Transport Tycoon Forums

I always start in 1850 (using NARS, eGRVTS), since i don't like starting with engine i'm never going to use, and because i get bored fairly easily, the longest i've played is to about 1910. Something like this would be perfect for me, and i'd be willing to put some time in on it. Andy, i've sent you a PM regarding this.

andythenorth wrote: I have been thinking that for certain industries, production should be tied a little more to the physical size of the industry (in tiles), and also that there should be larger and more productive industries in later years compared to earlier years. I think it's possible within the newgrf spec to check which industry layout is being used, but I would need to confirm that.

This would be a good idea. Is it possible that a industrie can actually grow? At least it could have some unused space i.e. the Powerplant from the ECS Vector. If I remember correctly the change of grafics sometimes also means change of accepted cargo too.

Allways a good idea in terms of playability would be some shortcuts in the production-chains. i.e. in PBI the sawmill also produces lumber which have to be transported to factory, but can also produce goods, which will be accepted directly by a city. On the other side the copper-chain in tropic climate need five different industies to get the final product.
A industrie representing the external trade (i.e. a habour, configurable via parameters) could do the trick.

Coxx wrote:This would be a good idea. Is it possible that a industrie can actually grow? At least it could have some unused space i.e. the Powerplant from the ECS Vector.

Growing won't happen. From reading the newgrf specs, I haven't figured out an easy way to do it, although maybe it could be faked with animation frames.

There will be unused space in many of the industries to allow players to build stations / docks / roads / tracks that fit in with the industry. If you look at the sketches in page 1, the cross-hatched areas in the engineering yard and cement plant are left empty for stations etc.

If I remember correctly the change of grafics sometimes also means change of accepted cargo too.

Cargo acceptance changes may happen (quarry becomes landfill for waste, for example). This allows players to keep using existing routes, but change what's being carried on them.

Allways a good idea in terms of playability would be some shortcuts in the production-chains. i.e. in PBI the sawmill also produces lumber which have to be transported to factory, but can also produce goods, which will be accepted directly by a city.

There will be some of this sort of thing where appropriate, it is more fun to play. It gives the player the choice of transporting a 'final' cargo, perhaps to a nearby destination for easy money, or the more complicated thing of building up the whole industry chain, or the most interesting thing of doing both!

A industrie representing the external trade (i.e. a habour, configurable via parameters) could do the trick.

We considered this idea, it's similar to Railroad Tycoon 3. We've ruled it out (for now) for various reasons to do with gameplay balance. (Apologies to Dan MacK for that, I know it's something we've talked about before). It's not out of the question, but we're not including it at the moment.

@ Lilman424 - I've sent you a PM.

cheers,

Andy

I like the FIRS idea. Hopefully, you can make it so that the industries aren't too overdependent on each other for production (like George's ECS vectors).

May I come with a suggestion in PM-form?

If it's some kind of secret suggestion that nobody else should know of, then yes

trainmaster611 wrote:Hopefully, you can make it so that the industries aren't too overdependent on each other for production (like George's ECS vectors).

For most industries accepting multiple cargos, delivering only one cargo is enough to generate production, but delivering the other cargo(s) as well boosts production. E.g. binging 20 tons of iron ore to the steelworks gives you less production than bringing 19t iron ore and 1t coal.

suggestion: (draft)

assume a steel mill:
bringing N ton(ne)s of ore to the steel mill will yield N t of steel (decreased by station rating)
the steel mill can only convert 10t [number to be balanced] of ore per production cycle (255 ticks?), the rest stays in the stockpile
bringing 10t of coal to the steel mill will provide an additional 10t conversion rate per production cycle
bringing another 90t of coal to the steel mill will provide 30t additional conversion rate.

so if you just bring ore to the steel mill, it will produce steel, but only at a low output rate
if you bring a little coal to the steel mill, the output is doubled
if you bring a lot of coal to the steel mill, the output is multiplied by 5

in concrete numbers:
10t ore -> 10t steel
20t ore + 10t coal -> 20t steel
50t ore + 100t coal -> 50t steel

Eddi wrote:suggestion: (draft)

assume a steel mill:
bringing N ton(ne)s of ore to the steel mill will yield N t of steel (decreased by station rating)
the steel mill can only convert 10t [number to be balanced] of ore per production cycle (255 ticks?), the rest stays in the stockpile
bringing 10t of coal to the steel mill will provide an additional 10t conversion rate per production cycle
bringing another 90t of coal to the steel mill will provide 30t additional conversion rate.

so if you just bring ore to the steel mill, it will produce steel, but only at a low output rate
if you bring a little coal to the steel mill, the output is doubled
if you bring a lot of coal to the steel mill, the output is multiplied by 5

in concrete numbers:
10t ore -> 10t steel
20t ore + 10t coal -> 20t steel
50t ore + 100t coal -> 50t steel

I think andy or foobar already mentioned they don't want stockipiling. And I don't like it too

I like stockpiling, but there is already George's ECS vectors and PBI that have that.

There will be no stockpiling in this set. There are already two sets out there offering such a feature.

