Transport Tycoon Forums

Here is a small idea I came up with: it is a NewGRF that gives you a tiny invisible "locomotive" that has no power or weight. What's this for, you may ask? Well, have you ever noticed how many train NewGRFs limit the configurations of their trains (for example a passenger-only locomotive that disallows freight cars from being attached) but you can put them together any way you want as long as the restrictive engine is not leading the train? This is where the Invisible Engine comes in - just put it in front of your passenger-only locomotive and you can then use its power to haul all the freight cars you want

DISCLAIMER:
Use of this Invisible Engine with the trains of other NewGRFs to create unintended combinations will make you lose all warranty with that set's author(s).

The many, many uses of the Invisible Leading Engine:
- Double headed UKRS2 HSTs and Class 91s
- Add mail cars to Sprinters, etc in UKRS2 (this almost always looks ugly though)
- Double head certain MUs that say "Passenger/mail cars only" such as the NARS2 Acela
- Connect more than one railbuses or Metros from the 2cc set and maybe add a mail van to the back
- Use high speed train power cars to haul freight really fast like in the default trainset
- Use as a spacer for when some wagons overlap and glitch
- Use as a placeholder engine for converting e.g. a large NARS2 steamer to a set of 2 or 3 diesels (thanks V453000)
- Combine two different models of Metro or MU in the 2cc set and others
- Overcoming air drag restrictions that prevent some high speed trains from getting to top speed (i.e. the UKRS1 Eurostar)
- Put the engine at the rear to simulate a train being pushed (thanks Ovenbaked)
- Enables electric trains to coast through non-electrified sections; this is good if you've missed a spot

Uses of the Invisible Power Booster:
- A NARS2 Hudson can pull a nice long train at top speed
- Make a combination Diesel and Electric Desiro in the 2CC set
- Give a power boost to any weak locomotive; can be put on the rear as well
- Faster acceleration without having to upgrade locomotives
- Moving rolling stock from one place to another (thanks again Ovenbaked)
- Cheating by getting a free 4000 HP locomotive in 1800

Properties and Features:
- 1/8 length to minimise wasted space
- 9000 km/h speed to keep up with the fastest trains
- Available 1800
- Standard leading engine has 1 hp, 0 kN tractive effort
- Power Booster engine has 4000 hp and 319 kN
- Displays a small CC block while in the depot so you can see where you're moving it around
- Now available in Maglev and Metro (NuTracks) versions
- Zero Air Drag


(EDIT1: Added more usefulness)
(EDIT2: New Version)

bah this is the most stupid idea i have ever heard of... i mean this week...

Emperor Jake wrote:Potential Uses:
- Double headed UKRS2 HSTs and Class 91s
- Add mail cars to Sprinters, etc in UKRS2 (this looks ugly though)
- Double head certain MUs that say "Passenger/mail cars only" such as the NARS2 Acela
- Connect more than one railbuses from the 2cc set and maybe add a mail van to the back
- Use high speed train power cars to haul freight really fast like in the default trainset
- Possibly use as a spacer for when some wagons overlap and glitch

And of course if you used the train sets the way their authors intended them to be used, you wouldn't have a need for this.

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 51#p666951

Nice idea but its been done before...

Finally someone makes a truly useful newGRF! It is a shame that it uses some (though small) space of the train, but it is greatly useful. Aside of those points you wrote, it also allows you to start playing with 1 engine per train with this engine added, and later on make your trains have 2 engines without much trouble. Awesome!

For NUTS, I plan something very similar - an engine which looks like a wagon, it behaves like a wagon, has lowered capacity (but has some). The key difference there is that it does not eat any space of train away - it just "substitutes" a wagon. Though true that it can not be used to double for example express engines such as UKRS GEC91.

Bob_Mackenzie: eyecandy empty engine is not really "usable" ... just for eyecandy but not for running trains I think

Great work, may I ask for involving it in the fruit store? (and eventually further improvements of the newGRF? )

Cheers!
V.

There indeed already exists a grf for the aesthetic purpose but that one could imo be improved in many ways. I especially like the feature(tte) to 'see' the engine in the depot (maybe also in vehicle list?).

@wallyweb: If you want to use the GRFs as authors intended, you're very welcome not to use this GRF.

@Bob_Mackenzie: That eyecandy invisible engine has a different purpose - to position cars in sidings without an engine. It has a very limited speed (19km/h AFAIK) and therefore wouldn't be good for a high speed train.

