New Size Relations in 32-bit

mexicoshanty · Post by **mexicoshanty** » 29 Dec 2006 15:08

I think it'd be a serious game play improvement to increase the sizes of the airports. As already mentioned it's way to easy to build a few large airports across the map and make a stack of money. In real life air transport companies spring up and disappear just as fast as i change my underwear. Maybe in the 32bit version of ottd, players just may not be able to build an international airport on the top of a mountain, or in the middle of a city. It will encourage people to use the most appropriate airport. It'll also encourage exotic transport topographies that work (so long as the new cargo destination patch is done). Eg heliports or a monorail ferrying people to an airport outside the city, they then fly to another city with the international airport.

Having said that, we can't make them real life in size unless we make the "cities" real life in size because at the moment they're about as big as a communal hippy camp. Also as field-mouse said there's the problem with industries in the way but that can be reduced by reducing the number of industries on the map as i feel there are already too many.

EDIT: Aracirion scanned my brain and stole my post.

Dissy · Post by **Dissy** » 29 Dec 2006 15:43

with an diagonal runway you gain more space (in my opinion). i.e. differ between landing pad "slots" for jumbos and "normal" airliner. probably another, smaller runway for smaller jets on one side (maybe additionally)

its hard to see, but it helps probably to visualize:

Field-Mouse · Post by **Field-Mouse** » 29 Dec 2006 22:17

okey, you have convinced me, it would be interesting to see an airport this size, with changed gameplay. But then there has to be these regional airports available, that cannot take big planes, and therefor can be A LOT smaller!
Sry about that trainstation comparison on the length, didnt see the non roof part of it, thought it was ordinary track.
These airports has to look impressive, we need to work on them A LOT, we need modern small airports too, not just old "ugly" ones. The big airport has to look very very impressive, otherwise it would look weird I think.. But I have no doubt someone will make a really really impressive modern airport

athanasios · Post by **athanasios** » 30 Dec 2006 03:06

Only trouble with the airport is the width of the runway in comparison to the length: It looks very fat. So I recommend, for present:
More slim runway, a little longer. Airport doesn't need be the same length with the runway, not to waste space. Proposed patch: Need to make the runway longer for bigger planes*
A bit smaller - slim jumbos (they look fat or am I mistaken since they are not skinned?)

* Do we not make a r. station longer if increased production demands longer trains? By the way: Production and consumption may increase, but industries remain the same size, from 1920 to 2050. We could start with a small industry and fund expansion... I dream too far in the future. STOP!

brupje · Post by **brupje** » 30 Dec 2006 11:42

Custom airports would allow the player to choose how he placed the airport. And therefore would allow bigger airports, i think.

Field-Mouse · Post by **Field-Mouse** » 30 Dec 2006 11:59

lets not get carried away shall we

if you by "custom airport" mean that one could place a runway seperatly and then the parking and the building, I think it would be waaaaaaaaaaay too much work..
EDIT::
and oh, just slim the runway, wings often hang over the sides of it anyways.

Dissy · Post by **Dissy** » 30 Dec 2006 13:39

as i said, making the runway diagonal (thus making it longer: pythagoras) should save 1-2-3 tiles in length

Aracirion · Post by **Aracirion** » 30 Dec 2006 13:51

So can we provisionally conclude that
* There is a need to make an exact replica of the old sizes
* There is also interest to make a slightly changed version
* and evenually, To-scale vehicles should at least be attempted. This depends on a modification of the existing economy-model though.

If so, I'd say we should:

model to scale, and resize for the other options. I would use the following sizes: car/traincars max. 1 tile; planes max. 6 tiles. I don't know as much about trains and buses though as about planes, so if there is a wish to make them longer please post.

attempt to get in touch with development to know what it is realistically possible to expect and what isn't, so we don't model things that will never be used. Also for longer train cars, for example, I think it is quite important to know if smooth curves can be made...

What do you think?

@mexicoshanty/Dissy/Field-Mouse: Yeah, I suppose different airport layouts should be worked out to provide for different needs.

athanasios wrote:slim jumbos (they look fat or am I mistaken since they are not skinned?)

They are really just dummies. Just to illustrate wingspan and length.

brupje wrote:Custom airports would allow the player to choose how he placed the airport. And therefore would allow bigger airports, i think.

Yeah, just as the other things, it depends on willingness of someone to code

(When I suggested limited modularity I already had in mind bigger airports...)

Field-Mouse wrote:and oh, just slim the runway, wings often hang over the sides of it anyways.

Yeah right ... see attachment, looks better

doktorhonig · Post by **doktorhonig** » 30 Dec 2006 15:04

The runways are too short anyway. Are vehicle sizes the only important thing? Should houses have realistic sizes? And roads? And what about the distances we travel?

Runways on large airports are about 4 km (320 tiles), nearly impossible to build. A 2048 tile map would be 25,6 km - no one would use a plane for that. We would need a map at least 20 times bigger, to make use of planes. So we should consider the ratio "PlaneSize : FlightDistance", and not only "PlaneSize : BusSize".

