Feasibility of additional road types?

[Roujin]

Well I think it's better to present the devs some working code and ask them what they think about it, than just telling them "I want this and that on the roadmap, please".

I've done some initial coding, there's now a gui for trails (without stations, depot, bridge, tunnel and oneway for now. For the long term, I think there should be stations for trails; depot, bridge and tunnel should be an icon in the GUI, but construct the road ones instead (dirt bridges? dirt tunnels? no no...) and oneway should not exist for trails.)

It would be fine to have some graphics now (even if it's just a rough sketchup) - as you can see the icons used in the gui and the cursor are the tram ones for now and the trail can actually already be built in game, but lacks any graphics and thus creates those glitches

edit: forgot to attach screenshot

[andythenorth]

Well I think it's better to present the devs some working code and ask them what they think about it, than just telling them "I want this and that on the roadmap, please".

Yes, good point.

re: graphics, I'll see what I can create now.

[DanMacK]

Awesome I'm really looking forward to this now. Cobblestone streets in towns, trails between towns, horses plying trails...

Early street railways were actually built along dirt roads, so theoretically, tram tracks could be built on trails...

[Roujin]

For now I've set it up to use tram graphics, better than drawing nothing at all causing a lot of glitches.

Here you can see a "trail" (=tram without overhead wires) crossing a tram track.

[andythenorth]

For now I've set it up to use tram graphics, better than drawing nothing at all causing a lot of glitches.

EDIT (3): I've done sprites 0-22. I'll stop now but I'll be interested to see how they look in game - not sure if they'll tile correctly first time round.

trails.pcx

(89.88 KiB) Downloaded 161 times

(Also not sure if the PCX output from photoshop is working right, so am including a PNG)

trails.png (28.62 KiB) Viewed 1406 times

[Roujin]

well, bad news (sort of):

I've talked to Rubidium on irc and he raised some issues about this. While he generally does like the idea of additional road types, he stated that a rewrite of the system should be done before adding additional road types.

The point is that currently, a third road type would be possible, but not more. And if we implement trails, then someone shows up and says he wants highways now. Or another type of tram. Or....
The aim he had was to allow up to 5 types of roads and 4 types of trams, with the tradeoff of not being able to have a combination of multiple types of roads on one tile.

Well, I can continue and make a patch for now, but it won't be added to trunk as it is. And there won't be support for newGrfs to specify if they can go on trails or not, so it'll be just eyecandy

But maybe we can inspirate Rubidium a bit to start that rewrite, or I can do a part of it.
For now, I'll continue with your sprites. I've noticed that I forgot the autotrail icon and cursor. You can find the road and tram ones included in this file: svn://svn.openttd.org/extra/ottd_grf/split/openttdgui.pcx

[andythenorth]

I've talked to Rubidium on irc and he raised some issues about this.[snip]The point is that currently, a third road type would be possible, but not more. And if we implement trails, then someone shows up and says he wants highways now. Or another type of tram. Or....

That is disappointing for adding the feature quickly, but not surprising. I run a commercial software business, and we use the standard coding tactic of 'if you need 2, write 2, if you need more than 2, make it generic'.

In the long run it is better to have a good framework for adding road types. It's less political and avoids restrictions in the codebase that would harm future gameplay possibilities.

But maybe we can inspirate Rubidium a bit to start that rewrite, or I can do a part of it.

That would be really great if we could. Obviously I want to see trails in the game, but I would rather see a more useful and interesting architecture for RVs throughout the game. Judging by the response to GRVTS, and the Heavy Equipment teasers, I think there are a good number of players who would really like to use RVs better in gameplay.

For now, I'll continue with your sprites. I've noticed that I forgot the autotrail icon and cursor. You can find the road and tram ones included in this file: svn://svn.openttd.org/extra/ottd_grf/split/openttdgui.pcx

Thanks for helping with this Roujin. I'll mod those sprites and post them here sometime today.

Also, I guess we should move this discussion to the OTTD development forum sometime?

