Heavy Equipment Set (HEQS) v1.5.2 released! [OTTD]

[andythenorth]

HEQS "Heavy Equipment" Set - giant trucks and much more for OpenTTD


Changes in recent releases

*version 1.5.2*
Fix: mining trucks now refit to clay (Eddi)

*version 1.5.1*

• Adjust speed of some trams from 17mph to 20mph for better game balance.
• Increased costs of Afonside tram for better game balance.
• Increased loading speed of Dynamo tram a litle.
• Fix potential source of OpenTTD crash by disabling auto-refit for trams that can change length.
• Fix Dynamo tram showing no wagon graphics for some cargos.
• Fix railmotor trams were not loading; railmotor trams were incorrectly refitting to PAX in some cases.

*version 1.5.0*

• Added Chemnitz 0-6-0 tram (steam tram, available 1880). Graphics: DanMacK.
• Added Afonside 0-6-6-0 tram (steam tram, available 1885). Graphics: DanMacK+
• Added Kassel 0-8-0 tram (steam tram, available 1898). Graphics: DanMacK.
• Tweaked the intro dates and other properties of some trams for game balance.
• Enhanced cargo graphic support for trams (steel, paper, lumber).
• Enable auto-refit compatibility for most vehicles.
• Improved order of buy menu when sorted by ID.
• Fix display of capacity in buy menu for trams.
• Fix tractive effort for Dynamo tram to reflect that trailers are powered.
• Fix articulated mining trucks showing wrong sprites for cargos (e.g. clay).
• Fix some trams were using wrong sprites for some angles.
• Fix Ishizuchi tram was way too cheap to buy.
• Lots of internal changes to make HEQS easier to maintain, and prepare for grfv8.

*version 1.4.1*

• Fix Dynamo tram being unable to load any cargo into first vehicle.
• Fix unwanted extra refits in trams.
• Remove code that showed correct capacity for trams in buy menu, but caused extra refits to appear.
• Unified all cargo subtypes for trams ('short', 'medium', 'long') - helps auto-replace do a better job.

*version 1.4.0*

• Added Dynamo express cargo tram (electric tram, available 2009). 60t-225t capacity.
• Added Mackenzie Logging truck (available 1992). 141t capacity.
• Adjusted Yonkers Railmotor intro date to 1875 for game balance reasons.
• Added better readme text, for use with in-game readme display feature.
• Fix buy menu display of capacity and costs for trams that refit to different capacities.
• Fix missing log loads for some tram wagons.
• Fix to Winterthur railmotor - using wrong sprite for | direction.
• Fix to colour of headlights for all vehicles.
• Fix incorrect use of text IDs for trams, was causing errors to be reported in recent version of OTTD.
• Fix lighting for Gmund Mog, all trams - was shaded with light from 2 o'clock, should be from approx 5 o'clock.
• Fix log trucks showing unneeded model year in buy menu.
• Changed all pcx files to png, makes no difference in game, but easier to work with.

*version 1.3.0*

• Added Winterthur Railmotor (electric tram, available 1912). 2t capacity.
• Added Port Jack Railmotor (electric tram, available 1926). 9t capacity.
• Reduced default running costs by 50% for better gameplay balance.
• Improve support for ECS limestone cargo.
• Fix date bug with Forklift.
• Fix Yonkers Railmotor was in wrong vehicle group (newgrf parameters).

*version 1.2.0*

• Added Williamette Forklift (available 1936). 1t, intended for feeder service (by request of Eddi).
• Added Yonkers Railmotor (steam tram, available 1890). Great for delivering FIRS Supplies.
• Improved various tram texts.
• Small adjustment to 45t Dorstfeld Tram running costs for fairness.
• Reduced tram lifespan a bit for game balance.
• Fix to some tram lengths to prevent weird appearance when queuing (patched by Eddi).
• Czech and Dutch translations for parameter menus.

