[HN Gopher] OpenTTD 12.0-RC1
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       OpenTTD 12.0-RC1
        
       Author : todsacerdoti
       Score  : 145 points
       Date   : 2021-09-25 17:27 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.openttd.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.openttd.org)
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Past related threads:
       | 
       |  _OpenTTD 1.11_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26660154 -
       | April 2021 (58 comments)
       | 
       |  _OpenTTD 1.10_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22772536 -
       | April 2020 (114 comments)
       | 
       |  _OpenTTD 1.10.0_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22752066
       | - April 2020 (2 comments)
       | 
       |  _OpenTTD Compiled to WebAssembly_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19538715 - March 2019 (88
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _OpenTTD 1.8.0-RC1_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16725375 - March 2018 (28
       | comments)
        
       | app4soft wrote:
       | The only thing still missing in "official" OpenTTD - an _OpenGL
       | 3D viewport render_.[0]
       | 
       | [0] https://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=86412
        
         | blibble wrote:
         | strangely the offical playstation 1 version had a proper 3d
         | mode
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/KY6uIxKpItM?t=660
        
       | janvdberg wrote:
       | I just watched a 25 minute video [1] explaining the basics of the
       | game. Looks interesting and extensive. Next I went to download
       | this game, the zip archive is only 7.6MB! This is both impressive
       | and a bit sad that more software isn't like this anymore.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMXFMjZu8j8
        
         | RandomWorker wrote:
         | My tip in 1950 is to start with a single coal train, between a
         | mine and a power plant. Enjoy!
        
         | TylerE wrote:
         | That's a bit misleading as the download doesn't have any
         | assets, which are either provided from an original TTD install,
         | or you download the alternate versions from within the game.
         | 
         | It's still small by modern standards, but a working install
         | will be 100-200mb, minimum.
        
           | dpedu wrote:
           | I've got this installed on my system and the asset files from
           | the original game are 5.6MB.
        
             | TylerE wrote:
             | I think it depends on which version you sourced the
             | original from.
             | 
             | The really old versions on TTD used midi for music, whereas
             | the later cd-rom version had higher quality synthesized
             | verionss.
        
         | flatiron wrote:
         | I'm always amazed at old nintendo and Gameboy games. I believe
         | the first Pokemon was 512k!
        
           | TylerE wrote:
           | The really amazing one to me is Donkey Kong Country.
           | 
           | 40 levels? Most with unique FULL color pre-rendered graphics,
           | and the whole game is 4MB
        
           | chongli wrote:
           | That's nothing! The original Super Mario Bros was 40k!
           | 
           | What allows these old games to be super small is that they're
           | 8-bit and use sprite, tiles, and tile maps; and palettes for
           | everything. Almost everything was done in hardware so you
           | didn't need to implement a renderer in software, you just
           | poked bytes in various places and stuff happened. Even the
           | loading data was handled by DMA.
        
           | Ekaros wrote:
           | 512KB sounds pretty reasonable consider how simple the
           | graphics and gameplay actually is. 90s really were much more
           | efficient time.
           | 
           | Nowadays we consider nothing of half-a-meg useless images or
           | javascript libraries...
        
       | loloquwowndueo wrote:
       | For purists or nostalgic types, the church of ttd page still
       | exists at https://nylon.net/ttd/. It mostly focuses on the old
       | ttd for dos/Windows and ttdpatch to bring it a bit into
       | modernity, but recently it also sprouted a section about openttd
       | (heresy, so they say, but welcome and well worth it). All this is
       | to be taken lightly :)
       | 
       | Also Transport Tycoon's music is the absolute best.
        
       | KronisLV wrote:
       | The best game in the "transport simulation" genre that i've
       | played would probably be Transport Fever 2
       | (https://www.transportfever2.com/), because it not only looks
       | better when compared to everything else out there, but the UI
       | also feels really streamlined.
       | 
       | That said, OpenTTD is also amazing because it's free, has a lot
       | of lovely content and definitely provides plenty of replay value,
       | in addition to not requiring a beefy computer (unlike the
       | aforementioned game).
       | 
       | Some other similar games that people might enjoy:
       | - Simutrans (https://www.simutrans.com/en/) is another transport
       | simulation game, which has a lot of different tilesets, but the
       | actual gameplay of which seems to be a bit less enjoyable than
       | that of OpenTTD and others, though it's also freeware       -
       | Mashinky (https://www.mashinky.com/) is an indie game that mostly
       | focuses on trains, but also is in 3D and looks pretty good, like
       | Transport Fever, though some people say that the economy in the
       | game is a tad odd
       | 
       | I've also heard of Cities in Motion and Railway Empire, though
       | haven't played them myself.
        
