Open Loco(motion)

[menosferato]

Hey guys,

I realy admire your work thoughout all this time, in this realy cool project. I'm addicted to this game since I 98 or 99 when I got this game for the first time in my hands.

I got a stupid question , since TTD's got a (not-so) new little brother, called Locomotion.
Is there any chance (maybe in a long future) to have an Open Locomotion engine version, since TTD's got a major upgrade in its graphics, sounds and stuff?

I know that probably a thousand people asked this before, so I appologize for the inconvinient.

Thanks for making another nerd happy (me, obviously).

[Rubidium]

It for sure will not going to be happening from my side and it probably requires a few years to disassemble and make something usefull out of the soup of machine code.

Furthermore I do not really think one can 'unite' TTD and Locomotion in one game, so it is kind of pointless for us to do.

[Guisseppe]

And why would you merge the two games?! I like (O)TTD because of it's simplicity (*couch couch*)
If you want to play Locomotion games, why don't you just play Locomotion?

[Bilbo]

There are other ways than disassembling - like making it from scratch. Though both are very lengthy and I doubt anybody here is willing to do either of these.

Still, what may happen is to import some features from locomotion - if there are reasonable features and you suggest them and/or write patch implementing them, perhps they can get into openttd. But OpenLocomotion? Nope, not very realistic.

[menosferato]

No problem
I was just wondering around this possibility.
I do really appreciate the simplicity of OpenTTD, and by now it's faaaar better than the original.

Never mind. I was just curious if you had any expectation about reverse engineering Locomotion.
By the way, the idea was not to merge those games into one, but to create a new OpenLoco.

Thanks!
Have a nice Christmas.

[Nemesis]

If the cities didn't grow that much and there were subsidies, I would like locomotion

[DaleStan]

and it probably requires a few years to disassemble and make something usefull out of the soup of machine code.

Not to mention that disassembly/reverse engineering is probably forbidden by the EULA.

Patch and Open both exist solely on the indulgence of an EULA that forgot to mention those restrictions.

[prissi]

If you want the graphics, I think this can be done either with the new OTTD engine or using simutrans in pak128 size. However, most of them are copyrighted and moreover both engines have only one diagonal graphic instead of 64 or so.

[offtopic]
However, Locomotion ist too easy and too much like a rollercoaster. I am no friend of the OTTD building system, but Locomotion is ridiculus. And most likely, the next freeware "clone" to be developed would be surely something "really" 3D and will suffer from at the beginning from bad and few graphics and (like Locomotion or Transport Giant too) from a bad game play. Or it would be just an extended OTTD or Simutrans or RailroadTycoon.

Since there are at least two decent clones on the open source market, extending them seems to me a more clever choice.
[/offtopic]

But no one stops you from extracting all locomotion graphics from the game, convert them to the OTTD 32Bit engine (or Simutrans) and use them there. THis would be perhaps two weeks work for your own pleasure but surely possible.

[athanasios]

And what about scale of Loco graphics? It is worse...

[Bilbo]

And what about scale of Loco graphics? It is worse...

You mean size of sprites? Locomotion have larger and more detailed sprites at max zoom .... but I don't think any import of locomotion graphics is going to ever happen (copyright issues ... )

[orudge]

It also has to be remembered that Locomotion is a much more recent game, still (reasonably) widely available to purchase, and reverse engineering that may cause Atari's legal nose to begin sniffing. We also don't have the "benefit" of the somewhat unclear ownership of TTD to "hide behind"...

[Bilbo]

I think biggest difference is that TTD authors forgot to forbid disassembling the binary in the EULA. Locomotion have this clause Still, it may be easier to get from OTTD as a starting point and modify the code so it'll behave the same as Locomotion (without actually disassembling it, just by observing the game). But I doubt anybody would want to do that.

[Youri219]

An EULA is not legally binding in many countries because, 1) they're shown after purchase instead of in advance, and 2) they use an highly unreliable form of electronic signature.

[athanasios]

Locomotion was supposed to be the next version of TTD.
Well, we allready have OpenTTD. Of what value would it be to create an OpenLoco?
We 'just' need to introduce the new features of Locomotion into OpenTTD (eg. curves, smooth slopes, higher tunnels, multilevel water) and of course avoid features that make gameplay worse.

regards
athanasios

[ostlandr]

The features I like in Locomotion (detailed locomotive animation and behavior, brake lights on road vehicles, the track building system) are far outweighed by the game's flaws. Locomotion is just annoying. OTTD is just fun.

Will OpenTTD ever grow to the point that 32BPP graphics will allow a graphics engine like Locomotion, curved tracks, another zoom level (closer) and details like turn signals and brake lights on road vehicles, etc? Only the Infinite knows for sure.

[Bilbo]

Curves, smooth slopes ... I think TTD-like railroad building system is better
Multilevel water - there is a deep water patch (unfinished) for openttd, so maybe we'll have it one day
Higher tunnels - what good are they for?

32bit bpp may bring nicer and more zoomable graphics (once someone will draw them), perhaps even brake lights, if someone programs that feature too :)

[belugas]

Will OpenTTD ever grow to the point that 32BPP graphics will allow a graphics engine like Locomotion, curved tracks

The current trunk and betas are already 32bpp aware and capable. It is up to the artistic community to bring on the new look. Maybe give them a hand?

[Gonozal_VIII]

curved tracks should be possible if the sprite is choosen based on the surrounding tiles but i guess that would require a lot more cpu time per tile
smooth slopes... i somehow don't like that, it may look better but it makes it harder to see the shape of the terrain and to place tracks

[belugas]

curved tracks should be possible if the sprite is choosen based on the surrounding tiles

And what about the engine's movment? It has to be changed too to adapt to the new design...

[Bilbo]

Will OpenTTD ever grow to the point that 32BPP graphics will allow a graphics engine like Locomotion, curved tracks

The current trunk and betas are already 32bpp aware and capable. It is up to the artistic community to bring on the new look. Maybe give them a hand?

Unfortunately, that requires some drawing or 3d modelling skill. Which unfortunately not everybody have. I tried personally to model a ship once, but the result was ... not very good. I guess number of people that are willing AND capable of helping (and have time to help) with 32bit graphics is very low (otherwise openttd would be 32bpp already :)