HEQS Features

• Vehicles in a range of sizes from 2t to 390t
• Nine enormous dump trucks (first one available around 1955)
• Two awesome log trucks (available around 1972)
• Ten powerful tractors and bulldozers (first one available around 1937)
• Two brawny Foundry Transporters (first one available around 1967)
• One handy hi-rail shunter (available around 1958)
• Three industrial trams (first one available around 1902)
• Full support for company colours
• Compatible with all industry sets / cargos

Development thread.

Get HEQS latest release!
Download location >> http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/heqs/releases/LATEST/
Also available on Bananas (in-game content download)

Four mining trucks, one tractor, two bulldozers - and there are more waiting in the set for you ;)

heqs_large.png (40.19 KiB) Viewed 108116 times

The shiny HEQS user guide

readme.pdf

(273.34 KiB) Downloaded 4244 times

------------------------------------------------
HEQS code & graphics repository
http://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/heqs
HEQS is licensed under the GPL and can be modified or reused freely within the terms of the GPL license.
Repository includes fully commented NFO files. I hope this helps other people learn how to code newgrf sets
Nightly builds: http://mz.openttdcoop.org/bundles/heqs/nightlies/

[andythenorth]

Vehicles included in HEQS 1.4.0 (there are more in 1.5.0 but I'm too lazy to screenshot)

[Niek]

I didn't read your entire post, but I think they look fantastic. I don't think they look too realistic, they'd match very well with the bigger trainsets.

[andythenorth]

Another quick one, Foremost Delta with flat deck:

delta_04.png (2.61 KiB) Viewed 121581 times

• Could really do with more height, these are strictly within the bounding boxes from Purno, but it's a tall vehicle and it's not going to look right in the default max dimensions. How are double decker-buses done in other sets?
• Cab isn't right, and shading is just done very quickly. This is about an hour's work. Another hour would fix it up I think.

Obligatory teaser (it's a mockup): couple of deltas haul wood out of the forest. Slow on the road (21mph), but they can go where few others can.

delta_teaser.png (6.69 KiB) Viewed 121575 times

(Wood load borrowed from GRVTS)

[andythenorth]

It's freeze-up in the oilpatch: a Delta heads into the lease from Corner Brook, while another one unloads at the rig. In town, the ADT driver might be in the pub.

delta_teaser_2.png (107.35 KiB) Viewed 121922 times

[Zephyris]

Mmm, nice stuff! Keep up the good work and I'm sure someone will want to help coding, possible even me! To get people interested in coding it would be good if you could make a table of the vehicle statistics and a proper tracking table so a grf can be planned out - the road vehicle IDs are very limited, it may have to rely on the vehicle pool.

The graphics so far are excellent, but I would recommend using the company colours (and preferably dual company colours) - a player will always have the option of choosing a "realistic yellow" if they want, but for casual players company colours make things a lot clearer. Feel free to recycle my sprites, especially the cargoes if you want a consistent look with the GRVTS.

[Toni Babelony]

Wonderful! I'm especially looking forward to the heavy mining truck This would work out very nice in a dense industrial area where there is no place for a large railway station at the sight.

As a realistic player I have no choice other than supporting this set.

[andythenorth]

...I'm sure someone will want to help coding, possible even me! To get people interested in coding it would be good if you could make a table of the vehicle statistics and a proper tracking table so a grf can be planned out

Okay, can do. Would be great if you were prepared to code. GRVTS is a very coherent and functional set, and I'd be looking for something similar with these.

...the road vehicle IDs are very limited, it may have to rely on the vehicle pool.

I figured that would be the case. I was going to start drawing this a year ago, but didn't see how IDs would be made available - and it's intended as an add-on pack of specialised equipment, not a full RV pack, so would have a been a flawed set of limited use. Hopefully engine pool will make that a non-issue.

...I would recommend using the company colours (and preferably dual company colours) - a player will always have the option of choosing a "realistic yellow" if they want, but for casual players company colours make things a lot clearer.

