Sub stations

[jvlomax]

I've been wondering if it would be possible to make sub stations? as in having random city train station, and then random city train station west. They would share cargo and appear as one station, but you could spesificly direct trains to go to the main, or the west station. This can of course be done by placing waypoints right ahead of the stations, but there isn't always room for the waypoint, and i also think it would add some realism (a lot of train stations are like that.

[burty]

What does it really add to the game?
Not a lot. Why do we need this feature? We already have the possibilty to this on a limited scale anyway if you ctrl click when building a station a couple tiles away it gives you the option to either build a new station or connect it to one within a certain distance. If I read your post right this is very similar to what you want?

[jvlomax]

What i'm going for is, as a very crude example, is for all grain trucks to go west, and all livestock to go east. less traffic, more order. the way things are now (if the distance is equal) it will randomly choose either west or east. I want the orders of the trucks to spesificly say lorry station east/West, as if they were 2 different stations, yet they act as one.

It doesn't really add much to the game, but there have been times where i have thought i could come in handy. (especially on big factory stations.

[burty]

To achieve this create a lorry station that only has livestock boxes going to/from it... and one for grain voila exactly what you asked for.

[sean16]

a better use for this would be to seperate different length trains into sections of station, ensuring that longer express trains don't stop in a small bay.

Also, what he is trying to achieve is a station that shares it's cargo, while keeping platforms seperate. This means that goods trains can use a different section of a station if they are going to a different direction. Especially useful if they are of varying length, which may be limited by the destination station.

[jvlomax]

what he is trying to achieve is a station that shares it's cargo, while keeping platforms seperate.

Exactly!

[JacobD88]

To do what i think you are suggesting from the above post i use distant-joint stations (hold ctrl whilst placing/dragging station tiles and select the station you want to join to) and spread way-points (drag them over the tracks or use ctrl like above), this way i can physically build separate stations for each cargo, whilst having them linked, then divert traffic to them via a specific way point...

Give me a minute or two and i will make a screenie...

Split Station

Here i have the one station, Menbridge Valley, created with distant joint stations i have made a grain and a livestock section, and two sets of waypoints (that spread across their respective double-track), i simply make my grain trains go to "Menbridge Grain", then to "Menbridge Valley" and my livestock trains go to "Menbridge Livestock" then "Menbridge Valley" in their orders...

Note, i have made the distance between the station sections and where the two join long enough to hold a 5-tile train between the signals

This i think is the solution you are looking for?

[jvlomax]

I already know I can do this, but was thinking if it would be possible to do it without they way points. Let's say I want to do the same with trucks, or aeroplanes. All i want is a basic system to make some trains/trucks/trams/planes/ships go to terminal A, and make some trains/trucks/trams/planes/ships got to terminal B.

[JacobD88]

The only thing i think that comes close to what you say is the recent patch that let's you place signals to separate cargo and passengers, but this is obviously not in trunk and simply splits cargo and pax so i don't know if it will be of use to your requirements. It's also for trains only, so i have no solution to other transport types i'm afraid

It might be worth looking at the OTTD Co-op site or asking one of their players to see if they have devised a system that will do as you require without way-points

if i find anything else i will post it here for you or PM you

[Chemical T]

This request is also heavily supported by me (although I'm not particularly special or anything - I just really want to receive any sat reports too). In my *cough* realistic game *cough* I have quite a few stations which are part roro, and part terminus.
In the first example attached is one of the most basic examples of a half terminus, half roro station. In this example, there is one train that needs to use the terminus part, and one train that needs to use the roro part. I have no trouble regarding the train that needs to use the terminus part, because it's the quickest platform to reach anyway, but it also means that the train that needs to use the roro platform uses that platform as well, and that does cause trouble! Instead of being able to simply go towards the next station in his orders list (Haarlem), the train has no direct path leading to it, and goes back to its previous order (Beverwijk).
Now in order to solve this, I could use waypoints, but simply because it's just ugly-looking and unrealistic, I don't want to use them. I would also have to relay part of the existing track, because at the moment there is no available track for a waypoint. A much more appreciated (and realistic for that matter) way of solving it, is to be able to give each platform a different number, and to be able to order the trains to a certain platform. As shown in the example, my roro station would be platform 1, and the order for the train that has to use the roro station would be "Go to Westerbroek Platform 1" . The other train that has Westerbroek as its final destination, would have the order "Go to Westerbroek Platform 2, full load".
It's like actual switching!

In the second example, the two different parts were an even bigger problem haha. I had to use two waypoints to not get the trains that have to use the roro part, use it, and to make the trains that have to use the roro part, not use the terminus part... still though, waypoints sure look ugly in front of train stations.

[Expresso]

This has been suggested before.

One of the biggest problems with this is how do you show which platform belongs to which part of the station (there might be an error in your construction, which you should be able to notice). In the case of platform numbers; how do you see which platform has which number?

Changing the internal game logic to do so should be doable, but how should the user distinguish between platforms (or groups of platforms)? And what should happen if 4 tiles belong to one sub-station, while the other 4 belong to the other and a train of 8 tiles long is arriving, specifically sent to one of the sub-stations?

And how can the user modify the station layout?
What should happen when one of the 'sub'-stations gets removed and there are still vehicles headed for it? What about vehicles trying to get to a specific sub-station, while it is not connected? How should reordering the platforms work?

Working with stations will become more complicated due to this, but I'm one the persons over here who would really love to see something like this regardless of that - sometimes I encounter the need for something like this and have literally no space for any workarounds.

[arachnidan]

hi i don't understand much of the way this game is made, i just play it..

those waypoints do look ugly, but.. might it be because of the labbel?

what about an option for turning off the waypoint labbels?.. or for them not to be seen by us (but yes by trains)

it's just my point of view, maybe you have thought of that but well.. i haven't seen this idea posted.

