Transport Tycoon Forums

Welcome to the development thread for Trains of Europe - a series of NewGRFs for OpenTTD that will epitomise European railroading at its finest.

TOE - Generic
Starting with the Generic European Set, which is still very popular judging by the amount of downloads (77000 ) it has on BANANAS, and the recent friendly reminders I received asking to continue development, I have decided to build on that for the first main module of TOE. (which also follows the recent trend of funny acronyms ) However, the new TOE-Generic will not be compatible with the old version, due to a poor choice of IDs in the old set, and the changing of railtypes. TOE-Generic will eventually have its old sprites replaced with improved ones, many from the 2CC set, because the old ones are not well drawn and not shaded at all. They were, after all, some of my first sprites...

Compatibility issues:
I will try to keep the new set compatible with the old GES. To avoid changing railtypes, I will keep the IDs of the current locomotives where they are, but replace the 15kV AC electrics with similar 25kV AC, diesel or steam ones to run on the default track. So when someone upgrades from GES to TOE-Generic, some of their locomotives will change, but most importantly, they will all be powered.

Current Status: (not done yet)
- On Hiatus until November (after HSC is over )
- Graphics from original GES and 2CC set (thanks Voyager One)

To Do:
- Make a playable release so that the track types can be used properly

TOE - Tracks
The defining feature of TOE will be the track set, which has the 4 main electric overhead systems used in Europe: 1500V DC, 3000V DC, 15 kV AC and 25 kV AC. The 25 kV AC replaces the default electric railway, enabling the default vehicles to run under the correct system, and in case anyone wants to use other sets, such as the UKRS, in combination. The track set will eventually also contain some different gauges, making for even more interesting and varied gameplay.
Later, I plan to make some real-coloured sets that represent different countries, (but I will need drawing help) but let's focus on the Generic one for now

Current status: (Version 0.1)
- Contains 3 new railtypes and unique catenary graphics
- Contains one "secret" railtype because of current coding limitations, to make the multi-voltage locomotives work properly. If you don't like this, please vote.

To do:
- Add narrow and broad gauge (GRAPHICS REQUIRED)
- Fix the rather bodgy multiple tracktype issue, when OpenTTD supports it or there is a better way

TOE - Tri-Phase Electric Railway
Also, I have made this small addon which adds yet another tracktype and a locomotive, intended to represent the unique Three-phase electrification system in use in northern Italy from the 1900s to the 1970s. Like in real life, it is fully compatible with RAIL and therefore the locomotive pulls regular carriages, and steam/diesel trains will happily run on it. It contains only one locomotive for now, but it will be expanded.

Current Status (version 0.1)
- One locomotive
- May be a few bugs in the overhead wires

To do:
- Add more locomotives
- Fix said bugs in overhead wires


Downloads
These are testing releases - Please try them out and tell us what you think
More will be available soon.

(reserved)

Is there any planned compatibility between the TOE and the 2ccSet? Because after reading your post, it seems those two sets will have some overlap.

No, because the TOE takes into account gauges and track voltages, so all of the 2cc set's engines would run on the standard gauge 25kV AC tracktype. So they will be separate sets, with very different intentions, but they will share quite a few graphics.

Ah ok, well, looking forward to it. Good luck and let me know if you need something

Hmm, I can't wait to see how this set turns out, I might be a Canadian but Europe has some nice stuff to play with

I really like your ideas of this set.

The multi-voltage/gauge aspect of this set is very interesting, and I really hope you can find a good solution for it.

I can imagine how cool it would be to play a realistic Europe game with this set, where border stations will be needed because of change of voltage/gauge.

I hope there will be variable gauge locomotives, I know they exist.

NekoMaster wrote:I hope there will be variable gauge locomotives, I know they exist.

I want to include them too, but first this has to be implemented somehow

Well Pikka has gotten a Dual Mode locomotive to work in UKRS2, the JB Class Electro-Diesel

When talking of gauges, particularly in Europe, rack rail springs to mind. Is this possible yet?

SwissFan91 wrote:When talking of gauges, particularly in Europe, rack rail springs to mind. Is this possible yet?

Well Im thinking any locomotives ment for rack rails will gain a boost in TE when running on rack rails or something to help it up hill

NekoMaster wrote:Well Pikka has gotten a Dual Mode locomotive to work in UKRS2, the JB Class Electro-Diesel

That's different because it can go on all compatible railtypes, even if it's only overhead. What I have set up currently works OK for quad-voltage locomotives, but if I wanted to code a dual voltage loco, for example, there is no way to stop it from going on the tracks it isn't supposed to be able to go on.

SwissFan91 wrote:When talking of gauges, particularly in Europe, rack rail springs to mind. Is this possible yet?

Very much so, all I need is the graphics It would be possible to code the engine to have greatly increased tractive effort when there is a rack. (That would probably be in a separate set, as I want to make it modular)

Emperor Jake wrote:No, because the TOE takes into account gauges and track voltages, so all of the 2cc set's engines would run on the standard gauge 25kV AC tracktype. So they will be separate sets, with very different intentions, but they will share quite a few graphics.

