Cargo & Industry fixes for 1.06

[sidekikd34]

I can get up a screenie if you need, but the problem is that the second part of the building, the upgrade that grows out perpendicular to the original, overlaps outside the footprint, into adjacent buildings, and looks weird. Basically, if you put two Auto Plants facing each other, the upgrades would grow into each other, and you'd have not much more than the original buildings showing.
*Edit: It's more like half the upgrade that goes outside the footprint.

[Gumboots]

Ok. Well if you haven't got a shot handy, don't worry about it. I can set up an example myself so I can see what's going on. I just thought somebody might already have one.

I'd love to know how the @%!$! footprints were coded. It's a pity that was never documented back when the clever dudes were taking the .exe apart.

[Gumboots]

Ok, set one up and yeah, the problem is kinda obvious.

About 80% of the upgrade mesh has to go to fit it all inside the available footprint. It's not actually difficult to do. Shouldn't require any skin work. It's basically just deleting a bunch of verts. Might be able to save the water tower, if anyone cares, and can save about half of the added car parking space.

[RulerofRails]

If it's easy for you to do, and you get the inclination, I for one would use it. Modeling is beyond me, unfortunately.

[Gumboots]

Got it sorted for the first LOD. Probably really should go through it and do the other LOD's. OTOH, how many auto plants will be on camera at any time anyway? I may just do a fairly cursory job of them. I'll also have to go through it and get rid of any lights that are no longer needed, but that's a no brainer. Pic attached, with the orange rectangle showing the available footprint.

And honestly, modelling at this level is really easy as long as you understand a few basic principles (mainly how the UV mapping works, so you can be lazy and not have to edit the skin).

[sidekikd34]

Nice work!

[Gumboots]

It's raining today, so I went through the thing and did all the LOD's. Also sorted out the stray lights. Should be all good to go.

Then I went to export it all with the latest version of the Blender>3dp script, and it turns out that the new export script has a bug in it which borks the .3dp's.

This is not a major drama though. I still have the old export script, which works perfectly for exports but isn't so good at imports, and the new script works perfectly for imports even though it borks exports. So until CoDEmanX gets the time and inclination to fix the new script I can just import with that and export with the old one.

I'll see if I can get the new auto plant upgrade tested and PK4'd tonight. Should be fine.

[Gumboots]

Ok guys: viewtopic.php?f=68&t=3934#p40419

[Gumboots]

Hey I was just idly thinking about this stuff again, as you do, and had an idea. This wouldn't be backwards compatible with most 1.06 maps but would be with 1.05 maps.

Ok, so the general opinion seems to be that 1.06 has some handy extras (buildable warehouse and ports, haul at a loss, extra editor logic available for event conditions, etc) but that several of the the extra 1.06 industries and cargoes weren't well integrated into the game. There also seems to be a fair amount of agreement that most of the 1.06 locos are generally so crude that a lot of people simply don't use them.

So, the idea is simple: instead of trying to add stuff to 1.06 to fix it, why not just take stuff out? This is really easy to do. Just keep the 1.06 extras that are good and work well, and drop anything that is half finished and/or badly integrated and doesn't work well.

IOW, start with it stripped back to the 1.05 cargoes, industries and locos, and then start wondering which, if any, of the additions are so good we just have to have them.

[sidekikd34]

I'm with you there.

[RulerofRails]

You know, it's easy to use 1.06 without using the new cargoes. A fair amount of 1.06 maps use none or very few of them. Until there are replacements, they aren't harming anything by being there.

I feel that a lot is expected of the 1.06 cargoes. 1.05 did a pretty good job of including the most common, broad groups of cargo. I see the expectation that the 1.06 cargoes add to the game, and at the same time that they tie in with 1.05's cargoes. Finding those extra broad groups of cargo is difficult because the problem cases were demoted from inclusion in 1.05 on purpose in my opinion.

