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Voyager One wrote:I repeat, the rule is the international law. Is HK a sovereign state? Is the Isle of Man a sovereign state? Is Catalonia (Barcelona) a sovereign state? Wales? Scotland? Alaska? Pennsylvania? All no.

Good thing you didn't say Texas

In that case, we should change all Canadian and Australian flags to UK flag, as just like Isle of Man, they share the same Sovereign head of state in the British Crown.

US states do not compete separately at the Olympics, they do not have their own currency, the do not issue their own passports, and they do not have independent policies on international trade and finance - all of which ae true of Hong Kong today. I am sure if you were to poll holders of HK passports only, very few would vote for the PRC flag to represent them. My question is, who exactly is the audience that the set authors are aiming to please by insisting on the PRC flag? As the set focuses on individual cities as the provenance of trams anyway, wouldn't it make more sense to use city flags or emblems instead of national flags?

HK is not a sovereign state. The flag, by 2CC set rules, should be PRC, all other arguments are, as of Aug 2016, hot air. If the politics changes in future, the flags will be wrong

I'd have left the flags out personally, nothing but trouble, but eh, that's just me

Voyager One wrote:@ChazraPk - first of all, thanks for calling me an ignorant. Speaking of ignorance, I still haven't seen your answer to my very simple and straightforward question: is HK a sovereign state according to international law? If it is, I'll be more than happy to add it's rightful flag.

Do you know of the existence of rhetorical questions?
Some questions are best left unanswered.





(like that one I just asked)

And I will state again - Hong Kong has never, not once ever, been an independent state. It's entire history is either under the administration of China, the United Kingdom, or Japan. That's not ignorance, it's just a political fact. There's a reason some people think KH=China, and that's because it actually is. There was no reason to have as many posts as we did about it, nor was there any reason for name calling for anybody to get upset. It's just a fact, not a statement or political stand. It literally is what it is.

If you wish to make your own HK tram and bus set, that would be completely awesome. If you use code or graphics from 2CC Trams, please remember to respect the license, and aside from that there are no restrictions or limits.

I forgot to answer to a few valid questions here... Sorry for the delay.

supermop wrote:n that case, we should change all Canadian and Australian flags to UK flag, as just like Isle of Man, they share the same Sovereign head of state in the British Crown.

Canada and Australia are sovereign states that are "bound" to the Crown only by a sort of "tradition". I reality they are separate sovereign states.
(Please noone misinterpretes my words this time... )

supermop wrote:US states

Those were just an exaggeration for example.

supermop wrote:Olympics

Not a measure here, only international laws and international recognition applies.

supermop wrote:My question is, who exactly is the audience that the set authors are aiming to please by insisting on the PRC flag?

Again, the rule is the international law, I certainly didn't make HK ownership of PCR...

supermop wrote:As the set focuses on individual cities as the provenance of trams anyway, wouldn't it make more sense to use city flags or emblems instead of national flags?

Yes and no.
The goal was to have a tram set matching (as much as possible) the train set we already have. Therefore national flags are used. That doesn't mean that city flags have been completely discarded as a possibility, just it's a very low priority for now.
One very big "con" against city flags IMO - we have flags that are already very very small. Most city flags have very intricate amblems and designs that are impossible to reproduce in that very fine scale. I'm afraid that we'd end up with blobs of senseless colored pixels and nothing more...

kamnet wrote:supermop wrote:
As the set focuses on individual cities as the provenance of trams anyway, wouldn't it make more sense to use city flags or emblems instead of national flags?

Yes and no.
The goal was to have a tram set matching (as much as possible) the train set we already have. Therefore national flags are used. That doesn't mean that city flags have been completely discarded as a possibility, just it's a very low priority for now.
One very big "con" against city flags IMO - we have flags that are already very very small. Most city flags have very intricate amblems and designs that are impossible to reproduce in that very fine scale. I'm afraid that we'd end up with blobs of senseless colored pixels and nothing more...

