FIRS Industry Replacement Set - Development

[Fenris]

I havent played a game with YACD, but a few with cargodist. I think both have an option to turn it on seperatly for every cargotyp. Supplies are express cargo, so the only other cargo in a FIRS-game that cannot be played with this feature is mail. Or did i miss something?

I like supplies, because they allow me to control how much output an primary industry should have. If it gets to much for my network, i stop the delivery of supplies until i have trains with more power and capacity. And i also like it, to build feeder stations to distribute supplies. So they are the main reason, why i play with FIRS and not ECS oder PBI. Stockpiling would be ok for me. Without daylengths you must have very short routes from the feederstation to the industry to deliver supplies every month.

Sorry for the bad english. I tried my best.

[FooBar]

1- players assume that supplies are required to get any primary production, so they don't use FIRS on this basis

2- players expect the amount of supplies delivered to affect chance of production increase, e.g. more delivered = higher chance of production increase
3- players expect the requirement for supplies to vary with primary production

4- players would like to be able to stockpile supplies so they don't have to deliver monthly
5- players don't want a storage limit on stockpiles because they don't like storage limits
6- players do want a storage limit on stockpiles to prevent dumping

7- players don't like these 3-tile feeders that some players are choosing to use to deliver supplies
8- players don't want to have to deliver supplies frequently, or in small amounts because they can't use giant trains to do this
9- players do want to have to deliver supplies frequently in small amounts because it makes the network more interesting than using giant trains everywhere

10- players report that FIRS is too complex. Removing supplies would remove two cargos and four industries, making FIRS simpler

11- supplies just don't work as designed in a YACD game (possibly same in cargodist)

I'm impressed by the amount of reasons to remove supplies

But anyways:
1, 2 and 3 can be solved by a little education.

4, 5 and 6: well, you can't have everything. Players 4 are clearly not up for a bit of challenge; they can be ignored. Also, you don't have to deliver monthly (that is often the case in my games). It just takes a bit longer for production to increase, so this could be solved by a little education as well.
I'm not sure how easy it would be to influence the stockpile limit by means of a parameter. If that's not too complicated, it could prove a solution for 5 and 6.

7: No need to. I run trucks straight from the production facilities or from a transfer train station.
8: Those players should stick to the default industries and have 20 coal mines next to each other and run cargo in far too many very short maglev trains.
9: Yes, players want that.

10: I thought that is what the "economies" feature was supposed to be for. There could very well be an economy without the supplies.

11: This I have no experience with. I only tried one game of YACD so far and that was passengers-only, so unfortunately I cannot comment on this. However, I'm certain that some kind of cargo destinations feature will come to trunk in due time, and FIRS should work with that. I will investigate this in my next game.


All in all FIRS is an industry set (IMO) for the more advanced OpenTTD player who got bored by the default industries and are annoyed by stockpile limits enforced by the other two major industry sets. I'm sure you are aware that you can't make an industry set that pleases every single OpenTTD player, and that's no shame. But I'm certain that removing supplies will result in losing more customers than you get back.

Instinct tells me that the YACD issue is probably key. Summer holidays are due shortly and I'm certain there will be some time for me to investigate this and hopefully come up with a solution that both can keep the supplies and solve the YACD issue. Don't start holding your breath on that now, as I have to play a YACD+FIRS game first (which will take a couple of weeks to do properly).

[Eddi]

FooBar sums this up nicely. here's how i think supplies should work:

1. during each monthly callback, a number N of supplies is consumed
2. if the monthly callback results in a production increase, N is increased by 1 (or alternatively: doubled)
3. storage space is reserved for up to 12 months, i.e. 12*N
4. the current storage and consumption should be clearly stated in the industry window
5. if the storage is empty, production has a chance to sink (down to the minimum/starting level)

from my experience, supplies work great with CargoDist. YACD, on the other hand, has problems with small quantities being delivered to many destinations. IMHO this needs fixing in YACD, like offering more control to the industry set, e.g. a property which governs the destination-behaviour (few, large destinations vs. many, small destinations)

wrt storage limits: there are two ways to handle them:

1. if the limit is exceeded, stop accepting the cargo
2. if the limit is exceeded, throw away the surplus [but pay the company for transporting]

i'm tending towards 2. currently

if you want to provide an economy without supplies, set the initial value of N to 0, if you want to provide an economy with supplies, set initial value of N to 1

[Coxx]

I've thought about it for a few hours, and I haven't yet found a better option than removing supplies.
That could probably be fixed, but added together with so many complaints about them - it takes the fun out of maintaining FIRS and the effort isn't worth it

I´m really sorry you feel that way, I didn´t mean to complain, just proposing (could be annoying anyway). But at least you now know that supplies also have strong supporters.

The problems with supplies include:
- players assume..., players expect..., players would like to..., players don't want..., players do want ...

Most players don´t bother with reading a manual or readme, they will use an intuitive approach to whatever problems they encounter in a game (based on what their ideas are about what might work in RL or be fun in a game). Naturally a lot of these ideas are contradictionary, but the one who does it decides it. Within certain limits they will accept every reasonable solution you came up with.

Personally I think that the main problem about the supplies is the rather short timeframe of just a month, because playing with a daylenght factor makes it much more stable. But I also think in controlling the growth of primary industries they could probably have an even greater effect on the development of the economy as a whole and the way to manage it. The proposed idea based on this model: http://wiki.ttdpatch.net/tiki-index.php ... Plantation, as generaly ignorant about code, I thought this could probably be adjusted and hotwired to production growth.

