Rivers instead of locks

[wonkotsane]

If a map has a river on a slope tile, why does a boat require a lock to move up the slope? It doesn't make sense, the boat should be able to sail up the river.

[planetmaker]

Did you ever see a ship go upstream a waterfall or even only through rapids?

[michael blunck]

If a map has a river on a slope tile, why does a boat require a lock to move up the slope? It doesn't make sense [...]

Indeed, that sentence doesn´t make sense. In fact, "locks" are associated with "canals", not with "rivers".


OTOH, this whole thing might be confusing for the beginner, because in OTTD ships indeed "move up the slope" (in locks), whereas only in TTDPatch they´re lifted in the usual prototypical way.

regards
Michael

[wonkotsane]

Did you ever see a lock that was water flowing down a slope? Or ships stacked on top of each other? Or ships floating through each other? The river slope tile is the same gradient as the lock.

Ships can travel on flat river tiles which aren't the same as canal tiles. Canal tiles can open onto river tiles and ships can navigate between the two seamlessly. I haven't tried a lock straight onto a river yet.

[wonkotsane]

Just tried it and yes, a lock can butt straight up to a river tile. As far as a ship is concerned, a river tile and canal tile are both navigable. So why can't a sloping river tile be treated the same as a lock?

[planetmaker]

Consider it rather an improvement which should be done to the locks

[wonkotsane]

Well yes, it would be better if the locks worked like locks rather than sloping river tiles. However, as the code is already there to handle ships moving up slopes, why not switch that code to the sloping river tile when you improve the lock.

[kamnet]

Yeah, its one of my small gripes (among many) about river/canal navigation. For all intents and purposes, TTD/OTTD rivers are actually canals. The lock graphics should reflect how a lock actually works. BUT, at the same time, IMO, rivers/canals should work much like roads do. Unfortunately we don't have a more natural, gradual change in elevation which reflects how boats can travel up and down water channels without needing a lock. I think it wold be better to change that behavior instead.

[michael blunck]

[...] The lock graphics should reflect how a lock actually works. BUT, at the same time, IMO, rivers/canals should work much like roads do. Unfortunately we don't have a more natural, gradual change in elevation which reflects how boats can travel up and down water channels without needing a lock. I think it wold be better to change that behavior instead.

As already written, canals and locks (and later rivers) have been developed first in TTDPatch and until now, work slightly differently than in OTTD.

In TTDPatch, a ship going up/down a one tile´s height by a lock is being stopped and is then lifted upwards/downwards to the next tile´s height.

When years ago, Oskar did develop that particular feature, one of my wishes had been to get additional lock doors, to make that action even more "realistic". Unfortunately, this is not possible by various reasons:

- ships have no bounding boxes,
- you cannot guarantee that there´s only one ship inside a lock.
- ...

As to river slopes, those are not navigable. That´s why I put stones in.

regards
Michael

[eis_os]

The problem with ships is they are bigger then one tile. So while I could stop a ship in front of a lock door half of the ship would already be in the lock. The best way TTDPatch could provide was a ship that will visually go up or down in the lock. Disabling the route bits on the tile of lock would mean ships would start to try to find a different route... The other way would be locks that a much bigger, say 5 tiles x 2 tiles and have a direction in the lock. They wouldn't fit into the TTD(Patch) World.

A bit history of TTDPatch: The river code was a split from canals that is water.asm , specially to allow rapids, got improvements like slope water texture definition, random bytes, then both code paths got merged and optimized.

-edit-
Note: While a lot people complain about a lot features not working that great that got introduced with TTDPatch, I haven't seen them writing own complete new features from ground-up, even people think C is so much easier. Neither do they think about the big picture or try to write basic gameplay features. And I never understand why OTTD let Ships travel up the slope without lifting...

[michael blunck]

[...] And I never understand why OTTD let Ships travel up the slope without lifting...

Hehe.

I think most people are not aware that TTDPatch already years ago offered a way better movement for ships in locks. Although I knew, I hadn´t seen it until recently when testing NewShips 0.48 in OTTD.

OTTD let Ships travel up the slope

O/c, that was the OP´s reason to demand it in general.

regards
Michael

[frosch]

eis_os: Feel free to add stuff to the (gameplay-)feature comparison chart: http://wiki.openttd.org/Comparison_of_O ... h_features
Maybe it helps people picking the best version for their taste.

in TTDPatch they´re lifted in the usual prototypical way.

Btw. "prototypical way", do the ships still jump up and down when reversing them in the lock