Iron Horse trains - releases

[MlemandPurrs]

Nice set of trains that became an staple of my playthroughs, however if it had more diesel and electric engines it be nice.
I feel it scales good up until 1945, but then the years gap to get an significant improvement gets larger.

[andythenorth]

Nice set of trains that became an staple of my playthroughs, however if it had more diesel and electric engines it be nice.

I have been thinking about a v2 which adjusts the diesel and electric engines. No promises about 'if' or 'when' though

[MlemandPurrs]

I just remembered originally having came by to report something:
The Livestock Car is not company coloring, its always grey.

[acs121]

Really great alongside Road-Hog and FISH.
Though, i have an impression there's a lot of diesels and just 3 electrics if counting the Double Juice...

[andythenorth]

Though, i have an impression there's a lot of diesels and just 3 electrics if counting the Double Juice...

Yes, this is a flaw of Iron Horse 1. Iron Horse 2 will correct it

[acs121]

Well, let's wait

[Kevo00]

As someone who grew up with 1980s British Rail, I do enjoy the diesels that are currently in the set, especially for freight, though its true that a few more electrics wouldn't go amiss...

[Pekkape]

Swedish translation done today.

I like to do bigger maps over longer time, so I start my games around 1840-1850 and it is only possible thanks to this very nice set of trains and wagons.

[Diesel Power]

Found a bug.

The Caboose Car is out if alignment. See screen shot.

[andythenorth]

Iron Horse 2.0.0 is now on Bananas

"Whoa Runaway horses...Racing through the darkness....Runaway Horses." - Belinda Carlisle

2 years in the making, Iron Horse 2 is an end-to-end rework of Iron Horse.

Same focus on gameplay.

Greatly expanded set of vehicles, strongly inspired by British trains.

All sprites redrawn.

Dive in and play.

Recommended OpenTTD settings

• 'Vehicles never expire: Off'
• 'Weight multiplier for freight to simulate heavy trains: 1'
• 'Enable wagon speed limits: On'
• these settings are recommended, but not required

Improved Tech Tree

• 6 distinct generations of vehicles
• first trains introduced around 1860
• last new trains introduced around 2022
• engines now have clear roles, displayed in buy menu
  • freight
  • general purpose / express
  • high speed / very high speed
  • high capacity urban
• engine roles depend on OpenTTD setting 'Enable wagon speed limits: On'
  • without this setting Iron Horse 2 works fine, but some freight engines will overlap general purpose / express engines
• greatly expanded range of vehicles
• some Iron Horse 1 vehicles have been kept, with new stats and sprites, all other vehicles are new
• all stats rebalanced, including speeds, power and costs
• 357 trains in total, Iron Horse 2 is designed to be used with OpenTTD setting 'Vehicles never expire: Off'

Engines

• added wider range of low-power, medium-power and high-power engines
  • Iron Horse 1 had gaps where there wasn't really an appropriate engine for some routes
  • medium-power engines were especially lacking in Iron Horse 1 after 1935
• electric engine roster expanded to 16
  • 12 electric
  • 4 electro-diesel (bi-mode)
  • first electric engine available around 1905
  • Iron Horse 1 included only 4 electric engines

Railcars

• expanded railcars to 20
  • 16 standard gauge and 4 narrow gauge
  • Iron Horse 1 included only 3 railcars
• dedicated variants for
  • passengers
  • mail/express freight
  • Iron Horse 1 relied on refitting passenger railcars to handle mail/express freight, which was faff, and can't be used reliably with auto-refit in stations
• added electric and electro-diesel railcars
• first railcars now available around 1925
• railcar appearance will automatically adapt to consist, creating single cars, or multiple-unit trains

High Speed / Very High Speed Trains

• added dedicated high speed and very high speed trains
• fastest train in Iron Horse 2 is 186mph (Brenner, available around 2018)
  • 155mph Screamer from Iron Horse 1 is removed, these trains replace it
• maximum speed will only be available with dedicated passenger coaches
• first high speed train available around 1980
• first very high speed train available around 1987
• very high speed trains include
  • distributed power: all coaches are powered
  • tilt bonus for faster speed through curves

