Improvements to the Content Service (BaNaNaS)

[kamnet]

An update from TrueBrain from February 19th:

We are adding some improvements to our content service (BaNaNaS) for users to easier find content they are looking for. The first change: classify NewGRFs, and allow filtering on them. Both in-game as on the website. Now search in-game for 32bpp high-res train and you will find all the high-resolution 32bpp trainsets available.

More improvements planned!

(this rolled out to everyone, including 13.0 and any older version that supports the content service)

https://bananas.openttd.org/package/newgrf

[kamnet]

An update from TrueBrain on March 5th, 2023:

More improvements just landed in the content service (BaNaNaS). You can now filter on "region", which gives you a rough idea if and for what region content was designed. Only available for NewGRFs, Scenarios, and Heightmaps.

For example, looking for a flat map in Europe?
https://bananas.openttd.org/package/hei ... ion=Europe

This is also available in-game. Just search for japan and it will show all content that is focused around Japan.

And this won't be the end on improving the content service to be more accessible to all. Hope you all enjoy!

(this rolled out to everyone, including 13.0 and any older version that supports the content service)

[Argus]

It would also be useful to be able to rate content, perhaps just game scenarios.
Some scenarios are corrupted by industry or other changes, a negative rating would prevent players from downloading it unnecessarily. Alternatively, they contain no longer found, very old newgrf.

[kamnet]

An update from TrueBrain on March 14th, 2023:

And to continue the slow process of automated classification of content uploaded to BaNaNaS, you can now find things like map-size, shape, terrain type etc for scenarios and heightmaps too, and even the climate for scenarios. This means both on our website as in-game you can filter on these things easily.

We continue our efforts to make our content services easier to browse, and we hope this helps you out in finding a cool scenario / heightmap to play on next round!

[ionickuk]

These improvements are really awesome -- thankyou.

I was wondering if it would be possible to show the same last updated date in the game as it does on the website? It's handy to know at a glance if a NewGRF is particularly old or not.

[kamnet]

The in-game content server will always show the latest version available. I don't know what value there would be in seeing the date. But you can see the version ID number which can help you determine if you actually have the latest version compared to another file you've already downloaded.

[ionickuk]

The use case I was thinking about wasn't actually about whether I (or a player) has the latest version of a particular NewGRF or not. I was more thinking around the scenario when a player is trying trying to setup or configure a new set of NewGRF's. It can be useful to know that a particular NewGRF hasn't been updated for 10 years, so likely doesn't support N new features found in OpenTTD.

Some quick examples:

• Whilst you might be using a recent release of FIRS for different industries, you might be using a NewGRF for Road Vehicles which massively pre-dates FIRS; so likely doesn't support the FIRS cargo types.

• Using a NewGRF which adds additional planes that was last updated in 2005 will almost certainly not contain the last 20~ years of new planes in it. Where-as a more modern NewGRF package might -- so I might choose the newer one instead.

I guess I can see value in knowing that information at the time I'm trying to put a set together. Which leads me to the next question, which would be, how long would it take to add the date to the UI? For example, if it's super quick and easy, then does it cause any harm showing it?

[Eddi]

the stage of setting up active NewGRFs for your game doesn't really have anything to do with BaNaNaS.

something like "you have no <rail/road/whatever> vehicle that transports <cargo type>" could theoretically be done, but only after you went through all the game creation steps. showing this beforehand needs some internal data restructuring in the game.

doing that on the BaNaNaS level is very fuzzy, because it cannot detect configuration errors that depend on parameters and stuff. and also it cannot consider NewGRFs that are distributed outside of BaNaNaS

[ionickuk]

Oh, sorry, I don't mean Bananas *literally* aiding in that process. I just meant that as a player, mentally going through that process manually of browsing the repo and picking NewGRFs -- it'd be much easier to do if the date was there. As a player, you can infer a lot of information just from a "last updated" date.

I didn't mean for Bananas to sudden understand all the nuances of all the NewGRFs and their configuration parameters.

[kamnet]

An update from TrueBrain on May 15, 2023:

We just published a new blog on our website: https://www.openttd.org/news/2023/05/14 ... and-survey

In short, we updated our privacy policy; we were tracking far less information than the policy suggested. Also, an updated of the upcoming opt-in automated survey we are adding to the game. The why, what, and how.

Any questions or concerns, please reach out to us!