The International Simutrans Forum

OK, despite earlier technical muppetry, I can now present the first pak128.Britain boats - some horse-drawn barges.  These are avaible 1750-1950, and at 20t capacity represent a real improvement on road and rail transport early in the game (as would be realistic).  This should make that part of the game a bit more interesting!

They will be in the next release, but if you can't wait, I'm putting them in SVN now...

Incidentally, the second screenshot illustrates why simutrans needs to differentiate between canals/rivers and open water, unless horses really can walk on water  :o

These look fantastic, and will definitely improve gameplay of pak128.Britain in the early years!

Incidentally, during testing of the barges I found the early industries to produce way too slowly for them to be economical.  Seeing as jamespetts balanced the production of these before I did the barges, this will need to change, how did you do the balancing James?  Have you got time to revisit it?

The Hood,

barges looking rather excellent! I cannot remember now exactly how I balanced the industries - I think that I sampled one or two by trial and error and did it heuristically. How much too slow are the early industries, exactly? And is 20t a realistic capacity (I don't know much about early canal barges, so I don't know whether the figure is correct or not)? If we can work out a factorial difference (e.g., industry type X needs to produce Y times faster), then that can be applied to the industries duly, although care must be taken not to make road transport of goods entirely pointless; there need to be some industries (farms, for instance, at the producing end, and individual shops at the consuming end) that deal in small enough quantities to make road the preferred option, whereas other industries (such as collieries, steelworks, etc.) would benefit from higher capacity transport.

I can't find any actual data, but by comparison with other types of barge, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Pudding, I think 20t is about right.  Anyone that can give a better value is welcome though.  Generally speaking, canals should be the ideal method of transportation pre-railways, but should be expensive to build.  This should mean road transport is used for connections off the trunk canal/river route.

Edit: looking at some others, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersey_Flat suggests much larger tonnages could be carried...

Hm, in which case I shall have to look into the industry production rates. I shan't be able to do it immediately, though: I'm about to go on holiday until the week-end, and after that, I have to finish work on Simutrans-Experimental 7.0 before I can turn again to pakset work. Thank you for looking into that.

On the subject of boats I should also say I know very little... if anyone wants to suggest anything (preferably with pictures and stats) then please post here.  We will need everything from canal barges of 1750 to supertankers of 2000... but only if it has been used in Britain please.

Quote from: The Hood on September 27, 2009, 09:05:40 PM
Incidentally, the second screenshot illustrates why simutrans needs to differentiate between canals/rivers and open water, unless horses really can walk on water  :o

Well, that depends on whether you bought the standard horses, or the "miracle horses", right?  ;-)

Quote from: neroden on October 05, 2009, 07:37:50 PM
Well, that depends on whether you bought the standard horses, or the "miracle horses", right?  ;-)

Ahh, you're confusing Pak128.Britain with Pak192.Fantasy... ;-)

a possible solution to this could be following:

make canal and open water different way types. not allowing ships to pass canals and not allowing barges on open water. in open water canals can also be built (marked by buoyes), allowing barges to use exactly those ways. maybe a requirement to build them adjacent to the shore is possible.

A second addition to the pak128.Britain boats - the Norfolk wherry.  Available in freight, mail, and passenger versions from 1750-1920.

Very nice!

Here is the larger Thames Sailing Barge.  It's intended for open waters and only the largest rivers, as despite the name, they were sea-going vessels as well as operating on the Thames, mostly plying coastal routes but were also known to cross the channel to Europe from time to time.

The awesomeness continues, I'm seriously looking forward to the next pak update.

Excellent!

I've been doing some more research into ship types for what I'm going to draw, and I'm pretty much there with sailing boats and passenger liners.  I'm having difficulty with freight ships from the beginning of the steamship onwards.  So two questions really:

1) How much variety do people actually want for ships?  I know in the other paks ship variety is significantly less than other modes and they tend to have longer periods of availability.  Are people generally happy with that?

2) Does anyone have any suggestions/photos on what freight ships I should draw? Especially for the period 1850-1950?

I'm not sure how you want to play this pack with regards to the capacities of the ships

1) The introduction of canal tunnels, and the early introduction of them as a means of early industry grounding, will mean the players going for a long timeperiod games will probably have a lot of left over infrastructure. Giving it a bit of a leg up compared to rail, if you make it too competitive. The question is do you want to phase out the shipping as a means of bulk transport in favour of rail? Or do you go for the potentially tricky to implement high capacity and low cost shipping we have today, and attempt to represent the relative costs of first/last mile transportation as opposed to containerised oceanic shipping.

I'd guess if you were going for the first you play for a smaller range of ships with slow increases in capacity and speed, if your playing the latter you go for rather larger increases in volume's and probably larger range of shipping as a consequence.

2) I think some liberty ships might be a good idea here for the 1940's, I know they were American built to an adapted British design.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship
Some Good sailing clipppers would also be rather sexy, and rather key for a british Pak methinks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutty_Sark

How are you planning on restricting the shipping types for this Pak, given that there isn't really a nationality to modern shipping design?

I think the general plan is to drop out the lowest capacity ships like barges, wherries etc later in the game.  There will be a few higher capacity barges and then your seagoing ships later on.  I'm currently planning on including some pretty large international ships.  As you say, they will end up looking fairly similar to ships from other paks, but fitting the pak128.Britain graphical style and pak-balance.  Most (but not all) boats will end up being pretty generic designs - as far as I know most ships in the world are not part of "classes" in the same way trains, trams, buses and planes are, but given how much ships usually get used in the game I don't think that will be a problem.  And of course if anyone is really upset about that plan, shout now, or draw your own later...

I'm a fan of the big international ship idea, I've always been a bit confused when I had to have 100's of ships to service even small crossings in game. Maybe after the Sail ships like clippers and fishing schooners which will obviously have a unique look, the pak should move to more generic classes of ship (they do exist) like panamax suezmax etc. with changes in colours to make identification easy, with years just progressing the capacity and speed. Also If the way restrictions of canal passage could even be included for the canal going ships you could have the challange of balancing the ultralarge crude carriers that have to go round the coastal routes like the capes, against the panamax and suezmax type ships that could do canal shortcuts.

Canals in pak128.Britain are intended for narrowboat style boats.  Ocean-going ship canals will have to be dug by altering the landscape (but in standard, there are no restrictions anyway, so you could drive a supertanker down a small canal no problem...)

Anyway, here's the list of planned sailing era boats:
- Humber Keel (coastal/inland)
- Dogger (fishing boat)
- Fifie (fishing boat)
- Brig (sea/ocean going, medium capacity)
- East Indiaman (ocean-going, high capacity; 1750-1830)
- Blackwall Frigate (ocean-going, high capacity; 1830-1890)
- Windjammer (ocean-going, high capacity; 1890-1940)
- Clipper (ocean-going, fast high capacity; 1830-1870)

About panamax, suezmax - that may be one solution.  I wouldn't call those "classes" in the same way as a class of trains though, they are more of a size limit, but it will probably do for our purposes.

I guess thats where a little ingame honesty will be required from me using way points to avoid the supertanker on aquaduct disparity.

I think thats a good set of ships, the fifie will look very good in the pak colours, though I'll admit I'm interested to see how you render the busy looking ships like the clipper and windjammer with many masts and rigging ingame, maybe a little adaption of the truth, reducing mast numbers or sail arrangements so they look cleaner. I'm not an artist though and I've been impressed with the work so far so I'll leave that to you. Do you have a plan for the non-sail powered cargo carriers?

Quote from: TheMacpau on November 04, 2009, 04:27:47 PM
Do you have a plan for the non-sail powered cargo carriers?

No, hence my post at the top of this page asking for ideas :)

Ok well I shall offer some webpages of ideas that occur to me as I find them, I'll just re-edit this list to avoid board spamming.

Liberty ships as mentioned above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship
Or the sucessor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_ship

Refrigerated Cargo ship 1942-1963
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Brisbane_Star

WW1 Wartime merchant shipping in dazzle paint might be fun like this american one sold to british.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wilhelmina_%28ID-2168%29
or this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_West_Nohno
or this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_West_Ekonk_%28ID-3313%29

Apparently the earliest Container ships were converted versions of these WW2 Tankers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T2_tanker

WW2 Oilers in series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_class_tanker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_class_oiler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surf_class_oiler
and onto...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_class_tanker

Steam Fishing trawler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Eva_%28steam_drifter%29
Diesel Fishing trawler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Corsair

The post WW2 container ships and Tankers all look rather similar from what I can tell, but I'm not a merchant shipping buff, maybe thats when you use the panamax suezmax designations for what is otherwise a large number of unique but also very similar ships. Since you don't appear to get the large production runs of single design ships of the wars.

If you are feeling controversial you could consider whalers, since they were a huge industry in the past.

Thats just some food for thought with regards to what things might look like. Hope it helps :-D

BTW. you can solve the ussues with horse draw barges, but making them "electric" and privede the towing patch as electrification ... THen you can avoid barge with magical horses easily.

That would be extremely counter-intuitive to users for a horse to be "electric" rather than biological. In Experimental, way constraints are used.

That's an interesting idea prissi, but I think it might look a bit strange with the interaction of towpath graphics and rivers, aqueducts, tunnels, etc., and as jamespetts says, it is slightly counter-intuitive. 

To be honest, I'm more concerned about magical supertankers that can squeeze down narrow canals.  They drastically increase the capacity you can move per boat, so they make canals much more useful later on than they should be.  And of course the fact that all simu-boats are magical because they can pass straight through each other, effectively allowing infinite capacity on a canal/sea tile, or has that anomaly been fixed now?

Finally, thanks MacPau for your ideas.  I'll see how it pans out when I get to that stage in the timeline...

@The hood: no this anomalie has not been fixed. And it is unlikely that this will be fixed in the near future.

Right further to my problems in getting these ships when drawn ready for the game. I have tried many thing but still cannot get it right. If someone is willing to take the 3d drawings when they are done and get them ready for the game i would be extremly happy. Just tell me what file extension to use and i'll get them converted and uploaded as I do them. The current file is .skp.
;D

I can import them into blender and generate a consistent style with the current images if you can get them to me in google earth (.kmz) or .dae format.

Hi mate Here is the first boat it is the narrowboat President as a .dae file and some data on the boat itself. You said you could render them and set it up for the game as I find it a problem to get right. If it all goes okay more boats to follow.
thanx

Awesome, I've managed to get it into blender and with a bit of re-scaling and adjusting the colours it fits right in! I've not had time to render it properly and get it in game yet though (hence no pictures), and I doubt I'll have that much time over the next week or so, but if you keep the models coming I can sort them out eventually.

PS I merged the topic as it follows on the discussion in this thread.

Managed to find a bit of time today to finish off the Humber Keel (a sailing barge descended from the Viking longboats apparently, maybe you can tell in the pictures?) and also I've got Druid's narrowboat into the game, re-scaled and with a few finishing touches like different cargo pictures so it fits with the other boats. Here's some screenies:

Right
I have uploaded 3 ships I created for pak britain as .dae into files.[ simutrans [dot] us (site down, do not visit) ] for the hood to render and place in game (as I can't seem to do that, so I'll stick to drawing them).

Boats so far with background information;

British cargo narrowboat for canals,
Clyde sea going passenger/cargo paddle steamer,
Clan Line cargo steamer,

what other boats do we need and I'll get onto them.
:)

Thanks druid!  I'll take a look at the cargo steamer and clyde steamer when I get chance (actually I started work on the clyde steamer but I didn't get much time so no pictures yet!  But it looks good).  

Here's one list I had come up with of older ships that need doing:
- Dogger (fishing boat)
- Fifie (fishing boat)
- Brig (sea/ocean going, medium capacity)
- East Indiaman (ocean-going, high capacity; 1750-1830)
- Blackwall Frigate (ocean-going, high capacity; 1830-1890)
- Windjammer (ocean-going, high capacity; 1890-1940)
- Clipper (ocean-going, fast high capacity; 1830-1870)

But feel free to look in the rest of this topic for ideas and draw whatever you want.  The only limit is that it must have been used in Britain!

Thanks for helping with this!

PS at some stage can you send the model of the big tanker ship you drew and I can convert that too?

not a problem mate will do as soon as I can, but need some data to accompany it first.

For the purpose of windjammer: you can use the Flying-P-Liner if the graphics (pak128) is suitable to pak128.britain I made it long ago and it's now under free license. I think it is one of the only bigger sailing ships available in simutrans. And it was a hard piece of work.

Maybe it is a good idea to unite the shipping departments of the different paks, unless there are enough ships in every pak available. Shipping in 128 right now is impossible in earlier times.

But don't be chauvinist: the Flying-Ps were from a german shipping company.

JS,

Thanks for the offer.  That's more or less what I want, it looks great, but I think to fit the pak128.Britain scale it would need to be bigger and also I'd need to tweak the colours.  Colours I can do in the GIMP, but scale is tricker.  The easiest solution would be if you made it in blender or another 3D program, and then I could re-render it to the same scale and colour settings as the rest of pak128.Britain.  Does such a model exist or did you draw it pixel by pixel?

As for uniting the shipping departments, the main problem is consistency of scale and size.  There will be more ships in pak128.Britain than current pak128, going right back to 1750 as you can see.  Of course these are all open source so no reason why they can't be used in 128 if people want to adapt them!

