[OTTD] Christopher's Screenshots

[Christopher]

Greetings! I'm Chirstopher! I started playing the Transport Tycoon family games a few years ago, the first one being Locomotion, and I was hooked (for a while, at least.) After that game got stuffed into the back of the closet, I got a liking for DOS games, and started playing TTD. It's play time was cut short by me not being able to click and drag to place railroad tracks, and that weird depot thing that I as unfamiliar with. Roll the clock forward again, and I've changed my operating system to Ubuntu! Looking for games to play, I find OTTD, and I flash back to TTD; this sends shivers down my spine, but I gave it a try anyways. Since then, I have been playing OTTD faithfully...when I feel like playing...
A few notes about my style: I mainly use trains, but I also like ships and trams. I TRY to make realistic railway networks (This means I'm not perfect.) Any tips on railway/tramway/shipping will be considered. That strange language of my interface and labels? That's Esperanto! I use it because I like the language. I prefer to play on randomly generated maps. (Edited out some -spoilers-)
On with the show!

Wet Noodle Transport 1927
I've started in 1920, so my company has been around for seven years. I was off to a rough start, but a very profitable passenger ship enabled me to make enough money to get more trains. 13 trains, 3 ships, 11 trams.

[Badger]

It's the double incline on the 2nd screenie that's killing it, I'd just bypass that 2nd hill.

[Christopher]

To Badger: I probably would have done that, but the sawmill that the train needed to be at was a just a short distance southwest of the junction. Trying to bypass the hill would entail moving the entire sawmill station! I resolved the issue by replacing the 2-6-0 Mogul with the 0-8-0 Mineral, which is lighter and has more tractive effort. I seem to have the amazing ability of being shortsighted when building my stations!

Wet Noodle Transport 1930
Three years have passed since 1927 (Yay numbers!) Despite the image of my company that I have projected to you thus far, I have been making more money than I can spend. When this happens, it is usually because I'm not building anything (trying to manually direct my trains to the correct station; had to do it twice), or I'm actually doing a good job! I used my extra money to setup three local passenger routes, an express route between two large cities, and added a passenger ship route. 16 trains, 4 ships, 11 trams.

[Ameecher]

It's the double incline on the 2nd screenie that's killing it, I'd just bypass that 2nd hill.

When he says that what he actually means is that there is no need for that train to climb two tiles. Just the one, where you currently have the passing place ending just cut left, parallel to the current alignment but a level lower. Will be a doddle and your trains will move. Could get a more powerful loco too, that looks very much like an express passenger loco to me.

[Badger]

This is what I meant .....

Alterations.jpg (73.74 KiB) Viewed 7176 times

I think you've got some signals placed badly, but a bigger pic of the area will help to see what's going on off-screen.

[Christopher]

To Ameecher: I'm using Pikka's UK Railway Set, and I looked up all the trains on his wiki. The 2-6-0 Mogul is labelled as a mixed traffic locomotive, so it can carry freight or passengers, but I suppose this kind of job was too much for it. It has been replaced with the 0-8-0 Mineral, which is suitable for heavy freight.
To Badger: See the first screenshot for a zoomed-out view. Hahahaha, about those signals...I'm still trying to get the hang of good path-based signal placement. I'd say my number one obstacle is good signaling and traffic management.

Wet Noodle Transport 1933

I'll save you from my math briefing this time. Not many new vehicles this time around, but I did some make-overs of my rail network, especially with the signals. Even though there weren't many new vehicles, I did add three more ships to the Wet Noodle fleet; two for transporting wood to Haveno de Peswich, and one for passengers. 17 trains, 7ships, 11 trams.

