Transport Tycoon Forums

I would like to use this thread to discuss all railroad related topics. How to build up rail networks, how to do the signaling, set up timetables, pathfinding, shunting and so on.

At the moment there are following track modules available (also see following post showing the available switches). Do you miss any?

//edit: note to myself: add tunnels and bridges

I know you're actually thinking about that, but...larger radii. 10 tiles for tracks at least, as a maximum. And will it be possible, to have curves starting with the largest radius going down to a smaller radius?

Is there going to be diagonal track? Looks good so far

LocoMH wrote:I know you're actually thinking about that, but...larger radii. 10 tiles for tracks at least, as a maximum. And will it be possible, to have curves starting with the largest radius going down to a smaller radius?

Larger radii will be added later. But if I add 10 tiles radii I have to add 8 and 9 tile radii as well, since the user would expect to easily add more lanes to the curve, which only works if every possible radius is available (up to a certain minimum and maximum range).

Hazzard wrote:Is there going to be diagonal track?

At the moment I don't plan to implement diagonal tracks. At first I just didn't like the diagonal look. But now I just don't find a way to create the modules. I will try to find a solution but I think there is none (solution = one or multiple diagonal track modules must fit between 45 degrees curves of any radius).

I have done some thinking about diagonal track sections for freerct; the corner from orthogonal to diagonal can't be a simple arc of a circle if it is going to line up with the grid lines. I did some calculations on this at some point, and I was planning to dig them up, would you be interested in them?

Zephyris wrote:the corner from orthogonal to diagonal can't be a simple arc of a circle if it is going to line up with the grid lines.

which makes the game loosing its (planned) intuitive handling. intuitive would be to have half of a normal curve (=45 degrees curve), adding some diagonal elements and putting the other half of the curve to the end. i think that is not possible.

if i would do some "calculation" i would surely find a way to implement diagonal tracks but the 45 degree curves wouldnt fit to 90 degree curves then

Zephyris wrote: I did some calculations on this at some point, and I was planning to dig them up, would you be interested in them?

yeah, of course. im always interested in further thoughts on this topic.

smallfly wrote:

Zephyris wrote: I did some calculations on this at some point, and I was planning to dig them up, would you be interested in them?

yeah, of course. im always interested in further thoughts on this topic.

Cool, I will have a look for it when I am back from work.

It may be worth looking at the corner handling in RCT/Locomotion; the method of nesting corners of different radii is quite elegant. There is a radius 1 90 degree corner, radius 2 90 degree corner, radius 3 90 degree corner, then a radius [almost] 4 45 degree corner (and two of these make a radius 4 90 degree corner). To make a radius 5 corner you can use two radius [almost] 4 45 degree corners and one diagonal track piece. To make a radius 6 corner you can use two radius [almost] 4 45 degree corners and two diagonal track piece. etc.

Zephyris wrote:It may be worth looking at the corner handling in RCT/Locomotion; the method of nesting corners of different radii is quite elegant.

I installed locomotion to test it. I think it looks quite ugly since the gaps between the tracks are different.

Ugly but flexible... It is your call of course though!

Zephyris wrote:Ugly but flexible... It is your call of course though!

I will try to find a more beautiful way to solve it (if there is one...)

There are probably ways to solve it for topdown, but not for isometric view. Locomotion curvs and diagonal tracks were satiesfying for me,(it's even possible to build diagonal stations), but it could be better. Take a look at the demo wwww.trainplayer.com. I did a quick search on the web and found this: http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/game- ... roads.html
Maybe useful, although there are no vehicles on the roads.

robo wrote:There are probably ways to solve it for topdown, but not for isometric view. Locomotion curvs and diagonal tracks were satiesfying for me,(it's even possible to build diagonal stations), but it could be better. Take a look at the demo wwww.trainplayer.com. I did a quick search on the web and found this: http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/game- ... roads.html
Maybe useful, although there are no vehicles on the roads.

As soon as the top-down version of P1SIM is finished I will start developing the isometric version and want to take over as much features as possible. Thus I will only implement stuff that also works after switching to iso view.

I have no idea how difficult this would be, but what about using a different, simcity-like perspective instead of the dimetric projection, because it looks better for diagonal tracks?

robo wrote:I have no idea how difficult this would be, but what about using a different, simcity-like perspective instead of the dimetric projection, because it looks better for diagonal tracks?

your picture only shows streets and tracks parallel to the grid. can you please post a picture that shows 45 degree tracks/roads?

It's a browsergame (simcity social). As you can imagine browsercode isn't really efficient and the game is more about creative citybuilding than traffic. The perspective is the same as for simcity4.
http://community.simtropolis.com/topic/ ... railroads/

Will have third rail and catenary electrified tracks? How will it be? Different paths? Paths with compatibility among themselves? Will have graphics for represent the electrification or by your "clean visual" philosophy you don't want to put it into the game?

ClaudeS wrote:Will have third rail and catenary electrified tracks? How will it be? Different paths? Paths with compatibility among themselves? Will have graphics for represent the electrification or by your "clean visual" philosophy you don't want to put it into the game?

There will probably be three track types. As you already mentioned: Third rail, catenary, and standard rail. The track gauge will be the same. Thus diesel rail vehicles can use all three types.

For the (non final) look of catenary tracks see here.

Have you thought about the possibility of laying multiple tracks at once? Double or maybe triple tracks? I know it sound kinda lazy with multiple tracks at once, but I have often had people building track right where I wanted them because of single track laying.

Nerok wrote:Have you thought about the possibility of laying multiple tracks at once? Double or maybe triple tracks? I know it sound kinda lazy with multiple tracks at once, but I have often had people building track right where I wanted them because of single track laying.

there will be plenty of comfort building options like that. so the answer is yes.