Sodor Railways Expansion for UKRS2 - (Thomas Reboot)

[WWTBAM]

This is an attempt at an expansion for UKRS2 plus a revitalization of the Thomas the Tank Engine project. For background on the Railway Series and the prototypes therein, I recommend Martin Clutterbuck's excellent site "The Real Lives of Thomas the Tank Engine"

I'm taking this on a little bit more "Prototypical" angle, so the adding of faces will come later. Attatched is a start based on repaints of UKRS equipment (With permission of course )

Eventually I'd like to include the Peel Godred branch Electric Engines, the Culdee Fell Railway, the Skarloey Railway and possibly even the Arlesdale Railway. I'm considering this as an expansion to UKRS to allow "other" engines to run the railway in the background in addition to the "famous" engines.

The plan initially is to include the following:

NWR Steam Locos

No. 1 Thomas (Done)
No. 2 Edward (WIP)
No. 3 Henry (Both Versions - WIP)
No. 4 Gordon (WIP)
No. 5 James (Black and Red - WIP)
No. 6 Percy (Done)
No. 7 Toby (WIP)
No. 8 Duck (WIP)
No. 9 Donald (WIP)
No. 10 Douglas (WIP)

NWR Diesel Locomotives

D1 - Daisy (WIP)
D2 - BoCo (WIP)
D3 - Bear (WIP)
Pip & Emma

NWR Electric Engines

E1-4 - NER EF-1 Class (WIP - Livery TBD)
EMU's (Similar to BR 308 Class) (WIP - Livery TBD)
E5+ (Similar to BR Class 86) (WIP - Livery TBD)

Private owner/Other Locos

Mavis
Bill & Ben
Diesel (08 Class)

Possibly a few others as well. The new TV series is getting a bit on the extreme side with nwe characters and whatnot, so I was considering keeping with the "original" Railway Series to start. The others from Emily on could be added at a later date.

Was also thinking of adding Harold, Bertie, Terrence and maybe Trevor as well

I have spoken with DanMack and am going to attempt to learn NML and code this set. Dan, how yould you like Annie/Clarabel to be coded, refits using 1 ID for the three types?

[audigex]

Knock Knock
(Who's there?)
8 year thread bump
(8 year thread bump who?)
8 year thread bump but please don't ban me because....

After perhaps one of the longest stall periods in OpenTTD history, the set is coming to life!

The thread got a shoutout earlier on Reddit and being a relatively simple set it seemed silly not to complete it, at least with the graphics already drawn. Therefore, I present the OpenTTE/Sodor Expansion project

Here you can see Henry the Green Engine leaving the station with a rake of express coaches, along with Toby the Tram Engine waiting at the signal with his ever-present compatriots Henrietta and Elsie. Meanwhile Gordon the Big Engine is taking a well earned break while loading passengers for his next trip to the mainland.

I haven't seen a license specifically for the graphics of this set, but I recall that DanMacK gave general permission a while ago for others to use their graphics (along with Pikka) and I've taken the "We need a coder" as permission to use the graphics under GPLv2. However, DanMack is a semi-active user on the forum so I'll be confirming that before I actually release a GRF.

In the meantime the project is available here: https://github.com/audigex/OpenTTE

Things like cargo capacities, speeds etc are very much WIP, as are sprite alignments. Currently the three trains in the screenshot are coded, with the others to follow. Additional graphics, or information on speeds/weights, are always welcome - along with bug reports (or code contributions) if anyone builds the code themselves.

[audigex]

James and Edward steam past on the other line...

Just Thomas Percy and Annie/Clarabel to add from the existing graphics now

TTE_Screenshot_2.png (183.32 KiB) Viewed 4741 times

And DanMacK has confirmed that GPLv2 is fine for his sprites, so here's a test GRF...

[audigex]

Attached GRF v1.0-alpha - all sprites I can see drawn in this thread are now included. Now available on BaNaNaS

I've been tinkering with some alignment, so it's possible there are a couple of misaligned sprites in there still - most likely relating to Gordon/Henry/Edward/James no longer aligning properly with the express coaches.

Known bugs

- Toby's consist (he's automatically created along with Henrietta and Elsie) doesn't have any passenger capacity
- Toby is called "Toby the Tram" not "Toby the Tram Engine"
- Power/weight on the locomotives is probably (definitely) not all accurate. Gordon and Henry should be close, the others are guesstimated
- Name mismatch (In game is "OpenTTE, A Thomas The Tank Engine.... blah blah", BaNaNaS is "Sodor Railways Expansion")

Note that you should be able to use UKRS2 for additional wagons and carriages

TTE_Purchase.png (11.09 KiB) Viewed 8157 times

Any bug/alignment issue reports welcome, and if anyone wants to draw anything else for this set I'm happy to code it.

[2TallTyler]

Very cool! Looking forward to watching this develop.