[Christopher]

Wet Noodle Transport 1940
Usually whenever I get to the 1940's I start thinking about new wagon types being released! I used to dread this because I didn't know how to use the advanced vehicle list, but now it's a breeze with auto-replace! Also, I went on a spending frenzy for trains, hooking up farms to the factory with the 0-6-0 Pannier, creating local routes with the 2-6-4 Suburban, and even making another express route with the lightning fast 4-6-2 Streak! I'd like to put more of the Streak on the rails, but I'm unsure of how to get other trains out of the way; maybe I have to use those stabling tracks that I've only used as eye-candy. 26 trains, 8 ships, 18 trams. This round of screenshots, I'm going to try to impress you, so be amazed, even if you must lie to do so.
(edit: finished my post, since it was prematurely sent during some maintenance thing)
(edit: changed is to isn't in 3rd screenshot comment)

[Christopher]

Wet Noodle Transport 1943

I didn't do so much playing today, so I only got through three years. I added four more local passenger/mail trains (Not sure about the realism of this, but I like to put mail cars on my passenger trains.) I also retired one train, because it was not making a profit, and also causing trains that visited the same station to lose money as well..........To be honest, I'm not much of a storyteller, I like statistics, maps, and pictures; I'd rather count the squares of track to see how much I have than try to tell these stories! It's just not working for me! (I might actually do it....no, probably not.) 29 trains, 9 ships, 18 trams.

For some reason I don't think people have been noticing my comments on pictures, and I consider those crucial to understanding, so I'm going to put them up here instead.

Oops! Didn't put resolution back to 800x600 when I changed it to get a screenshot of the smallmap for my map, so these won't show up as thumbnails!
1- I had some spare time, if you can call 3 hours "some," so I've created a map of my network! The only problem is that I forgot to save a .svg (scalable vector graphic) version of the map, so I can't edit it as a vector any more, and I was on 300% zoom most of the time for the details, which is now pixellated. So, you won't be seeing a map like this any more! The only new track additions I had since 1941 were a new train yard near Lenwich (Screenshot 3) and a branch line going through Brodingbury, Accby, and ending at Feaby Cross. (Got to learn how to make a simpler map...) Oh, and viewers may pick a spot he or she wishes to see.

2-First time ever using a train yard for more than eye-candy. This train yard design was inspired (meaning it's not exactly like it) by the one in Aleppo, Syria This is where I send local passenger trains to do whatever is done at such a place (honestly, I don't know.) I'll use my imagination and say it's some sort of tune-up for trains, it also helps get them out of the way of express trains, and it still serves the most useful part: eye-candy!

3- Here's yet another train yard, just outside of Lenwich. Lenwich had a lot of extra space, so I decided to try to make a medium-sized train yard without a template, and I think this one turned out pretty well! The train in the lower right corner is a 4-6-2 Streak, obviously an express train. It's so fast it's scary! It also has an awesome whistle! I also used this screenshot as a chance to sow you my preferred method of organizing my network, and that is very specific groups. Ever since I discovered the capabilities of the advanced vehicle list, I've used it very well. Groups with hyphens are passenger/mail trains, the hyphen representing a "to," and town names are organized from starting station to end station. Express trains are marked with a (Ra.), which is an abbreviation for rapida, Esperanto for express. Freight trains are labelled differently. For primary industry and secondary industry trains (All industries that don't produce a final product,) I use their source station and what kind of cargo they're carrying. For final industries (Goods, valuables, and food producing,) I usually have trains to take finished products away. As where these come from is usually unimportant, I put their destination instead, and naturally I also label the cargo. Wow! Longest comment yet and most of it was about how I organize my trains! Three letters can describe this... L O L!
(Edit: Wrong term, replaced the word inline in the sentence above 1- with "as thumbnails"/ also forgot translations...greno-grain, kaj-and, brutoj-cattle, komercaĵo-goods, ligno-wood, and tikoj-"ticks" [I seem to proofread after I post...])
(Edit: on the map, there's a typo; for city, it's supposed to be 3000, not 30000/and another track connection I added has been inserted in 1-)

[Christopher]

Wet Noodle Transport 1949
33 trains, 11 ships, 18 trams. As covered in my previous post, most talking will be done through screenshots.

