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For PJ1K, I am for the first time using mathematical calculation to devise running and purchase costs for vehicles, instead of my old method of just making them up. Here's a graph chart of the running and purchase costs for the new UKRS.
Looks good, eh? And here, more interestingly, is a graph chart of the cost changes to NARS locomotives with the new cost formulae applied.
From this graph chart, we can see a few things (apart from the fact that NARS contains many more locomotives than the UKRS, so makes a bigger graph chart!):
- Diesel and electric locomotives are more expensive to buy, but running costs haven't changed much (the spread has widened: small locos cost less to run, big locos cost more). The RDC particularly has benefited from the new scheme.
- Early steam locomotives are slightly cheaper to buy and run, but the later large steam locomotives are now massively more expensive, possibly fatally so. I don't know if this is fixable; I've already given them as much of a bonus as I dare.
The problem is one of scale; the UK locomotives are just so much smaller and less powerful than the US ones. I guess only playtesting will show whether the largest NARS locomotives can still be useful.
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Might be looking at a public alpha soon to see if I'm on the right track. It's nowhere near properly playable yet though. :)
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271 * 9 02 00 00 01 01 00 00 00 00 // green
272 * 9 02 00 01 01 01 01 00 01 00 // panel
273 * 9 02 00 02 01 01 02 00 02 00 // blue
274 * 9 02 00 03 01 01 03 00 03 00 // ll
275 * 9 02 00 04 01 01 04 00 04 00 // tl
276 * 9 02 00 05 01 01 05 00 05 00 // ic
277 * 9 02 00 06 01 01 06 00 06 00 // ews
// graphics variations
// -> panel in 1964, panel if built after 1964
// -> blue in 1970 (2/4), -> blue in 1973 (1/4) (bits 0-1), blue if built after 1967
// -> LL in 1982 (1/2) (bit 2), LL if built after 1980
// -> TL in 1985 (freight non-LL), -> IC in 1986 (1/2 pax non-LL) (bit 3), TL/IC if built after 1985
// -> EWS after 1995 (1/2 freight) (bit 4), -> EWS after 2000 (1/2 freight), EWS if built after 1995
// -> LL if built after 2005
// =========== Green Paint 64 ============
278 * 22 02 00 64 85 1A 20 \w16071 \2- 92 00 FF FF 01 // 1964 service?
00 00 00 00 FF 7F // G
01 00 // P
// =========== Blue Paint 11 =============
279 * 22 02 00 70 85 1A 20 \w18262 \2- 92 00 FF FF 01 // 1970 service?
64 00 00 00 FF 7F // before paint date
02 00 // B
280 * 22 02 00 73 85 1A 20 \w19358 \2- 92 00 FF FF 01 // 1973 service?
64 00 00 00 FF 7F // before paint date
02 00 // B
281 * 15 02 00 11 80 00 00 04 70 00 73 00 64 00 70 00 // randomise B70, B73, G, B70
282 * 17 02 00 11 85 49 00 FF FF 01 // year built
11 00 \w0 \w1966
02 00 // B
// ============ LL/TL/IC Paint 12 ==========
283 * 22 02 00 82 85 1A 20 \w22645 \2- 92 00 FF FF 01 // 1982 service?
11 00 00 00 FF 7F // before paint date
03 00 // LL
284 * 22 02 00 85 85 1A 20 \w23741 \2- 92 00 FF FF 01 // 1985 service?
11 00 00 00 FF 7F // before paint date
04 00 // TL
285 * 22 02 00 86 85 1A 20 \w24106 \2- 92 00 FF FF 01 // 1986 service?
11 00 00 00 FF 7F // before paint date
05 00 // IC
286 * 11 02 00 86 80 00 03 02 86 00 11 00 // randomise IC or B
287 * 14 02 00 22 81 42 00 01 01 // pax or freight
86 00 01 01
85 00
288 * 11 02 00 12 80 00 02 02 82 00 22 00 // randomise LL or TL/IC
289 * 14 02 00 22 81 42 00 01 01 // pax or freight
05 00 01 01 // IC
04 00 // TL
290 * 23 02 00 12 85 49 00 FF FF 02 // year built
12 00 \w0 \w1979
03 00 \w1980 \w1984 // LL
22 00
// =========== EWS Paint 13 ================
291 * 22 02 00 15 85 1A 20 \w27395 \2- 92 00 FF FF 01 // 1995 service?
