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What's different between Simutrans compared to OTTD?

Started by bigyihsuan, May 31, 2016, 11:34:47 PM

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bigyihsuan

So, I've played a TON of OpenTTD and know the ins and outs of it.

I'm looking to trying out Simutrains, but how different is the game compared to OpenTTD? For example, is there a difference in good chains (like iron ore --> steel --> goods,  or oil --> goods), or differences in vehicle availability?

Vladki

The industry chains are more complex. E.g. steel mill needs iron ore + coal (in certain proportion) to produce steel, and goods factory needs steel+planks+plastic to produce goods. The industry chains are different in each pakset. Factories have contracts and will accept/send cargo only to their business partners. Factories have limited storage, and will stop producing (and accepting) goods if their storages are full. Factories never close, but new ones can appear as the population grows. You can boost some factories by connecting them to high-voltage power grid, delivering mail and passengers (workers or customers). Cargo, passengers and mail have their destination, and will transfer between buses, trains, etc. Not like in TTD, where they get off at the first stop, wherever you take them. If there is no connection to their destination, they won't appear at the station.

The available vehicles, ways, buildings, factories are different in each pakset. There are no disasters, or engine failures. Depots are needed only to buy/sell vehicles, or to stash those that are not needed right now.
Railway signaling is different. See here: http://simutrans.fr/doku.php?id=en:signalstrain
There is also a save game for pak128.britain, with nice signaling examples here: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10472

bigyihsuan

I just read a little bit about the Simutrans signals, wow, it's significantly more complicated.

Looks like I'll have to take the time to learn them, then. :D

kierongreen

Also tunnels are much, much more flexible in Simutrans with full underground/subway systems possible.

Vladki

When I switched from OpenTTD to simutrans years ago I was confused by the basic building methods:
- ways (roads, tracks) are not built tile by tile, but by dragging from start to end. If you do not like the automatic result use ctrl+drag to force straight ways.
- stations and depots are built over existing ways. Electric engines (trams, trolleybuses) need catenary, otherwise they do not appear in depot at all.
- bridges are also built by dragging. There are also elevated ways that allow you to make not-straight bridges and juncions on bridges, etc.
- tunnels - if you do not want a simple straight tunnel, build it with ctrl - it will make only entrance, switch to undeground mode and build whatewer you want.

In some paksets you can have two angles of slopes. This is generally referred as double or half height pakset.
Pak128 is half-height. You need two height steps clearance over other ways, so it may be a bit tricky to build a bridge over a way.
Some ways (mostly railways and fast motorways) cannot be built on steep slope. Tunnels have to start at steep slope.
Pak64 is double-height. One height step clearance is enough for bridges and tunnels. The steep slope is really very steep.

gauthier

Vladki and Kierongreen said everything I think :)
Anyway, here is another tutorial about building tunnels. It was written with a version of pak128 prior to half-heights stuff but it is still relevant. Please find here information about half heights for pak128.

prissi

Signals are easier compared to OpenTTD; there are only path based signals. Also trains will not choose a free route; there is only a kind of station entry signals which will allow to choose a train any suitable platform. That is the second big difference, train schedules (and lines, a nicer system of grouping convois compared to OpenTTD imho) specify a plaform, not a whole stop.

Also airports are way more flexible and ships drive over the whole map in hundreds without big performance losses. In general, Simutrans is less biased towards trains (although this is very pakset dependent).

Also pakset come in more different styles and sizes; and their economic models varies a great deal.

Rollmaterial

A couple of years ago, OTTD switched to a cargo distribution system that distributes passengers along the player's transport network instead of just taking all passengers to the next stop.

bigyihsuan

I keeps seeing things about paksets. What's the equivalent in OTTD? NewGRFs?

kierongreen

Paksets are packages of content controlling all graphics and data in the game. One Paksets can be simple with few choices of vehicle, another can provide overwhelming choice, one can be cartoonist graphics, another more realistic 3d renders. Pak64 (the 64 indicating the size of the graphics tiles) is the default but Pak128 is very popular also.

gauthier

QuotePak64 (the 64 indicating the size of the graphics tiles) is the default but Pak128 is very popular also.
As far as I know, pak128 is the default on steam version.

Ters

Few games have officially something like pak sets. Simutrans has essentially embraced the concept of total conversion mods and taken it to the level where you can't simply talk of Simutrans as a specific game, you also have to mention the pak set being used. Something that is a good idea in pak64 might be a bad idea in pak128 and vice versa. It is however not so extreme that Simutrans is simply a game engine, and the pak sets different games.

