[OTTD] Dutch Tracks Development (0.1.0-Alpha1 released)

[planetmaker]

It's not hard to figure out what trains run on what system. You will probably know most of them by hard, if not all.

Mind, mostly only freaks who draw or code trainsets know which trains are supposed to run on which kind of tracks The average Joe probably won't.

[Purno]

It's not hard to figure out what trains run on what system. You will probably know most of them by hard, if not all.

When you do not know what voltage is used on ordinary railway lines, metro lines and the high-speed lines, then yes, it is hard to figure out what train runs on what system.

If, however, you just name the railtypes "Electrified Railway", "Metro Track", "High-Speed Track", then no, indeed it's not hard to figure out what train runs on what system.

Metro is metro for me, not "750 V DC third rail"

Or do you mean when playing?

Obviously, it's a game we're developing, right?

Mind, mostly only freaks who draw or code trainsets know which trains are supposed to run on which kind of tracks The average Joe probably won't.

And not all freaks who draw or code trainsets know that. I'm a simple artist, I draw stuff, doesn't mean I know what voltage the stuff I draw uses. Somehow, all those pantographs turn up looking the same anyways in TT-scale, no matter the voltage.

[Transportman]

It's not hard to figure out what trains run on what system. You will probably know most of them by hard, if not all.

When you do not know what voltage is used on ordinary railway lines, metro lines and the high-speed lines, then yes, it is hard to figure out what train runs on what system.

If, however, you just name the railtypes "Electrified Railway", "Metro Track", "High-Speed Track", then no, indeed it's not hard to figure out what train runs on what system.

Metro is metro for me, not "750 V DC third rail"

Or do you mean when playing?

Obviously, it's a game we're developing, right?

Mind, mostly only freaks who draw or code trainsets know which trains are supposed to run on which kind of tracks The average Joe probably won't.

And not all freaks who draw or code trainsets know that. I'm a simple artist, I draw stuff, doesn't mean I know what voltage the stuff I draw uses. Somehow, all those pantographs turn up looking the same anyways in TT-scale, no matter the voltage.

That just depends on the names I give them. And we of course have that file that nobody actually reads despite the filename saying to read it to put extra information in. Anyway, I made an issue in the tracker to keep this in mind (before we are a lot of pages further and I can't find it anymore)

[Purno]

That just depends on the names I give them. And we of course have that file that nobody actually reads despite the filename saying to read it to put extra information in. Anyway, I made an issue in the tracker to keep this in mind (before we are a lot of pages further and I can't find it anymore)

Gameplay-design shouldn't rely on a manual.

[Hyronymus]

That just depends on the names I give them. And we of course have that file that nobody actually reads despite the filename saying to read it to put extra information in. Anyway, I made an issue in the tracker to keep this in mind (before we are a lot of pages further and I can't find it anymore)

Gameplay-design shouldn't rely on a manual.

I don't think Transportman says we should.

Now what direction is the track set going to take? Much discussion about side-related stuff but not a clear-cut decision yet.

[FooBar]

It's probably best if Transportman figures out what he wants from this track set. After all, he's making it. We've seen a number of suggestions, so I'm sure he can work something out.

Once we have clear proposal we can go from there. It either results in more to-the-point discussion or (unlikely) everyone agrees.

[jor[D]1]

Think he already mentioned it a few post back

Already looking forward to the results

Thanks for the kind words. As long as I don't have to draw it is going to look fine. Spriteorder I almost figured out, so tracks you build to the North also will be drawn to the north

I think BRSet/BROS/Britrains claims that title

How many threads has that had over the years?

I think they had more external forums than threads at this forum.

Anyways, about this Trackset, what railtypes are being planned (in addition to the normal unelectrified / electrified track)? I assume metro tracks will be there?

For the railtypes I currently have the list provided by FooBar in this post as planned. So that is:

IMO it needs only four track types:
- unelectrified, max 140 km/h
- 1.5 kV DC overhead, max 160 km/h
- 750 V DC third rail, max 100 km/h
- 25 kV AC overhead, max 300 km/h
Local speed limits should not be implemented via track type, but rather via train orders.

I assume metro tracks will be there?

