[OTTD] Kamnet's Screenshot Thread (Updated June 28, 2016)

kamnet · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 10:23 am

FIRST STORY

I've been playing this for awhile and I figured I'd make my own contribution, especially after discovering Industrial Station Renewal and some boatload of GRFs. After starting and killing dozens of games because I wasn't happy with what I was presented, I decided to go back to one of my original games started several months ago and challenge myself to revitalize it. I started it as a 2048x2048 map using monorails only. At the time I just focused on connecting the basic OTTD industry and passenger services. Later in the game, however, I added all of the ECS GRFs and industries and I found one particular region, Little Sudingbury, to be particularly active with a good mix of complete industry chains that made it easy for me to make a lot of money. Now that I've gotten some experience in other games developing interesting landscapes, my goal is to revamp this game and make something new of it, and perhaps correct bad strategies of the past.

We join the game in the years 2497-2498. Regional transportation operator KAM-Net Corporation was the target of a hostile takeover by a group of investors who were tired of the company's near-illegal operation for the last two centuries, and has vowed to rehabilitate its corporate image. Previous officers have used intimidation and bribery to secure contracts, and is vastly unpopular with most city governments. Most towns have shut down passenger services and refused to offer new contracts. None the less, the company is still very profitable due to being the exclusive provider of maglev-based cargo distribution in the region (again, obtained through bribery and intimidation), and has shut out all other competition.

kamnet · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 10:34 am

Little Sudingbury Oil Refinery is the primary source of the company's profits. Located to the northeast of Little Sudingbury on the shores of the massive Sudingbury Lake, it currently processes over a million liters of oil a month from three oil rigs inside the lake, three oil rigs from the nearby Dennin Sea, and three oil rigs from Lake Dunshaw to the southwest. Even at a million gallons a month, oil production has gone down significantly over the last century, forcing the company to start looking for more oil resources outside of the region. The refinery produces petrol which is distributed to company-owned service stations in four cities in the region, and refined products distributed to three regional chemical plants.

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kamnet · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:08 am

The Dunshaw Lake Oil Facility was opened within the last century as the first leg of the corporation's expanded exploration. Currently three platforms output over three million liters of oil a month and is one of the richest oil reserves in the company's possession. Due to the extreme distance from the Little Sudingbury Oil Refinery, there is a stockpile of nearly ten million liters of oil. There are several growing towns in this region that are demanding petrol, and nearly a dozen chemical plant start-ups. The company is considering shifting operations into this region.

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kamnet · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:26 am

The Bradington Woods Industrial Park sits off the Dennin Sea. This region was the original source of the company's income. At one time there was an iron mine, limestone mine and coal mine in this area. Over the centuries the mines were closed, and other industries moved in to reclaim the land and utilize the massive rail infrastructure, including 8 rails that run underneath the cities of Bradington and Grodingney Bridge, providing express rail service to the towns and industries on the other side in Whitbridge, Liverly and Bridingsay.

Unfortunately the regional economy has collapsed and the industrial park has fallen into disarray. The steel mill was the last in the region and was on the brink of closing, costing millions of jobs, as was the nearby glass works. The company made the decision to invest millions of dollars into both companies, and with good fortune! Both operations being near each other and a central distribution center, Dundstow Auto Corporation decided to locate their new vehicle factory in nearby Sonnes, providing nearly 500 new jobs to residents of both Sonnes and Windhattan-on-Sea, revitalizing both town's economies. The population of both towns have nearly doubled, and the company has capitalized on the success by securing exclusive passenger rail service from the factory to both of these towns. In the near future bus transit lines will be started between the two cities.

There is also a paper mill in the park that has fallen on hard times as well, with the last printing company in the area closing some time ago. The company has agreed to lease part of the property as a temporary port for its oil platform on the Dennin Sea. The owners of the industrial park have asked the company to provide consultation for rehabilitation and future expansion of the park. Both a food processing plant and cannery are interested in locating here if improvements in rail service can be made.

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kamnet · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:40 am

Unfortunately, after the takeover, some operations were forced to close. The Feardor Gold Mine was one such casualty. While most of the cities in the region refused to offer the company passenger service, when it was announced that gold was found on the property of the former Feardor End Fruit Farm, greedy city leaders from the region suddenly wanted to jump in bed. The result was a mine that provided a small amount a gold for their banks and wreaked environmental havoc on the area, including dumping of mine waste into Lake Sudingbury. Several bribes to the Environmental Protection Agency staved off its closure, but once the takeover was finished and a scandal broke out over the bribery, the mine was slated for closure and work begun on cleaning up the land and reclaiming it for wildlife. A very expensive project, but one began to show that the company is changing its ways.

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kamnet · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:55 am

The Brindingsay Mines terminal has been in existence for nearly two centuries. Originally opened as a small gravel and sand quarry, iron was later discovered nearby and an iron ore mine operated up until 40 years ago. While inspecting the mine for safety as a potential tourist site for spelunkers, a coal seam was found to run due west. As several other coal mines in the region had closed over the last century, this new discovery was significant as its operation has reduced the costs of operations for the steel mill and glassworks in Bradington Woods, and may soon provide coal to a power plant in the region. The company has worked hard to minimize the footprint left on the environment, including filling in the former iron ore mine and re-using the space for the mine's waste and water recycling.

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Badger · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 4:14 pm

A few pointers.
1. You can have 3 attachments per post.
2. You don't need to hotlink to a pic then attach it aswell, just use the forum attachment.
3. If you want your pic to appear it'll need to be no more than 800x600 px.

petert · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 4:40 pm

Badger wrote:

2. You don't need to hotlink to a pic then attach it aswell, just use the forum attachment.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who looks at embedded pictures. At least they don't overflow the page. I think you should keep it like it is, its perfect.

kamnet · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 6:59 pm

Badger wrote:

A few pointers.
1. You can have 3 attachments per post.
2. You don't need to hotlink to a pic then attach it aswell, just use the forum attachment.
3. If you want your pic to appear it'll need to be no more than 800x600 px.

