re, Swiss Life, AXA Winterthur, Bâloise, Helvetia, Nationale Suisse).

HTH
regards
Michael

[Snail]

No, it's in my list of unfinished GRFs. ToE-Tracks will eventually have narrow gauge rails in it. With electrification plus rack railways.

Actually, what Michael was referring to is on "someone else's" list **looks around whistling**

Expect it to be released "reasonably" soon. As for rack railways, I have drawn those too, but it's going to be very tricky as to how to implement them other than being just eye-candy (but that subject would be very long to discuss...)

[Eddi]

(imho) all that rack railways need is an engine implementing CB 36 to change tractive effort depending on current railtype.

[Snail]

(imho) all that rack railways need is an engine implementing CB 36 to change tractive effort depending on current railtype.

True, that'd be the idea.

However, Michael and I did a few tests with a rackrail engine I drew for the French set. Specifically, we coded this engine to be powered on both rackrail and non-rackrail track, but its TE would be boosted when on rackrail track.

What we found was that there was a very negligible improvement in the engine's performance pulling the consist, at least at speeds greater than about 10 km/h. The higher TE would help the engine out just at very low speeds. Also, if the engine is pulling just a few passenger coaches (as it used to be the case in most Alpine rackrail lines), the performance improvement almost vanishes.

Perhaps, the only advantage rackrail would have in a TTD game would be in the very early years (i.e. before 1900) when the engines' HP is very limited, as well as their max speed. In those times, we are stuck with engines of, say, around 200 HP and a max speed of about 20 to 25 km/h (I'm only speaking about narrow gauge here... of course, in the standard gauge world, there were much stronger engines than that); so, the boost in TE would give a real, tangible advantage to rackrail engines.
However, the availability of later engines with higher HP would erase their already small advantage. After all, in real life, rackrail engines had a very limited max speed when using the rack (the steamer I drew for the Montenvers railway only ran at 7 km/h when using the rack, and even modern trains don't go beyond 20 km/h!). So, when engines capable of, say, 40 to 50 km/h with about 400 HP are available, it would make more sense to use one of those modern adhesion locos, rather than build a rackrail track (which I assume would be more expensive in the game) and then be stuck with a very slow engine.

It would perhaps make sense when pulling large, heavy freight trains up a hill. However, historically, most rackrail lines used to carry passengers...

Just a few thoughts. I also think rackrail track is quite exciting, but its implementation (if we want it to be more than eye candy) is quite tricky.

(ps. Hope this is not too much OT... After all, a rackrail system could benefit an alpine set like TARS too )

[Emperor Jake]

No, it's in my list of unfinished GRFs. ToE-Tracks will eventually have narrow gauge rails in it. With electrification plus rack railways.

Actually, what Michael was referring to is on "someone else's" list **looks around whistling**

Expect it to be released "reasonably" soon. As for rack railways, I have drawn those too, but it's going to be very tricky as to how to implement them other than being just eye-candy (but that subject would be very long to discuss...)

Good, I haven't drawn anything yet. ToE-Tracks will focus on the different voltages used in Europe, and so might be fun to use in an alpine setting, such as the voltage changes between Switzerland and Italy and France, etc.

The Swiss Set could also use a revival to accompany this project

[michael blunck]

(imho) all that rack railways need is an engine implementing CB 36 to change tractive effort depending on current railtype.

That´s neither realistic (rack engines don´t have high TE, they have a high µ), nor does it help in the game context. What´s needed for a proper implementation of rack rail would be a custom "acceleration model" (railtypes action0 prop15). I´ve already discussed this with Peter time ago.

regards
Michael

[Eddi]

(imho) all that rack railways need is an engine implementing CB 36 to change tractive effort depending on current railtype.

That´s neither realistic (rack engines don´t have high TE, they have a high µ), nor does it help in the game context. What´s needed for a proper implementation of rack rail would be a custom "acceleration model" (railtypes action0 prop15). I´ve already discussed this with Peter time ago.

regards
Michael

so what would your proposal about an actual calculation be, in case this property is implemented?

of course the real problem is that there is no distinction between slope grades in (Open)TTD. it's either flat or steep. And the issue of braking power is not modeled at all.

However, the availability of later engines with higher HP would erase their already small advantage.

well, historically, most rack rails in germany have been abolished once powerful and heavy enough adhesive engines became available (the prussian T20, based on an engine for the Halberstadt-Blankenburger Eisenbahn around 1920)

[Snail]

However, the availability of later engines with higher HP would erase their already small advantage.

well, historically, most rack rails in germany have been abolished once powerful and heavy enough adhesive engines became available (the prussian T20, based on an engine for the Halberstadt-Blankenburger Eisenbahn around 1920)

Yes. However, in an Alpine narrow gauge set, the release of Mallet locomotives built by SLM in Winthertur, like this one (a 030-030 built in 1903 for the Vivarais network) would make rackrail useless in a game very early. Unless, of course, a new acceleration model gets developed.