FIRS Industry Replacement Set - releases

[NekoMaster]

Attached is a screengrab with a couple of minor mistakes.

'tons' and 'tonnes' are used interchangeably in many places where they should probably all be one or the other. (My game is set to Imperial measurements, in case that has a bearing on the matter.) c.f. Brick Works, Arable Farm in the two production display windows, and the output of the Glass Works and Grain Mill in the Industries window.

'Building materials' has a lower-case m (in the cargo types window) where all other cargos have their names consistently capitalised. This is visible both when you build a new station, and in the cargo types window for new vehicles, as shown here.


Is the occasional smoke redraw glitch (as shown here on the brick works) a problem with FIRS or with the main game? I'm on Mac version g06951eb2-cd

The smoke redraw problem also happens in ECS, so I think its a limit in openTTD

[Yexo]

Is the occasional smoke redraw glitch (as shown here on the brick works) a problem with FIRS or with the main game? I'm on Mac version g06951eb2-cd

The smoke redraw problem also happens in ECS, so I think its a limit in openTTD

It's due to a known limitation (not bug) in the graphical system of OpenTTD. It can be worked around in the NewGRF but that is a lot of work and extra graphics for very little benefit as the glitches only occur occasionally.

[andythenorth]

Attached is a screengrab with a couple of minor mistakes.

Thanks. Bug reports like this are really helpful. Most of these can probably be fixed for 0.6.1

The smoke issue might not be resolvable. I thought it was something I had done wrong with bounding boxes, but Yexo's reply suggests maybe not. I'll look into it a bit more.

[Yexo]

The smoke causes glitches because the graphics are wider than the actual tile. As far as I know it's impossible to solve that completely with a bigger bounding box. You'll have to split the smoke graphics and extend part of them to another tile.

[PaulC]

A couple of things I've noticed...

First is that the dredging site appears to be floating in mid air:

Dredging Site.png (3.02 KiB) Viewed 3892 times

Second is this slightly odd configuration for the junk yard, i.e. the raised tile in the south corner, though I don't know if this is avoidable or not:

Junk Yard.png (14.93 KiB) Viewed 3892 times

[planetmaker]

Second is this slightly odd configuration for the junk yard, i.e. the raised tile in the south corner, though I don't know if this is avoidable or not:

Odd it may be, but actually to me it looks not bad at all - a junk yard on a hill side with different levels is something which is easy to envision - at least to me

[Bob_Mackenzie]

How do you get up to the raised bit?

[Simons Mith]

How do you get up to the raised bit?

You have to nip out the gate, walk up the hill and climb over the fence. There's a bit of a path developing already, actually...

Junk Yard Path.png (59.85 KiB) Viewed 3853 times

[andythenorth]

First is that the dredging site appears to be floating in mid air:

That's probably resolvable. It's not that big an issue to me. The dredging site is placed so that it looks ok when ships dock there. I'll consider changing.

Second is this slightly odd configuration for the junk yard, i.e. the raised tile in the south corner, though I don't know if this is avoidable or not:

Intentional. Bit weird when it's just one tile, but junk yards can build on slopes, so this side effect can happen. Won't change.

'tons' and 'tonnes' are used interchangeably in many places...'Building materials' has a lower-case m (in the cargo types window) where all other cargos have their names consistently capitalised

Both fixed. Will show up in nightly builds, and will be in FIRS 0.6.1

FIRS Strategy Guide
A strategy guide could be a useful addition to FIRS. The OpenTTD wiki seemed like the best place for it:

http://wiki.openttd.org/FIRS

Contributions welcome

[Arie-]

[...]

Reminds me on my post over here. It doesn't really annoy me, but if behaviour could be improved a bit, this industry set would be even more awesome.

[andythenorth]

It doesn't really annoy me, but if behaviour could be improved a bit, this industry set would be even more awesome.

Not in the near future. Slope tiles are painful. I did it for the forest and fruit plantation. It can wait. Slope tiles with fences would be worse.

[George]

It doesn't really annoy me, but if behaviour could be improved a bit, this industry set would be even more awesome.