As for them being German, we'll just have to keep that quiet!  But then again, I think the design looks the same as what I want, I'm just after a generic windjammer.

It was hard work: that means pixel to pixel, in principle. I created some modules, like mast, shrouds..., to put them together time by time. But everything happened in the Gimp (the next time I will take another prog). So there is no easy scaling. I don't know the British rules of scaling, and I never rescaled something before. Did you rescaled a pixeled picture so far? Along with this work might come some slight easy modifications (e.g. color of hulk, height of last mast) to keep the British ship distinct from pak128. I can't estimate the amount of work, it might be easier to just draw a new one in a scalable programm. With new modules, for the next sailing ship getting easier painted. Drawing a sailing ship can be really painful, as there are only few straight lines or forms. But the result is much more satisfying.

The case of the two paks: I don't think we should mix the ships alltogether (this would be the beginning of the end of pak.britain), only the ships that are missing in one pak. Marked clearly as non-native, so hopefully someone will start to work on them sometime. Right now me, and I don't think no one else, knows the status of pak128 shipping. This will a future project.

Rescaling with pixels is a nightmare, and the results aren't great either.  I don't think sailboats should be too much work in blender, as I've already got some small sailing boats (e.g. the humber keel and thames sailing barge), so I have some of the "components", which I can re-scale and copy until I have a new boat.  But I will do some trials with your existing windjammer just to see what it is like, but I'd say it's more likely I'll draw a new one.  Thanks for the offer though, and no offence to your graphics skills (it looks amazing, just in a pak128 way rather than a pak128.Britain way!).

Am a bit behind the times, as I've only just had broadband enabled in my new flat, but - lovely latest editions!

Just uploaded to files.[ simutrans [dot] us (site down, do not visit) ] a 1906 scottish Seine Nette fishing boat th "Success". Got information on build and that but could not find data on carrying capacity sorry. But at least thats another boat.

Cool.  Don't worry if you can't find all the stats you need, I can just invent some that seem to fit for what we need. 

I'm also hoping for some time to start converting some of these next week, but still there's plenty of potential for that time to get hijacked!

not to worry at least we are getting these ships built. Another one added a 1970 to present day Shell Handysize Tanker on files.[ simutrans [dot] us (site down, do not visit) ].
working on some other ones not in your list but used by uk between 1850 and 1945

It's been a while since anything new, so here's a quick preview of the clyde steamer (again another joint effort between druid and me).

Very lovely! And it's excellent to see new contributors working towards Pak128.Britain, too, especially with quality like that.

I decided the Clyde steamer was too small compared to the docks and buildings.  Hopefully this one looks better, but I'd appreciate other people's thoughts...

Also below is the Clan Line cargo steamer, also by druid, using the Zeno "big ships" technique (it's 192x192).

The larger steamer does look better, I think. The new Clan Line steamer is also delightful - an excellent contribution! Are there any plans for ocean going sailing ships of earlier eras?

Yep currently working on some uk ships from 1700 to 1850. Hopefully have them done and sent off to the hood soon. Also I have a pirate ship if we want to include piracy.
8)

Awesome new graphics, you guys have gotten me fully converted to pak britain and creating a large new game from a blank map upwards. Any spoilers on the capacities and cargo's of the boats so I can plan my network a bit more fully?

@jamespetts - yes, a full boat timeline is intended, either by me or druid, but at the minute I'm just bringing druid's boats into the game as I get time.

@druid - cool, looking forward to the new batch of boats.  The pirate ship definitely sounds like a great idea, but what would it transport?  Maybe I could do a slightly random pirate add-on (bringing back "pieces of eight" from the "high seas" industry to a "smuggler's cove" on the land?)

@TheMacpau - capacities not yet determined fully - the small boats are around 20 crates of cargo, but the larger ones I need to work out what would balance well in the game.  Quite large though.

Anyway, here's the seine netter type of fishing boats by druid.  I've done two versions, one steam (first picture) and one diesel (second picture).  These work with the new fishing chain (with a special fishing port building that acts as an intermediate industry between fishing ground and fishmonger - you can see the artwork for this in the first shot).

Thanks Hood, I'll leave space for some of the station addition buildings to act as smoothing for the large shipping surges. A capacitor in my circuit diagram.
Will the new stage in the Fishing require the creation of a new transportable product
Because:
Fish (Fishery-Fishing port)
followed by
Fish (Fishing port-Fishmonger)
seems rather odd, or are you thinking "raw fish" and "processed fish" or "fish fillets"

The new fishing chain will be:

fishing ground ---(Fresh Fish)--> Fishing port ----(fish)---> Fishmonger

Fresh fish is a unique goods type, only transportable by fishing boats.  The idea is that this allows specialist fishing boats, and that other boats capable of carrying cooled goods (e.g. container vessels of cooled goods) cannot pick up from fishing grounds (fairly sensibly!).  When I release this in v1.06, it may break existing saves with the old fishing chain.

So if I just leave out the fishing chain is an old save likely to work, or is it a more likely a total loss?

Looking very lovely! The Hood - you could make it work more or less (i.e., load without crashing, if not have a fully working transport network involving fish) by using compat.tab, I think.

I've done some tests - no crashes, but you may get funny behaviour with the fishing chain for saves <=v1.05 (this chain may be broken or fishing grounds still producing cooled goods).  Nothing a bit of work with the map editor shouldn't be able to fix if you really want the new fishing chain working in old saves.

Thanks for the reassurance, I really don't want to have to re-do all my ground work :-)

One more - here's druid's handysize tanker.

@druid - can you give me a list of what you are planning to draw so I don't draw the same things?

Good work, Druid!

I've also adapted the handysize ship to produce container and bulk variants, as you can see in these screenshots. 

Excellent work!  Eagerly awaiting the next release and hoping it includes these!

Very nice  :)

This ships looks nice and big. Is a ship only one tile?

Thanks for the feedback.  The ship is only one tile but uses a graphical hack.  The image tile size is 192x192 and is packed using makeobj pak192.  I have used offsets to centre the images on the centre of a 128x128 tile.  pak128 Still recognises the pak file and you get what you see in the screenshot.  The only problem is when it is docked, it can sometimes look like it is over-riding the dock, but I prefer that to an obviously tiny scale ship compared to the dock.

The Hood,

good work! As to the hack - does one compile all boats with makeobj pak192? If not, it might be helpful to put those that are compiled in that way into a separate directory (perhaps subdirectory), to avoid confusion.

@jamespetts,

No, 192 dats and 128 dats are in separate directories as they require different makeobj parameters.  You'll see when I upload them to sourceforge.

New boat added to [ simutrans [dot] us (site down, do not visit) ] It is the schooner "Nancy" . She was ocean going and commissioned: 1784. She was still in service until 1850 when she was sunk by a privateer. Used to carry spices, tea, Chinese jade and porcelain as well as jewellery.
Hope you like it.

And here she is in the game...

OK I've just compiled the Newest revisions and had a quick mess about, to see how things worked.

My first impression is that the graphics are great and the 192 graphic boats look suitably imposing when moving into port.

As I look further into the dat's they are obviously unbalanced atm and the prices and costs will be updated as people work out how much they need to be.
However the relative power of the Schooner when compared to the, 192 ships, looks ridiculous (80T sail boat at 200kw compared to 150kw for the 320T steam powered ones.)
Secondly I get an odd artifact, where the speed of some of the boats, seems to vary rather a lot under stable conditions ie. running on a canal. Furthermore the speed of the boats with this odd variation, but not the others, seems to change when I alter the game speed.

I'll post a save game if you can't replicate.

Sorry, I know the boats are completely unbalanced.  I'll try and do something crude before the next official release, but I'm kind of leaving balancing till all ships and planes are done.

I understood that that was kind of the plan, (I'll just have to remember to buy my stock of boats for my game before the update then ;-D )

Could you replicate my boat speed anomaly, if I've explained it well enough?

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 :o  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  :P

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.

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 (http://www.canalmuseum.org.uk/history/grandjun.htm)?

Last boat before xmas loaded onto [ simutrans [dot] us (site down, do not visit) ]. 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.

Lovely! And Merry Christmas to you!

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.

;D

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?

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?

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

I think so, too :)

Very fine.

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.
:-X

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.

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

Excellent!

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)

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!

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...

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.

impressive, to say the least.

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

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

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

Lovely!

Quote from: jamespetts on December 28, 2009, 08:22:10 PM
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!)

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

Very nice! I love the flag - excellent touch!

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.

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

Definitely overdue for some development, but after a long time, here is the SS Great Britain (some uncanny parallels with the real-life equivalent here...).  Hopefully it won't run aground in game and bankrupt me to resue it!  And just for the pedants amongst us, it's seen departing from Bristol. (not Maidenhead or any other inland town!)

Excellent! Good to see the progress resume. I should do some more Simutrans related things, too...

This one took a little less time to do - a small iron-hulled paddle steamer from the 1840s, suitable for short distance coastal passenger and mail transport.

Excellent!

It seems boats are like buses - you wait forever for one, and then three turn up at once...

Here is the SS Great Eastern, the largest ship by some margin when built.  Unfortunately a to-scale version in simutrans would be pretty tricky, but hopefully it's good enough.

Impressive!

railway on water!

now the network-simutrans distant future can come, when we can send ships over the edge of the map to a different network game :-)

these might be of interest in calculating potential sailing power.
simple version:
http://www.answers.com/topic/sail-area
complex version with calculator:
http://www.wb-sails.fi/news/SailPowerCalc/SailPowerCalc.htm

and somewhat relevant, but not a direct relationship.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/wind-power4.htm

Time for some more boats I think. This is the Clyde Puffer, used all over Western Scotland from the 1850s, originally on the canal system but eventually into coastal waters too. They provided a vital goods service to rural and island communities.

(http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/7500/clydepuffer.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/13/clydepuffer.jpg/)

More boats? Excellent!

At some point I want to do a set of CalMac boats (they've provided a variety of sizes of ferry to the islands off the West Coast of Scotland for the last 50 years, from 30 passengers to around 500).

Those would be a fine addition indeed - we could do with some short to medium distance passenger ferries.

I did a (very small) bit of research on CalMac last night and came up with a few to add to my ideas list. I'll avoid them if you want to do them, or alternatively you could help me compile a shortlist of what to include?

Island and Loch Class (small ferries from the 70s and 80s some still in service - I travel on an Island Class one commuting to work each day at the moment) I'd want to draw and include. The larger ones I'm not so familiar with but Lord of the Isles, Clansman and Isle of Mull I see most days so might be good ones for me to do also.

I'll let you do those then. I'm still doing some older ships and then I might have a go at some hovercraft.

Next up, the PS Industry, a small, early cargo paddle steamer from 1814. It comes in piece, cool and mail variants.

(http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/3899/psindustry.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/96/psindustry.jpg/)

Splendid!

Getting a little bored of drawing old steamers, so I decided to start a hovercraft set. 1st up - the SR.N6 Winchester class of 1965:

(http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/9550/srn6winchester.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/827/srn6winchester.jpg/)

Lovely! A refreshing change.

Hello The Hood

It's nice to see the pakBritain more complete! Thanks to all contributors!

Giuseppe

It's great to see the boats become more modern, I remember only using huge and slow paddle steamers...

Thanks for the feedback. There are a lot of boats still to draw and for some reason I find it harder to do these than trains or buildings so the encouragement is welcome. I'm going to focus on modern passenger boats for a while. Here's the SR N4 Mk1 "Mountbatten class" hovercraft which was used on cross-channel routes. The image below is the original Seaspeed livery, but I will do a few others for experimental to use.

(http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/1525/srn4mountbattenmk1seasp.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/825/srn4mountbattenmk1seasp.jpg/)

Cool a Hovercraftboat.

Splendid! It's so good to see interesting variety of watercraft.

A lot of hovercraft here, but these are mostly livery variants, plus the Mk3 SR N4 - a stretched version of the Mk1 which should be available as an upgrade in experimental:

(http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9939/hovercraftbonanza.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/687/hovercraftbonanza.jpg/)

Top to bottom:
- SR N6 in Hoverlloyd livery
- SR N6 in BR Seaspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk1 in Hoverlloyd livery
- SR N4 Mk1 in early Hoverspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk1 in later Hoverspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk1 in later BR Seaspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk3 in later BR Seaspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk3 in early Hoverspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk3 in later Hoverspeed livery
NB the original SR N6 image above is Hovertravel livery

Gosh - that's jolly impressive! You'll have to supply a list of which ones are supposed to be upgrades and livery variants...

Splendid! I rode one of the last N4 Channel runs, in September 2000; they were retired a few weeks later.  They were most impressive craft upon "takeoff," the giant bladders flapping to inflation, the entire ship rotating upon its central axis, then schussing down the concrete ramp into the water.  Here we are, loading baggage and fuel for the return. Look forward to seeing them in the pak!  (Although, why do I imagine a traffic jam of citycars waiting for one of the thirty automobile bays?)

This is great! I love seeing new ships, keep giving us more!

(http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/3333/ap188.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/593/ap188.jpg/)

The BHC AP1-88-100 is next up, a 100-seater hovercraft from 1988 used on Isle of Wight services apparently.

The Hood
Cool. I Like it.

Nice!

Excellent!

The modern equivalent to the AP1-88 is the BHT-130, with a slightly larger capacity.

