Trains, planes and stubbornness! (And a couple of questions)

[Aotrs Commander]

I have played TT a few times over the years (my DOS version, of the original, I think - it has the map editor and the Mars graphics anyway - was one the my earlest PC games). I last played when OpenTTD was version 0.5, so quite a while ago!

I picked it up again last month, as I really wanted to play a game that was immersive, but didn't require thinking too hard (when you're only playing in the very shallowest end of the potential depth of detail OpenTTD has!) and required a minimum of interaction with even digital people (I was having a bad week.) I downloaded the latest version, and several newGRfs which sounded jolly from the in-game downloader (bananas, is it?) including FIRS and eGRVTS (version 1, because I didn't know to check the forums for the newest version! For future reference, I've now got version 2 for other games, though that doesn't affect my current game - and while reading these forums is seems it might be possible to implement it in my current game, it's probably not worth the hassle!)

Anyway, I set myself up in the scenario editor (foolishly as it turned out) on a map that was rather too small (256x512) and far too sparsely populated with towns and industries. (For about half the game, there were several industry chains I just couldn't use...!) I started in 1835 (after several abortive attempts to start earlier, because that was when the first trains showed up; and even then it took me several attempts to work out why I couldn't get the horse carriages to work in normal, nondrive-through stations...! *facepalm*), and have been playing solidly since. Part of it is sheer bloody-mindedness (I have never managed to complete a TT game yet); despite what has turned out to be a lousy starting set-up, I'm determined to get to 2050 this time! (I'm now over half way there in the mid 1980s.)

It's been a learning experience, and I've spent a good chunk of my time reading the the wiki or perusing these forums. I've learnt a lot of new things - shared orders, vehicle groups, signals; the latter of which, I admit, mostly simply completely pass my understanding, despite all the wiki information! My trains tend to run from one destination to another and that's it... I'm not really a big train person, I just like the building-y, construction-y side of the game really, so most of all the advanced train running-gizmos most of you, I suspect, play for are simply wasted on me...!

I've also learnt that inflation+really long game is absolute murder on running costs, especially when you're on a confined map with a fairly small number of industries (even after the new ones built in 150-odd years), double-especially for trains when you can thus only build some medium-length routes because of the map size and the fact that the industries are kinda poorly placed...! I probably won't run with that on again, and maybe not breakdowns either next time - but the aforementioned sheer bloody-mindedness is forcing me to keep going with this game until the bitter end!

(I have added a few things, though, like buying new primary industries, and buying out competitors, since I started, when I found out about them! Construction while paused is such a wonderful improvement over earlier versions, as I can take all the time I want to carefully build my (primitive!) routes.)

I've looked at all those really nice, complicated and head-asploding junctions in the wiki - most of which passes right over my head! - and thought "yeah, I don't think I have room to build a train network like that on this map, even if I could get my head round it..." It's actually a fairly novel experience for me to be able to look at something and go "nope, not a fraggin' clue!"

(If anyone feels like a bit of a laugh, I can upload a save file and you can do yourselves a mischief laughing at my rank amateurism...!)



So, coming to a sort of point: a couple of quick questions - mainly pertaining to next time I actually play. The wiki has not been forthcoming on these particular queries.

After my last debacle with the scenario editor* (where, having experimented with various New Game options, I woefully under-stocked the world with towns and industries), what I'd like to be able to do is randomly generate a map, as in the New Game, and then edit it a bit (add/remove a few industries/towns etc). I know you can add toens/industries that with the "many random town/random industry" buttons, but as I did that last time, it's not clear how much a click on them provides, or how many times I should be using it on a map to get a reasonable result. So ideally, I'd like to generate a random map and then fine-tune it, and let the world generator do 90% of the lifting. Is there, then, a way to do this? I.e., say, take a New Game map and then edit it with the scenario editor? (Or, on the editor, on the new scenario options, the town and industry settings are disabled. Is there a way or a method or enabling them?) Is that possible?