1-The new map, with no isometric projection, and some slight changes to the legend to make it quicker to create. (Notice me only labelling towns with dots separate of stations/docks, connected towns are merged into their station(s.)) Really, don't hesitate to ask to see a certain spot. (Saved an .svg backup this time, so expect to see this map again!)

2-I did some research, and discovered a new kind of junction! I was eager to try it out, and knew just the place:the haphazard Kuniĝo de Nanthall. This junction is called a Grand Union. It allows trains to go in any direction they wish, as long as it's not backwards. This kind of junction is rare in the real world because it's very expensive to build and maintain, but in OTTD, that's not as much of an issue. It took me almost a year to finish it, since I had to create diversions for traffic, adjust entrances/exits, remove old trakcs, and do moderate landscaping in addition to building the junction. (Compare with other screenshot of Kuniĝo de Nanthall to see the changes I made.)

3- A 2-8-0 8F laden with steel just leaving the foundry, it is destined for a factory southwest of here, and not the other factory, because this train is too long to fit onto the platforms and I figured it would crowd the area anyways.

[Christopher]

New Game!
Alpine Railways, LLC 1925 (Started in 1920 as is customary with me)

Stopped the other game because the UK Railway Set is a bit incomplete at the moment, and I really wanted to try out railways in the mountains!
Some things that make this different from last game: It's in the Alpine climate, there's lots of mountains and hills, I'm using the American Transition train set, and (most importantly) I'm using the Alternative Base Costs grf. Some of the major changes in it that will affect me are that locomotive purchase prices are cut in half, locomotive running costs are doubled, track costs are doubled, bridge costs are multiplied by 32, tunnel costs are multiplied by 64, and finally, landscaping costs (this includes those little support things that are created when a track is built perpendicular to the slope and when building straight track up a diagonal slope.) are multiplied by 1024. This means I won't be doing any landscaping until I'm filthy rich, because it costs a king's ransom just to try to remove a bump in the ground. (At current money value, about 420.000 pounds) Looks like I'm really in for a challenge!

1-A 2-8-0 Consolidation navigates its way along a windy rail next to a small cliff in order to deliver its coal to the power plant. See the little support thingies near the top left? Apparently those require landscaping to create, so they cost about 350.000 pounds per tile. If you're wondering how I was able to afford them so early, I turned off Alternative Base Costs temporarily, so I could get the hang of not landscaping. (It's on again now, and I probably won't need to deactivate it because I'm learning how to not destroy the landscape.)

2-One of my only two passenger/mail trains, the K4 Pacific here I also call the "Valley Express." Why? Because it's an express train (obiviously,) and the line it travels weaves through the mountain range in the middle of the map via valleys. Somehow I made the track not reach a height level exceeding 2, and also didn't landscape or use those supports one bit. It just blows my mind that this is even possible!

3-The map, which I now created earlier in the game, mainly because I know how to use inkscape now. Notice the weaving features of the tracks. That happens usually because I'm trying to avoid a hill or mountain, or I'm trying to find the right spot to increase track altitude. The long single-track railway is the Valley Line (Probably should label it in the future,) which the Valley Express travels on from Sundstow to Bendchurch. Looks like my plan for this game will be to make dense networks in the lowlands (usually areas with clusters of towns)and long connectors between those networks through the mountains. (The Valley Line is an example of such)

Comments, questions, and concerns (?) are welcomed with loving arms.

[Kogut]

Great map!

[Christopher]

Thank you very much! I put a lot of effort into my maps!

Alpine Railways, LLC 1935 part 1
Traffic problems became rampant suddenly in about 1930, as did monetary issues, so I made several changes to my network. Before that I was on the path of rapid expansion and connecting all the towns with rails, but right now this project is on hold!

1- The new Sundstow station is much larger than the original; the old one being a single platform 5 squares long. This has now enabled multiple trains to visit the station. The only disadvantage is its location...a horde of busses and mail trucks is necessary to get passengers and mail to the station. I kept the freight siding at the old location because there's no room for it anywhere else, and it doesn't disrupt traffic anyways. Look at the old map and compare it with the new one to see how I had to completely divert the mainline, and also some other improvements to the area.

