Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

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Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

Post by Align »

Basically, this mode of laying tracks will try and path-find to where you direct it instead of only laying straight sections.

Looks something like this: https://youtu.be/oaEFUGvjeEk?t=1m30s

Just a small quality of life sort of improvement.
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Re: Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

Post by NekoMaster »

Might be nice but isn't factorio mostly flat land? can't forget that openttd has hills and mountains which you need to compensate for by either building around them, building up them, or building through them (either by cutting through them or tunneling)

Still would be a nice idea if such a feature could be made to compensate for rough terrain. Perhaps maybe like if elevation changes upwards in less then 3 tiles, consider putting a bridge to the other side of the incline, and if land drops in less then 3 tiles from the last change then bridge the gap. Perhaps the feature could also calculate the cost of building through/over stuff versus going around it just incase it would be cheaper to build around a small hill rather then tunnel through or destroy it.
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Re: Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

Post by Drury »

Mashinky does it too and that's got the same type of hills as OpenTTD ;)
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Re: Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

Post by Align »

Drury wrote:Mashinky does it too and that's got the same type of hills as OpenTTD ;)
This game? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EouFSqMwmLk
Looks pretty great, definitely feels like a logical next step from TTD.
EDIT: After reading the blog and seeing that tokens concept I'm more or less sold; definitely keeping an eye on Mashinky.
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Re: Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

Post by kamnet »

We do have an polyline track patch which helps with automatically laying track. I don't know if the author feels that it's ready for proposing it to OpenTTD developers yet, but it's used in a few popular patch packs and users seems to like it.
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Re: Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

Post by Align »

That doesn't seem quite the same as pathfinding to the cursor, but pretty useful I guess.
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Re: Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

Post by Eddi »

i vaguely remember a patch called "drag&draw"
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Re: Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

Post by adf88 »

There is a substantial difference between OpenTTD and the other two games which makes most of these mechanisms inapplicable. In OpenTTD, tracks on slopes can go only straight uphill or downhill. They cannot go under different angle or form a turn.

Basically mechanism of laying tracks in these two games is similar to Polyline. The difference is that more turns is taken at a time and tracks try to "stick" to already laid tracks. I didn't notice any "pathfinding" going on there e.g. avoiding hills etc.

While I was developing the Polyline patch I considered different approaches. One of them was more similar to Mashinky style - lay two or three lines at a time, forming a turn or an S-band. However, it turned out that actually reducing the amount of lines was a much better approach. In OpenTTD, the landscape is more discreet and the actual shape of tracks has to be carefully fine-tuned. OpenTTD tracks have to be laid very carefully at very exact tiles. That's why "one track at a time" rule is better. "Two tracks at a time" is possible too, just click twice on the same spot.

Anyway, I don't see how Polyline could be improved. If anyone has some concrete ides, I'm listening.
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Re: Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

Post by _dp_ »

adf88 wrote:Anyway, I don't see how Polyline could be improved. If anyone has some concrete ides, I'm listening.
Oh, there are pleny ;) Auto-terraforming, smarter handling of slopes, support for bridges/tunnels, some alignment to other tracks.
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Re: Automatic rail-laying (Factorio style)

Post by adf88 »

These are not concrete ideas. They don't say anything. I'll try to analyze them a bit anyway.
_dp_ wrote:Auto-terraforming
Besides this idea is independent of the Polyline patch, I think it's impossible to conclude a behavior that would suit everyone. Moreover, some (most?) people are against aggressive/automatic thermoforming and this kind of change would never get into the trunk because of philosophical reasons. Or I misunderstood you, please explain then.
_dp_ wrote:smarter handling of slopes
No idea what you mean, totally.
_dp_ wrote:support for bridges/tunnels
There is support for bridges/tunnels already.
_dp_ wrote:some alignment to other tracks
There is some alignment to other tracks already - following track will be aligned to previous track. Perhaps you thought of alignment to other tracks - HOW? I don't see how could it be done, how could it be useful.
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