Wagons and Coaches

• added wider range of wagons and coaches
  • Luxury Passenger Coach
  • Express Van
  • Curtain Side Van
  • Sliding Wall Van
  • Tarpaulin Wagon
  • Coil Car
  • Plate Wagon
  • Stake Wagon
  • Coal Hopper
  • Mineral Wagon
  • Chemicals Tanker
  • Cryo Tanker
  • Grain Hopper
  • Fruit & Vegetables Van
  • multiple lengths for wagons and coaches, increasing visual variety
• some Iron Horse 1 wagons are missing from Iron Horse 2, but will be restored in future when sprites are finished
  • Intermodal Flat Car
  • Metal Car (torpedo wagon)
  • Supplies Car
  • Vehicle Transporter Car
• Combine Car is removed permanently, as it cannot work with OpenTTD autoreplace
• passenger coach and mail van appearance automatically adapts to consist
  • alternative liveries depending on attached engine
  • sprite variants such as brake coaches, restaurant cars, post office vans as appropriate

Narrow Gauge Trains

• simpler but more useful narrow gauge engine roster
• expanded narrow gauge railcars, first available around 1950
• expanded narrow gauge wagon and coach types
• narrow gauge engines and railcars are somewhat 'inspired by' French and Corsican trains, as British and Irish narrow gauge is more limited

Metro Trains

• sprites redrawn
• minor stats adjustments

Improved Visual Appearance

• reworked all sprites
• added multiple livery options for many vehicles (random, or when vehicle is flipped in depot)
• all vehicle lengths now 4/8, 6/8, 8/8, 10/8, or 12/8
  • easy to make exact tile-length trains if desired
• depot flip enabled for many vehicles (was disabled in Iron Horse 1 as a side effect of how vehicles were coded)
• more accurately positioned visual effects
• rear lights on consists
• electric vehicle pantographs are raised on electric rails, otherwise lowered
• doors open on many vehicles when loading/unloading

Cargos

• updated cargo support for FIRS
• improved assignment of default cargos for wagons (noticeable when using different climates, industry newgrfs etc)

Docs

• improved display of trains
• better navigation
• added a basic gameplay guide

Translations

• default translations now appropriate to British English (previously used US English)
• multiple languages updated

Codechanges

• reworked Makefile and general approach to compiling
• improved compile speed, including very fast compiles if only sprites are changed
• removed the requirement that all vehicles are articulated (was used to support vehicles with sprites longer than 8/8)
• reworked graphics generation
  • automated buy menu sprites
  • automated cargo sprites
  • automated chassis and roofs
  • automated pantographs
• added shared library of cargo sprites, cargo refits etc with Road Hog and Unsinkable Sam
• refactored classes and templates
• simplified vehicle definitions, removing boilerplate and redundancy

Known issues for 2.0.0 release

• there may be a period during 1860s when engines are available, but no suitable wagons (or wagons but no suitable engines), this is due to randomised vehicle introduction dates and will be fixed in future
• loading speeds are unbalanced, and some vehicle types may load too slowly or too quickly, this will be fixed in future
• electric and electro-diesel engines might behave incorrectly on electric railtypes where the label isn't 'ELRL', this may be fixed in future
• Iron Horse 2 grf and docs are not published on #openttdcoop bundles server, this may be fixed in future
• Brenner cab doors do not open when loading, this will not be fixed

Thanks to, in no particular order:

• @danmack for having the idea for Iron Horse, and for drawing all the version 1 sprites
• @peter1138 for the group liveries feature and being one of the people who keeps OpenTTD dying-but-not-dead
• @Eddi for reliable clear thinking and taking interest in silly problems
• @frosch123 for making a number of suggestions about the structure of the tech tree in Iron Horse 2
• @alberth for rewriting the makefile
• @pikkabird for inspiration, and sprites I’ve repurposed
• @supermop for subconsciously inspiring me to put HSTs back after I deleted them
• all those who reported bugs
• also anyone I’ve forgotten, and all the translators

Cheers

Enjoy.