Nothing wrong with adding support for other tracktypes then NuTracks I can even make it so that engines/mus that are in both sets are not available in the 2cc-set, and non-european stuff is not available as well

edit:
I have a question: what is the gameplay benefint of of the different voltages?

Emperor Jake wrote:

SwissFan91 wrote:When talking of gauges, particularly in Europe, rack rail springs to mind. Is this possible yet?

Very much so, all I need is the graphics It would be possible to code the engine to have greatly increased tractive effort when there is a rack. (That would probably be in a separate set, as I want to make it modular)

I made some graphics for a NG track with rackrail a while ago, as I was thinking about including it in the French set. Would you be interested?

Also, threephase catenary will be a must for the forthcoming Italian set, but I haven't started it yet

DJ Nekkid wrote: Nothing wrong with adding support for other tracktypes then NuTracks I can even make it so that engines/mus that are in both sets are not available in the 2cc-set, and non-european stuff is not available as well

That would be great... I think just making the engines compatible to their respective vltages/railtypes should be enough - there's nothing wrong with leaving in the international trains

edit:
I have a question: what is the gameplay benefint of of the different voltages?

An interesting question; I will provide an interesting answer. Different voltages have advantages and disadvantages as follows:
Three-phase electrification is one of the earliest to come out, and allows decent speeds at an early date (100 km/h in the late 1920's) and quite owerful locomotives for their time.
15 kV AC becomes available already in 1912 or so, and continues to be prevalent to the present day and the future (unlike tri-phase which died out by the 1970s), and provides a great variety of trains for different purposes.
The DC ones are also versatile, and will be more expensive to build but cheaper to run than AC.
25 kV AC is interesting in that you have to wait till the mid 1950s for it to become available, but this is the one that TGVs are able to reach their best performance under, so it is worth investing in.
Some situations that might come up would be in coop multiplayer games could be:
"Oh, I've built my part of the network in 15kV AC, I see you've done yours in 3kV DC! I guess we'll have to bild a transfer station untill the multi voltage engines come out"
In general, the different voltages will provide for more varied and interesting gameplay, and also, importantly, realism

Snail wrote: I made some graphics for a NG track with rackrail a while ago, as I was thinking about including it in the French set. Would you be interested?

...Yes, very much so

Snail wrote:Also, threephase catenary will be a must for the forthcoming Italian set, but I haven't started it yet

At that rate, I'll have TOE-Italy finished before you start (Did you download the tri-phase test set, BTW? What do you think of the catenary graphics?)

I liked the Generic European Set, it's too bad it doesn't work with current versions of OpenTTD.

Are the different track types included in a separate NewGRF/disabled with a parameter setting/compatible with NuTracks? I use NuTracks to control train speeds on tracks because I have different trains sharing tracks and I would like to keep doing that.

Will take a look at the test release soon.

Transportman wrote:I liked the Generic European Set, it's too bad it doesn't work with current versions of OpenTTD.

It doesn't?!? It works for me... It doesn't matter anyway because the set is getting a code overhaul

The trains and tracks will be in separate GRFs, so that different trainsets can also make use of it. The TOE-Generic set (aka GES) will work fine without the track set, but engines specific to voltages other than 25kV AC will not be available (but there will be a fully playable selection of vehicles) And yes, the train set by itself should work fine with NuTracks, but there aren't enough railtype IDs for both TOEtracks and NuTracks.

Imagine having each track voltage in different gauges and speeds and weight limits and so on... the track type selection menu would be 100's of items long there's probably a good reason for the limit of 16.

Emperor Jake wrote:

Transportman wrote:I liked the Generic European Set, it's too bad it doesn't work with current versions of OpenTTD.

It doesn't?!? It works for me... It doesn't matter anyway because the set is getting a code overhaul

The NewGRF menu says the NewGRF is incompatible with this version of OpenTTD. Got it for quite some time now, but played some other games without it, so I didn't really bothered me.

Emperor Jake wrote:The trains and tracks will be in separate GRFs, so that different trainsets can also make use of it. The TOE-Generic set (aka GES) will work fine without the track set, but engines specific to voltages other than 25kV AC will not be available (but there will be a fully playable selection of vehicles) And yes, the train set by itself should work fine with NuTracks, but there aren't enough railtype IDs for both TOEtracks and NuTracks.

Imagine having each track voltage in different gauges and speeds and weight limits and so on... the track type selection menu would be 100's of items long there's probably a good reason for the limit of 16.

Ok. Would be nice if all trains (also the ones without 25kV AC) would be available if the track set is not detected, but if there is still a playable set with only the 25kV AC it is not that bad.

Each track voltage, gauge, speed and so on a different track type would indeed make the menu very cluttered, I already have some trouble with selecting the right track type with only NuTracks. Would be nice if speed could be set in the orders, but saw that that suggestion got ruled out by the devs because of the availability of NuTracks.

Transportman wrote: Ok. Would be nice if all trains (also the ones without 25kV AC) would be available if the track set is not detected, but if there is still a playable set with only the 25kV AC it is not that bad.

OK, I'll admit I don't know how to code that yet. Of course, I will try it, and implement it wen I figure it out