SNFOS MLM for pak64 (wip)

[Nazalassa]

The MLM (by SNFOS) (https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,291.0.html) is a nice pak128 addon which adds some beautiful maglevs. Unfortunately it is for the pak128, meaning we can't use it on pak64. But I prefer the pak64 and, since I can not live without maglevs So I decided to downscale the MLM's maglevs to pak64 size, so that pak64 users can enjoy them, too.

Download: α2 (tgz and zip)
All downloads: here
Git repository: https://codeberg.org/Nazalassa/mlm.pak64

[Nazalassa]

So far I have done the passenger and mail modules of the Cirrus; I have added a front mail car because I felt it was lacking from the pak128 MLM, plus there is a back mail car, so why not a front one?

The .pak for this early version of the cirrus is attached to this post.

[Combuijs]

I have rescaled the MLM vehicles, tracks, depots and stations for my own pak64 package. If you are interested, provide me with an e-mail address and I will send the sources to you. But of course, it's not that much work to rescale all the graphics. (I have rewritten the dat files to fit in my concept).

[Flemmbrav]

Would be awesome to have them somewhere to download for everyone!
Maybe you could bring Gauther to add them to the website even, but a download here would be awesome as well.

[prissi]

I think that pak64 could use some more maglevs.

[Nazalassa]

Double-decker Cirrus passenger car:



Also, a git repository has been created for this addon (see main post).

[Nazalassa]

How to profit:

[Nazalassa]

The base freight cars for the Cirrus are now done; however, the 'mk2' cars and the betacirrus cars are not done yet. But the current version can carry all pak64 goods, except for waste and milk because they are special freight and were not defined in factory/goods.dat but in factory_<xyz>/goods.dat, and thus I assume not every pak64 instance has these. Thus I did not include cars for them since it would crash Simutrans if a good is not found.

I also noticed there was no freight platforms for maglevs. Thus I copied the basic train freight patforms and made maglev versions of them (really this is just copying the graphics and the .dat file and changing the waytype). So these stations are not by me. (I have filled the copyright= field in the stations' .dat files as best as I could.)

The download has been updated in the top post.


However, balance is really off - I have made a test map in 2025 (so as not to have the excessive speed bonus we get in 1930) in which I used the Cirrus to complete a Bookshop chain. So far here are the results:

Oil Cirrus - $100,000/month for 500 tiles/month and capacity 552m3 ---> $200/tile ---> $36.2/100 tiles/m3
Printer's Ink - $21,000/month for 230 tiles/month and capacity 72 ---> $91.3/tile ---> $126.8/100 tiles/unit
Timber - $20,000 for 400 tiles/month and capacity 300m3 ---> $50/tile ---> $16.7/100 tiles/m3
Paper - $10,000 for 800 tiles/month and capacity 138 coils ---> $12.5/tile ---> $9.06/100 tiles/coil
Books were carried by trucks as the printing works were too close to the bookshop for a maglev to achieve a good speed.

Unsurprisingly we can see the various goods have a revenue that is close to half their nominal revenue, obtained in the goods list ('half' because the Cirrus only tansports freight one way, and comes back empty, so the distance given by Simutrans is twice too high). (These results are pointless. Why did I do this? But maybe they could've been different, who knows.)

Actually it shows us that operation costs are waaay too low, something which we already know.

So I was thinking of making the operation costs of some freight cars a lot higher, so they would not bring that much money. On the other hand, since maglevs cost so much, would it really be a good idea?

I will have a look at the pak64's already-existing maglevs to determine what the prices should be. The best way to test these new prices would be to make a map and play it as usual, so I may use some of my time to do that: thus I might not work much on the graphics themselves in the few next days, (or weeks, depending on how it goes)

[Nazalassa]

Having started the betacirrus, I found an inconsistency between the MLM and its description on the SNFOS website: the website says it can go up to 400 km/h, but in the distributed paks it can only go up to 300 km/h.

Also, there is a slight timeline problem: in pak64, the Concept 1 appears in 2020, with a rather low power and a speed limit of 300 km/h. So it would be rather stupid to introduce the Cirrus in 2014, with a speed of 500 km/h.

I think what could be done could be shifting the pak128 version's timeline by 5 to 10 years; this way, the Cirrus would come around 2025-2030, Aero around 2030-2035 (just in time for the Concept 2, which goes faster than Aero, and comes in 2035), etc.