Station buildings

[jamespetts]

I have been looking at adding some more station buildings of a small, wooden type for country stations: there is much to be said for the system (which I think was first adopted in Pak.German, if my memory serves me correctly) of having platforms with zero or low capacity, and having (most of) the capacity given by the station buildings. I have noticed on the Experimental server game that people are building large stations without any station buildings at all, which does not seem realistic to me.

I have started work on a medium sized wooden station building. A sample graphic is attached. However, I have one or two questions about building these. First of all, I have set up my auto-rotation script for vehicles, and it does not seem to work very well for buildings: see the second of the two images below. I wonder if I could ask how this is usually dealt with? Secondly, I am not quite sure how to set up the player colour: I should be grateful for any assistance in that regard.

[greenling]

Jamesspetts
the rotation of building be confirm in the dat files.
But that it not easy.

[wlindley]

Even without station catering, it would make sense if railway platforms had a low capacity, similar to a "bus stop without shelter"  -- perhaps both should be 8 or 16 instead of 32.

In the early era we now have a coaching inn which effectively serves as a "waiting room" -- would it be proper to have similar "bus waiting rooms" (as extension buildings) for the 1880s to present?  And maybe an available larger bus shelter.  Along with a larger range of railway station buildings, this would make stations much more interesting.

[jamespetts]

I am not so sure about 'bus waiting rooms in earlier eras, since I am not aware of any prototypes for this - until large coach stations came about, perhaps as early as the 1930s, 'buses and trams were simply caught by the street side, and the best that one got was a shelter, which is already included with the "bus stop with shelter" option. One might, I suppose, build in a larger 'bus shelter, as such things (hut sized shelters) did exist, I think, and were often used at major tram interchanges.

[kierongreen]

Some input from the game I'm playing - I tend to standardise on 4 tile long stations. For small villages on a branch line a plain 4 tile platform does suffice, however once traffic increases even a little you need to add platform buildings. For a major terminus overall roof is a must at least and even this is easily swamped with additional buildings required. This mostly feels like the right balance to me, what would be good would be for some high capacity station buildings (or to make existing ones higher capacity and add new low capacity one). Extension buildings adding 32 or 64 capacity just don't seem worthwhile.

Ideas could be large station hotels (think St. Pancras for example). I really should get back to painting you know...

[jamespetts]

Hmm - I haven't played Standard for a while, but, from what I remember, it tends to require much more station capacity than Experimental, I think. Certainly, in the server game in Experimental, people were getting away with 5 or 6 platform stations with the lowest level of platforms and no station buildings for major interchanges.

In any event, do you think that it would work well if, instead of having a plain four tile station with no buildings, you had a plain four tile station with a small wooden building such as that pictured (or its modern equivalent, perhaps)?

As to buildings at the other end of the scale, these sound most useful indeed. You really should get back to painting :-D

[AP]

In any event, do you think that it would work well if, instead of having a plain four tile station with no buildings, you had a plain four tile station with a small wooden building such as that pictured (or its modern equivalent, perhaps)?

Don't forget, this is pak.britain. It rains in Britain. The number of passengers waiting should be more limited by the amount of under-cover waiting space, not the amount of platform.

[jamespetts]

Don't forget, this is pak.britain. It rains in Britain. The number of passengers waiting should be more limited by the amount of under-cover waiting space, not the amount of platform.

Good point well made

[Carl]

Not all capacity-increasing buildings are off-platform. It should presumably be possible to build platforms with buildings on them: i.e. a segment of platform with a shelter (like in the above picture) which has a greater capacity than a mere platform. Of course, such segments would be more expensive to build and maintain than bog-standard platforms -- but cheaper than separate station buildings.

[omikron]

And, I will mention it again, notwithstanding the danger of being repetitive: It could make sense to build extensione buildings that can function as fundaments for the platforms. That might be difficult to code (I certainly got stuck trying to find a way, but that doesn't need to mean much) but may be worthwile. On the other hand, this kind of stations are rather rare in Britain, I think, but common on the continent.

Another option would be to build elevated platforms, where the pillars are filled, somehow.

However, since this is not so common in Britain (I wouldn't know of any such station there), I probably have to dream on :-)

omikron

[jamespetts]

Do you mean build extension buildings underneath a platform? This is already possible - just build a platform on a bridge or elevated way, and put the extension building underneath it.

[wlindley]

If makeobj supported -1 and other negative numbers as a Z dimension, that might let us have the "front view of tile below elevated platform" as well as permitting "immutable depth tiles" for coal mines... maybe even a bank building with an underground vault.  Hmm, bank buildings, now I think I'm off to ponder drawing some city buildings...!

[The Hood]

Catching up a bit here...:

I have one or two questions about building these. First of all, I have set up my auto-rotation script for vehicles, and it does not seem to work very well for buildings: see the second of the two images below. I wonder if I could ask how this is usually dealt with? Secondly, I am not quite sure how to set up the player colour: I should be grateful for any assistance in that regard.

Zeno's auto rotation script works perfectly well - just centre the building at the origin and do the four rotations option - I am not sure what else could go wrong!

Ideas could be large station hotels (think St. Pancras for example). I really should get back to painting you know...

That would certainly be most welcome!

If makeobj supported -1 and other negative numbers as a Z dimension, that might let us have the "front view of tile below elevated platform" as well as permitting "immutable depth tiles" for coal mines... maybe even a bank building with an underground vault.  Hmm, bank buildings, now I think I'm off to ponder drawing some city buildings...!

Good ideas, and the drawing things certainly seems to be catching. Won't be discouraging that either!

[jamespetts]

The Hood,

thank you for your reply. I shall have to check whether it is centred and try again. (I did change the alignments, however, to work with vehicles - I don't know whether this affected things. Do you use my modified version or Zeno's unmodified version?) What about the player colour aspect of things?  I think that the .blends in your Blender repository are the old ones, aren't they, without the player colours?

[omikron]

Thanks for joining me in my dream, carl :-) I'm a very mediocre artist myself, so I'm afraid I won't be able to help, but you all seem so able...

Also James' brick retaining arches from the other thread look very promising. I look forward to further work!

omikron

[The Hood]

I use Zeno's version which I edited to allow for the fact that we use the additional layer with all the lighting in for pak128.Britain. As for player colours, there are two ways which I have used. For most of the station buildings, I added the player colours by hand (laborious, but produces a nicer result than trying to automate - automation tends to give anti-aliasing effects which stay as shades of blue after the player colour treatment and is the main reason I am not considering player colour vehicles). For the bridges and for the station with over-roof I used Zeno's ImageMasker program in tandem with the render script - (1 render as normal and a second with no antialiasing and with the player colour shadeless to create a mask). This latter method works best when you render the player colour components separately from anything else.

[AP]

Don't forget, this is pak.britain. It rains in Britain. The number of passengers waiting should be more limited by the amount of under-cover waiting space, not the amount of platform.

Good point well made

I suppose a differential could be introduced between summer capacity and winter capacity...  (though Flanders and Swann might disagree...)

[jamespetts]

I'm with Flanders and Swann on this one.