[req]huge airports for ottd

[gks]

can someone tell me where i can find airports for ottd that have more than the intercontinentals four runways?
im in a case where my airline has more than 110 aircraft and a bigger airport for my crowded rome ciampino&fiumicino airports would be cool(also for bern,zurich,milano....) and practically my airplanes are crusing the airports round and round at least 20-30 times

[Yexo]

You can't (at least not until rick decides to publish realairports.grf again) so for now, just remove some planes.

[Roujin]

According to richk, it's not only size (amount of runways), but also effectiveness of the airport design - he managed to create an airport with three runways that has more throughput than the four-runway international airport if I recall correctly.

Note that Yexo and I are talking not of the official OpenTTD version, but a branch called "NewGRF ports" that aims to make airports, and later seaports and bus terminals newGrf controllable - so you can create e.g. new airports via newGrf. Sadly there's not much progress on the branch as its creator and maintainer doesn't have time and/or motivation for it at the moment...

[gks]

[richk67]

Sadly there's not much progress on the branch as its creator and maintainer doesn't have time and/or motivation for it at the moment...

There's lots of progress on the branch (relative to trunk). What there isnt is much progress on the branch for about the last 6 months. Doesnt mean to say its not jam packed with nice new goodies....

Airport designs loadable from newgrfs
Updated GUI with mini-pictures of the airport to be built.
Non-rectangular airports (airports with holes!). Great for designs with space for a motorway (eg. Schiphol)
Seaplane airports (and support for sea-capable aircraft)
Rotatable airport designs
New graphics sets for airport pieces
Optimised airport designs (International now has significantly greater throughput)
Terrain-sensitive grass; airport grass has snow in arctic, desert in desert, etc.
Shallow flight paths - aircraft can lose height gradually
Better conflict avoidance - aircraft can never overlap on the airport by design.
New airport designs (LaGuardia - 2 runways (same throughput as original International, but 1/2 the tiles), San Francisco - 4 crossing runways (about 1.5x capacity of Intercontinental, and the twin landings/takeoffs are great to watch)). - RealWorldAirports.grf available on request

All the above is fully complete. Hardly "not much progress..."

(And its been synched close to trunk, so all the trunk goodies are in too.)

[Roujin]

Please excuse me, I didn't mean to belittle your work. I did actually mean "progress recently", not "progress at all (compared to trunk)". I appreciate the work you've put into this already and I liked the new airports very much that were already finished when I tested your branch.
I hope you'll get enough motivation/time/support or whatever lacks at the moment some time to continue it.

[richk67]

Please excuse me, I didn't mean to belittle your work. I did actually mean "progress recently", not "progress at all (compared to trunk)". I appreciate the work you've put into this already and I liked the new airports very much that were already finished when I tested your branch.
I hope you'll get enough motivation/time/support or whatever lacks at the moment some time to continue it.

Hey, no problem. I didnt take it as belittling, just potentially misleading for someone who hasnt downloaded and tried it. (They might think "Why download this when it doesnt have much progress?")

Im seriously thinking of postponing the integration with NewStations (my no.1 roadblock), and get back to sorting out all the other ideas I have kicking around. Unfortunately this means no animation anytime soon

[gks]

i use only the aviator set for airplanes(not the other pack)so the problem of crowded airplanes cruising around the airport is because the airplanes land in a realistic way(slower than usual ottd planes)

[gks]

but still the game would be damn better with an airport insipered to schiphol

Schiphol.png (51.51 KiB) Viewed 2590 times

[Dimme]

Please also take a look at my custom airports approach here, it is only a suggestion for now, but the concept works fine. I am going to need some help on it later, but first I will make some refinements, and then we should decide what comes next.

[gks]

I have custom airports,but you cant use them on ottd right?
So is that useful just for the idea of how an airport is going to be in the game?
if yes i will make one,and post it.
edit:maybe also in the other case

[gks]

not 100% same but has 6 runways
and works fine in the test

[maquinista]

not 100% same but has 6 runways
and works fine in the test

If You want take a screenshot, use the key PRINT SRC, open MS Paint and click in paste. You don't need more applications.


