TaI - introducing the scrabble board

[PikkaBird]

mmhm @ ostlandr

Tony, I've already talked to the FIRS developers about possibly using some of their graphics, but my TaI industries will be much more like PBI; fewer industries with limited custom cargos, and evil stockpiling/resource limits. On the other hand, TaI's industries will be in a seperate grf, so there will be nothing to prevent people using the TaI towns with FIRS industries if that's more to their taste.

[Toni Babelony]

Tony, I've already talked to the FIRS developers about possibly using some of their graphics, but my TaI industries will be much more like PBI; fewer industries with limited custom cargos, and evil stockpiling/resource limits. On the other hand, TaI's industries will be in a seperate grf, so there will be nothing to prevent people using the TaI towns with FIRS industries if that's more to their taste.

Ah, I see. A bit like the TTRSv3 and the ECS, right? If the FIRS and the TaI will be compatible with one another, as in no duplicate (heavy-)industries, that would be quite awesome.

[XeryusTC]

my TaI industries will be much more like PBI; fewer industries with limited custom cargos, and evil stockpiling/resource limits.

I'm happy to hear that you're going for simplicity over loads of cargoes. One of the things I don't like about ECS is the large amount of cargoes that can be transported everywhere. I quite like the original industries and PBI for their KISS-ness and the fact that you always know what you're doing

Are you thinking of splitting the farms and factories up? Instead of one generic farm, have grain farms (demand fertilizer, produce grain) cattle farms (demand grain, produce cattle) and dairy farms (demand grain, produce milk.)
Instead of one generic factory, have a tool & die (demands steel, produces goods), a furniture factory (demands lumber, produces goods) and a toy factory (demands plastic, produces goods.)

Isn't milk also produced at cattle farms, most cows in farm in the Netherlands serve 2 purposes: giving milk during their life time and when they're old enough they will go to the slaughterhouse to produce meat.
IMO having different industries that are all alike but a bit different adds to much complexity and confusion, I like it when industries are simple and understandable for everyone.

[Comm Cody]

Pikka This has been on my wish list for years. Fish industries! Maby a costal town that has Harbour producing fishes?

[Eddi]

FIRS has such a harbour planned.

[EXTspotter]

Isn't milk also produced at cattle farms, most cows in farm in the Netherlands serve 2 purposes: giving milk during their life time and when they're old enough they will go to the slaughterhouse to produce meat.
IMO having different industries that are all alike but a bit different adds to much complexity and confusion, I like it when industries are simple and understandable for everyone.

That isn't normal - in order to produce milk, a cow (female one) has to have a calf. Therefore they won't start producing milk till they are 2 or 3 years old, as before then they can't have babies. You wouldn't wait that long in food, waste a load of bull sperm (most expensive liquid on the planet) and then kill it. In the UK you generally have Dairy cows having babies, some females are kept as dairy cows and generally all the males and the less desireable females are shot at 3 or 4 days old (because people don't normally buy meat from a dairy cow like a fresian). Some are sold for meat, it all depends.

[ige]

Sorry, but the most expensive liquid is mouse milk.

[ISA]

Hello!
I have found a problem in starting it up in TTDPatch! Is this maybe related announcement about that it maybe be OpenTTD comp. only?
Is anyone had a same problem? When I find some free time I'm happy to provide some feedback and necessary files for solving the problem.

[Coxx]

Something like this was truely needed.
It will help enjoing the full span of NARS 2, without cities growing like madness.
(what about shrinking cities?)

PBI stile stockpiling is fine, I just want to ask to extent the values a bit over time, reflecting the increasing transport capacities.
It would save a lot of hassle when using modern trains, not to speak of ships and multipliers.

And keep the scrabble board in transparent mode, it looks good.

[el koeno]

On the other hand, TaI's industries will be in a seperate grf, so there will be nothing to prevent people using the TaI towns with FIRS industries if that's more to their taste.

Yay! I was getting some doubts about the industries. I've never been such a huge fan of stockpiling. Perhaps they'll work out great, it could lead to some interesting options for complex networks. What kind of industries will be in towns? Will there be different industries in different time periods, like in FIRS?