Failing that, a good rule of thumb like "if you're playing on a 1024² map, start off clicking 'randomise many towns/industries' about [x] times and that gives you the right order of magnitude" would be extremely useful!



Secondly: vehicle prototypes. What (if anything) happens if you decline the offer? I know if you accept it and don't build it, you don't get offered and new protoypes for five years (and, we have discovered, that means "have one built when the vehicle becomes available, not just build one and then immediately sell it...!"), but what happens if you just say "no, ta" the first time? Does that prevent you from getting any more prototype offers?

(In my current game, the aforementioned stubborness and self-inflicted rules say: "thou shalt say "yes" and find somewhere to use that vehicle for a year; excepting if it art an armoured van, because thou hast only one scrap yard and the nearest excepting source is the other side of the map, and it is not practical to transport via road, so that shalt build a van, give it orders to go to two stations and leave it in the depot for one year...")

Any insight into either of these queries would be appreciated!



*I just like playing with scenario editors almost as much as playing the games that result from them, as almost every Civ IV game - and TT game - I've ever played will attest to!

[Supercheese]

After my last debacle with the scenario editor* (where, having experimented with various New Game options, I woefully under-stocked the world with towns and industries), what I'd like to be able to do is randomly generate a map, as in the New Game, and then edit it a bit (add/remove a few industries/towns etc). I know you can add toens/industries that with the "many random town/random industry" buttons, but as I did that last time, it's not clear how much a click on them provides, or how many times I should be using it on a map to get a reasonable result. So ideally, I'd like to generate a random map and then fine-tune it, and let the world generator do 90% of the lifting. Is there, then, a way to do this? I.e., say, take a New Game map and then edit it with the scenario editor? (Or, on the editor, on the new scenario options, the town and industry settings are disabled. Is there a way or a method or enabling them?) Is that possible?

Yes, that is indeed possible and is quite easy; once you have the new game you'd like to edit, follow these instructions: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 5#p1034837

[Aotrs Commander]

Yes, that is indeed possible and is quite easy; once you have the new game you'd like to edit, follow these instructions: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 5#p1034837

Wow. That's considerably easier than I might have expected! Thanks!

[Supercheese]

Wow. That's considerably easier than I might have expected! Thanks!

You're quite welcome.

[Eddi]

and while reading these forums is seems it might be possible to implement it in my current game, it's probably not worth the hassle!

i think you should get some sort of award for this sentence


Anyway, concerning prototype offers: no, there is absolutely no penalty for declining a prototype, the vehicle will just appear one year later and you still get offers for other prototypes.

[Aotrs Commander]

and while reading these forums is seems it might be possible to implement it in my current game, it's probably not worth the hassle!

i think you should get some sort of award for this sentence

Well, the casual perusal of the forums did suggest that this was a common cause of problems...!

Anyway, concerning prototype offers: no, there is absolutely no penalty for declining a prototype, the vehicle will just appear one year later and you still get offers for other prototypes.

Cool. Cheers. I only distantly remember the instructions of TT from way back (it would have been around 97' or so I guess, so nearly as far back as the game existed), and the only thing that stuck in my mind from then was the fact that you had to build prototypes when they were offered, or you didn't get any more! It took reading the OpenTTD wiki to find out what actually happened if you didn't build 'em (and even that was some trial and error...!)

That'll make my next game somewhat less... chaotic, and with several NewGRFs, and eGRVTS in particular, you do tend to get a cluster of two or three at once (especially bad if it's trains on my current game, and I have to trawl through your trains to find one to replace, because there's literally nowhere to build a new railway!) And, for some reason, I found there were two versions of the original ships (like the MPS Ferry; probably from more than one NewGRF or something, I dunno, or a set that added a replacement and didn't delete the originals), the only difference between them being one was considerably more expensive to buy and run. So knowing that option exists is handy!

[BlueDeath]

(...)
That'll make my next game somewhat less... chaotic, and with several NewGRFs, and eGRVTS in particular, you do tend to get a cluster of two or three at once (especially bad if it's trains on my current game, and I have to trawl through your trains to find one to replace, because there's literally nowhere to build a new railway!) (...)