Okay I think I agree - most of the vehicles don't have livery as such, they are mostly just yellow in real life. So company colours would work well (they could just be green, red etc, it would be fine).

The only reason I am reluctant on this is that it's nice eye-candy to have vehicles in the same company with different colours - especially with a realistic trainset like CanSet.

I was thinking about doing it like PlaneSet where the choice of company colours or real livery is random on build. I like having that choice but it can also be frustrating in the game.

Another option is to have full company colours for some vehicles and then use those colours in patches on some yellow vehicles - similar to how ISR does company colours on buildings.

Either way I want to keep it simple to code and draw to get a release of the set done.

Feel free to recycle my sprites, especially the cargoes if you want a consistent look with the GRVTS.

Thanks, I will do that, it will help a lot. I'm going to ask about permission to use some of the ISR cargoes as well, some more really nice graphics there.

Zephyris - do you have any advice on bounding box sizes? How did you do double-decker vehicles? Do they go outside the box from Purno's tutorial?

ttd_bounding_box.png (537 Bytes) Viewed 121366 times

[Ameecher]

Double decker vehicles you just make taller. The bounding box can be enlargened in the .grf which is why LV4 can get away with such ridiculously huge vehicles which cause graphical errors at places like truck stops.
When I drew the double decker trams for the UK tram set I just made the tram a few pixels taller and when it came to coding the bounding box was increased to fit the tram.
To put it simply, just draw it, as long as all the views are in proportion with one another and all the vehicles in the set are in proportion, there shouldn't be an issue*

*Trying to get proportion between different transport types will be a waste of time.

[andythenorth]

To put it simply, just draw it, as long as all the views are in proportion with one another and all the vehicles in the set are in proportion, there shouldn't be an issue

Thanks - that is all very helpful.

[Zephyris]

Zephyris - do you have any advice on bounding box sizes? How did you do double-decker vehicles? Do they go outside the box from Purno's tutorial?

Try decoding GRVTS to get the sprite sizes and offsets I used for double deckers - they clip a bit going under tunnels, but generally work quite well.

[Kickme93]

I must say I like these vehicles... Good work

[STT Transport]

Wow they realy looking good:P
Go on!

[andythenorth]

Try decoding GRVTS to get the sprite sizes and offsets I used for double deckers - they clip a bit going under tunnels, but generally work quite well.

Thanks for the tip. I'm using OS X, so I think decoding grfs will involve a whole world of either compiling GRFCodec from source, or installing Windows on a VMWare image. One day I might do that, but that sounds like my day job, so for now I'm sticking to drawing. I'm going to use your double-deck sprites as a max height guide if that's ok - I can get them from the GRVTS thread.

cheers,

Andy

[Zephyris]

Enjoy...

[andythenorth]

Enjoy...

Ooh nice one, thanks.

[Pingaware]

Those sprites really do look good. I'd support the set simply because it's something completely different.

[andythenorth]

Mining truck:

mining_truck_02.png (2.88 KiB) Viewed 121134 times

This one is tricky: the truck needs to look big, but within sensible dimensions for OTTD. It's not supposed to be enormous (50t payload - not big for a mining truck), but it definitely needs to look chunky.
I am happy with it for a quick sketch, but might need more work to fit in with GRVTS: either redrawn to be a bit more dinky and in scale, or a bigger sprite - but that will need to be wider, probably cause clipping issues?

Teaser: mining trucks haul to the lakeside where an ore barge will pickup for the mills on the north shore. Two SD40s leave the yard with heavy flat cars, having just dropped more high-wide machinery loads for the mine (new trucks?)

mining_truck_teaser.png (68.38 KiB) Viewed 121224 times

[Zephyris]

Wider is probably less of a problem than taller, give it a go!

[andythenorth]

Wider is probably less of a problem than taller, give it a go!

Hmm they've got to be able to pass each other without looking like they should crash. I might mod the existing sprite to look like a 35 ton truck, and grab a few extra pixels for a bigger 50 ton version. But not until tomorrow!