Articulated Road Vehicles

[stevenh]

...Especially with realistically sized, and FSM controlled, road stations in the works...

Everyone seems to have missed this point...
Not that I have any idea as to who is working on it? Care to elaborate, DaleStan?
But this would mean being able to redesign the loading bays... which IMHO are damn annoying and not worthy of aRVs.

[DaleStan]

In Patch, as far as I know, no one, at least not directly. But I expect that will change soon enough. Rich is apparently making good progress on them (albeit indirectly; the emphasis is airports) in Open, but there is a part of the spec that allows for other types of stations too.

[wallyweb]

But this would mean being able to redesign the loading bays... which IMHO are damn annoying and not worthy of aRVs.

By "damn annoying" I assume you mean that they are proving to be very challenging to patch. By " ... not worthy of aRVs" I would hope that you are referring to trams, which to the best of my knowledge do not use bays as stations in real life situations. However, bays are a very real part of the trucking industry and in as much as TTDX tries to emulate real life scenarios, I would hope that bay support for articulated trucks would be a worthy challenge.

[stevenh]

DaleStan, thanks for the heads-up, now I know where to look. I remember either Csaboka or Oskar talking about such things, but I don't know where it ever went... I've been just as slack with progress on aRVs... it'll be 2 years shortly... I need to kick Lakie again so that He'll kick me back and motivate me

wallyweb... Please excuse my bias My signature says enough as to what I'm subconsciously thinking when I say the word 'aRV'.

[wallyweb]

wallyweb... Please excuse my bias My signature says enough as to what I'm subconsciously thinking when I say the word 'aRV'.

What? You mean you are not impressed by 7 tons of 500 horsepower tractor hauling 25 tons of cold rolled steel on a flatbed trailer rated at 20 tons gross weight capacity and 6 months overdue for a safety inspection with a broken air brake hose flapping in the wind rolling towards you on the wrong side of the road at 85 miles per hour in a pea soup fog so thick that the last thing you remember seeing is a bulldog named Mack?

[krtaylor]

I would hope that you are referring to trams, which to the best of my knowledge do not use bays as stations in real life situations.

Actually, no, there are certain historical situations in which trams did use something somewhat similar to truck bays. I'm thinking particularly of the Pacific Electric system in LA, which was kind of the Pennsylvania Railroad of tram systems. They ran tram and interurban service during the day, with milk, mail, and freight service at night, using self-powered freight trams pulling somewhat ordinary freight cars, and backing them into local unloading stalls at various points along the line - sidetrack sort of, but generally configured more like truck bays, not sure why. Maybe because of tighter quarters? I can think of one specific photo showing this, but I don't remember where I saw it and can't find it.

[DaleStan]

wallyweb... Please excuse my bias My signature says enough as to what I'm subconsciously thinking when I say the word 'aRV'.

What? You mean you are not impressed by 7 tons of 500 horsepower tractor hauling 25 tons of cold rolled steel on a flatbed trailer rated at 20 tons gross weight capacity and 6 months overdue for a safety inspection with a broken air brake hose flapping in the wind rolling towards you on the wrong side of the road at 85 miles per hour in a pea soup fog so thick that the last thing you remember seeing is a bulldog named Mack?

/me assumes The Position(tm)[0]

Thanks. I really needed that image, Wally. Especially since I bike everywhere.

[0] Hiding in a corner, under a desk, in fetal position, arms covering head and quietly whimpering.

[wallyweb]

Thanks. I really needed that image, Wally. Especially since I bike everywhere.

Sorry about that DaleStan. I've been 3 1/2 years lurking on these here forums waiting for the right segue into that line. Hopefully the bike is a chopper and you can goose it around that scene.

Back on topic ... As nice as it would be to have bays that accommodate articulated trucks, and I do hope that some enterprising dev is up for the challenge, we can still get by with the drive throughs. All we need are some articulated truck grf's.

[Csaboka]

I remember either Csaboka or Oskar talking about such things, but I don't know where it ever went...

I was trying to implement newairports and the corresponding FSM in the past, but it was too complicated for me. I gave up. I may start working on it again in the unlikely case that I understand it fully and have enough spare time to work on it.

[Ameecher]

All we need are some articulated truck grf's.

I'm working on it!

