NARS2 - the North American Railway Set [2.52 September 2021]

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MarkSheppard
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by MarkSheppard »

DanMacK wrote:Sometime in the future, the NARS will be completely revamped and replanned.

It's currently in the early stages now, but more will be posted soon.
Hopefully, NARS3 if it's ever released, will get rid of the landscape limitations -- I'd like to run EMD Centennials in Temperate; or GG1 in Snow; etc.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by MarkSheppard »

Here's a simple NML nGRF with included source code that switches 99% of the engines in NARS2 to be available in every climate (except toyland).

So enjoy your Acelas and GG1s in Tropical-land legally without cheating.

The RF-16 Sharknose and EMD Centennial share the same VehicleID; apparently there's flags in the GRF that switch things around (sprites and settings) if it detects the use of tropic/not tropic; so there's nothing I can do about it with this simple grf.
NARS_Climate_Override_DEC-2012_Beta.zip
Beta version of GRF override for NARS 2.03
(2.62 KiB) Downloaded 335 times
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Railwaymodeler »

Climate restrictions are kind of silly, in my opinion. While, yes, one could play a map of North America, you still only have one climate throughout. So, while a North America map could realistically have GG1s out east, Centennials out west, it won't happen in the same game.

Plus, I'm not personally trying to re-create what actually was when playing any of my games, but prefer a "what if" approach in my games, particularly those based on real locations. Electrification coast to coast? New York to L.A.? Why not? The New York Central did carry a true transcon train to Chicago, where the Rock Island took over, and handed it down the line to the Southern Pacific. So why not Pennsy GG1s in L.A.?

The fix GRF there, can a parameter be set to decide between the Sharks and the Centennial? I'd rather have the Centennial any day, being an EMD man, but others may want the Sharks instead. They are cool looking!
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paulicus25
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by paulicus25 »

I completely agree. Climate restrictions are frankly pretty pointless. If you want to do an arctic or tropic themed game then don't build locos that don't fit is my angle. But yeah. I understand the origins of climate restriction (i think) from back when you could only have so many engines loaded at once. However, nowadays considering people can load multiple vehicle grfs at once, its completely outdated.

Anyways on another note, for those of you such as Spirit of Trains who have been chatting about expanding why they would like to expand the set...if you browse a bit back in the posts, I uploaded some attempted sprite sheets for a Big Boy, Black/Grey FEF, GS-4 and an AC-12 Cab Forward. Danmack has seen these already, so they HAVE been drawn. However its all about whether or not its worth it timewise for Pikka/DanMack/whoever works on the set (sorry if theres anyone i missed) to work on the set.

Yes, I would like nothing more than to see my work steaming through the jungles or climbing snowswept hills, but its all down to the authors of the set....it is their set after all.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Pack man »

paulicus25 wrote:I completely agree. Climate restrictions are frankly pretty pointless. If you want to do an arctic or tropic themed game then don't build locos that don't fit is my angle. But yeah. I understand the origins of climate restriction (i think) from back when you could only have so many engines loaded at once. However, nowadays considering people can load multiple vehicle grfs at once, its completely outdated.

Anyways on another note, for those of you such as Spirit of Trains who have been chatting about expanding why they would like to expand the set...if you browse a bit back in the posts, I uploaded some attempted sprite sheets for a Big Boy, Black/Grey FEF, GS-4 and an AC-12 Cab Forward. Danmack has seen these already, so they HAVE been drawn. However its all about whether or not its worth it timewise for Pikka/DanMack/whoever works on the set (sorry if theres anyone i missed) to work on the set.

Yes, I would like nothing more than to see my work steaming through the jungles or climbing snowswept hills, but its all down to the authors of the set....it is their set after all.
I agree about the climate restrictions. Maybe if they can be toggled on or off with a parameter it would be best to satisfy both sides.

Same here with the stuff I did. All those EMDs, dash-7 Bs, RS11s, etc. I'd like to see those running around someday. I was going to do an RSD15, SD24, a baby trainmaster, and a few other FM stuff. But the fact that there isn't a coder is kind of throwing me off.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Railwaymodeler »

Playing a game using the NARS set, and the North American City set with tourists on.

I built a train, pair of E9 units, plus some streamline coaches. Refitted to tourists. Set the route to connect a couple large cities. Set the train to go, got the error that the train needs a caboose.

I did add a caboose, but as this would not look right: Couple E9s, with a streamliner tailed with a caboose, I also added some auto racks between the caboose and coahces. Early (Pre-Amtrak) Auto-Trains did use a caboose at first, so this works.

Still, is it NARS or the city set that needs to be changed? I hope not the city set, as that is now hosted on Simuscape, I think.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Emperor Jake »

I think this has long been a problem with the set. IIRC a nicer solution is to have mixed passenger and tourist trains, they don't need a caboose then.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Railwaymodeler »

In some cases, yes. Some of the tourist railroads do operate with one or more cabooses on the train, as a few passengers can ride in them too.

The mixed train was how I worked around the requirement: As I'd mentioned early Auto-Train service did use cabooses, made out of old 40' boxcars. These even had a wind turbine on the roof for power! So I figured, a few auto-racks at the back made the train look OK.


