Dutch Trainset v2.0

[FooBar]

How many wagons do you think I have left to make?

I think it's about 29 different liveries if I include Mat '24.

But I was thinking more of releasing a beta on bananas, which should be fully playable, but which does not contain all vehicles we want in the final release. And also still has a mix of shaded and unshaded vehicles. That all doesn't matter much for a beta, but it gives our fans something to enjoy in the meantime.

I will sure take a look and do some

Ok, great!

[Voyager One]

I was thinking more of releasing a beta on bananas

I know, I'm joking.

I think it's about 29 different liveries if I include Mat '24.

Aha, so you're even counting them... Nice to see someone is playing "supervisor".

Hmmm, I'm actually on 27 left if I count the Stalen D post wagons... You didn't miss by much...

[jor[D]1]

Stalen D post wagons????

I think our combining something???

There are Stalen D luggage wagons.
And Plan D post wagons.
Both look very different

Stalen D (Small version: D IV, large Version: D V)
link

Plan D Post wagon. (Aka Plan C)
Link

[Voyager One]

Sorry, I meant luggage wagons. Stalen D IV and D V. My bad.

In the meantime, getting down to 26.

[jor[D]1]

99% sure there also was a plan D driving trailer with Grey cabin roof.

Picture:
http://mchminiatuurnieuws.punt.nl/uploa ... d-GC_4.jpg

[Voyager One]

The pic is not working. TBH, I haven's seen a gray roof on any picture.

[Purno]

Especially since it's only 3 weeks until the release of 2.0!

That's an ambitious plan.

Looks great. Funny to see some sprites I have never seen ingame (10 and 12 for example).

Sprites 10 and 12 were never meant to be seen ingame, but were meant to those people decoding the GRF

I will sure take a look and do some (at least, if the standard MS Paint can save without killing the palette).

I've always worked in Paint and never had problems. Paint doesn't really save the palette, but as long as you keep the exact same RGB values, stuff should work. I did v1 in Paint.

But I was thinking more of releasing a beta on bananas, which should be fully playable, but which does not contain all vehicles we want in the final release. And also still has a mix of shaded and unshaded vehicles. That all doesn't matter much for a beta, but it gives our fans something to enjoy in the meantime.

As long as it shows some of the epic features we're planning, including metro
And there should be plenty of cargo wagons to transport all cargos ingame, IMO.
I think it's worth 'postponing' the release a few weeks if that means we can release something more epic.

[FooBar]

As long as it shows some of the epic features we're planning, including metro
And there should be plenty of cargo wagons to transport all cargos ingame, IMO.
I think it's worth 'postponing' the release a few weeks if that means we can release something more epic.

It will show everything currently in the nightlies. That includes metro, although I still should try and see to get these to work with NuTracks...
And I agree, a release without cargo wagons is useless! The postponing we'll see. I gladly release something now and something improved only a few weeks later. This will give us more playtesting users who can find bugs, which then can be resolved for the final version!

[Purno]

It will show everything currently in the nightlies. That includes metro, although I still should try and see to get these to work with NuTracks...

Yes please. I always use NuTracks, AFAIK it's a popular track set, isn't it?

And I agree, a release without cargo wagons is useless! The postponing we'll see. I gladly release something now and something improved only a few weeks later.

True, as long as it's playable.

This will give us more playtesting users who can find bugs, which then can be resolved for the final version!

Since the GRF is already downloadable for players who want to do playtesting, I wonder if releasing it on BaNaNaS really provides us with more people reporting bugs. Somehow I imagine players who download via the ingame content download are mainly focussed on playing, and may not know how to report bugs or may not be interested to report bugs. But that's just a guess. Who knows.

[FooBar]

NuTracks is indeed rather popular. But it somehow made the choice to use MTRO instead of the more common 3RDR as railtype label for metro tracks. And that's what I'm struggling with, as railtypetables work slightly different in NML than in NFO. If that's too technical, I'll summarize it in one word: "struggling"

As for bananas release: at the moment there may be at most 10 people who try a new nightly every now and then and report bugs (thank you very much those who do!). Maybe 200 additional people will download a bananas release labeled "beta". If only 5% of those do report bugs, that still gives 10 extra people doing active playtesting!