[andythenorth]

Iron Horse 2.1.0 is now on Bananas

Intermodal Container Madness Edition!

14 types of container wagon spread across 3 generations. Around 300 different combinations of container type and colour, automatically selected to match the cargo!

Give it a go*

* Bug reports welcome, personally testing this many container combos was out of the question

Changelog
=========

-------------
2.1.0 Release
-------------

*Container Wagons*

• added Container Wagons in small, medium and large sizes
• added Express Container Wagons (high speed, low capacity) in medium and large sizes
• narrow gauge Container Wagon
• first available around 1960
• around 300 different container sprites and colour combinations, chosen automatically depending on cargo from
  • box containers
  • curtain side containers
  • bulk cargo containers
  • tanktainers
  • chemicals tanktainers
  • cryogenic tanktainers
  • edible cargos tanktainers
  • refrigerated containers
  • livestock containers
  • flatracks with wood
• container sprites may randomise when wagon reloads
• use depot-flip to show alternate livery for container wagons
• container wagons automatically combine into articulated sets when built

*Other Features*

• introduce first Tanker in generation 1 (1860) not gen 2 (1900)
• add large generation 4 Fruit & Vegetables Van
• add large generation 4 Refrigerated Van
• added narrow gauge Hoppers
• add High Side Mineral Wagons, split from Mineral Wagons
• improved selection of default cargos for some wagon types

*Fixes*

• tweaks to fix minor errors in multiple sprites
• force intro dates for generation 1 trains to all be identical, avoiding situation where engines are missing wagons or vice versa around 1860

*Docs*

• show vehicle sprites in code reference page
• better formatting of role string in trains page

*Translations*

• some languages updated
• translator credits http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/iron-hor ... redits.txt

[Diesel Power]

Wow Andy! I've been hauling containers by road for years and all the different container types you have here are amazing. Great work! Very realistic. All you need now is completely random box colours and it'll be perfect!

[andythenorth]

All you need now is completely random box colours and it'll be perfect!

Considered it, maybe in the distant future

[andythenorth]

Iron Horse 2.1.1 now on Banananaaaaaaaaas. Thanks for bug reports.


-------------
2.1.1 Release
-------------

*Fixes*

- medium container wagon sprites were misaligned in \ angle
- mail railcars had reversed sprites for some angles


*Translations*

- some languages updated
- translator credits http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/iron-hor ... redits.txt

[phobos2077]

This set looks very interesting. I wonder what was the original idea behind it? What's the ideological difference between this, NARS and UKRS? I'm looking for a balanced trainset to use for my 1850-2050 game. I'd like to use horse carrieges and ships alongsite early steam trains for 19-century. I wonder if this set would be a better fit for my case than NARS (or UKRS?). I prefer train engines and wagons to look close to TTD original and not having a lot of short wagons that require more micro-management. In other words, I prefer gameplay over eye-candy. But graphics should be semi-realistic (not like NUTS god forbid) and consistently looking.

Thanks in advance.

PS: checked it in game. Running costs of all trains are like 8x compared to default trains. Is this supposed to be aimed at hard-core expert players?

[andythenorth]

This set looks very interesting. I wonder what was the original idea behind it? What's the ideological difference between this, NARS and UKRS? I'm looking for a balanced trainset to use for my 1850-2050 game.

TL;DR:

• new sprites
• trains with clear roles
• UK theme
• UKRS 2 is great, but I had my own ideas

Longer:

Iron Horse 1 was an attempt to provide a full gameplay set for 1860-2020 with the most minimal set of engines (around 20), as that was as an interesting goal at the time. The ideological approach was originally 'it should always be obvious which engine to choose'.

The minimal approach was inspired by an observation Pikka made about grfs that have very many over-lapping vehicles, and that attempts to provide small stats differences between them were tending to lead to one vehicle that was always slightly better than the others. So why not just have the 'good' vehicle and drop the others?

