"Limited" Railtype

[MinchinWeb]

Is it possible to define a "limited" railtype, preferably using NML? I.e. one that doesn't support signals? Or doesn't support diagonal rails (just the "straight" ones)? I see that level crossings can be disallowed already. I was thinking about how to implement pipelines, and if one of those two features were available, I'd try to put together a working concept of my idea...

[ChillCore]

Even if what you ask for were possible ... I myself do not know.

- How will you handle bends in your "pipes" without diagonal pieces if 90% turns are disabled by the player?
- Without signals you will only be able to "pump" one batch of liquid at the same time. (Read: The pipe will be reserved from station to station.)
- Without signals how are you going to handle junctions or are you planning on disallowing those too?

IMHO pipelines are boring in regards of gameplay, they make for great eyecandy but once they are build they are pretty much fire and forget.
Don't let me stop you though.

[Yexo]

This is not possible.

[MinchinWeb]

- How will you handle bends in your "pipes" without diagonal pieces if 90% turns are disabled by the player?
- Without signals you will only be able to "pump" one batch of liquid at the same time. (Read: The pipe will be reserved from station to station.)
- Without signals how are you going to handle junctions or are you planning on disallowing those too?

In a word, pumping (transfer) stations. The goal/thought is to have short point-to-point connections. Disallowing signals would be ideal, but disallowing junctions would achieve the same effect, although be more limited in pipeline paths. Thus to increase capacity, you either upgrade your (one) "vehicle" on the route, increase the number of pumping/transfer stations (thus shortening each segment of the route), or build (another) parallel line.

This is not possible.

Is this because no one has implemented it yet? Or is there something fundamental about the game (or NML) that disallows it? (My preference would be to disallow signals construction).

[lawton27]

(My preference would be to disallow signals construction).

This could be got around by using depots instead (which could prove more efficient on longer lines) you may want this effect and make it some kind of pump plant but things could get messy... Ideally you'd need something to remove depot signals for this type too, limiting a depot to one train (or none is there is a train connected to it) which could be very messy code-wise.

If it where me I'd be tempted to go down the comic style 'trains' are visible bulges in the pipe option and they do obey signals and such.

[Yexo]

There is currently no spec that allows a grf to disable such parts. When you go into the realm of changing the source code of OpenTTD (nearly) everything is possible.