         | bufferoverflow wrote:
         | I'd say Factorio is better.
        
           | marcosdumay wrote:
           | Factorio is a much worse transport simulator.
           | 
           | What is understandable, because the game isn't a transport
           | simulator, it just has one inside.
        
         | lucb1e wrote:
         | > OpenTTD is also amazing because it's free, has a lot of
         | lovely content and definitely provides plenty of replay value,
         | in addition to not requiring a beefy computer
         | 
         | Also a big one is multiplayer. OpenTTD you can play with anyone
         | anywhere; Transport Fever 2 can only be played alone as far as
         | I can tell from a quick look at the home- and Steam page. (And
         | you can't buy it outside of Steam, but I can't help it if the
         | developer doesn't want my money directly.) Still considering
         | whether to buy it (well, request it as gift; by Christmas I'll
         | have forgotten about it and it'll be a nice surprise), great to
         | see it runs on Linux, but I don't think my GPU is going to cut
         | it by far, and my CPU neither but by a smaller margin.
        
           | Delk wrote:
           | > And you can't buy it outside of Steam, but I can't help it
           | if the developer doesn't want my money directly.
           | 
           | The game also seems to be available on GOG.com, although at
           | least one review says the Linux version there is much older
           | than what's available on Steam, so perhaps the publisher
           | doesn't care about non-Steam sales that much. And of course
           | it still isn't direct.
           | 
           | I haven't played Transport Fever 2, partially because my
           | laptop's a potato and partially because I already have the
           | original Transport Fever. Many reviews seem to say the sequel
           | doesn't offer that much new in terms of gameplay.
           | 
           | I've played the original quite a bit, and it's fun up to a
           | point. There's something satisfying about getting a somewhat
           | complex system of cargo transport working. The lack of goals
           | (apart from the somewhat lukewarm campaigns) or of any real
           | competition makes it more of a sandbox building game than
           | anything else, though.
           | 
           | The original is playable even on integrated graphics on lower
           | settings, although I don't think that's officially supported.
        
         | spockz wrote:
         | My largest gripe with Transport Fever is there is no way to
         | dedicate roads to public transport only. At some point the
         | whole world just bogs down because everyone rides a car from
         | one weird city to the completely other side of the map. No
         | matter how much public transport you add...
        
         | janvdberg wrote:
         | As someone who is new to the genre, what is the goal of these
         | games? How can you 'win'?
        
           | corobo wrote:
           | You win when you've had a constant stream of dopamine for so
           | long that when you snap out of it, it's 4am... again.
        
           | jodrellblank wrote:
           | OpenTTD is like playing with a physical trainset, you don't
           | win you just play. That said it does offer some metrics you
           | can compare performance on, such as:
           | 
           | - Company performance rating https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Manu
           | al/Detailed%20Performance%20...
           | 
           | - income and profit and cargo delivery:
           | https://i.redd.it/am22ad5jkqv31.png
           | 
           | - company finances and value: https://bugs.openttd.org/task/1
           | 04/getfile/172/finances_scree...
           | 
           | It typically runs through the 1900s and unlocks more vehicles
           | later in the game, by the 2000s the game gets very easy to
           | make money and the map is full and there are no more
           | vehicles, so servers tend to have an arbitrary cutoff endgame
           | then and you can compete "most valuable company" by the end.
           | 
           | There are plugins which add specific goals, such as
           | CityBuilder where you take a small city for yourself and have
           | to supply it with whatever it needs to help it grow, and the
           | first person to cross a certain city size wins and ends the
           | game. Then there are customised versions which make the
           | vehicles more expensive, the routes less profitable, resource
           | production is limited, and it's a lot more challenging to
           | make a sustainable company at all.
           | 
           | "Master Hellish" has some good OpenTTD introductory videos on
           | YouTube: e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMXFMjZu8j8
        
           | dvh wrote:
           | You win when you make circular tracks and they work.
        