EDIT: For intercity tourist transport, this works:

Build a train with a couple coaches carrying tourists, the rest carrying passengers. No caboose needed.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Supercheese »

Couldn't you also use Emperor Jake's Invisible Leading Engine to bypass the caboose requirement? Or does that not work?
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by MarkSheppard »

Pack man wrote:Same here with the stuff I did. All those EMDs, dash-7 Bs, RS11s, etc. I'd like to see those running around someday. I was going to do an RSD15, SD24, a baby trainmaster, and a few other FM stuff. But the fact that there isn't a coder is kind of throwing me off.
Pack Man, I've actually added your EMD DD35A to the game; albeit crudely, I'm still learning how to properly template sprites, and I'm only at a very crude understanding of NML -- I've yet to read the tutorial for articulated engines, or figuring out how to make engines regearable; or figuring out the equation that NARS2 uses for running costs (so that any pack can be 'drop in' with NARS2).

But one thing I'd like to see is a bunch of 'oddities' such as:

C&O Baldwin M-1 Steam-Electric:

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N&W Jawn Henry Steam-Electric:

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X-12 Atomic-Electric:

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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Pack man »

MarkSheppard, Just so you know me and Packer are the same guy. I had to change my accounts for personal issues. Pretty cool that you were able to add my DD35A. I'll play with the grf later.

I don't know a thing about coding or templating for TTD/OTTD. I've looked at the nfo (data) files and it just looks confusing to me. I appluad your effort to try to understand it.

I've never head of the X-12, but the other ones could be done. Maybe for the USset.

paulicus25, Any chance you could do a generic-looking yellowstone? I tried a few varieties, but I'm not really happy with either of them. One version I tried to take the bigboy you did and cut down the leading truck and some of the boiler and area in front of the boiler; but it wound up looking a lot like the DMIR ones. I also tried flipping the cab-foward and tweaking it, but I couldn't really get it to look right. Steam engines aren't really my thing, and I have difficulty seeing differences in dark colors. If not I'll try to forge ahead with a Yellowstone, probably using bits and pieces of the cab-foward and making the rest of it.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by paulicus25 »

Possibly, possibly. Might be able to do some more sprites at some point. However, within the last 3 months i have managed to get a job (after 3 years of unemployment) and over the christmas period a close family member has meen to hospital for a major operation. Lastly, i'm currently tied down spriting for a minecraft project with what little time i have allocated myself for spriting, so the chances within the short term is minimal. Also i have rebuild the core of my pc after it imploded and need to reinstall 750GB worth of software. Including the all critical photoshop. However i could look into it at some point. Just keep in mind it takes me a good 10 hours to do a decent sprite. We shall see how things pan out.

Anyways was planning on having a go at an allegheny first at some point. Might swap round some priorities.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Spirit of Trains »

I agree with the climate restrictions. Most locos in the set have been all over the country.

Edit: I also like of how the trains evolve/change skins or whatever through time, but I think that the more popular/famous ones should have there own identity. I would like not having to go back through time with the time cheat to get a livery/whatever to get it, but I don't really care if you do it or not. Also, thanks to paulicious25 for supplying DanMack with the engines.

Edit 2: Something seems odd with the Canadian version. The diesel and electric engines have the Santa Fe scheme, no whistles/horns, and no Canada-only engines. Why is that? Also, I'm not getting the snowplough.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Wirelizard »

Cool to hear that a new version of NARS has been discussed fairly recently!

It's been on my short list of must-install GRFs since I discovered it, there's so much more variety and texture with the engines and rolling stock vs the stock OTTD equipment.

However, recently (starting October 2012 with OTTD 1.2.2, I seem to have lost livestock transport capability in NARS - there are no cars that will carry cows (or that will convert to cow-carrying). It's not the end of the world, but it is kind of cramping my usual OTTD style.

I started a thread over in OTTD Problems for this, but thought I'd ping the NARS thread to see if anyone else has noticed this oddity. Main thread over in Problems is here: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=63063
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by NekoMaster »

@ Wirelizard

Yeah, I've noticed too that the live stock car has disappeared, and I only found that out after building a nice big line for a live stock farm in FIRS....

I hope an update to NARS brings new engines and fixes some bugs like the livestock van problem (not sure if its all of them, but I know that the modern live stock car and the one before it arent there)
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Spirit of Trains »

All I've seen disappear are the Canadian engines themselves, and I'm currently on the recent beta, 1.3.0beta1.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by trainmaster611 »

Is there any way to automatically update the passenger cars? It's frustrating to manually rebuild trains when you want to upgrade.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Supercheese »

trainmaster611 wrote:Is there any way to automatically update the passenger cars? It's frustrating to manually rebuild trains when you want to upgrade.
Autoreplace coaches, perhaps? http://wiki.openttd.org/Replace_vehicles#Autoreplace
For trains you may also toggle between replacing engines and wagons by clicking the Replacing: Engines button shown.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by pvernon »

Unfortunately those don't work with this GRF. I think it has something to do with the different passenger cars having the same name. Also the various upgrades of locomotives don't upgrade properly either.
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Re: NARS2 - the North American Renewal Set [2.03 28 Aug 09]

Post by Spirit of Trains »

When is the next version coming out? No offense, but it has been way too long since I first got this grf. UKRS2 is the fastest at updating.
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