Help box in open TTD

[unrealapoorv]

Well...in my openTTD i really get confused with signals. is there a way by which if i put my cursor on one signal icon a mini help box pops up to tell me in brief what that type of signal does?
i have seen it on many youtube videos but i wasnt able to find that in setting. please help

[planetmaker]

Well...in my openTTD i really get confused with signals. is there a way by which if i put my cursor on one signal icon a mini help box pops up to tell me in brief what that type of signal does?
i have seen it on many youtube videos but i wasnt able to find that in setting. please help

That usually happens if you hover over the signal in the signal selection dialogue. If that doesn't work, you might try right click (as it can be changed to that in the adv. settings)

Also see our wiki for an explanation on the signal types and their usage.

[Andrex]

I agree that the new signal placing GUI is a step back compared to TTDPatch, where you simply clicked holding CTRL over the placed signal to change its type. It was so easy and simple.

The new signal GUI should definitely come disabled by default.

Also, the default signal type should be left as Block signals, like in the original TTD. We should create a poll to see what switches to enable by default, not all of them are 100% convenient for everyone.

[planetmaker]

I agree that the new signal placing GUI is a step back compared to TTDPatch, where you simply clicked holding CTRL over the placed signal to change its type. It was so easy and simple.

The new signal GUI should definitely come disabled by default.

Did you ever *play* the game or try a thing or look at the manual or help texts before you jump to any wild conclusions? Please do your homework!

Note that you can build one way pre-signals in the same way as you build ordinary one way signals. Remember: holding Ctrl and clicking toggles the type of (pre)signal, clicking without Ctrl changes the direction of signaling - if interface signals not enabled.

(emphasis mine)

[Andrex]

Planetmaker, I played the game for years since TT, then TTD, and then TTDpatch until 2007. I simply find no reason to enable as default every single new option available in OTTD.

I understand that stuff like more airport types are a great feature that must be enabled by default, but signals with a new GUI? Sorry, last time I checked I still had a keyboard with a working CTRL key. And I'm not reading the manual just to switch back features as they were in TTDPatch, beacuse it is frustrating.

[planetmaker]

Yes. And the point is: You did not even try. It works to change signals by ctrl+click without any change to any defaults in OpenTTD. Additionally, you can define the default signal type just fine in the advanced settings, choosing between block signal, path signal and one-way path signal. Default signal is a path signal, but that doesn't change the ctrl-click cycling behaviour.

So please don't come and go and complain if you haven't actually tried yourself! You would otherwise have seen quickly how pointless this complaint is.

[Eddi]

With all due respect, you are not the average user. the average user is (meanwhile) someone who never played TTDPatch. and defaults should cater to the average user's needs. for your special needs, there are settings.

[Andrex]

With all due respect, you are not the average user. the average user is (meanwhile) someone who never played TTDPatch. and defaults should cater to the average user's needs. for your special needs, there are settings.

I agree with the changes pointing to the average/new user, I have nothing against them.

At the same time, my "special" needs were simple, a smooth transition between TTDP 2.5b and OTTD 1.3.3. Failure to import my games and wrong palette issues have pissed me off too much, so I'll better stay away from the forum until I start a new OTTD game and explore the entire settings dialog from top to bottom. I'm sure everything can be set as in TTDP, like planetmaker said. Thanks for your consideration.

[Rubidium]

Planetmaker, I played the game for years since TT, then TTD, and then TTDpatch until 2007. I simply find no reason to enable as default every single new option available in OTTD.

I see no reason why people that are new to the game need to figure out that there is an option that shows them all the signal types that exist and allows them to choose one. An user interface that has tooltips that roughly explains what the signals do.

That a more advanced user might want to disable it, is something totally different. Mostly because an advanced user is more likely to have an understanding of the different signals and a such can configure the default signal that (s)he wants to use.

To be honest, there are many original TTD "features" that are not even possible anymore in OpenTTD. Even with the appropriate settings.

Even then, for everything that makes sense to enable by default, we will enable it by default. Other stuff we won't enable by default, e.g. NewGRF debugging tools and cargodistribution. If it doesn't make sense to be able to disable a feature, or allowing to disable it is going to be a huge pain in the proverbial arse, then we will even consider not making it a feature that can be turned off, e.g. money overflows when you make a lot of money, or getting money for building a tunnel.

Also, TTDpatch savegames are explicitly not supported by OpenTTD. OpenTTD only supports original Transport Tycoon and Transport Tycoon Deluxe savegames. There are some attempts to do something reasonable with TTDpatch savegames, but that is best effort and any bugs in that are of very low priority.

Finally, why does your beloved TTDpatch even default the win2k setting to in the DOS binary. It makes absolutely no sense at all; it doesn't make it work any better on win2k, especially since it does not work under the DOS binary at all... though the setting implies it would.