[Purno]

NuTracks is indeed rather popular. But it somehow made the choice to use MTRO instead of the more common 3RDR as railtype label for metro tracks. And that's what I'm struggling with, as railtypetables work slightly different in NML than in NFO. If that's too technical, I'll summarize it in one word: "struggling"

I'm not too familiar with the rail types, but makes sense there's a difference between a track system specifically designed for underground urban transportation (MTRO) and ordinary 3rd rail electrified railways, especially common in the UK, which has the same goals as any other track type (intercity, regional and freight trains) (3RDR).

Or is this an odd way of thinking?

As for bananas release: at the moment there may be at most 10 people who try a new nightly every now and then and report bugs (thank you very much those who do!). Maybe 200 additional people will download a bananas release labeled "beta". If only 5% of those do report bugs, that still gives 10 extra people doing active playtesting!

True, I guess it can't harm to do a bananas release. (Would it replace the v1 entry?)

[FooBar]

Or is this an odd way of thinking?

Not entirely. However, from a track point of view there is no difference. Tube trains can run on the 3rd rail electrified regional lines (which in fact they do). On the other hand, 3rd rail regional commuter trains can run perfectly fine on the tube network (apart from that they don't fit the tunnels). So the track is technically the same, you just don't route your trains everywhere.

But either way, the decision was made some time for some reason, so we'll have to work with that. The railtype labels currently are a mess anyways, with every set defining their own. Which makes it near as impossible for a train set to work with all track sets. However the NuTracks issue should be solvable at least, as I want the set to be at least compatible with that, the separate metro track set, the ukrs track set (these last two are easy as they use the same labels) and possibly some future Dutch track set.

For a bananas beta release I think it's best to keep both v1 and the new beta available, to give users a choice. Once we have a final v2 we can set the v1 entry to be only available in older openttd versions which v2 doesn't work on.

[Purno]

Or is this an odd way of thinking?

Not entirely. However, from a track point of view there is no difference. Tube trains can run on the 3rd rail electrified regional lines (which in fact they do). On the other hand, 3rd rail regional commuter trains can run perfectly fine on the tube network (apart from that they don't fit the tunnels). So the track is technically the same, you just don't route your trains everywhere.

I get the feeling 3RDR is mainly invented by British people then, while MTRO is invented by people from countries where metro runs op a deviating system (like in the Netherlands). As an additional problem (I see it as a problem) would be that 3RDR would allow steam and diesel trains, including cargo, operate on the network designed for metro
It makes sense the British have a different view on 3rd rail systems than the Dutch. I think both systems can't be compared, they use the same technic principle, but the usage and goal is completely different in both countries.

Since this is a Dutch trainset, and metros run on a seperate track system in our country, using MTRO makes more sense for the Dutch trainset IMO. Metro kinda looses its gameplay if it can be fully combined with ordinary trains.

Since NuTracks was developed for the 2ccSet, which intended metro to be a separate system, it does make sense to me NuTracks chose to deviate from 3RDR and use MTRO instead. (Or anyways, makes sense to define a separate rail label for metros, no matter what's it called exactly).

But either way, the decision was made some time for some reason, so we'll have to work with that. The railtype labels currently are a mess anyways, with every set defining their own. Which makes it near as impossible for a train set to work with all track sets. However the NuTracks issue should be solvable at least, as I want the set to be at least compatible with that, the separate metro track set, the ukrs track set (these last two are easy as they use the same labels) and possibly some future Dutch track set.

Personally I wouldn't prefer letting metros run on 3RDR as that would allow players to operate steam and diesel trains on the same network, wouldn't it?

For a bananas beta release I think it's best to keep both v1 and the new beta available, to give users a choice. Once we have a final v2 we can set the v1 entry to be only available in older openttd versions which v2 doesn't work on.

Seems fine. However, is "beta" an appropiate term for an unfinished set? The borders between 'alpha' and 'beta' are kinda vague to me.

[Hyronymus]

I see a 2 week notice has appeared for the release. Will there be sufficient steam engines and cargo wagons in the set by then though?

[Purno]

I see a 2 week notice has appeared for the release. Will there be sufficient steam engines and cargo wagons in the set by then though?

