I always know what kind of game I want to play, but it's overwhelming to set up, if even possible. It's tons of packages, forums, idk.. so I just end up playing vanilla, with maybe some rules among the players. But I wish there was a comprehensive interface to allow me to set all the stuff that I want.
From the top of my head (haven't played in over a year) it would be: cargo destination for people, cargo prices reflect proximity of other productiosn, mono/maglev only has passenger cabs, regular rail still gets upgrades, no planes I guess, "automatic" public transport within cities - no need to build stops, just buses driving around (transferring people to train stations). And probably more I can't think of now.
I’m the same. I once suggested on the Transport Tycoon forums that there be a mechanism for curated sets of NewGRFs that work well together to be selected from the main page and was resolutely told that it’s up to the user to put together their own sets as they like.
EDIT: it looks like something like this is now in v16 as “collections”! I wonder if these can be shared.
This would be awesome for OpenMW, too. Morrowind is kind of dated. But I like the original style. So a curated easy install of improvement mods as a service would be great.
It's actually not difficult to setup at all. The game just work out of the box without any mod. However there's a learning curve. Find a tutorial somewhere online and follow it thru then you're golden.
It took me maybe an hour to learn the first time I played it. It's worth it! :D
Tho after finishing the game a few times it gets old.
That’s not what they said. The game does work without mods, but the economy is weirdly nonsensical (AFAIK you can push unnecessary amounts of cargo over long distances, and the game rewards you anyway) and I personally find it kind of pointless, compared to something like Transport Fever 2.
Yeah cargodist's indeed broken. You could milk plenty amount of money by just setting up two airports far away.
Maybe try Simutrans. It's got actual economy simulation. I tried it and I didn't like it tho. I couldn't make a profit in that game and kept losing. :(
No. A coal plant will happily pay millions of dollars for coal hauled from the far side of the map, despite there being a coal mine right next door. Not like real life at all.
Deploying and building OpenTTD if my favourite exercise when i am trying to learn new CI tool or orchestrator or packaging format. Simple enough, yet fun.
Sorry if it's a meta post, or a faq, or if I'm just missing some HN lore here, but I finally have to ask : why is it that, everytime there's a new release for OpenTTD (and 0ad, for that matters), it makes it to the front page ?
I can kinda get why there are often news about Factorio, for example (it's not subtly related to programming), and there is nothing wrong with open source projects getting visibily even when they're not "yet another web framework" or "the last open weight LLM wrapper".
But why those games in particular ? Are the authors regulars of HN ? Is there an interesting forking history / backstory ?
I speak only for myself, but: I can't think of any other computer game that I've spent time on, and that I look forward to playing again, over such a long span of time.
While I don't play it often, I have been playing it for over 20 years.
It's impressive (again, at least to me) for its longevity if nothing else. Just seeing that it continues to progress makes me happy in dumb ways.
It has the competitiveness of games like Civ, The Settlers and so on. But with the world building aspects of games like Sim City.
There aren’t many other games that strike this balance as well.
I first started playing the original DOS game in the 90s and I honestly think OpenTTD looks and plays just as well now a the original did 30+ years ago. The level of detail in the pixel art is ideal for the type of game it is.
For some people it's the game. Like I played the original (not even TTD, just TT) and this is still a very fun game.
In a nutshell it's an optimization sandbox since the beginning, with more and more ways to invent and customize solutions for the troubles you make yourself.
The flip, I think, is realistic enough. It could be just slower and the speed of turnaround reflect whether the loco needs to turn around. But the slow reverse that can be solved with two locos is a nice upgrade too.
Wonder if the Yogscast Jingle Jam will use v16 in this year's stream. Might stop Duncan crashing so many trains if they're all driving slower backwards.
hah I played for an hour this new beta. It's fun. I haven't played for years.
I couldn't workout the train signals though, there are 4 of them and they have a digit as well with them, not sure what's going on there. I'm probably not the target audience :)
For most signalling you want the path signals. They come in 2 flavours: both kinds only do the path in one direction, one kind is non-blocking to trains running the opposite way, the other kind is blocking, one way only.
This combo lets you set up an upline and downline with a terminal station: you have one way only signals on the line, and non-blocking signals on the station entrances pointing into the station, and a crossing between. Trains will get to the end of the upline, and wait to get a path to the end of the station. Then they'll turn around and wait to get a path to the downline.
>This combo lets you set up an upline and downline with a terminal station:
That actually is nothing to do with path based signals, and could be done quite simply with purely vanilla TTD signals.
What path-based signaling allows is for multiple trains to make non-conflicting moves through a single block at the same time, which basic signals wouldn't.
From the top of my head (haven't played in over a year) it would be: cargo destination for people, cargo prices reflect proximity of other productiosn, mono/maglev only has passenger cabs, regular rail still gets upgrades, no planes I guess, "automatic" public transport within cities - no need to build stops, just buses driving around (transferring people to train stations). And probably more I can't think of now.
EDIT: it looks like something like this is now in v16 as “collections”! I wonder if these can be shared.
It took me maybe an hour to learn the first time I played it. It's worth it! :D
Tho after finishing the game a few times it gets old.
Yeah cargodist's indeed broken. You could milk plenty amount of money by just setting up two airports far away.
Maybe try Simutrans. It's got actual economy simulation. I tried it and I didn't like it tho. I couldn't make a profit in that game and kept losing. :(
Wait... same like in real life you mean?
I can kinda get why there are often news about Factorio, for example (it's not subtly related to programming), and there is nothing wrong with open source projects getting visibily even when they're not "yet another web framework" or "the last open weight LLM wrapper".
But why those games in particular ? Are the authors regulars of HN ? Is there an interesting forking history / backstory ?
Any way, kudos for the release, of course :)
While I don't play it often, I have been playing it for over 20 years.
It's impressive (again, at least to me) for its longevity if nothing else. Just seeing that it continues to progress makes me happy in dumb ways.
It has the competitiveness of games like Civ, The Settlers and so on. But with the world building aspects of games like Sim City.
There aren’t many other games that strike this balance as well.
I first started playing the original DOS game in the 90s and I honestly think OpenTTD looks and plays just as well now a the original did 30+ years ago. The level of detail in the pixel art is ideal for the type of game it is.
Totally a self-inflicted pain with a ton of ways to solve it!
About the history of the project you better hear from the horse's mouth: https://www.openttd.org/news/2024/03/06/happy-birthday
And then, finally, hump yards?
I couldn't workout the train signals though, there are 4 of them and they have a digit as well with them, not sure what's going on there. I'm probably not the target audience :)
This combo lets you set up an upline and downline with a terminal station: you have one way only signals on the line, and non-blocking signals on the station entrances pointing into the station, and a crossing between. Trains will get to the end of the upline, and wait to get a path to the end of the station. Then they'll turn around and wait to get a path to the downline.
That actually is nothing to do with path based signals, and could be done quite simply with purely vanilla TTD signals.
What path-based signaling allows is for multiple trains to make non-conflicting moves through a single block at the same time, which basic signals wouldn't.