2- A small section of quadruple track was needed when I found out that the newly diverted mainline was causing merging issues and deadlock. The usage of four tracks is well-justified in the screenshot; it's a very busy section of the line. Pictured here is a USRA Mikado bringing oil to the refinery from some distant oil wells (Top), a 2-8-0 consolidation returning to its station for more oil(middle), and another 2-8-0 Consolidation on the return trip from the food processing plant to gather more farm products.

3- Some steam-power local passenger trains had to be replaced with electric interurbans to save on running costs. (These Steel Interurbans have half the running cost of the USRA Mikado; that's what I was using before for local passenger trains.) At first I was unsure of the investment, but now that I'm seeing some positive returns, I might consider replacing more.

[Christopher]

Alpine Railways, LLC 1935 part 2

Here are some pictures of things that haven't had too many issues...

1- The sizeable St. Fatwood station has been only recently built. Usually for stations this size, I make a blueprint first to check if I have enough space and to ease construction. This time I tried to build a large station for a large city; it makes more sense than the usual too small of stations that I end up building. An interesting feature, there's no room for a length of two turn (the minimum size of a turn in my rules, as by Ivan Furlanis' guidelines on realistic railway structure) so I instead make trains reverse at the waypoint and then take a switch-track that leads them down the hill. If you're wondering if this causes traffic issues...it does.

2- Here a 2-8-0 Consolidation (my freight train of choice) safely works its way on the zig-zag (also called a switchback) thanks to some good engineering. The zig-zag is necessary because of the single hill, then an empty tile, and another hill following it makes it very difficult for the heavy coal trains to climb the hill without going to that 1 km/h issue (demonstrated in an earlier screenshot.) I picked a zig zag instead of another route because this way is more direct, and no landscaping was required. Also, it looks cool!

3- The updated map, there are many changes and expansions to the network. The line with the zig-zag is the detached line to the west, there are also two of the half-zig-zag: near St. Fatwood station and near Standore.

[Christopher]

Alpine Railways, LLC 1942 part 1

Just going to go right into screenshots this time!

1- Alpine Railways prefers to be on the cutting edge of technology, so as soon as a new light-duty freight locomotive was released for a prototype testing, (The S-2, a diesel locomotive) a large scale replacement of the long-used 2-8-0 Consolidation was enacted. Here you can see two S-2 outfitted for farm materials passing each other, one going to the food processing plant and the other returning.

2-The passenger service also has had some changes, and all local passenger services are now either diesel or electric. Before diesel-power passenger trains came out, there were plans to replace the local steam locomotives with electric interurbans in the Northwest Loop (see map,) but once the Zephyr was introduced, the project was stopped mid-way, and the caternaries that were built have not seen usage. An example of this is St. Fatwood station. (Pictured here) Also shown is the shiny new Zephyr leaving the station, coated in stainless steel.

3-The large scale replacement has left steam locomotives almost obsolete, with only four currently running. However, these few remain because they are unmatched by diesel as of yet and are well-suited for their jobs. Here is a Class 3900 Challenger carrying a lengthy train of oil cars from the oil wells that were constructed about 5 years ago. This engine has enough horsepower and tractive effort to make it up lengthy inclines with little slowing down. When it's fully loaded, it weighs just over 2000 tonnes! There are currently two of these trains in service, and they represent the pinnacle of heavy freight carrying by steam. I'd also like to point out that I finally got a chance to build a horseshoe curve, as is shown in the screenshot. It helps to spread out gradient changes to make hills easier to climb.

[Christopher]

Alpine Railways, LLC 1942 part 2

Yes, there's more! (At no extra charge!!)

1-The successor to running the Valley Express is the Class A Hiawatha, it replaced the K4 Pacific four years ago, and it has proven itself to be a suitable replacement indeed! The train's speed is unmatched by diesel and electric; it's able to reach up to 193 km/h, and when it gets out of high traffic areas, I've seen it average 170 km/h on the winding mountain tracks.

