FIRS Industry Replacement Set - releases

[andythenorth]

Now i want to try and lower that production by like 90% default, and the normal rating still configurable (120% and 150% for me)....Is this possible within firs?

I won't add a parameter for it You could edit the source code and recompile it, but the values would need adjusting for every industry. The source code is easy to edit, but quite a few tools are needed to compile it http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/firs/rel ... rence.html

[Alberth]

Play a smaller map, reduce density of the industries. Both actions will lead to less industries. The former also leads to less income, as "move cargo across the map" will give less profit

None the less, it's remains easy to make loads of money in OpenTTD. You may want to add a basecostmod newgrf, which allows fine tuning costs of things and stuff.

[NekoMaster]

The only issue I have with FIRS these days is that even at max production the primary industries like mines and oil wells dont produce as much as ECS Vectors can when serviced properly, then again, I could be playing the game wrong. FIRS Oil wells might produce say, a max of 256,000 Liters with goods delivered, but ECS can sometimes blow up much more if you have decent train or truck service.


Also, how do people service primary industries in ECS and FIRS for goods like vehicles or supplies? I use to have a dedicated section in stations for trains to deliver supplies, but that was a bit of a logistics nightmare for me... now I'm moving towards just trucking supplies or vehicles to mines and wells while having trains fill up on the cargo if theres enough space to have them.

[aadje93]

well figured out i've updated to FIRS2, and couldn't find heart of darkness, so thought well, sub artic suits me well (europe map). Guess what, the sea was full of oil rigs with that setting
so now firs Exxtreme again and it looks normal again (fishing ground, excevation sites and a few oil rigs)

Still thanks for your reply andy, kamneth and nekomaster!

But i prefer a little realism, so mostly playing on europe map 2048x2048


but now i've got your attention, is there a way to "cluster" the industries on land a little better, like near cities in groups?

Now they look like spread out over the whole map, but i'm looking into a little more casual play where the trains will do long distance/big bulk transport. And local distribution to factory's/raw materials with road vehicles.

[Alberth]

well figured out i've updated to FIRS2, and couldn't find heart of darkness

It has been renamed to "in a hot country".

but now i've got your attention, is there a way to "cluster" the industries on land a little better, like near cities in groups?

Not really, it's an effect of randomly placing things. At the global level, things then get spread mostly evenly over the available space.

You can reduce industry density to the "minimal" so it doesn't put down the same industries everywhere. It still spreads the industries evenly, but there not many industries of the same kind, so "evenly" still means only a few possible choices exist.

If you want to go further, you might want to create a scenario, what you can tailor to whatever you want.

[Bortos]

but now i've got your attention, is there a way to "cluster" the industries on land a little better, like near cities in groups?

Unfortunately it seems like the clustering has been removed. I really miss small clusters of primary industries that you search for and take advantage of, and it added some variety to the map. I had a really nice system for providing them with farm/engsup

[Dave]

R4dical developed this: viewtopic.php?f=65&t=67181

You can cluster and set limits on industries in that - don't know if it works with FIRS but presume you can make it so.

Sadly it's a bit out of date now but works with the latest vanilla version.

[Bortos]

Thank's, but I'm afraid you're correct. It needs some love to get it working on FIRS.

> removed custom station rating parameter.

Anyone got any alternatives? This really butchers the game for long trains.

I hate to be an annoying sod, but FIRS 2 doesn't really seem to add anything for FULL Firs players.

[Alberth]

> removed custom station rating parameter.

Anyone got any alternatives? This really butchers the game for long trains.

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=74856

I hate to be an annoying sod, but FIRS 2 doesn't really seem to add anything for FULL Firs players.

Nobody forces you to play with the new version.

[andythenorth]

Anyone got any alternatives? This really butchers the game for long trains.

TL;DR
Agreed.

Longer
I have one eye on players, but mostly I make FIRS to suit how I want to play. It's easier to be up-front about that than pretend I'm setting out to please a diverse range of players

The over-powered station ratings were originally added because I was playing a lot with long trains or long ship routes, and there wouldn't always be a vehicle waiting at the station. I don't do that anymore.

However I didn't remove it to nerf long trains It's better to keep the code for FIRS as small as possible, fewer things to break and test. Also players were asking how to OP station ratings without FIRS. So those things in combination make it reasonable to remove the parameter from FIRS and rely on a separate grf.

I hate to be an annoying sod, but FIRS 2 doesn't really seem to add anything for FULL Firs players.

Not much for FIRS Extreme economy no. If I was creating Extreme again, I would do it quite differently. However it does work coherently (more or less), and there are enough people who would be upset if I binned it that I've left it alone, mostly. However there's also not much scope to change it.

If I did really hate Extreme, I'd change it even though it might upset people.

The main upsides in v2 for Extreme are:
- improved graphics for 10 or so industries
- more control over supplies boost behaviour
- bug fixes

The next FIRS will be 2.5 or 3.0, and that will likely change some economies substantially, and add a new one. Again though, Extreme is unlikely to change much.

[Hyronymus]

I really like extreme and I find it well-balanced even for early starts (I like to start my games in the 1800's). What surprises me though is how I keep forgetting to abuse ports since they provide free boosts to mining and farbing . If I need to nitpick I would argue that cement plants (http://www.understanding-cement.com/history.html) and bulk terminals are available too early.