I've got them all resized to 800x600. For some of them they were showing up, for others they were not. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'll try to resize them a little smaller.

John · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 9:07 pm

kamnet wrote:

I've got them all resized to 800x600. For some of them they were showing up, for others they were not. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'll try to resize them a little smaller.

Resized or cropped?

If you shrink an image down to 800x600 it makes it look blurred and slightly odd as we are all used to seeing O/TTD/P in the same resolution.

Badger · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 9:13 pm

petert wrote:

I'm sure I'm not the only person who looks at embedded pictures. At least they don't overflow the page. I think you should keep it like it is, its perfect.

You can't help but look at them :roll:

....... but it's still not neccessary.

kamnet · PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 9:48 pm

John wrote:

kamnet wrote:

I've got them all resized to 800x600. For some of them they were showing up, for others they were not. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'll try to resize them a little smaller.

Resized or cropped?

If you shrink an image down to 800x600 it makes it look blurred and slightly odd as we are all used to seeing O/TTD/P in the same resolution.

Good point. I just went back and recropped them all to 799x599, everything shows up like I intended it too, HOORAH! By the way, anybody who is using Paint.NET for Windows should upgrade to the new version just released. FANTASTIC new option to select an area by ratio and pre-defined size, no more guesswork when cropping images!

Badger wrote:

1. You can have 3 attachments per post.

I know, but for these first pics none of them were really connected to each other and I wanted each one to kind of tell its own story. I'll start chaining them together when they have something in common.

as · **Joined:** Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:13 pm **Posts:** 281

Nice screenshots, maglev and nice looking stations is combination I haven't seen before.

kamnet · PostPosted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 1:43 am

as wrote:

Nice screenshots, maglev and nice looking stations is combination I haven't seen before.

Thank you

Such a great quote, I had to add it to my sig :mrgreen:

Bradington Woods Industrial Park's revitalization has finally started. The three remaining industries - the steel mill, glass works and paper mill - have all decided they needed to significantly expand their operations. KAM-Net's investment in both the steel mill and the temporary oil port has lead to the company helping to rip out the old maglev lines and reorganize them.

In this shot we see the expanded Bradington Paper Works's new facilities - including wood pulp unloading & transfer docks, a new sheltered shipping dock for the massive paper rolls, a new mill race for fresh water and a settling pool. Output of paper products has nearly doubled with the improved rail service.

The company has also decided to expand the oil port from a temporary dock into a new permanent facility that built northward into the sea. The new port include two loading docks for oil cars, passenger facility to bring workers in and transport them to two new offshore oil rigs. The port currently transfers over 4 million liters of oil a month. The port also has a heliport and a ship repair dock.

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Bradington Glass Works has built their new facility next to Dennin Sea, which will allow for at least one new industry to move into their old property. Their new facility now has a dedicated coal and sand unloading terminal, and three terminals dedicating to shipping out hundreds of containers of glass products a month.

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ZxBiohazardZx · PostPosted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 10:59 am

lovely station layouts, certainly inspiring

audigex · **Joined:** Sun Dec 09, 2007 9:28 pm **Posts:** 1919

The stations look fantastic - the trackwork could do with some more thought though. In a lot of places you use small turns where there's plenty of room to extend the curves out and make them a lot faster.

kamnet · PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 6:30 am

audigex wrote:

The stations look fantastic - the trackwork could do with some more thought though. In a lot of places you use small turns where there's plenty of room to extend the curves out and make them a lot faster.

I thought a lot about that. This is a game I originally started months ago that I used a lot of horrible track layout for. I played a little bit with re-designing some turns, but what I noticed with the maglevs that didn't seem to apply to the other trainsets is that they're not slowing down on the curves, even the 90 degree ones they're hitting at 400 MPH and maintaining. They only slow down if they hit a bridge (currently using TBRS) which slows them down to 380 MPH if I'm using a tubular bridge.

So, for this map, where I'm using exclusively maglevs, I'm not going to worry about it, especially since it's the 25th century and I'm up $7 billion dollars. I'm willing to suspend a little disbelief that you just can't suspend when using the steam/diesel/electric trains. For example, how do you have a maglev cross a road at level grade? Impossible today, but 4 centuries from now I'm imagining they've fixed that. :lol:

Benny · PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 6:46 am

About the maglev speeds: Try turning on "realistic acceleration" in the "Advanced Settings" menu..

audigex · **Joined:** Sun Dec 09, 2007 9:28 pm **Posts:** 1919

I more meant for aesthetics. Trains don't often dive around corners, so it doesn't look all that good.

It was a comment on the fact that the stations look really good, but the track next to it ruins the effect a little. There's probably not enough need to do it for this game, but you could look at it for next time. :-)

Raichase · PostPosted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 9:12 am

I'm taken aback - at first, I saw only maglev, and I thought "oh, another gamer looking for the best score possible"*, but your attention to station detail, and your well presented screenshots, complete with backstory makes this thread worth a second look. Some of your stations rival some of the best designers here, I would love to see what you could do if you were playing a game with realism in mind rather than pure profit.

Seriously, wow. Consider me subscribed to this thread!

* There's nothing wrong with that, and while I can briefly admire ones screenshots and scores, it quickly becomes all the same to me, and I lose interest.

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[OTTD] Kamnet's Screenshot Thread (Updated June 28, 2016)

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