Improved ships and docks

Savant · Post by **Savant** » 14 Jan 2006 05:29

The ship side of things has been the weakest point of the game I reckon. Ships have no 'mass', can drive right through each other, and you can have 50 of them at the same tiny dock at once. I played a game focusing on shipping and by 1980 I couldn't build anymore ships (maxed out!) despite having hundreds of millions of dollars. Takes the challenge out of the game! All other vehicles have to queue for space at the station, and give way to one another, so that'd be a great addon for OpenTTD - larger, properly functioning docks, ships that can't drive through each other etc..

Moriarty · Post by **Moriarty** » 14 Jan 2006 11:05

Other ship weaknesses (for completeness

):
Their isn't much variation between ships.
Their are no new ships for the last half of the game.
The pathfinding sucks (older versions)
The pathfinding will kill your CPU over distance (newer versions).

The solutions to the first two can probably wait until 32bit gfx (though I don't recally seeing any ship renders). Improved docking and (de|a)cceleration would need coding, and the devs seem more interested in the other three forms of transport (along with the vast majority of players (myself included))

Savant · Post by **Savant** » 14 Jan 2006 13:40

Yeah, what he said

I'm very pleased with the improvements to the other 3 transport systems - international airports, huge sprawling train stations and multiple vehicle bays have made a world of difference. I just really like ships

The extra ships that were added in TTDpatch were excellent, but still a bit limited due to engine constraints. But obviously ships are a low priority, so now that I've said my piece I'll wait patiently

RMJ · Post by **RMJ** » 14 Jan 2006 16:35

Yeah i think the devs need to focus more one the other types than railroad. Seriously railroad is way to good. Those guy really need to do some work on ships / trucks and airport. No fun it always and only playing with railroad. Could be nice if there where a need for ships.

Savant · Post by **Savant** » 15 Jan 2006 02:44

I had a thought about the pathfinding issue. Modern ships don't just wander all over the ocean as they please, especially close to land. They follow shipping lanes

You could make it so that you have to lay down paths for the ships, just like rail, but for water. It would either be free to do so, or maybe cost $1 per section, and the graphics for it would be a faint line, and you'd use the tools just like for rail. This way you could make the ships have mass as well, so they no longer drove through each other. Plus the docking system makes more sense

XeryusTC · Post by **XeryusTC** » 15 Jan 2006 09:08

Savant wrote:Modern ships don't just wander all over the ocean as they please, especially close to land. They follow shipping lanes You could make it so that you have to lay down paths for the ships, just like rail, but for water.

There are waypoints, called bouys, for that

Savant · Post by **Savant** » 15 Jan 2006 10:20

They're more like stations with 'non-stop' turned on though. With shipping lanes you could plot exactly where you want the ships to go without any pathfinding issues at all.

Archonix · Post by **Archonix** » 15 Jan 2006 12:32

Actually I quite like that idea. It'd be useful in ome situations, and it wouldn't have to be marked too intrusively, either. perhaps just with a slightly different shade of water...

I had a siimlar idea for aircraft a while back but I didn't post it. Got too complex.

Moriarty · Post by **Moriarty** » 15 Jan 2006 15:31

Shipping lanes would be interesting. But they would have to be done in a manner that minimises "work" for the user.
Bouys are a pain to use. You can only put them down one by one, and you have to click them one-by-one when setting out route orders (though fortunately copied/shared orders make it easier these days).

The devs changes arn't just to trains. Many of their changes benefit all transport (cloning/ NPF etc). But I can't think of any boat specific featuers that have been added (except maybe locks/canals from ttdp).

MeusH · Post by **MeusH** » 15 Jan 2006 17:16

It is planned that ships travel near the right seaside in the future versions of OpenTTD.

Feel free to contribute new ideas and take part in discussion on the OpenTTD Wiki page free! enter now!

Brianetta · Post by **Brianetta** » 15 Jan 2006 17:28

MeusH wrote:It is planned that ships travel near the right seaside in the future versions of OpenTTD.

They should travel on the same side as road traffic. (:

White Rabbit · Post by **White Rabbit** » 15 Jan 2006 18:31

Is there any way of increasing the size of the ship? The minimum, I think, should be 1 tile, but have you seen the length of modern tankers and freight ships? New OTTD ships should be multiple tiles wide AND long and have larger capacity. We will then, however, also need to increase the default production of oil rigs to cater for this or the ships will get stuck loading oil for months and months, if not years.

MeusH · Post by **MeusH** » 15 Jan 2006 19:38

Brianetta wrote:
MeusH wrote:It is planned that ships travel near the right seaside in the future versions of OpenTTD.
They should travel on the same side as road traffic. (:

Let's check the world standards... Certainly ships travel on the same side both in UK waters and any other seas

Brianetta · Post by **Brianetta** » 15 Jan 2006 20:04

World standards, meh. Lots of my ships operate in lakes.

Savant · Post by **Savant** » 16 Jan 2006 02:23

I imagine the shipping lanes would be laid down in a drag-n-drop kinda way, much like the rail system. Less of a pain than having to plot the course along buoys I think

Ships should have a larger footprint, but I don't think they should be made TOO huge, especially if a proper docking system is to be implemented.

The shipping lanes could hook up with the docks in much the same way that rail does, with the ships choosing a docking point similar to how the aircraft choose a landing bay at an airport. Actually, the docks could basically follow the airport model - once the ship gets close enough, it could taxi along specific points like the aircraft do in the airport...

Moriarty · Post by **Moriarty** » 16 Jan 2006 16:22

Feel free to contribute new ideas and take part in discussion on the OpenTTD Wiki page

Personally I think wiki's arn't any good for discussions. They're simply not made for it. That's what these forum types are good for though. So I'd suggest nattering about them in here.

XeryusTC · Post by **XeryusTC** » 18 Jan 2006 10:20

Mostly wikis are used for documentation and forums are used to post ideas and make them work in a good way so everyone likes it.

My second thought about the shipping lanes idea:
If ship lanes are used, allow ships to leave the shipping lane, this way they can take shortcuts and avoid each other. If you wouldn't do this you would get the same kind of system that railways have now, to allow ships to traffel in opposite directions you have to build broader shipping lanes. If this would be the case OTTD would become a game where every vehicle system is more of the same.

egladil · Post by **egladil** » 18 Jan 2006 11:47

Well, having to build wider ship lanes would only add realism, since real ships don't go out side lanes. Usually because it's not deep enough or because of regulations.

mr.adam · Post by **mr.adam** » 19 Jan 2006 10:44

you could also add a crane to the dock, and make it unload a cargo ship as soon as it arrives. Oil tankers would connect to oil pipes, passenger ships would arrive to a "terminal type" dock....
Disasters: Oil tanker disaster... Storm on sea... etc.

Savant · Post by **Savant** » 20 Jan 2006 01:45

Yeah the potential of ships has only barely been scratched within the game, plenty of room to expand them in teh years to come

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Improved ships and docks

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