12 00 00 00 FF 7F // before paint date
06 00 // EWS
292 * 22 02 00 05 85 1A 20 \w29220 \2- 92 00 FF FF 01 // 2000 service?
12 00 00 00 FF 7F // before paint date
06 00 // EWS
293 * 11 02 00 13 80 00 04 02 05 00 15 00 // randomise EWS paint year
294 * 14 02 00 13 81 42 00 01 01 // pax or freight
12 00 01 01
13 00
295 * 23 02 00 13 85 49 00 FF FF 02 // year built
13 00 \w0 \w1994
06 00 \w1995 \w2004 // EWS
03 00 // LL
// ======================================
296 * 35 02 00 AA 85 24 00 FF FF 04 // what year?
00 00 \w0 \w1963
64 00 \w1964 \w1966
11 00 \w1967 \w1979
12 00 \w1980 \w1994
13 00
// buy menu graphics
297 * 41 02 00 CC 85 24 00 FF FF 05 // what year?
00 00 \w0 \w1963
01 00 \w1964 \w1966
02 00 \w1967 \w1979
04 00 \w1985 \w1994
06 00 \w1995 \w2004
03 00
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Oh my! The time has come for Av8 1.5!
Additions:
- Added Lockheed L100 Hercules.
Statistic changes:
- Variable running costs implemented. Aircraft are now cheaper to run when on the ground and when fitted to cargo and flying empty, and more expensive when taking off or broken down.
- Running cost base doubled.
- aircraft with generational graphics (737, 747 and DC-10) now have variable purchase cost, running cost and pax capacity. (Note that capacity changes on purchase are not supported in either game yet).
- 737, 747, Dash-8, and ATR no longer expire. Increased model life on DC-3 and DC-10.
- balance tweak: decrease in cargo/mail capacity of large aircraft.
- balance tweak: increase in purchase price of large aircraft.
- balance tweak: decrease in running cost of smaller/slower aircraft and helicopters.
Cargo changes:
- Airship, DC-3, Stratocruiser, L-188, RJ, and 747 can now carry all cargos.
- Added cargo liveries for the DC-3, Stratocruiser, L-188 and RJ.
GRF loading changes:
- Disabled the optional aircraft (BAC 1-11, F100, ATR-72 and A340) in OTTD if multiple engine sets are allowed. OTTD users will get a new addon grf containing the extra aircraft.
- Added a check for conflicting grfs (planeset) if multiple engine sets are allowed, and a parameter to disable the check.
You can download the grfs from the website here. I will upload to bananas as soon as I'm satisfied I haven't left in any glaring bugs. :) Enjoy, feedback here or in the forum thread is welcome!
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You may or may not have read my scheme for newgrf airports that I posted recently.
I've been musing about it a bit more, and I've come up with some ideas for shared airports.
Currently, aside from the technical details of actually coding it, there are a few gameplay obstacles people have tripped over. Not least, why would anyone want to allow other players to send aircraft to their airports? How do you stop abuse? If we go for "neutral", town-owned airports, how do you get the town to build airports sensibly?
So, here's my solution!
Firstly, how do you make people want to share their airports? Answer: you don't give them a choice. ;) Whether an airport is private or public should be a property of the airport type itself. This is, actually, fairly realistic (HI BELUGAS): a local authority isn't going to let you bulldoze half the town to build a shiny new passenger airport, and then keep it all to yourself.
Private airports would still exist, but they would be mostly smaller and have fewer or less shiny facilities. If you want to build a major airline hub, you have to be prepared to share it.
So, you've built a public airport. What happens now?
- Other players can give their aircraft orders to land at your airport.
- There are limits (non-player-adjustable) on how many "foreign" aircraft may include the airport in their order list; both a total limit, and a limit per company.
- No aircraft, either foreign or company, can be stopped on a public airport apron.
- Foreign aircraft pay landing (a fixed amount per landing, plus a variable based on capacity) and terminal (a % of income) fees to the airport owner. These numbers may vary during gameplay depending on how busy the airport is (more foreign aircraft = higher fees).
- Foreign aircraft will get booted off the field if they wait too long for cargo.
- Public airports can only be demolished or downgraded (ie, overbuilt with an airport that's not in a grf-defined "safe" upgrade list) with the permission of all companies whose aircraft use the airport.