There was already a decent supply of steam engines in r300, and though there are already quite a few cargo wagons, FooBar said he wanted enough cargo wagons transport all cargo types, IIUC

[FooBar]

Personally I wouldn't prefer letting metros run on 3RDR as that would allow players to operate steam and diesel trains on the same network, wouldn't it?

Whether that is possible is totally up to the track set. I cannot control that from the trainset.

However, is "beta" an appropiate term for an unfinished set?

Maybe, maybe not. If we consider the case of OpenTTD: new features are added between beta and RC stage. Beta IMO basically means "this is close to the final product, but we're not completely done yet, but we feel it's stable enough for you to try and help us find bugs we haven't discovered yet". RC means "this is the final product, but there still may be bugs". But if you have a suggestion...

Will there be sufficient steam engines and cargo wagons in the set by then though?

The steam engines depend on the permission by Singaporekid (who still hasn't read my pm). The current steamers are not the ones from v1, but the ones that Snail drew will make the set certainly playable from around 1900.
The cargo wagons are not too problematic. We have permission to use all the v1 wagons, except the bollenwagen.
Add the old and future wagons by Voyager and we have a decent selection for a beta.

[Purno]

Personally I wouldn't prefer letting metros run on 3RDR as that would allow players to operate steam and diesel trains on the same network, wouldn't it?

Whether that is possible is totally up to the track set. I cannot control that from the trainset.

How so? How does this work then? I imagined you'd have to enable vehicles to operate on certain rail types by their codes, but apparently it works reversed?

However, is "beta" an appropiate term for an unfinished set?

Maybe, maybe not. If we consider the case of OpenTTD: new features are added between beta and RC stage. Beta IMO basically means "this is close to the final product, but we're not completely done yet, but we feel it's stable enough for you to try and help us find bugs we haven't discovered yet". RC means "this is the final product, but there still may be bugs". But if you have a suggestion...

With a beta I get the idea the product is close to finished and in the progress of ironing out some bugs. Since we're not close to a final product yet (or are we?), wouldn't the term "alpha" be better?

Though I don't want to spend too much discussion to a minor detail like this

Will there be sufficient steam engines and cargo wagons in the set by then though?

The steam engines depend on the permission by Singaporekid (who still hasn't read my pm). The current steamers are not the ones from v1, but the ones that Snail drew will make the set certainly playable from around 1900.
The cargo wagons are not too problematic. We have permission to use all the v1 wagons, except the bollenwagen.
Add the old and future wagons by Voyager and we have a decent selection for a beta.

Seems we need to find other ways to contact Singaporekid. Hyro, do you still got his real name somewhere? I know we once asked him.

Also, who drew the bollenwagen? How come we don't have permission for that one yet?

EDIT: Anyone got Skype? Singaporekid got his skype address in his profile. All of his websites he linked to via tt-forums or the wiki are offline/unknown. And to make the search even worse, his username is also some famous book title...

[FooBar]

Vehicles can define exactly one track type they're running on. This is RAIL for steamers and diesel, ELRL for electric and 3RDR/MTRO for metro.
The track set additionally defines things like "RAIL vehicles can also run on ELRL", or indeed "RAIL vehicles can also run on MTRO", or "metro vehicles can also run on the other metro track with houses on it".
Currently I set the metro vehicles to "I can run on 3RDR", while Nutracks doesn't say "3RDR can run on MTRO" or it does say that but the game says "there are no MTRO vehicles, so I'll disable MTRO track even though there are 3RDR vehicles that would run on MTRO". That should give an idea how it works (and why it currently doesn't). I will not bother you with more details.

alpha

Fine with me, but that potentially frightens users not to try it. We can do a full alpha-beta-rc-final cycle. Then we're the first newgrf to do that

[Eddi]

there're two ways to solve that, the vehicle GRF can say "if 3RDR is not defined, run on MTRO", or the track GRF can say "the MTRO track is treated like 3RDR for any availability checks" [that's a fairly new feature, so NuTracks likely doesn't support it yet]

[FooBar]

"if 3RDR is not defined, run on MTRO"

That is indeed the solution I was after. However I believe in NML it's implemented the other way round: "if definded MTRO, run on MTRO". When I last tried that it had the effect that both were unavailable. This needs some testing to see if that's still the case or that I did something wrong back then.