[audigex]

I'm a bit busy with other projects to draw for the set, but I'm happy to code anything drawn. If anyone wants to contribute, then there are a load of similar classes in the UKRS2/PJ1K that would work here if re-painted. Several of the diesels are there, they just need a new paint job, and I'm not sure if there are any special liveries for freight wagons/trucks etc, but they could likely be moved over fairly easily if we wanted to make this more stand-alone (I can add a parameter to disable UKRS duplicates for when the sets are used together)

I've just added some Pip and Emma (IC125/HST) graphics from PJ1K, so I'll code them up at some point too

[Emperor Jake]

Glad to see this project back on track (and I'm honoured to be the one who made the reddit post that brought this back in attention)

[audigex]

For Pip and Emma, I can't decide whether to code them as a multiple unit (eg 6 coach fixed formation) or allow a separate coach to be added to arbitrary lengths.

Currently only Toby is a fixed Multiple Unit, because I refuse to allow him to be separated from Henrietta, but Thomas is not perma-coupled to Annie and Clarabel, for example

[kamnet]

For Pip and Emma, I can't decide whether to code them as a multiple unit (eg 6 coach fixed formation) or allow a separate coach to be added to arbitrary lengths.

Currently only Toby is a fixed Multiple Unit, because I refuse to allow him to be separated from Henrietta, but Thomas is not perma-coupled to Annie and Clarabel, for example

parameter?

[audigex]

Good thinking, it's not something I've played with before but I'll take a look - I don't suppose you have an example to hand of something similar?

[PandaJoueur]

Hi ! Love the pack but here are some issues I get from the NewGRF.

The sprites seems to be offset.

Capture d’écran 2020-10-06 214244.png (10.34 KiB) Viewed 7838 times

Capture d’écran 2020-10-06 214637.png (14.01 KiB) Viewed 7838 times

Here with other grfs

Capture d’écran 2020-10-06 214354.png (1.02 KiB) Viewed 7838 times

PS: I would love to see Connor, Spencer, Hiro, Caitlin and their coaches, or even the troublesome trucks and others cargo carriages ! And maybe themed stations ! I think this project can go very far.

Thanks for everything !

[audigex]

Yeah there are definitely a few alignment issues still - I'll have a look at that one! Reports of alignment issues always welcome

It's also possible that some of the unit lengths are incorrect, but I'm not sure how to check that

[audigex]

Version 1.0 released, with a massive thankyou to Bazek (I've no idea if he's on the forums) who fixed a huge pile of alignment issues and added a bunch of changes to the build process etc

Bazek actually made the changes and published a pull request months ago, but I didn't see it, so my apologies for the delay on that one.

The update fixes the set's alignment across most units, and adds Pip and Emma properly. Pip + Emma function much like the UKRS HST, and Toby is no longer coded as an MU



The update is on Bananas, or available from the Github at https://github.com/BRTrains/OpenTTE

[Eggsbenedict]

Dear Sir/Madame,
I am an OpenTTD player and fan. I have got this expansion set, but my game has 32bpp graphics (aBase and zBase) and the Sodor Engines are still blurry 16bpp.
Would you be so kind as to make an upgrade for both the UKRS2 and The Sodor Expansion Set NewGRF to be compatible with aBase and zBase, if you please?
That would be kind of you.

[audigex]

Hi Eggsbenedict

The Sodor Expansion is not available in higher zoom levels, this is deliberate as the set is intended to be for the “classic” OpenTTD style. This may change in future but I don’t expect it to be any time soon

UKRS2 does have a successor (UKRS3) which is available in higher zoom levels and has many of the same trains available as UKRS2

[the_thomas_fan]

I know that this is a bump but...

Could you make it so that the engines aren't put in the goods category? I would like to play with the grf with industry packs like YETI and wasteland

[audigex]

I know that this is a bump but...

Could you make it so that the engines aren't put in the goods category? I would like to play with the grf with industry packs like YETI and wasteland

I'm not 100% sure it'll work, as I don't use those packs, but there's a version 1.1 that should now be in BaNaNaS which should allow a (theoretical, of course) refit to passengers, which should hopefully solve the problem

[the_thomas_fan]

I'm not 100% sure it'll work, as I don't use those packs, but there's a version 1.1 that should now be in BaNaNaS which should allow a (theoretical, of course) refit to passengers, which should hopefully solve the problem
[/quote]
It mostly worked but gordon got left out for some reason
All the other engines work though

[audigex]

It mostly worked but gordon got left out for some reason
All the other engines work though

Fixed in 1.2

I'd accidentally made the change to Gordon's tender instead of Gordon himself, whoops!

[CTarana45]

I'm getting an Failure to Auto-Renew Train 1 in the NewGraf! I'm going to see if I find a work around! This definately is my favorite set!

Christopher Tarana