This might be interesting for your play style. Sometimes I just build something like a testing-track to run a vehicle in 8s just for fun. Knowing that I will use it sometime or even not useing it.

Gameing with trucks (and therefor no trains) is more fun than I ever exspected - especially with better roadvehicle sets - on 1024² maps! Max number of vehicles on 5000 or so ofc...

The wiki is a great source. In multiplayer I tend so use some simpler layouts for reaching quick goals. On a T-crossing to prevent 2 tracks to stop each other is necessary, but can be achieved while fitting the tracks to landscape. Well, I play more with landscape rather than flattening all as necessary. Mountainious tracks are allowed to have multi-heads and this works always.

Same for station entering: I don't like builiding all variants to every piece, but simply 2 ways out merging into 1 after a while and one incoming around a station can handle a lot of trains...

[Aotrs Commander]

Well, I've finally done it! It's taken me about six weeks, but I've finally, finally played a game of Transport Tycoon all the way through to the end. (Well, 2050, anyway.) And from 1835, as well! I have learned a phenominal amount, and yet I still have a great deal to learn. While fun for the most part, it has been a somewhat trying experience, at times, especially given my self-imposed rule to use every prototype (and failing that, every vehicle when it was released), compunded by my poor map-set-up and given that breakdowns and inflation made life difficult... The latter was murder on my trains, given a small cramped map and the fact I could only build up to seven-tile trains, found I had several trains route that were marginal for most of the game, and no matter whether I put a fast engine or a slow one with a low running cost on 'em, they spent most of their time in the red. (Eventually, with several of them, I gave up and replaced them with trams...! Those Rapier industrials from the BATS were invaluable, and I loved the fact they had a sixty year life!)) I probably should have put realistic acceleration on as well, but I was setting up most of the same sort of settings as I played on TT when I first played.

As I suspected, the frenetic rate of trains coming died back after I hit comtemporary times, though there were a few aircraft, and I was getting new road vehicles all the way to the last year. (Ships had long-since stopped, but as someone directed me to the current nightly of FISH, I can already see there's a great deal more of them!)

I think my only disappointment was the monorails and maglevs. The CC NewGRF set obviously removes all the default trains, and doesn't add any freight engines; they were thus regulated to passenger/mail only, and the maglevs only had two trains. (That fact also didn't help my occasional competitors, set to pop in every ten years, whom I bought out (or, occasionally, towards the end, sabotaged and made go bankrupt! Yes, I'm that rotten...!) They kept trying to build monorail trains, but obviously couldn't build an engine...)

I ended up mostly relying on road vehicles; I actually had to up the number to 600, which surprised me, because when I started, I thought I'd never use 500!

While I didn't really get to play with rail networks (due to the map being a bit cramped and my own ineptitude), towards the end I was not a million miles away with my tram networks; while they were mostly still A to B, they were getting a bit more elaborate in terms of minimising traffic, at any rate!

Next time, I'll play on a much bigger map, with much less dense industries and towns (and as above, start off with a random map and then tweak it a bit in one corner...!) And then I might even be able to try building some of those networky-rail-y things everyone else tries!

Probably won't use breakdowns again, and I think I'll turn inflation off as well, and turn autorenew ON, so I spend less time trying to micromanage the vehicles and more time being able to build a functioning network! Granted this time around, I did rather make it difficult for myself, but at least I can say I did it...!

I ought to take a break for a bit, though I think... Do something else for a bit (among other things, still leaving myself something to go "ooh, I haven't done that yet!" stops it from becoming stale.) I might even head back and do some more X-Com (the original) for a while...!



I've attached the 2051 save file, if anyone feels like having a laugh at my expense...! I'd try a screen shot, but I have no idea how to take one (as print-screen failed miserably when I tried earlier...!)

[Eddi]

screenshots are available from the ?-Menu.

and you should report the AI problems to the author of the AI (if you can remember the name of the AI)

[Aotrs Commander]

Right, I figured they'd be some way to do so.



Good point on the latter issue, I'll try and get on that.