I prefer town owned airports with very large runways, but all suggestions are interesting.

[gks]

I prefer town owned airports

i dont get the meaning of "town owned"

[maquinista]

I prefer town owned airports

i dont get the meaning of "town owned"

It is this suggetion:
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=20093

[That Guy]

one thing i can suggest is making airports modular and use a pathfinder like YAPF to direct the planes through them. Your want a Runway then you use a stations GUI to place one, you want a taxi way, same thing. you want a terminal, then you add one from the gui. A if you don't build it right the planes don't land, tough cookies. We do the same thing with our rail roads, so why do we want prefab airports. and don't someone say its imposible to do, i know its not. Yea, put that in your pine and smoke it!

[gks]

Yea, put that in your pine and smoke it!

what you hate pines
anyway,someone interested?

[richk67]

so why do we want prefab airports. and don't someone say its imposible to do, i know its not.

Well volunteered, I look forward to seeing your working code.

No-one has ever said it is impossible - just exceedingly difficult. The biggest problem is logic deadlocks, which will be bound to happen. (e.g. 4 aircraft waiting to enter a tile, but cant because their exit is blocked).

You may want to micromanage airport construction, but many players just want to slam an airport down and get on with setting up the transport services to/from it.

Not to mention that there would be a zillion support requests on the lines of "my airport is broken" when it is just bad design by the player. I look forward to you joining the support team for the next 10 years then...

[gks]

Your really optimist arent ya?
Bah,i dont know,im not a designer

[richk67]

Your really optimist arent ya?
Bah,i dont know,im not a designer

Been there, argued this one dozens of times. I *do* know what Im talking about since Ive coded the new airport system.

A "build-your-own" system has the following serious flaws:

User Interface - you wont be able to just "drag-and-drop". There will be decisions to be made - like what entries onto a tile are permitted, what exits are permitted (remember that the current airport system can move pixel by pixel, not just tile by tile - and in 8 directions - arguably 9 if you include takeoff points). And somehow all this needs conveying in a simple clean way to the player.

Logic engine - if you restrict the whole system to tiles, then it is not as bad; but it still needs an engine that can detect potential locks and prevent them. Basic pathing is already built into the NewGRF_ports system - so aircraft should never cross a requested path (if properly encoded in .nfo). The logic engine would need to handle that and re-analyse the airport every time a piece is added.

Support - when problems crop up, many users badger the developers for a "fix", when the problem is really them and the nonsense airport design they have created. If such a system were introduced, then I bet none of the developers would want to support it; it might be a stock "if your self-designed airport is broken - that is your fault. Scrap it and try again."

Design efficiency - it is not the number of runways that make an airport efficient, but the speed of transfer in the runway-to-terminal, and terminal-to-takeoff taxiing. In the static designs within NewGRF_ports, I have heavily optimised these, and can get nearly the same throughput on a (new design) International (with 2 runways/6 terms), as an original Intercontinental with 4 runways & 8 terms. (I created the Intercon + Commuter btw). My brand new design "La Guardia" is a 2 runway airport in 26 tiles with 4 terms... and yet it is only just short of the throughput of a (current) International (49 tiles, 6 terms). My point being: without the programmed power of the state machine system, you will never get as efficient airports as you wont have access to some of the load balancing tricks that can be done in the FSM.

Added Value - bottom line is always whether the majority of users (ten+ thousands) will benefit from this, or whether it is just the plaything of a few (hundred). If only a few hundred, then the coding effort will not be worth it.

This idea is resurrected by somebody every couple of months... but nobody has coded anything into OTTD as a patch as yet. (There is a javascript proof-of-concept, which is nice, but even if coded into OTTD would still suffer from the GUI, Design Efficiency, and Support problems.)

Solve the first four, and maybe just maybe it will pass the Added Value test.