Transport Tycoon Forums

NekoMaster wrote:Whats that GRF there? I can see theres different types of roads there. Is there some where it can be downloaded from?

Unspooled, still in development, not officially released. You can find version 0.1.0 in my development thread: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=75986

So I finally tried compiling a grf using the nml fork linked to in the first post, but it throws an error about missing python33.dll. Any idea if that's something that should be included in the nml zip package or is that something separate?

Andrew350 wrote:So I finally tried compiling a grf using the nml fork linked to in the first post, but it throws an error about missing python33.dll. Any idea if that's something that should be included in the nml zip package or is that something separate?

Your probably missing a library necessary for compiling

Apparently I put "python3.dll" instead of "python33.dll" into the package.
You could also have gotten it from a regular NML package, but I updated the package nevertheless:
http://devs.openttd.org/~frosch/nml-nrt ... -win32.zip

Have fun!

Thanks frosch, it works now

First of all, I would like (again) to express my congratulations and gratitude for the stunning work that is done on the development of NRT!!
With great interest I have read the several discussions about it (not just in this thread, but also the interesting Wikipage: https://wiki.openttd.org/Frosch/NotRoadTypes ) and the possibilities it offers. Those have given me some insight in how roadtypes and tramtypes work and how the two interact.

Most of those discussions are about functional things, like various speedlimits and (dis)allowing certain types of vehicles on a road/tramway.
I would like to discuss the possible options it has in my opinion regarding eyecandy, mainly roadsides.

I was not aware yet about how tramways worked related to roads (developing roadtypes is not really my thing, I am more of a station/object-guy ), but reading up on all of this (and discussing it a bit in another thread) I kind of get it. Correct me if I am wrong, but I see it as a sort of overlay, that works on its own, but gets really interesting (at least for me ) in combination with roads. Because the thing that really excites me is that it may offer some nice eyecandy options.
For the moment I would like to discuss what probably is already possible in the current setup of NRT, later on I would like to suggest something that may not be possible or not interesting enough to develop, but that is for later on in this post
So, what I think should be possible are tramtypes that just offer eyecandy for the roadsides, different pavements, parkingspots, bikelanes, trees, lights, etc, etc. These can be drawn in the graphicssprites reserved for the catenary (note that a GRF-dev can still add the catenary, if he/she chooses this eyecandy-tramtype to still be usable for trams). Why there? Well, because those sprites have front and back options, so that there are no strange graphical errors when a RV drives through. The track_overlay sprites could be used to add dirt/grime/wear or different roadmarkings to a roadtype and the underlay (for example drawn as a concrete or tarmac slab) can offcourse be used to make this eyecandy not look strange when not used in combination with a road (parkingspots on the sides of a grass lane may look silly ). I am also very happy that there are separate sprites for bridges and tunnels, that way you wont get parkingspots on a bridge, thanks for implementing those!
By placing this eyecandy in the tramway-slots I think one can add a lot of variety to a single roadtype. I know its not very functional, but eyecandy is the most important reason for me to play this game (and also develop GRFs for it).

There is one thing though that conflicts with the above, and that is the base roadfurniture that you get in the various townzones (trees and lights).
AFAIK, at the moment, a flag for disabling those per road/tramtype is still in development or being considered, is that correct? If so, I would really applaud this feature being introduced!

Now, the thing I would like to suggest and discuss....
All of the above could be considered as a hack of the current possibilities of tramways in NRT, a much tidier solution would be the introduction of a third type, just for the eyecandypurpose I described above. Making it clearer for a player that that type is less functional, but more for making things look even nicer. Is this possible at all? And if hypothetically possible, what consequences would it have for the available slots? Something I understood from a discussion elsewhere is that the 15 tramslots and 15 roadslots (= 30 slots total) currently available should then be divided over all the slots if more types are introduced. Is that the case? If so, could that differ per GRF? So lets say one GRF chooses to only offer tram- and roadtypes (so 15 slots per type), but another GRF offers to also include an eyecandy-type (so then 10 slots per type).