[FooBar]

I'm currently having issues with Articulated Trams. Although I think I've set the right patch options and coded the vehicles right, the things still keep falling apart.

I'm running TTDP nightly r1706 with an almost default ttdpatch.cfg. The non-default values are:
articulatedrvs on
curves 3330
forcerebuildovl on
mountains 3330
shortrvs on

The attached screenshot shows what's happening. All vehicles leave the depot correctly. After the first turn gaps exist between some parts of a vehicle. At the end of the track vehicles turn round, gaps still exist. Next corner it's completely messed up.

I'm thinking the problem might lie within VarAction2 Callback 11. The greenish vehicle doesn't use this callback and stays the way it should be. The other two do use the callback (several times) and get messed up.

Here's a part of the NFO I coded for one of the problem-vehicles:

Code: Select all

//RET Alstom Citadis 2001-2060
-1 * 0	 01 01 05 08
// Format: spritenum pcxfile xpos ypos compression ysize xsize xrel yrel
-1 sprites/dutramset.pcx 2 1090 01 16 8 -4 -2
//...some more of these guys... ;)
-1 sprites/dutramset.pcx 282 1210 01 13 13 -7 -9

-1 * 0	 02 01 AA 01 01 00 00 00 00
-1 * 0	 02 01 BB 01 01 01 00 01 00
-1 * 0	 02 01 CC 01 01 02 00 02 00
-1 * 0	 02 01 DD 01 01 03 00 03 00
-1 * 0	 02 01 EE 01 01 04 00 04 00

-1 * 0	 01 01 01 01
-1 sprites/dutramset.pcx 322 1090 01 12 50 -25 -6
-1 * 0	 02 01 FB 01 01 00 00 00 00

-1 * 0	 02 01 15 81 0C 00 FF 01 04 80 11 11 EE 00
-1 * 0	 02 01 14 81 0C 00 FF 01 05 80 11 11 DD 00
-1 * 0	 02 01 13 81 0C 00 FF 01 05 80 11 11 CC 00
-1 * 0	 02 01 12 81 0C 00 FF 01 05 80 11 11 BB 00

-1 * 0	 02 01 11 81 40 00 FF 04 AA 00 00 00 12 00 01 01 13 00 02 02 14 00 03 03 15 00
-1 * 0	 02 01 10 81 10 00 FF 01 47 80 01 04 FF 80
-1 * 0	 02 01 09 81 10 00 FF 01 49 80 01 01 11 00
-1 * 0	 02 01 08 81 0C 00 FF 02 09 00 33 33 10 00 16 16 11 00

-1 * 0	 03 01 01 47 01 FF FB 00 08 00

-1 * 0	 04 01 7F 01 47 "RET Alstom Citadis 2001-2060" 00
-1 * 0	 00 01 12 01 47 00 \w1920-01-01 03 \b30 04 \b255  08 \b160 13 \b8 14 \b60 0F \b50 
07 \b20  11 41 09 56  02 20  0A 48 4C 00 00  10 00 0E FF 06 07 12 49 17 90 1C 01

I didn't put any comments in because I think I understand what's there.

I'd really like to know what's causing this problems. Is it something in the game's core or has it something to do with my NewGRF?

Thanks in advance.

[DaleStan]

I'm thinking the problem might lie within VarAction2 Callback 11. The greenish vehicle doesn't use this callback and stays the way it should be. The other two do use the callback (several times) and get messed up.

I expect that that is very useful information, at in the hands of someone who understands aRV code. It would probably be more useful if you attached a real GRF, though.

The NFO looks fine to me.

[Lakie]

Chances are that there is a possible issue with the callback return and processing of the vehicle's movement.
If I wasn't so busy revising for my exam retake I might have looked at it, as it is it'll be September before I will look at it.

~ Lakie

[Rendall]

I have spoken with FooBar yesterday. My tram on my PC with the nighly off yesterday wasn't falling apart. All went OK at the start.
Trams is shown like "-----"
When the tram turns it became a "- - - - -" view with spaces between the parts. Also, when I want to delete the vehicle the game crashed. But it won't roaming. The parts maintained at the rails. Maybe story gives you a hint?

[FooBar]

It would probably be more useful if you attached a real GRF, though.