Not in the near future. Slope tiles are painful. I did it for the forest and fruit plantation. It can wait. Slope tiles with fences would be worse.

You can copy-paste my code

[LaDoncella]

That looks nice. Start the copy-paste machine?

[andythenorth]

FIRS 0.6.1 released on Banananananas or download here: http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/firs/releases/0.6.1/

Changelog is here: http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/firs/rel ... ngelog.txt and copied below...

*0.6.1* Changes the following:
- New parameter to control maximum distance to coast for water based industries (such as Fishing Grounds, Dredging Site and Oil Platform)
- Improve display of cargo units: more consistent, better translation support, better plurals support (issue reported by Simons Mith)
- Added cargo icons for Alcohol, Clay, Sugar Beet, Building Materials (DanMacK)
- Improved animation cycle for smoke where used
- Map colour for Iron Works improved
- Iron Works was incorrectly showing intro date in fund menu
- Improve position of Dredging Site sprites
- Dredging Site shows intro date in fund menu
- Fix numerous industries that weren't using placement checks correctly
- Updated translations for German and Serbian (planetmaker, etran)

[Simons Mith]

0.6.1 has grown a new hiccup, I'm afraid. Production for Fruit Plantations is not listed. They currently say things like
"Fooberg Fruit Plantation (of fruit and vegetables)" rather than "Fooberg Fruit Plantation (xx tonnes of Fruit and Vegetables)".

Industry placements are much more sensible now. As I play with very low settings for towns and industries, that improvement is particularly noticeable. If you wanted some peanut-gallery comments for further refinements, is it possible to teach forests and sheep farms to prefer hilly terrain, fruit plantations to prefer valleys (sheltered terrain, better soil, etc.) and arable farms to prefer flat land? IDK precisely what you actually can control in a newGRF, but putting sheep farms and forests on rougher terrain that's hard to put to other uses would be a pleasing touch.

[andythenorth]

0.6.1 has grown a new hiccup, I'm afraid. Production for Fruit Plantations is not listed. They currently say things like "Fooberg Fruit Plantation (of fruit and vegetables)"

Good spot, thanks. Will be fixed in 0.6.2

Is it possible to teach forests and sheep farms to prefer hilly terrain, fruit plantations to prefer valleys (sheltered terrain, better soil, etc.) and arable farms to prefer flat land?

Yes, but not easily. The code is possible (just a bit fiddly), but there's no 'typical' map, so on a very flat or very mountainous map there would be an unwanted effect on the number of some industry types.

(this is already a problem for some of the large industries that need flat ground, such as quarry and clay pit)

cheers,

Andy

[Simons Mith]

([lack of flat land] is already a problem for some of the large industries that need flat ground, such as quarry and clay pit)

Not that I'm suggesting (or requesting) this for FIRS, but that's rather odd, really. Mines and quarries are two other prime cases of industries that [can] grow fine on hills. When mining techniques have names such as 'mountaintop removal mining' and 'contour mining', it's pretty clear they're not fazed by a bit of a slope. Has no-one ever tried to make an open cast mine, for example? A quick forum search suggests not...

[andythenorth]

Has no-one ever tried to make an open cast mine, for example? A quick forum search suggests not...

Pikka's quarry is slope aware, but unless the newgrf author is prepared to write a *lot* of complex layout code, the chances of finding a location for slope industries are low. This means cargo chains can break easily depending on map.

I know of another way that will work, but it means drawing something like 81 (maybe more) interlocking tile graphics that can be used flexibly to create layouts that match existing terrain.

There has been some discussion of providing a way for newgrf industry to terraform tiles as required (currently they can flatten to some extent, but not create slopes). There is no patch or even work on a patch though

[SquireJames]

I believe Pikkas Basic Industries had a quarry that cut into the side of a hill, somewhat similar to an open cast mine. I believe the quarries in FIRS also resemble open casts, just a matter of changing the piles to look like coal or iron, and make the pools of water look emptier (kind of a 'camera trick' to make it look like it has depth)

EDIT: As Andy already posted! That'll teach me to scroll to the bottom of a thread before replying!

[Kogut]

I think that PBI have quite similar style - maybe sprite reusing is possible?