A new direction for a single player game

[whtemple1959]

Hello,

I have created a GitHub repository for any one who is interested in helping me develop a radical branch of JGR's OpenTTD-patches branch
Below is my readme from the repository which will explain my vision

OpenTTD-new

My humble attempt to take OpenTTD in a completely different direction.

This project will start with Jonathan G Rennison's patch pack as I believe the changes he has incorporated are a good base.

This will be by some to be a rambling readme.

I am an accountant not a C++ coder (of all the people in the world to be envious of ... athletes, astro physicists, etc I am only truly envious of C++ programmers) and so I am in way over my head but while playing the game I have found many inconsistencies between the game and the real world which just distracts from truly enjoying the game.

My interest in altering the game's dynamics began when I first noticed that it took 3 days from the time a train entered a station until it came to a stop. This led to investigating tile lengths and I found that the official explanation to be fallible and inconsistent with real life. So I am on a crusade to fix some situations which I feel are being overlooked.

My Parameters ....

Using a 2048x2048(which is actually 2046x2046 if you are trying to find the center) map of the contiguous United States with the land leveled to sea level. According to Google maps it is 2613.31 miles from the most westerly spot of The US to the most easterly spot. It is 1803 tiles between these to locations. Thus a tile is 1.449 miles wide.

Using a EMD-FT locomotive at 75 mph it should take that locomotive 34.84 hours to traverse the map.

Gathered data .....

Using the default settings of 74 ticks per minute, 1 day length factor, 0 minutes of clock offset it took the locomotive 51 days 6 hours 56 minutes. A further confusing aspect of this setting is that a day rolls over for every second of the game clock. In my mind the game clock should tick off 24 hours for every day.

Using a setting sequence of 74 ticks per minute, 125(the maximum setting) day length factor, 0 minutes of clock offset the locomotive still took 2.5 - 3 days to traverse the map. It is impossible to calculate a true time because the game clock clicks 2hours 5 minutes per day. Unfortunately with this setting it takes about 45 days for a new industry to be built and begin producing

Using a setting sequence of 10 ticks per minute, a day length factor, 0 minutes of clock offset apparently speeds up the clock but does not syn with day roll overs and it does speed up production.

So the questions are ....

1 ... What is wrong with the game's timing dynamics?

Ticks per minute is directly tied to the interconnected web of train speed/acceleration and industry production so it may not be prudent to alter this setting.

2 .... This will be a very contentious bone but I simply do not understand why there is not diagonal roads. I have seen locomotives make 90 degree turns, so the rails act just like the roads. Why is it impossible to use the rails "code" for the roads Code" and simply alter the graphics?

A further concern is why is there no diagonal bridges or tunnels? Again should it not be a simple change of graphics to alter a diagonal rail to a bridge/tunnel?

3 .... I like to explore different scenarios so I start and stop new games all the time. For some reason some NewGRFs are not compatible so they can not be loaded into the same game, which requires an entirely new game. For some reason once a game is started a new NewGRF can not be introduced into the game so once again a new game must be started. The problem is that with each new game I must rebuild the "Company Profile" because .... some of the colors actually hurt my eyes .. so a new game's default configuration is distracting. There is an old patch by Antdovu which Chill had incorporated into a Patch Pack which allowed saving and loading a "Company Profile" If it is possible to save and load a "President's" face why not the entire "Company Profile"? Why has this patch never been merged into the main trunk?

4 ... When the maps are created some times towns are are small and separated by too great of a distance to make buses viable. The EMC Doodlebug is a great option for this situation unfortunately the designer of the game's Doodlebug did not properly configure it. According to ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodlebug_(rail_car) the Doodle bug was originally designed to haul passengers, mail, and some freight.

Again is there a problem with the game's dynamics that prevented the designer of the Doodlebug to allow it to carry both passengers and mail? This makes no sense to me since airplanes carry both passengers and mail. So this should be fixed.

5 ... As an accountant The other day I noticed I was charged 1 million for "Other" I would like to see this expanded. To be petty I believe the "Construction" section needs to be expanded. To be completely petty O would like to find a way to automatically save the yearly financial report to a cvs file. I believe this would be very helpful in deciding to alter in game decisions.

Finally ...

Since my company pays a lot of money to build industries I should be allowed to name those industries. So how do we fix this issue?

I wanted to have a way to name the cities for the Capitals of The US. I looked at all the relevant source code fro "Town Names". I saw that the "Slovak" section would be the most rational format to create an addition to the source code. If I copied the "Slovak" code and simply changed "slovak" to uscapitals" in the ccp and h files I got no US Capital option in the game option setting, but if I replaced the "Slovak" city names with those of US Capitals "Slovak" still shows up as a choice in game options but yet the city names are those of US Capitals. So, I could use some advice on what I am doing wrong in the code to as to why creating a new option does not work.

Napoleon Hill believed that a great leader should surround himself with experts in areas of expertise which he had none, I believe this is an excellent philosophy.

So the ultimate question is .. Are there any C++ programmers willing to join the crusade?

