Boats, barges and ships

[The Hood]

Yes, I know what you mean and can replicate.  In fact this is known to occur in various paksets with various different vehicle types, and is most pronounced with fast forward on.  It's something to do with how the game calculates acceleration and how max speeds are implemented, but I can't find the link to the thread where it was discussed.

As for your plan of buying your boats before the upgrade, the upgrade is clever.  It will hunt down your boats and change them too   Of course you could always just mod the dats and build them yourself how you want them, which obviously isn't beyond you because you've already made the boat pak from sources anyway 

[TheMacpau]

But the game can't retro actively charge me an increased purchase price, unless the updates are much smarter than I thought :-D

I'll have a hunt for the thread...For the weird relative powers fo the Schooner and Huge capacity (loving the large capacity btw) boats maybe a fudge using the gearing to keep the ingame performance right while not making the sail boat more powerfull than the huge steamer.

[jamespetts]

Good work on the boats - excellent graphics! Lovely to see them added to the SVN. I notice, however, that the power on all of the larger boats is set to 150kW, which is a great deal too low for enormous ocean-going ships. If the power were set to realistic values (in the four figures), it would not be necessary to use such a large gear value.

Incidentally, might I suggest that somebody consider producing a passenger-carrying canal boat, such as the Paddington Packet Boat?

[druid]

Last boat before xmas loaded onto simutrans.us. It is the Armistice a 14 gun East indiaman. Hope you enjoy. No more ships for a while as its now xmas season and I will be busy.

[jamespetts]

Lovely! And Merry Christmas to you!

[neroden]

I just discovered a major barge problem in simutrans-experimental....

(Apologies if this has already been fixed.... I'm running experimental 7.0 'bugfix' because the linux build for 7.1 isn't ready yet, and pak128.britain-ex 0.4, which has a few barges)

Barges are cleverly specified so that they must go on waterways and not on the open ocean.

Unfortunately, the shipyard must be built on the open ocean.  Therefore it is impossible to get any barges moving.

 

I think the fix for this is clear -- a barge shipyard which can be built on a canal.  Does this require work in the core code of simutrans-experimental, or can it just be done?

[jamespetts]

Hmm, I thought that there was already such a shipyard. I seem to remember there being one when I tested it. Are you sure that there isn't a canal based boatyard?

[The Hood]

Here's the East Indiaman in game with some extra details added...  I think it's a really great model!

[VS]

I think so, too

[jamespetts]

Very fine.

[druid]

Had a great christmas picked up a virus and had to rebuild the computer, but now I'm back. Good to see my eastindiaman in the game. Is there any particular ship you would like me to work on next, as I need a new project.
 

[The Hood]

It would be good to complete the sailing era, so we need:
- Dogger (fishing boat)
- Fifie (fishing boat)
- Brig (sea/ocean going, medium capacity)
- Blackwall Frigate (ocean-going, high capacity; 1830-1890)
- Windjammer (ocean-going, high capacity; 1890-1940)
- Clipper (ocean-going, fast high capacity; 1830-1870)

But if you have anything else you'd rather do, feel free.

[The Hood]

I'm going to try and finish all the sailing boats for the next release.  Here's the dogger (early sail fishing boat).

[jamespetts]

Excellent!

[The Hood]

Completing the age of sail (unless anyone informs me I've omitted something major!):

-Fifie fishing boat (should be obvious)
-Schooner (small 3-mast boat in main picture, this is a new graphic for the schooner from a few posts back, which actually was a brig because it is square-rigged, so I have re-used that graphic as a brig)
-Blackwall Frigate (slightly larger, slower of the 2 large boats in the main screenshot)
-Clipper (smaller, faster boat in the main screenshot)
-Windjammer (final shot, 5 masts)

[jamespetts]

Very impressive indeed! It looks like a lot of research has gone into that, too. I see why you're keen on wind-based speed!

[wlindley]

Just d/l the Clipper, Blackwall Frigate, et al from the svn repository.

If the Norfolk Wherry (25 crates goods, 20kW) costs 0.02c/km to operate, shouldn't the Humber Keel (50 crates, 30kW) cost say 0.03c, and certainly the Blackwall Frigate (600 crates, 300kW) takes much more manpower and maintenance yet it's still at 0.02c/km?  And for a purchase price of just 4x the Wherry! 

Nevertheless, despite those balancing issues, I love how the big ships carry passengers and mail and cargo too!  (I'm restarting my 1840 ocean-oriented game, mmm!)  Now if we could eliminate the resulting phantom blank-squares on the passenger tab of the shipyard menu...

[The Hood]

As you've realised, not a lot of effort went into the balancing of these (a) because I prefer drawing new stuff to getting dat values right and (b) because I can't do a proper balance until I've done all the ships and set a speedbonus curve.  At the minute I'm planning a major re-balancing of all game finance things once all ships and planes are finished.  Before then, the more feedback the merrier!

About the depot - you can remove them by making sure "show all" is unchecked (or at least should be able to).  Vehicles can only carry one cargo each, hence the need for ghost vehicles.  Hopefully though the multiple cargos will make big ships work only on trunk routes.

[AEO]

impressive, to say the least.

[wlindley]

Is there a reason all the boats in diesel-barge.dat have "engine_type=steam" ?  The diesel Seine Netter has "engine_type=diesel" ...

[The Hood]

There is a reason, but it's not a very good one...!  Will fix tonight.

[The Hood]

Time for something new.  The PS Comet was the world's first commercially succesful steam ship and it operated on the Clyde from 1812.

[jamespetts]

Lovely!

[neroden]

Hmm, I thought that there was already such a shipyard. I seem to remember there being one when I tested it. Are you sure that there isn't a canal based boatyard?

This appears to have been fixed in the interim.  (Given that there have been *huge* updates in pak128.Britain I'm not surprised!)

[The Hood]

After a long wait, here's another.  A 1820s era wooden paddle steamer sails into Walsall Dock.

[jamespetts]

Very nice! I love the flag - excellent touch!

[The Hood]

Here's another (sorry for the slow progress, but it's about all I can manage at the minute).  The first purpose-built trans-atlantic steamship, the SS Great Western of 1838.

[jamespetts]

Very impressive! Although, since when did Maidenhead have a dock? :-p