- A subway consist on the map
- 3.png (34.69 KiB) Viewed 54642 times
This NewGRF is available from OTTD's BaNaNaS content downloader; search for "Fake Subways".
Nightly builds can be found here: http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/fake-subways/
It's generated with NML r2063, and should be compatible with OTTD versions 1.2 and upwards.
Compatibility with TTDPatch is untested, and is doubtful at best.
Vehicles included in version 0.3:
- Vehicle list.png (4.58 KiB) Viewed 49505 times
- London Underground 1903 "Gate Tube"
- London Underground 1938 "New Works Tube"
- London Underground 1967 "Victoria Tube"
- London Underground 1992 "Adtranz Tube"
- Futuristic 2042 "Shinkū-eki" Double-Decker Subway
You may recognize these from the UKRS2 Addon Set, as they share the same sprites and similar specs.
The graphics were drawn by oberhümer, are used with permission in this GPLed grf.
You may also recognize the futuristic subway from the Vactrain set, as the sprites (and name) are based on that set.
[It's not intended to be a vacuum-tube subway, just a regular deep-level tube.]
GRF Features:
- Each type of subway is available in 2-8 carriage consists, selectable via refit option. Unfortunately, since they can change lengths with refits, they are not compatible with Auto-refit.
- The subway vehicles show up in CC (2CC for Victoria, Adtranz, and Double-decker) when visible; when underground you naturally can't see them.
- By default, subways are regular road vehicles, and can be built from regular road depots. If you set the appropriate parameter, they can instead be trams, and must then be built from tram depots.
- The refit cost reflects whether you are adding carriages or taking them away; refitting to a smaller consist will refund money, whereas adding carriages will cost money.
- When displayed on the map, they show up as "shadows", to give the impression that they are underground. While in the depot view or vehicle information window, however, they show up as fully visible.
- All vehicles vary in power, weight, running cost, and overall length based on number of carriages in the consist. All vehicles have maximum loading/unloading speeds, taking only 2 "ticks" to fully unload and then fully load.
- Somewhat like UKRS engines, the subways have variable running costs. When not moving (speed=0), their running costs are reduced to 1/4. The default, moving running cost is shown in the purchase menu.
- Unlike UKRS Tube trains, all carriages of these subways are powered. Each carriage also has a slightly higher purchase price and running cost than their UKRS equivalents.
- All subways have lower-than-default cargo age periods, meaning they incur late penalties for profits faster than regular vehicles. This reflects the fact that subway vehicles are more cramped & less comfortable than other methods of transport. Later subways have less of a penalty than earlier ones, reflecting advances in passenger comfort such as air conditioning.
- Parameters:
- Parameter 1, "Vehicle capacities", determines whether the subways' capacities reflect seated-only capacities, or seated plus standing room capacities (which are rather much larger). The default setting is seated + standing-room capacities.
- Parameter 2, "Regular RVs or trams", determines whether subways are regular road vehicles or trams. The default setting is regular road vehicles.
Known Issues
Currently, due to limitations in OTTD, there are several issues with these "fake" subways. They include but are not necessarily limited to:
- Subways can only traverse roads. They cannot go underneath buildings, industries, or anything else (unless employing a normal road tunnel).
- Subways cannot pass under other surface road vehicles, and can be blocked by them if they are traveling too slowly or are stopped.
- By default, no additional infrastructure is required to run subways (i.e. you don't need to dig tunnels or lay tracks or anything)*. Regular roads, road depots, and drive-through road stops (subways must use drive-through stops like all other articulated vehicles in OTTD) are all that is required to run subways. To compensate for this, running and purchase costs are higher than their UKRS counterparts.
* unless the parameter to make them trams is set, in which case tramways must be built for subways to run on. - Subways "rise up" like any other RV when going "over" bridges. This looks somewhat silly, but just pretend they're really changing tunnel depth or something right under the bridge.
- If caught on a level crossing and a train contacts the subway, it will result in a collision and the subway will be destroyed, like with any other RV impacted on a level crossing.
- Subways can be ordered to perform a U-turn at virtually any time, and will comply. There apparently are a LOT of tracks under those roads
- The refitting to add/remove carriages feature introduces an unfortunate side effect: if you have refitted to a larger consist and then go to sell that consist you are NOT refunded the money you spent on the extra carriages -- unless you first "sell" the extra carriages via refit, then you are refunded the full amount you paid -- which introduces yet another side effect, in that the carriages do not lose value over time when you sell them at a later date; they are always "sold" for their full value. Still, I feel these are fairly minor in the grand scheme of things.
- As with any other road vehicles in OTTD, subways can pass through each other under certain circumstances, most often observable at intersections where two meet in perpendicular directions of travel. This is actually less of an issue for subways as for other RVs, though, as it is easily explained as the subway tunnels being at different depths, something which frequently occurs in real-life subway networks.
However, if one is willing to suspend disbelief a bit, I think these fake subways are really cool and useful.
License
This GRF is distributed under the GPL v2 license.
Click here for the most recent (v0.3) sources; included are instructions on how to build the .grf from source.
Credits
As mentioned earlier, the excellent sprites for the London Underground vehicles were drawn by oberhümer, are used with permission in this GPLed grf.
The Shinkū-eki double-decker subway sprites are derived from sprites from the Vactrain grf by EmperorJake.
Thanks are extended to the extremely talented PikkaBird, for his wonderful GRFs that inspired many to create their own works, including this one.
Many thanks are additionally extended to FooBar for the NML tutorial, which was immensely helpful when coding this GRF.
Many, many thanks are also extended to the developers of OTTD for creating and maintaining such wonderful free software.
Please report any bugs/comments to this thread. Enjoy!
