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Post by DC-1 » 02 Nov 2013 08:47
Re: The Best, «Must Have» OpenTTD Mods!
Post by kamnet » 02 Nov 2013 08:51
Having recently started to participate in the Reddit OpenTTD community, I’ve found that even more new players there ask the question about best/must-have mods than the do here. So, I took some time to make my suggestions, which I’m copying here.
I wouldn’t say that there are any «must have» modifications. Plain OpenTTD by itself is very robust, although if there is a «must have» at this point, I would skip the stable version 1.3.2 and download a nightly instead, which has introduced the new Cargo Distribution (cargodist) patch. It radically improves distribution of passengers, mail and goods. It will move into stable OpenTTD probably in the 1.4.x version. But, still, good play can be had (and has been had since 2006) with the non-CD version.
Most NewGRFs have no problem operating with each other, and typically the few that do not expressly note which ones don’t work with each other, if not going out of their way to disable themselves automatically. The only major issue you might have is that NewGRFs of the same type aren’t balanced against each other. For example, trains from one set might be insanely expensive compared to trains from another site. Newer versions of NewGRFs are starting to provide options for better balancing, either through auto-detecting other sets or allowing you to modify the costs via parameter settings.
Here’s my rundown for most popular NewGRFs.
INDUSTRY : It’s pretty much either FIRS or ECS Vectors. Pikkabird’s PBI/UKRS Industries is a distant third, but it’s getting a major revamp in the near future. If you like the standard industries but want it tweaked just a little more, look at OpenGFX+ Industries.
PLANES : The most popular is Aviators Plane Set (AV8), second would be the never-finished-always-updating World Airliners Set (WAS). Both are compatible with all available industry sets. There’s a few other small sets out there as well, mostly just eyecandy though.
SHIPS : NewShips is one of the oldest and most popular, and was recently updated to work with FIRS. FISH is becoming just as popular, and is developed by the same person who created FIRS, but it works with all the other industry sets as well. There’s a ferry set and an old sailing ships set as well which are also compatible.
TRAINS : Most popular is probably 2CC Trains of the World, which isn’t 100% complete but is pretty broad in the variety and time frame. The costs can be expensive, but you can modify them in parameters. UK Revival Set (UKRS) v2 is extremely vast in time scale and variety, and that’s before you use the expanded Add-On set. There’s also North American Revival Set (NARS) v2 and Canadian Trains for more North American flavor. The latter three share common developers and are fairly balanced against each other because of that. There are lots of train NewGRFs for regional action too: Germany, France, Netherlands, Finland, Spain, Australia, South America, Japan. Also, if you’re happy with the default trains but want to see some technical and performance improvements, there’s OpenGFX+ Trains. With the exception of NARS2, most should be compatible with all industry sets. Because of its age, I don’t remember if NARS2 is compatible with FIRS, but you can combine it with another set to get some compatible rail cars that you can attach. I’d suggest Canadian Trains since they offer similar styles, but you might get a lot of repetition for engines. If that doesn’t work for you, then I’d suggest OpenGFX+ Trains.
ROAD VEHICLES : eGRVTS is probably the most popular set. For more variety, check out HEQS and George’s Long Vehicles. Lots of smaller sets as well, and some regional variety sets. There’s also an OpenGFX+ Road Vehicles set that improves the default vehicles, including adding ECS & FIRS compatibility (thus you don’t need to download ECS & FIRS Original Vehicles). The others should be up-to-date with industry compatibility.
AIRPORTS : Right now I’d only suggest OpenGFX+ Airports, which improves the default airports by adding 4-direction rotation. There are a few other sets which simply change the style of graphics, but because of changes in OpenTTD code, they’re glitchy and/or broken, and don’t have anybody to take care of them. I’m actually working with Planetmaker on improving and importing the graphics for most of these sets into OpenGFX+ Airports and expanding the set.
STATIONS : I can’t really suggest one is any more popular than the other. Most station sets are designed around a region (Canadian Stations, Dutch Stations, British Stations, etc.). Industrial Station Renewal, the older Industrial Stations, and DWE Industry station sets all are focused on industrial themes. CHIPS and VAST are fairly popular as well.
