US Set Development Thread

[DanMacK]

Yeah, whatever, I'll get to it today... Like I said, it still needs some tweaks.

[Villem]

the A unit looks like it has red on it in the picture..

[DanMacK]

These things wore 2 different paint schemes, same as the little Joes. I decided to do the straight orange/black scheme and omit the one with the red.

[krtaylor]

My only concern with the livery is that it's very dark - I mean, the yellow stripe seems fairly small. In the photos, it looks like the yellow stripe is wider, which would make the whole thing be brighter in appearance, and thus stand out more against the scenery of the Arctic climate.

BTW, are we planning on selling them one piece at a time, or in one three-piece unit? The existing boxcab, we sell one piece at a time.

[DanMacK]

Well, it's orange, not yellow. The black comes halfway down the windows, much like it does here. The width of the orange stripe is fine IMHO. Only thing that needs to be tweaked is the roofline, esp. on the bobtail.

I say you can run them singly, but if you buy more than 2, every additional one is a bobtail in between. they were used singly, much like the EL-A. Technically, we should make the EL-A a three-unit, as only a couple were used singly as switchers.

[Szappy]

Szappy, I don't quite believe what you are saying. At the start of the game, a passenger car costs just $3000 (the maximum without altering the base, which I haven't, is $4000). If you had to wait a whole year to make $3000 then that's probably due to you building an inappropriate service or using the wrong engine. You can always reduce the cost of construction before starting a game anyway to make it cost even less.
Currently the US Set's running costs don't change with the "vehicle running cost" difficulty setting but they will do in a future version, to give you more choices on that front.

well... you don't have to believe me, but it did happen. If you're interested I could post the savegame even.
You said 3000$ for a coach, ok nice, but I was talking about buying a new train (engine+coaches).

The problem came from the fact, that you used some misc cost for the cost base, not the vehicle ones, and I have altered the construction costs with TTDAlter to ten times it's factory default ones. Not the vehicle ones, tho, but since you didn't use the vehicle cost bases, it ruined the game. Buses and trucks were 4-5 times more profitable. You see, imbalance.
the running cost for a Pacific is around 34000$ a year.

Also from the above post, does this mean that this hasn't been altered still? (if the cost do not change according to 'const cost' setting, I guess it's still the case).

Also, I have another question. I've since started a tropic game, and I wondered what does the appearance of what the water tanker depend on (the white ones, which have a shorter variant, and a longer one)?

[Oracle]

1. On the ALP-46, it has the NJT passenger cars, which is great! But it doesn't have the NJT mail cars, alas, and it should.

I don't think those had been drawn when the set was released, but you're right. They will be added for a future release.

2. The F59PHI used to have matching bilevels. It now demands bilevels only, but doesn't get matching ones - instead it gets the old-style commuter bilevels, which is wrong. So the whole train looks odd.

You're not quite right here. We have two F59PHI liveries: Metra and Amtrak California. In the tropical climate, you get the Amtrak California livery and its matching bi-levels. In the temperate and arctic climates, you get the Metra livery and a choice of three types of Metra bi-levels, one of which happens to be the old commuter style. You get the same style of bi-levels for a whole train.

A general update: progress on the industrial station recoding is continuing fairly well, with most of the stations now done. I'm waiting for alpha 51 and the "middle" station variable to finish the coal stations but then I will have finished the recoding and will move on to new designs such as Oz's grain station.

[Marshy]

Hey guys,

I was just wondering about one of the trains in the set. The EP-5 is stated as a passenger train in the readme..which is fine. I currently have the stainless steal coaches, but when I buy the coaches for the EP-5 I get the old green steam train coaches. Is this supposed to happen?

[The Irish]

AFAIK, Yes, it is suppost to happen.

[krtaylor]

@Oracle -

- Thanks for explaining the F59PHI, that makes sense.

- The F40 in NJT livery, has both the NJT passenger and mail liveries, as it should. Next version can fix this with the ALP-46.

- It wouldn't be a bad idea to play with the pricing as you suggest.

[Szappy]

/me feels ignored

[krtaylor]

The problem came from the fact, that you used some misc cost for the cost base, not the vehicle ones, and I have altered the construction costs with TTDAlter to ten times it's factory default ones. Not the vehicle ones, tho, but since you didn't use the vehicle cost bases, it ruined the game. Buses and trucks were 4-5 times more profitable. You see, imbalance.
the running cost for a Pacific is around 34000$ a year.

Well, if you've used TTDAlter to adjust various bases, then naturally the US set will be imbalanced. It does indeed use odd settings, it's what we had to do to make the prices higher. I don't know if there's a better way to do it now or not; probably in the next version we will revisit the pricing issues.

Also, I have another question. I've since started a tropic game, and I wondered what does the appearance of what the water tanker depend on (the white ones, which have a shorter variant, and a longer one)?

I've wondered about this too. As I recall, there are two IDs of tankers, an old one which is shorter, and a new one which is longer. The old ones are always grey no matter what's in them, but the new ones have several variants. Actually, they are a bit confusing, because there is no consistency IRL as to what color carries what. The yellow ones might carry petroleum (Shell), or food (Cargill corn syrup.) Water I don't think goes by train very often; milk cars are silver or white.

[Szappy]

Well, if you've used TTDAlter to adjust various bases, then naturally the US set will be imbalanced. It does indeed use odd settings, it's what we had to do to make the prices higher. I don't know if there's a better way to do it now or not; probably in the next version we will revisit the pricing issues.

