Hey guys,
I've been using the Dutch Train Set for a while now, and the more I've been using it, the more inconsistencies I seem to find regarding the rolling stock
To start, this is a great NewGRF, absolutely love it. It's amazing. But time has passed, VIRM's have been modernised, FLIRT's have been introduced, The Sprinter Nieuwe Generatie is already riding around, with the Intercity Nieuwe Generatie just around the corner.
A lot has changed, so it seems to me it is a great time to try and update the modpack!
Now, am I just some enthousiast that doesn't know where to start? Luckily not.
For a start, I've done very minor edits regarding some capacities of trains (especially the ICM's, they seemed to have been undercut by about 50 seats, which was such a dip in capacity that they become unviable in lots of games very fast), as well as some plans for a general setup of the rolling stock.
Between the editing and compiling I've been digging around in the code, and it's a bit inconsistent, but I might be able to reverse engineer a lot of it. I'm a second year Computer Science student, so I'm familiar with programming. My first idea is that it would not be that tremendously hard to:
-Tweak the existing rolling stock, by implementing the yellow/blue NS 186 paintjob, and possibly by adding 1st/2nd class variants of some carriages?
-Copy files, assign new ID's, en gradually change the new files to work towards new rolling stock, such as the FLIRT, SNG and ICNG (Hopefully copying, assigning new ID's and gradually editing will do the trick. If not, we'll work it out
)
-Add moar extra stuff! (Think of the VIRMm paintjob etc.)
If I (and others perhaps) are able to get this down, I'd gladly share my ideas regarding the directions this might go.
What I've come up with at this moment are two approaches:
The rolling stock will be extended, the code will be made more consistent (this requires rewriting A LOT of code). New rolling stock will be added in the same way as the current rolling stock, namely realistic MU's. For instance, a FLIRT will only be available in the way it really exists.
However, the more I thought about that, while being true to reality, it also takes away the freedom to design your own MU's. Another suggestion would be, but might be a bit radical, to add each type of carriage per type of train individually. This will open up the possibilty to, say, design a ICM of VIRM that consists of 5 carriages!
But with great power comes great responsibility, because for as far as I know, this opens a rabbithole where one type of carriage, say a VIRM carriages, can be any of the existing 5/7 carriages types (depends on the way you count). This is already a lot, but keep in mind that paintjobs are a thing. Let's say there's 7 paintjobs/refits, tha would mean a VIRM carriage needs 49 different refits to cover all possibilties, which seems like an afwul lot to me. Implementing each carriages individually would solve this problem, at the expense of vehicle list cluttering.
The first option seems straightforward to me, but limiting to the creative mind that knows what it's doing. The second option give total freedom and throws any carriage restrictions out of the window, at the expense that you really must know what you're doing.
The first approach keeps everything as is, while the second approach makes it possible to think up of any train you might like to think of, such as an ICM/VIRM Hybrid
I would like to hear from people who think they might be able to contribute to this project. As far as I'm concerned, I'll continue searching the internet for more information on all trains, maybe building a datasheet that comprises everything.
Please provide feedback regarding the approaches, and suggest things that I might have overlooked thus far!
Edit: Progress has been made in understanding the code, and I've managed to duplicate a coach
Another edit: I'm slowly getting the hang of the code, how the graphics are built up, what defines the amount of coaches of an EMU etc. Overall the code isn't that bad, buit since things are split up in smaller files, you need to search around a bit
Another another edit: My respect for the original devs has increased tremendously! Now that I'm used to reading the files I've started to notice all the details I haven't noticed before, such as the opened ICM heads on older liveries. They did an amazing job!
Yet Another edit: I've made some mockup sprites for the VIRMm painjob...