Extended Cargo Scheme (ECS) discussion

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George
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Post by George »

LittleHelper wrote:
George wrote:...they can't close in the first two years except the special cases, and forests can't close in first 4 years...
I tested it three times. Closures are starting after the 2nd month and after 1.5 year I have lost at least 4 wood facilities of 9 (savegame attached, starting year 1960, northeast region near St.Petersburg/Murmansk).
I have to make a research. that should not happen
LittleHelper wrote:
George wrote:What time? Why?
hmm ...some forests are "available" for milleniums, minerals also.
But the industry to harvest them will close if they are not in use.
LittleHelper wrote:One general question in this context: Shall these rules be so restrictive due to programming or specific gaming reason?
Gameing. I Supposed, that unused industries should close soon.
LittleHelper wrote:Is the target to approach only high-end users of TTD with these industry sets ?
Sorry, can't understand the question. Please ask it some other way.
LittleHelper wrote:
George wrote: protection of paper mills for 4 years ... why? and the other two for 6 years ...why?
If I start a scenario/new game I have to develop some railway grid, ...have to pay back my debts... and I have no city which takes goods during the first 4 to 5 years. If I can achieve a profit making industry during the first 4-5 years then I can start to expand, esp. deliver cargos across long distances.
Does it mean, that you suggest the 5 years protection for industries, created in the map editor/map generator, and 2 years for industries, created in game?
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Post by George »

wallyweb wrote:The ECS industry vectors seem to be reasonably well worked out.
Thank you, but they are in progress :roll:
wallyweb wrote:Now might be the time for some fine tuning.
1. With respect to Little Helper's notes above, resource industries never shut down completely, unless the resource is completely used up or becomes so low that it is uneconomical to extract. Therefore, a mine or a forest, once established, should always be there.
And what should we do with the industry, that is not in service? Allow it to use industry slots witout any benefit? It's better to give a chance to the new industry, IMHO
wallyweb wrote:What should happen is, if the resource is not used (picked up?) for a year or so, production can fall off, even down to 0.
If you have the 0 production, than the amount of cargo transported is 0% and the industry would never know, that you try to service it. So the minindl level is 1 unit
wallyweb wrote:Then, if one wishes to bring that mine or forest back into service, It would require time to return to full production. A newly established resource should also take time to reach full production. Bottom line is a resource such as a mine or a pit or a forest should never close completely unless the resource is exausted.
Unfortunately, there is no place to store the data, how much cargo was transported from the industry in total nor the amount of material the industry can produce in total. As soon as such possibility would appear, I'll use it
wallyweb wrote:2. What is wrong with the fruit plantation?
- a. - Why can it only be built in towns? I live in a town and there are no plantations in the town. They are all out in the countryside near the farms.
- b. - I can understand why in a game, like the forests, they can only be built during spring and not in the winter, but why can't they be built anytime in the scenario editor which only makes January available? The forests work this way so why not the fruit plantations?
The bug would be fixed. Thank's for reporting it.
wallyweb wrote:3. Furniture Fabric - In English, "Furniture Factory" might be more appropriate. :wink:
That is the question. Who can add something here?
wallyweb wrote:Why can't I lower land next to the furniture factory? I can do it with just about everything else.
Next? callback 3C affects only the land UNDER the industry. Restrictions are made due the graphics problems on slopes.
wallyweb wrote:4. Bricks from coal? Why not clay? The sand pit could be made to produce clay as well as sand and that would be realistic. Then bricks could require both coal AND clay. The glass works could also buy clay.
MB answered it
wallyweb wrote:5. Why doesn't the lime quarry look like a quarry?
Because it is not finished yet
wallyweb wrote:An open pit image such as with the gold mine, iron mine or sand pit would be more appropriate. I suggest swapping the gold mine graphic with the lime quarry graphic for realism purposes.
In progress
wallyweb wrote:6. Vehicle issue - add a "Vehicle Dealer" to the machinery vector.
In to-do list. Would be a house, not an industry
wallyweb wrote:7. Add a Machinery/Engineering Plant to the Machinery Vector. It would buy the same types of materials as the Vehicle Plant, but it would produce machinery (instead of vehicles) to be transported to resources. The machinery could also be transported to the shipyard instead dye.
vehicles is the same cargo as machinery. There are only 32 slots, sorry.
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Post by George »