- players report that FIRS is too complex. Removing supplies would remove two cargos and four industries, making FIRS simpler
-supplies just don't work as designed in a YACD game (possibly same in cargodist)

Playing with cargodist I haven´t encountered any specific problems with the supplys, if anything it´s even easier since you don´t have to care about transfer orders.
The game itself has grown more and more complex, but I´m sure that´s exactly what most players love about it. If a certain addition seems too complex, one can allways try another one or go back to vanilla. I think it´s not the number of cargos or industries that matters, but the impact on the game, there is no difference if food is made of grain or sugar beet, while fish means you have to use ships and supplies represent an interaction with another industrial sector which in turn requieres a different kind of network, so you would lose a lot and gain little from putting them away.

I´m sure the newly triggered discussion on this subject will not just show how popular they are but also provide some fresh ideas.

[Simons Mith]

I think Coxx puts a finger right on the biggest 'weakness' with FIRS supplies, namely the high frequency with which they must be delivered. That's what tends to force stockpiling, and that in turn 'forces' the setup of little 3-square stations or some other equivalent arrangement, unless you can afford to run trucks or whatever direct from the yards and machine shops. (Which I certainly can't at my default difficulty settings.)

If supply delivery was more forgiving, you wouldn't need any of that mucking about.

Being able to configure supply delivery to 2-monthly, 3-, 4-, 6- or 12- would address that issue nicely. 12-month delivery is a year's implicit stockpiling, really, isn't it? Even though I'm the one who documented the 3-square supply stations, I readily admit I only use them in response to the game restraints FIRS imposes upon me. They are /the/ optimum way of gaming the FIRS system under the difficulty settings I use. But if the delivery frequency was, say, twice a year, I wouldn't need them, and my network's behaviour would change accordingly. I'm perfectly happy with the current setup, but I'd have no objections if it changed, I'd just adapt. I do enjoy FIRS just fine as-is, but I'm sure I'll still enjoy it just as much if it changes.

From a gameworld consistency point of view, it is strange that food, fish and other perishables can languish in a truck for months and still turn a profit, but fork-lift trucks, tractors, cogs and sprockets and whatever else goes into engineering and farming supplies /must get through/ every month, and their value as cargo is secondary to their ability to grow the production of other cargo types.

The main observation I want to make is that FIRS with 3-month delivery would be a completely different game from FIRS with 12- or 1- month delivery, and if andy is willing to make the delivery setting available as a parameter, I'd potentially be interested in playing any of them.

Edit: I would continue to use the stockpile solution for other cargos anyway - a trickle of coal + scrap metal + iron ore to a steel mill for example, to maximise production of any cargo that arrives, and keep station ratings up at the same time.

[Bob_Mackenzie]

I like supplies too, keep them please

Without them FIRS game play becomes the same as the default industries IMO

[Hyronymus]

I like supplies too, keep them please

Without them FIRS game play becomes the same as the default industries IMO

Indeed, it what seperates easy sets from challenging sets.

And perhaps the supplies-feature can be parameter-dependent, as proposed earlier.

[Alberth]

Hi andy,

I played a little bit with the new beta 0.6.5-beta 3 (for almost 10 game years), and I have not noticed anything unusual, other then the ever better graphics

[andythenorth]

[quote="Alberth"I played a little bit with the new beta 0.6.5-beta 3 (for almost 10 game years), and I have not noticed anything unusual, other then the ever better graphics [/quote]
Thanks for the report. The graphics in 0.7.0 will be better again

[Simons Mith]

A new translatabold for FIRS has been producy. Deep joy. Sadlyam the rest of the OpenTDD playgame is not yet in Unwinese availabold but be assured, forum-gopers, when it is the FIRS NewGRF will be readyraring and fullyable.

[pnfo. attached]

[Leanden]

Erm, can someone translate that into english so the general public can understand it?

[andythenorth]

Erm, can someone translate that into english so the general public can understand it?

Gee, or google 'Unwinese'. But I think you missed the point

[Simons Mith]

Erm, can someone translate that into english so the general public can understand it?

It is in English. It's in the basic English twenty-fido. Oh yes.

[Leanden]

Ah i get it now.

[Core Xii]

Supplies are the defining characteristic of FIRS. Removing them would be like removing the cold from ice cream. It may still taste good, but it ain't ice cream no more.

[kvwrd]

Do FIRS have svn repository? I can't understand what changed in TEXT_IND_FORGE (Original: r1654, Translation: r1501) and many similar strings because I can't find r1654 source code.

[FooBar]

Not svn, but hg: http://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/firs/repository

In particular this is what changed for the forge in r1654: http://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/fir ... F_any.pnfo

[Kogut]

I also want supplies.

[kvwrd]

Russian translation.

[Ogre]

Supplies are the defining characteristic of FIRS. Removing them would be like removing the cold from ice cream. It may still taste good, but it ain't ice cream no more.

Signed.

Some time ago, some people (I did it too) complained about the low capacities of vehicles when compared with production rates of primary industries in some sets. Remember the amounts of coal pouring out of coal mines in times the player had only some small horse drawn carriages (when using an early vehicle set) to get it off? With FIRS the player has a nice opportunity to control the output of these industries to balance the scenarios economy.

Those, who do not want the supplies (I still have some difficuties about them, too, but more in a matter of translation), may choose an other set. Removing the supplies would make FIRS just a small add-on to the original industries, not an independent, more economical and reality orientated set.

No offense to players nor other sets, just my thoughts.

What about next? What will be in 0.7. and when can it be expected for testing and playing?

EDIT: I mixed up some sets. Sorry for that.