2- A Class M1a Mountain races to Treedberg Station to deliver some gold to the bank in impressive armored cars. Right now there's no diesel locomotive that combines speed and power as well as the Class M1a, so I expect a few more years of service out of this train. By the way, I designed the gold drop-off station myself thanks to Industrial Stations Renewal; it's really fun to make stations piece by piece!

3- And of course, the map. I really like how my network expands with these winding, single-track railways; I think that this is least double-track I've ever used. Changes since last time: Looped the Northwest chain of stations, and gave it the appropriate name the Northwest Loop, built a station next to some oil wells, expanded further north of Sundstow, and started connecting the Southwest to my network.

Oh, I'd also like some assistance on improving the efficiency of my network while keeping realism and using as few tracks as possible. I'd also like to know how to give express trains priority over freight trains. Lastly, I'd also like help with realism, because with my networks I'm just not "feeling it." (That is, I don't get the feeling like this is incredibly realistic by OTTD standards.) I'll attach a savegame for a closer look upon request.

[Christopher]

No updates on Alpine Railways, LLC this time; I'm a bit out of inspiration and motivation because I'm still not getting the right feeling. Instead, a little "behind the scenes" tour is in order. I'm sure many people who put up those very nice screenshots don't need to do this, but I do. On these down times, I look at numerous pictures of railway stations, junctions, lines, and other stuff. I then try to internalize these track configurations and put them into something I call "Experimental Game" (That's what I call the savegame.) Here I give myself as much money as I need (thanks to the cheat menu!) to build until my motivation and inspiration meter is back up to a point where I can go back to my main game and start fresh. Often in my experimental games I engage in an activity I call "Speed Building." In this I build a network as fast as I can without stopping, most notably stations. This allows me to make up creative station layouts, which may or may not be effective, but since it's kind of like brainstorming, it doesn't really matter. Since this is a screenshot thread, I'll show you some of my stations!

Pick which station you like best!
1- Great Finditch Station- A compact terminus style station, it has three long platforms and one short one, the short one being specifically for local trains. I think the most interesting part of this is the double cross tracks.

2- Accport Station- An inline station that comes with a Locomotive works. The ladder style of switching tracks is prevalent on the southwest side. On the northeast side, something I call the stream configuration, constant switchtracks is dominant. There's also another local platform here. I also included a one-way pass through the station; these seem to be quite useful, as wood trains coming in from the northeast side don't disrupt station traffic.

3-Old Clinthaven Common station- This station has the interesting "flow" I'm looking for that I believe is present in real-life stations. Normally, I would probably have just four platforms of equal length and keep the cross. But under brainstorming conditions, things are different. Instead, there's three platfroms, and the cross has an extra branch on it leading to two local platforms.

[Christopher]

What happened to all those daily updates, you must be wondering. School started two days ago for me, so I haven't had as much time to play. Therefore, I've only been dabbling with my experimental game and Alpine Railways, LLC is lacking attention. I'll probably have an update this weekend, but there are no complete guarantees! Anyways, I do have screenshots of my experiments for Alpine Raliways, LLC!

1- One of the important things I wanted to try out is greater signal spacing; my old default for the ctrl+click and drag on already placed signal to make more on the line was 2, and that's way too many signals to be realistic! I have now set the distance to 15 (notice the long distance in the screenshot.) This has prevented deadlocks with only slightly increased waiting times at signals. An important thing I noticed with greater signal spacing is that traffic actually flows (train reserves path, leaves, waiting train reserves path and leaves; all very smoothly), not like before when trains just jerked forward from signal to signal. I figured out that this could be due to the fact that greater signal distance means less times when a train has to stop, increasing train speed through high-traffic areas. (Notice how there are four trains with little congestion, all trains that need be moving are [that means I'm not including the local train at the yard] the K4 Pacific pulling an express train can probably get close to the point where the other local train will not have to wait at the signal in very little time because of the increased signal distance.)

