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!