(http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/9023/bht130.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/194/bht130.jpg/)

Delightful!

Finally (for the hovercraft) some cargo versions - the AP1-88-400 and the BHT-150 (piece and cooled goods variants):

(http://imageshack.us/a/img210/3785/ap188cargo.jpg)

(http://imageshack.us/a/img132/2325/bht150cargo.jpg)

Such progress!

Hovercraft now added to SVN.

I saw more great ships since last time I looked at this thread, love it and keep it coming!  ;)

Moving onto catamarans, first up is the Thamesline Riverbus, which operated commuter services on the Thames in London from 1988:

(http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/2667/thameslineriverbus.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/201/thameslineriverbus.jpg/)

Superlative progress!

One more for the weekend - the FBM hydrocat, also running commuter services in London (several in service with the "Thames Clipper" company)

(http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/8687/fbmhydrocat.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/820/fbmhydrocat.jpg/)

Splendid!

Those ship it very cool.

Two more river buses - the River Runner 150 and 200 series which both operate on the Thames.

(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/7285/riverrunner.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/87/riverrunner.jpg/)

A hover craft landing dock would be a nice adition :-)

Tilting the concrete slab, to create an incline leading to the water. Slicing the back of the building to leave something that's just a facade and portal. (to be joined with a fitting station building on the adjacent tile. If blend files are available and blender set up perhaps not very difficult.
(Not trained to do it myself though, sorry.)

Not sure what you mean by that. Anyway, moving onto seagoing catamarans, the "Our Lady" class of 1986 which were used by Sealink between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

(http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/6771/hscourlady.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/339/hscourlady.jpg/)

Hovercraft dock: see picture here (http://www.photoship.co.uk/JAlbum%20Ships%20Misc/Ports%20Harbours%20Piers/slides/Ryde%20Hovercraft%20Terminal-01.jpg). It's just a particularly wide slipway. There are 3 of them on the Solent, at Southsea, Ryde and Lee (where the hovercraft museum is, where they keep the baby hovercraft inside the belly of the big cross-channel car carrying hovercraft!)
(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8428/7637038652_0c6c693872.jpg)

At the risk of causing chaos - don't forget technically hovercraft can drive on land as well...  :o

Lovely additions!

Here is a suggestion for a catamaran ferry. The sea cat (image as an attachment) is a trans channel ferry that serves a Dover to Calle, France. I hope you add it as a ferry!

Quote from: The Hood on November 26, 2012, 10:21:17 PM
Not sure what you mean by that. Anyway, moving onto seagoing catamarans, the "Our Lady" class of 1986 which were used by Sealink between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/6771/hscourlady.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/339/hscourlady.jpg/)

please see attached image*, as an illustration of what i meant. The correct term is as AP pointed out slipway.

(http://imageshack.us/a/img515/5121/hscourlady.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/515/hscourlady.png/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

*a manipulation of yours.

pretty cool


no, make that very cool

nice very nice.
I hope that i nearly have time to play simutrans.

Continuing with small catamarans, the FastCat class of 1996 which superceded the previous catamarans on the Isle of Wight route.

(http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/963/fastcat.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/35/fastcat.jpg/)

The Hood
This ship looks very hot out in the Yellow color.  ;)

Very nice!

And to complete the set, the most modern Solent catamaran, the Wight Ryder:

(http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/890/wightryder.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/834/wightryder.jpg/)

Delightful!

The Hood
Cam the ships at monday in the svn?

Like the new catamaran!

Onto larger ocean-going catamarans - the Incat 96m catamaran with a capacity up to 900 pax.

(http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/4749/incat96m.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/820/incat96m.jpg/)

Gosh - impressive!

The Hood
The SWhip on the Photo looks very good out. :thumbsup:

A more modern and larger version of the above - the Incat 112m catamaran:

(http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/1189/incat112m.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20/incat112m.jpg/)

And an earlier 74m version (1990):

(http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/2361/incat74m.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/545/incat74m.jpg/)

This board has gone very quiet, but at least the shipbuilding continues apace... Next up the Stena Line HSS 1500 class catamaran:

(http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/2356/hss1500.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/202/hss1500.jpg/)

A seriously impressive developing variety of catamarans!

This isn't technically a catamaran (despite the SuperSeaCat branding!) but a fast ferry: the MDV 1200:

(http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/9805/mdv1200.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/72/mdv1200.jpg/)

Very nice! You have been busy...

Now to make a set of cross-channel ferries. Starting with the most recent, the 2011 "Spirit Class" used by P&O. For the RoRo ferries I am coding them as passenger vehicles with three optional mail, piece and cooled goods holds, using the same idea I've just introduced for early sailing ships. This is to represent the fact that HGVs can and do use these ferries.

(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/4026/pospirit.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/5/pospirit.jpg/)

Very nice!

Super.
That go very fast with the Painting.

wow, someone has been busy this month!

great work

Turns out modern ships are quite quick to make because they are quite simple shapes. Here's a couple more - the P&O Super European ferries. Originally built in 1991 as freight ferries (i.e. for HGVs) some were rebuilt in 2003 as conventional passenger car/HGV ferries. This would be good to replicate in experimental.

(http://imageshack.us/a/img545/8752/posupereuropeanmixed.jpg)

(http://imageshack.us/a/img843/4645/posupereuropeanfreight.jpg)

Quote from: The Hood on December 18, 2012, 02:36:16 PM
Turns out modern ships are quite quick to make because they are quite simple shapes. Here's a couple more - the P&O Super European ferries. Originally built in 1991 as freight ferries (i.e. for HGVs) some were rebuilt in 2003 as conventional passenger car/HGV ferries. This would be good to replicate in experimental.

(http://imageshack.us/a/img545/8752/posupereuropeanmixed.jpg)

(http://imageshack.us/a/img843/4645/posupereuropeanfreight.jpg)

Looking lovely! May I ask - is the second graphic the rebuilt version of the first (or vice versa)?

Edit: Incidentally, there is much to be said for having these HGV ferries as having a much lower loading time, but much lower capacity, than, say, container ships (and container ships in turn having a substantially lower loading time than conventionally loaded ships).

James, the second image is the original freight version, with the HGV deck visible and substantially less passenger accomodation. It would make sense to me for RoRos to have lower capacity and faster loading time than container ships as you suggest.

Next up, the P&O Pride class of 1987:

(http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/8793/popride.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/195/popride.jpg/)

Yes, RORO type ships should be convenient and handy to use between low volume points. Container ships are, ideally, suited for high volume transport.

Do we yet have simple cross-river type ferries? Chain ferries, that sort of thing? There were obviously a lot of them at one point in the uk, before big bridges were possible/affordable... still a few operating.

Quote(and container ships in turn having a substantially lower loading time than conventionally loaded ships)

with your industry obsolescence code in experimental you have the necessary tools now to introduce containers as an actual cargo type. Such that old factory requiring piece goods closes down, new factory requires goods to be delivered to and from as containers. Except raw materials and perhaps end consumers this could apply to practically all goods.

Another HGV ferry: the Townsend Thoresen "European" class of 1975. On the right is the original livery and on the left is the more recent P&O livery.

(http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/4091/tteuropean.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/11/tteuropean.jpg/)

This is a rather splendid selection of boats! You have been busy.

Hello The Hood
Is it possible to release the new vessels for all types of freight?
I have get a Little freight transportproblem in my pakset what i develop.

Greenling, the ferries will only be coded to take mail, piece and cooled goods. However there is nothing to stop you editing the dats if you want to make your own versions.

Last one for tonight - the BR Sealink "Horsa" class:

(http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/7953/sealinkhorsa.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/545/sealinkhorsa.jpg/)

A very nautically productive day - magnificent!

The Hood
yes that do i then the png and dat update on the new funktion.

Good work :) Come Christmas holidays I really must get cracking on blender!

Quote from: kierongreen on December 19, 2012, 08:23:15 AM
Good work :) Come Christmas holidays I really must get cracking on blender!

I have a similar plan! I shall look forward to your output...

Quote from: kierongreen on December 19, 2012, 08:23:15 AM
Good work :) Come Christmas holidays I really must get cracking on blender!

Exciting - what are you planning on drawing?

Next up the British Transport Commission's "Lord Warden" of 1952 - one of the first RoRo ferries. Shown on the right in original livery (as will be in standard), in the middle in BR sealink livery, and the vessel on the left is a Sealink British Ferries version of the Horsa.

(http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/1029/btclordwarden.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/844/btclordwarden.jpg/)

@The Hood

Your models are amazing! The level of detail is superb, the colors perfectly in line with the rest of the pak! A job really well done!

Giuseppe

Quote from: Milko on December 19, 2012, 04:06:10 PM
@The Hood

Your models are amazing! The level of detail is superb, the colors perfectly in line with the rest of the pak! A job really well done!

Thanks - but given I drew a lot of the rest of the pak, it would be odd if it didn't fit!

Here's the Southern Railway's "Invicta" of 1939 - a traditional passenger ship for cross-channel duties. Also carries mail in Simutrans, and I've done a sealink livery too (not shown here).

(http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/4499/srinvicta.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/811/srinvicta.jpg/)

EDIT: two more:

SR's Isle of Thanet (1925)

(http://imageshack.us/a/img11/5215/srisleofthanet.jpg)

SECR's The Queen (1903) - the first cross-channel turbine ship

(http://imageshack.us/a/img211/7530/secrqueen.jpg)

Thank you for this very nice ships.

CalMac ferries I promised months ago are the plan!

I'll look forward to those then.

Completing the channel ferries set, these are really a bit of a guess - a paddle steamer (date 1853) and a screw steamship (approx 1880) to fill in the timeline. The paddle steamer can take all goods types.

(http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1723/channelsteamers.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/27/channelsteamers.jpg/)

An impressive expansion of useful shipping!

I've rescaled a number of the above images to make them larger - some of the earlier ferries ended up too small I think.

In addition, here's a cargo steamer from the 1870s...

(http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/520/clydecargosteamer.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/266/clydecargosteamer.jpg/)

Delightful!

Edit: Would you be able to upload the .blends at any point...?

Wooh. That´s go very fast the Ship building.
:o :o :o :o :o (some Friends look too.)

Now for some tugs and barges - a wooden paddle steamer tug (1816), a steam tug (1841) and a diesel tug (1935) intended for large rivers/estuaries (e.g. Thames/Clyde).

(http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/5333/tugs.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/805/tugs.jpg/)

Quote from: greenling on December 20, 2012, 01:22:35 PM
Wooh. That´s go very fast the Ship building.
:o :o :o :o :o (some Friends look too.)

Quote from: The Hood on December 20, 2012, 05:44:41 PM
Now for some tugs and barges - a wooden paddle steamer tug (1816), a steam tug (1841) and a diesel tug (1935) intended for large rivers/estuaries (e.g. Thames/Clyde).

(http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/5333/tugs.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/805/tugs.jpg/)

Very interesting! I visited the Canal Museum in London earlier to-day; barges were often used on the wider canals of London. Are these intended to be a different sort of barge to those used on London canals - even larger, perhaps?

They are intended to replicate ones I've seen on the Thames in London, but judging by their size they could be used on larger canals. By all means add various different types when you do your canal project.

Thank you for that. Would you be able to upload the .blend files?

Just pushing them now (had to remember hjow to use git)...

https://github.com/JamesHood/pak128.Britain-blend-files/tree/master/boats (https://github.com/JamesHood/pak128.Britain-blend-files/tree/master/boats)

Any others you need?

It's probably better to upload all of them, in case anyone (including me) wants to make anything and use them as a base. You already have the narrowboats, do you?

All of the boat blends should be there

Excellent - thank you.

excuse me.
blend files are the same who png files?

No - the .blend files are files produced in Blender, a 3-d modelling programme. In Pak128.Britain, graphics are produced by making 3-d models in Blender, then rendering those models  from different angles to create two dimensional images of the sort used by Simutrans. The .png files are the two dimensional images.

In order to produce new graphics, the best thing to do is to edit existing .blend files used to produce some of the existing graphics, then re-render the images to produce new .png files.

Can you for me try to translat blend files in png files?

Greenling, the png files you see in SVN are all generated from blender. The blend files are so other people can use the existing 3D models and adapt them to create new models of their own which they then render into png files. The blends in that folder already have pngs made from them. If you want to adapt your own 3D models, download blender...

The Hood
it blender heavy to Learn?
and gives blender for windows 7 64bit?

Look here: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=2401.0

Built in the mid 1970s CalMac's Island Class vessels were based on WWII landing craft. They serve on the west coast of Scotland, including providing a lifeline link to some islands in the Inner Hebrides and are capable of taking up to 6 cars or one lorry in addition to 30 or so passengers. The bow loading ramp means that they need minimal facilities to dock, usually just beaching themselves on a simple concrete slip. However the design also means that any vehicles need to reverse down the slip onto the boat (speaking from personal experience this can be a bit tricky and nerve wracking!). Most are now retired, however a couple are in service, although probably not for much longer!

The Dat isn't balanced - introduction year, speed, tonnage and passenger capacity should be correct (although the capacity is theoretical, usually the number of vehicles on board would limit the comfortable capacity to much less than 75). Retire date is set as the introduction for the Loch Class vessels (similar, but slightly bigger and double ended, to follow shortly...).

