[OTTD] Pipelines - PIPE v6.41 [27/05/2023]

[LaDoncella]

no...

[Jake Grey]

Much obliged.

[NekoMaster]

OMG Thank you for taking an idea I had a while ago and turning it into something useful!

It feels too weird hauling a unit train full of water or oil across the landscape, just seems unrealistic for the most part.

Anyways thanks again for making this mod, I've already been using it a fair amount.

One thing though, the mainence costs are WAAAAAY too high, I mean, I only had a few lines and already I was loosing 500,000 - 800,000 and the pumps where making like 10-20K on oil (even when there was TONS of oil to pump)

It would be nice if this mod had a parameter to change the maintence costs a little, and maybe the build cost (I think it would be a tad more expensive to lay pipe then to maintain it. Why do you think only government and big companies run pipe over miles and miles)

[wallyweb]

It feels too weird hauling a unit train full of water or oil across the landscape, just seems unrealistic for the most part.

Obviously you haven't been reading the Globe & Mail

Pipelines will be around forever, but our two favourite Canadian railroads seem to think that they can play the oil moving game too. Indeed, Irving Oil is now bringing in up to 100 carloads of crude per day to feed our local refinery.

[supermop]

This is happening in the US as well - as production shifts or picks up in new areas, train freight is being used to work around the rather inflexible existing pipeline infrastructure.

Bit of an old article, but interesting read for any of you with FT access:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ec88484e ... z2BeAqVO4n

Headline is "Robust demand for US rail amid shale boom"

[wallyweb]

This is happening in the US as well - as production shifts or picks up in new areas, train freight is being used to work around the rather inflexible existing pipeline infrastructure.

Those oil tankers in the photo travelled all the way from North Dakota.

[NekoMaster]

Well, for the most part Oil unit trains arent too bad, its more common then say a water tanker unit train

[Roujin]

Hello, I just played with your NewGrf for the first time today, and I find it somehow weird that the arrows have to travel back to the oil/water/whatever source. I had assumed that the arrows are only displayed when travelling non-empty.

Alas, this is not the case. Would be nice to have as an option, maybe?

Then I fiddled around with orders (something with depots), looking if I could somehow set it up so they are sold on destination automatically, and a new one is purchased at the source (rondje om the kerk style ). Alas, not possible either (without a gamescript or AI doing that dirty work for me).
However, this experimenting gave me a second idea: What about including a refit option that makes the arrows invisible? Then one could set up a pump like with orders like these:

1: Go to source
2: Go to destination
3: Go to depot_at_destination and refit to Oil (invisible mode)
4: Go to depot_at_source and refit to Oil

As long as you only intend to run one pump on that line, you'll have a single line then with the arrow only running in the correct direction of flow. For more pumps on that line, you'd need a "back" line, but at least no arrows would be seen travelling back to the source on that line.`That problem could then maybe be solved with a second, invisible rail type for those back pipes?

Any interest to implement one of those two suggestions?

[FLHerne]

Surely just give it an invisible sprite when empty? Much simpler than faffing with depots and refits.

[kamnet]

So when your train is lost or caught in a jam, how are you going to find it if it is invisible?

[FLHerne]

So when your train is lost or caught in a jam, how are you going to find it if it is invisible?

It's a pipeline! How complicated do you intend it do get!?

[kamnet]

Oh, not too complicated, I suppose...

[FLHerne]

Those are pipes, not a pipeline
I think these are meant to be the big long-ish distance ones, not the tangle of little things you get inside a factory. Those are drawn on the factories

[kamnet]

Those are pipes, not a pipeline
I think these are meant to be the big long-ish distance ones, not the tangle of little things you get inside a factory. Those are drawn on the factories

Oh, I'm sure I can think of something...

pipes.png (52.37 KiB) Viewed 5241 times

[Supercheese]

Hence why the invisibility would be optional.

[Eddi]

So when your train is lost or caught in a jam, how are you going to find it if it is invisible?

show the track reservation?

[aantono]

As long as you only intend to run one pump on that line, you'll have a single line then with the arrow only running in the correct direction of flow. For more pumps on that line, you'd need a "back" line, but at least no arrows would be seen travelling back to the source on that line.`That problem could then maybe be solved with a second, invisible rail type for those back pipes?

Has anyone considered switching this from a Rail type to a Road type? This way you can have either one-way or multi-way roadways and the whole problem of return direction will be solved. And you won't have to build a return-pipe back to the Oil-Well for the pump to "travel back".

[kamnet]

You would have to replace either road or tram tracks to make that happen. That's not a popular option at all.

[NekoMaster]

Right now road types haven't been implemented just yet, so it will be some time till that happens.

It would be nice if there was a utility network thingy like Road and rail, that way you'd have Road, Trams, Rails, Air, Sea, and Utilities (like Electricity and Pipes)

BTW, what about underground pipes like what they did with the subways in NuTracks, that way we can have nearly invisible pipes for returns or around cities

[RobertNick]

I can only say WOW, you did agreat job, keep working on them.