Tram Id discussion [Split from UK Tram set]

[SuperTycoon]

Can anyone give me a really quick explanation of how the tram ID system works? How many Tram IDs are there? Where do they come from?
(Are they recycled road vehicle IDs, or are they new ones created with the tram system)

Then maybe we could think about compatibility between tram sets over the use of IDs (depending on how many there are) since non of the tam sets I've seen so far are planning to create all that many trams, and if there are as many tram IDs as road vehicles or trains then surely some co-operation between the sets would be useful? If successful a similar system could potentially be used for small road-sets.

Equally, could a patch developer tell me how impossible extending the number of IDs available to each vehicle type is? Is it majorly hard-coded, or is it something that might be feasible two or three years down the line?

[Lakie]

1. Quite simply, a tram is a road vehicle with a flag set, this means they use the same ids as road vehicles, thus if you have trams you cannot have as many truck / bus types.

2. It is hard coded, both in TTD and in functions in TTDpatch, changing that would require a lot of work.

~ Lakie

[SuperTycoon]

1. Quite simply, a tram is a road vehicle with a flag set, this means they use the same ids as road vehicles, thus if you have trams you cannot have as many truck / bus types.
~ Lakie

Does this mean tram sets would be incompatible with existing road vehicle sets which use the same IDs?

[Lakie]

Indeed, which makes sence really, bit like trying to use a maglev train set which uses the same ids as a normal train set.

~ Lakie

[George]

1. Quite simply, a tram is a road vehicle with a flag set, this means they use the same ids as road vehicles, thus if you have trams you cannot have as many truck / bus types.
~ Lakie

Does this mean tram sets would be incompatible with existing road vehicle sets which use the same IDs?

Yes. that's why all trams sets use IDs 30-47. It makes all sets more compatible

[Dave]

1. Quite simply, a tram is a road vehicle with a flag set, this means they use the same ids as road vehicles, thus if you have trams you cannot have as many truck / bus types.
~ Lakie

Does this mean tram sets would be incompatible with existing road vehicle sets which use the same IDs?

Yes. that's why all trams sets use IDs 30-47. It makes all sets more compatible

Please don't act like we should all know this, George. The attitude I took from your posting made me think that you thought SuperTycoon was a fool for not knowing. Don't stir up trouble.

Gavin - MORE trams please.

EDIT: Gavin has just blasted me for posting this, but I would be "backing down" by removing it. So I ask that any response comes to me via private message. Thank you.

[PikkaBird]

Please don't act like we should all know this, George.

Not only should you not be expected to know that, but it's not even true. Those are merely the IDs that George has chosen to reserve for trams in his LV sets; there is absolutely no compulsion for "all trams sets" to use them.

Just as a note, whether you use George's scheme or not, if you want your trams to be compatible with the default vehicles in all three standard climates (ie, except for toyland), then you should use toyland IDs only. This means you should avoid IDs below 3A.

[Lakie]

Indeed, there is no exact id range for trams, they can use all the road vehicle ids if you wished.
Pikka: you could always shuffle ids to allow you to use all the other climate ids, even if it is messy code wise...
[Or atleast I think you can using an action6 and splitting down action0's to major climate blocks...]

~ Lakie

[George]

The attitude I took from your posting made me think that you thought SuperTycoon was a fool for not knowing.

I did not mean that. I was only afraid that it was forgotten, because it was discussed a year ago

Not only should you not be expected to know that, but it's not even true.

German trams do, Serbian trams do. So, why is it NOT true?

Those are merely the IDs that George has chosen to reserve for trams in his LV sets;

Mistaked. LV does not have trams and does not plan to. There was a discussion, where I suggest the range and it was accepted (nobody suggested any other schema). BTW, as I wrote a year ago, I can change LVs IDs schema in a GRF file in about 30 minutes. Players would spend hours to replace all the RVs in their savegames. Remember it

there is absolutely no compulsion for "all trams sets" to use them.

There is a agreement. You are free to start a new discussion to change this range

Just as a note, whether you use George's scheme or not, if you want your trams to be compatible with the default vehicles in all three standard climates (ie, except for toyland), then you should use toyland IDs only. This means you should avoid IDs below 3A.

Then why didn't you suggested this schema last year? It could be accepted the same way. BTW, it sounds better, why didn't you suggest it before?

P.S. Every time when I suggest some way to make sets collaboration easier, there appears a group of fighters who do their best to create as much chaos as possible. Instead of taking part in discussions, these fighter shout "Do not listen George" instead of suggesting anything! What a hell for?
drived me up the wall! BORED!

I ask developers to pass their opinion! Do we need some "suggested" solutions or is it better when everyone invents his OWN solution?

[Dave]

While I agree there should be an agreed range of IDs, you appear to be pushing YOUR way of thinking on to everyone else.

There was an agreement last year? Who did you make the agreement with? Where is it? I see no public display of this.

[PikkaBird]

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with cross-set collaboration. I'm just saying don't say it's a universally agreed convention when it isn't.

[Lakie]

Split so that it doesn't clog the UK Tram set thread.

~ Lakie

[George]

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with cross-set collaboration. I'm just saying don't say it's a universally agreed convention when it isn't.

When Michael said that my suggestion was a rule because nobody disagreed (in may award discussion), everybody accepted that fine, but when I make the same statement everybody disagrees. Is that Ok?

While I agree there should be an agreed range of IDs, you appear to be pushing YOUR way of thinking on to everyone else.

Are there arguments against? Unless there are any, my suggestions are the only solutions

There was an agreement last year? Who did you make the agreement with? Where is it? I see no public display of this.

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=22572
Dated December 2005. Enough?