Hopefully I've aligned the images correctly, I've set the scale to be half the normal railway vehicle scale and this seems to fit in reasonably with other ships. The livery is roughly speaking what they would have had when they were introduced.

Very useful! We do need some island ferries to go with The Hood's excellent longer distance vessels.

CalMac Loch Class vessels have been built from the 1970s through to the present - while they have the same basic design with a ramp at each end they differ in size (the smallest taking 12 cars, the largest 36) and some details (whether passenger lounges are provided on both sides, just one, or on larger vessels above of the car deck). In the first instance I've chosen to use a batch of 4 vessels produced in the 1980s as a prototype - these take 203 passengers and 12 cars, a significant increase on that provided by Island Class vessels, slightly faster too, and also providing the convenience of not having to reverse vehicles onto the boat, while keeping a shallow draught and good maneuverability. I might produce other variants of the Loch Class later - but I don't want to end up duplicating similar sized and era vessels to the excellent ones already drawn by The Hood (and others!) :)

Also, just to show off some of the details I put into these models, I've got a comparison render of the Island Class at 12x that used in the game... pak1536 anyone?

Splendid!

Final boat in the small CalMac series - this is a "Super Loch" class vessel (prototype Loch Shira (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Loch_Shira)). With a vastly bigger capacity than the regular Loch Class vessels this boat can cope with all but the largest influx of holiday makers. Most of the extra capacity is actually in the form of vehicles (3x Loch Class), passengers capacity is only 250 vs 203 for Loch Class. I've got an idea of how to get this extra capacity into Simutrans but it's going to mean another (large) patch to the code :p

Screenshot shows Island, Super Loch and Loch Class boats compared to the Mersey Ferry already in the pak. I've also included a large render, because, well, because!

I might at some point make some of the larger CalMac ferries (ones designed for more open crossings of up to 6 hours and that are about half the size of cross channel ferries).

Excellent!

kierongreen
the Ships are very nice.
thank you.

Fantastic - great to have kierongreen artwork being added to the pak! I'm sure any longer distance CalMac ferries would be a great addition when you get the time. I'm intrigued about the coding change for accomodating car ferries...

Anyway, with these additions (and any arising out of jamespetts' canal overhaul) I think we have a pretty decent ship/boat set now - can anyone think of any major omissions? I may also be tempted to do an ocean liner set at some point, but I don't think they would be too useful in game (large, slow, v. long distance passenger anyone?). I'm officially crossing this off the to-do list now anyway - only took 3 years!!! :D

Do we not perhaps need more short distance (i.e., less than cross-channel distance) passenger ferries in the early and mid 20th century?

Oh yes, there were a couple of shorter distance pax ferries (2 clyde and one IoW) still on my list I'd forgotten about covering 1901-1960s that should plug that gap, and two very low capacity lake/river boats.

Ahh - that should do it!

I am currently in the process of considering whether to try to fill in the river steamers timeline a little. However, I am struggling to find out exactly where the "Clyde Steamer" fits into all of this. Is this based on any particular ship? The only thing that I can see that matches the introduction date is the PS Eagple (http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=4699), but the appearance is different (large paddles, two funnels, different deck arrangement, lower in the water). No passenger capacity is given for that boat. May I ask - where did you get the passenger capacity information from for the Clyde Steamer?

It's intended to be fairly generic, and I'm not really sure where the data was from. Druid drew this boat so perhaps he supplied the data too. I would point out that the type is intended to represent the sometimes sea-going services on the firth of clyde rather than out-and-out river steamers, so this type is also similar to the sorts of boats used on cross-channel and IoW runs for example. Bear in mind that the PS Waverley of 1947 is essentially the same design - it would be counterintuitive to draw many examples of essentially similar paddle steamers when they were so similar for so long. Smaller, riverine steamers could be added however.

Hmm, I wonder whether they really were that similar.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_Waverley) lists the PS Waverly as having a capacity of 925 passengers and engines producing 1,566Kw. The King Alfred paddle steamer (http://www.ltmcollection.org/museum/object/link.html?_IXMAXHITS_=1&IXinv=2005/495), a Thames river steamer of the lower Thames in London that I was considering adding was built in 1906 and had a capacity of 500. I cannot find capacity information for the original PS Eagle of the 1860s, but this (http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=4699) source lists its engines as having 100 nhp (nominal horsepower). The PS Waverly's power was based on indicated horsepower, so the comparison may not be exact, but 100hp converts to 74.57Kw. Even if we reduce the PS Waverly's power by .7 to give an idea of its actual power, there is still the difference of 1,096Kw to 75Kw. The PS Royal Eagle (http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/GSN-PS1.html#anchor271353) is said to have had 3,000 hp - equating to 2,237Kw (or 1,565Kw if one takes the figure of 70% as being power after traction losses).

The PS Madge Wildfire (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/madgewildfire.htm) built in 1886 had a capacity of 983; PS Lord of the Isles (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/lordoftheisles1img.htm), built in 1877, had a capacity of over 1,000 (http://partick.eveningtimes.co.uk/area/lord-of-the-isles.html). The 1932 PS Royal Eagle (http://freespace.virgin.net/tom.lee/royalimg.htm), meanwhile, carried over 3,000 passengers on its London to Clacton and Southend runs (although that might be an overcrowded capacity, as this (http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/GSN-PS1.html#anchor271353) website gives its capacity as 1987).

The 1893 London Belle (http://freespace.virgin.net/tom.lee/londonimg.htm) with triple expansion engines is listed as having a speed of 19-20 knots, whereas the 1910 PS Eagle III (http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=8348) was capable of only 16.5 knots. The PS Royal Eagle (http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/GSN-PS1.html#anchor271353) was capable of 18.5 knots.

---

There seems to be a difference between, on the one hand, the large sea-going steamers that went from London to Southend, Margate or Clacton, and, on the other, smaller river ships that operated a service between about Richmond and Greenwich - out and out river steamers, as you might put it.

As to the former category, the above links show the progression of these coastal/river ferries to ever larger and more powerful engines and ever greater passenger capacities throughout the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. As a coastal vessel, the Clyde Steamer is probably about right in capacity for the 1860s, but larger ships soon came along, it seems, and it seems worthwhile to represent that.

As to the true river steamers, those which in Experimental ought be forbidden from going to sea at all, the King Alfred paddle steamer (and the rest of the L. C. C. class from 1905 - see here (http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/Thames_LCC.html) for details) is an example of that, but there were earlier examples, too, of what were known as "penny steamers" from about the 1840s onwards, I think, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_steamers) (see the section on the City Steamboat Co.).

Here is a picture of a penny steamer from about 1896:(https://sites.google.com/site/alfadams1917/Lambethpalacethen.jpg) (https://sites.google.com/site/alfadams1917/Lambethpalacethen.jpg)

See also here (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/celia.htm) for information on the PS Celia, a Thames steamer of the 1880s, similar to but perhaps a bit smaller than the L. C. C. steamers of 1905, although, sadly, capacity is not given.

According to this (http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/ThamesBoats-London.html#anchor1156940) website, similar (but perhaps even smaller) boats were being built as early as 1866.

The costs of the two are quite different, too. Koh-i-Noor (http://freespace.virgin.net/tom.lee/kohinoorimg.htm), a Thames coastal steamer intended to run from Tilbury to Margate and built in 1892 is reported to have cost £50,000, whereas the later 1905 King Alfred paddle steamer running a ferry service that never left London cost £6,000 (cost as in the link above).

---

Perhaps, then, we could do with a few river steamers and one or two more up to date, larger and (in Experimental) more comfortable coastal steamers with more powerful engines than the current 1864 model?

In a word, yes. That's some pretty comprehensive research! If you would like to draw any of these that would be great. I'm a little shipped out at the minute and we now have a complete timeline so I was going to turn attentions elsewhere when I next get time to draw things.

I am looking into doing some of these at least. What was your research on the Isle of Wight ferries that you were planning to do?

These are some of the ones I was thinking:

Turbine Steam Ship    1901    http://www.clydesite.co.uk/articles/turbines.asp
TS Queen Mary           1933    http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=11562
MV Balmoral                1949    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Balmoral

Thank you very much for those - will look into that.

I have started with some steam riverboats. I could not find an exact precedent for the early boats that plied their trade on the Thames in the 1840s, but I have adapted the wooden steam tug with what seems to be sensible effect. Unprocessed images are in this (https://github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/commit/896408eb9e2026bcca6db7fb13c36c31318821d2) commit. Here is a sample:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/896408eb9e2026bcca6db7fb13c36c31318821d2/boats/wooden-paddle-river-steamer-loaded_S.png)

I have also re-exported the graphics for the Mersey Ferry, which seems far too large compared with the other boats. Here it is at its new size:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/896408eb9e2026bcca6db7fb13c36c31318821d2/boats/mersey-ferry-rescaled_S.png)

Looks good. I really wouldn't worry about exact historical precedents as long as it is broadly representative. After all very few players of the pak will be 1840s boat buffs!

Zeno already modelled the Balmoral, I believe...

Hmm, I wonder whether he has the .blend file somewhere that can be modified for the look of Pak128.Britain...?

Looking on his blog here: http://simutrans-creations.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/ships (http://simutrans-creations.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/ships) there is a blender model. Zeno, if you're reading this, can we have it please? The two liners QE2 and Baltic could also be good additions.

EDIT: I should add that any of the pak128.Britain blends are of course free to adapt for pak128 style too. The blends aren't so detailed (except kierongreen's!), but I've not found that necessary at the scale they get rendered...

Quote from: The Hood on January 03, 2013, 07:14:40 PM
EDIT: I should add that any of the pak128.Britain blends are of course free to adapt for pak128 style too. The blends aren't so detailed (except kierongreen's!), but I've not found that necessary at the scale they get rendered...

The same goes for any of mine.

I have now added unprocessed images for an iron river paddlesteamer of about 1866 to this (https://github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/commit/d6c3d7969e6b99a89b4c5dfb5564f776e3b2697e) commit, which looks like this:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/d6c3d7969e6b99a89b4c5dfb5564f776e3b2697e/boats/iron-paddle-river-steamer-loaded_S.png)

Nice!

And here (https://github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/commit/0a630f07c7fe05406a54ca3698aeb1212f62d97f) is a 1880s version (larger, two decks) based on the PS Celia linked above:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0a630f07c7fe05406a54ca3698aeb1212f62d97f/boats/iron-paddle-river-steamer-1880s-loaded_S.png)

Quote from: kierongreen on December 23, 2012, 11:43:33 PM
Final boat in the small CalMac series - this is a "Super Loch" class vessel (prototype Loch Shira (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Loch_Shira)). With a vastly bigger capacity than the regular Loch Class vessels this boat can cope with all but the largest influx of holiday makers. Most of the extra capacity is actually in the form of vehicles (3x Loch Class), passengers capacity is only 250 vs 203 for Loch Class. I've got an idea of how to get this extra capacity into Simutrans but it's going to mean another (large) patch to the code :p

Screenshot shows Island, Super Loch and Loch Class boats compared to the Mersey Ferry already in the pak. I've also included a large render, because, well, because!

I might at some point make some of the larger CalMac ferries (ones designed for more open crossings of up to 6 hours and that are about half the size of cross channel ferries).

Hmm - I note the size comparison of these against the Mersey ferry. I had to reduce the scale of the Mersey ferry by nearly half to get it in proportion with the other boats. I am wondering now whether these need similarly to be rescaled, too.

Scale is a problem with boats. I've not come up with a satisfactory scale. Basically we have to fit the largest boats (up to a few 100m) into a 224x224 tile, but on a linear scale this would make barges too small by comparison with buses and trains. I've therefore done everything by instinct, which no doubt means some inconsistencies. Maybe we need to formalise some kind of non-linear scale. Either way, I'd be reluctant about rescaling too much - the key should be what looks good in game.

Hmm - I think that it's best to have the boats in scale with other boats where possible. Certainly, I have made sure that my narrowboats are in scale with the barges, and used your barges as a template for barges. I know that the very large ships can't be in scale for that, but there should be as much consistency as possible. The Mersey ferry was quite a long way out of kilter with the rest.

Yes I agree the Mersey Ferry was too big, and maybe the largest of kierongreen's calmacs may be too big by the same argument, but the others can't really go much smaller!

Perhaps we should say that at least boats of the same general size should be in proportion to each other?

I think there should be some obvious progression of scale from small to large ships even if it isn't linear. Are there any other vessels you currently think are obviously the wrong size?

Not that I have spotted so far - obviously things like the Great Eastern are not to scale, but that can't be avoided.

In this (https://github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/commit/a21240bd2d27bf3e26018ed511201fb816ea4560) commit, I add unprocessed images for the LCC Thames paddle steamer (http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/Thames_LCC.html) of 1905:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/a21240bd2d27bf3e26018ed511201fb816ea4560/boats/iron-paddle-river-steamer-lcc-loaded_S.png)

The graphics are largely based on a picture that I took in October 2011 of a model of such a boat displayed in the London Transport Museum.

I am, unfortunately, having some difficulties in filling the gap between this and the Mersey ferry, which is the next in the short distance large river motor ferry: the LCC service stopped after only two years because it was unprofitable, but a private company bought half the boats and continued a reduced service until the outbreak of the first world war. I cannot find much on Thames river boats between the wars, aside from pleasure cruisers and river trip boats of the upper Thames, upstream of Richmond, which were not used for serious transport, unlike these lower Thames ferries.

