New suggestions for the patch (no new suggestions here!)

[Hyronymus]

What about more company colours to choose from?

[Frightened Shadow]

Another thing concerning extra engines: When I buy an extra engine and sell the original engine I can't use the extra engine by itself. Instead, it behaves like a carriage. Does this mean that the extra engines function as carriages only, and thus Arathorn's and my suggestions can't be implemented?

[Frightened Shadow]

Another day, another useless suggestion. Is it possible to add more freedom to giving orders to trains? My idea is that trains could choose a different way and different destinations depending on traffic (and double signals). I'm thinking it would work something like this: if a train encounters a station that is on its order list (even if it's not the current destination), it changes the current order to another. By default this another order should be the next order from the encountered station, but it should be possible to define it yourself. That is, you should be able to define, when giving orders, that if a train reaches a certain station, the next order after it should be the order number of the encountered station + a positive integer.

This way, it should e.g. be possible to simulate stations with a basically endless number of platforms. You just place many stations with one square between them, and place the tracks and signals so that trains can choose between stations just like between platforms. Then, when a train enters a station, it checks whether that station is in the order list. If yes, it performs the needed action (load/unload) and skips an approriate number of orders to get to the next desired order.

Am I making sense here? Is this in any way doable?

[Dinges]

Nice Idea... but It will be hard I think.

[Hyronymus]

Indeed a nice idea but that sounds like sort of a heuristic algorithm. The game will be scanning every square for every train and if it finds something in the list it has to change the list, save it and use it! Sounds like awful programming to me.

[Frightened Shadow]

Indeed a nice idea but that sounds like sort of a heuristic algorithm. The game will be scanning every square for every train and if it finds something in the list it has to change the list, save it and use it! Sounds like awful programming to me.

Do you know how it's currently done in the game? I mean, how does a train know that it has reached a station, and that that station is its current destination?

[Dinges]

Maybe it has a square on the map where it locates the station and try to go there wenn ot's there it will start to reach the end of a platform and stops.

[Frightened Shadow]

Maybe it has a square on the map where it locates the station and try to go there wenn ot's there it will start to reach the end of a platform and stops.

It's certainly quite likely that it knows where its destination station is situated, otherwise it would be hard for it to find its way there.

Anyway, we know that a train can distinguish a station from a normal track, because trains used to stop at a station in the original TTD, even if it wasn't a part of their orders. That what the non-stop switch was originally for. I wonder if it was possible to check whether the station is in the trains orders list when it reaches it?

[Sokko]

Sorry if I repeat a few suggestions, but I don't want to bother to read through all twelve pages so I'm just going to ramble this stuff off the top of my head (all are improvements to existing features, and are numbered as such):

1. Let train refitting include mail and oil (why is it these two things that are troublesome?)
1. Dynamic refit/turnaround buttons (so you don't have to close the window and open it again to refresh their status)

2. Can you do some double-checking on the effects of incredibly high service intervals? Sometimes it goes to 0 days or something similar...

3. Make one-square-long stations have a different graphic, because they're only ever used for checkpoints (I dunno, maybe some kind of squarish metal arch that the train passes under)

4. Money cheat adaptability (so if you type in 10000 then you will get 10000, regardless of what your currency is)
4. OwnCrossings should trace the tracks back to a station to determine which player to give the crossing to (if the tracks are not connected to any station, maybe you could give an error message and point out the problem area)
4. Does the "Renew" cheat cost calculations include the money that would be received by selling the old engines before buying the new ones? If not, it should.

6. This option should be more easily handled. I for one am fine with reduced slowdown for monorails and no slowdown for maglevs, but if someone wants to change it (why?) they're in for a lot of confusion. Firstly, what the heck is a bit-coded two-digit value? What's with all the adding up of numbers? And if it's a two-digit value, why does it have four digits in the TP Starter? At the very least, make these options a series of check boxes in the Starter, like the plane crash control.

9. Create more buttons that say "6" and "7" to select for station length and width, instead of using Ctrl.
9. If you try to "add-on" to a station and it doesn't match up, display a "Stations don't line up!" message instead of "Too close to train station".

