Transport Tycoon Forums

459 wrote:Maybe I'll try to do something for running costs in the near future - the purchase costs are IMO fine, they should be sufficiently balanced compared to appx. everything else except US Set. People seem to have different opinions over the right style of pricing things.

I suppose we could add a "high" and "low" switch. Or make it change based on the cost settings in the game. Personally I like the higher costs of the US set because it makes it more challenging and realistic, and means you have to concentrate on fitting the correct vehicle to each service. That'd be true with planes too.

I was thinking along the lines of crates being moved into the cargo bay or the external pod being affixed/removed. But you'd have to use all states as an animation all the time and not depending on load state.

I don't think that would fall under the loading feature. I think that would be a general animation feature. Recently the Patch did add the ability to make things animated that weren't previously; I don't know if this applies to aircraft as well. Ask Csaboka. Sounds like something for a later release anyway.

Aydan wrote:Can you tell me how exactly the load/unload states work? I'll probably do some for the cargo 747 and the AN-124. Is unload just load reversed? Or are they seperate?

For every vehicle, there are two groups of sprites, loading and loaded. Which spriteset (state) is chosen from each group is solely dependent on the quantity of cargo the vehicle is carrying. If, for example, there are two loading states, the first will be used when the vehicle is less than half full, and the second when the vehicle is more than half full. But, once the plane leaves the gate[0] the sprites will switch to the appropriate loaded state. There need not be the same number of loading and loaded states.

A spriteset can be (and often is) used in both groups.

I hope that made sense.

[0] vehicle leaves the station, in general.

krtaylor wrote:

459 wrote:[purchase costs]

I suppose we could add a "high" and "low" switch. Or make it change based on the cost settings in the game.

The prices already do change depending on the difficulty settings.

Aydan wrote:I was thinking along the lines of crates being moved into the cargo bay or the external pod being affixed/removed. But you'd have to use all states as an animation all the time and not depending on load state.

Interesting ... Animation would not be as difficult as I had previously thought. There's this nice useful byte that gets incremented 6 times per tick (~74 ticks per day), so we can change which sprite we are displaying very consistantly, regardless of vehicle speed.

OTOH, I'm not sure we're talking about the same type of animation here.

The NFO format is incredibly powerful. With very few exceptions, draw whatever you want, describe how it's supposed to work, and that's the way it'll work.

I made the open backdoors for alle sprites were you can see it. For the Top Views of the Chinhook there is no need to draw the bBackdoors because you wouldn't see it. The Chinhook sprites are to small and the angle is not the right one to draw cargo inside the Chinhook. If the Chinhook had sidedoors, the commercial version has escape doors on the side, I could draw cargo inside. I can make the Windows darker for the loaded Chinhook to show cargo.

I also resized the military versions windows. The commercial version has much more and smaller windows.

There was also a failure in one of the Chinhooks sprites. I fixed that.

cu, Spaceball

One thing I don't think I've said, is just how incredibly good the Chinook looks in flight. Your work with the rotors was superb.

What about this Cargo Type? The US Army has used the Chinook to transport Bell Helicopters and Tanks or Hummer vehicles this way:

cu, Spaceball

Yes, you're on the right track with that cargo sling. It doesn't have just ropes though, it's in a net.

You can also do cylindrical or spherical bladders, for water and oil.

I used this Picture. http://www.simlabs.arc.nasa.gov/photos/ ... inook.jpeg

With a net I could draw boxes in it or barrels.

How is the Chinook supposed to land with this? There must also be landing Sprites to be drawn.

cu, Spaceball

I'd say the net disappears when it lands. IRL it would hover and somebody would unhook the thing, or it would land to the side, but we can't do that.

I just finished the Chinook with the container underneath. Now I will go on with the Net including barrels and other stuff.

cu, Spaceball

I guess the way it works is, in the air the container hangs down. When it lands, the container goes to the side. Then it disappears, and the chopper taxis with no container dragging alongside. Makes sense to me.

I started with the barrels. I am not really sure if this works that way.

Well, I don't think we want to show the barrels while the chopper is taxiing around the airport grounds, dragging them along behind. I don't think that's realistic.

I've posted an animated Ruslan here

Which needs to be included in this PlaneSet, 459, as the one we have isn't very good.

Good grief!
New Chinook GFX, new Ruslan GFX, what next?

Whatever happened to Aydan's Zeppelin graphics? They aren't on the tracking table. krtaylor, does that mean you aren't happy with them, or just that they never made it to the tracking table?

I'm not sure how many of the Ruslan sprites we can use; getting that to animate correctly will be difficult.[0] But it is beautiful, and I would love to get it in-game.

[0] I won't say impossible yet; I need to take a close look at the savegame internals and NFO specs.

Spaceball, I don't understand how the sprites you drew with the cargo drawn up against the side of the chopper are supposed to work. Also, it looks to me like we'll need N/S-bound sprites with external cargo for both the slung and side-mounted versions.
I guess we need to decide which cargos should be carried how; I propose:
Passengers: internal
Coal, iron ore, copper ore: internal
Mail: internal
Valuables/Gold/Diamonds:internal
Livestock, Grain&c, fruit: internal
Oil, water, rubber: slung bladder
Goods: slung crate or bladder [1]
Wood, steel, paper, food: internal or slung crate [2]

[1] depending on refit state (Goods(manufactured) or Goods (oily))
[2] Possibly random, possibly just one, possibly different sling sprites depending on cargo type

Discussion welcome, also, do we want to consider Toyland cargos? Currently, the PlaneSet will load in Toyland.

DaleStan wrote: Whatever happened to Aydan's Zeppelin graphics? They aren't on the tracking table. krtaylor, does that mean you aren't happy with them, or just that they never made it to the tracking table?

<looks>

Yes, you're right. There were so many different versions I must have lost track. Certainly I want them, they're the best Zeppelins we have. Please post the last version of each of them, and I'll put them on the table. Aren't they already coded anyway?

I think the PlaneSet should include Aydan's versions of:
Zeppelins
Osprey
Shorts
Antonov
747

Other things, we can discuss later.

Here's the zeppelins with slightly lightened hull and red rudders for easier recoloring.

krtaylor wrote:I'd say the net disappears when it lands. IRL it would hover and somebody would unhook the thing, or it would land to the side, but we can't do that.

can't we? i think its possible at a helepad, the bottom of the sprite touches the helepad, so if the sprite is taller than normal only the cargo would touch the helepad, and the roters could be coded to keep 'rotating'. It wouldn't be quite as effective at an airport, but there must be a way t determine if an aircraft is at a large, small, or heleport?