[Gumboots]

Yep, I get the impression that 1.05 got a lot more thought and testing. The thing is if we start by using a stripped back 1.06-with-1.05-assets as a starting point, we don't have any of this stuff about "Oh dear, the furnace is borked, but we can't change it, so we have to introduce more borked stuff" or whatever. We just say "Do we want a working furnace?" and go from there.

[RulerofRails]

I believe part of the reason this project stalled was lack of ideas. If it helps to think about which ones are good instead of trying to keep things the same, that's fine. I just wanted to point out that there was no point to deleting current stuff if there are no replacements.

At some point in the future I may try testing the idea of increasing the demands for consumer cargoes to limit some of the game's major re-hauling habits. Mainly changes to the house.bca file with some price drops. Who knows if this will work. Will try to do what I can with the loco re-balancing effort first.

[Gumboots]

I'm inclined to think it stalled largely because there were too many ideas. That's why I'm thinking it may be more productive to start with a stripped back cargo chain and range of industry that we know works, and then think about what it really needs, if anything, rather than going bonkers on stuff that could be added if anyone could ever get around to agreeing about it.

[RulerofRails]

As I remember more, I believe the sticking point at the time was the Rock->Cement/Concrete chain that became weak (a one-stop conversion) with the latest proposed changes. This is what I was referring to. There were no recommendations and in light of your recent comment: Are Rock and Cement/Concrete indispensable?

[Gumboots]

Probably not, since they weren't in 1.05. Although I can see why they were included in 1.06 (basic products, with a lot of uses).

If it's a concern, giving rock extra uses would be easy. Fertilizer factory is an obvious example for another sink, since phosphate and lime are commonly processed for soil improvement. Steel mill is another (lime used as flux in blast furnaces). Construction firm (road base, landscaping rocks, rock chips in asphalt, flagstones, etc). For that matter, as part of a scenario it would be pretty easy to script things so you had to buy rock for ballast before you could lay track. You could do this via a haulage quota to a given territory, much like the purchase of track is sometimes done by laying a short segment in a particular location.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Hoping to revive this idea/thread.

So some random thoughts after reading this:

Containers + salt + livestock = (obviously) canned meat, be it 19th century salt port in a wooden barrel or a 20th century canned ham.
Containers + salt + fish = (obviously) canned fish, be it sardines, anchovies, or tunny fish.
Sand + potash + dye = novelty glass, luxury goods, what have you

Rice is redundant, it's a grain, so if there's a special Rice Farm, it follows that oats, wheat, rye, etc should all have their own farms, since they don't, Rice is just eating space in the list of cargoes. In 'nilla RT3, Rice and Grain make Alcohol at the brewery and have modest demands in housing. Essentially identical except for the cosmetic feature on the map of having different farm models. Better to mod the Rice Farm to produce "Grain" and open up the slot for a new cargo in the production chain.

Corn/Maize is also problematic in the same way. Corn-fed beef is fed a variety of grains, because /corn/ means grain, not just /maize/. Admittedly, in the USA it is mostly maize that is fed to live stock, but it's not a universal truth. Still, by replacing the "Corn" demand in Dairy Farms, Sheep Farms, etc with "Grain", another slot would be opened up for a new commodity.

As things stand, if you have a map with Corn, Grain, and Rice, all three have demands in the Housing. By using one logical symbol for all grain cargoes, it simplifies one of the needlessly complicated parts of the cargo economy. Doing it this way there is still a market being driven by supply and demand for Grain and shouldn't change the economic model in any way other than you have three options for the production model, and benefit by having 2 new slots open for new commodities/cargoes.

And it should be reverse compatible. My tests with locomotives indicates that the game reads the data for locos and cargoes as needed from the loose files in the folders, not from data preserved in the GMP. Granted a GMP or saved file that has Rice or Corn specified in the Warehouse/Port formulae or requires X loads of Rice or Corn hauled would be broken. As a rule, 1.06 GMPs and saved files aren't reverse compatible. So, it appears to me that swapping existing buildings to existing cargoes is a win-win.

Now, tear my mad genius idea to shreds.

