AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

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AveiMil
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AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

Post by AveiMil »

Download: http://www.aveimil.com/OpenTTD/AveiMil_PIGM.grf (Created for version 1.0.5).
Now also available via the BaNaNas in-game content service!
Current Version: 0.5.1


Hello there and welcome to my thread for the PIGM NewGRF. You might be wondering what this NewGRF is all about so I’ll get straight to the point without any further fuzz: This NewGRF aims to improve the OpenTTD gameplay by making it more challenging and balanced.

This means balancing all the different modes of transportation in terms of both relative internal costs in that group (i.e. cost and effectiveness of the various aircraft compared against each other) and relative to the separate transportation groups (trains, road vehicles, ships, aircraft).

In one simple sentence I want all modes of transportation to be viable (in terms of cost effectiveness) and the deciding factor on what mode of transportation is the right choice in terms of cost-effectiveness should be mainly dependent on the randomly generated map.

Secondly I want the game to be far more challenging, which means that if you do not choose a cost-effective approach to building your transport empire you will struggle severely and or even go bankrupt. Choices should matter more. Money should no longer be irrelevant by 1960.

Now, I’ve balanced the stats and tested quite a bit to the best of my ability, however this is a time consuming process and I really need help from the community to play test and deliver balance feedback. To make this more entertaining I figured we could have a small competition with predefined goals and settings to play with.

Competition!

Advanced Settings: Download my config: http://www.aveimil.com/OpenTTD/openttd.cfg for the settings.

Also, you should preferably not be running any other NewGRF's, at least none that include new vehicles as those will not be balanced in terms of cost. Other NewGRF's like FIRS (Industry Replacement Set) should work fine however.

Difficulty:

Image
settings changed for 0.3

We don't want any AI's as we are competing against each other (or yourself) instead.

Map Settings:

Image
settings changed for 0.3

The Goal: The goal is simple, make it to 1980 with a high a Company Value rating as possible. Please post your save game and also a screenshot (if possible) with the company screen and the currency set to Pounds (£) for easy comparison.

Other: If you don’t want to play with these settings, that’s fine too, but please state in your post what’s different in your game, otherwise it’s very hard to compare.

Play from 1950 to 1980 as many times as you want and try to get the highest possible company value at the end of 1980, post your results!

The changes

Vehicles: In general vehicles have undergone massive changes. There are now much larger differences in prices when comparing old to more powerful new equipment. The changes are too comprehensive to list, please check them out in-game. This part of the balance process will need much more work and to get there I badly require feedback from user testing.

Building Costs: Infrastructure is now quite a bit more expensive. Building roads, rail track, bridges and tunnels come at a hefty price tag, which means you'll be planning the most cost effective route to take. Early in the game you might not even be able to afford to build that route between that high producing coal mine and power plant. Terraforming is now far more expensive, putting more emphasis on using tunnel and bridges instead of just flattening everything without considering the cost.
  • Base Build Bridge cost x2
    Base Build Tunnel cost x2
    Base Build Rail Track cost x8
    Base Build Road cost x2
    Base Build Dock cost x8
    Base Build Airport cost x2
    Base Terraforming cost x16
    Base Clear House cost x16
The cargo: The various cargo types have now been rebalanced.

Image

Iron Ore and Wood follow the same price graph. While Coal still nets a better price than both Iron Ore and Wood both Steel and Goods have been increased in price, which means that Iron Ore and Wood might be more valuable than Coal by proxy, assuming you can do something useful with the goods produced from the Iron Ore and Wood. You'll no longer automatically look at the map for the best Coal Mine -> Power plant route.

Image

Livestock and Grain have had their price potential increased by quite a bit, but they are at the same time very time sensitive. If you can deliver Livestock and or Grain quickly, it will pay off. Otherwise it's still more lucrative to transport Coal. The increased Goods price also means that Livestock and Grain are more attractive Cargo.

Image

There is a new cargo king in town and it's name is Oil. This comes at a cost however, both Oil Wells and Oil Rigs (oil rigs have been changed in PIGM to reflect this new behavior) have a tendency (i.e. it will given enough time) to run dry which means infrastructure and other investements (vehicles) you have made to transport Oil are more easily lost. Valuables are the second most lucrative cargo, but very time sensetive. The price for mail has also been increased and made more time sensetive.

