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Airport ideas

Started by vorlon, August 20, 2013, 07:30:12 PM

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vorlon

I've recently spent some time trying to improve the current airport designs to a be a bit more realistic. Most paksets have currently taxiways that don't cover the entire tile, creating airports that have small areas of grass between the different routes. The result is even worse if you try to avoid the overlapping of wings by spacing the airstops/gates further away from each other. A screenshot showing the James Clerk Maxwell international airport in all it's former ugliness:



As we all know, real airports don't have separate taxiways but large, continuous tarmacs with service roads, fuel tanks and vehicles lying around and grass being present only between terminals and runways, as you can see from this view from JFK.

So made a new gapless taxiway, added asphalt under some existing objects to test my approach and coded an empty asphalt tile as a high-demand attraction to make passenger demand more realistic as well. I also painted a new airport-road, that makes eg. airports with terminals being separate stations much more plausible. I think the result is much more realistic, and altought the new "airport-set" needs work, the basic principle is well displayed in these screenshots:







Any ideas or feedback would be appriciated.

kierongreen

They look good when together although individual tiles look better with a bit of a border I think. If it was easy to code auto selection between the two that might be an idea for future...

ӔO

some other decorative things

Air radar
Ground radar
Runway End Identification Lights
Approach Lighting System
My Sketchup open project sources
various projects rolled up: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17111233/Roll_up.rar

Colour safe chart:

vorlon

Quote from: kierongreen on August 20, 2013, 08:02:56 PM
They look good when together although individual tiles look better with a bit of a border I think. If it was easy to code auto selection between the two that might be an idea for future...
I had that in mind. I was planning to create also a narrower version and a version with round corners, but three extra buttons in the construction menu seems unpleasant. An auto selection would indeed solve a lot of probelms regarding the gapless double rails as well.

kierongreen

The issues are similar to the gap in ballast between railway tracks so automatic joins would cover both.

vorlon

Yes, that is what I meant. But rails (and other similar ways where edges vary) are trickier because it's difficult in the current system to judge from the button graphics which side and direction is desired in each situation. This doesn't cover taxiways, since there is little need for extra graphics for "double-taxiways".

Commander Noddy

Excuse me vorlon, where can i download your cool airport addons?

May The Force Be With You Always!

DirrrtyDirk

I know it's been almost 2 years, but since someone else quite recently resurrected this thread anyway, I decided to drop a line or two as well...

Quote from: vorlon on August 20, 2013, 07:30:12 PM
I've recently spent some time trying to improve the current airport designs to a be a bit more realistic. Most paksets have currently taxiways that don't cover the entire tile, creating airports that have small areas of grass between the different routes. The result is even worse if you try to avoid the overlapping of wings by spacing the airstops/gates further away from each other. A screenshot showing the James Clerk Maxwell international airport in all it's former ugliness: [...]

As we all know, real airports don't have separate taxiways but large, continuous tarmacs with service roads, fuel tanks and vehicles lying around and grass being present only between terminals and runways, as you can see from this view from JFK.

So made a new gapless taxiway, added asphalt under some existing objects to test my approach and coded an empty asphalt tile as a high-demand attraction to make passenger demand more realistic as well. I also painted a new airport-road, that makes eg. airports with terminals being separate stations much more plausible. I think the result is much more realistic, and altought the new "airport-set" needs work, the basic principle is well displayed in these screenshots:

Any ideas or feedback would be appriciated.

Actually you've just discovered the difference between "taxiway" and "apron" on real airports. Both exist, and the original version with room for grass was called "taxiway" for a reason - because it is just that and not an apron (which is what you have actually created there).  ;)

But let's face it: most people just build the bare minimum airport in simutrans to work, most of the time not even closely resembling a real airport. Minimum size (e.g. those "gorgeous" three-tile-length runways I see all the time), etc. Even you didn't bother to put all the realistic lighting stuff (i.e. PAPI, ALS, etc. - which is already provided in the pak128 version) into your (otherwise great-looking) build up. Also the markings and the lights on the runways themselves aren't really correct on your version anymore, I'm afraid. (Same is true for your taxiways, since they're actually supposed to have not just a centerline, but outer markings and lights as well - unless the way is on the apron  ;)).

The version I made for pak128 a couple of years ago (the one you criticize), is - when built correctly - to the best of my knowledge 100% realistic and correct on all markings and all the lighting (even up to some details, most people probably never even realized). I checked all that quite thoroughly back then. For some things, there exists an alternative version in reality, but even those are tightly regulated by the same rules.

I still can't decide if it's sad or funny, that people who try to improve realism, often tend to throw half the existing realistic details out when adding their own... but maybe I'm just to keen for some tiny details which nobody else cares about... or maybe I'm just a little upset for having the work I did to improve the old airports to be called ugly and unrealistic (again), so I better shut up now.  :-X
  
***** PAK128 Dev Team - semi-retired*****

DrSuperGood

QuoteSo made a new gapless taxiway, added asphalt under some existing objects to test my approach and coded an empty asphalt tile as a high-demand attraction to make passenger demand more realistic as well.
So all people needed for a passenger network was to spam "empty asphalt tile" around stops. Sort of removes any kind of realisim since people generally try not to live in the open on asphalt surfaces, especially near airports.

Simutrans needs better airport mechanics and not art. There exists already enough art to make fairly realistic airports but the problem is that such airports are inefficient in the current mechanics of the game.

Specifically I would recommend implementing something like the Experimental "runway length" for aircraft. Having 12 tile long runways for large aircraft would immediately look a lot more realistic than the 3 tile long ones we use currently. This would not solve all problems but would at least help.

Another problem is the "speed bonus" for aircraft I think factors in the "runway" time the aircraft spends. This logically is detrimental to large realistic airports as those for more tiles at slow speed. I am not sure if there is an exception for aircraft average speed in this case as they have a lot of special code for them however I have feelings that there is not.

The way aircraft cost money could also be changed with heavy "take off" and "landing" fees. This is a balance feature which limits the shortest distance aircraft can be used. It also can force one to upgrade runways from grass/dirt to tarmac by reducing the associated fee. Certainly would be a very useful feature for pak authors to help balance the currently difficult to balance aircraft.

Additionally all airport cosmetic items such as "empty asphalt tile" should be made free of upkeep so people can place them for cosmetic reasons without worrying about any efficiency penalty.

Ters

Quote from: DrSuperGood on May 25, 2015, 05:22:51 PM
Another problem is the "speed bonus" for aircraft I think factors in the "runway" time the aircraft spends. This logically is detrimental to large realistic airports as those for more tiles at slow speed. I am not sure if there is an exception for aircraft average speed in this case as they have a lot of special code for them however I have feelings that there is not.

There is certainly an exception for aircraft, but how this works is not easy to see from the code. I think it assumes aircraft always move at full speed.