#Ragins Industry set brain storming post

23 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

stiff shore
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This is something I've been thinking about for a while, and mentioned a few time, but I'm not happy with a lot of industry sets, but I think there could be a better way forward.

The problem:
Most industry sets (like FIRS) will generate industries with very few rules, and require a secondary cargo to improve generation (workers, engineering supplies, farm supplies etc). In my experience, on large maps this can result in industries spawning strangely, and cargo chains that are not fun.

The fix?
One of the industry sets that I think resolves these problems is 2talltylers Improved industry set. It restricts where industries can spawn, and how to improve generation. In summary:

  • Agricultural industries can only spawn close to sea level
  • Iron/Coal mines only spawn in mountains
  • Secondary industries only spawn in/near cities
  • Primary industry production is controlled by the population of the town it is connected to

In my experience, this is a major improvement. Industries are more intelligently placed, and you now have to support the growth of towns, or you get no primary production. It creates a nice gameloop, where supporting towns increases production, thus increasing profits. Further, since secondary industries only spawn near cities, it makes them rarer, so longer distance freight trains are required, and its more realistic, as a small town is not going to support a giant steel mill.

There are some issues in my opinion though:

  • Iron/Coal mines only spawn in mountainous areas, meaning they can be rare on flat maps. Further, they can spawn alongside each other, which isn't necessarily realistic as coal/iron veins don't typically co-exist.
  • On more mountainous maps, it can be the opposite, with too few farms
  • There's a lack of water based industries, meaning ships aren't fun to use
  • The cargo chains aren't that complex
  • Lack of varied/modern sprites, as it just uses the base game ones
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What I propose
I propose creating an industry set, loosely based on FIRS and ITL that expands upon the industry spawning mechanics. Broadly what I want is:

  • Agricultural industries should prioritise being on flat land near rivers, should auto close when in town zones
  • Mining industries should congregate together, and not generate near others. Ie, Coal near coal, ore near ore, but not coal near ore
  • Industries pre-1950 should orient to near rivers and water to allow for ship transport
  • Water industries to encourage use of ships
  • Large secondary/tertiary industries (steel mills, vehicle plants, etc) should only spawn in cities, and the amount should be controlled by the population (e.g. a city of 0-10k can support a steel mill, 10-15k can support a steel mill and a vehicle plant)
  • Individual cities should specialise is 1-2 cargo chains, e.g. one city does vehicles, one does building supplies, one does food
  • Smaller secondary industries (flour mills, forges, etc) should spawn in normal towns, just on the outskirts
  • Adequate black hole industries to deliver final products to (e.g. shopping centres for goods, supermarkets for food)
  • Primary industry production should be controlled by the population/level of service in the assosciated town, like in ITL
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This post is really to get the idea out there, and put some of my thoughts down. But in my opinion doing this would create a more interesting and varied gameplay experience. It should also be reasonably doable, as partially demonstrated by ITL, but also by sets like FIRS and ECS, which previously had/have mechanics that control the spawns of industry based on flat land and rivers

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I don't plan on dedicating too much dev time to this anytime in the near future, but when I do eventually get to it, I'd more than likely just copy FIRS sprites to start off with, but I would also like to see time dependent sprites like in ECS. Imo that helped to show time progession, and would be a great feature to include imo

fading lance
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About farms, as someone in equator: There's definitely as much farms in the mountains (or hills) as it is in the lower ground. Obviously not up near the summit, still below the snowline (if there's any). Oh, I absolutely agree with farm auto close in the town zone

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The rest are really good idea

stiff shore
fading lance
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Yes

limber badger
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I suspect that what you need is a GS not a grf

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This isn’t intended as gatekeeping….I’ve been part of OpenTTD community since 2008, so I know where the bodies are buried 😉

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Some of your ideas have been tried and either work, or have unwanted side effects

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Some aren’t possible in grf

fresh nymph
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I remember messing about with an industry set with more specific generation rules, I think it made map gen take upwards of ten minutes, and that was just "cities can only have one secondary industry" and basic quadrants for primaries kind of stuff

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I do like your ideas but I'm skeptical how plausible a lot of the generation rules are within OpenTTD

mystic tinsel
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Yeah, at one point it stops being "is someone capable of coding this" to "is the game going to run"

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Like, your ideas are awesome, but we are, sadly, chained at this earthly codebase

stiff shore
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yeah...

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tbf, a lot of this is just a wishlist, it would be cool... but I'm also fine with experimenting with simpler systems that work better

limber badger
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Everything you propose can be done in GS, but not all of it easily

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Fundamentally, grf has no view on the map

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And OpenTTD industry placement has no view on the grf

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And there’s no single controlling game loop for behaviour

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GS has a regular game loop, can see the map, and can be taught about specific industry grfs (this last part is quite laborious)