Cindini Release 3 featuring FIRS

[kamnet]

I am going to take on the daunting task of updating the famous and ever-popular Cindini Release 3 scenario with the famous and ever-popular FIRS industry set.

This post will be the overall main information post, and will link to updates that will be posted as time goes on.

BASIC FILES FOR PLAYERS TO EDIT THEMSELVES

• Cindini 3 heightmap. Only the basic height map with no infrastructure, industries or NewGRFs added.
• Cindini 3 f/ FIRS Tropical Basic r1. This file ONLY contains the FIRS 1.3.0 NewGRF. Players will need to add their own NewGRFs to make the scenario playable.

FULL, READY-TO-PLAY RELEASES

• Cindini 3 featuring FIRS Tropical Basic V1

[kamnet]

With initial information post out of the way, let's talk shop.

I am going to develop this initially using FIRS Tropical Basic economy, since it is closest to the default OpenTTD economy. Later I will revamp the map again and release it using the Heart of Darkness economy. I'll also consider releasing using OpenGFX+ Industries and ECS. Others too as they come along, but right now I'm focusing on FIRS.

When Cindini 3 was released it did not come with any NewGRFs at all, because players could automatically load NewGRFs, even straight from a live game. You can't do that anymore, and because of that many new players are confused when it comes to expanding their options. I will offer the scenarios with just FIRS added so people can add their own, but I will also release versions that include other NewGRFs so that players who don't know how to enable NewGRFs can just download and go. To that effect, I will likely release them with at least Andythenorth's Squid ship set, as well as OpenGFX+ RV, OpenGFX+ Trains, OpenGFX+ Airports and OpenGFX+ Landscape.

Some other NewGRFs I will also consider, possibly as additional scenario releases, include:

• Stations: CHIPS, Tropical Stations 2, Industrial Stations Renewal, NewStations v0.6, Modern Train Stations.
• Vehicles: eGRVTS 2, possibly a tram set of some sort.
• Trains: 2cc Trains of the World (either original or NML).
• Airplanes: AV8 or AV9, World Airliner Set.
• Objects: VAST, ISR/DWE, MariCo, Lighthouse Set, Beach Objects, Fake Bridges.

Does anybody have suggestions for other NewGRFs that wold appeal to most players?

[romazoon]

Hey Kamnet,

It s a nice idea, i m supporting you in it !

If i may, i would advise you to directly make the "hearth of darkness" version, because as you mentioned it, the tropical basic will be the closest to the original industry...so i don t see what the interest in doing such a "long" work, for just a little difference in the end.

I understand placing more variety of industry will make more work for you, but Cindini is a map that litterally need ages to fill up, and to keep the players interested variety is the best i know. Cindini is probably not the kind of scenario where people are going to try to make all coal arrive to one power plant but more the kind of scenario where you want the most eyecandy network possible, wich variety and difficulty brings with all those different cargo.

about other newgrfs, for vehicles, i would advise you to include Ikarus bus set, the German RV set, and eventually the hungarian truck set to have more diversity. I also think that Longvehicle could be nice on Cindini (and the overtaking capacities of this last set is a must on the very long Cindini's highways). with those previous grf included you can even get ride of EGRVTS if you like. LRVS or another kind of small road vehicule set would be nice to have too for all the small delivery FIRS implies)....and small vehicles makes me think you can t go play out in the sandbox without HEQS, and Cindini is a big sandbox !
I know that s a lot of vehicule, but there is lots of highways and road in Cindini, it would be boring to always see the same vehicles

for trains, 2cc is a very good choice.

for trains stations : i wish you would add more ! I have in mind : dutch station (the original + add on), japanese station v3.5, DWE stations are the first coming to my mind.

in newobject, there is SNO = Supercheese's new object, bringing some birds (great for every harbour or even in the open sea), VAST fence can be usefull too

and what about buildings ? are you planning to stay with the originals ones ? swedish house mixed with the japan set looks great, there is not huge skycrapers everywhere cause they are limited in the japan set and swedish house don t bring big skycrapers, i guess more building set would even be cooler but i don t know wich (please avoid TTRS and north american, we can t see the streets with those grf)

I m also hoping you plan to select a new road grf, and a compatible bridge set

And btw if you need help for building the scenario, advice or just chatting about your project i m here, i believe i could bring you experience from a big multiplayer game i had on Cindini 2.0.

