Suggestion: eternal history, an idea brainstorm

[thegreatpl]

first off, i'm new here (on the forum), and apologies if something like this has been mentioned elsewhere, or whether it should be in the suggestions or graphics section of the forums. also, i have absolutely no programing or artistic skills whatsoever, so i dont know how far this is possible or not.

now, i have seen people suggest about making sets back into the 1800's, and even noticed several people making newgrf's to that effect. but one think has occurred to me; why stop there? why not have games where we have galleons in the 1500's sailing about. by the 1900's, the age of the ship was over. ive seen the horse and carriages, although not had a chance to play with them.

heres a list of suggestions i have thought up:

road:
carriages,
horse drawn wagons,
steam cars (1800's-1900's)
etc,

rail (been around long before anyone thought to put a steam engine on it):
steam engines 1800's+,
horse drawn wagons 1800's-,
etc,

sea:
galleons (bulk haulage),
clippers (faster than galleons),
whalers/fishing ships (oil tankers, or just skip oil all together)
etc

air:
airships around 1900's-1940's (seen a suggestion like this_

another option is to have some sort of industry modifier that makes the industries more realistic.
industry conversion suggestions:
oil platform=fishing grounds
oil refinery=fishing village
power station=coal yard
etc


to be really radical/ridiculous, a could make a sort of magic/fun option could be implemented, although this is probably too far for most people:

helicopters:
dragons (temperate)
flying carpets (tropical)
etc


as i said, i dont know the first thing about programming, or what other people think. these are just ideas, thoughts anyone?

[andythenorth]

road:
carriages,
horse drawn wagons,
steam cars (1800's-1900's)

These are all in eGRVTS. The HEQS set will also have steam traction engines in it.

rail (been around long before anyone thought to put a steam engine on it):
steam engines 1800's+,
horse drawn wagons 1800's-,

NARS2 runs back to the 1800s for US steam engines, but not for horse drawn. Someone could ask Zephyris if they can use his horses to do horse drawn trains. There's also an early trains grf recently posted here.

sea:
galleons (bulk haulage),
clippers (faster than galleons),
whalers/fishing ships (oil tankers, or just skip oil all together)
etc

The 2CC ships set includes some older sailing ships.

air:
airships around 1900's-1940's (seen a suggestion like this_

Try Plane Set or AV8. Both have airships.

another option is to have some sort of industry modifier that makes the industries more realistic.
industry conversion suggestions:
oil platform=fishing grounds
oil refinery=fishing village
power station=coal yard

I am thinking of something like this - a newgrf with industrial phases, so over time some industry types disappear entirely, and new types become available. The snag is that industry coding makes my brain hurt.

[thegreatpl]

the problem with most of these is they are coded to be after a certain time, when they would have been in use before that. the horses and carriages are an example; they are introduced about 1800 when thy would have been in use for centuries before that.

the earliest i have seen a vehicle suggested is 1700. i have seen a multiplayer game well into the 3000's, so why wouldn't people play games from the past to the future?

the idea of industries changing over time is a good one. i think that would work in gameplay.

[ostlandr]

There have been a bunch of good ideas kicked around the forums, such as mule-drawn canal boats, river steamboats, tugs & barges, etc. Not sure how much interest there would be in pre-1830 OTTD, since Rail seems to be such a core aspect of the game. Most of these ideas just need the attention of interested pixel artists and coders to implement. Lacking that, ain't gonna happen. (Unless of course I hit the lottery and can hire my own artists and coders.)

There is a lot of room in the 'horsepower' department for development- Oxen are slow, but reliable and powerful. "Warm blood" draft horses are both fast and powerful, but expensive to buy and maintain. Bigger teams of them (think the Budweiser Clydesdales) provide higher capacity, but at a greatly increased purchase and running cost. Mules (think "20 mule team Borax") would be great for moving freight in Subtropical, reliable and cheap. Fast horses (think Royal Mail express coaches) are expensive and unreliable. How about a "Pony Express" rider that moves one mail, but cheaply and twice as fast as any other non-motorized transport?

If you want to talk alternative history, how about if the Roman Empire never fell, the Dark Ages never happened, and Aegidus Cuniculus (Giles the Miner) of Brittania invented the steam locomotive in 830 CE to move coal from the mines to the docks for export to Rome?

Nova Romana train set
Nova Romana RV set
Nova Romana plane set
Nova Romana ship set
Nova Romana industry set (adds tin and copper to Temperate)
Latin town names

[thegreatpl]

one of the main problems with all other transport is the small cargo capacity. the only way to transport large amounts of cargo is by train. if the boats were the fastest, and had the largest cargo capacity, like in the dark ages, i'm sure they would be used more.

i could do alternate history. the idea of a roman empire would be good. the idea of course brings into play the thing that you could have a lot more futuristic vehicles, as timewise you could add them in long before the time gets to 2050.

again, your right a coder and artist is needed, and to get one you have to get them interested in a project.

EDIT: the early rail set now has a horse drawn train! only problem is it starts at 1700. plus, on my game (v6.3) treverthics isnt working properly.

[ostlandr]

Horses were used to haul rail carriages before the locomotive was invented. Rails are simply more efficient at moving heavy loads. One colliery I read about used ponies to haul the empty wagons up to the mine, then gravity propelled the loaded wagons back down to the dock. The ponies rode along on a tiny livestock van. Horse drawn trams were common also, for the same reason.

FYI San Francisco's famous cable cars (trams powered by a moving cable underneath the pavement) were inspired by the difficulty of horse-drawn trams on San Francisco's very steep streets:

"I was largely induced to think over the matter from seeing the difficulty and pain the horses experienced in hauling the cars up Jackson Street, from Kearny to Stockton Street, on which street four or five horses were needed for the purpose–the driving being accompanied by the free use of the whip and voice, and occasionally by the horses falling and being dragged down the hill on their sides, by the car loaded with passengers sliding on its track..... .... With the view of obviating these difficulties, and for the purpose of reducing the expense of operating street railways (tram-roads), I devoted all my available time to the careful consideration of the subject, and so far matured my plans that I had California Street (a very steep street in San Francisco) surveyed [between Kearny and Powell streets, a distance of 1,386 feet] in 1870 by an engineer of the name of David R. Smith, and in the Sacramento Record, a newspaper published in the City of Sacramento, California, in 1870, a statement is there published in its telegraphic news of what I proposed to do, viz: to run a rope railway to carry passengers from the city to the plateau above."

http://www.sfmuseum.org/bio/hallidie.html

one of the main problems with all other transport is the small cargo capacity. the only way to transport large amounts of cargo is by train. if the boats were the fastest, and had the largest cargo capacity, like in the dark ages, i'm sure they would be used more.

i could do alternate history. the idea of a roman empire would be good. the idea of course brings into play the thing that you could have a lot more futuristic vehicles, as timewise you could add them in long before the time gets to 2050.

again, your right a coder and artist is needed, and to get one you have to get them interested in a project.

EDIT: the early rail set now has a horse drawn train! only problem is it starts at 1700. plus, on my game (v6.3) treverthics isnt working properly.