@V453000: Thanks, I'm glad you found it useful! And thanks for finding another purpose for it, I hadn't thought of that! I'm afraid it is not possible to use less space, though. For one, it would be impossible to manipulate a zero-length engine in the depot.
I may upload it to Bananas when I have improved it a bit

@zooks: Not sure if it's possible to make it visible in the vehicle list without patching OTTD. The game should actually use the depot sprites (not purchase sprites) in lists. Currently you can see tilting trains tilt in the train lists, which probably shouldn't happen.

Emperor Jake wrote:@zooks: Not sure if it's possible to make it visible in the vehicle list without patching OTTD. The game should actually use the depot sprites (not purchase sprites) in lists. Currently you can see tilting trains tilt in the train lists, which probably shouldn't happen.

i have a patch that can make that possible over here: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?p=958164#p958164

Love it.

User-friendly option to remove (some) sets' restrictions without having to modify the GRF itself? I am all for this!

I have use for this, thank-you very much

Now i can build those vast abandoned Rolling Stock sidings i wanted to get on with... and have trains end to end without taking up the additional space of the invisible engine GRF

Here's a new version: this one contains a parameter for another invisible engine, but this one has lots of power and traction so that it can pull a train by itself. It is intended for adding to weak but good-looking locomotives such as the NARS Hudson and certain 2CC MU combinations to give them extra power. It can also be used to make it appear as if the wagons are speeding along the track by themselves (but I have no idea why you'd want to do that ) It also contains the Maglev and Metro versions. If you can think of a use for a Monorail, 3rd rail or even Vactrain one, tehn I'll include it

Check the first post for the download

Oh, and it's on Bananas now too.

WOW The Power Booster is kinda silly, but it could get nicely usable at the same time

Rather than coding this as an engine, perhaps it would be more appropriate as a cheat.

wallyweb wrote:Rather than coding this as an engine, perhaps it would be more appropriate as a cheat.

100% agree
If a GRF author put some restrictions in place, it's always for a reason.
If you want to ignore those restrictions, then go ahead, but at least use its proper name to call this behavior (i.e. cheating )

OpemTTD is a game where you play against youself, so I do not think anything could be called cheat

V453000 :) wrote:OpemTTD is a game where you play against youself, so I do not think anything could be called cheat

Then what would you call having 4000HP in 1800? And transporting freight at the speed of a TGV? And building trains the way they were not intended to be built?

Snail wrote:

V453000 :) wrote:OpemTTD is a game where you play against youself, so I do not think anything could be called cheat

Then what would you call having 4000HP in 1800? And transporting freight at the speed of a TGV? And building trains the way they were not intended to be built?

I call it a way to play the game which some people cannot imagine to be fun or "proper" while they miss the fact that there's many more ways to have fun with this game without trying to simulate some kind of past, present or future "reality".

What about a Mars scenario starting in the year 1800 after colonization? Your stats sound suddenly quite "realistic".

Btw: by the "cheat standard" *every* newgrf cheats the game as it alters the "intended" use of vehicles and their limitations as found in the original game

Snail wrote:

V453000 :) wrote:OpemTTD is a game where you play against youself, so I do not think anything could be called cheat

Then what would you call having 4000HP in 1800? And transporting freight at the speed of a TGV? And building trains the way they were not intended to be built?

I would call it unrealistic. But then again, the scale of OpenTTD is not really realistic either. Argument invalid.

planetmaker wrote:

Snail wrote:

V453000 :) wrote:OpemTTD is a game where you play against youself, so I do not think anything could be called cheat

Then what would you call having 4000HP in 1800? And transporting freight at the speed of a TGV? And building trains the way they were not intended to be built?

I call it a way to play the game which some people cannot imagine to be fun or "proper" while they miss the fact that there's many more ways to have fun with this game without trying to simulate some kind of past, present or future "reality".

Very true. But then, there's plenty of trainsets without such limitations to play with. The 2cc set is one, for instance, AFAIK.
If someone doesn't agree with a grf author's idea of a "proper" way a set should work, why should they play with that set at all? It's like using a set that was built around some limitations (usually coz it tries to be "realistic"... as realistic as TTD can be, of course), only to break away from those limitations.

For instance, in the set I'm building, such a "cheat"/"feature" would make more than half of my trains useless (namely, the cheap ones, those dedicated to freight, some MUs...) because I'm trying to balance everything around limitations, the idea being that you can't just go for the "fastest, most powerful" engine in all the cases. If you don't agree with this idea, well, chances are you won't like the experience of playing with my set, so such a "feature" won't help either.

I would call it unrealistic. But then again, the scale of OpenTTD is not really realistic either. Argument invalid.

Well, there are sets that try to at least go towards a representation of reality. Such a feature would make these efforts useless, and would detract from the experience of playing with those sets.