The Thread Of Randomness

[orudge]

You’ve given me a push there, definitely sub-arctic next, I keep intending to play one but somehow keep starting temperate games!

It’s certainly a bit more challenging - I’m playing with Pikka’s Basic Industries too, on a 512x512 map, and having to haul things up huge mountains especially in the earlier days could be quite ‘interesting’. Also the trees everywhere - have had lots of fun with local authorities who hated me due to building a big old line right next to their towns knocking down loads of trees in the process, oops. I also included two AI competitors, something I don’t usually do, which has also made it a bit different for me.

I now have something like £1.5bn in the bank so if I want to terraform half the mountains to make my network more efficient, I can (and occasionally do), and it can be quite satisfying to gradually optimise things. Though I have quite a few bottlenecks - towns seem to grow more rapidly than I remember, and there are areas where I have tracks threaded between towns that are now huge metropolises of 30,000+, with random industries and stations sandwiched between them too. All rather enjoyable though. I’ll perhaps try to post some screenshots soon.

I am debating going back to temperate for my next game and doing a “old school” game of the built in vehicles, industries etc - something I’ve probably not done in about 20 years! Ever since TTDPatch introduced NewGRF there have been so many interesting sets to try, so I haven’t really played standard TTD in a very long time. Ah, the days of hauling coal around on 400mph maglevs…

[Martin]

@orudge, yes, I’ve definitely come up against the tree problem in my new sub-arctic game, I don’t think it would feel quite the the same without grappling with local authorities! I have just found with two towns close together I’ve been quite happily building parts of my station then strayed into the other local authority area and then couldn’t, for a second or two I wondered what was going on there.

Please do post some screenshots, it would be great to see those.

@Pilot, wow, I really didn’t even know you could go that far. Of course I’m now starting to want to get more complicated (again)

[Chrill]

I now have something like £1.5bn in the bank so if I want to terraform half the mountains to make my network more efficient, I can (and occasionally do), and it can be quite satisfying to gradually optimise things. Though I have quite a few bottlenecks - towns seem to grow more rapidly than I remember, and there are areas where I have tracks threaded between towns that are now huge metropolises of 30,000+, with random industries and stations sandwiched between them too. All rather enjoyable though. I’ll perhaps try to post some screenshots soon.

You definitely should! I start a game about once per year but rarely make it enough to take screenshots of them!

[CTarana45]

I'm studying Japan's Railway system the same way I did Britain's and the US!

Christopher Tarana

[orudge]

I’ve been playing my first proper game of OpenTTD in probably 11 or 12 years over the past month or so - have got from 1920 to 2000 just now using NARS (sub-arctic), it’s been fun. Sucks up a lot of time though!

I tell a lie here, I started the game in 1900, not 1920, so actually I’d been going for 100 years when I posted this. Now in around 2018 I think. Just noticed that one of my oil rigs is now pumping out a million litres a month (the oil is transported by ship to a station which is then taken by train a fair distance to the nearest refinery), so that’s making a nice chunk of money. The running costs in NARS2 are rather painful though, my aircraft are making considerably more profit in total than my trains!

[Chrill]

I’ve been playing my first proper game of OpenTTD in probably 11 or 12 years over the past month or so - have got from 1920 to 2000 just now using NARS (sub-arctic), it’s been fun. Sucks up a lot of time though!

I tell a lie here, I started the game in 1900, not 1920, so actually I’d been going for 100 years when I posted this. Now in around 2018 I think. Just noticed that one of my oil rigs is now pumping out a million litres a month (the oil is transported by ship to a station which is then taken by train a fair distance to the nearest refinery), so that’s making a nice chunk of money. The running costs in NARS2 are rather painful though, my aircraft are making considerably more profit in total than my trains!

Classic question, did you turn off inflation? It... well, inflates.

Also, airplanes secure insane amounts of money if running full speed and I often play without them for that reason (and because flying 1/4 speed looks silly)

[orudge]

No, I didn't - I think I did for my previous few games but it had been a long time! Will probably turn it off for my next game, if only just so that I can more easily compare what profit I'm making in later years with earlier years.

[CTarana45]

"Bethgon" Coal Hopper's were made by Bethlehem Steel Company!