[Roujin]

Yes, I'll create a thread in the development section..

edit: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=38108

[Batti5]

Speed Limited roads, my suggestion is that roads whith auto-speed limits

the forest/country roads at 20-40kmph (because bad cheep roads) there cloud be special cars to run faster, like land rovers, tractors, heavy equipments.
Standard national road 130kmph, 90kmph in city's, normal passager cars, buses, trucks,
Highways 320kmph or more

[ostlandr]

This could be addressed via newgrf by "borrowing" some code from narrow gauge rails. ngrails.grf changes the sprites for either regular, electric, monorail, or maglev to narrow-gauge rails. Then you need a grf with narrow gauge trains to run on the rails.

Doing it this way, you could set a parameter to have "trails"replace either regular roads, tram tracks, or the currently unoccupied highway slot. If somebody else wants to go ahead and draw & code Autobahn/Motorway/Freeway sprites into a "Highway" grf, great. Then it will be up to the user which combination they want (possibly by climate, as with some grfs.) When and if trunk gets rebuilt to allow more road types, then the grfs can either be incorporated into trunk or altered so that any or all can be used in the game.

Tram tracks (or heavy rail, for that matter) can coexist with dirt roads/streets. In that situation, the ties/sleepers are buried so that the new road surface is level with the top of rail. A board is fastened to the ties/sleepers on the gauge side of each rail, to keep the dirt from filling in the flangeway. Not fun for the poor farmer whose cart wheel just got stuck in the streetcar track, but it was done. Here's a pic:

http://www.cable-car-guy.com/images/omn ... rk_001.jpg

Anyway, it would need some serious coding to make it work, but I would love it, especially with the new 1800s vehicle sets coming out.

[Batti5]

Highway, freeways,
bridges with road and rail in the middle,

ParingaBridgeApproachFromRenmark.jpg

(973.16 KiB) Downloaded 91 times

Streets in city's with speed limit 90kmph and main line non-city road running next or trough city`s WITH!!!!! up to 130kmph limits

Avenues, 4 lane roads, (non-car roads and bigger parks, for eye candy), intersections, green lanes, medians, milestones, Pedestrian crossing, Traffic calming,
traffic lites

[Mchl]

Do you have some OS plugin that replaces 'with' with 'WITH!!!!!' every time you type it?

[JamieLei]

brides WITH!!!!! road and rail in the middle

You want to marry a bride with a road and rail in the middle?
Whatever floats your boat I guess

[Batti5]

Do you have some OS plug-in that replaces 'with' with 'WITH!!!!!' every time you type it?

No, i dot`t know how that happens

[CommanderZ]

Highway, freeways,
brides WITH!!!!! road and rail in the middle,

ParingaBridgeApproachFromRenmark.jpg

Sorry, it is sidewalk, not rail in the middle of that pic

[Batti5]

it is just an example, i coudent find a better pic

[AndersI]

Do you have some OS plug-in that replaces 'with' with 'WITH!!!!!' every time you type it?

No, i dot`t know how that happens

I think it's built into the Forum software - if you spell with the wrong way, putting 'h' after the 'w', it will automatically be replaced.

Testing: with WITH!!!!!

Edit: Yep, that was it. As it is replaced already in the Preview window, it should be quite easy to detect before pressing Submit...

[Batti5]

Testing
old way: WITH!!!!!
New way: with

Now Better?

[orudge]

the "w hit" -> "WITH!!!" thing was a result of a forum user who was *always* misspelling "with" several years ago. The filter was never removed, I guess.

Anyway, this trails thing looks most spiffing, hopefully people can come up with a more generic manner of adding road types in OpenTTD, so we can see this feature in-game properly.

[Brianetta]

the "w hit" -> "WITH!!!" thing was a result of a forum user who was *always* misspelling "with" several years ago. The filter was never removed, I guess.

Anyway, this trails thing looks most spiffing, hopefully people can come up with a more generic manner of adding road types in OpenTTD, so we can see this feature in-game properly.

So, we can't mention Ian Banks' novel, "WITH!!!!!." We'd also better be careful when mentioning the holidays around Pentecost, particularly WITH!!!!! Sunday - and associated events, such as the WITH!!!!! Walks in and around Manchester. Never mind; who cares a WITH!!!!! about WITH!!!!!?