Special mark on "overtaken" items

[ChrisHuebsch]

When one buys an other company (usually from the AI), all vehicles, staions, depots, ... become owned by the buyer.

After that it is not really easy to figure out, which item was recently bought.

I wonder, if it is possible, to put any kind of mark to this items in order to find them in the various lists.

After visiting each item and deciding, what to do with the item, the mark can be cleared.

I thought of special names, but there are only 512 special names and I really don't want to see them wasted. Furthermore they need to be unique.

Any ideas?


Chris

[traskjd]

What would be nice would be that when you brought out an AI player that it mimiced real life.

For example company X buys company Y. Then, over the next couple of years the trains change to the colour of company X. This provides the facade of a "rebranding" being done - which doesn't happen in an instant like when you buy out an AI player.

That way you get a short period to check the differences etc.

Just an idea,

traskjd

[jabberwalkee_]

Or they could keep their original colours to make it easier to see which routes you need to fix, until you press a button and *poof* they get your colours

[DaleStan]

Or there's standard method of doing it with the patch:
- Buy 75% of AI company.
- Manage AI company.
- Fix AI brokenness. (Hopefully minimal, with the new AI)
- Mark[0] currently unfixable borkenness (ie stations that need to be joined, trains that need to move onto your mainline(s), etc.)
- Manage original company.
- Buy remaining 25% of AI company.
- Fix marked areas.

Furthermore, if OTTD is TTD-compliant, all vehicles acquired from a purchase will be appended to your vehicle list (that is, will have a larger number than any you already owned), regardless of any holes in your vehicle list, so this is also a good way of determining which ones are newly acquired--The ones with the biggest numbers.

[0] My current method is a rail depot with 1 $CHEAP_ENGINE in it. Sell engine and demolish depot when fixing is complete. Signs also work. (FVO "work"=="work if and only if you can find the signs again later".)

[Joker]

What about putting a mark to vehicle's name? For example every acquired vehicle would have an asterisk at the end of its name.

[ChrisHuebsch]

Or they could keep their original colours to make it easier to see which routes you need to fix, until you press a button and *poof* they get your colours

The color is directly tied to the owner. Changing owner, changes colors.

[ChrisHuebsch]

What would be nice would be that when you brought out an AI player that it mimiced real life.

For example company X buys company Y. Then, over the next couple of years the trains change to the colour of company X. This provides the facade of a "rebranding" being done - which doesn't happen in an instant like when you buy out an AI player.

Great idea! The rebranding could be done in depots!

One needs to get the vehicle there anyway for deleting them (if neccessary).

But same problem here - owner matches color.

[ChrisHuebsch]

What about putting a mark to vehicle's name? For example every acquired vehicle would have an asterisk at the end of its name.

That was my original idea too. The only way to do that is by using custom names. But they are limited to 512. At them moment they are not deleteable too. And they need to be unique - i.E. no name like "bought from player 2" for all vehicles.

[ChrisHuebsch]

Or there's standard method of doing it with the patch:
- Buy 75% of AI company.
- Manage AI company.

I do not like that. Even when holding 75% the company still works on its own. You do not have to pay for cost, you get no profit-shares.

I remember there was a discussion some weeks ago about a more advanced buying schema.

What if it is possible to own 100% of a copany but not merging it with its own. Sure - the company AI has then to be switched off and every check for ownership has to be rewritten so that the owner can change everything of that company.

After some remote-management there could be the "final" click and every item of the owned company could be merged into the own company.

But I think i like that idea