michael blunck wrote:
The ECS industry vectors seem to be reasonably well worked out.
Now might be the time for some fine tuning.
Many of the shortcomings mentioned aren’t a feature of the original ECS scheme but are simply frills of George’s implementation.
Then why don't you suggest me to change the implementation? It is in development and open for any suggestions.
michael blunck wrote:In fact there will be more/other/additional implementations of the ECS scheme (e.g. mine) which will act differently with regards to most of the things mentioned above.
a) differently is not a good term for unfinished thing ;)
b) I supposed that we'd make parts of one general things, not alternatives. As far as I remember, you were working on construction vector. So, IMHO:
1) you should point the differences in the my current implementation and your plans to achieve uniformity
2) we should work on the way of collaboration of the parts
3) you could also publish you current TODO list to make it easier to choose the priorities.
michael blunck wrote:Remember that the core of ECS are just the selection of goods and their associated cargo bits and labels and (part of) the vectors but not the special behaviour of the industries.
that is right, but First at least one full schema, and only after that we should focus on making mods (alternatives)
michael blunck wrote:All in all, the naming of George’s files is quite misleading with regards to this. 8)
sorry, only 8 chars.
michael blunck wrote:
8. This one is for Michael Blunck ... Ships! How about allowing the Passenger Liner to be refitable to tourists? Also, shouldn't the Reefer be able to carry food?
This is all adressed in NewShips XL. However, each time I was ready to release, something more important was happening. Besides, the reefer is able to carry food.
Yes, it would be very nice. And DBsetXL too. May be you could make a pre version, that does not have all the required graphics, but has the code to support all the cargos?
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Post by Ramshill »

Why does ECS demand patch 2.5 beta 4?

IS there a beta 4 available then?

If so where?
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Post by LittleHelper »

George,
today some positive impressions... :wink:
In the following I'll report about some experiences I gained (for others who want to start playing it, too) and want to address some specific issues, partially being discussed before.

1.First running wood scenario
Wow...! slowly I'm starting to have fun ...even with the wood industry. :lol:
I found a workaround of the early closes of wood facilities and played it two times, same starting scenario. In the 1st trial I tried to push it to the limit, in the 2nd trial the goal was to establish a "normal" industry, which works smoothly over the time.

2.Experiences
To start with the wood industry you need to do some "pre-work". "Refined products" (to the paper mill) and dyes (to the printing works) have to be delivered. Best is to do both in advance (!) before you start to build up the wood industry.
These two issues plus the transport FROM the sawmill to the paper mill seem to be critical issues to me to gain a smoothly running wood industry.

a) Forests
I picked up wood from 2 forest areas, but focussed more or less only on one. Regarding area1 (1 forest) the production was relatively stable and the amount of messages was ok. To area2 (3 forest) I had only 2 trains running ... and the forests in that area changed quite often the production output and with it more messages were coming up.

b) Sawmill
If the sawmill has always enough wood and enough trains are picking up the "wood products", its production runs smoothly. Crucial is here to pick up the "wood products" timely that your production of "wood products" gets high/stays high.

c) Paper mill
If sufficient "wood products" and sufficient "refined products" are available, no critical problems are coming up.
Disruptions can esp. happen if you have no "refined products" available. After some time there is no storage capacity for your "wood products" to be delivered and that will harm the transports from your sawmill and at the end your wood production in the forest as well.
- Production last month and production level: see below.

d) Printing Works
If the sufficient amount of dyes and paper is available, it is smoothly running. Crucial here is the availibity of dyes.
- Production last month and production level: see below.

e) Furniture Factory
I lost the factory quite quickly and bought only in the 2nd scenario a new one. One specific event happened as I clicked once on the factory to get its specific information. The game crashed and I received an error message ("§...").


3.Unclear issues
a) Production changes :?:
The production rate of forests is still a "volatile" question for me. Is it possible to have smaller degrees of these changes (not 50%, may be only 25%) ?

b) Production level :?:
- The "production of the last month" for the sawmill, the paper mill and the printing works changed relatively often, despite the fact that the incoming delivery and the transports from each facility was quite stable.
- For the forests and the sawmill I reached the "ultimate production level", but for the "paper mill" and the "printing works" I got always a "low/very low production level" (examples: paper mill production of 540t/m and 82% transported; printing works 638 crates of goods and 76% transported).


4. Summary, answer & proposal

a) Early shut downs :?:
Early closes of wood facilities: s. former messages.

b) Protection period :idea:
Quote: "Does it mean, that you suggest 5 years protection for industries, created in the map editor/map generator, and 2 years for industries, created in game?"

Seems to be reasonable.

c) Different dificulty levels :idea:
Quote: "...is it possible to implement a bit switch with whom the protection period/production volatility can be regulated to a certain amount ?
I do not see the benefit in it. Let us better select the optimal values and use them."