11. Put a horizontal scroll bar in the depot window so we can see trains that are more than ten cars long. You'd need to move the trash bin for this, or just make it float along wherever you scroll.

12. Have a seperate button in the toolbar for building pre-signals, instead of using Ctrl.

13. Along with inflation, have an option to turn off interest? (I don't know if some people would like this, I usually don't worry too much about those things)

14. Again, instead of using Ctrl, have separate buttons that say "Borrow Maximum" and "Repay Maximum".

17. Have a button in the station window that says "Reset Goods", to reset the selectable goods for that station only.

18. Show food acceptance for office towers using the Query tool

21. Let all bridges have unlimited lengths, not just the three available now

23. Put in a button for "Buy additional engine" in the train window instead of using Ctrl (but, for once, I think using Ctrl to make train heads face a different direction is fine)
23. Make extra engines smoke/spark

24. Prevent the road vehicle "stacking" bug, if there's any way to fix that

27. In the City window, show the current number of noise units that the population is having to put up with (in the format x/9).
27. This doesn't fit in anywhere else, so... have a button in the City window that will highlight a city's area of influence

28. Again, with the cryptic "bit-coded" values, and the TP Starter could use some help here because the check boxes for these options have descriptions that aren't really what they mean

29. Is there any kind of indicator when you get caught by a regional investigator? If not, there should be.

31. Pop up an error message if a vehicle could not be automatically renewed, like "This vehicle could not be sent to a depot for renewal; please check its route and make sure there is a depot on it" (it should wait a little while to make sure the vehicle could not find a depot)
31. Does the renewal cost calculation include the money you would receive from selling the old vehicles before buying the new ones? If not, it should.

34. Once more, put a "Save Game" entry in the Scenario Editor instead of having to use Ctrl to change it from "Load Game".

36. When you click on an order that goes to a depot, the "Full Load" button should change to a "Service Only" button, and the order should change to say that.

38. When managing subsidiary companies, prevent the AI from doing anything while you're away.

41. Once more, the mysterious bit-coded values make an appearance. Fortunately the TP Starter handles this one perfectly.

Please give me the word on which of these is possible and which are unfeasible (I have a feeling most of them are possible though).

[eis_os]

Sorry if I repeat a few suggestions, but I don't want to bother to read through all twelve pages so I'm just going to ramble this stuff off the top of my head (all are improvements to existing features, and are numbered as such):

1. Let train refitting include mail and oil (why is it these two things that are troublesome?)
1. Dynamic refit/turnaround buttons (so you don't have to close the window and open it again to refresh their status)

hmm..

3. Make one-square-long stations have a different graphic, because they're only ever used for checkpoints (I dunno, maybe some kind of squarish metal arch that the train passes under)

Not easy, I posted a screenshot already, don't think I will get it soon: http://www.tt-forums.net//files/noteasy.gif

9. Create more buttons that say "6" and "7" to select for station length and width, instead of using Ctrl.

No room, maybe If I know more about the GUI so I can enlarge.
See my Dev Screenshot Post about buttons

11. Put a horizontal scroll bar in the depot window so we can see trains that are more than ten cars long. You'd need to move the trash bin for this, or just make it float along wherever you scroll.

TTD GUI doesn't have horizontal scroll bars.

12. Have a seperate button in the toolbar for building pre-signals, instead of using Ctrl.

Will break to much stuff

14. Again, instead of using Ctrl, have separate buttons that say "Borrow Maximum" and "Repay Maximum".

No more room

27. In the City window, show the current number of noise units that the population is having to put up with (in the format x/9).

lol

27. This doesn't fit in anywhere else, so... have a button in the City window that will highlight a city's area of influence

nice idea, but how to do it ?!?

29. Is there any kind of indicator when you get caught by a regional investigator? If not, there should be.

lol

36. When you click on an order that goes to a depot, the "Full Load" button should change to a "Service Only" button, and the order should change to say that.

hmm, not easy...

[GoneWacko]

What about more company colours to choose from?