Can anyone suggest a vessel that might plug the timeline hole between 1905 and 1959, or will these paddle steamers have to be available up to the end of the 1950s?

A small criticism, the sunroof at the aft of the steamer looks a bit like a spherical object. At first glance i mistook it for a balloon. Perhaps a little change of shading would help.

Another suggestion, the same sun-roof appears to be striped in the colour drawing. giving it a happy white and player colour stripes, with the sootstains typical of the aera could give it a bit of distinc character.

Hello on all.
It very good the photo from the new ship.
Came those ships on Monday on the github and the svn?
Edit: A translating of the blend's in png files work at my Laptop not, blender have no Manuel in german

The scale I used was half that of trains. The Super Loch class is 55m long roughly, and fills most of a 128x128 tile. As The Hood has stated, boats like the Island Class cannot get much smaller being only a few pixels as they are. Having the render size proportional to the square root of the length, with 15m the scale of trains would give a maximum length of 250m or so for 224x224 images. This would be large enough for the biggest cross channel ferry (and medium sized cargo vessels) while keeping vessels down to 5m a reasonable size. sound ok?

Sdog: yes, I see the point. Is this any better? (Edit: Sadly, exporting from Blender to get player colour is too difficult, but hopefully the blue colour from the colourised photograph will suffice - I am not sure whether they actually had this, I should note, as the model does not bear this, and the colourised photograph might just be interpreted with artistic licence, but I do not know how accurate that the model is either, so it is rather much of a muchness. Also, I have made the shape of it a little straighter which might make it clearer in any event).

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/4f965626fa164d4207a7249d06dbcbfec83ddbaf/boats/iron-paddle-river-steamer-lcc-loaded_S.png)

Greenling,

I don't know quite when I shall have time to process the images and add the .dat files, but it won't be until I return from my holiday in just under a week at least.

Kieron,

I tend to find it easier to compare scales of different things in Blender by importing/exporting objects that have a known size/length then re-scaling things in proportion to that object. That worked well, I found, when producing railway vehicles, helping to scale a goodly number of locomotives and carriages against one another to produce a consistent and visually pleasing effect.

Edit:

Quote from: The Hood on January 03, 2013, 07:14:40 PM
Looking on his blog here: http://simutrans-creations.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/ships (http://simutrans-creations.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/ships) there is a blender model. Zeno, if you're reading this, can we have it please? The two liners QE2 and Baltic could also be good additions.

EDIT: I should add that any of the pak128.Britain blends are of course free to adapt for pak128 style too. The blends aren't so detailed (except kierongreen's!), but I've not found that necessary at the scale they get rendered...

Hmm, looking at that page, there are a couple of British freight ships that it might be worthwhile having, too, if Zeno is willing.

Looking at the size of this boat in real life I must say the render output looks a little large. I'm beginning to think a formal scale such as the one kierongreen suggests might be the best way forward, certainly for the larger ships.

Do you mean the LCC paddle steamer or some other boat? I based them on the size of the steam tugs slightly enlarged (for the earlier boats), and then made the later boats progressively slightly larger again. Were these boats not larger than the tugs...?

Edit: The scale being half that of trains seems to fit what I have done: the passengers I always had to divide by two in size to make them fit realistically with the boat models that I produced of a passenger type.

May I ask - what is the basis for some of the data on some of these ships, especially the passenger capacity and weight? The iron paddle steamer seems to have a capacity of 80, which seems too low compared to ships only a few years later, and also has the same tonnage as the wooden paddle steamer, which does not seem right. The cross-channel ferries of the inter-war years have a capacity of around 1,000, yet in pictures, they look decidedly larger than much earlier coastal steamers, such as the famous PS Columba (see here (http://www.sunnygovan.com/PLACES/Clyde/RMPSColumba.html)), which carried over two thousand passengers. Also, is the "Clyde steamer" of 1860 in scale with the iron paddle steamer of 1844? It seems a little on the large side given its relatively low passenger capacity.

Further, do we perhaps need to give some consideration to the issue of the consistency of naming? A number of ships have generic names (such as "iron paddle steamer" or "clyde steamer") whereas others have the names of specific ships (such as "SS Invicta"). It seems to be a matter of chance whether the ships have generic or specific names. There seems to me some benefit in using generic names throughout, as the names refer to a type of ship rather than a specific ship. Indeed, players might wish to give their specific individual ships of the same class unique names, and it would be confusing if the generic name of the class of ship is actually the name of a specific ship.

Quote from: jamespetts on January 05, 2013, 10:55:27 AM
Do you mean the LCC paddle steamer or some other boat? I based them on the size of the steam tugs slightly enlarged (for the earlier boats), and then made the later boats progressively slightly larger again. Were these boats not larger than the tugs...?

Yes - just comparing it e.g. to the existing Clyde paddle steamer which is (I think) larger.

Quote from: jamespetts on January 05, 2013, 12:49:42 PM
May I ask - what is the basis for some of the data on some of these ships, especially the passenger capacity and weight? The iron paddle steamer seems to have a capacity of 80, which seems too low compared to ships only a few years later, and also has the same tonnage as the wooden paddle steamer, which does not seem right. The cross-channel ferries of the inter-war years have a capacity of around 1,000, yet in pictures, they look decidedly larger than much earlier coastal steamers, such as the famous PS Columba (see here (http://www.sunnygovan.com/PLACES/Clyde/RMPSColumba.html)), which carried over two thousand passengers. Also, is the "Clyde steamer" of 1860 in scale with the iron paddle steamer of 1844? It seems a little on the large side given its relatively low passenger capacity.

I must admit much of the data is a guess, and some of it probably needs revisiting. For the more recent boats I have a spreadsheet with data I have managed to get hold of. I will upload a copy to the blends git repository when I get chance. One important thing to note is the weight of ships should be the "displacement" rather than any measure of "tonnage" (which refers to capacity in a loose sense).

Quote from: jamespetts on January 05, 2013, 12:49:42 PM
Further, do we perhaps need to give some consideration to the issue of the consistency of naming? A number of ships have generic names (such as "iron paddle steamer" or "clyde steamer") whereas others have the names of specific ships (such as "SS Invicta"). It seems to be a matter of chance whether the ships have generic or specific names. There seems to me some benefit in using generic names throughout, as the names refer to a type of ship rather than a specific ship. Indeed, players might wish to give their specific individual ships of the same class unique names, and it would be confusing if the generic name of the class of ship is actually the name of a specific ship.

This reflects one inherent problem with ships - many are unique and do not belong to a class, or had one or two sister ships but still did not have a class. For example, how would you classify the SS Great Western? It is a relatively famous, but unique, ship, so a class name would lose some of that...

Hmm - there is an element of complexity with the capacities of these passenger ships that I had not initially envisaged. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Invicta_%281939%29), TS Invicta of 1939 had a capacity of 1,304 passengers, 1,982 deadweight tons, was 102.54m long and 15.27m wide. (By comparison, the famous liner, the RMS Queen Mary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary) carried 2,139 passengers, was 310.7m long and 36m wide).

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Columba), RMS Columba was 91.9m long and 8.3m wide and yet carried nearly as many passengers as the Queen Mary and considerably more than SS Invicta.  Clearly, passengers were accommodated more densely - the difference, therefore, in Simutrans terms between the vessels is not so much capacity as comfort, which is only relevant in Experimental.

The S. S. Great Britain, it will be remembered, carried only 730 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Western) passengers even when rebuilt, and even the Titanic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic) could accommodate only 2,435; T. S. S. King Edward could accommodate 1,936 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TS_King_Edward).

The question arises therefore as to how important that it is to have this number of vessels distinguished only by comfort. Now that we know that comfort was indeed the principal distinguishing feature of these vessels over larger vessels, the question becomes how many different levels of comfort that we need, given that the liners represent another degree of comfort yet again. One thing that is not presently clear, and on which some enlightenment may assist, is how different in journey time were the cross channel runs of ships such as the SS Invicta to the trips of the Scottish vessels on the Clyde such as RMS Columba. If they lasted a similar length of time to each other, it is somewhat mysterious why the channel ships were larger, unless the Clyde ships were able to negotiate shallower waters or somesuch, which dynamic we do not represent even in Experimental. If there were real and significant differences in trip times (say one or two hours versus four or five hours), then it might well be worthwhile adding extra types of ships, especially for Experimental. If the differences are one or two hours as against two or three hours, however, this is probably not worthwhile.

Thoughts on the topic would be much appreciated.

As to names, this is a not entirely easy topic. The question is where to draw the line. The "S. S. Great Western" is a very famous and singular ship indeed, as is the "S. S. Great Eastern", but how many people have heard of the "S. S. Isle of Thanet" or the "M. V. Lord Warden"? The L. C. C. steamers on the Thames represented above were part of a class of 30; the earlier boat of the 1880s was based on a specific ship, P. S. Celia, but it is not clear whether there were other similar or near identical boats. Koch-I-Noor was somewhat singular, but had a near identical sister ship (with some differences of detail). I had planned to give all of my Thames river steamers generic names. Any thoughts on the naming issue would be welcome.

Edit: A brief comparison between the included TSS The Queen (http://freespace.virgin.net/jack.lee2000/queenimg.htm) and the TSS King Edward (http://freespace.virgin.net/tom.lee/kingimg.htm):

King Edward
Gross tons: 562
Length: 74.6m
Beam: 9.2m

The Queen
Gross tons: 1,676
Length: 96.9m
Beam: 12.19m

Cross channel was maybe 3 hours Dover to Calais historically. This came down to little over an hour by the early 90s, before increasing back to nearly 2 hours since then. In general the Channel Tunnel and low cost airlines have made the high speed ferry crossings uneconomic. As to the Clyde you are talking about crossings of an hour or so to islands in the firth - but there were often cruises along its length that would be 8 hours or more in the early and mid 20th century. If you go back to the mid to late 19th century mail boats, which carried passengers and supplies would have taken the best part of a week to get to the most remote parts of Scotland, stopping at dozens of ports on the way.

Very useful, thank you! So, hmm, there is not a great deal of difference here between the functions of the lager and more well appointed channel ferries and the smaller, and presumably more cramped, Scottish boats, at least in so far as we represent things in Simutrans (either Standard or Experimental).

The cruises on the Scottish ships - would they be leisure trips rather than transport per se?

We need to think a little more on what we need in the light of this. The MV Balmoral looks to be a useful small vessel - but do we really need the TSS King Edward on top of the existing TSS The Queen, for example?

Re comfort, capacity and complexity I think it would be helpful to rationalise the vast range of boats into certain "series" - that was certainly helpful in deciding what to draw so far. Essentially we need to distinguish between different capacities and ranges, and possibly comforts. So you have a timeline set of boats which are for short distances on rivers (low-moderate capacity low comfort); short-middle distance on rivers and coastal, e.g. clyde, IoW (high capacity low comfort), cross-channel sort of distances (medium capacity, moderate comfort), and longer distance passenger ships (moderate-high capacity high comfort). In my research the TSS King Edward (clyde) was smaller and more cramped than the TSS Queen (cross channel).

As for naming, one way of doing it would be generic names based on year and function e.g. "1860s Thames Paddle Steamer", "1950s Cross Channel Ferry" unless a class name was appropriate?

Again, note the difference between tonnage and displacement for ships. Tonnage (e.g. "deadweight tonnage") is not weight.

Hmm - ship weights are complicated, and the annoying thing is that sources invariably quote only one or two types of weight, which are almost never the deadweight.

As to the various series, this is a sensible approach indeed. The real question is what the differentiation is in principle between the channel series and the Clyde series. Certainly, the overall passenger numbers do not seem to be distinct. Perhaps the difference is just calibration of comfort for three hours on the channel boats as opposed to one hour on the Clyde boats?

On names - I'm not a big fan of using dates as part of names, at least in the final names as they appear in the game (translation texts), although this can be a useful shortcut in terms of the basic object text name. My preference is to find some or other distinguishing feature if possible, although this is not easy on ships. For the Thames steamers, I was thinking of something in the order of (in ascending date order)

   
• Wooden river steamer
• Iron river steamer
• Steel river steamer
• Steel river steamer (twin deck)

Or perhaps something that emphasises function such as: "River steamer (iron hull)", "Twin deck river steamer", etc..

RMS Queen Mary, which was an intercontinental ship, would have had to have logistics to match, so that would be food, clean water and fuel for the 5 to 6 day journey. She was one of the fastest ships of her time.

By comparison, RMS Titanic was slower, scheduled for 8 days to cross, so the owners designed it to be super luxurious to compete against her faster rivals. Actually, that's all she had going for her, because she was a dinosaur by the time she was completed. In those times, building big ships was more about ego and prestige, rather than practicality or sensibility.

Crossing Firth of Clyde or The Channel or even going to one of the Nordic countries only takes several hours in comparison, so there doesn't need to be as much logistic cargo aboard, which helps keep the ship smaller.

That sounds good. I'm not sure how to distinguish several of the cross channel ferries however, as the main progression over time seems to be slightly larger, slightly more modern, but not any faster. I suppose in experimental there would be an increase in comfort.