I'd prefer not to make it as big as for instance nutracks. Just a handful of tracks, including Metro and HSL. And then perhaps two variants of each unelectrified and electrified: a cheaper one with a low speed limit (e.g. 80 km/h) and an expensive one with a high speed limit (e.g. 160 km/h). HSL will then have no speed limit. In early games only the low speed tracks will be available, forcing you to upgrade them at some point.

IMO more than that is not needed to have great fun with a trackset, without being overwhelmed with options that are visually very hard to tell apart.

But that's my opinion. I'm not making this.

But I am My opinion is also more or less along this line.

I think you could do something like this:
I think there can be three ways you can make the set.

Idea 1:

Yard rail. (40km/h Maybe 80) VERY cheap, because it's lacking ATB
Mainline (160km/h) Normal priced
Highspeed rail (unlimited) Expensive
Metro Rails

Idea 2:

You could make rails According to the ATB codes And add as an Extra HSL/Betuwe route rails.
(Would give lots of options of track types)

Idea 3:

Make 1500V DC and 25kV AC rails. Something with railtypes maybe is possible. So a 1700 will only run Classical lines and not the betuwe or HSL lines.

You could make something like this then:

Classical lines (1500V/Unelectrified, 160km/h)
Highspeedlines (25kV, unlimited)
Freight Lines (betuwe route) (25kV, 120km/h) can be used as cheaper 25kV rails.
Metro Rails (750V, 120km/h?)
Optional: The cheap yard tiles.

With the last you could use different fences for the Betuwe route and Highspeed routes. Especially the betuwe route got some cool fencing in real.


I personally would prefer the last idea. But I think it will need some code in the dutch trainset too.
All ideas can do with only 5 track types.

I think I stick with Idea 3, possibly combined with FooBars suggestion to have different introduction dates for different speed tracks. It will always need code in the trainset (I will figure out compatibility things to also allow other train sets without modifications to their code to run on the tracks, but that is not very high on my list at this moment). But it also depends on the graphics I get, because like KasperVld says, they need to be clearly distinguishable, so it might be that during development the set stays at idea 1 some time for playtesting until graphics are available to go to idea 3.

[FooBar]

I think I stick with Idea 3, possibly combined with FooBars suggestion to have different introduction dates for different speed tracks [...] so it might be that during development the set stays at idea 1 some time for playtesting until graphics are available to go to idea 3.

This makes me believe he isn't quite sure yet

[Purno]

Makes sense to gather some input from the community first before making a final proposal.

[Eddi]

it is hard to figure out what train runs on what system.

in CETS, i give the track type via CB23 (additional purchase text).

code looks something like this:

Code: Select all

	file.write('switch(FEAT_TRAINS, SELF, VEH_ID(text_switch_default), [STORE_TEMP(string(STR_AUTO_%d) | string(%s) << 16, 0x100), STORE_TEMP(string(STR_TRACK_TYPES_DEFAULT) | string(STR_TRACK_TYPE_%s%s) << 16, 0x101), 0]) {\n'%(tables.strings.index(axle_scheme), tables.usage_strings[usage], track_type[0], track_type[4]))
	file.write('	return string(STR_ENG_DESCRIPTION);\n')
	file.write('}\n')

where track_type[0] is unelectrified/electrified/3rd rail [you'd put the voltage in here], and track_type[4] is standard gauge/narrow gauge [you'd ignore that].

[Snail]

Aren't you planning any axle-weight-wise track differentiation? It might be as significant as max speed (if not more) as a differentiation criterion, especially when it comes to distinguishing old from new tracks.

[Purno]

Could we add a parameter to keep things very simple? I don't like these advanced gameplay mechanisms

[Eddi]

i'd advise against modeling both axle weight and power systems at the same time, alone the combinatoric explosion will cause you to run out of railtypes quickly.

side note: if you want to model dual-power engines, you need a special railtype that is compatible with both power system. (make this awfully expensive so people won't use it for "normal" track, only on special locations like switchable platforms)

[Eddi]

from what i gathered from this thread, a railtype scheme could be:

• low speed unelectrified (100km/h?)
• low speed metro (100km/h)
• medium speed unelectrified (160km/h)
• medium speed catenary/DC (160km/h)
• medium speed catenary/AC (160km/h)
• high speed catenary/DC (unlimited)
• high speed catenary/AC (unlimited)
• universal (100km/h?)