I totally understand wanting to match the brand of the train set, but It sometimes seems like trams are more evocative of a certain city (or type of City) than nation, as sometimes you will have very different types of trams between two cities in the same nation, whereas a city across the globe with a similar urban structure might have a very similar tram. It is a problem that many cities, especially newer ones, end up with flags that look meaningless at purchase menu scale. Many cities have some other symbol apart from a flag that may be simpler.

I don't have a major problem in theory with China - I've traveled there and thoroughly enjoyed it. I wonder though, are there any trams from Kaohsiung, Taipei, or Tainan in the set? The US and most other countries do not recognize Taiwan /RoC as sovereign nation (even if it is an ally). Since 1971, the Taiwan has not held a UN seat or been recognized as a sovereign state. Would this set ascribe the PRC flag to Taiwanese trams instead of the RoC flag?

If we had such vehicles, then I would say we use the flag of Taiwan, Republic of China. Republic of China is the same government that People's Republic of China displaced, but its government has never been out of power in Taiwan. It has declared itself independent of PRC, and until just a few years ago still insisted that it was the only legitimate government of mainland China. It still maintains its power on the Taiwanese islands, it is not in a political alliance or relationship with PRC, it is not an administrative province. And while it no longer has a seat on the UN, it is still recognized by 21 nations plus the Holy See. And while the United States complied with PRC in not referring to ROC, it is none the less Taiwan's largest trading partner and is the main enforcer of military non-aggression against Taiwan. Most nations may dance around the issue, but the reality is that Taiwan, Republic of China is an independent nation.

This is completely different from Hong Kong, which recognizes itself as a state in the People's Republic of China, and is in an acknowledged political and administrative alliance with the mainland. It's autonomous operation of government is unique, but it is not the same as political independence.

Taiwan is a hot potato... Let me first quote something from wiki:

"In 1945, the ROC took control of Formosa (Taiwan), the Pescadores (Penghu) and other nearby islands, under the direction of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. In September 1951, Japan officially renounced its right to Taiwan in the Treaty of San Francisco without explicitly stating the sovereignty status of Taiwan, and hence some people regard that the sovereignty of Taiwan is still undetermined.

In addition, the situation can be confusing because of the different parties and the effort by many groups to deal with the controversy through a policy of deliberate ambiguity. The political solution that is accepted by many of the current groups is the perspective of the status quo: to unofficially treat Taiwan as a state and at a minimum, to officially declare no support for the government of this state making a formal declaration of independence. What a formal declaration of independence would consist of is not clear. The status quo is accepted in large part because it does not define the legal or future status of Taiwan, leaving each group to interpret the situation in a way that is politically acceptable to its members. At the same time, a policy of status quo has been criticized as being dangerous precisely because different sides have different interpretations of what the status quo is, leading to the possibility of war through brinkmanship or miscalculation."

As I've said, a very hot potato. IMO, not part of PRC, not a completely and legaly recognized sovereign state. Also IMO, here we have to make "damage control", choose the lesser evil and, always IMO, it is assigning the ROC flag as we've done.

Politics are a b****...

NekoMaster wrote:

ChazraPk wrote:

NekoMaster wrote:Wow, I knew this discussion was going to explode into someone getting upset.

Look, when people start a project like this, they set out guidelines and a structure to work on to make coding and graphics easier. Almost all sets have been this way since I started playing OpenTTD (which around the same time I became a member here).

If your not contributing to a set most people will ignore such demands especially if you come in and be like "DO THIS AND DO IT NOW", that kinda attitude will get people upset.

Though to be honest, when I think of Hong Kong, it feels more like a country in of its own rather then a self governing state of China. Considering its history and ownership perhaps a place like Hong Kong deserves to have its flag recognised.

Sorry if I said anything brash or upsetting, I'm just putting my 2 cents in... also I'm just waking up here.