[RulerofRails]

At this point I'm mulling over the idea of leaving a couple "customizable" cargoes, shipping in box cars by default, open for a map creator to easily re-name in the RT3.lng file, and then provide an icon for (could go further if wanted with a car type change etc.). These would be free to use in the warehouses and Ports. RT3 isn't friendly this way, but if it's something on a map-specific basis that's simple and can easily be reversed maybe the idea would be usable. (Definitely a theoretical idea at this point.)

What seems right in one situation will be less than ideal somewhere else. We could debate endlessly about which cargoes are "important". Some of this thread was that.

As far as the Grain=Corn idea. Why don't you test-play it on a few games on some maps where farming is prevalent? Grain will have many more instances of demand on the map. I suspect the Brewery will be harder to operate, but only a test will reveal the truth.

[Just Crazy Jim]

So far, so good, only the House.bca is being a beast. PJay's note on BCA files isn't a surgical guide, so trimming out the calls for Corn and Rice has been 6 Bongs of Doom. All the other BCAs were no-brainers and caused no problems. For now, I'm leaving the House.bca unmolested and running tests for the economy.

As best as I understand PJay's directions, here is the code associated with the demand for Corn:

Code: Select all

00 00 00 01   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 7B   44 65 6D 61
6E 64 20 4F   6E 6C 79 7E   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00
00 00 00 08   07 0F 27 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 01
00 00 00 43   6F 72 6E 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 0A   D7 A3 3C 00
00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00   00 00 00 00

00 00 00 01 = Demand Only
7B 44 65 6D 61 6E 64 20 4F 6E 6C 79 7E = {Demand Only} text
08 07 = Start date (1800)
0F 27 = End date (9999)
43 6F 72 6E = Corn

According to PJay's note 00 00 00 0A at position 72 is the quantity demanded as a float, but that number is a little crazy (6.162976e-033)

And D7 A3 3C 00 00 00 00 ... etc. at position 76 through 99 is the input cargo name as a string. There's a cargo named " ×£< " ??

EDIT: I found a brute force work-around for the problem I was having with trimming the House.bca, I changed Rice and Corn to Grain and altered the start and end dates to Grain (orig Grain) 1800-1850, Grain (orig Rice) 1850-1900, and Grain (orig Corn) 1900-9999 so there was not a triple demand for a single cargo -- I will change the Rice and Corn to Fish and Salt or some other cargo later. I then ran Go West! and Tex-Mex for 30 years each and saw only the commonplace 1.05 problem of not being able to ship cargo at a loss. Even so, I had no more difficulty making the Brewery turn a profit than I normally do. Those pesky bakeries and houses love to compete for my Breweries' grain.

On the upside of this, corn farms - which are usually such a pain to get to populate to the map - now produce 3 Grain per year and the over-all impact is that there is no price spiking when they do finally appear on the map, so the economy is - if anything - more stable.

@nd EDIT: And true to form, I now have a brilliant idea to change Cotton and Wool to a single cargo "Fiber", thus eliminating the 2 cargo bug for the textile mill and freeing up another cargo slot ... insane much? oh, yes, please.

[Gumboots]

@nd EDIT: And true to form, I now have a brilliant idea to change Cotton and Wool to a single cargo "Fiber"...

Oh no you don't. Fibre, and spell it correctly you barbarian , covers everything from jute to Kevlar. Neither of which come from sheep, or not any sheep of my acquaintance.

No seriously, I'd balk at seeing "Fiber" everywhere. Trains shipping wool makes sense to me. Trains shipping "Fiber" just doesn't feel right. It's getting too close to "generic Cargo A, Generic Cargo B, etc". It's the sort of thing that pulls the player out of the game world and makes them look at database dumps.

A better approach IMO would be to use custom icon packs and language files for specialised scenarios, so if you are running around Asia you'll see a lot of rice, and if you're out in Kansas or whatever god-forsaken place you lot grow corn, you'll see a lot of corn.

And you're right about the corn to cows thing. Over here most beef is still fed on grass, with sorghum as a supplement. Corn doesn't get used at all, AFAIK.