With the exception of industry changes, none of these NewGRFs give you any sort of significant improvement other than visual and aesthetics. They’re all just a change of pace from the vanilla. The REAL game changers come with competitive AI players (none I’d recommend over the other) and GameScripts, which give you new goals and challenges (again, none I’d recommend over others). Any single one of these will get you to up your game a bit, and almost all of them can be mixed and matched to get a really complex and competitive game. Or, you could go the opposite way and find AIs that serve exclusive tasks (like servicing only mail, only passengers trains, only airlines, only buses) and build your own cooperative game.
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Open transport tycoon deluxe моды
One of the most frequently asked questions from new players of the game include, «What are the best mods?» and «What do I need to download?» To that, there are two blunt answers: there are no «best» mods, and you don’t «need» to download anything. And, for that, you deserve a more nuanced explanation. After this, I’ll discuss the variety of content that is available.
OpenTTD is an open-source clone of the video game Transport Tycoon Deluxe released in 1994. Over the next decade the game was left with unaddressed bugs, and eventually the installation drivers no longer worked for newer operating systems. OpenTTD exists primarily to allow players of the original game to continue to play the game. It is 100% backwards compatible with all previous saved games, scenarios, graphics, sound and music. If you owned the original installation media, you can copy it over and enjoy the game just as you did a quarter of a century ago. Obtaining the original media without piracy is nearly impossible, however. For that, the game’s community developed its own open-source versions of the graphics, sound and music.
As it exists, OpenTTD itself is a nearly perfect game. It contains all of the content needed to successfully play the original game, as it was designed, from start to finish. It has a very well-balanced gameplay that keeps players engaged and invested, and players find themselves coming back again and again. A single game can last for as long as you want it to, and every new start is unique. Players can make further changes in the game environment to increase their challenges as they become more experienced. It is for these reasons that I say that you do not need to download content or mods. It is an entire package of complete and pure entertainment.
Because of OpenTTD’s goal of being a 100% faithful clone of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, it will never change its base features. The base game will never add new vehicles, change industries, or add any features which will break backwards compatibility with the original game, saved games or scenarios. But this is not where OpenTTD ends. The developers recognized that players will want more, and that what is provided may not be enough. They introduced a system for adding new content to the game which allows it to grow and expand in new ways without breaking that backwards compatibility. While that may frustrate some players that parts they feel should be essential will never be added to the base game for distribution, it does allow players to download what they like and create their own unique experiences. None of this content fixes anything that is inherently perceived as broken. Even more importantly, none of it can truly be said to be «better» or «must-have». It entirely depends on your opinions and feelings. One mod may be viewed as the best thing ever by some, while others will find it frustrating and confusing to use. Still, there are some content which are clearly more popular than others. I will not engage in that discussion here, I will leave this for the reader to discover, evaluate, and make up their own mind.
And, there is a lot of it. By my own count, there are well over 2000 pieces of content that can be downloaded, either through the game directly, or found in the wild of the Internet and available to be installed separately. You can only use a small portion of this at any given time due to limitations of the game, but you can just about mix and match any of it (with a few notable exceptions), and for the most part it all works together without any conflict (aside for possibly graphical inconsistencies or glitches), even though almost none of it is inherently designed to do so. It’s almost like magic, except it’s really due to the fact that the developers have implemented a very strict, structured code environment that helps to prevent the player’s experience from becoming corrupted.
Vehicles have independent variables (speed, power, tractive effort, cargo capacity, aging) and are often not balanced against each other. It’s typically advised to only activate ONE type of vehicle set in order to get a consistent experience, but it’s a free world., and mixing them up is mostly harmless. But many of these mods can include hundreds of vehicles, and the management list can become quite unwieldy. Total number of vehicle types is capped at around 65,000 (I’ve never seen anything get close to this), and the base game setting is a max of 5000 trains, 500 road/tram vehicles, 500 aircraft and 500 ships in any active game. This can be changed in-game as needed, but the more vehicles you have moving around, the slower the game may become.
The same can be said for infrastructure. For bridges you’re limited to a total of 15 types. The game includes 12 types combined for railroads and road/trams. Bridges can come as individual content or bundled in groups, and can mostly mix-and-match. RailTypes can have up to 64 types installed, and can include various types of non-electric, electric, standard/narrow/broad gauge, monorails, maglevs, and «universal rails», and can include limits on speed and the types of vehicles that run on them. RoadType and TramType (sometimes called NRT/New RoadTypes and TramTypes, or RATT) can have a combined 64 types between them. These typically include basic asphalt roads, unimproved roads, improved surfaces and other upgrades, as well as electrified or non-electrified tram rail and overhead electric for trolleybus/trucks, and can also have speed limits and vehicle limitations. RoadTpe and TramTypes are usually bundled together in one download, and can mostly mix-and-match (but many will have overlapping types of surfaces, which can become confusing). Stations and waypoints are limited to around 65,000, and I don’t think that many actually exist in all sets combined, but you can build as many of them as you want in the game.