Eddi wrote:so if you just bring ore to the steel mill, it will produce steel, but only at a low output rate
if you bring a little coal to the steel mill, the output is doubled
if you bring a lot of coal to the steel mill, the output is multiplied by 5

I agree with the first two lines and we will include behaviour similar to that in the set.
The last line is rediculous in my opinion, because producing steel doesn't require lots of coal. The amount of carbon in steel is around 1-2% and the furnaces are usually not coal-powered.

and the furnaces are usually not coal-powered.

Nowadays maybe, but I doubt they used anything else than coal in 19th century.

(This could be a good twist - decreasing demand for coal for such purposes over 20th century and increasing demand in power plants)

FooBar wrote:There will be no stockpiling in this set.

There will be at least "implicit stockpiling" if you´re going to use a procduction callback. And I think you´ll have to, considering your plans.

[...] furnaces are usually not coal-powered.

Well, maybe not by coal, but by coke. Even today.

regards
Michael

FooBar wrote:There will be no stockpiling in this set. There are already two sets out there offering such a feature.

well, stockpile here meaning a to-be-processed-queue, this is not to confuse with a stockpile-limit (as in stopping to accept a cargo when the queue is "full")

Eddi wrote:so if you just bring ore to the steel mill, it will produce steel, but only at a low output rate
if you bring a little coal to the steel mill, the output is doubled
if you bring a lot of coal to the steel mill, the output is multiplied by 5

I agree with the first two lines and we will include behaviour similar to that in the set.
The last line is rediculous in my opinion, because producing steel doesn't require lots of coal. The amount of carbon in steel is around 1-2% and the furnaces are usually not coal-powered.

the last line was meant as a gameplay option to "supercharge" the industry by enforcing mass production at the expense of efficiency (deliver more primary cargo, get less secondary cargo, but at a faster rate). this can be combined with other kinds of increasing production rates, like "growing" industries.

i'm sure you can whip up a real life example, but you don't have to support _every_ gameplay feature with "realism".

michael blunck wrote:

FooBar wrote:There will be no stockpiling in this set.

There will be at least "implicit stockpiling" if you´re going to use a procduction callback. And I think you´ll have to, considering your plans.

Actually (sorry FooBar) Michael's quite right, code tests I've already worked on all use the production callback and stockpiling is implicit due to that, as cargo is processed every so many ticks. This will be done in a way that's fun and easy for the player, but it will be necessary (and supplied cargo shouldn't convert instantly into produced cargo immediately anyway in my view).

However there won't be stockpile limits, and it won't be necessary to keep supplied cargos in a particular precise ratio.

The metal chain in CanSet has this about right (although I did have a steel mill with 17,000t of coal waiting to be processed) .

cheers,

Andy

andythenorth wrote:However there won't be stockpile limits, and it won't be necessary to keep supplied cargos in a particular precise ratio.

That's, I think, what basically matters. The most annoying thing is not stockpiling itself, but rather a limit to stockpiles, thus to acceptance . It can be good to have one for certain scenarios, but it's nice to be able to play without such limits. Maybe make it a parameter (but very low on the todo list, maybe for version 1.1 or so).

andythenorth wrote:However there won't be stockpile limits, and it won't be necessary to keep supplied cargos in a particular precise ratio.

Well, that's what I meant to say with 'there will be no stockpiling', but apparently I messed it up I was referring to the limits, but I probably should have made that more clear...

FooBar wrote:If it's some kind of secret suggestion that nobody else should know of, then yes

trainmaster611 wrote:Hopefully, you can make it so that the industries aren't too overdependent on each other for production (like George's ECS vectors).

For most industries accepting multiple cargos, delivering only one cargo is enough to generate production, but delivering the other cargo(s) as well boosts production. E.g. binging 20 tons of iron ore to the steelworks gives you less production than bringing 19t iron ore and 1t coal.

Well I was thinking of in the ECS Vectors how all of the raw resources industries were dependent on the production of 'vehicle's which in turn depended on raw resources...see where i'm going with this? I just think it should be more of a hierarchy type structure versus a interlinked web of dependency.

trainmaster611 wrote:.see where i'm going with this? I just think it should be more of a hierarchy type structure versus a interlinked web of dependency.

You're quite right. When I designed the cargo and industry list I was thinking the same. Initially I had a plan for more dependencies, then I worked out:
1. it's not that much fun
2. players could get a gridlocked map where they "need machinery to mine the iron ore to take to the steel mill to make steel for the machine shop to produce machines to mine the iron ore..." Yeah we could get around that, but basically our plan just avoids that.

cheers,

Andy

I haven't seen any industries which have circular requirements like that. In George's ECS vectors, vehicles boost the production of some primary industries, but the primary industries still work just find without vehicles.

And point 1 is subjective, I find it quite fun (which is why I think I will stick with George's ECS vectors).

Conditional Zenith wrote:I haven't seen any industries which have circular requirements like that.

Nah, don't get me wrong, I wasn't knocking ECS I was talking about my own planned industry loop, which I wrote down, looked at, and spotted the gridlock problem

Anyway, I guess I need to start drawing soon.

cheers,

Andy