Where speed and capacity remain constant costs should fall. Cruises on the Clyde were mainly leisure orientated in later years but originally were transport links. The shorter distance crossings could only start operating once land transport reached ports nearer the coast. Some ports particularly in the highlands (Mallaig, Kyle of Lochalsh) were not connected to the rail network until the turm of the 20th century. Channel ferries and Scottish ferries may have had similar journey times, however the Channel ones were generally much larger.

Reducing cost and increasing comfort with the later otherwise similar boats seems sensible in principle. AEO makes a good point about the logistics of a multi-day crossing: this can be reflected in comfort, I think.

On the question of scale, according to this (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/celia.htm) source, PS Celia (the small Thames river steamer of the 1880s) was 100ft long and 14ft wide. There is not an exact precedent for the current "Clyde Steamer", but this (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/argyleimg.htm) small 1866 vessel from the Clyde is given as being 177ft long. A Blender comparison shows that the LCC steamer is a little longer than the existing "Clyde steamer", suggesting that they are not in scale relative to each other. But which to change?

Using Kieron's scale, taking the Mk. 1 underframe (known to be 63.5ft) and halving it, the existing Clyde steamer is the more or less on correct scale, and the Thames river steamers appear to be too large. I shall have to re-export them. Hmm.

Halving the railway scale doesn't work for larger boats as it makes the largest boat using 224x224 100m or so. Hence why I suggested a scale proportional to the square root. This would mean ships 15m long would be equal to railways. 60m would be half railway, 240m a quarter.

Ohh, I misread what you had originally wrote. Hmm - a logarithmic scale? An interesting idea, although some of the boats might end up looking rather odd compared with one another.

Another possibility is to have two or three different fixed scales, I suppose...?

Edit: On a topic other than scale, one relevant question is: how far back do/can we make the distinction between long distance and short distance ferries? We have a paddle steamer of the 1850s that The Hood drew as something of a guess as to what a steam boat would have been like at the time as part of the cross channel series, and we have information about the PS Mountaineer (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/mountaineer.htm) from 1852, which was one of the earlier Clyde steamers. I wonder how The Hood's 1850s steamer fits in with that...?

The cross channel steamship I drew was based on the PS Stag (http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=10205)

I have now added in this (https://github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/commit/6f14930104b80843978ea1c2b936ac1b181c4075) commit unprocessed images for the PS Premier (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/premier.htm), an 1846 Clyde steamer:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/6f14930104b80843978ea1c2b936ac1b181c4075/boats/ps-premiere-loaded_S.png)

This vessel is intended to be the immediate predecessor of the existing 1860 Clyde steamer (I cannot find its exact prototype, but I imagine that it must have had one, as it is quite detailed and seems similar in appearance to many contemporary ships), and the first in the line of coastal passenger/mail steamships.

We shall probably have to rename the existing "Clyde steamer", as it is now too generic a name when compared to its earlier and later cousins. If I am right in my guess about hull construction, we can call the one that I have just produced the "Iron coastal steamer", the existing one the "Steel coastal steamer", and the PS Columba that I am hoping to do next the "Luxury coastal steamer". There should probably be some overlap in dates - smaller coastal steamers should be available simultaneously with the larger ones. Alternatively, if the 1860 vessel is considered too out of date to continue into the 20th century as a smaller vessel, we could add something like the PS Madge Wildfire (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/madgewildfire.htm), built in 1886 and capable of carrying 923 passengers. We might call it a "Small coastal steamer" to compare it to the luxury coastal steamer.

There might also be something to be said for having larger boats earlier. The PS Chevalier (http://freespace.virgin.net/jack.lee2000/chevalierimg.htm) was built in 1866, and was obviously considerably larger than the PS Argyll (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/argyleimg.htm) of that year (292 gross tons as opposed to 140). We might call it a "Large coastal steamer". I wonder whether it might need replacement in the 1890s with the similar PS Duchess of Hamilton (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/HamiltonPS.htm), an even larger vessel with more modern technology. We might distinguish them as "Iron" and "Steel" large coastal steamers, if I am correct about the timeline of the materials used in these boats.

TSS King Edward might be "Turbine coastal steamer"; I shall have to consider further what to call later coastal turbine ships. The MV Balmoral might simply be "Small ferry" or "Small diesel ferry", although the latter would end up being displayed in the depot window as "Small diesel ferry (Diesel)", which would not be ideal.

Is that not rather similar to the existing "Iron Paddle Steamer" - intro 1844 - based on this: http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=9229 (http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=9229) - or is this filling some other gap?

Given your proliferation of many steamers, it would be good to construct a spreadsheet with the various different ships in and what group/series/function they belong to. I'll upload my spreadsheet as a starting point ASAP.

Ahh, I didn't realise that the iron paddle steamer was part of the coastal steamers series, rather than the channel steamers series. Perhaps there ought to be an indication in the .dat file of the prototype for each vehicle where the same is not clear from the name, together with a link to information about it used in research? Perhaps also the name(s) ought to reflect their roles...? Out of interest, on what vessel(s) was the wooden paddle steamer based?

Now that I have drawn the PS Premier, we probably need some means of distinguishing it from the slightly earlier PS Edinburgh. The Edinburgh, looking at the pictures, seems to have rather more in the way of covered cabins than the Premier - perhaps the Edinburgh was intended for longer haul routes, and would therefore have had a lower capacity but a higher comfort? We could therefore have the PS Edinburgh as the "Iron coastal steamer" and the PS Premier as the "Iron island steamer" or "Iron coastal steamer (short haul)", perhaps.

I am currently working on the larger 1866 vessel, the PS Chevalier (http://freespace.virgin.net/jack.lee2000/chevalierimg.htm), which does not seem to have an immediate parallel already in the pakset.

OK I've just added the spreadsheet with all the info to github. You should find all the info you need in there. If you could add entries for your additions that would be great.

If they are prototypes, they could have higher purchase costs or other quirks, compared to their mass production counterparts. After all, prototypes are meant to experiment with new technology or features while ignoring costs or quality to work out kinks for the production model.

As such, prototypes tend to be inferior, compared to production types, in many ways and may be upgraded to a production model later on in life.

Isn't the PS Chevalier rather like the existing "Clyde Paddle Steamer" of 1860?

PS I missed off a few in the spreadsheet - now fixed.

AEO - by "prototype" here I mean the real version on which we base our computer models, not an experimental version.

The Hood - I imagine the existing "Clyde steamer" in the pakset to be a smaller vessel, more similar to PS Argyle (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/argyleimg.htm) in overall size. PS Chevalier has a covered prominade deck at the rear, and is significantly larger than PS Premier, whereas the existing "Clyde Steamer" is not.

I have downloaded the spreadsheet and will be adding to it presently. I am interested, however, in what you imagined for the 1935 motor riverboat, as it would seem the natural successor to my Thames river paddle steamers - there is no link involved in that one.

ah, okay, I understand now.

I have now added the boats on which I am working to the spreadsheet, as well as made a few other adjustments (including adding two boats that were already in the pakset that seem to have been missed from the original list) to here (https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/master/boats/boats.xls).

I have specified in addition a ship based on the PS Waverly III (http://freespace.virgin.net/tom.lee/waverleynbimg.htm) of 1899 to simulate the fact that large paddle steamers for coastal traffic continued to be built for some time, to a later and better design than the earlier larger boats of the 1870s. Indeed, it was this boat that the current PS Waverly replaced when it was sunk in duty during the War, the current PS Waverly being the last sea going paddle steamer ever built.

OT
When come you back Jamespetts from your Christmas holiday?

Wednesday evening.

Ok. Jamespetts then comes the new ships on the next weekend in the SVN and Github.

That does not necessarily follow: firstly, I don't control the SVN, and secondly, that will depend on how much time that I have when I get home to dedicate to this as opposed, for example, to fixing bugs or having a haircut...

@greenling: things will be in SVN/github when we are ready - we all have other things to do other than simutrans...

@jamespetts: I can't find the site I got some ideas for diesel ferries from, but I've just found these Tyne ferries of 1940 which fit the bill - http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/TyneFerries.html

The Hood & Jamespetts
Please Send my a Pm then the Ship in The Github it.
Thank You.

Regarding Island, Loch and "Super Loch" Classes.

Island Class entered service between July 1972 (http://www.shipsofcalmac.co.uk/ships.asp?vessel=kilbrannan) and April 1976 (http://www.shipsofcalmac.co.uk/ships.asp?vessel=raasay), however the first two were slightly smaller than subsequent vessels - the first of the type drawn entered service in May 1973 (http://www.shipsofcalmac.co.uk/ships.asp?vessel=bruernish). The Loch Class is even more complex - the same basic design has been adopted on boats entering service from August 1970 (http://www.shipsofcalmac.co.uk/ships.asp?vessel=kyleakin_iii) through to the present, however these differ widely in details and size (see my post above for more information). The first two were quite different in looks from those following, with a one off ship entering service in April 1977 (http://www.shipsofcalmac.co.uk/ships.asp?vessel=isle_of_cumbrae) that starts to look similar to the more recent vessels. My "Loch Class" was based on 4 that entered service from July 1986 (http://www.shipsofcalmac.co.uk/ships.asp?vessel=loch_striven)- to April 1987 (http://www.shipsofcalmac.co.uk/ships.asp?vessel=loch_ranza), while the "Super Loch" class was based on the Loch Shira that entered service in June 2007 (http://www.shipsofcalmac.co.uk/ships.asp?vessel=loch_shira).

Here is my best effort at data for these classes. I've added an "early" island class, a "proto", "early", "passenger", "vehicle" and "large" loch class and an "early" super loch class as well for comparison. Estimated displacement is based on 90% of vessel area multiplied by its draught:

Class	Prototype	Cost	Intro	Retire	Passengers	Cars	Tonnage	Estimated Displacement	Power
Proto-Loch	Kyleakin	110k	(August 1970)	n/a	200	28	225	901 tonnes	?
Early-Island	Kilbrannan	-	(July 1972)	n/a	50	5	65	181 tonnes	?
Island	Bruernish	-	May 1973	June 1986	164*	6	69	194 tonnes	?
Early-Loch	Isle of Cumbrae	-	(April 1977)	n/a	160	18	201	403 tonnes	?
Loch	Loch Striven	-	July 1986	May 2007	203	12	206	408 tonnes	?
Early-Super Loch	Loch Dunvegan	-	(May 1991)	n/a	250	36	549	1046 tonnes	?
Passenger-Loch	Loch Buie	-	(July 1992)	n/a	250	10	295	408 tonnes	?
Vehicle-Loch	Loch Tarbet	-	(July 1992)	n/a	150	18	211	435 tonnes	?
Large Loch	Loch Alainn	-	(July 1997)	n/a	150	24	396	855 tonnes
Super Loch	Loch Shira	5.8m	June 2007	-	250	36	230	1222 tonnes	1118

*While the Island Class officially has 164 passenger capacity this would be very uncomfortable. There's only room for 30-40 passengers inside, seats can be laid outside either side of the car deck for another 40 maybe but the rest would have to stand for sure. I'd say 50 is a reasonable capacity, matching that of the slightly smaller early Island class vessels.

Now, it would be overkill to add all of these... I think, well, until there's some point having extra vehicle capacity anyway! Now, I'd made the ships on the basis of the timeline going Island->Loch->Super Loch, however purely from a passenger capacity you could equally have Island->Loch->Passenger Loch. This would fill in a gap in the timeline in the 1990s, but as Passenger Loch has the same passenger capacity as a Super Loch it would leave the Super Loch a bit redundant (except if you make that cheaper to run - which doesn't make much sense given how big it is). I've not thought of including Early Island, Proto Loch and Early Loch, Vehicle Loch and Large Loch because in my opinion these wouldn't make sense on passenger capacity alone.

Interesting - the standing passengers on the Island class can be represented by an overcrowded capacity in Experimental, and the facility to bring cars can likewise be represented by a higher comfort rating in Experimental.

Well, there's usually a few cars on island class vessels, so probably normally isn't room for 160 passengers even standing. I've not been on the various loch class vessels much so can't comment on seating capacity vs passenger capacity for those.

The standing capacity is reasonable for the 5 or 10 minute crossings but you certainly wouldn't want to be standing out on deck on an island class vessel the whole hour of the longer crossings - especially in bad weather where waves come right across it!

Personally if you were wanting to code in overcrowding I'd say 30 seated, 60 capacity for Early Island/Island, 50 seated, 150 capacity for Early Loch/Vehicle Loch/Large Loch, 50 seated, 200 capacity for Proto-Loch, 100 seated, 200 capacity for Loch and 125 seated, 250 capacity for Early Super Loch/Super-Loch/Passenger-Loch.

I want to simulate cars being brought on by other means, when I get the time... ;)

Thank you very much - very useful figures!

No problem - it's worth noting that those estimated displacements will be when the vessel is at full capacity - if it's running empty displacement would probably be a bit less.

In this commit (https://github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/commit/b781ee319ffea75caeef4697d74557c2551acdc2) are the unprocessed images for the PS Chevalier (http://freespace.virgin.net/jack.lee2000/chevalierimg.htm), a larger iron steamship for coastal work from the 1860s. I cannot find an exact capacity for this, but it should probably take about 1.5x the passengers of the existing "Clyde steamer".