During these two plays I focussed only on the wood industry and did the necessary micro management. My feeling as non-TTD-expert still is that it would be better to have different difficulty levels (novice, regular, professional). I just concentrated on the wood industry, but if I want to develop the usual railway grid, do the city management and wanna play even another industry chain ... and pls. have in mind that different people have different experiences/knowledge and therefore different "optimal values".

d) Summary
After having played it for a very short time it seems a quite well developed industry scheme. I really enjoyed to play with these new facilities and new cargos. Thanks to everybody who is working on all these superb TTD improvements, here esp. to you, Michael B. and all others working on these industrial improvements.

Both of my trials worked quite well with only a few items to be addressed (s.above). In the first scenario I had more than 40 trains running, in the second only round about 15 and some RV to transport dyes to the printing works and goods from the furniture factory.


Regards
LH 8)
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ECS-wood-industry-impressions.png
ECS-wood-industry-impressions.png (291.75 KiB) Viewed 1870 times
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Post by George »

Ramshill wrote:Why does ECS demand patch 2.5 beta 4?
IS there a beta 4 available then?
If so where?
ttdpatch.net?
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Post by George »

LittleHelper wrote:a) Forests
I picked up wood from 2 forest areas, but focussed more or less only on one. Regarding area 1 (1 forest) the production was relatively stable and the amount of messages was ok. To area 2 (3 forest) I had only 2 trains running ... and the forests in that area changed quite often the production output and with it more messages were coming up.
that is because the your station's rating changes often. If you have stable rating on station or have several stations transporting cargo, the production change is more stable.
Additionally, forests have 40% chance of random production change and a 33% chance for change production event happen. We can adjust these values
LittleHelper wrote:b) Sawmill
If the sawmill has always enough wood and enough trains are picking up the "wood products", its production runs smoothly. Crucial is here to pick up the "wood products" timely that your production of "wood products" gets high/stays high.
I've made a small change. Now you can achieve normal production level without transporting wood products. Let me know if it is not the right solution and I'l put things back.
LittleHelper wrote:e) Furniture Factory
I lost the factory quite quickly and bought only in the 2nd scenario a new one. One specific event happened as I clicked once on the factory to get its specific information. The game crashed and I received an error message ("§...").
Please write down the exact error messages and attach the crash log
LittleHelper wrote:3. Unclear issues
a) Production changes :?:
The production rate of forests is still a "volatile" question for me. Is it possible to have smaller degrees of these changes (not 50%, may be only 25%) ?
No.
LittleHelper wrote:b) Production level :?:
- The "production of the last month" for sawmill, the paper mill and the printing works changed relatively often, despite the fact that the incoming delivery and the transports from each facility was quite stable.
The production level is adjusted every month. If the industry founds, that it is not enough cargo to process this month, it chooses the appropriate production level. The furniture fabric controls only the output, so it is smoother.
LittleHelper wrote:- For the forests and the sawmill I reached the "ultimate production level", but for the "paper mill" and the "printing works" I got always a "low/very low production level" (examples: paper mill production of 540t/m and 82% transported; printing works 638 crates of goods and 76% transported).
These are values for production levels - 333, 699, 1465, 3097, 6460, 13586. As you can see, you are below normal level ;)
LittleHelper wrote:c) Different difficulty levels :idea:
Quote: "...is it possible to implement a bit switch with whom the protection period/production volatility can be regulated to a certain amount? I do not see the benefit in it. Let us better select the optimal values and use them."
During these two plays I focussed only on the wood industry and did the necessary micro management. My feeling as non-TTD-expert still is that it would be better to have different difficulty levels (novice, regular and professional). I just concentrated on the wood industry, but if I want to develop the usual railway grid, do the city management and wanna play even another industry chain ... and pls. have in mind that different people have different experiences/knowledge and therefore different "optimal values".
I do not want to have it as a parameter. I'd suggest using TTD's difficulty setting. For example, economy stable would mean long protection periods, and fluctuating would mean short.
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Post by Ramshill »

George:

I looked at ttdpatch.net last night (30th April) but it said 2.5 beta 3
however NOW it has Beta 4. Did you release your grf early? or is the patch late :lol:
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Post by George »

Ramshill wrote:I looked at ttdpatch.net last night (30th April) but it said 2.5 beta 3 however NOW it has Beta 4. Did you release your grf early? or is the patch late :lol:
It depends on the point of view :roll:
I had beta 4 pre version a bit earlier :mrgreen:
But you could download Csaboka's pre version from his site.
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Post by LittleHelper »

George,
I played one scenario "wood" from 1960-1980 with the new files. Had some work in the first 6-8 years, later i let it run and created only some new tracks to increase the wood delivery to the sawmill and managed a few other things ... and I got even to "normal" with the sawmill and with the printing works ...may be it`s getting easier or i`m getting better ...hehe...

everything went more or less smooth... :wink:
at the beginning i had not enough dyes present at the PW and therefore i had some paper jam for some time.