Screenshots
Here are some screenshots of the cost changes for various vehicles.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Dedicated Server

I've setup 6 dedicated servers for PIGM:

#1 http://www.openttd.org/en/server/37498 <- Restarts 2050
#2 http://www.openttd.org/en/server/37695 <- Restarts 2050
#3 http://www.openttd.org/en/server/37697 <- Restarts 2050
#4 http://www.openttd.org/en/server/37696 <- Restarts 2050
#5 http://www.openttd.org/en/server/37718 <- Restarts 2050
#6 http://www.openttd.org/en/server/37719 <- Restarts 2050

The NewGRF can be downloaded in-game via the BaNaNas service (check online content->AveiMil PIGM).

Feedback is pivotal to the success or failure of this mod. Thanks for reading!

Regards,
AveiMil
Last edited by AveiMil on 27 Nov 2010 15:31, edited 10 times in total.
AveiMil
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Re: AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

Post by AveiMil »

Take a look at the coal network I built with a test version of PIGM 0.2:

http://www.aveimil.com/OpenTTD/images/Coal_network.jpg

In this game I restricted my self to build only ships and road vehicles and created a vast feeder network. There is only one Power Planet which is being saturated with Coal coming from all over the map. At the most it took the coal 9 transfer steps to reach the coal mine in the top left part of the map. Each step of the transfer net a positive income.

Doing this I managed a company value of 2.5 million pounds (£).

I've attached the save game so you can take a closer look (you'll get a NewGRF mismatch error but just ignore it).
Attachments
AveiMil Transport, 2nd Jan 1975.sav
(145.37 KiB) Downloaded 353 times
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planetmaker
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Re: AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

Post by planetmaker »

Just mind that in nightly versions of OpenTTD you cannot ignore newgrf error mismatches ;-) - unless you declared within your newgrf the versions compatible.

Maybe you want to enhance the description as found on bananas also a bit, going a bit more into detail what is changed how.
AveiMil
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Re: AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

Post by AveiMil »

Version 0.3 has been released.

I figured I'd better start creating a change log.

Version 0.3
-------------

Trains
  • Reduced building base costs for bridges and tunnels (from x4 to x2).
  • Increased train running costs slightly (~2-4%).
  • Changed wagons cargo capacity, they are now all equal (except passengers). An increase of 5 capacity to monorail wagons and an additional 2 (7) for maglev wagons (compared to rail).
  • Passenger wagon capacity reduced from 40 to 32.
Road Vehicles
  • Reduced building base costs for bridges and tunnels (from x4 to x2).
  • Changed cargo capacity for all road vehicles. The various truck now have equal capacity, each new generation of trucks provide an additional 5 capacity.
  • Further tweaking on road vehicles purchase costs and running costs.
Cargo
  • Mail price factor reduced from 6790 to 5790
  • Passenger price factor reduced from 3385 to 3185 (back to default original value)
Industries
  • Oil Wells production multiplier have been increased from 12 to 20.
  • Oil Wells now have a small chance of appearing (being generated) after 1950.
  • Oil Rigs oil production multiplier have been increased from 15 to 25 and passenger multiplier from 2 to 5.
  • Both Oil Wells and Oil Rigs eventually expire (run dry).
  • Coal Mine production multiplier increased from 15 to 17.
  • Iron Ore Mine production multiplier increased from 10 to 13. (matches forests) (same applies to Copper Ore Mine, Rubber and Fruit Plantation)
AveiMil
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Re: AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

Post by AveiMil »

0.4 is out!

Change log:

Version 0.4
-------------

Trains
  • Reduced purchase costs slightly.
  • Increased running costs significantly.
  • Reduced wagon cargo costs slightly and equalized them (all cargo wagons now cost 4000 and carry 30 tonnes of cargo). Monorail and Maglev wagons are more expensive than rail wagons (+100% and +200%).
  • Passenger wagon capacity reduced from 40 to 32.
Road Vehicles
  • Purchase costs equalized. All road vehicles costs the same except for Busses who are balanced seperatly.
  • Cargo capacity increased to 30 tonnes (vehicle generation 1), 35 and 40 tonnes (generation 2,3) from 22, 27, 32)
  • Generation 1 road vehicle base speed increased from 48 km/h to 56 km/h. Generation 2 and 3 speeds are unchanged.
Ships
  • Oil and Cargo ships base speed increased by 6 km/h. From 24 km/h to 30 km/h and 40 km/h to 46 km/h.
  • Oil Tankers cost and running cost factor slightly reduced.
  • Passenger Ferry's (not Hovercraft) base speed increased by 6 km/h. From 32 km/h to 38 km/h and 64 km/h to 70 km/h.
  • Reduced the cost of building channels and locks by a factor of 2. (5000 £ for one tile of canal. 13,750 for one lock).
Aircraft
  • Running cost significantly increased. Running cost increase varies from aircraft to aircraft.
Cargo
  • Mail price factor reduced from 5790 to 4790
  • Oil price factor increased from 7787 to 7987
Industries
  • Fixed a bug related to some industries showing up in the Map of the World overview that did not belong in that climate.
  • Coal Mine production multiplier reduced from 17 to 15 (original).
AveiMil
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Re: AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

Post by AveiMil »

0.5 is out!