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/b781ee319ffea75caeef4697d74557c2551acdc2/boats/ps-chevalier-loaded_S.png)

Taking a break from paddle steamers and starting on the first ship in The Hood's list, in this (https://github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/commit/67345b75750d91cb91eda3e77a523a3ab65b4142) commit, I add unprocessed images for the TSS King Edward, the world's first turbine powered passenger ship:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/67345b75750d91cb91eda3e77a523a3ab65b4142/boats/tss-king-edward-loaded_W.png)

I adapted the graphics for this from The Hood's TSS "The Queen" of 1903, a larger turbine ship based on King Edward. However, I notice that the orientation is different, with the boat running lengthways through the X rather than the Y axis, leaving the South image where the West image should be on the auto export (and so forth). I shall have to rename the files before processing them with Image Masker, or else alter the orientations in the .dat file.

I also notice that this seems to be out of scale with the existing Clyde steamer (on which I have based the scale of my paddle steamers), being about 0.7 the size by comparison (I have made the King Edward the same scale as The Queen). Further, I notice that, whilst the existing coastal steamers have both loaded and empty graphics, The Queen does not appear to have any loaded graphics showing passengers on deck. I have produced loaded and empty graphics for the King Edward, as I had with my paddle steamers, but wonder whether other boats without loaded graphics will now look wrong.

Edit: I have now re-exported having rotated the ship through -90 degrees on the Z axis, which fixes the orientation issue.

I have now produced unprocessed graphics for the Tyne ferry in this (https://github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/commits/master) commit, another one on The Hood's list, this time filling in a gap in the river passenger boat timeline.

I have based the boat on the tug barge - the hull is the same (and the same size), but I have added the cabin, etc. on the top. The tug barge is just slightly larger than the canal barge (which is 14ft across), which is about realistic for the barges hauled by tugs on the Thames. In this scale, the existing Thames river steamers seem to be the correct size.

Again, I have produced loaded and non-loaded images, although the difference between them for this particular boat is very small. Here is the loaded South facing image:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/2686a9272827356d90315a1f7e8415107e530e9a/boats/tyne-ferry-loaded_S.png)

That are Nice Ship.

I think that we may have to use Kieron's suggested log scale - attempting to model the RMS Columba ends up with the thing being far too large for a tile if we do anything else.

Accordingly, I have rescaled all of my creations on this thread (aside from the Tyne ferry, which is based on the scale of the existing tug barges and therefore ought to be correct, PS Premier, which, when I checked it, was correct already, and the TSS King Edward, which is in scale with the SECR The Queen), plus PS Comet, PS Industry and the existing vessels called the "Clyde steamer", "Wooden paddle steamer" and "iron paddle steamer" as well as the Mersey ferry. I have not altered the scale of the canal boats as they are already too small to need their scales adjusting and are all in scale with the tug barges and original canal barges (which I took as being a wide beamed barge, which, again, is in the same scale as the tug barges and Thames sailing barges). In the case of the Mersey ferry, the iron paddle steamer and the wooden paddle steamer, I have added loaded graphics showing passengers on the deck.

I have not re-scaled boats in other series (such as the intercontinental, cross channel, modern riverboat or general ocean-going sailing vessel series) as I thought it better that, if these are to be re-scaled at all, they be done by The Hood; but I thought it worthwhile to have a comprehensive set of fully re-scaled vehicles in the series on which I am working.

Samples of the re-scaled graphics are below:

The "Clyde steamer":
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/clyde-steamer-loaded_S.png)

The 1880s Thames river steamer:
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/iron-paddle-river-steamer-1880s-loaded_S.png)

The 1905 LCC Thames river steamer:
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/iron-paddle-river-steamer-lcc-loaded_S.png)

The 1860s Thames river steamer:
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/iron-paddle-river-steamer-loaded_S.png)

The "Iron paddle steamer":
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/iron-paddle-steamer-rescaled-loaded_S.png)

The Mersey ferry:
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/mersey-ferry-rescaled-loaded_S.png)

PS Chevalier:
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/ps-chevalier-loaded_S.png)

PS Comet:
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/ps-comet_S.png)

PS Industry:
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/ps-industry-mail_S.png)

The 1840s Thames river steamers:
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/wooden-paddle-river-steamer-loaded_S.png)

The "Wooden paddle steamer":
(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/0024faac2d5e3eee9bc952217b6e505981bcf2a7/boats/wooden-paddle-steamer-rescaled-loaded_S.png)

That go very fast the ship building. :o :o

Greenling, these are ones that I have made before (or, in some cases, that other people, such as The Hood, have made before), just rescaled. I am hoping to start on another steam ship very shortly, though, the RMS Columba.

Edit: Incidentally, I thought that it would be helpful for me to describe the precise scaling method that I use for future reference, and to ensure that I have understood Kieron correctly. Firstly, I take the square root of 15, which is 3.87 (to 2 decimal places). Then, I take a copy of the underframe of a BR Mk. I carriage, which I know is 19.35m. From that, I have produced a ruler which is sort of a see-saw shape, yellow in the centre, with red ends. I have scaled that to 15/19.35ths of the length of the original underframe, and therefore have a ruler of 15m, which I have stored as a .dae file and can import into any other Blender file.

If the vessel is 15m or below, I scale the ruler by a simple linear method: a 10m long boat, for example, would be 10/15ths of the length of the ruler. The ruler is scaled so that it is the correct length of the boat in the scale, then the scale of the boat is adjusted using the scale tool (without constraining to the X, Y or Z axes) until the bow and stern touch the vertically protruding parts of the ruler without poking through to the other side.

If the vessel is 15m or above, the same technique is used, except that, instead of scaling the vessel in direct proportion to the 15m ruler, I use the proportion of the square root, as Kieron suggested. So, for example, for a 44m long vessel (the Mersey ferry is this length) would be scaled in this way: take the square root of 44 (6.63) and divide it by the square root of 15 (3.87) to produce a scaling factor for the ruler - in this case 1.71. Scale the ruler by 1.71 on the Y axis (keystrokes: s, y, 1.71 after selecting the ruler and nothing else), and scale the ship to the ruler size as above.

I have now completed unprocessed images for the RMS Columba (http://website.lineone.net/~tom_lee/columbaimg.htm), the first of the Clyde steamers built with steel, and the first to carry an onboard post office (hence "RM" for "Royal Mail"):

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/144e65db67d7c11d9bd2b99d57260b53c9767416/boats/rms-columba-loaded_S.png)

Introduced in 1878, she was the most luxurious Clyde steamer of her day, having onboard dining facilities and being fitted out to a very high standard. Luxurious as she was, she can't have been very safe, as, for a ship with a capacity of over 2,000 people, contemporary photographs appear to show only one lifeboat!

I have now re-scaled the TSS King Edward according to the logarithmic scale, and also corrected its relative dimensions, as it was narrower compared to its length than I had previously depicted. Here is the ship as it now stands:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/89ea0f3b361b80c24679f5446e7b7fe35fbf7d6e/boats/tss-king-edward-loaded_S.png)

I have now completed the graphics for the TSS Queen Mary, a turbine powered Clyde Steamer from 1933, which was after its retirement until 2009 used as a floating restaurant on the Victoria Embankment in London. This is one of the ships on The Hood's list. It is larger, slightly faster and carries more passengers than its 1901 predecessor.

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/8ec20730abce6ef897c76c892dfda852ba274095/boats/tss-queen-mary-loaded_S.png)

Looks good - yes 1.71 scale factor for length 44 is correct with 15m as the base scale :)

So to summarise the new scale - am I right in thinking <15m means linear scaling and >15m means proportional to square root; relative to a 15m object which has the same length as a 15m rail carriage on the rail scale?

I have now produced unprocessed images for the PS Waverly of 1899, the first paddle steamer on the Clyde to use compound engines. This vessel was lost during the Dunkirk evacuations of 1940, and it was its replacement (of the same name) that was the last sea-going paddle steamer ever built, and that still operates cruises around the country. My grandmother tells me that she remembers travelling on the Waverly in her youth in the 1930s (and possibly late 1920s) between Mumbles in South Wales and Ilfracombe in North Devon. Apprently, these ships had a bar on board and also had people selling small snacks, so in Experimental, they ought to have a catering level of 1 or 2.

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/3954a00c0689844930962d0313e4b751a3d3af07/boats/ps-waverly-loaded_S.png)

I have produced the Waverly as it appeared after the first world war with the plating on the deck continued to the very front, as this is intended to represent a wide range of latter day paddle steamers.

---

As to the scaling, I had interpreted Kieron's suggestion in the same way as The Hood - I hope that that is correct.

---

A note, incidentally, on liners. Although these were generally pressed into service on very long distance runs between British ports and North America and further afield, they are potentially useful in the game whenever the expected journey time exceeds 24 hours, as their distinguishing feature is that they would have overnight accommodation for the passengers. This can be represented, in Experimental at least, by having a very high comfort level, calibrated for >24 hours.

To get an idea of the distances that would involve a 24 hour journey in Experimental, the RMS Oceanic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Oceanic_%281899%29) of 1899 had a speed of 19 knots - that is 35km/h. 24 * 35 = 840km. Any sea voyage of more than 840km would therefore yield a travel time of 24 hours. At 250m/tile, this is 3,360 tiles - at 125m/tile, this is 6,720 tiles. A 1024x9600 map, for example, is permissible within the map size constraints of Simutrans. If we can have enough of that area to be ocean to prevent the computers running the game being overwhelmed by infrastructure and vehicles (which takes by far the more processing power and memory than empty map tiles), we can usefully simulate long sea voyages (and, for that matter, long-ish haul air travel) in Experimental even at 125m/tile.

We can have the coastal steamers being comfort rated for short daytime journeys of one or two hours, the channel ships being rated for longer daytime journeys of four to six hours (not all of them would have been used on the short Dover to Calais route, after all - many would have been used on the much longer Newhaven to Dieppe route, and so forth), and the liners rated for journeys of over 24 hours.

Jamespetts
The last ships are nice. :thumbsup:

Greenling - thank you.

A new addition:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/60457a78bdffeec7bc389029cfda4aeedc2693ef/boats/ps-madge-wildfire_S.png)

This is the PS Madge Wildfire, a paddle steamer from 1886. This is intended to replace the earlier, smaller paddle steamers with something a little more up to date and efficient.

I can't find anything in the topic... there are no more big sail ships like the East Indiaman or the Blackwell Frigate or the Clipper in the latest nightly (r1135). Is that right?

Yes, that's right - large sailing ships weren't added on this occasion. Do you think that any particular large sailing ship types are missing from the pakset?

Not per se, it's just that in my old savegame I used all those, so all my freight sea routes failed when I loaded the savegame with the new pak version. I think I'll either revert back to an older version or replace all the ships on those lines with what's available.
Is there any plan to re-add them? Given the amount of cargo I'm moving via ships, there is a need for early cargo ships with big capacity.

Ahh, I see - this is a separate issue. The old ships are still there, but they are now defined differently because of the new hull/hold system (discussed in page 4, I believe, of this thread). It seems that compat.tab cannot have been defined correctly to deal with this with your old saved game.

I know what happened to my existing ships, it already happened to me in the past when there was some major change in the pakset I was usinng and I skipped some updates.
However, there is no new version of those ships or any equivalent in the shipyards even in a new game; it means that they aren't in the pakset.

There is a new version of them - it is just that, instead of having, for example, "Blackwall Frigate - piece goods" and "Blackwall Frigage - bulk goods" there is a new generic "Blackwall Frigate", and a "bulk goods hold" and "piece goods hold" (etc.) to go with it. The generic "Blackwall Frigate" is not the same object as far as Simutrans is concerned as the original "Blackwall Frigate - piece goods" (etc.), so it will behave as if the objects have been removed.

I have now completed the unprocessed images for the MV Lochfyne (http://freespace.virgin.net/tom.lee/lochfyneimg.htm), which, when launched in 1931, was Britain's first diesel-electric powered ship. Used on Scottish island services, she was reportedly half as expensive to run as her steam powered compatriots, but her early engines caused great vibrations in the ship that made passengers less comfortable than they might have been.

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends/daa91ab7d6636264a3a273b499c20655fe4174bb/boats/mv-lochfyne-loaded_S.png)

---

Edit:

I have now processed all of the boats images, and added them for now to an "Awaiting dat files" subfolder of the "images" subfolder of the boats folder in the Github repository here (https://github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/tree/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files).

For reference, below are all of the sea-going and river vessels that I have added or modified to date (canal boats are in their own thread):

Click the image to see it in full size

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/clyde-steamer-loaded.png)
The Clyde Steamer - modified from the original graphic to re-scale and add a loaded image

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/iron-paddle-river-steamer-1880s-loaded.png)
A river steamer from the 1880s

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/iron-paddle-river-steamer-lcc-loaded.png)
The London County Council's river steamer from 1905.

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/iron-paddle-river-steamer-loaded.png)
An iron hulled river steamer from the 1860s

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/iron-paddle-steamer-rescaled-loaded.png)
The current "Iron paddle steamer" - rescaled and with the addition of a loaded image

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/mersey-ferry-rescaled-loaded.png)
The current Mersey ferry - rescaled and with the addition of a loaded image

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/mv-lochfyne-loaded.png)
A diesel coastal ferry from 1931, based on the MV Lochfyne

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/ps-chevalier-loaded.png)
A larger iron hulled coastal paddle steamer from 1866, based on PS Chevalier

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/ps-comet-loaded.png)
The current PS Comet, rescaled and with a loaded image

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/ps-industry-cool.png)
The current PS Industry

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/ps-madge-wildfire-loaded.png)
A steel hulled coastal paddle steamer from 1886, based on the PS Madge Wildfire (later PS Isle of Skye)

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/ps-premiere-loaded.png)
An iron hulled coastal paddle steamer from the 1840s with open decks, based on the PS Premier

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/ps-waverly-loaded.png)
A steel hulled paddle steamer from 1899, based on the PS Waverly, the first paddle steamer on the Clyde to be fitted with (more powerful and efficient) compound engines.