Other limitations (certain bays being foreign or company only, no hangar service for foreign aircraft) would be achievable via the state machine callback. Isn't the state machine callback awesome? ;)
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New av8 is coming! There are a number of new freight liveries, and a handful of aircraft (Airship, DC3, Stratocruiser, L-188, 747, Chinook, and RJ) are being allowed to carry all cargos. There will also possibly be a new, freight-only aircraft making an appearance. ;)
The core of the update, however, are new variable stats. These include a variable running cost module, and generational stat changes for the aircraft with generational graphics (currently the 737, 747 and DC-10).
( The running cost module, if anyone's interested )
This is just pretty basic variable costs. To do anything really snazzy, I'd need persistent storage variables on the aircraft (hint hint). :)
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I thought I'd outline the design process for the variable running costs in NARS, and some thoughts for expanding variable running costs to other transport types.
The point of any new feature in TTD should be to make the game more interesting and playable, rather than just adding a feature for the sake of it. Thus, I had some goals in mind when adding the variable costs to NARS. My main two aims were;
- Reducing the revenue from high-capacity, high speed trains, but without making slow or short trains completely unprofitable.
- Making upgrading more desirable, but without making early trains too expensive or late trains too cheap.
The first point I addressed by making trains cost more while moving than while stationary. The second point was addressed by making locomotives more expensive as they age, and making the base cost of each technology (steam and diesel) increase over time.  The graph shows the running cost of a new vehicle in each year. You will notice, for example, that the SD40-2 is cheaper than the Consolidation in 1970. However, in 1940, the Consolidation was considerably cheaper. The third, and possibly most important, goal is that the technical aspects of the variable running costs should be invisible to the average player - that is, people should be able to just build and run their trains as they always have in TTD. The changes should be enriching but not intrusive. So, the next challenge is applying this to other vehicle types. For road vehicles, I think the mix will be much the same as for trains. But for ships and aircraft, the challenges are different. Ships: - Ships generally have a large cargo capacity and a slow maximum speed
- Sail, steam, diesel - each technology requires fewer crew, but more fuel
- Sail/steam hybrid?
My feeling at the moment is that fuel costs are fairly constant while the ship is moving and 0 when the ship is stationary, while labour costs do not reduce so much. Thus a diesel ship, with a small crew, has almost no running costs while loading, while a sailing ship's costs are reduced only by half or so. The reduced running costs while loading should allow ships to have realistically high capacities and costs, while not losing too much money due to long loading times. In the case of steam and - particularly - sail, labour costs will increase when that technology becomes obsolete, and employing people with the required skills becomes harder. Aircraft: The major challenge with aircraft is making smaller planes and cargo aircraft more attractive. While variable costs will go a way towards this (and will certainly help with cargo planes, which can be made to be cheaper to run in general), I think a real solution can only be found through new airports (more varieties of smaller airports, and larger airports much, much more expensive to build) and town building sets (towns with smaller populations, where large aircraft would not be able to find a full load). The town side of things I am currently working on. The new airports will hopefully come when newairports hits trunk in OTTD. Thoughts, anyone? Incidentally, the technical specs and subroutines for the variable running costs in NARS are available if anyone wants to use them in their own sets.
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I'm sure anyone who reads this also reads the forums, so knows this already, but NARS2 has been released. You can find it here.
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See http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=37717
(note: var numbers are just for easy reference during the discussion)
- 40 W
Year built (long format)
- 41 B
direction of bridge
0 if /-direction, 1 if \-direction
- 42 B
Bridge head information
1 = south end sloped, 2 = north end sloped, 10 = south end advanced, 20 = north end advanced
- 43 B
Type of bridge (rail electrified monorail maglev road)
- 44 B Tt
Land use under bridge
- t ; terrain type, as for canals var 81
- T ; 0 = rail, 1 = road, (more?)
- 45 D Hhbbaall
Length, height, position
- ll ; length of the bridge
- aa ; distance of this tile from the lower end
- bb ; distance of this tile from the upper end
- h ; height of this tile above the ground/water
- H ; height of highest tile above the ground/water
- 46 B
Terrain slope, as for ss in industry tile var 60
- 47 B
Owner/Builder, as for industry var A7
- 48 B
Colour scheme (of owner), as for Cc in vehicle var 43
- 49 B
A random byte. (Access random byte of (top? bottom?) bridgehead with type 82?)
Callbacks;
- Allow/disallow building the bridge; if any tile returns non-0, show D0 text as error
- Change speed limit
- Allow/disallow terraforming under the bridgetile
- Allow/disallow building (road/rail/canal) under the bridgetile
Thoughts?