So, to summarise:
- Would the tramway "hack" work?
- Are there plans to implement a flag that disables base roadfurniture? If so, what is the current state of that development?
- Is it possible at all to introduce more types than tramtypes and roadtypes?

Finally, I would like to state that I am a total novice regarding tram/roadtypes, maybe everything I mentioned above is a load of nonsense, but I wanted at least to describe my vision of what I think may be possible.
Keep up the great work and I hope NRT will be developed enough for it to be added to trunk!

I'll just nod along with Quast's post And yes, great work! This is at least as good as more height levels and cargo distribution. RVs deserve the love!

On a side note; since people relatively frequently ask for subways, has anyone considered making a fake-subway with NRT? Kinda draw it like the Japanese stations: but maybe with a flat surface (or houses or something) on top, so it'll look like more like a proper subway. I'm probably disregarding a million problems with that, but eh, thought I'd throw the idea out there...

Pyoro wrote:I'll just nod along with Quast's post And yes, great work! This is at least as good as more height levels and cargo distribution. RVs deserve the love!

On a side note; since people relatively frequently ask for subways, has anyone considered making a fake-subway with NRT? Kinda draw it like the Japanese stations:
subsub.png
but maybe with a flat surface (or houses or something) on top, so it'll look like more like a proper subway. I'm probably disregarding a million problems with that, but eh, thought I'd throw the idea out there...

Don't know if anyone has thought about it, but it is more or less possible by using the catenary sprites. If you use this for a tramway, however, you will still be able to build road over it - and if that road has a different catenary, the road catenary will be drawn instead.

Other than that, sounds like an interesting niche concept, so I'd encourage anyone to go ahead and try it.

Fully covered roads/tramways! Now, that is another interesting thought!
I can see the advantages with regard to normal tunnels:
- No need to set the "tunnels can cross each other" option to ON (if you previously wanted to use tunnels to create an "underground" network)
- You can have not only crossings, but also bends and T-sections, this is not possible using tunnels
- RVs can overtake
- Stops can be placed
- Not sure about this, depends on the possibility of houses to still be built next to a road that is one level lower, but if so, houses will be built next to it, where they certainly wouldnt next to a tunnel

A problem could be with normal bridges, but that depends if it is possible to have a flag that either dissallows bridges over this type, or (also) only allow bridges of a certain hight...

Another problem could be linking these to a tunnel, but maybe that can be solved by the graphicsprites available for tunnels.... That would need testing...

Again, a very interesting idea to think about!

The advantage of trams compared to trains is that they can be built on top of road networks, thus avoiding having to destroy sizeable real estate in town buildings and town roads to construct the network. Subway trains using tunnels and surface stations one level below cities also avoid this to an extent, but significantly less so than tram networks (although they do have their advantages over trams).

This is pretty much why fake subways using transparent articulated RVs or trams (ideally with some form of variable length variety) work, because they can run on existing town roads and don't need any building destruction aside from that which might be required to build additional roads.

NRT fake subways could depart from this altogether if they required destroying buildings or town roads to create a network, depending on how they're thought out, at which point they would no longer be as tidy as the previous solution. In fact, they would even be less efficient than the rails and tunnels solution.

I think the biggest advantages of employing NRT to this end are a) configuring subways as a tramtype and using transparent tram track sprites, to avoid "weirdness" from subways behaving like RVs, but also to avoid being forced to lay down "surface" tracks for "underground" vehicles (as with the Fake Subways NewGRF), and b) to potentially make use of any future implementations of independent movement to prevent subway trams and other vehicles from impeding each other.

However, any solution which requires an exclusive, landscape/building/etc.-covered subway-only tramtype to be used without combining it with roads, which would involve bulldozing lines of town buildings or town roads, seems rather unappealing to me outside of niche cases. If we are able to combine these with roads to allow RVs to share the infrastructure, then that's certainly different (not being able to use other trams in the subway tram tracks feels like a reasonable compromise here), but otherwise, not so much, and if covers are used, especially buildings, I'm not even sure how that would work.

Will the pathfinder favor higher-speed roads to save time or pick shortest route?

alluke wrote:Will the pathfinder favor higher-speed roads to save time or pick shortest route?