As for towns with personalities? Definitely a great idea! It's been one of my pet peeves in TTD that towns don't look and feel like proper towns. Some issues and questions remain though: isn't the population limit for cities bit low? If density is lower than with standard graphics (on average), it could work, but now I like to get my cities a bit larger. Also, why aren't there large cities in desert? Cities like Lima, Guayaquil and Mexico City are quite large you know.

Judging from the other GRF you made, I've got full confidence that you'll manage to make it highly playable. If the drawing work starts, I might chip in, would be my first time, but it seems you've got a lot of building to draw! Though you could also choose to recycle a lot of OpenGFX sprites perhaps.

[PikkaBird]

Perhaps they'll work out great, it could lead to some interesting options for complex networks. What kind of industries will be in towns? Will there be different industries in different time periods, like in FIRS?

Complex networks indeed. One of the big advantages of putting industries in towns is it will give players more opportunites to share tracks between passenger and freight trains. As for different industries, there will certainly be some change over time, but I'd like to keep the appearance and disappearance of entire chains to a minimum if I can.

Also, why aren't there large cities in desert? Cities like Lima, Guayaquil and Mexico City are quite large you know.

And which of those cities do you think is in the desert? By desert I mean desert, I don't mean the entire tropic climate.

[ISA]

Pikka did You missed my post about that problem what I describe above?

[el koeno]

And which of those cities do you think is in the desert? By desert I mean desert, I don't mean the entire tropic climate.

Ah, that's excellent. I've always loved the tropical climate for the small crappy little towns you can bring food, diamonds and water to. Watching them grow from 80 people to a staggering 1800...

EDIT: One thing popped in my mind as I wrote Quito in my last post: it has a lovely colonial town centre. Would your framework be flexible enough to create a district in some towns in which none of the buildings are replaced? A historic heart every now and then would add some extra flavour to the cities. Of course it would not have any gameplay value, so I wouldn't want anyone to spend weeks coding it.

[Zephyris]

Are you on the lookout for graphics? When doing my opengfx work I made a load of UK style houses, shops and offices (roughly in the style of the North American city set) which never got fully used... Would you be interested? They were designed to be easily recolourable for different building materials and "directional" buildings have all four orientations...

*edit* To put some numbers to it...
9 different half tile shop styles, 4 orientations
15 different half tile office styles, 2 orientations
25 different half tile terraced house styles, 4 orientations
10 different full tile flat styles, 2 orientations
7 different full tile house styles, 2 orientations

[CommanderZ]

Is it possible to distinguish corner houses (having road from two sides)?

[FooBar]

... houses ...

Good grief. I knew you've drawn too much houses to fit into the OpenGFX, but this much?

Combining both what you've posted now and what you've done for OpenGFX would already yield a full featured building set IMO. It just needs to be coded!

[XeryusTC]

Those houses could do with some gardens etc around them, now they seem to be floating above the landscape.

Also, I don't really like the OpenGFX landscape, so personally I'd prefer it if it is possible to use this set with the original graphics.

[Zephyris]

That's just a mockup, all the houses would need gardens etc. As for the landscape that is also completely separate from the houses, they are just shown on the OpenGFX landscape because that's what I was working on at the time...

[3pr]

First, wow etc! I'm a bit of a pikka-ite and this would be an amazing development. But to not pollute the thread too much...

A slight concern that I don't know if I am getting the game mechanics wrong or what, but from looking at the TaI wiki page, if houses yield a higher population than commercial and industrial areas do (rightly so for the total town population), it would not allow a realistic transportation model sure it would be in the interest of game play for passengers to be generated at workplaces.

I hope that is clear, it is just that the way this would play out in my head is that I would draw profit from transporting from the suburbs to suburbs, rather than from the suburbs into industrial and commercial areas in a combination of distance and metropolitan transport. Not sure if that example is any clearer either!

[PikkaBird]

I hope that is clear, it is just that the way this would play out in my head is that I would draw profit from transporting from the suburbs to suburbs, rather than from the suburbs into industrial and commercial areas in a combination of distance and metropolitan transport. Not sure if that example is any clearer either!

Well, the buildings are fairly mixed in, you'd be unlikely to get a station that covered exclusively residential (except in towns with no industrial, of course) or exclusively industrial. The industrial and commercial buildings produce a lot more mail than the residential buildings, so it's more an adjustment of what passenger/mail ratio the different types of town will produce, rather than significantly affecting where in a town you should place your stations for optimum effect. If that makes sense?