I became very bored. I'll stop writing to the forums for at least one month. I'll contact only developers and artists directly via e-mail. If nothing will change (me doubts that there would be any changes), I'll follow SAC.
I'm tired to fight for player happiness - seems nobody needs it. When sets would become incompatible... Well, it cares nobody, why should it care me?

Got questions? E-mail me (do not use PMs, I'll check them rare)

P.S. for Oz and Lifeblood (I do not mean I'll stop my work. I've almost finished the first-row task and shall start the second task soon)

[lifeblood]

A sad day for the forums. Can I offer my view?

George means well, but English is not his first languge. In the past, and even now I think a lot of the content of his posts come from a translator service, or do not articulate enough. Therefore, well meaning, helpful posts sound like edicts sometimes. I don't take them to be literal; I guess others do.

"People, I just want to say, you know, can't we all just get along?"
-Rodney King

[Dave]

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with cross-set collaboration. I'm just saying don't say it's a universally agreed convention when it isn't.

When Michael said that my suggestion was a rule because nobody disagreed (in may award discussion), everybody accepted that fine, but when I make the same statement everybody disagrees. Is that Ok?

As much as Michael is as well respected as anyone (and probably more), he doesn't speak for everyone (although yes - I agreed with him in that particular case).

While I agree there should be an agreed range of IDs, you appear to be pushing YOUR way of thinking on to everyone else.

Are there arguments against? Unless there are any, my suggestions are the only solutions

Other people make their own schemes as they go along, and then you enter, putting across your way.

I'm all for standardised stuff, but what if someone wanted 20 trams, and we only had 17 IDs? Such things shouldn't be fixed.

There was an agreement last year? Who did you make the agreement with? Where is it? I see no public display of this.

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=22572
Dated December 2005. Enough?

Thank you for that, but it should be stickied - what's the point in making agreements if they're not there for public viewing with ease? Anything like this should be made readily available to .grf authors.

[athanasios]

... I'll follow SAC.
I'm tired to fight for player happiness - seems nobody needs it. When sets would become incompatible... Well, it cares nobody, why should it care me?

Don't feel like this. We all care. And your vehicle set is considered as somewhat a standard in new GRFs.
If a GRF set is incompatible with your set generally I NEVER USE it and so does the rest 99%.
For me it doesn't even make sense to develop a different road vehicle set apart from yours. Additions and new liveries are welcome of course. I suggest you arrange for a team to take care of LVs set, if you don't have enough time due to other projects (remember we had a pm discussion on this). Switches can be used for enabling/disabling specific vehicles if we want to have a special schema, like Eastern Europe, Germany, Britain, US, etc (like AV set.)

I side with your opinion about IDs.

And I am fed up with all those different tram sets poping up with only a few trams. (Please don't get offended. I admire artists' and coders' work): Couldn't there be one complete tram set only and stop arguing "we don't want cargo here" or this or that?

IDs aren't enough? You are right Dave, but there is only one solution: new code. Current limits, both in TTDPatch and OpenTTD is a big problem that has to be dealt with, no matter how hard it is.

[Lakie]

Your always welcome to come patch (extend) the limits for us athanasios, but if it was easy it would have been done by now...

~ Lakie

[Lachris]

... I'll follow SAC.
I'm tired to fight for player happiness - seems nobody needs it. When sets would become incompatible... Well, it cares nobody, why should it care me?

Don't feel like this. We all care. And your vehicle set is considered as somewhat a standard in new GRFs.
If a GRF set is incompatible with your set generally I NEVER USE it and so does the rest 99%.
For me it doesn't even make sense to develop a different road vehicle set apart from yours. Additions and new liveries are welcome of course. I suggest you arrange for a team to take care of LVs set, if you don't have enough time due to other projects (remember we had a pm discussion on this). Switches can be used for enabling/disabling specific vehicles if we want to have a special schema, like Eastern Europe, Germany, Britain, US, etc (like AV set.)

I side with your opinion about IDs.

And I am fed up with all those different tram sets poping up with only a few trams. (Please don't get offended. I admire artists' and coders' work): Couldn't there be one complete tram set only and stop arguing "we don't want cargo here" or this or that?

IDs aren't enough? You are right Dave, but there is only one solution: new code. Current limits, both in TTDPatch and OpenTTD is a big problem that has to be dealt with, no matter how hard it is.

I 100% totally agree with you, and I really care about compatible.

I use many different sets. If none of these sets where compatible, it would spoil the pleasure of TTD (For me). It's the ability to choose which GRF's I like/want, that makes this game so great. And if the dev. of the UK trams set, choose not to make it compatible with George LV, I'm not sure i would use it. And wouldn't it be a pity to all those artist, and coders on the UK trams set, if I prefer George LV.
(P.s. Only my thoughts)

[Wile E. Coyote]

Mistaked. LV does not have trams and does not plan to. There was a discussion, where I suggest the range and it was accepted (nobody suggested any other schema). BTW, as I wrote a year ago, I can change LVs IDs schema in a GRF file in about 30 minutes. Players would spend hours to replace all the RVs in their savegames. Remember it

I'm all for standardised stuff, but what if someone wanted 20 trams, and we only had 17 IDs? Such things shouldn't be fixed.

Well, it seems that Serbian tram set will need more free IDs in future, because I plan to add more trams soon...

[eis_os]

From the internal design it wouldn't make much sense to actually enlarge the id range arrays but generally do a totally different system to have private internal id ranges much like newstations/newobjects per set. (So you can mix sets and generally have no more limit or sets overwriteing half stats problems) However the action0 system we now have with the complicate callbacks and cache (which is very important) would need to be changed quite much. And the AI would go nuts...

And I have to agree with George that there was atleast a guideline everyone should follow. While I don't force people to use an certain style, the devs (or better say atleast me) won't support systems that don't make sense... If there is a better alternative id wise or good reason to not use the agreed ids, there will be surely no problem.