I completely support your opinion, I just kinda tried to discuss it here but I felt it wasn't going anywhere, so I've decided to take matters into my own hands and make a HK tram pack, and I may even continue to go on to make a bus pack
I think my solution is better than just changing the flag, because then I can put in the newer trams, get authentic sound files for them, and these guys don't get pestered by me.
Also, respect to you, NARS is a great NewGRF.

Why are you respecting me for NARS? I'm only making an addon.

If anything though, it might be nice if you can use the code of 2cc Trams and 2cc buses to make your Hong Kong Transit stuff. I would do more with Hong Kong but the island is so small and rough in most maps that its hard for me to play in OpenTTD, SimCity, or Cities Skylines

I should definitely be out of here, I may have phrased the GRF complaint wrongly, just wanted to acknowledge that you may have taken it wrongly
Hong Kong isn't just an island btw, it's made of the New territories, which includes Lantau, and the outlying islands, the rest of New Territories which is where the China-HK border is, and HK Island.

hi there. is this set already in development? How might i help updating missing running costs?
I don't have any xp about grfs or nml, but I'd like to help on it

So how about some NotRoadTypes (NRT) support for 2CC|Trams?

I imagine there are some non-electric trams in the set already, things that can run without overhead wires like steam trams, petrol/diesel (if thats a thing), and fireless trams.

NekoMaster wrote:I imagine there are some non-electric trams in the set already, things that can run without overhead wires like steam trams, petrol/diesel (if thats a thing), and fireless trams.

Diesel LRVs, and old gasoline trams are definitely a thing - as are cable hauled, and conduit powered electric - 2cc trams are probably the best to make use of roadtypes, as the set seeks to represents a vastly diverse set of tram types!

einsteinyh wrote:is this set already in development?

Yeah... we've hit a slight bump on the road with this. All is drawn but Foobar and man are quite busy so coding-wise basically it's... ahem... stopped...
However, coding and progress will certainly resume.

andythenorth wrote:So how about some NotRoadTypes (NRT) support for 2CC|Trams?

What do you exactly mean Andy? TBH, I'm also quite "indisposed" lately so...

NekoMaster wrote:I imagine there are some non-electric trams in the set already

Yes, more than a few steam ones and a few diesel ones as well. Keep in mind that only passenger trams have been coded so far, freight trams haven't been touched yet and those include more steamers and diesels.

Voyager One wrote:What do you exactly mean Andy? TBH, I'm also quite "indisposed" lately so...

There's an OpenTTD fork for NotRoadTypes, (up to 16 types of road, 16 types of tram), with binaries built on the official OpenTTD compile farm, and an nml build for the new features. viewtopic.php?f=33&t=75637

Good chance it will make it to trunk openttd, although maybe not in a stable release within 2017.

There's a version of Road Hog with support for it (steam trams, electric trams, road vehicles, heavy haul vehicles), and Supermop has produced trolley vehicles. There's a couple of NRT grfs as well

2CC|Trams seems like it would be able to make good use of this feature, although maybe not right now if development time is limited

As of right now, development is on hold. Unless some kind soul wants to go visit the repository and wishes to contribute some code. Otherwise, it will have to wait until Foobar, Voyager One or myself gets some time. And, boy, do I personally wish I had the time to get this done.

As for NRT support, that'll definitely have to wait. Let's get this working and finished for standard OpenTTD first. But, I imagine it wouldn't be too much work to properly prepare this for NRT. We could break vehicles out for tracks which don't require catenary, and we could also do a proper separation of tramway, light rail, and metro, and also offer parameters to keep them all merged into one or limited track types.

Random comment on the viability of non-catenary-powered transport (which would at least look nicer with NRT as previously mentioned in this thread):

San Francisco-style cable cars would, compared to trams from the 1870s to the 1890s, have essentially unlimited hill-climbing ability(/tractive effort)*, as well as higher capacity, balanced by (even) lower speed (< 20 km/h, 9.5 mph in San Francisco nowadays) and somewhat° higher operating costs. After that time, they're pretty much obsolete, except for very steep lines that barely exist in OpenTTD - but after all, they weren't too successful in reality either.

