NewGRF (Air)ports - general discussion

[DaleStan]

Or a search?

[5245jah]

Why not try the first sticky thread in this forum?

i tried, but Microsoft internet explorer and even Mozilla Firefox could'nt open that link

[richk67]

No problems here with either. But since Im feeling generous...
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=31823
If you still cant open it, then please ask elsewhere than in this thread. This is getting WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too off topic.

[5245jah]

Thanks to all of you. Problem has been solved.

[zedd]

How is it going with this?

Airport capacity is way to low as the screenshot below proof. Runways are also used poorly and taxing is inefficient.

[richk67]

How is it going with this?

Airport capacity is way to low as the screenshot below proof. Runways are also used poorly and taxing is inefficient.

And if I designed an airport with 24 terminals, someone would send 200 aircraft at it, produce a screenie like yours, and say its too low capacity because all the aircraft are circling.

The intercontinental can handle about 30 a/c per month, with minimal stacking. You have more than that in each holding stack, so your network design is inefficient. In the RealWorldAirports pack, San Francisco can handle more - about 40 per month, and Munich about 52-55.

The only inefficiency in the taxiing of the Intercontinental is that only one aircraft can occupy the 4 tile taxiway infront of each terminal group. In the new version, it will improve that to allow 2 aircraft to occupy it if their routes do not conflict. So if one is going for takeoff, the other can head to the hangar.

If you know of any other "inefficiencies", let me know the exact specifics.

At the moment, I am busy at work, and preparing for a miniature modelling exhibition, so dont have time to code. I will get back to this sometime in the new year.

[zedd]

Mm yes but then there won't be thousands of peeps waiting at them despite having 200 aircraft trying to land hopefully...
(yes that was with the passenger destination so it's a bit extreme but still...)

Mmm, yes that is what I was talking about. Especially the one aircraft taxing at a time makes the airplanes queue up when the depos are used.

I am not criticizing or anything. It's loads better then the original city airport. Just keep it up and I look forward to this

[zedd]

I complied and tested it and had an interesting thing happen

i had the following grfs loaded:
OpenTTD Basic Airports
OpenTTD Extended Airports
Aviators Aircraft (av8) v1.331
Seaplane Airport
NewAirport GRF
RichK's Real World Airports

Same thing after unloading av8
one plane will land and go into the munich airport the next will stop just of the runway and the rest queue up behind it as shown in the screenshot.
The planes are standing still in mid-air just before the runway with the plane on it.

[richk67]

I should disable Munich... this is its status (as reported in the link from my .sig):

Not really there yet... but in progress:
Munich 2011 - graphics sorted, state machine begun (and at 85 positions already, it isnt finished! City Airport has ~25 positions!)

I only included it for people to take a look, rather than disable a nice airport layout.

[FatDODO]

I appreciate any help you guys can give with regards to the airport situation. Regard my screenshot - I really need something better!

I find that intercontinental airports can typically only handle up to 17 flights efficiently (20 for long range).

[PikkaBird]

Rich, I've been thinking about having more control over what aircraft can land where (more than "small" vs "large"). Would it be possible to add a simple word-sized property to both airports and aircraft which acted as a bitmask? IE, an aircraft can only land at airports where all the bits set in the airport's bitmask are matched in the aircraft's?

[richk67]

Yeah, you specify it, I can use it.

Ive already implemented something for short landings, where the aircraft checks that it is permitted to land by the runway length. However, no aircraft actually have that property yet, so Ive disabled the check (made it always true).

I would set it that a jumbo would require a 6 runway length, a BAe146 would only need a 4. If a jumbo tried to land at the length 4 runway, it would check to see if there are any other (better) runways it could choose. If not, it would try to land on the short runway, with a massively increased risk of crashing... heck it should be close to 100%! [*] If there is an alternative that can take it, it rejects the length 4 option, and continues to the other option. I havent yet coded the search for the alternative yet (at least I dont think I have).

Pikka - you probably saw the argument over what bit to use to indicate a seaplane. What is your view? Im happy enough for it to be in Prop 09, or Prop 0A. I really dont like it going in Prop 17(?) Misc bits, as putting extras into a misc bucket is poor data organisation IMO. Prop 0A defines airport properties for an aircraft, so, to me, it is the logical place for "aircraft can land on water". The only limitation may be if one set loads a seaplane at an ID, then another set overwrites it with a helicopter that doesnt reset Prop 0A, then the heli will become water-capable.