Iron Horse 2 does not attempt to be so minimalist, as in a large map it's boring to always just use 'the strong freight engine' or 'the fast small engine' depending on the type of route and cargo.

With Iron Horse 2 it's quite viable to use (for example) 2 small freight engines or 1 large one, or to use universal engines for freight. Whilst engines do have distinct roles, certain choices can be made purely for appearance, and the net profit on the route will often come out about the same.

Iron Horse 2 provides an excessive number of wagon types, deliberately:

• so that trains with different cargos can look quite different, especially in FIRS games with many types of cargo
• there are up to 3 lengths of wagon, so that trains can be made to exact whole-tile lengths if the player chooses (this is optional)
• I wanted to draw a lot of UK wagon types that I had as 00 models when I was a kid
• the economic differences between wagon types are minimal

Iron Horse 2 also aims for easy auto-replace (almost brainless) if the player chooses to use it that way. So when a new generation of trains becomes available, there is usually a direct replacement for existing engines without excessive (unnecessary) power creep. There are also sometimes new models which do offer a large jump in power over time.

Iron Horse 2 also offers a handful of daft features, like automatic variations to appearance of some vehicles depending on consist or cargo, stupid livery tricks (ctrl-click in depot) for some vehicles, and a few other silly features.

Finally Iron Horse 2 introduces vehicles between 1860 and 2022, so it covers a long range of possible game dates.

Originally I played a lot of UKRS 2 and NARS 2, and in some ways Iron Horse is a reprise of UKRS 1 and 2. In Iron Horse 1 many of the sprites were even tweaks of Pikka's UKRS sprites (with permission). Iron Horse 2 is 100% redrawn, and sometimes me and Pikka trade ideas as we both continue to work on train grfs, in different directions.

Iron Horse 2 is also influenced by NUTS, and a lot of conversations with V453000 about train roles and sprite styles. You'd never see the resemblance in game, but NUTS definitely provided part of the inspiration.

PS: checked it in game. Running costs of all trains are like 8x compared to default trains. Is this supposed to be aimed at hard-core expert players?

Hard to say. I've been playing for nearly 15 years so any objectivity about difficult was lost a long time ago. On medium running costs I find it easy to make money with Iron Horse.

[phobos2077]

TL;DR:

Thanks for such a detailed reply! How does your vision compares to NARS? I'm trying to decide between this and NARS as they both look acceptable for my taste and both have very high running costs (not a problem thanks to BaseCosts, but I'll have to figure out the multipliers that are not too hard and not too easy for my level).
I like the focused approach of a smaller number of trains that are distinguishable yet I'm not against a little variety if it's not excessive (like some larger sets).
I also like the look and feel of the original trains that are mostly the same length => easy to set up a train for a certain total length, easier on the eyes. UKRS felt short in this regard, especially in later era wagons.

PS: I'm fine with the vanilla or OpenGFX+Trains if only they'd include extended time period as I want a 1850+ game.

[andythenorth]

How does your vision compares to NARS?

NARS 2.5.1 is a great set, I've played a lot of NARS games. Hard to recommend Iron Horse 2 over NARS 2 or vice versa.

Differences that reflect my taste: Iron Horse 2 offers consistent wagon speed limits, and it's easy to make trains that are whole-tile length.

Otherwise it's about preference for UK or North American sprites.

[phobos2077]

What's the deal with passenger and mail cars being so extremely expensive to run? I can't seem to make any profit from passengers with these trains (-$20k to -$50k profit, with running costs for trains around $50k). But my freight lines are somewhat profitable (not nearly as profitable as ships though.. I'm playing in 1882 currently).

[andythenorth]

What's the deal with passenger and mail cars being so extremely expensive to run? I can't seem to make any profit from passengers with these trains

Could be an issue with the earliest generation + the speed of the train affecting payment.

But from 1900 onwards they print money These are mostly fully loaded, both directions.