Town/city building can be mixed-and-matched, but this is one area where graphical design can be wildly different and inconsistent. Some of it can look quite awful when thrown together. Some sets try to emulate the original Transport Tycoon style, some try to emulate the OpenGFX style (the open source graphics provided by OpenTTD), and many do their own thing, from being simple to being quite ornate or busy. Most sets will disable the TTD/OpenTTD graphics, and some will let you use them simultaneously if they have a parameter to enable it. You’ll probably be happier sticking to one. Town/city buildings are NOT buildable by players. The cities in the game select the types of buildings to build. Buildings may or may not provide or accept passengers/mail/cargo. It represents part of the unique challenges of trying to transport them and providing what cities need.
Objects are what players use to get around that limitation. The downside of objects is that they do NOT provide any passengers, mail or cargo. They are purely eyecandy that exist in order for players to create a more pleasing aesthetic and environment for themselves. These can be buildings, parks, water, walkways, farm fields, vehicles, statues. there are no limits to what an object can be or how it can be used. If you’ve played SimCity or Roller Coaster Tycoon, you’ll love these. And there are vast numbers of sets dedicated to objects. There’s an in-game limitation of around 65,000 objects. Good luck filling them up!
Town/city name mods can only have one installed and activated at a time. These are popular if you want to include names of towns in particular regions/countries or based on themes. A bit of caution is warranted here. OpenTTD can generate thousands upon thousands of towns, but many name mods are only capable of generating a limited number of names. If you run out of town names, you’ll probably get an error and the game may fail to start. Do you research, and if warranted limit the number of towns an OpenTTD game can generate.
GameScripts offer some advanced features and goals for games. They typically come in two different styles. Citybuilder scripts tend to focus on giving players goals of delivering certain types and quantities of cargoes, mail and passengers in order for cities to grow, so you can then have more of those things to transport out of and between other cities. Goal scripts typically provide softer objectives that are not explicit to city building, but keep you busy and engaged. GameScripts can provide a wide variety of enhancements, so be sure to carefully read up on documentation before you install one. You can only activate one GameScript at a time.
Then there’s Base Music. Transport Tycoon Deluxe included a jukebox MIDI music player and its own music. You can only load one base music set at a time, and there’s several themed sets you can download and try. You cannot play your own music files, and the player ONLY plays MIDI music in the general MIDI format. I, personally, created several of these sets, and I had a hand in helping to create the OpenMSX set to replace the original TTD music. Please, feel free to try them out. although to be fair, most players simply don’t appreciate MIDI music or would rather listen to their own, so they just turn off the jukebox player and disrespect all my work. 😉
Yet, they are still accessible to players who are willing to learn. Patches are the way OpenTTD developers fix bugs and add features. Independent developers use this as a way to experiment with their own ideas and eventually submit them to the OpenTTD developers for review, critique and possibly inclusion in future versions of the game. As part of this process, developers will release their source code to be compiled or will release compiled binaries for popular platforms so that players can test features themselves and provide feedback. If a binary contains multiple patches, especially if compiled from a variety of developers, it will be referred to as a patch pack. There are a couple of very popular patch packs available, but there won’t be available from OpenTTD directly and can’t be downloaded from their content service. While they may be popular, keep in mind that due to their experimental nature they’ll have more bugs than the base OpenTTD game, This also means, again, they’re not compatible with the base OpenTTD client, but because there are many players who use them, you’ll find them in use on multiplayer servers. As mentioned previously, you can install multiple versions of OpenTTD, and this includes the patch packs.
So now you’re at the end of this very long document. After all is said and done. how do you install these mods? There are two ways:
1. Download directly from the in-game content download service, also called BaNaNaS (an acronym for Base graphics And NewGRFs And NoAIs And Scenarios), also sometimes colloquially called the «Fruit Store». Most of the most up-to-date content is uploaded here by their developers to make it easy to download and install content. Click, download, done. Once complete, go back out to the Main Menu, and either go into NewGRF Settings, or Game Settings (for non-NewGRF content), add/remove/modify what’s need, exit out to the Main Menu, and start your new game.
