Controlling the # of industries with ECS Vectors

[KeikyuFan]

New poster here, longtime OTTD fanatic. Before I get to my main point, I wanted to compliment all the developers for their SUPER efforts with the NEW GRF's over the last couple of years, especially everyone who worked on the DBsetXL, NARS, and Japan GRF's (wish I had time to develop and contribute myself...). Started playing around with the ECS vectors, which open up a completely new dimension in terms of traffic/economy planning, but have a couple of questions (I am running V0.6.3):

#1 - Is there a way to shut off the default industries (I could not find any mention of a parameter in the readme files) so that I have only ECS industries present, i.e. no default coal mines and ECS coal mines at the same time?

#2 - I am trying to build a realistic North American scenario (large map, rough terrain, longer distances between towns and industries) but I noticed that the selector in the default game generation window only seems to affect the default industries, not the # of ECS industries. For example, even if I select "very low", I still get literally hundreds of ECS industries one on top of the other when starting a 2048x2048 game. How do I control the # or density of ECS industries? Again, am I missing something in terms of parameters?

#3 - I would like to generate my own scenarios using my own heightmaps, and control the # of specific industries w/o having to select and place each one by hand (the idea here is to automate scenario generation from custom heightmaps for multiserver games). Anyway I can set a parameter to do this? Any references to source code I can edit myself to achieve this objective?

If something is "hidden in plain sight" and I didn't see it, please advise. Thanks in advance for your help.

[PhilSophus]

(I am running V0.6.3)

That is strange. AFAIK ECS vectors shouldn't work in 0.6.x. They need a more recent Nightly.

#1 - Is there a way to shut off the default industries (I could not find any mention of a parameter in the readme files) so that I have only ECS industries present, i.e. no default coal mines and ECS coal mines at the same time?

Actually, it is the default behavior of ECS to disable the default industries (you have to set a parameter to re-enable them). Are you sure, ECS vectors are enabled? From my understanding they should disable themselves when they detect a too old game version.

#2 - I am trying to build a realistic North American scenario (large map, rough terrain, longer distances between towns and industries) but I noticed that the selector in the default game generation window only seems to affect the default industries, not the # of ECS industries. For example, even if I select "very low", I still get literally hundreds of ECS industries one on top of the other when starting a 2048x2048 game. How do I control the # or density of ECS industries? Again, am I missing something in terms of parameters?

No, industry density settings do impact ECS industries. But if you have all ECS vectors loaded there are much more industry types so if the same amount of industries per industry type is generated (I think that is the case), you end up with a lot more industries. Also bear in mind that a lot of unserviced ECS industries will close down after 5 years.

#3 - I would like to generate my own scenarios using my own heightmaps, and control the # of specific industries w/o having to select and place each one by hand (the idea here is to automate scenario generation from custom heightmaps for multiserver games). Anyway I can set a parameter to do this? Any references to source code I can edit myself to achieve this objective?

There is a patch in the development forum that reduces the number of town generated. You may want to have a look at it or ask the author, as I assume doing the same for the number of industries will be quite similar.

[Conditional Zenith]

1) If you load the town vector, the standard industries will be disabled by default. The first parameter controls this (0 for disabled, 1 for enabled). See http://wiki.ttdpatch.net/tiki-index.php ... TownVector .
2) Seems to work for me. I am running a recent nightly though, maybe something has been fixed in the meantime.
3) Sorry, I have no idea, I don't play with heightmaps/scenarios much.

[KeikyuFan]

1) If you load the town vector, the standard industries will be disabled by default. The first parameter controls this (0 for disabled, 1 for enabled). See http://wiki.ttdpatch.net/tiki-index.php ... TownVector .
2) Seems to work for me. I am running a recent nightly though, maybe something has been fixed in the meantime.
3) Sorry, I have no idea, I don't play with heightmaps/scenarios much.

Sorry, I have tried every combination - 0 and 1 for parameters, Town vectors beta 4 and 5, and in both 0.6.3 and the latest nightly (r15804) - no dice. I still have default industries in addition to the ECS industries. FWIW, my GRF list is as follows:

[newgrf]
ECSTownw.grf = 0 0 0 0
ECSBasicw.grf = 1
ECSChem2w.grf =
ECSMachw.grf =
ECSAgriw.grf =
ECSWoodw.grf =
ECSConstw.grf =
nars2w.grf = 0 7 0 0 1 0
alpinew.grf =
ussigzw.grf = 1 1 1
usstatsw.grf =
newstatsw.grf =
indstatrw.grf =
ukwaypointsw.grf =
nabsw.GRF =
NACityw.grf =
NARoadsw.grf =
offices.grf =
NewFactoryw.grf =
OilPowerw.grf =
pb_viaduct.grf =
bridge_win_776.grf =
tramtrkw.grf =
newshipsw.grf =
pb_av8w.grf =
newterrain.grf =
newwaterw.grf =

[newgrf-static]

Anything I missed?

[Conditional Zenith]

Well apart from saying works for me, the only other idea I have is to disable the other non-ECS newGRFs and see if the problem is still there. If that fixes it, then try to narrow down the culprit using a binary search (maybe trying industry related ones first). Having no idea at all about what they do, NewFactory and OilPowerw sound like they could be interfering with ECS.

[KeikyuFan]

OK, I did a bit of "GRFus Eliminatus" and removed ALL the GRF sexts except for the ECS vectors. I tested each of my favorite train sets (NARS 2.0, US Trains V0.87.3, DBset V0.82 XL, Japanese Train Set v1.3d) in all climes except Toyland - no problem there. The culprit turned out to be the Alpine Climate (V0.2118.05.06, GRF # 6D720700) when used in the Arctic clime (no effect for obvious reasons in Temperate or Tropic). Bummer, since that is one of the Holy Trinity of the KeikyuFan school of Open TTD (Alpine climate, realistic trainsets, huge heightmaps with lots of mountains).

Speedstan Shintetsu, 10th Dec 2005.jpg (214.35 KiB) Viewed 2422 times

[Conditional Zenith]

You could try loading the Apline grf before the ECS ones (I know the ECS wiki says not to), and seeing if that gives better results.

You should probably make sure the author is aware of this issue (ECS is a fairly popular one, I hadn't heard of the alpine one until now). There may be a parameter to turn off whatever the alpine one is doing, or the author may add one.

[KeikyuFan]

You could try loading the Apline grf before the ECS ones (I know the ECS wiki says not to), and seeing if that gives better results.

You should probably make sure the author is aware of this issue (ECS is a fairly popular one, I hadn't heard of the alpine one until now). There may be a parameter to turn off whatever the alpine one is doing, or the author may add one.

I tried loading the Alpine set before ECS but same results - default industries are still present.

Thanks for the suggestion anyway - I will advise the author accordingly.

[KeikyuFan]

You could try loading the Apline grf before the ECS ones (I know the ECS wiki says not to), and seeing if that gives better results.

You should probably make sure the author is aware of this issue (ECS is a fairly popular one, I hadn't heard of the alpine one until now). There may be a parameter to turn off whatever the alpine one is doing, or the author may add one.

I tried loading the Alpine set before ECS but same results - default industries are still present.

Thanks for the suggestion anyway - I will advise the author accordingly.

I also posted a bug report to Flyspray, FWIW.

[Conditional Zenith]

I doubt much will come from the flyspray bug, I don't think the bug is in OTTD, rather in the 2 GRFs which are trying to do different things to the default industries.