I dunno if it does, but I try to nudge vehicles in the right direction by having them goto stops that would point them towards higher speed roads.

Simplest test I can think of shows that pathfinder does not care about speed limit - fast truck takes direct gravel road over slightly indirect highway.

I believe trains work the same way. Personally I don't have much problem with this, as I'd prefer for now to build Highways more direct than country roads anyway, and the micromanage the weird cases as they arise. I also do not want slow city buses clogging up the highway ring road either.

supermop wrote:I believe trains work the same way.

At least with simple cases they don't. They'll use the fastest route, not the shortest. Don't know whether they calculate the entire route in advance or just the next routing points or something, but they can pick between faster and slower tracks, and it even matters whether the train actually can make use of the faster track speeds.

At least so far as I observed ^^;

€: the hill might matter in your example, although I don't know whether it does

The pathfinder only knows about bridge and rail speed limits at present.
If you implement getting the road speed limit in GetSpeedLimit in src/pathfinder/follow_track.hpp it should work correctly with YAPF.

STD wrote:And you can create one-way paths for electrified tracks? That it was in real life. Everywhere can't be a two-way electrified track. When, for example, the tram takes place on the ring or going on the road with one-way or-two-way traffic.

that would need more flexible placing of trackbits on tiles, because currently you can only set full tiles as one-way, so it would always look ugly at crossings.

Similarly, the question on roads: is it possible for OpenTTD to create a road with one lane? For example, the roads at interchanges

not really, you would need state machines for proper unramps/intersections

both of these things are out of scope for this patch

Well, this is a great work!
I liek to see more diversity added, and finally, it (will, as they do not yet) make sense to have tramways before 1900, as we can have horse drawn/steam/fireless trams, on rails without catenaries.

I like the idea of trolleybusses. I'm sure we'll see a load of trolley-things when this mod will be popular enough or integrated into the official OTTD, as they were and still are lots of trolleybusses and trolleytrucks in Eastern Europe.

http://englishrussia.com/2009/02/25/vin ... tro-buses/
http://englishrussia.com/2007/03/05/ele ... in-russia/

Plus, trolleybusses are coming back now.

While playing (with the TrolleyBi GRF to enjoy the new features!) I noticed something.
I guess it's a game limitation more than anything, but It still annoyed me one bit. Or maybe it's a bug on my end.

What I saw is that electrified roads cannot be put over municipality roads, like tramway lines can be.

As a result, instead of just putting the road down, I need to remove the road first (which anger the municipality, of course).
And that works for electric tramways, too, if the road underneath the tramway line belong to the municipality, the trolleys won't set a tire on it (but the trams do fine).
Once the road is replaced, the trolleys can use the tramway lines, which is cool, and IMO a great idea. I mean, sure, Road Hog (and HEQS ) provide excellent heavy load tramways, but using trucks for cargo that isn't goods and mail feel a bit odd.
Just a personnal opinion, tho. Having long stretches of tramway lines in the countryside feeels a bit odd. I guess you can pretend they are narrow gauge trains, but it's a bit off

Anyway, I hope to see more of if soon. Maybe dirt roads for tractors and other slow vehicles? But what I look for the most are more tramways and trolley vehicles

The bug you discovered is due to the fact, that the electrified road is another road type than the municipal road.
Tram tracks work well, because they are considered another layer on top of the road, and therefore work with every road type underneath.

I think it should at least be legal to replace ROAD with ELRD (electrified) road and vice versa, without the municipality be angered.
Though this might sound easier than it actually is

Lesarthois wrote:Anyway, I hope to see more of if soon. Maybe dirt roads for tractors and other slow vehicles? But what I look for the most are more tramways and trolley vehicles

You could take a look at the CountryRoad NewGRF

Thanks for the link ^^

I guess the trouble is that if someone make the trolley line a layer atop of the road, then trolleys could drive on grass, or that road might not be considered as standard road and standard vehicles couldn't drive on it?

Would there be a way to have trams render after the catenary, so you can have an elevated track with road vehicles under the tram track and the trams on top?

If at all possible, it could also be tackled by putting an extra (optional) overlay between the tram and the road vehicle.