Would be cool to be able to select any color by selecting an RGB value... But you would have to develop an entire new window for that... and seeing as there's problems even with creating a new button (using other button's memory and stuff) it would be HARD.

[eis_os]

What about more company colours to choose from?

Would be cool to be able to select any color by selecting an RGB value... But you would have to develop an entire new window for that... and seeing as there's problems even with creating a new button (using other button's memory and stuff) it would be HARD.

Hmm, I think it's impossible to add more color schemes ...

[Patchman]

That's correct. The colour schemes depend on palette translations, which are sprites 300h+y, where y is the colour scheme. You can't insert other sprites there, and this is used in too many places to patch.

[Arathorn]

38. When managing subsidiary companies, prevent the AI from doing anything while you're away.

That would be nice, but maybe hard to code, because if you manage an other company your own company becomes the same as a normal AI company. For this I'm afraid you need to make three kinds of companies.

[Sokko]

It would be nice if I could actually have the word on the feasability of those things from The Patchman himself, not just someone who does experimental versions and can only answer my suggestions with lol, hmm, no room, don't know how you'd do it, would break too much stuff, etc. I think you just like to say "lol" to confuse people, or when you don't know what else you can possibly say to dampen my spirits. Also, your picture makes absolutely no sense and doesn't appear to relate to checkpoint stations in the slightest. If you can add graphics for pre-signals, you can definitely add graphics for a 1x1 station. Just about the only sensible thing you said was that the GUI doesn't support horizontal scroll bars, in which case you could possibly enlarge the window; I don't know how hard that would be.

You'd think it would be possible to disable the AI somehow, but like I said, I prefer to have the word from the developer on whether these things can be done or not.

These reccomendations are not radical new features; they just build on existing features and all of them seem very feasible to me, so Patchman please give me the word on whether or not these are possible, and if so how hard they would be (wouldn't want to dramatically increase the workload)

[Rob]

29. Is there any kind of indicator when you get caught by a regional investigator? If not, there should be.

I don't think there should be an indicator.
Since when is it in real life possible that you recieve a 100% accurate warning to be caught committing a crime before the fact.

Furthermore, eis_os is a also a TTDpatch develloper, who knows how it is done. He may not know everyting, but then again he didn't reply to all you suggestions.

Another thing is that you assume that the devellopers can do everything with ease. That is not the case. They are not devellopping a new game, they just try to improve an excisting game, without the source code. If they want to change anything they will have to discover how it works in the game first. Then they have to try to change it, without damaging something else. And without the source code they just don't know how everything is connected.
Then there is the problem of the lack of free space in the games internal structure, together with a lot of things I didn't think of.

[spaceman-spiff]

It would be nice if I could actually have the word on the feasability of those things from The Patchman himself, not just someone who does experimental versions and can only answer my suggestions with lol, hmm, no room, don't know how you'd do it, would break too much stuff, etc. I think you just like to say "lol" to confuse people, or when you don't know what else you can possibly say to dampen my spirits. Also, your picture makes absolutely no sense and doesn't appear to relate to checkpoint stations in the slightest. If you can add graphics for pre-signals, you can definitely add graphics for a 1x1 station. Just about the only sensible thing you said was that the GUI doesn't support horizontal scroll bars, in which case you could possibly enlarge the window; I don't know how hard that would be.

You'd think it would be possible to disable the AI somehow, but like I said, I prefer to have the word from the developer on whether these things can be done or not.

These reccomendations are not radical new features; they just build on existing features and all of them seem very feasible to me, so Patchman please give me the word on whether or not these are possible, and if so how hard they would be (wouldn't want to dramatically increase the workload)

I've been rewriting me reply 5 times already
I really don't know how to reply here
Eis_os has had a taste of the patch and I think he knows what he's talking about
Changing one thing here, then having 10 bugs in other places
Why do you think there are so many patch versions, we are at number 39 already
I wouldn't even want to start patching up something without the source code
When you put your suggestions up here, then everybody can post their thoughts about them
If you want a direct reply from the patchman, then you should send him an e-mail

[Patchman]

Alright, here's the official word, then. As official as it gets, anyway...