I adjusted the construction prices, not the vehicles. So it should not imbalance the game, if the vehicles used base costs designed for vehicles.

I've wondered about this too. As I recall, there are two IDs of tankers, an old one which is shorter, and a new one which is longer. The old ones are always grey no matter what's in them, but the new ones have several variants. Actually, they are a bit confusing, because there is no consistency IRL as to what color carries what. The yellow ones might carry petroleum (Shell), or food (Cargill corn syrup.) Water I don't think goes by train very often; milk cars are silver or white.

I might have not been really clear about this: the old ones, that are dark grey are ok. But the other ones have 2 variant for carrying water, and one of them is shorter than the other. Both carry the same amount of water. See attachment.
(Actually I'm quite surprised, I didn't know you could change lengts depending on refit)

[krtaylor]

I adjusted the construction prices, not the vehicles. So it should not imbalance the game, if the vehicles used base costs designed for vehicles.

Which they don't. I believe the US set was the first one to want serious messing around with the prices, and at the time the Patch didn't support it very readily. So it was sort of a hack. I'm not sure if we have more flexibility now or not. Oracle?

But the other ones have 2 variant for carrying water, and one of them is shorter than the other.

Aha. Yes, that does look like a bug. Actually, the short one looks like it should be a water livery variant for the old, shorter tanker. I didn't know we even had any variants for that! Yes, I think that should be switched.

[Oracle]

Sorry about ignoring your post, Szappy: I wrote my post and didn't post it for a while so I didn't see your post until just now.
The only thing weird about the US Set prices is that the running cost base used is not the train base running cost. The running cost base used is 4BA6 which is the base cost of a new ship, according to Marcin's site. I cannot and have not touched the construction bases. Therefore I am puzzled as to why you have this problem - I am only using the vehicle bases and no others.
The running costs should change with the "construction cost" difficulty setting, rather than the running cost setting, and here that's what they do.
I do have more flexibility to increase or decrease the base costs now and I am planning to do this at some point in the future.

Szappy, the two different water tankers are completely random, but using the 83 random action 2 so that you get only one type on each train. The length callback is used to change their lengths as necessary.

[krtaylor]

Szappy, the two different water tankers are completely random.

I've not really thought about it, but I think it might be nice to change that - use the short one only with the short (early) tankers, and the long one with the later tankers. What do you think? I'm inclined to put it in the To-Do list.

[Oz]

Hey, Oracle! Great to hear that you're adding my grain depot to the new and improved industrial set. While you're at it...I just finished up breaking the magnetic steel crane into sprites. Take a look. I think that they're broken down into usable sprites. I've arranged them into, I think, the most logical arrangement: by product amount state (none, few, a bunch, and a whole mess of 'em) as per your and krtaylor's suggestion, and by crane variations. I'm hoping that the cranes can appear as the trains are being loaded, and not solely as a PBS function, since some people don't use PBS, and it would be a shame for them not to see the cranes. Dunno.

Also, we discussed the the availibility of the newer mill/cranes after a certain date. Any suggestions as to when that should happen? I'm figuring on 1980 or so, but if anyone else has a better date, that would be cool. See what you can do, and if there's anything you need of me, let me know.

I'll be working on the iron ore unloading depot on and off over the next few days, so, hopefully, that can be included in the industrial stations as well. Then it's onto a steel mill redo. That should be cool!

Cheers!

Oh, Shoot! Attached the wrong sprites. Fixed. Sorry about that!

[DanMacK]

re: Water Tankers - the short, stubby ones are the modern one, the longer, white one is the old tanker. Same capacity, the new one is shorter, yes, but it's also wider and higher.

Since the water tanker is a separate ID, I say the white version from 1920-1965, the shorter "beercan" variety available after that. Older tankers would still stay however.

[Oracle]

Since the water tanker is a separate ID, I say the white version from 1920-1965, the shorter "beercan" variety available after that. Older tankers would still stay however.

It's not a separate ID but that doesn't make any difference. I think I will change it, though.

Oz, those sprites are good but there's a bit of a problem with them. I like to (and really need to) have ground sprites (basically the gravel on the ground and rails) in separate sprites to anything else, to avoid the ground being drawn over trains. Other sprites need to be separate too. For example, you could have made things much simpler for yourself by cutting out the upright crane supports just once and then including them once.
I'll see what I can do (it probably won't be very soon though) and will show you the results.

[Oz]

Okay, Oracle. I'm posting the individual elements of the Mag Crane. Hopefully, this will help in making the coding a little easier. Sorry for the other sprites, but I thought that somehow you could "fake-the-funk" and cheat the Patch with them.

I want to post the actual crane sprites, but before I do, I have a few questions. If you'll look at the second figure, there's some parts of the crane that I would like to have written over the train, and others behind. For example, the red-circled crane can completely overwrite the train, because the boom is above it. However, in the case of the blue-circled one, the boom is lowered, and the green circle should be overwritten by the train. Is this possible? Or, are you going to handle the cranes as a roof, and, in this case, I can include a number of crane sprites in different configurations without the boom lowered that will all overwrite the train? If you give me your thoughts on this, I can then separate the cranes into individual sprites as well.

Thanks, man. I just want to make the coding as easy on you as possible. It would be foolhardy of me to think that you should redraw my fuggup, AND code the sprites as well.

Cheers!