Merge parts of simutrans with OpenTTD?

Ioish · Post by **Ioish** » 09 Mar 2004 12:18

Both simutrans and OpenTTD are very cool projects. Wouldn't it be nice, to add some of the simutrans graphics to openttd? This would speed up things like "more cargo types", "more vehicles/trains,etc" and such since the graphics for other industries/trucks,etc. are allready available. Maybe even merge both projectsm but I guess that would be quite difficult since simutrans is not opensource.

Of course you would need permission of the simutrans team to do this.

Hajo · Post by **Hajo** » 09 Mar 2004 13:02

I'd be interested to share graphics. There are some very nice graphics made for TTD/Patch which I'd like to use in Simutrans, too.

But I have some doubt in the legality of OpenTTD.

The process of disassembling and rewriting the TTD code in C looks illegal to me. I'm no lawyer, though. I have similar doubts like eis_os, probably because we both live in germany.

This means, I'll rather stay away from OpenTTD until the legal issues are clarified.

Getting back on topic: I'm really interested in getting new graphics, but only if they are original art, and I get a clear statement from the creator that I may use them in Simutrans. OTOH most of Simutrans art was not created by me, and we will need to contact the authors in every case to get their permission to use the graphics in other projects.

Edit: I forgot to say: I'll most likely be offline until Monday, March 15th, starting this evening.

Saskia · Post by **Saskia** » 09 Mar 2004 16:16

Hajo, would you give OpenTTD your transportation concept, please? I like that the cargo knows where it wants to go

Killer 11 · Post by **Killer 11** » 09 Mar 2004 16:30

NO NO please god NO!!!

I hate simutrans or that feature becouse i can't figure out whre the cargo wants to go. I always bancrupt becouse of that feature!

And this will scrue all you're plans to build a massive network becouse it will be imposibble for this reason:
In ttd you can choose one factory and a lot of farms and then make a big network in that area, then choose a city and transport goods in it(that will need a big line too)
And in simutrans it's imposible to do it easily becouse you can't just choose a factory you must cheeck all farms for cargo directions(That's borring)and then you will se that one farm wants to transport the cargo into your factory, but other is not(i hate that mainly for passenger transport).

CobraA1 · Post by **CobraA1** » 09 Mar 2004 17:08

The simutrans author has made it clear he don't want his source code to be open anyways.

Not to mention setting a schedule and stuff like that is too complex IMHO. One of the niceties of TTDX is that doing stuff in it is simple. I'd like to keep it that way.

Alex Nipal · Post by **Alex Nipal** » 09 Mar 2004 17:14

Saskia wrote:Hajo, would you give OpenTTD your transportation concept, please? I like that the cargo knows where it wants to go

Maybe this one is realistic, but it's totally unplayable

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 09 Mar 2004 18:25

Here I think is the best compromise:

Cargo doesn't "know" where it wants to go, it will go anywhere that accepts it. If you wanted, you could do some sort of economy thing, where the marginal profit from an additional delivery to a particular place would decrease if that place had already received a great deal of whatever you were delivering. But you'd still get paid for it.

What WOULD be nice, though, is for PASSENGERS (and maybe mail) to have destinations. So, if you had a station in a city, it would have maybe 15% of passengers each to the neighboring 4 towns, 20% to the biggest city or two on the map, and the remaining 20% divided up between all the rest of the cities. You'd adjust the percentages based on the city sizes of course. But you'd have to make the passengers smart enough to change modes of transportation and trains, getting off at the right station to make connections, etc. You could let them change stations in a city too by letting them have a free transfer between stations with the same city-name in them. If that connection isn't served by a local bus, anyway. If you wanted to be really slick they could change transport companies also, so if you saw an unserved connection between opponents' systems, you could provide service between them and get all the transfer traffic. I think that would be a major improvement, it's silly that passengers will just get on the next vehicle and go wherever it goes. It kinda ruins the concept of local and long-distance express service.

CobraA1 · Post by **CobraA1** » 09 Mar 2004 18:34

Hmm, such a model will require a lot of thought, I don't want to just tack something on in this case . . .

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 09 Mar 2004 18:35

Certainly it cannot be designed in a day, much less built that quickly. But adding that would make it pretty conclusive that OpenTTD is different from TTD:
- The graphics (will be) different
- The gameplay and options will be quite different, once the Patch improvements are added
- Now even the economic model will be different. Clearly OpenTTD becomes a different creation.

Saskia · Post by **Saskia** » 09 Mar 2004 19:00

Since it would be an great challenge to play with self-confident (*g*) cargo, and those program code would be a subset of the economy with root customers [Stammkundschaft], I would suggest to make it switchable if cargo has an target, or only gets a provision if delivered to this target.

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 09 Mar 2004 19:02

Well, I'd put that ability pretty far down on the list. Catch up with the Patch first, and take care of any bugs, and do the stuff on the "impossible" list like higher bridges and subway-stations. THEN worry about rejiggering the entire economy.

ChrisCF · Post by **ChrisCF** » 09 Mar 2004 19:06

I fear that it may be too late to retro-fit the code by that point.

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 09 Mar 2004 19:12

Maybe you could make changes to add stub-ends to the various methods, allowing you to plug in a different economic model later when you got round to it?

PJayTycy · Post by **PJayTycy** » 09 Mar 2004 20:34

krtylor,

You're basicly describing the system RT3 uses for it's economical model (except that there cargo moves by it's own at a slow speed / great cost too).

It's very controversial. I really like it, but others think it completely ruins the gameplay. So I think it would be great to design a game so you can swap the economy model.

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 09 Mar 2004 20:37

Well, then, it definitely sounds like the right solution is to fix it in the C code so the economy (whatever it is) is separate, and connects via stubs, so the whole economy can be replaced with something else later. That way we can tinker with various things if we want, and offer options.

CobraA1 · Post by **CobraA1** » 10 Mar 2004 20:19

This goes hand-in-hand with converting the code to something more modular and object-oriented, which should be near the top of our list.

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Merge parts of simutrans with OpenTTD?

Merge parts of simutrans with OpenTTD?

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