2- Here's something else that's new: mail-only trains! It must be astonishing that I've never tried mail trains before, but I was unsure of towns' ability to produce enough mail for such a train, and I've always been using passenger-mail train combos since my Locomotion days. As you've probably seen before, I still have passenger-mail train combos, and I don't intend on giving them up because the combo keeps my mail station rating up. I've also tried out passenger-only trains, (there are two in screenshot 1, actually) but these are usually local trains, since small towns usually don't produce a lot of mail anyways. The mail train pictured here is not express mail, but medium priority. This leads me to explain my new priorities and train naming system. First, naming: I have a three to five digit (depends on production number) code, a hyphen, and one or two letters (never had more at the moment.) The first one to three digits are the production number of the train (part of the default name, ex. train 2; I take off the train and keep the 2) The next digit is track type that the locomotive uses: 1-Standard gauge 2- Electric 3- Narrow 4- Narrow Electric 5- Monorail/Metro 6- Maglev. The final digit is priority; this helps me when building tracks and stations and seeing delays, which trains to address first and give the most to. 1- High priority (ex. express, fast goods[valuables, gold, diamonds, or just goods/food] large long-distance freight trains) 2- Medium priority (Medium-length local trains, local goods, semi-important freight trains [usually things like steel]) 3-Low priority (Short local trains with frequent stops, light-duty freight.) Then the hyphen simply separates the numbers and letters. Letters represent cargo types carried, in Esperanto, of course.

3- Okay, this one won't be as long, I promise! Another new thing is busier stations! This surely shocks many, but I've never really tried to link together many stations and stuff them with trains. In the screenshot you can see seven trains assigned to this station, usually I can't get more than three in, because I'm worried that there will be back-ups and deadlocks. However, my new traffic flow model and improved stations that usually allow simultaneous entrances and exits have eased my concerns. You can also see that all of them are making nice profits!

I'd like some feedback on how I can improve my work, I'm getting closer to that feeling. Comments on what I can try out to improve my network will be appreciated. Furthermore, I'm almost always looking for help on realism. Also, don't be afraid to tell me what you think of my screenshots!

[Christopher]

Gamma Railways 1928

I didn't continue Alpine Railways, LLC because too many problems that I had solved in my experimental game were too difficult to fix without messing the game up by putting new track layouts everywhere. Also, I got bored of the old one, so, new game!
My three-day break was due to me collecting lots of information, and other stuff. I'm very pleased with how this game is turning out, I hope you will be too!

1- This is the busiest area for Gamma Railways. Four trains visit the station, several more pass through it, and the rest of the trains in the entire network, except two, pass by on the main line. Apart from the usual traffic of passengers and mail, there's also wood, goods, steel, scrap metal, and coal. (By the way, I'm using FIRS and Modified Building Costs)
2- My station-building skills have really improved, I think! This is Gruningdore Station, Gamma Railways' largest station. Right now only five trains visit here, but that's only because I can't make any more passenger trains without overlapping services! Pictured here is is a NYC J3a Hudson, one of the three expresses from Gruningdore to Liverwich, which also has a large station.
3- The recently expanded steel mill station is quite spacious, as you can see. This place is responsible for producing steel to be sent to the Machine Shop near Gruningdore (follows the tracks going east from the city's station.) The reason this station is so large is because most of the trains with scrap metal, coal, and iron ore have to travel long distances to make it to the steel mill, so I increased the length of the trains to offset the time cost. On another note, I'll probably have to make some sort of distribution center for farm, engineering, and manufacturing supplies.

[Benny]

You have some nice stuff going on here. Haven't taken the time to read this huge wall of text yet, but I see some very nice trackwork here. Good work.

[Badger]

You have a few issues here.

Untitled.png (140.51 KiB) Viewed 6300 times

The bit circled in orange is a major bottleneck, you might as well not use PBS when only one train can get through at any time. The bit in red is pointless as well and serves no purpose at all.