Edit : also do you maybe thought to add a script ? like neighboors are important ,i t could make sure not every town will grow as big as Capitola....and will make it quite challenging to meet the demand to make grow those huge cities ....it s just an idea, it s stilll maybe need to be tried first...adding script to this scenario might mess things up.

[kamnet]

A great point about the long highways. I agree, you pretty much have to consider Long Vehicles as a must here. I might also give either Light Road Vehicle Set or North American Road Vehicle Set a go as well.

I'm waffling on building sets, because to be really honest I think the most outstanding feature of Cindini is how gorgeous all the towns look with the default tropical buildings. In a way I wished FIRS tropical could match it as well.

As for FIRS, yes I will be doing Heart of Darkness, but I'm doing basic first because I want to try to match placement of the original industries. After placing that and playing a few games, I will have a better idea of where to place the more advanced FIRS industries.

I've not made up my mind on a road or bridge set yet. I don't want to go TOO overboard here. But the opportunity to make all kinds of eyecandy improvements is just so tempting!

[te_lanus]

I'll also back the idea of using a script to inhibit towns from exxecive growth.

[planetmaker]

there's also keoz' city growth script. Might be interesting, it's especially geared towards usage with FIRS.

Do your customers the favour and make sure that everything needed to load the map can be gotten from the fruit store (exact same versions). You can set them as dependencies then using the musa upload tool.

[romazoon]

well you have time to choose a building set and actually personnally i will probably be interested in the FIRS version only...in order to make my custom grf list so forget my advices

Good luck with the work ahead of you

[kamnet]

there's also keoz' city growth script. Might be interesting, it's especially geared towards usage with FIRS.

Oh yeah I forgot to address the game scripts. I suppose I got some work ahead of me, but yep this will make things interesting as well. Any reason why Renewed City Growth would be better than Neighbors Are Important?

Do your customers the favour and make sure that everything needed to load the map can be gotten from the fruit store (exact same versions). You can set them as dependencies then using the musa upload tool.

For the versions I upload to BaNaNaS, absolutely. The basic scenarios for sure will go up. If I decide to make a scenario using only NewGRFs found on forums (especially if they're not linked to via GRFCrawler) then I'll just leave them here. I've never used musa before. Can't you set dependencies in the Web interface?

[planetmaker]

Can't you set dependencies in the Web interface?

Yes... but maybe not as detailed or as many as you probably will need in this case.

[keoz]

Any reason why Renewed City Growth would be better than Neighbors Are Important?

I couldn't exactly answer to this question, since I never really tried to play with NaI.

The only thing I'd like to say: in case you plan to include my city growth script, it'd be better avoid the last - so called - "stable" version 2 and wait that version 3 comes out on bananas. I recently made a lot of major changes and bugfixes. The development version is now feature-freezed, in order to spot out all possible remaining bugs. Hence, if you want try it out, its better you use the last revision.

[Gigigonzalez]

I wonder if a cincini kind of height map can be created with some program like World Machine. It looks so beautiful

[kamnet]

I wonder if a cincini kind of height map can be created with some program like World Machine. It looks so beautiful

Here you go!

[romazoon]

on the subject of scripts, an argument in favor of keoz one i believe could be that it only activate on towns/city you are actually serving, on contrary neigbours are important will set the script for each town even if not served. So i believe NAI might bring some lag on such a heavy map right from the beginning, while Keoz script might be able to keep player entairtained for long (until script becomes too slow too). but i m no programmer, so please hit the reply button if my logic is wrong

[romazoon]

Hey guys !

Found some time to work on your "little" project concerning Cindini with FIRS. here are the result so far.

here is Cindini (based on 3.02) without any industry. Usefull if you want to load the industry grf of your choice (reserved to "scenario maker" though").