(8 railtypes)

[Purno]

I still think it's silly to have a 100km/h speed limit on metro tracks when the vehicles itself got speed limits of 80km/h to 100km/h. Track limits like these only alienate flexibility (in case you ever want to add a metro going a bit faster than 100km/h) and don't add any gameplay.

And what's with the universal railtype?

[FooBar]

8 different rail types are already a bit much for my liking. But I guess you could drop high speed DC (doesn't exist in NL). And possibly the universal one (doesn't exist in real life either). And indeed no limit on metro (no need to as there's only one flavour of that). Then you have 6 left, a nice selection that isn't overly complicated.

With these changes, Eddi's suggestion is pretty much how I envision this here track set. It's also pretty simple in terms of the train set: unelectrified trains, DC trains, AC trains and AC/DC trains.


Also I've read somewhere about adding planning tracks: that really is something for a separate grf that can be used in combination with any railtype grf (provided enough slots) IMO.

[Eddi]

And what's with the universal railtype?

see my previous post. the point is, you cannot provide a dual-power engine without this railtype.

[the universal] doesn't exist in real life

i don't know about the netherlands, but several border stations have switchable power supply, e.g. Brenner (Austria 15kV AC/Italy 3kV DC) or Basel SBB (France 25kV AC/Switzerland 15kV AC)

[FooBar]

Ah bummer, I must've been sleeping
One indeed would need an AC/DC track type in order to be able to define trains for that. Oh well.

I don't know of any of those switchable power supply things in NL, we generally just stop the catenary and continue with another a bit further. I know such a gap isn't possible in OpenTTD, as trains stop instantly at the end of the wire

[Transportman]

I think I stick with Idea 3, possibly combined with FooBars suggestion to have different introduction dates for different speed tracks [...] so it might be that during development the set stays at idea 1 some time for playtesting until graphics are available to go to idea 3.

This makes me believe he isn't quite sure yet

That was more a graphics point of view. I can define the amount of tracks I want, but if they all look the same, it is a bit pointless. That was what I meant with playtesting idea 1 until there are enough to go to idea 3.

from what i gathered from this thread, a railtype scheme could be:

• low speed unelectrified (100km/h?)
• low speed metro (100km/h)
• medium speed unelectrified (160km/h)
• medium speed catenary/DC (160km/h)
• medium speed catenary/AC (160km/h)
• high speed catenary/DC (unlimited)
• high speed catenary/AC (unlimited)
• universal (100km/h?)

(8 railtypes)

8 different rail types are already a bit much for my liking. But I guess you could drop high speed DC (doesn't exist in NL). And possibly the universal one (doesn't exist in real life either). And indeed no limit on metro (no need to as there's only one flavour of that). Then you have 6 left, a nice selection that isn't overly complicated.

With these changes, Eddi's suggestion is pretty much how I envision this here track set. It's also pretty simple in terms of the train set: unelectrified trains, DC trains, AC trains and AC/DC trains.


Also I've read somewhere about adding planning tracks: that really is something for a separate grf that can be used in combination with any railtype grf (provided enough slots) IMO.

Drop high speed DC, read for universal yard tiles (cheap, very slow) and we are at 7. Thinking about it, do we actually have/had medium speed AC? Betuweroute maybe? Makes 6 if we can drop medium speed AC. Another thing that maybe is possible for the universal track is one that never comes available (introduction year so far in the future that no normal player should reach that date), but then it will always sit in the menu or be available when those trains are available. On the other hand, I believe all trains in the Netherlands are DC-compatible (at this moment), so the DC tracks can also double as universal track.

There will be no planning tracks in this set.

Could we add a parameter to keep things very simple? I don't like these advanced gameplay mechanisms

I would like to keep it simple from the start, but when things become to advanced, I will look into parameters to override those things. Might be that I provide a parameter to disable speedlimits altogether very soon after the first real code is online.

[Eddi]

random thought: without a DC-high-speed railtype, there's not much point for the DC-ICE3 (220km/h), if everywhere AC-high-speed will be used in the game, then the max speed for the ICE3 should be 330(ish) km/h