new industry idea

[grampybear]

this is my first attempt at making an addon for pak128. using Fabio's materialwholesales factory dat file as a guide and adding the forestsawmill from pak128britian i have the concept of a landscapers supply. Here in the states this is usually a small home grown business carrying stone,sand, fertilizer,woodchips and other such items in bulk. All these items now exist in the pak as a product of another industry so the creation of another end user factory would help their market. I have probably approached this from the wrong end but i am working out the supply dat first with no idea what the structure will look like. Can anyone tell me if and end user factory that doesnot produce anything will accept bulk raw materials meant to be turned into something else?

[Combuijs]

Can anyone tell me if and end user factory that doesnot produce anything will accept bulk raw materials meant to be turned into something else?

That is no problem. There is no "meant to be turned into something else" concept in Simutrans. You can transport coal (raw material) to something like a "coal shop", e.g. a factory that only consumes coal.

[grampybear]

HIGH PRAISE to all you folks who paint . I have read everything I can find about creating an image for png file and for a person with limited painting ability I find it totally overwhelming,just the number of software programs needed and the skill involved.  Is there no easy way to get an image of a building into a png file so that I can add it to my dat file to create a pak file and test my work I am not ready to quite but it does seem a lot to learn. Looking for guidance. Thank you

[VS]

Don't panic and go step by step First task is to understand that there is a grid underneath. So, while planning your building, you also get to decide what is its tile layout.

This is the base tile:

You can see how the grid is constructed very easily: put another so that the side edges touch, then join another two from top and bottom as if they were puzzle pieces. (see attachment)

The building will always "reserve" for itself some shape on ground comprising of whole tiles. So what the first paragraph actually meant is - you need to decide how much real estate you want. I would strongly recommend to use a square shape (such as attached 2x2), since then you need to draw just one picture. Anything else needs more pictures, and as a beginner you'll want to go the easiest route first

Then you'll think of some building on top of that... I sketched something random in second attachment. Remember that your graphic mustn't go out of the tiles sideways, only "up". And that's all - once you have this plan, just draw!

Graphics are far more work than the rest, which is purely technical exercise. Once you get so far, there will be plenty of helpers

[grampybear]

THANK YOU this simple outline really helped. I also noticed that everyone has their preference to paint software. I have PAINT. Is one better than another?

[VS]

It really depends - use what are you comfortable with!

The simplicity of paint is great, because there are very few possible actions, and so there isn't a lot to learn (or get confused by). Actually, in paint only the following 4 tools matter: pencil, colour picker, line, bucket fill. The rest is understanding how to use them (I assume you did mean the little program that is installed with Windows...)

The more advanced tools? Layers are a very good thing to have (together with transparency), and some more capable handling of selections, too. Plus of course textures. Paint.net has all that, or if you want some higher caliber (for free), GIMP can do a lot. And of course, if you have Photoshop, perhaps investing the time to learn it will pay back later with other projects...

[grampybear]

Today is a good day, progress has been made. I have created a 2x2(256pixelsx256pixels) png image (very crude) and saved it to my makeobj file. I have also created a dat file and saved that also in makeobj file. I am confused however writing code for image placement. Copy of dat file shown below.Please feel free to over advice. Thank you
Obj=factory
name=LandscapersSupply
Location=land
created by grampybear
intro_year=2000
climates=rocky,tundra,temperate,mediterran,desert,arctic,tropic
Productivity=400
pax_level=15

inputgood[0]=woodchip
inputcapacity[0]=1800
inputsupplier[0]=0
inputfactor[0]=300
inputgood[1]=fertilizer
inputcapacity[1]=1200
inputsupplier[1]=0
inputfactor[1]=200
inputgood[2]=Stone
inputcapacity[2]=1200
inputsupplier[2]=0
inputfactor[2]=200
inputgood[3]=Sand
input capacity[3]=1200
inputsupplier[3]=0
inputfactor[3]=200
outputgood[0]=waste
outputcapacity[0]=25
needs_ground=1

image[0][0]=landscapers.0.0
image[0][1]=landscapers.0.1
image[1][0]=landscapers.1.0
image[1][1]=landscapers.1.1