Thx for the time spent to read my comment =)

[Eddi]

what about an option for turning off the waypoint labbels?.. or for them not to be seen by us (but yes by trains)

that is already possible

[Lord Aro]

but not without turning off the station names as well, perhaps they should be separated?

[Kogut]

Or you can use nice looking waypoint set.

[arachnidan]

but not without turning off the station names as well, perhaps they should be separated?

yea nice idea. i never came across this problem since my stations are like.... any train in any tile... but would be a good implementation =)

[PikkaBird]

but not without turning off the station names as well, perhaps they should be separated?

yea nice idea. i never came across this problem since my stations are like.... any train in any tile... but would be a good implementation =)

I don't know what game you two are playing, but in my OTTD waypoint names displayed and station names displayed are two separate options.

[arachnidan]

but not without turning off the station names as well, perhaps they should be separated?

yea nice idea. i never came across this problem since my stations are like.... any train in any tile... but would be a good implementation =)

I don't know what game you two are playing, but in my OTTD waypoint names displayed and station names displayed are two separate options.

since we don't know how, can u tell us? that would've been a good post since this one doesn't really help me much

thx

btw, that option is not in transparency options. i could either remove both from wp and station or just remove the box and keep the text in both also

[FooBar]

My OpenTTD tends to agree with the one PikkaBird has...

What you need is located in the Options menu. Not in the transparancy toolbar though, but just in the menu itself.

[Chemical T]

--- original post ---

This has been suggested before.

Honestly, I was not aware of it. I had searched for several different keywords, and this topic was the best one I could find. I always use the 'requested features' in the OpenTTD wiki, and it was not there either. People should deffi use that page more.

One of the biggest problems with this is how do you show which platform belongs to which part of the station (there might be an error in your construction, which you should be able to notice). In the case of platform numbers; how do you see which platform has which number?

I don't know for sure on how to make it show up, I was thinking of the platform number showing up on the first and last tile of every platform (or simply the tile you clicked on to select the platform as a sub-station) once you use the 'x' button. There was no problem with how I constructed the station or anything near it. However, the good news is that I found a fix for only these simple examples. More complicated station lay-outs still are really messed up to make, and I've noticed that now in that save game, which I stopped playing because of it really annoying the hell out of me, with trains ending up at the other side of my world or getting there while having gone around the entire world because they chose a terminus station instead of a roro one, because the roro ones were full and there was still an alternative platform reachable, or simply because it was the nearest platform around). >_> Yes, I still make plenty of profit in that save game, but it just pisses me off that whenever I click on a train, I find out is has to be somewhere completely else.

Changing the internal game logic to do so should be doable, but how should the user distinguish between platforms (or groups of platforms)? And what should happen if 4 tiles belong to one sub-station, while the other 4 belong to the other and a train of 8 tiles long is arriving, specifically sent to one of the sub-stations?

I think you mean 'trains' instead of users. And with that I would not know other things to say, but I will anyway. I don't know if this is programmable, but I think the best way to make trains able to distinguish different platforms in a station, is by being able to make invisible waypoints IN stations, which will not show up with a new name label, but with a graphical change on the tile which you added the waypoint to when pressing 'x'. You can order trains to those waypoints just like you would be able to with any other waypoint, but instead of the train order popping up as the entire station's name, the platform would pop up.

Thinking ahead, I came up with a problem: if the waypoint would overwrite a station tile in its use, the station would perhaps be split into two station, and trains will start stopping on each side of the waypoint, instead of at either ends of the full station. For that reason it would be necessary to make the waypoints at either end of the station platform, so the trains will either completely stop at the other end of the platform if the train crosses the waypoint first, or it will stop one tile ahead of the waypoint, and reach its destination once the train has started accelerating again. I do not know if this problem is fixable, or will happen at all, but I would certainly hope not.

The first waypoint will be called 'station X track 1 or platform 1', wherever it is placed. Name changing when reorganising the station will work manually just like any other name change. The station will still work a station, because trains will decelerate anyway because they cross a left-out station in the orders list.
I think it would be awesome if you would be able to split platforms into different sub-stations, and once again realistic, but I wouldn't use it or like it anyway. However, the station dividing works as a waypoint in this case, making trains that want to use a different waypoint on the same platform have to wait, because their path has been blocked anyway.

And how can the user modify the station layout?
What should happen when one of the 'sub'-stations gets removed and there are still vehicles headed for it? What about vehicles trying to get to a specific sub-station, while it is not connected? How should reordering the platforms work?

The waypoint gets removed and the trains will have an invalid order. If the specific substation is not connected, it will circle around it forever, because the waypoint in it is not reachable. Reordering platforms is done manually, by changing the names of the waypoints.

Working with stations will become more complicated due to this, but I'm one the persons over here who would really love to see something like this regardless of that - sometimes I encounter the need for something like this and have literally no space for any workarounds.

Exactly my point. Cheers.

---- Post 2 ----
A friend of mine and yours truly have been discussing about another problem solver, which seems to be just as efficient, and a lot simpler too.
Instead of doing all this hard-to-do programming regarding station tiles, you can simply enable waypoints to be placed on every track tile, as long as there is no split/merge happening in it, meaning that waypoints would be compatible with signals and be build on oblique (is that even the right word? I had to look it up in a dictionary.) track tiles.
Normally when I make multi-platform stations, I make sure there is at least one plain tile of track at either side of the station, to place signals. Signals can be placed on oblique tracks, and if waypoints can be build on oblique track (in TTD that would be the visual vertical and horizontal tracks), and be compatible with signals, it would certainly be a problem solver for a lot of our shared problems too.
Oh PS: Once again, it would be great if we're able to make waypoints that don't show up with those ugly structures, but instead show up as something on the track itself.