[*]: I will be redesigning aircrashes so that they are sensible. Aircraft on landing will slide to a halt somewhere along the runway, and then explode. MUHAHAHAHAHA. And the occasional broken-down aircraft will have a total failure, and plummet to the earth, causing a ground explosion with damage the same as a UFO explosion; ie can destroy fixtures, but not if a vehicle is on them. I would protect the core tile of a town from destruction, as it wouldnt regrow otherwise.

[PikkaBird]

In the interests of realism, I'd be inclined to simply disallow aircraft from landing on a runway that's too short, rather than increase the crash risk.

Property for seaplanes makes no difference to me. Whichever is easiest and most tidy to code from your pov.

[richk67]

My thought on letting the aircraft land, but with higher crash probability, is that I would not have to check each of the runway lengths on all the airports in its order list. If it cant land at all at Airport A, do I have it circle, move to B, etc.

I could add a field for "Longest runway" in the airport details, and then create a new message of "Aircraft X cannot land at Airport Y. It needs a longer runway". This could be shown either in route creation, or if the aircraft was an upgrade from a previous model, then do the test on selection of the next target airport.

My preference for the seaplane indicator is to have it on bit 3 of Prop 0A. We may also require a bit to say "land on water only", as some seaplanes were actually dual land/sea capable aircraft. If you think we do, then we can put that on bit 2.

Thus a seaplane that can land at small (land and sea) airports would be: 0x08
A seaplane, that requires a large seaplaneairport would be: 0x0D. There were some experimental US jet powered seaplanes (even a prototype seaplane nuclear bomber), and Spruce Goose needed a rather large takeoff area. So large seaplaneairports do make some sense.

[T-Unit]

Would it be easier to check the runway length and whether the plane can land when you assign an order to an aircraft?

[richk67]

Needs to be both/and. If you have an aircraft that is OK to land on length 4 runways, but you then auto-replace with a length 6 runway aircraft, the orders have not been changed, so checking the orders as you add them cannot be the ultimate solution. If you recheck the orders on replacement, that might be a pain too, although its hard to decide which is worse.... to error when a dodgy order is reached, or to error before letting the aircraft out of the hangar in the first place.

Also, you might CTRL-click share orders while an aircraft is in flight, and give it an invalid airport. It needs to be handled inflight as well as in order-by-order creation.

[T-Unit]

Ah yeah. I hadn't thought that through 100%

[athanasios]

And the occasional broken-down aircraft will have a total failure, and plummet to the earth, causing a ground explosion with damage the same as a UFO explosion;

And burn a strip of trees on its way!

[DaleStan]

In the interests of realism, I'd be inclined to simply disallow aircraft from landing on a runway that's too short, rather than increase the crash risk.

That, and, in the interests of realism, planes should basically never crash on landing. ISTR Brianetta saying something about even the jumbojets being able to come to an emergency stop in under a mile, despite requiring 6 miles(?) for a takeoff.

Crashing on takeoff is far more common; the plane's the heaviest it's going to be the whole flight, and it needs every scrap of thrust it can get to keep it from falling back down. (DejaGoogle's being unfriendly right now; I can't find the original quote.)

[Bilbo]

In the interests of realism, I'd be inclined to simply disallow aircraft from landing on a runway that's too short, rather than increase the crash risk.

That, and, in the interests of realism, planes should basically never crash on landing. ISTR Brianetta saying something about even the jumbojets being able to come to an emergency stop in under a mile, despite requiring 6 miles(?) for a takeoff.

Crashing on takeoff is far more common; the plane's the heaviest it's going to be the whole flight, and it needs every scrap of thrust it can get to keep it from falling back down. (DejaGoogle's being unfriendly right now; I can't find the original quote.)

During the test of brakes on new airbus A380 (larger than jumbojet) they were able to stop the overloaded plane on 1120m
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1dv_y_3EK0
But such emergency braking results in brakes catching fire and being metled, so it is only for emergency and not for everyday use. Also, the aircraft doesn't touchdown at the exact point the runway is starting, you need some safety margin to compensate for sudden change of wind, etc ... so if airplane can stop on 1600meters, having only 2km runway would be very dangerous for safe landing, as they touch it some distance after the start.

And 6 miles for takeoff (=9.6km) is nonsense, runways at international airports are around 3-4km in length, so airplane requiring longer runway for takeoff and landing would be unusable.

While at start the aircraft is heaviest, there is not much that can go wrong except failing of engines. On touchdown brakes can fail, carriage can break, wind is more likely to spoil the maneuver ... I don't think takeoffs are more prone to accidents than landings.