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What with the new Dynamic Engine Pool (strange name?) feature in OTTD, one day it may be possible to run UKRS and NARS at the same time.
It struck me that UKRS is actually drawn to a larger scale than NARS; it's a little like the situation with HO/OO in model railways. The models are all the same size, but the prototypes are not.
So, what would the UKRS look like if it were drawn to the same "HO" scale as NARS?
Something to muse on - in case you can't tell, the locos from top to bottom are the current UKRS 2-8-0, the NARS 2-8-0, and the UKRS 2-8-0 redrawn.
Of course, if you're using the UKRS on its own, you might want the larger, "OO" sprites. So does that mean if I update UKRS everything will need to be drawn twice? 
---
A side effect of this is that I decided NARS might look better with narrower gauge track (and if I make an "HO" UKRS, that will definitely need a narrower gauge). So I'm currently taking the tracks from Pineapple Land, and making a seperate grf out of them for all three standard climates. This grf will also be included in its entirety in NARS, with a grf parameter to activate it.
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Suburban Renewal has been updated. You can download it from the grf list at the top of my LJ.
Two bugs have been fixed; one of the buildings would also clear the tile next to it when destroyed, and the towns would refuse to demolish buildings to build banks.
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I've been doing the futuristic fuel-cell locomotives for NARS. The freight locos were reasonably easy; chassis and body based on the GP60, with a retro-style cab based on the F Unit.
These locomotives are not actually that good, performance-wise - they're roughly the equivalent of the GP38-2 and SD40-2. But by the time of their introduction they are much more cost-effective than the big diesels of the turn of the century. I think they balance quite nicely.
The express passenger locomotive was a bit of a conundrum. Originally, I'd planned to have two different locomotives; a single loco to replace the F59 and Genesis (with graphics based on the F59), and a dualhead trainset to replace the JetTrain and Acelas (with graphics based on the Acela).
However, I decided that two locomotives would be a bit superflous, and also we don't have the Acela drawn yet. So I have settled on a compromise; a dualheaded trainset-style locomotive, but one that can haul either standard stock or bilevels. I couldn't make an F59-based locomotive look individual and futuristic enough, so I drew an entirely new locomotive.
What do you think? It's based on the "duckbill" style seen in some Shinkansen and in the latest Spanish Talgo model, but a little too outlandish for North America, perhaps? :)
Edit: Shortened the noses so the loco is only 7/8.
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"Fans" of the way the maglev was coded in the original NARS (every vehicle a locomotive) or in the UKRS (articulated sets of 6 cars) will be glad to hear that the new NARS has traditional loco+carriage maglevs.
You still can't use it to haul coal, though. ;)
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The UKRS Brick Chain has been updated with a new layout for the quarries. They should now be much easier to generate in OTTD or on flat maps.
Suburban Renewal now has its own page on the wiki.
In other news, work continues on NARS... slowly... :P
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Modified Building Costs now has a wiki page, which also includes a new grf-of-evil, pb_bridg.grf. Check it out! :D
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av8 is now updated to 1.33. Hopefully this one will be stable for a while now.
Changes from 1.20 include the new optional aircraft, some stats tweaking, some code so that planes taking off from high airports level out at the top of their climb (instead of skidding along nose-up like they used to), and most importantly, some cb36 code which prevents the variable speed callback interfering with other properties.
Get it from the usual place.
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Reworked A320. The old one was the first aircraft I made, and was not very good compared to later ones.
BAC 1-11. This plane was in the original TT vehicle set. In av8 it will be an optional aircraft in the DC9 slot.
Fokker F100, another TT original aircraft and one that has been requested on the forums. Optional replacement in the BAe 146 slot.
I'm also doing a lot of work on NARS lately, with Dan. My latest triumph (although I'm not sure it's been entirely worth the work!) is a genuinely tilting UAC TurboTrain.  The process for making these sprites was interesting. Basically, I made a very simple 3d model, applied Dan's original Turbotrain sprites as a texture, and rendered it using the av8 lighting rig. This gave me the basic shape and shading at all the funny angles required for a tilting train (the resultant sprites did, however, need a lot of cleaning up before they looked as good as hand-drawn sprites in TTD). The rendering process also showed up the whacky errors of perspective that exist in TTD - to make the rendered sprites fit the usual bounding boxes, I had to squash the model to 75% in length in the diagonal views.
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