           | KronisLV wrote:
           | Some of those have end dates, others have technology research
           | goals, in most you need to supply cities with a certain
           | amount of resources that they need to grow.
           | 
           | Almost all of them involve managing a transport enterprise
           | that earns money by transporting goods of various sorts and
           | ensuring that supply chains are uninterrupted (raw materials
           | to factories, goods to the cities, usually with plenty of
           | steps along the way).
           | 
           | In that regard, they can be reasonably forgiving, as long as
           | this simulated company of yours doesn't go bankrupt, and you
           | can usually pause them and play at your own pace.
           | 
           | To me, a lot of the fun is in planning out these supply
           | chains and seeing how i could use the available types of
           | vehicles in a somewhat efficient manner as well as building
           | the roads and infrastructure that's necessary for that,
           | though other players might enjoy an approach that focuses
           | more on number crunching, while others might just want to
           | make a total mess of things.
           | 
           | I'd definitely draw some parallels with games like Factorio.
        
           | dangerbird2 wrote:
           | By default, OpenTTD and many similar games have a competition
           | mode, where the goal is to run competing players (either AI
           | or human) out of business a la Monopoly. In practice, it's a
           | sim game at it's core, so the process of building a
           | functional transportation system is a goal in itself.
        
         | massysett wrote:
         | Has Transport Fever 2 grown more challenging since its first
         | release?
         | 
         | I bought it at release and found it a huge disappointment
         | because it was too easy. Transport Fever 1 had a pretty decent
         | economic simulation and I was hoping 2 would take it up a
         | notch. Instead, Transport Fever 2's economy was a dumbed-down
         | version of the original, with simpler production chains and
         | industries that produced unlimited output. I spent many hours
         | on Transport Fever 1 but gave up after fewer than 10 hours on
         | Transport Fever 2.
        
         | corobo wrote:
         | > Transport Fever 2
         | 
         | Seconded. Works well under Ubuntu (and probably others idk)
         | too!
        
       | mjewkes wrote:
       | Does anyone here recommend a modern-ish guide to
       | GRF/settings/Gamescripts?
       | 
       | It seems like there are so many features like CargoDist/FIRS/City
       | growth - many of which are "essential", but don't play well
       | together, or have questionable balance.
        
         | austingulati wrote:
         | I've had some fun playing around with this guide:
         | https://cyan.garamon.de/openttd/
         | 
         | I was able to use some updated NewGRF versions (note this is
         | OpenTTD 1.11.2, I haven't played 1.2.0 yet):
         | https://i.gyazo.com/d89edd48622183681b1ea1fd7958336c.png
         | 
         | Note that FIRS 4x is very different from FIRS 3x.
         | Documentation:
         | https://grf.farm/firs/4.4.0/html/get_started.html
        
       | midasuni wrote:
       | I remember buying the original transport tycoon (pre deluxe), in
       | a box from Beattie's, and reading the manual on the bus home.
       | Funny how some memories stuck in your mind.
        
         | corobo wrote:
         | It was the first game I played on a PC! The thing was so slow
         | you had to reboot between playing the game and Windows (3.11)
         | 
         | Trains etc moved in jumps, updating every second. Had no idea
         | it wasn't supposed to be like that till we got an upgrade years
         | later
         | 
         | I remember getting it with my dad all excited because we both
         | agreed we needed more than just the demo. It came in one of
         | those massive game boxes from a locally owned shop (I think)
         | called Disks and Discs. Probably one of my earliest memories
         | that haha
        
       | kesor wrote:
       | And for those who like their games on Steam, it appears that
       | OpenTTD is also on steam. The announcement for 12.0-RC1 is at
       | https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1536610/view/2868220...
       | 
       | As per the announcement you need to change the game properties to
       | participate in the "testing" beta to get the latest RC version.
        
         | fho wrote:
         | And for those who like their games on Android ... OpenTTD is
         | actually on the Play Store:
         | 
         | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.openttd.sd...
         | 
         | But honestly... Without a mouse and keyboard it is barely
         | workable.
        
       | Managor wrote:
       | Still going strong.
        
       | tyfon wrote:
       | I've "wasted" so many hours of my life on this and the original
       | by Chris Sawyer.
       | 
       | The original is a masterpiece when it comes to programming and UI
       | design I think, at least for it's time. It is also very fun :)
       | 
       | It's very nice that it is kept alive in this fashion with
       | openttd.
        
         | rocky1138 wrote:
         | Yes, though I sorely miss OpenTTD's "close window with right
         | click" option when going back to Chris Sawyer's version.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-09-25 23:00 UTC)