I'll send you a copy of it trough PM. The GRF has not been released yet and I currently want to keep it that way

If someone else wants to have a look at the complete GRF (code), just ask and I'll send you a copy.

Thanks, FooBar



-EDIT-

I think I managed to put a quite interesting GRF together. It has two trams using all possible values for Callback 11.
The first tram uses values 01, 02, 03, 04, 05 (in that order). The second uses values 05, 04, 03, 02, 01 (also in that order). The first part of the tram doesn't use callback 11 and has full length (in both cases).

Here comes the interesting stuf:
Tram 1: Holds together exept for the last part.
Tram 2: Only the first two parts hold together.

My quick conclusion: Don't use shortening level 05, although the Wiki-documentation states that it's unsafe to use values larger than 05.

I attached the GRF. No spectacular graphics but it locates the problem quite nicely (IMO). Load it into the game and build a track like I did above.


-EDIT2-

Added some vehicles to the test GRF:
Tram3: Callback value 05 for all parts (exept first part)
Tram4: Callback value 04 for all parts (exept first part)
Tram5: Callback value 03 for all parts (exept first part)

Tram3 falls apart after the second part. Same for tram4. Tram5 works as expected and sticks together the way it should.

A little less-quick conclusion: Articulated vehicles fall apart after the first part with shortening level 04 or higher. In other words: it's only safe to use value 04 or higher for the last part in the consist.

03 is not an acceptable value for most modern trams, because most modern trams have a high number of articulations and relatively short sections.
Is this something in the game code which can be fixed, or am I still doing something horribly wrong?

FooBar


PS: I attached a new version of my test GRF, now featuring five (not aligned) test vehicles.

[Lakie]

Did a little testing with that and it doesn't appear to be a collision issue, it looks more like an issue trying to cycle the parentstat correctly...

~ Lakie

[DaleStan]

I'll send you a copy of it trough PM.

Gah! Nonono! Not me.

I know NFO, and can find my way around most of the Patch code, but I'm pretty sure that the last time I looked at the aRV code, I ran away screaming. I don't remember what, if anything, was wrong with it, just that I didn't like it. (I expect some of my code is at least as scary.)
Lakie and Steven are, I believe, the "someones who understand aRV code".

Again, the NFO looks good to me.

[FooBar]

I'll send you a copy of it trough PM.

Gah! Nonono! Not me.
...
Again, the NFO looks good to me.

By bad. I kinda misunderstood your previous post. Maybe I read there what I was hoping/liking to read, not that wat was really in the post
Anyways, thanks for your time, mate.

Did a little testing with that and it doesn't appear to be a collision issue, it looks more like an issue trying to cycle the parentstat correctly...

If I understand correctly, its more of a patch problem than a grf problem, right?
I hope it gets sorted out some day. Please don't rush yourself. Your exams are more important.

[Uwe]

I have some slight annoying issue with aRV coding: In the purchase window, only the first part of a vehicle is shown. Ok, therefore I use special depot sprites to indicate that the vehicle is articulated. However, this starts driving me mad when I try to show the correct capacity in the purchase window as well. Gathering from the wiki, I need to use CB 16 (build articulated vehicle) also for the depot in order to get the correct capacity to be shown. Somehow I do not manage to get that to work - what I want is the sprite for the purchase window _and_ the correct capacity. Could somebody possibly post an example of getting that CB to work for the purchase window?

Second question: What is the state of CB 1D (can vehicle be attached)? I want to make sure nothing can be attached to my busses, and as for trucks I'm not yet sure about how I want the behaviour to be.

And another bug I encountered: With the latest nightly (r1719), I am unable to sell any articulated vehicle, as soon as I move it to the trash can in the depot, the game crashes without leaving a crashlog.

[Lakie]

You should understand by now that Articulated information on the Wiki is mainly for Trains, and may not apply to Articulated Road Vehicles.

As far as I understand whats done, you should get the correct capacity, although its possible that Steven never did that part, the sprite (such as trains) is definitely not supported, (which to my understanding only increases the available space for the buy menu sprite*).

I do not think that the callback 1D feature applies to the 'manual articulation'.
And I do not know why it crashes, I can sell aRVs quite happily here.

* - DaleStan would most likely know more about it that me, so please correct me if I'm wrong...

~ Lakie