Cuba (Temperate) Scenario & Heightmap

[JonScaife]

So, I've finally got back to OpenTTD and got back to scenario making

I'm aiming to make quite a few scenarios in the next few months, using some new methods. I've released this Cuba scenario as a bit of an experiment to get some feedback before I extend the new methods to a new UK scenario and eventually some others (like Crete which I've been tinkering with on and off for 5 years!)

All the resources and methods are provided and detailed at DIYMediaHome

Any and all feedback is welcome. Details below. Cheers

Licence - CC-BY-NC-SA v3.0
Populations 1/250 of real figure
Uses enhanced (cube function) heightmap from SRTM4 data (see DIYMediaHome or the bottom of this post for more info on this)
Compatible with OpenTTD 1.1.0 upwards
Requires ECS Vectors
No other NewGRFs enabled

Approx 80 cities, 20 industries

4 Banks - in the only towns with big enough populations
5 Breweries - http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/breweries/ ... y-0-54.htm
3 Oil refineries - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oi ... eries#Cuba (Havana, Cienfuegos, Santiago de Cuba)
1 Oil rig - off north coast - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16642286
3 gold mines (placetas, santiago de cuba, Pinar del Rio)
1 steel mill (las tunas)
2 tourist centers - varadero beach, cienfuegos
0 iron mines
0 oil wells on land
0 coal mines
0 vehicle factories
0 power stations

No other industries yet - more research needed for them

Details of heightmap cubic function...

The basic problem is that OpenTTD only supports 16 different heights. If you scale this evenly to your overall terrain then you get rather large increases in height before you actually go up a level in the OpenTTD world (e.g. - the UK's highest point is Ben Nevis at 1344m. Divided into 15 this is 90m per height increase). This doesn't produce a terrain that seems realistic (e.g. the pennines between Manchester and Sheffield are only 5 OpenTTD tiles high at maximum - it is easy to build a rail line right over this!). The first solution is to use more appropriate height increases for each level, but this results in the top of all hills and mountains appearing "carved off" which is far from ideal. I realised that as you get higher, the amount of land at that height decreases dramatically. E.g. there is a lot of land between 0m and 50m above sea-level, but very very little between 1000m above and 1344m above. Giving each height equal importance isn't necessary. I realised I could use a scaling factor which has the effect of reducing this sharp peak effect. Basically what this means is that the heightmap is more sensitive to real height changes at low altitudes - so we get lots of detail at low altitude where most of the land actually is. We still take account of higher peaks though and don't carve the top off anything.

The real heights which results in an OpenTTD level increase in the cuba heightmap are

20, 70, 120, 170, 230, 290, 340, 410, 490, 570, 670, 780, 900, 1090, 1610

As you can see, 5 levels cover the first 250m real meters, 4 levels cover the next 250m, 4 levels cover another 500m and the final 2 levels are for heights above 1km. From both a visual and gameplay perspective this seems to provide a optimal solution

[Arioch]

using OpenTTD 1.2.0 win x64, i found strange thing - there (at least up to 1942) seems to be no transport for many cargo's

tourists, sand, fruits....

I wonder what can make such effect...

I use OpenGFX, if it matters.

[Alberth]

Default vehicles only transport default cargoes.
Normally besides an industry NewGRF you also load a vehicle NewGRF to ensure you can actually transport all cargoes of the game.

[Arioch]

This scenario loads some ECS**** NewGRF (which was auto-found and downloaded)
The description also says that all other NewGRFs are disabled, dunno if it is true or not.
At least the buildings themselves are large and non-standard.

Also i think if i missed some requred vehicle, then the game would just not start. IT would say that soe kidn of required resource is missed, won't it?

[ppppp]

Default vehicles only transport default cargoes.
Normally besides an industry NewGRF you also load a vehicle NewGRF to ensure you can actually transport all cargoes of the game.

Well, according to this FAQ you can't load newGRF files into an existing scenario or running game any more since OpenTTD 1.1,
so there is no chance to get any refittable or general vehicle types any more. Loading the ECS_FIRS_vehicle_set newgrf did not work, neither into a saved game, nor
into the scenario. It's a pity, I would like to bring the game to some friends in La Habana the next time I am there. They would really love to see it, I think

[kamnet]

Since Jon hasn't responded to Arioch's posts either here or on the DIYMedia site, I'm going to assume he's lost interest. That said, the scenario is distributed under a Creative Commons license that allows for making changes, so that's what I've done. I've added OpenGFX+ Trains and OpenGFX+ Road Vehicles to the set. I couldn't get the original scenario to open with OpenTTD 1.1.0, but it did open with 1.1.5, so likely you'll need to use that as your minimum requirement. If you don't have the required NewGRFs installed, use BaNaNaS to install them for you.

Since I am tinkering with a scenario, there is always a possibility that my edits, although minimum, may have made the scenario unstable and unusable. Caveat emptor, use at your own risk. All files are provided "as is" and without any express or implied warranties including warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. With that said, if you find something is broken or would like additional changes, I may (or may not) be able and/or willing to do so. Or, since it's under CC-BY-NA-3.0, you or somebody else could also make those changes.

[Arioch]

Thank You. I don't have time for OpenTTd right now, but as i would - i'd definitely give it a try.