Your numbering system is very weird, by the way

1. Let train refitting include mail and oil (why is it these two things that are troublesome?)

They are troublesome because train refitting uses the plane refitting mechanism, and planes carry mail in a separate compartment not available for trains. I don't think there are any planes carrying oil, or maybe it just got left out. Putting it in is difficult.

1. Dynamic refit/turnaround buttons (so you don't have to close the window and open it again to refresh their status)

Difficult, the window doesn't have a clue where the train is currently, so you'd have to keep monitoring it all the time and switch the controls at the right place. Would be hard to get right. In addition, the controls are hard-coded into the window structure, so basically you'd have to replace the window with a new one, which is very hard.

2. Can you do some double-checking on the effects of incredibly high service intervals? Sometimes it goes to 0 days or something similar...

Never seen that. Send me a save where (before) it happens.

3. Make one-square-long stations have a different graphic, because they're only ever used for checkpoints (I dunno, maybe some kind of squarish metal arch that the train passes under)

That's easy. Give me the graphics and I can put it in in five minutes (if other people think that's useful). It won't be possible to change this graphic according to whether that's a "real" station or a waypoint. The station data is the same for both.

4. Money cheat adaptability (so if you type in 10000 then you will get 10000, regardless of what your currency is)

Too much work, for basically no benefit. If you cheat, you'll have to do some work at least, which is good.

4. OwnCrossings should trace the tracks back to a station to determine which player to give the crossing to (if the tracks are not connected to any station, maybe you could give an error message and point out the problem area)

Can be done, but I don't really see the point. Again a benefit vs. amount of work to do it issue.

4. Does the "Renew" cheat cost calculations include the money that would be received by selling the old engines before buying the new ones? If not, it should.

Of course.

6. This option should be more easily handled. I for one am fine with reduced slowdown for monorails and no slowdown for maglevs, but if someone wants to change it (why?) they're in for a lot of confusion. Firstly, what the heck is a bit-coded two-digit value? What's with all the adding up of numbers? And if it's a two-digit value, why does it have four digits in the TP Starter? At the very least, make these options a series of check boxes in the Starter, like the plane crash control.

It's better now in the latest alphas. Just a four-digit value. Can't get any simpler.

9. Create more buttons that say "6" and "7" to select for station length and width, instead of using Ctrl.

Very, very complicated. Messing with the user interface (UI) in TTD is just about the hardest task you can imagine. See how long Oskar was working at including just two more buttons in the company window... and it's still not done yet.

9. If you try to "add-on" to a station and it doesn't match up, display a "Stations don't line up!" message instead of "Too close to train station".

Too complicated/too little benefit. The error message is generated at a place where I can no longer tell what caused it.

11. Put a horizontal scroll bar in the depot window so we can see trains that are more than ten cars long. You'd need to move the trash bin for this, or just make it float along wherever you scroll.

UI interface change => difficult. Very.

What I do consider of doing though is have a very long train take several rows. But even that's very hard to do.

12. Have a seperate button in the toolbar for building pre-signals, instead of using Ctrl.

UI. Too much work.

13. Along with inflation, have an option to turn off interest? (I don't know if some people would like this, I usually don't worry too much about those things)

Like it matters...

14. Again, instead of using Ctrl, have separate buttons that say "Borrow Maximum" and "Repay Maximum".

UI. Nope.

17. Have a button in the station window that says "Reset Goods",
to reset the selectable goods for that station only.

UI. Nope.

18. Show food acceptance for office towers using the Query tool

Nope, it can only show three different strings. You run out of textstack space otherwise.

21. Let all bridges have unlimited lengths, not just the three available now

Why? Besides, TTD will not be able to draw those properly, and fixing that would be very complicated.

23. Put in a button for "Buy additional engine" in the train window instead of using Ctrl (but, for once, I think using Ctrl to make train heads face a different direction is fine)

UI. Nope.

