Patch: Grass growth on unused tracks

[Reto]

Hehe, congrats! Buy him/her a model train for his/her 5th birthday or so .

Good to hear that I didn't do the grf thing completely wrong . How much work would it be to add aging for mono and maglev? Just creating the graphics?

[boekabart]

Hehe, congrats! Buy him/her a model train for his/her 5th birthday or so .

Don't worry, I will. And sooner too

Good to hear that I didn't do the grf thing completely wrong . How much work would it be to add aging for mono and maglev? Just creating the graphics?

Yep, just the graphics. And using an extra offset for the sprites of course.

[Roujin]

Out of request, I've rediffed this patch(v9) for 0.6.0.

Some minor tweaks were needed due to changes in trunk.

[Da Bear]

How about a patch like this, but for company-owned roads? Roads built by companies but not used will degenerate with grass growing on it, and the tarmac will fracture(? cracks in it). And if someone desides to run RV's on them the speed is heavily reduced, hence having to replace the road.
Town owned roads should not be affected since the authority maintain them.

[zypa]

If a road is not used it will degenerate? That is not that logic, is it?

[athanasios]

It is! (no maintenance)

[zypa]

There is no maintenance for tracks in the game at all.
A tracks isn't maintained if several vehicles use it.

[DeletedUser21]

Wasn't there an idea like this:

Feature: Unused tracks are degenerating.
Feature: Degenerative tracks have new graphics.
Feature: Trains running over degenerative tracks are getting brakedowns much faster.
New vehicle: Rail maintenance wagon. This wagon can repair degenerative tracks.

Or something?

[VoxDissident]

Does the grass growth affect train speed / acceleration?

[boekabart]

Does the grass growth affect train speed / acceleration?

No, the way I implemented it it's purely eyecandy; But it also gives some information on track usage that may help you optimize your network.

[zypa]

Wasn't there an idea like this:

Feature: Unused tracks are degenerating.
Feature: Degenerative tracks have new graphics.
Feature: Trains running over degenerative tracks are getting brakedowns much faster.
New vehicle: Rail maintenance wagon. This wagon can repair degenerative tracks.

Or something?

Oh, I've never herad of that feature. I personally do not really like it, because I do not understand why unused tracks are degenerating.
I do really love the grassgrowth eyecandy-feature. Flora takes the railtracks - OK. But unused tracks degenerarte? What can happen to a track when it is not used? It may oxygenate, but you use quite good steel for rail tracks.
See this picture: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image ... uselang=en
It's a railtrack from 1886, it's a bit rusty, but it's OK.

However, new features are always good

[DaleStan]

If by "degenerative tracks", you (for whichever value of "you" applies) mean "tracks that have rusted out", that doesn't happen. Rail tracks are made of weathering steel. Unlike most other rusts, the rust surface on weathering steel is non-porous, and seals out moisture to prevent any further rusting.

[zypa]

These protective oxides are really thin. You can destroythis sealing with a sharp object. At least on metals or alloys I know.
I do not think that there can be a protective oxid on a steel that can stand the power of a train running above it. I guess it's

To the sealing: "...seals out moisture..."
The clue is that is seals out Oxygen _and_ reduces the conductivity of the material. That prevents a further oxygenerating.

Anyway, oxigenerating is not the problem of a track. A heavy used track has be replaced by a new one within 35 years. It's simply bust.
(Savety issues, temperature expression, whatever)

Last but not least: What's a weathering steel?
I know stainless steels, I guess weathering means sth like weather proof, doesn't it?

[DaleStan]

These protective oxides are really thin. You can destroythis sealing with a sharp object. At least on metals or alloys I know.
I do not think that there can be a protective oxid on a steel that can stand the power of a train running above it.

Correct; trains will polish their rails quite quickly. But rail companies here in the US replace the rails after every billion tons of freight. This is nearly long enough for the rail head to lose any significant strength, regardless of usage; unused rails rust a little and the quit rusting, and well-used rails are replaced regularly.

What's a weathering steel?

Exactly what Wikipedia says it is.

[_Robbie_]

So basically - more used tracks have higher maintenance cost. I can't say I'm surprised . BTW - I believe it would be quite a good idea to introduce maintenance cost for tracks depending on their usage. Suddenly, it would be harder to make income from huge train networks with lots of trains. This would lead to smaller, more realistic networks. Maybe I'll try to write a patch someday ?

[broodje]

Where balance is everything, because having large un-used sections of track also cost a lot of money: Point motors, signals OHLE etc all have to be maintained, making them ready for trains again after years of bad maintenance cost even more.

[zypa]

Let's come back to the tiopic. Grassgrowth on unused tracks. (In particular DaleStun and I should come back to the topic)

@boekabart:
Is it possible to add an option so maintaining tracks costs some money? The more grassgrowth the lower the costs.

[prissi]

(Semiontopic only) How roads would look after many years without neither maintenance nor traffic, can be seen be the famous kiddofspeed chernobyl expeditions. http://www.kiddofspeed.com/ Indeed, mostly heavy trucks eat up our roads.

[Anunnaki]

Out of request, I've rediffed this patch(v9) for 0.6.0.

Some minor tweaks were needed due to changes in trunk.

Hi,

i have problem to patch svn trunk r12543 (which is i hope 0.6.0) with your file, i use windows tortoise 1.4.8.
I have error message "outdated" in 4 from 5 files there.

Can you help me with that ?

[Rubidium]

trunk r<something> is NEVER a release. Release are tags where the revision doesn't matter; there will be only one tag of each release and no different versions of a single release.