stations underground and on bridges

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andreasaspenberg
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stations underground and on bridges

Post by andreasaspenberg »

i live in norway, where we have a railroad that goes both low and high. there is stations in some tunnels. nasjonalteateret train station is located under the ground. some is also right outside a tunnel but, that is already possible to do. there is also stations located on bridges, like skøyen and lysaker. my suggestion is to add that possibility to the game.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by Taschi »

That suggestion has been made before many, many, many times and is not possible without a major rework of basically the entire game. It's about as likely to happen as a capital letter in one of your posts.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by andreasaspenberg »

well, i know a programmer. i am not going to give this up. i will let him look at the source code.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by Taschi »

andreasaspenberg wrote: 01 Aug 2021 19:58 well, i know a programmer. i am not going to give this up. i will let him look at the source code.
I am certain your friend will be delighted to spend the next couple of years completely redoing the entire game engine just because you want him to, presumably without pay.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by Hyronymus »

Taschi wrote: 01 Aug 2021 21:34
andreasaspenberg wrote: 01 Aug 2021 19:58 well, i know a programmer. i am not going to give this up. i will let him look at the source code.
I am certain your friend will be delighted to spend the next couple of years completely redoing the entire game engine just because you want him to, presumably without pay.
You are making a wrong assumption there Taschi, he said he would ask his friend to look at the source code. andreasaspenberg, please keep us informed on what your friend found out.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by Taschi »

Hyronymus wrote: 02 Aug 2021 06:14 You are making a wrong assumption there Taschi, he said he would ask his friend to look at the source code. andreasaspenberg, please keep us informed on what your friend found out.
He'll find out that it's basically impossible without a major rework of basically the entire game, as has been repeatedly stated by experienced OpenTTD devs.

And my point that you shouldn't use your IT-savvy friends as your personal slaves and expect them to do whatever IT-related thing for free still stands.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by kamnet »

You never know. Said IT friend could actually be a very wealthy developer of a distributed streaming music network who is now bored and has time on his hands to dabble in reverse engineering a beloved video game?
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by odisseus »

This has been implemented as a patch: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=85229
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by Taschi »

odisseus wrote: 04 Aug 2021 16:01 This has been implemented as a patch: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=85229
Well, it has been prototyped as a patch, with a significant list of limitations and with the huge caveat that there is no actual visual representation of the stations in-game. Bringing this patch to a degree of maturity with which it would be acceptable for mainline OpenTTD, a lot more would need to be done, including extensions to the NewGRF specification so that graphics could be provided for stations on bridges and in tunnels. Just having the entire bridge or tunnel be covered in station also feels to me like a fairly dirty hack that is maybe acceptable in a patch pack, but would definitely scream "look at how janky this game is" if it was included in mainline OpenTTD.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by andreasaspenberg »

at least that patch proves that it is possible. my suggestion to the developers is to look at how it is done and then try to add it to the game`s code.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by Eddi »

the usual programming approach is to look at how they did it, then throw it all away and redo it properly from scratch.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by Taschi »

andreasaspenberg wrote: 05 Aug 2021 23:37 at least that patch proves that it is possible. my suggestion to the developers is to look at how it is done and then try to add it to the game`s code.
You keep acting as if the OpenTTD devs are just a bunch of morons who do not understand the game well enough to implement your very easy and well-thought-out ideas. And you also seem to be utterly clueless about how software development works.

I have already explained that this patch only contains a very small fraction of the work that would need to be done in order to implement this feature with high enough quality for it to be possibly accepted into OpenTTD. The emphasis being on "work". OpenTTD is developed by people who probably have day jobs, in their spare time, for free. They have limited time at their disposal. That means a large change like stations on bridges or in tunnels could keep the dev team occupied for a very long time.