Only one remark: The amount of required refined products for the sawmill and the amount of dyes for the printing works might be too high... i had 6 oil riggs and 30 ships running ... and had no real oversupply of refined products/dyes. :!: :?:

Attached screen shots from wood facilities.


regards
LH 8)
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Finally the paper goes into the printing works. The necessary dyes are transported via trucks from the chemical plant, because the train vehicles for dyes have a speed limit that it would be necessary to create extra tracks for them. The produced goods ar
Finally the paper goes into the printing works. The necessary dyes are transported via trucks from the chemical plant, because the train vehicles for dyes have a speed limit that it would be necessary to create extra tracks for them. The produced goods ar
printing works.png (166.11 KiB) Viewed 1822 times
The paper mill with two different deliveries... wood products from the sawmill and refined products by ship
The paper mill with two different deliveries... wood products from the sawmill and refined products by ship
paper mill.png (187.06 KiB) Viewed 1781 times
The sawmill with incoming wood from 3 different forests areas and outgoing wood products to the paper mill
The sawmill with incoming wood from 3 different forests areas and outgoing wood products to the paper mill
sawmill.png (172.47 KiB) Viewed 1852 times
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Post by George »

LittleHelper wrote:Only one remark: The amount of required refined products for the sawmill and the amount of dyes for the printing works might be too high... i had 6 oil riggs and 30 ships running ... and had no real oversupply of refined products/dyes. :!: :?:
Are 12.5% of dyes and 10% of refined products high percentages?
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Post by LittleHelper »

George wrote:Are 12.5% of dyes and 10% of refined products high percentages?
high and low is always relative... :wink:

If I have one forest to be served with only 1 short train and without vehicles delivery ...then it's relative high. If I serve the same area with 2-3 longer trains and deliver vehicles to that area...then the wood output increases ... and the same amount of dyes/ref.products is getting relative low...hehe

Was only wondering about the case that I have some high wood producing areas and only a few oil sources splattered across the map, if I can manage a higher output of the wood industry at all. :?:

regards
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Post by George »

LittleHelper wrote:
George wrote:Are 12.5% of dyes and 10% of refined products high percentages?
high and low is always relative... :wink:
If I have one forest to be served with only 1 short train and without vehicles delivery ...then it's relative high. If I serve the same area with 2-3 longer trains and deliver vehicles to that area...then the wood output increases ... and the same amount of dyes/ref.products is getting relative low...hehe
Was only wondering about the case that I have some high wood producing areas and only a few oil sources splattered across the map, if I can manage a higher output of the wood industry at all. :?:
You can always send more wood products to furniture fabric and less to papermill to achive the balance :roll:
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Post by Prebral »

Is there some "official" sampler of new cargo type graphics? I am currently drawing a minor trainset, but I am not sure what colors to use for some new cargo types.
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Post by George »

Prebral wrote:Is there some "official" sampler of new cargo type graphics? I am currently drawing a minor trainset, but I am not sure what colors to use for some new cargo types.
You can look at LV4, But I'm not sure that I used right colours, better wait for replay of Michael.
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Post by michael blunck »

You mean for bulk freight?

I´m using this colourmap indices (DOS colour map):

Code: Select all

coal         01 02 03 04 05 06
grain        6D 38 40 41 C3 33
oil seeds    6D 38 5C 6F 5E 3B
iron ore     7B 72 4A 73 4B 4C
lime stone   0A 1E 0B 3B 0C 0E
sulphur      42 5F 32 33 BF 45
potash       17 0D 87 0E D2 0F
sand         3A 1E 3B 26 1F 27
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Post by Prebral »

OK, thanks.
Mostly bulk freight. Some cargoes may be carried in some bags (fertilizers), but these are not a priority.
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Post by George »

michael blunck wrote:You mean for bulk freight?
I´m using this colourmap indices (DOS colour map):
Could simply post a picture (PNG)?
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Post by gmyx »

Any updates to ECS? It's been a while since i've seen any developpements, unless i'm looking at the wrong spot.

Thanks.
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Post by 2006TTD »

I think the speed is slowing down.
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