Transport Tycoon Forums

I'm pretty sure everyone in this forum has at least three major ideas for a GRF or something, but I'm equally sure most of us don't have the slightest clue how they'd go around making them, and lack the time, interest or talent to do so. I figure we ought to get them off our chest somewhere, even if it's highly unlikely any GRF authors will pay attention (which is probably just as well) and here seems as good a place as any.

My suggestions start with:

EEB: Easter Egg Basket
A graphical add-on pack that serves mainly to add buildings and scenery, maybe vehicles and/or industries, that reference other Tycoon games and related software. The original TTD already had X-COM cameos, but why not throw in rollercoaster-filled theme parks, secret military bases, quirky hospitals, and other little nods that fans of Tycoon-style games will find oddly familiar?

The Scrub: Australian Flora Set
Graphics that replace the existing trees with trees based on the native trees most commonly seen in Australia. The difference would be subtle but major.

A deeper industry replacement GRF. Sure, we have ECS and FIRS and they are good but i can't help to think they are not deep enough sometimes.

For instance, instead of...

Iron Ore -> Steel/Metal -> Vehicles -> Iron Ore mine

I would like a deeper chain that goes like...

Iron Ore -> Steel/Metal -> Industrial parts -> Mining Equipment -> Iron Ore mine

Also note that a Machine shop requires two types of cargo. Metal and Petrol... I would like it if it required...

Metal/Steel (Building chassis and engines)
Plastics (Building interiors)
Glass (Duh? Windows)
Petrol (Not so important but needed to make vehicles leave the factory)
Batteries (A vehicle factory rarely makes their own)
Oil (Lubrication)

Most of those cargoes would be a requirement to manufacturing any type of vehicle. That is, you would need to suffer low output from all your primary industries until you have managed to supply the factory with almost all of the above which then gives you precious vehicles that will boost production.

There are some things that exist in ECS that i would like to have in FIRS as well, one of those things i would implement is the stockpile system of ECS.
And finally, i would make changes to OTTD code to allow more than 32 cargos. Hard limits are never fun in a sandbox game.

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Another GRF i would look into doing would be another Industrial Stations Renewal set which has stations that ONLY accept a certain type (or types) of cargo. Some station tiles will only load trains with say Coal while others will only allow unloading of coal.
Furthermore, the trains pathfinder would be aware of these stations and ONLY go to the platform that is appropriate for the cargo needing to be dropped off.

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And completely unrelated to GRF but still related to the above. I would make it so i could pick exactly what to load and what to unload via the ordering system.
That is, unload 500 tonnes of Coal into the station for later pickup (even if the industry next to it would accept the cargo, that is Transfer 500 tonnes of Coal) and deliver 200 tonnes of Coal to THAT industry. (Click the industry that is going to take the cargo.

And instead of CargoDist / YACD i would make it so you tell an industry how much you want it to produce every month and you buy the cargo off the industry. Then you can take that cargo wherever your network allows you to and sell it to an industry in need. Obviously picking the industry that will pay the most while being close enough for the effort.

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So there, i got some things off my chest.

Cadde wrote: Plastics (Building interiors)
Glass (Duh? Windows)
Batteries (A vehicle factory rarely makes their own)
Oil (Lubrication)

Those would all fit under "Manufacturing Supplies" in FIRS. I think the Machine Shop should accept Manufacturing Supplies.

Cadde wrote:Another GRF i would look into doing would be another Industrial Stations Renewal set which has stations that ONLY accept a certain type (or types) of cargo. Some station tiles will only load trains with say Coal while others will only allow unloading of coal.Furthermore, the trains pathfinder would be aware of these stations and ONLY go to the platform that is appropriate for the cargo needing to be dropped off.

That can be done with waypoints. Alternately, it would have to be hard-coded into the game, and it would probably be easier to implement a feature such as TTDPatch's conditional signals (eg: the signal only lets trains of Cargo=COAL and Load=FULL to pass)

Cadde wrote:And completely unrelated to GRF but still related to the above. I would make it so i could pick exactly what to load and what to unload via the ordering system.That is, unload 500 tonnes of Coal into the station for later pickup (even if the industry next to it would accept the cargo, that is Transfer 500 tonnes of Coal) and deliver 200 tonnes of Coal to THAT industry. (Click the industry that is going to take the cargo.And instead of CargoDist / YACD i would make it so you tell an industry how much you want it to produce every month and you buy the cargo off the industry. Then you can take that cargo wherever your network allows you to and sell it to an industry in need. Obviously picking the industry that will pay the most while being close enough for the effort.

IMO, there should be a similar thread to this but for patches. This one is about NewGRFs.



As for me, I would like a Full-width Bridge set. I could draw them, but I can't code it until NML supports bridges. Full width bridges would look much better in towns and where tehre are many bridges next to each other. I would also make the pillars such that you can place a road or track running parallel under the bridge, and it would look good if stackable/crossable bridges were ever implemented.

Cadde wrote: Also note that a Machine shop requires two types of cargo. Metal and Petrol... I would like it if it required...
Metal/Steel (Building chassis and engines)
Plastics (Building interiors)
Glass (Duh? Windows)
Petrol (Not so important but needed to make vehicles leave the factory)
Batteries (A vehicle factory rarely makes their own)
Oil (Lubrication)

(...)

And finally, i would make changes to OTTD code to allow more than 32 cargos. Hard limits are never fun in a sandbox game.

Both of that is currently way out of the NewGRF domain.