Change log:

Version 0.5
-------------

Trains
  • Increased running costs with 50% for all trains.
  • Increased purchase costs for diesel, electric, monorail and maglev trains by roughly 20, 30, 40a and 60percent.
  • Changed vehicle life span for steam, diesel, electric, monorail and maglev trains to 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 years.
Road Vehicles
  • Slightly tweaked purchase costs.
  • Changed vehicle life span for generation 1, 2 and 3 road vehicles to 14, 16 and 18 years.
Ships
  • Completely rebalanced purchase and running cost factors for passenger ships.'
  • Rebalanced vehicle life for all ships.
  • Reduced passenger cargo for ferries and the hovercraft.
  • Cargo and Oil tanker ships cargo capacity, purchase costs and running costs tweaked.
Aircraft
  • Completely rebalanced all aircraft purchase and running costs. Aircraft are no longer ridiculously profitable.
  • Changed vehicle life span for aircraft, each decade adds one year to model life span.
  • Changed Yate Haugan (and Dinger 1000) to be very expensive but lasts for 25 years (longer than other aircraft of its time) and make quite a bit of money per year.
  • Changed Yate Haugan (and Dinger 1000) so that it on average is only available for purchase for roughly ten years after introduction date.
Last edited by AveiMil on 27 Nov 2010 15:33, edited 1 time in total.
AveiMil
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Re: AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

Post by AveiMil »

0.5.1 Critical Update Released
----------------------------------
  • Fixed a problem with vehicle model life, version 0.5 was essentially unplayable due to poor model_life (not the same as vehicle_life) settings, returned this to
default.
AveiMil
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Re: AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

Post by AveiMil »

I've pretty much stopped development on this mod because I stopped playing the game (100% focus on StarCraft 2).

However, if there are anyone who enjoys playing with this mod that want changes made to improve it I'll take the time to update it.

The only change I had in mind before I stopped playing was to reduce running costs of Helicopters to make them a bit more viable.

0.5.1 has nearly been downloaded 10.000 times via BaNaNas so there must be someone playing despite there being zero activity in this thread.
Tsukikage
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Re: AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

Post by Tsukikage »

Hi,

Because I am new to the world of modding TTD, I would like to ask you, how do you make a "mod" like yours. I am already using base costs mod 3.2, one that allows you to apply factor or dividor for many values, but I want to modify directly those values.

I have dovnloaded GRF wizard, but have no clue at all...
AveiMil
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Re: AveiMil’s Possibly Improved Gameplay Mod (PIGM)

Post by AveiMil »

Hello,

Well I used NML + ply:

http://hg.openttdcoop.org/nml/raw-file/ ... guage.html

And then with the NML/ply library you need Python to compile your .nml file (the one with the code) into a .grf file.

It's a bit confusing to get started, I got the help I needed from their IRC channel.

I made a build.bat file to automate compiling the latest version, maybe you can get an idea from looking at this:

Code: Select all

@ECHO OFF

REM Edit this file to make building .grf files easier.
REM Each Build.cmd should be unique for each project.

REM Make sure you add the Python installation folder to your PATH environment variables.
REM That way you'll be able to run python from any location.

REM Define your OpenTTD Data dir:
Set OpenTDDDataDir=C:\Games\OpenTTD\data\

REM Define your project folder and project file name.
REM Make sure nml (and PLY) are placed in the ProjectDir folder

REM Example: C:\Games\OpenTTD_NewGRF\nml <- root folder for the nmlc
REM Example: C:\Games\OpenTTD_NewGRF\nml\ply <- root folder for the cpp.py (among other files)

Set ProjectDir=C:\Games\OpenTTD_NewGRF
Set ProjectNMLFile=AveiMil_PIGM
Set ProjectNMLDir=\AveiMil_PIGM\

python "%ProjectDir%\nml\nmlc" "%ProjectDir%%ProjectNMLDir%%ProjectNMLFile%.nml" -l "%ProjectDir%%ProjectNMLDir%lang"

REM After compiling the .grf file it will be copied to your datadir, you can then just load up the game and test it!
REM After adding the .grf via the NewGRF settings menu in the game, you don't need to do this again between builds (just load up and new game to test).

xcopy "%ProjectDir%%ProjectNMLDir%%ProjectNMLFile%.grf" "%OpenTDDDataDir%" /Y

pause
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