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/rms-columba-loaded.png)
A steel hulled luxury paddle steamer from 1878, based on the RMS Columba, the first such vessel to be made of steel, and the most luxurious of her time.

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/tss-king-edward-loaded.png)
A turbine coastal steamer of 1901, based on the TSS King Edward, the first turbine powered passenger steamer in Britain.

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/tss-queen-mary-loaded.png)
A later turbine coastal steamer of 1933 with, based on the TSS Queen Mary II, which was until recently a floating restaurant in London and is currently awaiting possible restoration.

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/tyne-ferry-loaded.png)
The Tyne ferry - a small diesel powered river ferry from 1940.

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/wooden-paddle-river-steamer.png)
A wooden hulled river steamer from the 1840s.

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/wooden-paddle-steamer-rescaled-loaded.png)
The existing "Wooden paddle steamer", rescaled and with an added loaded image.

Quote from: jamespetts on January 10, 2013, 09:04:02 PM
There is a new version of them - it is just that, instead of having, for example, "Blackwall Frigate - piece goods" and "Blackwall Frigage - bulk goods" there is a new generic "Blackwall Frigate", and a "bulk goods hold" and "piece goods hold" (etc.) to go with it. The generic "Blackwall Frigate" is not the same object as far as Simutrans is concerned as the original "Blackwall Frigate - piece goods" (etc.), so it will behave as if the objects have been removed.

Nope, there aren't.
There are only two general hulls in 1860, Brig and Schooner. Funny enough, there are holds for the Frigate and the Clipper, but no hulls for them.
This is how the shipyard window looks like:

(http://i45.tinypic.com/30rsnz8.png)
(http://i45.tinypic.com/3522jh2.png)
(http://i48.tinypic.com/r0pooy.png)

Hmm - if that is so, it was not intended. Perhaps there was an error in compiling the latest version of the pakset for Standard...?

Hello Jamespetts & Bear789
Here have Wernieman be sleep,he have not be ask Jamespetts after changes in the Pakset.

Thanks to Zeno, I have now produced graphics (by adapting Zeno's .blender file to fit Pak128.Britain style) for the MV Balmoral:

(https://raw.github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/master/boats/images/Awaiting%20dat%20files/mv-balmoral-loaded.png)

I have tried to do the same thing with the Queen Elizabeth II liner, but have run into some difficulties with the scale. Using the square root scale, I end up having to re-scale the 15m ruler in the y dimension by 4.43. This makes it far too long to fit even onto the size of the 224x224 image produced when I use the Great Eastern's .blend file as a template.

Ought I be scaling the ruler again by 128/224ths to compensate for using a 224x224 graphic?

Yes - thanks again Zeno. Good not to duplicate work. Of course pak128 team are welcome to adapt any of our objects (especially the ships as most sets are short on these) at any time.

@jamespetts: You would need to rescale again to compensate for the fact that the render is more detailed, presumably by 128/224 but it's a bit early in the morning for my head to be functioning yet!

The only difference between a 224x224 and 128x128 blend file is the setting on the camera: the blend objects are not scaled bigger in the 224 version.

Here's updated pngs, dats and paks for CalMac ships to fit the new scale (Island a lot bigger, Loch a little bigger, Super Loch a little smaller). Source blends can be found here (http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/calmac-19-01-13.zip).

Ahh, splendid! The smaller ships look better like that, I think.

The new Ships are nice.

@jamespetts - can I check where you are up to (a) with coding the new ships as dat files and (b) rescaling images? With regard to the rescaling, I need to know which, if any, out of the ships I did to rescale. I'm hoping to get these ready over the next few weeks for a new release.

I was rather hoping that TygerFish would deal with the .dat writing for these and the canal boats, but, alas, he seems to have disappeared, which rather seriously sets back the canal/ship project. I am rather waylayed with a number of coding projects at present. The relevant statistics are contained in the .xls file, which is on my .blend file Github repository if you would like to do them yourself. Otherwise, I shall catch up to this task eventually, but it is hard to predict when, I am afraid.

As to rescaling the images, all of the images that I have posted in this thread are rescaled. I rescaled everything in the coastal steamers series and river boats series, but not any of the other series. I hope that this clarifies things - sorry that things had not progressed as intended.

Thanks for the update. I will start rescaling my own images which you haven't done and then I will look into coding the new graphics (for standard at least), balancing them and putting together a new release along with the latest bridges and elevated ways.

Splendid! Apologies for not being able to make more progress on this: resources spread rather thin with all the various Simutrans things...

Can I check what we agreed with length scales for boats. As I understand it:
<15m - linear scale as per railways.
>15m - proportional to square root of length, scaled such that 15m is identical to railway scale, 60m = 1/2 scale, 240m = 1/4 scale etc.?

Yes, indeed - that's my understanding. Have you found my 15m ruler .dae file in my repository? I use one for length and one for width, and rescale them accordingly (so, for example, a 50m long boat would be 50/15 = 3.33, so scale the ruler length along the x axis by 3.33, then import a fresh one, rotate it 90 degrees and repeat the process for the width).

Not yet. I assumed we'd just be scaling by length, not separately for width - surely doing otherwise messes up the aspect ratio considerably?

I think that I have erred in my explanation: apologies. For a 50m ship, one would take the square root of 15 (3.87) and the square root of 50 (7.07), and divide the latter by the former to get 1.83, and multiply the length ruler on the y axis by 1.83. One would then duplicate the length ruler and re-scale it as a width ruler. Suppose, for example, that this 50m long ship was 4m wide: one would take the re-scaled ruler, rotate it by 90 degrees, and scale it by 0.08 (4 / 50) on the x axis.

One would then use freeform scaling to get the ship's bow and stern just touching the red vertical bars on the length ruler, and use x axis constrained scaling to get the ship's sides touching the vertical bars on the width ruler.

Width should always use the same scale as length to avoid aspect problems, therefore the width, length and height scales are all the same and proportional to the square root of the length.

I'm with kierongreen here - surely it's easiest to determine the scale factor according to the square root method and then simply scale the whole ship with a 1:1 aspect ratio so that the length fits the correct length scale. Otherwise, for very long ships which are still relatively narrow, you will end up scaling the width linearly but the length with the square root, leading to it looking far wider than it should for its length...

Hmm - maybe I am getting confused: I thought that the revised version of what I wrote above did that? The idea is that the width will be in linear (exact) proportion to the length for each individual ship, but that the length (and therefore overall size) of one ship will be in a logarithmic scale with other ships that are over 15m long. That is why I described, in the revised text, scaling the width ruler to a proportion of the length ruler based on the ship's width relative to its length without further calculations involving the square root.

OK I get you now - but surely you don't need a width scaler as well as you can just scale in proportion down to the correct length?

That should be the case in theory, but I found that a number of ships were not the correct width for their length.

OK, so the width scaling was to ENSURE correct aspect ratio. It's as good a time as any to check all of the widths if we're rescaling everything anyway. Glad we cleared that one up :)

I'm now turning my attention to adding dat files for the new images and rescaling existing images which need to be rescaled. From the spreadsheet in your github repository, james, I can't see any data on the canal boats and you haven't entered speed/capacity/power data for some of the new steamers you drew. Do you just want me to do a best guess or do you have some data you were intending to use?

Where there are items missing in the spreadsheet, such as speed, power or capacity, it is because I was unable to find data - I suggest that you extrapolate as best you can from the ships for which we do have data.

As for the canal boats, I did have some data in mind, but I am currently preparing for a tea party and don't have time to go through it right now. Might I suggest that you start with the ships and I can provide the data for canal boats later?

That's great - I can guess some data for the boats and there are also a lot of other ships that need rescaling. Just post the canal data when you can.

Update: River and coastal boats now all adjusted and added to SVN.

Excellent. I have spotted one or two errors, however. The original "Clyde steamer" retires in 1899, when the PS Waverly II is introduced, whereas in fact it ought to retire in 1886 when the PS Madge Wildfire is introduced. The MV Lochfyne does not appear to retire even though it is superseded by the MV Balmoral. The TSS King Edward's .dat file is missing - the .dat file with that name actually has the content of the TSS Queen Mary's .dat file, and there is no .dat file named for the TSS Queen Mary. The Tyne and Mersey ferries should probably have generic names to match the others ("Small diesel river ferry" and "Diesel river ferry" should suffice). The mail addons seem to have blank graphics, whereas I thought that a mail icon graphic ought be used. The mail addon for the PS Premier seems to have a different introduction date to the PS Premier itself.

Thanks - lots of mistakes no doubt as I was trying to watch the rugby at the same time! The only intentional one was the MV Lochfyne - being considerably different in capacity to the Balmoral I thought it best to leave them both without retirement.

Should it not at least be retired when the later ferries by Kieron are introduced?

Well again, those are much smaller. It doesn't do any harm to have them available.

EDIT: I've also just noticed all of the renders are back-to-front - I noticed you added a comment to the render script to change everything by 90 degrees - is it possible you rotated by 90 degrees the wrong way?

Yes, I suppose that this is possible. I work around it by using image definitions like this:


EmptyImage[E]=./images/lbscr-2-4-0-t-1855.1.4
EmptyImage[SE]=./images/lbscr-2-4-0-t-1855.1.5
EmptyImage[S]=./images/lbscr-2-4-0-t-1855.1.6
EmptyImage[SW]=./images/lbscr-2-4-0-t-1855.1.7
EmptyImage[W]=./images/lbscr-2-4-0-t-1855.1.0
EmptyImage[NW]=./images/lbscr-2-4-0-t-1855.1.1
EmptyImage[N]=./images/lbscr-2-4-0-t-1855.1.2
EmptyImage[NE]=./images/lbscr-2-4-0-t-1855.1.3


I've reverted the script to the old behaviour on my copy - it also seems all my boat blends are 90 degrees out from yours (?!) but that works with the original script if ships are arranged side on (helps with positioning) facing right in view 0 before executing the script. No need to change image definitions then.

With all the .blends that I use, including the railway .blends which are based on the .blends made by you and Kieron, the Y axis is the length axis and the X axis the short axis.

Hmm. No idea why the difference. I've just changed the definitions for all the boats I've just done and uploaded corrected dats to SVN. Now turning my attention to re-scaling the other boats. I'm keeping an eye out for orientation differences...

Now scaled all existing boats in the pakset to the square root lengthscale.

Great :)

New canal graphics added to SVN and included in the new release...

Quote from: The Hood on November 18, 2012, 10:34:15 PM
A lot of hovercraft here, but these are mostly livery variants, plus the Mk3 SR N4 - a stretched version of the Mk1 which should be available as an upgrade in experimental:

(http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9939/hovercraftbonanza.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/687/hovercraftbonanza.jpg/)

Top to bottom:
- SR N6 in Hoverlloyd livery
- SR N6 in BR Seaspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk1 in Hoverlloyd livery
- SR N4 Mk1 in early Hoverspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk1 in later Hoverspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk1 in later BR Seaspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk3 in later BR Seaspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk3 in early Hoverspeed livery
- SR N4 Mk3 in later Hoverspeed livery
NB the original SR N6 image above is Hovertravel livery

I am currently in the process of adding the multiple liveries to Experimental; may I ask: what are the introduction dates for the later versions of the Seaspeed and Hoverspeed liveries? I cannot immediately find those on searching.

No idea. I just saw them and worked out the order of the liveries, so drew them.

Hmm. Do 1977 and 1996 seem reasonable guesses until anyone can find out more accurately?

Sounds good to me...

probably 1981, November or there abouts.

Seaspeed merged with Hoverlloyd in 1981 to form Hoverspeed.

Ahh, that's the separate Hoverspeed livery; that I gathered, but what I need to know is when the later Hoverspeed livery was introduced, and the second type of Seaspeed livery.

I would guess they would have been repainted when they were temporarily withdrawn for their major conversions.

That may well be so, but there must have been a point in time before which they would simply have been repainted in the older livery if/when they had major overhauls, and after which they would be painted in the new livery: somebody at some point had to sit down and design the new livery, and then other people had to decide officially to adopt it.

I dug around and as far as I can work out...

For Hoverspeed:
Very early livery had a white roof
By Aug, 1988 used livery with the grey roof http://www.jameshovercraft.co.uk/hover/srn4/srn4_hoverspeed.php
probably around 1993~1994, changed liveries to match seacats entering service http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/Hoverspeed.html

Also evidence to suggest multiple liveries coexisted. The Princess Margaret in her final shape: http://www.bartiesworld.co.uk/hovercraft/srn4.htm

For seaspeed:
early livery used, at least, until 1976, as featured in 'diamonds are forever'
Probably changed livery in 1977, in honour of QE2 silver jubilee.

Seems that my guesses were not far off - thank you! I have put the change to the later Hoverspeed livery back from 1996 to 1993, but other than that left it alone.