But you're a smart person with a lot of free time, so why don't you learn C++ and implement it yourself?
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by GarryG »

andreasaspenberg wrote: 01 Aug 2021 19:07 i live in norway, where we have a railroad that goes both low and high. there is stations in some tunnels. nasjonalteateret train station is located under the ground. some is also right outside a tunnel but, that is already possible to do. there is also stations located on bridges, like skøyen and lysaker. my suggestion is to add that possibility to the game.
The only way I know for a station to be on a bridge is with optical allusion. Quast65 made up a tutorial on making stations in NFO. The tutorial is over on Simuscape at
http://www.simuscape.net/simutalk/viewt ... f=85&t=859

The section
Stations with custom foundations:
http://www.simuscape.net/simutalk/viewt ... 609#p12609
Shows how to place a station on a slope and the foundation can draw in what you like to represent a bridge if like.

Hope that might help.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by andreasaspenberg »

i am not a programmer and that means that i am already out. programmers will not teach other programmers how to do stuff, because they are fiercly protective of their code. i can as a result not learn programming. developers is smart but, sometimes stubborn and do not want to add certain ideas.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by Taschi »

andreasaspenberg wrote: 10 Aug 2021 19:07 programmers will not teach other programmers how to do stuff, because they are fiercly protective of their code.
This is a blatant lie. It is especially ludicrous on an open-source project, where the code is literally available to the public and everybody is allowed to change it.
i can as a result not learn programming.
Do you want to know how I learned the secret art of programming?

I read a book. And then, I spent years programming as a hobby, and ultimately ended up working in corporate IT, which is an environment which keeps me, as well as my coworkers, constantly learning new stuff, often from one another.

My local library has a full shelf of them. You can also pick up a variety of them for ~50€ on Amazon, or find a variety of free tutorials and e-books online. For example, you could buy this one, by the creator of C++ himself: https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp-B00DUW4B ... 1628625230 (It's not entirely up-to-date but should still be fine).

If you do not have the skills necessary for programming - fine.
If you do not want to learn programming because it's too hard - fine, but in that case don't pretend some evil gatekeepers won't let you. Admit you just don't want to.

And if you can't even be bothered to show some basic respect for programmers, well - they'll just stop taking you seriously sooner or later.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by kamnet »

andreasaspenberg wrote: 10 Aug 2021 19:07 i am not a programmer and that means that i am already out. programmers will not teach other programmers how to do stuff, because they are fiercly protective of their code. i can as a result not learn programming. developers is smart but, sometimes stubborn and do not want to add certain ideas.
You're only out if you choose to be out. There are tons of resources where you can teach yourself how to become a programmer, many of them free. Specifically within the OpenTTD community most of the people who are creating NewGRFs and contributing patches are openly publishing their code and helping other people understand it and implement ideas into their own projects.

But, nobody is going to hand you things on a silver platter, as some before you have found. You have to be willing to be educated and have a desire to do the work. Nobody is going to waste their time on somebody who won't listen.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by GarryG »

andreasaspenberg wrote: 10 Aug 2021 19:07 i am not a programmer and that means that i am already out. programmers will not teach other programmers how to do stuff, because they are fiercly protective of their code. i can as a result not learn programming. developers is smart but, sometimes stubborn and do not want to add certain ideas.
I agree with Taschi and kamnet. There maybe a few programs like to keep their stuff personal. But the majority will help.
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Auz Industry Sets: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=74471
Auz Objects: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=75657
Auz Bridges: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=75248
Auz Stations: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=76390
Auz Tracks: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=82691
Auz Subway Stations: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=85335
Auz Eyecandy TramTracks: viewtopic.php?t=89908
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by TopTechDreamer »

odisseus wrote: 04 Aug 2021 16:01 This has been implemented as a patch: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=85229
Thank You for remembering! :)

There is significantly more comfortable release of "TopTechDreams patchpack" with handy support of the User Interface (UI) and short descriptions "How to use?" - viewtopic.php?f=32&t=85845

There are not too many limitations now:
- 0-station (the very first station) - One need to use not "Go to..."-orders, but "Go non-stop to..."-orders.
- In some (few) cases of layout of platforms path signals don't work correctly, so player can use pre-signals instead of path signals in some such cases.
- One need to use waypoints and buoyes in some cases.