Christopher Tarana

[Redirect Left]

Well, today I found out I can't watch Virgin Media TV that is recorded to my local box if my internet happens to die.
Wonderful, thank you Virgin that's an amazing design, I'm so glad I pay you £75 a month, especially given you are meant to be supplying me with reliable internet to begin with, as well as TV.

[dol422]

that's an amazing design

I think you may have over exaggerated there. One of the reasons I'd like to stick with a box and satellite rather than have all my TV come through via Internet seeing as mine is intermittent (actually quite poor) considering the money that is paid for it.

[Redirect Left]

I'd like to stick with a box and satellite rather than have all my TV come through via Internet.

I have cable TV

When you've no internet, the main menu fails to load. Which in turns means you cannot select the recordings tab from the home browser.
I think it's trying to load stuff from the internet connection, even though it has the recordings local, as if the recordings page of the browser is using the internet to see the names and details of what it has saved, instead of saving them with the recording file

The live TV still works, so it is still receiving cable TV, it is only the internet portion of my set up that is dead. Although TV & internet come through the same fibre cable so, nice one.

Apparently its a massive outage, not just Virgin Media, so who knows what the actual cause is. Either way, the setup is weird if you can't watch locally stored things when their internet is dead. Some websites work, like tt-forums.net, but others do not, so i think some DNS has flopped over somewhere.

Fs1MfBHWYAMRDgz.jpg (36.75 KiB) Viewed 53041 times

[Chrill]

I'm so glad I pay you £75 a month

Maybe TV is more expensive in the UK, but £75 sounds absolutely ludicrous. To get the same pricing here in Sweden, you'd have to sign up for something like the absolute biggest TV package with 200+ channels, followed by the most expensive sports rights such as every round of Premier League, UEFA Champions and Europa League, the NHL, Formula 1, Golf, Boxing, and UFC. And all the movies + series streaming packaged with that.

I pay about £23 per month today for a medium TV package and more basic sports (Premier League, La Liga, and Formula 1).

[Redirect Left]

Maybe TV is more expensive in the UK, but £75 sounds absolutely ludicrous.

My £75 package includes cable TV (Virgin Media's 'Maxit' package, 190ish channels, not including the 'best' sport channels, i have the more basic ones like Eurosport & BT Sport, also not including movie channels, those are more £) & fibre Internet (about 375mbps down), although given we also have to have a TV licence to watch live TV that also adds another £159 per year / roughly £13 a month.

[Chrill]

Well, if Internet is included I would say the pricing is rather equal!

[Redirect Left]

Well, if Internet is included I would say the pricing is rather equal!

All in all, it isn't a the worst deal. But, at a time when everything is going up it is getting a little close for comfort month in & out.
BT (formerly British Telecomms) has a nice deal for £59 a month, so i might wave that in Virgin's face, and combined with the 32ish hours of chaos a few days ago, if i can't get them to give me a few month or more cheaper.

[Chrill]

BT (formerly British Telecomms) has a nice deal for £59 a month, so i might wave that in Virgin's face, and combined with the 32ish hours of chaos a few days ago, if i can't get them to give me a few month or more cheaper.

Having worked in Customer Service basically my entire life, I can tell you this is the only way to do it. Get transferred to the Cancellation Department, they will always have deals meant to encourage you. You could ask directly for a price match, or you could say something along the lines of looking over your economy. They will often do deals like "12 months, with 3/6 months free" which obviously comes to a 25-50% discount spread over a year. If you know you intend to keep the subscription, why not give them the benefit of a 12 month agreement.

[CTarana45]

Screenshot's are the Epitome of Action! Not boring at all!

Christopher Tarana

[Redirect Left]

Managed to make a fool of myself in a pub quiz tonight.
"Which American City is famous for the windy road named Lombard Street?", I confidently answered "San Fierro". "Wrong, San Francisco".
Apparently, I have played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas so much, it is now my go-to name for San Francisco, how it is named in the game.

Thankfully I had only done fairly well up to that point, so it wasn't the question that booted me out of the £250 prize running, that would have been even more embarrassing somehow.

[CTarana45]

Which company's motto was Take A Ride On The Reading?

Christopher Tarana

[piratescooby]

https://www.ncertpoint.com/2022/02/what ... -mean.html , a new One on me Played many versions of the game .