I maintain an unofficial, non-exhaustive list of NewGRFs apart from the official database, which links to much of this content, at https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Community/NewGRF/, and also links to other OpenTTD communities which also has their own unique content. It can be a fun bit of treasure hunting digging through nearly 20 years of forums, web pages and other content to find unique gems that you may not otherwise see. And the best part, is that it’s all free, all created by members of their communities.
Finally, another popular question that gets asked: «How do I add or remove mods from my current game?» The answer is that while you can technically do it, it’s disabled by default and VERY MUCH NOT ADVISED to do so. For that reason I will not tell you how it is done, but you can search for it online or ask around. BUT DO NOT DO IT. The reason why is because modifying any active game, saved game or even a scenario will very likely break it. It may or may not be immediately noticeable (broken graphics, broken sounds, industries producing wrong cargo, corrupted cargo, no cargo at all, etc. etc. etc.), and you may not even experience it until the late stages of your game. Some people may tell you that it’s okay if you’re only adding new stuff and not removing, or it’s okay to remove as long as you remove all the assets from within the active game first. This is not universally true or provable. The reason the developers disabled this feature by default is because players actively adding and removing mods in the middle of a game resulted in bug reports submitted to devs that they either couldn’t track down or fix because of the open development nature of the mod environment, plus it’s not their responsibility if somebody’s mod screws up the game. Don’t look for trouble where it’s not wanted. It is most advisable that if you wish to make a change, stop playing your current game, and instead start a new game using the mods you want to use. With that said. breaking the game that you’ve saved and played on for three years of your life, literally thousands of hours of play, isn’t the worst thing in the world (yes, I’m speaking from personal experience here). Just be advised that if you play with fire, you occasionally get burned. Asking for help from the devs will be pointless, and likely nobody else is going to have the experience to debug your game to try to determine if it can be saved. If you break it, accept your loss and move forward.
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The Best, «Must Have» OpenTTD Mods!
The Best, «Must Have» OpenTTD Mods!
Post by kamnet » 02 Nov 2013 08:37
The Best, «Must Have» OpenTTD Mods!
also
«Why OpenTTD doesn’t actually need mods, and for Pete’s sake, stop calling them mods!»
—
Introduction
One of the most often-made posts that a new player to OpenTTD will make is a request for «best» or «must-have» mods. Much digital bits has been spilled time and again explaining several facts that new players are not aware. This is a guide that will spill even more digital bits, but will attempt to be both detailed and easy to read, and hopefully become a cherished guide for future generations of OpenTTD users to reference, and perhaps put an end to this oft-repeated question.
The official OpenTTD support forums at tt-forums.net hosts an OpenTTD Suggestions forum where players and fans can submit new ideas. Developers do read this forum, and if they see an idea that they believe has merit and will bring an improvement to the game, one or more of them will start work and begin testing. If the idea proves to be sound in both ideology and technical capability, they will eventually add it to the game. Some suggestions may be extremely simple, or extremely complicated. The developers are constantly accepting feedback to improve the game and suggestions for these new ideas, and thus the game is constantly being worked on and improved weekly, if not daily or hourly.
The site also hosts an OpenTTD Development forum, where users who are familiar with the coding side of the game can openly work on projects which they feel improve the game. The developers are also active in this forum, as projects expand and feedback from the developers are requested. If these projects meet the strenuous coding standards of OpenTTD, and are deemed to be an improvement to the game that does not inhibit any previous features, the developers will review the code and possibly implement it. This also plays into the constant improvement of the game.
Because of these constant improvements, OpenTTD is no longer a mere clone to a long-gone game of the 1990s, but is a fun, diverse game in its own right. Players can now choose to compete against themselves or each other to become the most dominant and profitable transport company, they can compete against a variety of computer-controlled opponents, they can also choose to work together to accomplish predefined goals. Or, they can completely ignore all of this and treat the game as their own sandbox to create worlds that reflect any fantasy or reality that they choose.
. and for Pete’s sake, stop calling them mods!
