Transport Tycoon Forums

This little release aims at replacement of the default catenary - simply because I think that it is a bit too messy because of all the visible wires and stuff which obscurs the real view and causes numerous clipping errors.

Hence - non intrusive catenary - the minimal amount of added graphics.

The grf is a replacement of the default elrailsw.grf. Windows version only.

Note - I wanted to make the catenary base to be in 1st CC, but apparently it does not work this way and so the poles are in the CC blue, not your actual CC.

very nice, shame about the CC though

uzurpator: That looks really nice... I'm going to suggest something really stupid and say that if you could do to the overhead wires the same refining as you've done to the posts/poles then it would be really cool. I honestly couldn't play with just the posts/poles.

I mean, even just a simple black/grey/maybe_light_grey pixel line...

edit: I've just attempted to draw the wires in between and realised how not-easy it is... so i'll shut up now

but then0 it might become an obtrusive catenery

The poles looks good but I also miss a wire. I agree with stevenh's suggestion to try and attempt a very thin wire.

Thats awesome. I'm with Hyr and Steven though, the lack of a wire is a bit unusual. The poles look bloody awesome, and wire or no wire, it's a nice alternitive when playing games.

Very nice.

Excuse me for stepping into this discussion which I find somewhat wierd.

When I first designed "elrails.grf" its graphics was "more realistic", i.e. it had two wires (a live wire and the catenary) like the dutch or the czech catenary .grfs do it this way today.

Well, people didn´t like it because they found it "obscuring", "messy" and what not. Granted - I felt the same.

So I designed "a very thin wire" solution and people seemed to be happy for a while when after some time those two wire catenary system emerged again. People´s minds seemed to have been changed again.

Now again, there are people who don´t like any wire at all.

Possibly switch it off in-game? That´s possible since ages.

regards
Michael

turn off the wire? that also removes a lot of other useful game details, if I remember correctly.

and make it semi-transparent? as some station tiles are.
In such a way that you can see it there, but it doesn't get in the way too much when looking at your trains.

Unfortunetly making the wire thinner is impossible - the default elrails wire is thinnest possible - also it is quite messy when above complex junctions. Besides - in the scale we see the wire would be invisible anyways.

Wht Sanchimaru suggests would be the best optuon (transparent wire), but is not supported for the catenary.

> turn off the wire? that also removes a lot of other useful game details

Well, only temporarily when building delicate e.g. junctions.

> turn off the wire? make it semi-transparent? making the wire thinner [?]

I really wonder why then there´s "need" for catenary .grfs (dutch, czech) with 100% more wires and 100% more clamps? Do their users have better eye-sight or are you making false premises?

regards
Michael

my solution:

I think seeing wires is very useful, when you electrify a non-electrified railway-line. You could miss some parts, so that those parts wont be electrified, and electric trains can't pass those parts then. To check if there are missing parts, you need to see the wires.

I like m3henry's idea of making a dotted line, it looks incomplete close-up but if you choose the right colour it'll look complete ingame (provided you run at more than 640x480 )

All these ideas have been checked out years ago.

regards
Michael

Well there's no reason a new fleet of graphics drawers can't check them out again!

jonty-comp wrote:I like m3henry's idea of making a dotted line, it looks incomplete close-up but if you choose the right colour it'll look complete ingame (provided you run at more than 640x480 )

WOOO!! people like me (now i can rule the earth ) thats in 2x veiw btw

m3henry wrote:

jonty-comp wrote:I like m3henry's idea of making a dotted line, it looks incomplete close-up but if you choose the right colour it'll look complete ingame (provided you run at more than 640x480 )

WOOO!! people like me (now i can rule the earth ) thats in 2x veiw btw

well that wouldnt work for me or MB

robotboy wrote:

m3henry wrote:

jonty-comp wrote:I like m3henry's idea of making a dotted line, it looks incomplete close-up but if you choose the right colour it'll look complete ingame (provided you run at more than 640x480 )

WOOO!! people like me (now i can rule the earth ) thats in 2x veiw btw

well that wouldnt work for me or MB

why not?

They still use the DOS version of TTDPatch, which is slowly disppearing due to the fact that anyone who has XP has to do much tweaking and installing of programs to get it to work. For people on 98, though, I think it's a bit faster than the Windows version. (Correct me if I'm wrong)