[leifbk]

I really like extreme and I find it well-balanced even for early starts (I like to start my games in the 1800's). What surprises me though is how I keep forgetting to abuse ports since they provide free boosts to mining and farbing . If I need to nitpick I would argue that cement plants (http://www.understanding-cement.com/history.html) and bulk terminals are available too early.

Agreed on both points. I like to start in the early 1700s. As I rarely run train routes, I usually don't have the transport capacity to utilise farming and engineering supplies efficiently until well into the twentieth century. And the bulk terminals make it too easy to get chemicals, so there's almost no need for the lime kilns either. That's a pity, because the lime kilns provide interesting network challenges. I'd prefer both ports and bulk terminals (and yes, cement plants) to appear only after 1860.

[andythenorth]

If I need to nitpick I would argue that cement plants (http://www.understanding-cement.com/history.html) and bulk terminals are available too early.

I'd prefer both ports and bulk terminals (and yes, cement plants) to appear only after 1860.

In this respect, the limitation is that OpenTTD cannot reliably build industries after map generation. This poses a problem where intro dates are used, as there is a strong chance that the industry type will not appear on the map during gameplay.

The available choices are
- introduce some industries without regard to realism
- accept that some types might only appear if funded manually by the player

Having learnt this from (1) playing (2) player feedback (3) watching Alberth trying to fix this issue in OpenTTD, I removed the date restrictions on most types, or moved them to a date that is earlier than I start a game (usually 1860 or 1900).

This is a pragmatic choice to avoid games that are nerfed by broken chains caused by a mismatch between what is wanted by players and what OpenTTD actually does. I have no other objection to 'realistic' intro dates.

[Alberth]

(3) watching Alberth trying to fix this issue in OpenTTD

Expanding on this a little. The game has some X number of industries per 256x256 area. This number slowly rises by 1 or 2 each decade or so (unless eg default industries are closing a lot, which is a sign you're not able to manage the current amount, so no point in further increasing it).

As a dramatic example, assume we have 4 industry types, and 80 industries. For simplicity, each has the same chance of appearing, so theoretically, you'd have
20 A, 20 B, 20 C, and 20 D.

Now one new industry-type is added, again with the same chance of appearing. If industries are sometimes dying, you'd end up with 16 A, 16 B, 16 C, 16 D, and 16 E, ie each of the 4 existing industry-types gives 4 spots to the new industry-type. Depending on the rate of closing, this can happen quite fast with default industries.

In FIRS, the default is not to close industries. As a result, the only feasible balanced outcome is 20 A, 20 B, 20 C, 20 D, and 20 E, which at 2 new industries/decade/256x256, takes 20 decades at 256x256, or 5 decades (50 years) at 512x512. If you add more new industry-types during the game, things slow down, as all new industry-types are competing for the same very rare new spots.

In other words, for effective new industry-type introduction, you need industries closing down, so they can be replaced by a newer type. Without it, your game has ended before they are properly added.

[wallyweb]

Interesting conundrum.
It's a transportation game. If an industry chain is broken, the player moves on and finds some other industry chain in need of service. That's realism.
If a broken chain holds a promise of lucrative profitability for a transportation company, the company can always subsidize (fund) the missing industry. That's realism.
If inginuity and mad science offers up the possibility of a new industry that will require service, the company can always subsidize (fund) the new industry. That's realism.
If a region is bloated with industries and there is no room for more, the transportation company can fund the razing of an existing industry to make way for the new one. That's realism.
My vote is for good company management with cash reserves and available credit. That's realism.
If worse comes to worse, and the company has no resources to fund golden, must-have opportunities, the company can always call upon the Bank of Cheat. That is probably the most realistic of all. Tycoons are not known to be honest or nice.

[andythenorth]

If an industry chain is broken, the player moves on and finds some other industry chain in need of service.

That's a valid hypothesis. The counter-evidence is that broken games cause bug reports.

We take our positions and ship accordingly

[RedEclipse]

Can someone tell me could i face with problems in future after updating my existing scenario from 2.0.3 version of FIRS to latest? I just did that no errors so far.

[andythenorth]

Can someone tell me could i face with problems in future after updating my existing scenario from 2.0.3 version of FIRS to latest? I just did that no errors so far.

http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/firs/rel ... gelog.html

^ you might get away with it, but eh, no warranties.

Typically changes to industry, tile and cargo properties are savegame destroying. These tend to make break things in subtle ways that take a while to notice, but make the savegame unplayable. Changelog from 2.0.3 to 2.1.5 doesn't have much of that, although "Wrong output in some economies for secondary industries with two output cargos" might affect your scenario (might not too).

However 2.0.3->2.1.5 does have changes to strings, which can sometimes cause OpenTTD to barf. It tends to just crash in that case, rather than subtly ruin a savegame.

No warranties though. Did I mention that?

[RedEclipse]

Oh, I see. Well, I'll try my luck then

Btw, can petrol stations and builders yard to disappear(like secondary industries) when setting is enabled? I thought they play role of secondary industries and may close, but I've played about 400 years in scenario and they still present. Imo make sense if city grows such things like Builders Yard would appear on border of city(if its not being used) and Petrol Stations disappear if road no longer exist(had to remove few roads and now petrol stations in middle of forest )

[brickie]

Possibly a dumb question, but is there a placement guide for Industries?

For instance, I've figured out that Fishing Harbours only seem to be available for south and east facing coasts, and Fishing Grounds have to be a minimum of "some" tiles out from the coast, but it would save a lot of frustration if there was something I could look at to say what the parameters are.

It may exist and I just can't find it, of course.