23. Make extra engines smoke/spark

They do! Well, they don't give off electrical sparks, but that's because trains usually only have one pantograph going to the wire, more than that are a headache to keep in synch.

24. Prevent the road vehicle "stacking" bug, if there's any way to fix that

Very, very hard. The path finding is very convoluted, and there are many cases to consider when trying to fix this.

27. In the City window, show the current number of noise units that the population is having to put up with (in the format x/9).

Not important. Just count your airports... or try to build one and see if it works.

27. This doesn't fit in anywhere else, so... have a button in the City window that will highlight a city's area of influence

UI. Nope.

28. Again, with the cryptic "bit-coded" values, and the TP Starter could use some help here because the check boxes for these options have descriptions that aren't really what they mean

OK, I can't comment here.

29. Is there any kind of indicator when you get caught by a regional investigator? If not, there should be.

It's totally random. As it should be. They would never let you know when they're on to you... and instead catch you in the act.

31. Pop up an error message if a vehicle could not be automatically renewed, like "This vehicle could not be sent to a depot for renewal; please check its route and make sure there is a depot on it" (it should wait a little while to make sure the vehicle could not find a depot)

Very complicated to detect this reliably.

31. Does the renewal cost calculation include the money you would receive from selling the old vehicles before buying the new ones? If not, it should.

Of course. Hmm, didn't I say that before? [exclaim mode="Keanu Reeves"]Whoa, Déjà Vu...[/exclaim]

34. Once more, put a "Save Game" entry in the Scenario Editor instead of having to use Ctrl to change it from "Load Game".

No room. Can't make the menu larger without an extraordinate effort.

36. When you click on an order that goes to a depot, the "Full Load" button should change to a "Service Only" button, and the order should change to say that.

UI, too complicated. Buttons are hardcoded in the window structure.

38. When managing subsidiary companies, prevent the AI from doing anything while you're away.

I don't have a good UI for that, although in itself it's not too hard. It's still some work, but basically I don't have an idea how you would tell the game whether you want the company to take over or not.

41. Once more, the mysterious bit-coded values make an appearance. Fortunately the TP Starter handles this one perfectly.

Bitcoded is really easy: add up the numbers you want. Tadaa! (Really, that's all there is to it.)

Please give me the word on which of these is possible and which are unfeasible (I have a feeling most of them are possible though).

I hope I did.

I guess not much survived, but that's because all the easy things have been implemented already. Only the hard ones remain. Frequently, I won't even bother to begin working on something if I think the benefit (mostly for myself) is going to be very little. Remember, I'm making the patch for myself. Then I let you guys use it too, but first and foremost it's for myself.

Note that even when I say it's possible, it's still very very unlikely to get done, just because I have so little time to work on the patch. If I don't personally consider something as important, it probably won't get done. That's why people like Marcin, Oskar and Csaba joined the team, because I was (in their eyes) working on the wrong things, so they did what they thought important.

Moral of the story: if you think it's important and I don't, you probably will have to do it yourself.

[Patchman]

Oh, any by the way, the reason I stopped responding to these kinds of posts is because it's very frustrating to always have to say "that's too complicated", "that's not worth it" and so on.

Rest assured that if someone suggests something that's feasible and useful, it will go on my to-do list. I may not announce it, but I do always look for new ideas. However, even if it's on the list, it's unlikely that it'll ever get done, simply because there are already 100 other items on there, and every version they get more, instead of less.

Now, if someone were to hire me full time at a good salary, I could of course do a lot more. But would it be worth it to them? I don't know... but there's only so much you can do in 5-10 hours a week.

[SHADOW-XIII]

as for TTDPatch Starter ...:

- help will be ... now I'm working on pop-up'ing hints with switch help ....
- as for curves/mountains it's 2-digits value in older version, from alpha 23 (it was 23, wasn't it?) it uses 4-digits ... and you can always delete 2 of them .... I could do some other good type of this switch like 'drop down list' or something like that, but there are to many possibilites so I leaved this switch in this way ... If anyone can give me a good example how to change this switch that it could show sentences instead of numbers (and could be also easy to add in INI files I will make it)