Conduit track was a maintenance pain compared to overhead wires and was only ever installed where city ordnances forbade the latter, so not really useful beyond eye candy. Diesel/internal-combustion-engined LRVs and trams would definitely be nice, though.

In any case, I really appreciate the effort you've put into this set. I might reuse some of the graphics in the near future, and will let you know if I manage to improve them. Will see if I can take a look at the code as well (even though it's PHP...).

* Realistically, they would of course slow down to completely OTTD-unviable speeds if many cars were running at once, but even then would run at practically constant speed.

° Again, realistically, they were apparently 3-4x more expensive to operate, but that definitely wouldn't work in OTTD. I guess that was mostly related to cable system maintenance, plus supposedly less than 5% of engine house power actually moves the cars - 95% is wasted on the cable!

It actually would be really nice if we could have Diesel and Electric LRT stuff, though don't some electric LRT's run from 3rd rail in more built up metro like setups?

Maybe OpenTTD should have a seperate set for LRT and Metro stuff (Including subways and elevated trains) so the 2cc Tram set can stay as Street cars and Trams to keep things simple.

"2cc Light Rail Transit Set"

oberhümer wrote:San Francisco-style cable cars would, compared to trams from the 1870s to the 1890s, have essentially unlimited hill-climbing ability(/tractive effort)*, as well as higher capacity, balanced by (even) lower speed (< 20 km/h, 9.5 mph in San Francisco nowadays) and somewhat° higher operating costs. After that time, they're pretty much obsolete, except for very steep lines that barely exist in OpenTTD - but after all, they weren't too successful in reality either.

I actually think cable cars would be very workable in game given the issues you mentioned. HP and TE would simply need to be set to a strangely high value. With realistic RV acceleration, there can be meaningful difference on a long stretch of slopes. In a large diverse set of vehicles, there is no need for every tram to be balanced to be successful. Cable cars can make sense in the 19th century before electric traction, when the compromises between smaller steam engines on trams vs. a larger stationary engine were not yet fully developed. I am sure there can be a niche where they make sense compared to horse and steam trams, before being made obsolete as electric trams mature. It would require a bit of planning between tram set and track set authors to determine if the cost of the cable haulage should be represented in the maintenance of the track or running cost of the vehicle (former makes more sense to me, except in cases of abandoned trackage from bankrupt companies, which other players may use for free).

oberhümer wrote:Conduit track was a maintenance pain compared to overhead wires and was only ever installed where city ordnances forbade the latter, so not really useful beyond eye candy.

Generally agreed, though if any set were to use it, 2cc would make the most sense. Some cities, such as New York, formerly had huge conduit powered networks, so presumably a player seeking city specific trams might want to see those distinctions made. At some point one starts to consider splitting standard and narrow gauge however, and things become unworkable.

NekoMaster wrote:It actually would be really nice if we could have Diesel and Electric LRT stuff, though don't some electric LRT's run from 3rd rail in more built up metro like setups?

There are a few Electric LRVs in the set already as I recall. I am not aware of any 3rd rail LRVs, essentially all 3rd rail metros I know of are heavy rail, either in standard or narrow gauge, and would make most sense as trains. In the few cities where I have seen LRVs used in place of a real metro, they are still powered by overhead wire. In many such cities the light rail might still have some areas of street running, and generally has low floors and platforms. The vehicles employed are often used as trams in other cities, so to me it seems odd to make a distinction between whether a Siemens Combino is a tram or LRV. I guess the set is large enough that splitting it up could help a bit. I'd be strongly against lumping in regular heavy rail subways and elevated trains in with low-floor light rail vehicles though - A 10 car, 2000 passenger, NYC subway train running down the street on tram tracks would be certainly funny, but I don't think it is sensible.