Yes, there is no new graphics for bridge-platforms and tunnel-platforms. So bridge-platforms look "not very realistic", but... tunnel-platforms look OK. And, it is simply to see, where trains stop and show their percentage of load - even on static screenshots it is easy to see this. This information is also available via button [ ? ] (Information) in UI.
To add special graphics for tunnel-platforms and bridge-platforms seems to be easy enough (for those, who knows well how the OpenTTD graphics works), because there is full information about these objects: which tunnels or bridges are platforms and which are not. But I have no experience with OpenTTD graphics and have no time to study it yet.

It seems, that OpenTTD Developers have no interest (or have other reasons) why they don't want to (or can not) do anything with this patch, in particular, with special graphics for it (water tunnels are here too).

So... I play with this release of "TopTechDreams patchpack" last 2 years (having almost no free time for this) and I like how it works (it seems very stable and handy).
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by Taschi »

In my opinion, every single one of the "not too many" restrictions you've listed is in fact "too many". The acceptable amount of known significant bugs is zero.

Again, it's a nice prototype. But it's not a complete, high-quality, bug-free patch which the devs could just merge into their code. My gut feeling says that you have done 20 percent of the work necessary for actually making this feature work at best.

Same goes for the water-tunnel. Jank like building railway tunnels in order to make a canal tunnel magically appear is not acceptable by any reasonable standard of UX design and including it in OpenTTD in that state would significantly reduce the perceived quality of OpenTTD as a game. You can get away with that in a patchpack catering to a very small community of hardcore fans who are willing to put up with this jank, but you can't expect a casual user to put up with it as well.
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Re: stations underground and on bridges

Post by TopTechDreamer »

andreasaspenberg wrote: 01 Aug 2021 19:07 i live in norway, where we have a railroad that goes both low and high. there is stations in some tunnels. nasjonalteateret train station is located under the ground. some is also right outside a tunnel but, that is already possible to do. there is also stations located on bridges, like skøyen and lysaker. my suggestion is to add that possibility to the game.
Taschi wrote: 01 Aug 2021 19:17 That suggestion has been made before many, many, many times and is not possible without a major rework of basically the entire game. It's about as likely to happen as a capital letter in one of your posts.
- Is this true? - No.
odisseus wrote: 04 Aug 2021 16:01 This has been implemented as a patch: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=85229
- Is this true? - Yes.
TopTechDreamer wrote: 11 Aug 2021 01:42 There is significantly more comfortable release of "TopTechDreams patchpack" with handy support of the User Interface (UI) and short descriptions "How to use?" - viewtopic.php?f=32&t=85845
- Is this true? - Yes.
Taschi wrote: 11 Aug 2021 09:55 In my opinion, every single one of the "not too many" restrictions you've listed is in fact "too many". The acceptable amount of known significant bugs is zero.
...
Same goes for the water-tunnel. Jank like building railway tunnels in order to make a canal tunnel magically appear is not acceptable by any reasonable standard of UX design and including it in OpenTTD in that state would significantly reduce the perceived quality of OpenTTD as a game. You can get away with that in a patchpack catering to a very small community of hardcore fans who are willing to put up with this jank, but you can't expect a casual user to put up with it as well.
If You don't like railway-tunnels for ships (me too), then just don't use them - convert them to the ship-depot-like-water-tunnels with 2-tiles-long tunnel entries.
Which restriction is more strong: A) to have a possibility to use a tunnel as a platform (or its part) with need to use "Go non-stop to..."-orders and waypoints or B) to don't have any such possibility?
This release of "TopTechDreams patchpack" doesn't pretend to replace main official trunc or JGR's pp or some else version of this great game - it just provides the possibilities, which are requested in the title post of this topic.
- Does this release provide these possibilities? - Yes.

I play this game with this release and it works acceptable, on my opinion.

andreasaspenberg, did You play with this patchpack?

Who have experience of playing with this release of "TopTechDreams patchpack"?
Could you tell your opinion: does it provide its declared possibilities?

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