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Request for Cooling Truck

Started by Giziar, June 14, 2015, 06:35:32 PM

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Giziar

Anyone know the availability of a cooling truck for pak64 or is willing to make a truck available prior to the one already in the game which is only available in the mid 1950s?
Playing a slow game (time decreased a bit) and I could really use a cooling truck in the late 1930s

DrSuperGood

I assume you are using the food pack add-on?

There is a lot of missing convoys from my experience. Two trucks and a coach as well as aircraft. There should be an early truck (what you are requesting) and a at least 1 refrigerated trailer for trucks (1980 and more economic 2005 would be good). There also need to be a modern high-speed refrigerated wagon for trains which can run at higher speeds. Personally it seems like the pak add-on is not complete.

Also the cooling truck comes in 1963 I think and not 1950 odd.

Ters

Quote from: DrSuperGood on June 14, 2015, 10:50:16 PM
There also need to be a modern high-speed refrigerated wagon for trains which can run at higher speeds.
The current speed of 160 km/h seems quite right for a modern goods wagon. (According to Wikipedia, 120 km/h is normal for goods.) The one-for-all speed bonus just ruins it's profitabillity as the third millenium approaches.

Quote from: DrSuperGood on June 14, 2015, 10:50:16 PM
Personally it seems like the pak add-on is not complete.
That's why it isn't part of the pak64 main distribution, despite being part of the pak64 project, I guess. A shame, because the food chain add-on contains industries one really misses with just the basic pak64.

Quote from: DrSuperGood on June 14, 2015, 10:50:16 PM
Also the cooling truck comes in 1963 I think and not 1950 odd.
1962 according to my lists.

The horse drawn "cooling" wagon is probably the latest addition to the pak64 project (either that, or the Japanese passenger EMU). I don't know why it's obsolete long before the cooling truck becomes available. Maybe horse drawn vehicles would be to much of a hindrance to other (motorized) vehicles beyond 1930. It was added to match the fishing sloop, which was available for over two centuries without any corresponding land vehicles. So maybe it wasn't intended so much as a precursor to the cooling truck as the cooling wagons, although there is considerable overlap with the first cooling wagon.

I don't know if there are (m)any artists left drawing in the scale and style of pak64.

DrSuperGood

QuoteThe horse drawn "cooling" wagon is probably the latest addition to the pak64 project (either that, or the Japanese passenger EMU). I don't know why it's obsolete long before the cooling truck becomes available. Maybe horse drawn vehicles would be to much of a hindrance to other (motorized) vehicles beyond 1930. It was added to match the fishing sloop, which was available for over two centuries without any corresponding land vehicles. So maybe it wasn't intended so much as a precursor to the cooling truck as the cooling wagons, although there is considerable overlap with the first cooling wagon.
The last addition looked like some ancient 1800 tram if I recall the commits. Maybe that was a revision to it however.

The reality is that the horse drawn vehicle for perishables is not viable. They just move so little so slowly that you need at least 3 parallel streets from the dock to the marketplace to move the goods (I once tried). Such a line can be replaced with pretty much a single train line and 2 or so train convoys and is profitable enough that you could stick the entire thing underground.

Ters

Quote from: DrSuperGood on June 15, 2015, 02:12:30 PM
The last addition looked like some ancient 1800 tram if I recall the commits. Maybe that was a revision to it however.

I see my knowledge of pak64 had been outdated during the spring. The last additions were some rickshaws and a sedan chair apparently. Pretty useless considering that:

Quote from: DrSuperGood on June 15, 2015, 02:12:30 PM
The reality is that the horse drawn vehicle for perishables is not viable. They just move so little so slowly that you need at least 3 parallel streets from the dock to the marketplace to move the goods (I once tried). Such a line can be replaced with pretty much a single train line and 2 or so train convoys and is profitable enough that you could stick the entire thing underground.

So you can imagine the pain I'm in for the next 30 game years. Stuck with horse drawn coaches and a few ox carts feeding small inner city shops. The streets near the main station is so packed it grid-locks when I'm not looking. (I refuse to cheat by going underground, nor do I want to demolish through important streets and blocks to get the trains right up to the shops. I did run a train on tram tracks for a while, though. I actually did that for some cooled goods in an earlier game.)

But at least I knew I was starting out in a troublesome part of the time line. The 20th century should at least be playable for any pak set or add-on to be complete (except perhaps those otherworldly pak sets).

prissi

Perishable good on slow truck were not an option until the mid 30ies. Before it was trains bringing stuff to icehoses in the cities. Maybe that is why nobody drew one.

Ters

Quote from: prissi on June 15, 2015, 10:23:38 PM
Perishable good on slow truck were not an option until the mid 30ies.

But that is exactly what is wanted: A truck from the 30ies. pak64 food add-on actually has a slow "truck" before that. Road vehicles for cooled goods exists in the pak64 food add-on from 1610 to 2999, except 1929 to 1962.

So I think it's mostly an issue of lack of graphics. I have trouble finding pictures or drawings of old refrigeration trucks, so maybe that's what keeping the artists from drawing one; they don't know how they look.

prissi

I found images for ice lorrys, but small refrigerators did not exist. (The first european refrigerator was built in 1929 and a few year earlier in the US.) So there was no need for large amount of refrigerated goods. And the small one were moved by the milkman.

What I did find were images of ice trucks (used to filled those ice boxes before there were refrigerators).
http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image/?inum=TGSF00053

Hence any palette truck could be probably upgraded to an ice truck. But a small railway on tram tracks from Harbour to consumer is likely more realistic in that era. For the 1950 though there should be plenty of truck available.

More googlinh reveals: The first cooling car (rail) was introduced in 1878; before meat was just salted. The first ice cream truck with a refrigerator was from 1925. So a cooling good chain before 1878 is questionable, at least historically. Salted goods, on the other hand, were just moved as all other paletted goods, more or less.

Ters

I found many of the same facts when writing my previous reply. Another fact is that some of the earliest refrigerators are still in working order, but the gases they use are so toxic, it's illegal to refill them if they spring a leak. I'm not sure the refrigerators made today last 80-90 years.

Such changes in the market as the switch from salted meat to refrigerated meat is unfortunately something Simutrans can't handle. That's one of the few things where I find Railroad Tycoon (maybe not the original, but the sequels) comes out better than Simutrans. Visually, one could mostly fake it, but the pricing would likely be off, and there would be an odd relationship with the canned food, which also can be transported as boxed goods, while meat and fish can't.