When looking at the 32 bpp images i think we should decrease bus/train sizes. It would be better if one tile would represent a 4-lane-road. 2-lane-roads could have a larger sidewalk and trees or whatever to fill the tile. Then it would also be realistic to have 3 small houses on one tile, or a larger office building on it.
If the tile size is 25 meters, and busses or trains are smaller, planes don't have to be that big to be realistic. A 747 would take 3x3 tiles, but with some cheating you could put all planes in 2x2 tiles.

Connum · Post by **Connum** » 30 Dec 2006 16:37

And why is the world a flat square? And where is the rest of the world? And why is there only one country?

SCNR... don't take this too serious!

Aracirion · Post by **Aracirion** » 30 Dec 2006 16:47

@doktor honig: As I said, my criterion for creating coherency across grafics would be that one imaginary homunculus would fit into every door/vehicle. If you saw my airport mockup you might understand why. size:travel distance will just reproduce the problem that every town will get an international airport, which I consider bad game-play.

personnally I would consider 25x25 tiles but afaik 12,5 is preferred

Dissy · Post by **Dissy** » 30 Dec 2006 17:19

well i think doktorhonig has a good point here. those things we are talking about will definetly change gameplay. thus having a 3 tile long plane aint no good on the actual map sizes. 2048² would probably work but think about all sizes below.

so when talking about size relations the only choices are:

1) make the world bigger
2) make all vehicles, houses, etc "smaller"

2*) for example a normal office building 1x1 will be 1/4 x 1/4 of a tile

i prefer 1) bc cpu load aint increase that much with increased number of tiles, as the number of vehicles, cities, industries shouldnt be increased...

mexicoshanty · Post by **mexicoshanty** » 31 Dec 2006 00:20

It makes no sense to make things smaller as then you have less flexibility with making objects the appropriate size. In essence the tiles become bigger. I'd even recommend making everything double in size so a tile would now be 6.25m squared instead of the 12.5m. That way we can have 2 tracks on what is now 1 tile. Smaller objects like a statue would then only take up the space needed.

To counter act the doubling in size the world would need to be bigger and require more zoom levels.

Aracirion · Post by **Aracirion** » 31 Dec 2006 02:37

@mexicoshanty: Yes you're right .. so it basically comes down to how much system resources go into number of sprites (vs. number of vehicles in game, number of cities, etc.). Any Idea anyone?

Korenn · Post by **Korenn** » 01 Jan 2007 02:03

the large airports like that look great, but it's not practical. Such immense sizes for airports mean that in the average game you will not build more than two or three, simply because of a lack of space.

athanasios · Post by **athanasios** » 01 Jan 2007 03:28

To much talk about new airports!

Aracirion: I had the same idea about the runway: to make it more slim and cover the tiles next to it with grass, so wings do not overlap with other objects. You are very smart

Think about this: Only large cities have large airports, and usually out of the city E.g: In Athens, where I live, airport is more than 1/2 hr away from the city and we can access it with special metro trains (= underground > convert to be supplied by electrified wires when exiting the underground), suburban (= diesel) and buses. In Colombo (my wife from there), the airport is even more far: more than 1hr! Even in my mother's island with a 'big' population of '3500' the small airport is not near any village but in the most uninhabited section of the island. (By the way: When I was younger that airport had a tiny runway that was just bare land for a 19 seats passenger airplane. I would like to see something like this in the game.) And Athens airport is the only big airport all over Greece. Other cities have smaller ones with single runway. So the map is not going to be filled with huge airports, as some are afraid. They should worry more about the stupid AI that builds airports next to tiny towns (='communities'), and fills the place with even more useless rails and roads!

Aracirion · Post by **Aracirion** » 01 Jan 2007 20:08

I think it is really important that the development of new Graphics is coordinated with development of TTD as a whole, and in particular a new economy. It is frustrating to model a 2x3 office block and then discover that it is never going to be implemented! And many kinds of new Graphics only make sense together with a new economy.

I tried to put down the main components of a possible new economy in a suggestion thread: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=29368 This is not by any means complete, just a suggestion.

Could people who know more on this please post if there will ever be a large-scale changed economy, or if there won't be anything like that?

That Guy · Post by **That Guy** » 01 Jan 2007 23:41

Hey guys

i have a segestion,
insted of trying to ake the planes that big, mabe try making the buses and trucks smaller instead. that way you solve the problem of the trains being the same size as Buses and trucks to. you could still make the planes bigger but i think that your examples are a bit big, not to mention that it looks like it be a b**** to code.

anyways thats my two cents

good luck you guys and happy new year

Cadde · Post by **Cadde** » 02 Jan 2007 08:42

If it was up to me i would like Super real aspect ratios.

And maps have to become larger anytime soon!
2048 is not enough as it is now thats for sure.

Im thinking ATLEAST 8192x8192 (4 times bigger than max now)

And by god, nobody should complain about resolution...
Force all computers to run atleast 2048x1536 pixels or throw them in the BIN!
(Yes, that would include my computer too!!! Currently running 1600x1200 on 21" Samsung SyncMaster 214T LCD)

But thats just my two cents... Time to upgrade now

//Cadde

SkeedR · Post by **SkeedR** » 02 Jan 2007 10:45

O rly?
Well, i don't even have 17inch, never mind 21.
So, no, i think a screen resolution of whatever is a tad too extreme.

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