New Ship idea - Great Lakes Freighters

[DanMacK]

Hello all,

Just joined the forums and I'm now part of the design team for the US train set. Beign from North America, I like Great Lakes style freighters. Nowadays, the new ones look like the ocean going ships in TTD, but older ones had structures on both the bow and stern. There are hundreds of ships built like this, I'd settle for 1 or 2. Here's ehat a "generic" Laker looks like - Not all of them have te unloading boom tho'
http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/specia ... -00-dc.jpg

Got a question here, how long can ships be? I've toyed wit the idea of adding a few. Is Micheal Blunck's Tanker as long as we can go? If so, I can live with that. I'll post some "in-progress" shots of what I'm thinking of.

Suggestions and answers to my question welcomed A max. pixel length would be excellent

Take Care,
Dan MacKellar

[krtaylor]

There are two problems with more ships.

1. It's perfectly possible to make them longer, but doing so causes problems with the graphics because the game still views them as one square long. That means that when they turn corners at the shoreline, the box or stern would go onshore. The ship-moving algorithms already aren't that great, look at how they run on top of and through each other with impunity.

2. The worse problem is that there are only a few slots for the ships, and more cannot be added. MB's new ships set uses every last slot and at the present time, it is impossible to add any more. MB already has some more ships drawn for which there is no slot. Someday maybe a workaround will be found, but not now.

[DanMacK]

There are two problems with more ships.

1. It's perfectly possible to make them longer, but doing so causes problems with the graphics because the game still views them as one square long. That means that when they turn corners at the shoreline, the box or stern would go onshore. The ship-moving algorithms already aren't that great, look at how they run on top of and through each other with impunity.

Yeah, I think I'd make it as long as the Tanker in MB's set. I've actually had a request from a post I made on the TT usenet forum, a guy e-mailed me asking if I could do an early passenger liner. Really, the graphics issue doesn't bother me. I go for gameplay over realistic graphics movement.

2. The worse problem is that there are only a few slots for the ships, and more cannot be added. MB's new ships set uses every last slot and at the present time, it is impossible to add any more. MB already has some more ships drawn for which there is no slot. Someday maybe a workaround will be found, but not now.

Well, why not have 2 shipsets and alternate between them? As I said, I had a guy e-mail me asking to draw a liner from about 1920-1930. That along with a few select freighters will enhance the North American scheme of things a bit. We definitely need a cargo vessel and passenger vessel available for 1921. Again, just throwing out ideas here.

Got enough on my plate with the US expansion set right now, maybe in the future. Heck, I'd even be happy with one Laker

Regards,
Dan MacKellar

[eis_os]

Michael planed already smaller ships for better canal support...

[DanMacK]

Well, I'd be willing to forgo some of the Specialty ships for a some more accurate North American ships. Only 11 slots you say... Dang, and I've noticed that adding more ship slots isn't possible (At this time). I'd like to see that little Ferry at the start replaced with a suitable Liner though. I'm playing an Atlantic Ocean scenario I found on the 'net, but the lack of ships (and Road Vehicles) in 1921 is annoying

[krtaylor]

Well, I'm wondering if it might not be possible for MB to reorganize the ship set, because several of the cargo ships seem really similar and it is possible to completely change their graphics based on their cargo. So just make four of them, one, and have a longer refitting list, thus freeing up a bunch of slots.