Btw, the game is full of hard limits: Map border in powers of two from 64 to 2048. Game date from 0 to 5000000. Only 4 climates. Only 16 height levels. Only 1x1, 1x2, 2x2 houses, only 64 concurrent industry types, only 64000 different vehicle models per category, only 16 railtypes,... only 2 road types, only 3 concurrent terrain types, only 1 million vehicles ingame, only 5000 vehicles per type and company, only 16 companies, only fixed tile size, only one rotation for the game board... but real life also: only so much CPU a player has at his disposal, only so much time and so many people working on extending things. It's *impossible* to have NO limits. The limits in games are always a trade-off between input of work, required hardware and playing fun added. Often the joy of games is in the way they're limited - but that's just my 2ct.

I would make a NewGRF that changes the dates airports are available, configurable via parameters. Something like: "City Airport Available: 1950", "International Airport Available: 1970", and so on.

Although it's way easier just to make a NewGRF with hardcoded values for airport introduction dates, and I've already done just that.

I would make industry called amusement park. It will product passengers and accept passengers too. Industry own graphic will be only main gate and central square.
Rides,parking lots and others can place as a Newobjects, so you can build what kind of amusement park you want.

Katve wrote:I would make industry called amusement park. It will product passengers and accept passengers too. Industry own graphic will be only main gate and central square.
Rides,parking lots and others can place as a Newobjects, so you can build what kind of amusement park you want.

like http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=51681 ?

Military Planes(eyecandy, already proposed actually)

Italian Trainset(many want it but nobody feels like doing it)

Swiss trains - currently stuck in development hell.

Italian Trains, French Trains would also be nice.

A nice station buildings set, especially something with something larger than 1x4 which is usually the biggest in any given set. Lots of Toronto Union Station, Montreal Gare Centrale and Prague Hlavni get monotonous after a while...

Suffian and/or Locanian trains =D

Alberth wrote:

Katve wrote:I would make industry called amusement park. It will product passengers and accept passengers too. Industry own graphic will be only main gate and central square.
Rides,parking lots and others can place as a Newobjects, so you can build what kind of amusement park you want.

like http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=51681 ?

Possibly also like http://www.tt-wiki.net/wiki/ECS_Town_Ve ... sts_centre

I'll made Middle Ages and Renaissance playable, or at least expand Sailing Ships, Early Rails and so on. And make industries profitables in those ages.

buckethead wrote:Military Planes(eyecandy, already proposed actually)

You can get the military jet and Apache chopper buildable in the Av8 pack.

That reminds me of how I want the Skyranger from X-COM, since it already makes a cameo. (only a single sprite though) And hell, maybe the UFOs too.

In fact, an AI 'competitor' that acts as a military, perhaps using particular industries, would be interesting.

...come to think of it, a War Economy would be perfect for this kind of game.

Except war is explicitly excluded in the OpenTTD objectives: http://wiki.openttd.org/Objectives

A objectives game and/or scenario.

Like in locomotion, you must do this this this
extras for this this and this.

Is that not implementable?

Alberth wrote:Except war is explicitly excluded in the OpenTTD objectives: http://wiki.openttd.org/Objectives

Ah, fair enough.

Though there's already the factory disaster (basically a terrorist attack) and X-COM blowin' up a UFO so it's not like TTD is a completely peaceful utopia in the first place, but their game, their rules.

thats very true.
heres an idea... more distasters? like minefields? so if the place youre building on is a mine, it blows up like a 4 x 4 area or something???

That might work better with ships.

Sabre_Justice wrote:

Alberth wrote:Except war is explicitly excluded in the OpenTTD objectives: http://wiki.openttd.org/Objectives

Ah, fair enough.

Though there's already the factory disaster (basically a terrorist attack) and X-COM blowin' up a UFO so it's not like TTD is a completely peaceful utopia in the first place, but their game, their rules.

We don't make the rules, just wanted to let you know about the OpenTTD objectives. If you want to make a war grf, I at least will not stop you. I think however it is easy to come up with a non-violent reason for increased production needs, such as 'booming economy'. That simply eliminates the need to drag 'war' into the game. We already have enough of those in the world, we don't need more.


At least the X-COM disaster was already in the original game, so before OpenTTD existed. Probably that holds for all disasters.
While they are not entirely peaceful (disasters never are, or they would not be called 'disaster'), Personally, I prefer keeping them as-is, rather removing them because someone may find them 'disturbing'. (We would need to remove accidents and train crashes as well then (much more even). That would enable removal of signals, and multiple platforms in stations. Also, no need to build elaborate train networks...Gosh, what a simple game ).

Alberth wrote:

Sabre_Justice wrote:

Alberth wrote:Except war is explicitly excluded in the OpenTTD objectives: http://wiki.openttd.org/Objectives

Ah, fair enough.

Though there's already the factory disaster (basically a terrorist attack) and X-COM blowin' up a UFO so it's not like TTD is a completely peaceful utopia in the first place, but their game, their rules.

We don't make the rules, just wanted to let you know about the OpenTTD objectives. If you want to make a war grf, I at least will not stop you. I think however it is easy to come up with a non-violent reason for increased production needs, such as 'booming economy'. That simply eliminates the need to drag 'war' into the game. We already have enough of those in the world, we don't need more.


At least the X-COM disaster was already in the original game, so before OpenTTD existed. Probably that holds for all disasters.
While they are not entirely peaceful (disasters never are, or they would not be called 'disaster'), Personally, I prefer keeping them as-is, rather removing them because someone may find them 'disturbing'. (We would need to remove accidents and train crashes as well then (much more even). That would enable removal of signals, and multiple platforms in stations. Also, no need to build elaborate train networks...Gosh, what a simple game ).

I'm pretty sure that's how most players played the game back in the day anyway.