[arikover]

Hello whtemple1959,

I noticed your question 4:

4 ... When the maps are created some times towns are are small and separated by too great of a distance to make buses viable. The EMC Doodlebug is a great option for this situation unfortunately the designer of the game's Doodlebug did not properly configure it. According to ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodlebug_(rail_car) the Doodle bug was originally designed to haul passengers, mail, and some freight.

Again is there a problem with the game's dynamics that prevented the designer of the Doodlebug to allow it to carry both passengers and mail? This makes no sense to me since airplanes carry both passengers and mail. So this should be fixed.

If you're talking about the EMC Doodlebug from NARS (or from the US Set), that's true: they can't carry passengers and mail at the same time. But that a choice of the NewGRF authors, not an actual limitation of the game. There are some rail vehicles that can carry more than one cargo at the same time (these often being passengers and mail):

• in a previous version of Iron Horse, there was a mixed passenger/mail van
• in the upcoming French NG Set, there are multiple examples as well

It's perfectly feasible at the moment.
The reason why NewGRF authors don't do that quite often might have to do with the fact that the autorenew feature doesn't work well with these hybrid vehicles.

Good luck for your work!

[whtemple1959]

arikover

Thanks for the input.
I wish I had an inking of an idea on what I need to know I would love to be able to make the changes i desire.
I will look into the other options

Bill

[SquireJames]

arikover

Thanks for the input.
I wish I had an inking of an idea on what I need to know I would love to be able to make the changes i desire.
I will look into the other options

Bill

Herein lies the problem. Most of what you're asking for, which by your tone you seem to think is simple ("why can't they just do this?" etc) are actually things that are limited by the current implementation of certain features.

For example " Again should it not be a simple change of graphics to alter a diagonal rail to a bridge/tunnel?"

No. Hell no, in fact.

Even a cursory search for some of these topics on the forum will lead to a wealth of discussion on the matter. It's not laziness or unwillingness that has lead to the things you've complained about, it's having to re-write the fundamental way the game works to accomplish it. Unsurprisingly, not many people are willing to attempt that, especially when such actions tend to break save game compatibility.

[Eddi]

ad 1: the scales in this game are wrong on so many levels, that trying to "fix" one will only make the others more apparent

ad 2: the reason why this is not done is because once you dig into it, it's massively more involved than it seems at first glance. it's not impossible, but it's a can of worms that people are afraid to open.

ad 3: modifying newgrfs of a running game is difficult and may have unpredictable consequences, that's why "normal" people aren't allowed to do this. as for the profile patch, no idea why that didn't make it.

ad 4: mixed cargo trains are definitely possible, i did some myself.

ad 5: the "other" category is mainly for things like taxes and bribing towns. as for exporting, you can probably use a GameScript or the Admin Port for that.

about town names from lists, you don't need to change any C++ code for that, there is a pretty simple way to add them with NewGRFs, for example like this: https://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/uk ... repository

[kamnet]

Not to discourage you, but to be honest, for much of what you're wanting you are very much better off just writing an entire new game from scratch.

One thing to keep in mind, however. OpenTTD, first and foremost, is mean to be a faithful open source re-creation of Transport Tycoon Deluxe. TTD was never meant to be a realistic representation of transportation. It was meant to be a fun game where you move stuff from one area to another and attempt to achieve certain goals in order to score more points than other players. So, scale of time, distance, tiles, speed, etc. are all pretty much meaningless. The only purpose for those things is in relation to making the game fun to play. If you're intent on changing those things in order to make the game more "realistic", then you may possibly be moving away from what the core of TTD actually is. Not saying that's bad or good, but it may be a significant shift.

[Kevo00]

Im not convinced that diagonal roads are really needed. In games that have diagonal roads, but which have a system of squares, like SimCity2000 (ok showing my age I know but OTTD represents the same era, in spirit), diagonal roads take up more space as the other half of the diagonal square cannot be used for building. So within the logic of OTTD town building, which requires road boundaries for construction to happen, it's not clear why this would be advantageous.

Also, one would have assumed that as an accountant you might want to hide unethical 'other' transactions.

[luxtram]

Im not convinced that diagonal roads are really needed. In games that have diagonal roads, but which have a system of squares, like SimCity2000 (ok showing my age I know but OTTD represents the same era, in spirit), diagonal roads take up more space as the other half of the diagonal square cannot be used for building. So within the logic of OTTD town building, which requires road boundaries for construction to happen, it's not clear why this would be advantageous.

Also, one would have assumed that as an accountant you might want to hide unethical 'other' transactions.

There are two areas where diagonal road are useful.

My main reason for diagonal roads is that they look much better than zigzag roads on the landscape. It is of course a matter of taste but I find zigzag roads distracting.

Another use is depiction of the cities with the diagonal roads. For example San Francisco. Of course this is more complex issue because the houses also need to be "diagonal" then.

[Gwyd]

The curves in road gfx could just be changed to be straight from one corner to another... If I'm not mistaken someone has actually done this before

[Eddi]

making the curves look straight doesn't solve anything if you're not also revising the movement pattern of vehicles. and as soon as you open that can of worms, someone will shout "state machines" and you're buried in feature requests until the end of time.