CINDINI 3.02 (Without Industry).scn

(5.54 MiB) Downloaded 142 times

and here is a test version, with FIRS industry 1.3.0 (randomly built) and the renewed city growth script (v4 i believe) from Keoz.

CINDINI 3.02 (With FIRS+RCG script-TEST).scn

(5.7 MiB) Downloaded 129 times

I briefly tried the last, and i noticed that the pause stayed really long at the begin of game, probably the script working at the begin, but then game eventually start after a minut, eventually a couple minuts (i started building ingame so i havent really checked that precisely).

On the matter of conflict with industry grf modification, well i haven t spotted a problem yet, and only thing to notice is that desert town now seems to need goods instead of water...but that s probably irrelevant as the RCG script is now controlling growth.

Also, beware industry placement is really ugly compared to what the original Cindini Scenario can propose...but this is just a test so far.

[keoz]

On the matter of conflict with industry grf modification, well i haven t spotted a problem yet, and only thing to notice is that desert town now seems to need goods instead of water...but that s probably irrelevant as the RCG script is now controlling growth.

Care. There is a problem about that matter, which has been reported recently.

RCG does controls growth in deserts, but there is a problem, since the water and food requirement isn't disabled as it should. The result is that water/food is needed to allow growth, AND food/goods is needed to increase growth. I'm gonna work on this but for now (next planned on todo list), it's still a problem.

[romazoon]

thanks Keoz for the warning, i have checked in game, and yes you are right there is a small bug. even with RCG script, it s needed to deliver every month some goods(instead of water) and food.
Now i even see town growth activated on some desert town where i deliver food+goods but not the needed raw industrial goods and the tr.industrial goods. This probably mean that we can t use Keoz script for a remake of Cindini (as of now)...

I ll give a shot to NAI and SyCity growth when i find some more time.

[keoz]

Now i even see town growth activated on some desert town where i deliver food+goods but not the needed raw industrial goods and the tr.industrial goods. This probably mean that we can t use Keoz script for a remake of Cindini (as of now)...

Still care: the sign-text (the little text under town name) shows a positive growth rate, but if you open the town window, normally it says that town is not growing. Hence the confusion

Normally the bug should be easy to deal with and I think I already found the solution. Just need to find some time to implement but atm I'm completely overwhelmed by work...

Maybee next weekend.

[romazoon]

well yes surely the monthly delivery is not a huge bug, i could totally play with that.

Though, i feel more concerned to see that desert town can grow even though i only deliver food+goods but not the other required cargo (see screenie). I am maybe missing something on how RCG works, i supose that it s needed to deliver all what is required to activate growth (and not just to increase growth) if i understood well how RCG works with the desert bug, the bug would make "desert" town easier to grow than a "grassland" town wich would require all sort of stuff to grow since the bug would not show in that case... i m just suposing though...the grassland town might be bugged too, i haven t tried yet.

I think the best script for Cindini would activate growth only if required amount is delivered (with stockpile or without), this way player can easily make stop grow a town and keep it looking like a charming little town, a medium sized town, or to decide to make that village become a huge city.
I know Sycity could do the trick, but it can be hard to keep small village with Sycity if you also want to be able to make grow very big cities (the % of people transported need to be on easy to make grow big cities, but that make villages grow to easily even if bus/mail service s poor.)
I guess NAI will be my next try, because i know it works well for that kind of gameplay, and used it already a few times, i will desactivate the neighbour effect though because it makes things just too hard. will report when im done.

And Keoz, thanks for your input and take your time, i think monthes will passes before a nice version of that scenario comes out with Firs industry "nicely placed" (the random placement is, well, random ). and script will be added definitly once the industry job is done (and i presume many hours of work fot it)

[Sylf]

FYI, FIRS disable water completely in subtropic map. Goods takes over the water requirements. This happens before any game script starts controlling the growth of the cities.

[romazoon]

thanks Sylf, i m aware of that.