It’s not unusual for a more senior member of tt-forums to chaff whenever a new player asks about «mods», as the term doesn’t quite apply to OpenTTD as it does in other games. Many see it as as sign that the player is quite new to OpenTTD and is not familiar with the terminology, and doesn’t quite understand what they’re asking for. In the world of OpenTTD, there are a few different ways that one can change their gaming experience, which I will explain.
As mentioned, most NewGRFs are typically distributed via the in-game content downloading system, but not all files are distributed there. Many are distributed exclusively from tt-forums’ Graphics Releases forum, and there are some other repositories and sources for NewGRFs as well. The OpenTTD wiki has a NewGRF list which has links to many of these files, as well as the major repositories, which you may wish to browse to learn more.
Game Scripts are scripts that are activated from within OpenTTD and can provide a new way to compete in OpenTTD by providing goals and achievements. This is a fairly new feature for OpenTTD, and the capabilities of this system are only beginning to be tapped. Game scripts can monitor the state of the game while it is running, updating you on how close you are to accomplishing an achievement.
The latest information about AIs is available in the AIs and Game Scripts forum.
In almost every case, a patch file is not supported by the OpenTTD developers (even if an OpenTTD developer creates a patch of their own), and they cannot provide support if a patch inadvertently breaks the game, and they’re never distributed with the game by the OpenTTD developers themselves. The patch authors, however, are free to distribute both the patch code (.diff files) as well as modified versions of OpenTTD themselves, provided that they obey the license that accompanies OpenTTD. Occasionally, a patch proves to be so popular, and is well-coded and significant enough that the developers will elect to adopt it for inclusion in the game. If this occurs, a patch author may choose to stop releasing new versions of the patch, and only provide support to the OpenTTD developers for future versions officially released by the OpenTTD developer team. As OpenTTD is a constantly developing game, it is not uncommon for a patch file no longer work when applied against newer revisions of the game, and it is also not uncommon for a patch developer to stop supporting their patches, or disappear from the community altogether. One should never blindly assume that any patch file will work against a future version of the OpenTTD source code.
Patch Packs are custom-compiled versions of OpenTTD that contain one or more patches in a distributed binary. Such custom versions of OpenTTD are created because an individual likes to play the game with various patches, and wishes to share that with others who cannot compile the patches themselves. Patch packs take specific versions of the various patches and applies them against a specific revision of the OpenTTD source code. Because of this, a patch pack may not actually contain the newest version of either those patches or OpenTTD. Patch packs, therefore, are entirely maintained and supported by the individuals who create them, and both the patch developer and OpenTTD developers may not be available or inclined to provide any support for them.
Whether it is a patch that you apply yourself, or a pre-compiled binary from either a patch author or patch pack, it must be noted that these customized versions of OpenTTD are typically not compatible with either the unmodified OpenTTD binaries nor other patched binaries or patch packs. If you distribute any scenarios or saved games that were created with a modified version of OpenTTD, you should make sure that others are aware of which specific version that you used, preferably with a link from where one can download that version.
More information about patches and patch packs can be found in the OpenTTD Development forum.
In Summary
As you can see, while there are several ways to modify the OpenTTD experience, there is no technical reason why you should need to do so, and you now also know why we do not call them «mods». While all of these can provide a wonderful gaming experience, and many people have put in many hours of hard work to make it happen, it is simply not possible for anybody to say what is a «must have» modification. There are literally thousands of different files available (if not tens of thousands by now) which can vary from very simple to extremely complicated, all of them appealing or not appealing to everybody or nobody, and is completely dependent on one’s individual interests and skills.
«But, wait!» you might say, «You said that this was.
The Best, «Must Have» OpenTTD Mods
list! I want my money back!»
Okay, okay, I tell you what. I’m not going to make a recommendation of what one MUST have, or what I think is the BEST, but I will give my opinion on what I feel are some of the most popular, outstanding and quality modifications. But, I won’t do that in this post, as my opinions on this may change over time. I will update this topic with those lists, and I will link to them at the bottom of this post, and update this post as needed. After all, if you bothered to read all the way through to the end of this, then there should be some sort of reward for your patience.
Thank you for taking the time to read. If you have any comments or suggestions, praises or criticisms, please send those to me personally via PM rather than cluttering up the topic. I appreciate all constructive feedback and may implement that feedback into subsequent updates on this topic. You may also wish to participate in separate discussions about favorite NewGRFs.
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