In additions, Simutrans has add-ons and skins, which are lesser level modifications. Add-ons work poorly or not at all with other pak sets than the one they are made for. Pak set graphics size must at least match.

And then there is the unfortunately named Simutrans Experimental, which is a project that has different ideas about how Simutrans should simulate. (And perhaps a few other things. I haven't paid much attention to it.) It is not a testing ground for new Simutrans features as some have thought. (Although some features that are unrelated to the fundamental differences between them might appear first in one, and the other later on.) It is rather a separate, though related, game, with its own pak sets.

prissi

pak set are GRF set with dependent industries and even different rules. They come even with different sized graphics. OpenTTD has 3.5 pak set like things, the german DBXL (or how it was called) the british with new industries, and (only visual) the large size. Something very different would be also the wild west set for OpenTTD, if this ever manifests itself.

Isaac Eiland-Hall

To add yet another perspective: For anyone who happens to know both Minecraft and Minetest: Simutrans is more like Minetest, where "paksets" are like "games" (although I think Minetest is changing the name of "games" to "subgames" these days).

If you don't know Minetest, this won't help. XD

tubanonymous

I started on OpenTTD, and it is quite a good game. I've been playing simutrans 5 years now. The other day, I downloaded TTD again just to see. I think I had the screen open about 1 minute before I uninstalled it again

Nothing wrong with OpenTTD, but I personally made the switch when I felt like I had hit the limits in TTD. I wanted more complex stations, routes, schedules, and economies. I would say the main difference is that TTD is more of a "fun" game and simutrans is more of a simulation. There is a learning curve, so expect to spend a couple hours on simutrans before you feel cozy

Junna

Am I the only one who plays both all the time? My only real problem with OTTD as it stands (though I don't play vanilla, must be patchpack) is that passengers are really daft in their route choice (for example all passengers will crowd into an infrequent long-distance service because it simply doesn't call at all stops en route, which is the only factor in considering the shortest route). Operating goods services is much more enjoyable in OTTD, because it's so much less fiddly and has a lot less production limits, and not everything needs to be connected before it gets going.

sdog

Quote from: tubanonymous on June 09, 2016, 02:56:58 AM
I started on OpenTTD, and it is quite a good game. I've been playing simutrans 5 years now. The other day, I downloaded TTD again just to see. I think I had the screen open about 1 minute before I uninstalled it again

Nothing wrong with OpenTTD, but I personally made the switch when I felt like I had hit the limits in TTD. I wanted more complex stations, routes, schedules, and economies. I would say the main difference is that TTD is more of a "fun" game and simutrans is more of a simulation. There is a learning curve, so expect to spend a couple hours on simutrans before you feel cozy

I also left OTTD for simutrans when I felt there were no challenges for me in OpenTTD any more. The other reasons were that it took so much finnicking to get elaborate combinations of newGRFs to work together, and keep my safegames running. The only thing i really missed were path based signals that allowed three-track railways, with a shared central passing line.

Ters

Everybody seems to play or have played TTD or OTTD, except me, who is the only one that has played Transport Tycoon. My reason for preferring Simutrans over Transport Tycoon are: Possible to have more than 80 vehicles of each type, better signaling, more flexible stations, and ability to control multiple related vehicles with one shared schedule (lines). (I still think the opening sequence of Transport Tycoon is almost epic, though.)

Lmallet

Quote from: Ters on June 10, 2016, 05:47:47 AM
Everybody seems to play or have played TTD or OTTD, except me, who is the only one that has played Transport Tycoon. My reason for preferring Simutrans over Transport Tycoon are: Possible to have more than 80 vehicles of each type, better signaling, more flexible stations, and ability to control multiple related vehicles with one shared schedule (lines). (I still think the opening sequence of Transport Tycoon is almost epic, though.)

I played Transport Tycoon too :) .  One thing that annoyed me is railways going obsolete sometime after the year 2000.  You ended up having to replace everything with monorails to use the new vehicules.

tubanonymous

Quote from: Ters on June 10, 2016, 05:47:47 AM
Everybody seems to play or have played TTD or OTTD, except me, who is the only one that has played Transport Tycoon. My reason for preferring Simutrans over Transport Tycoon are: Possible to have more than 80 vehicles of each type, better signaling, more flexible stations, and ability to control multiple related vehicles with one shared schedule (lines). (I still think the opening sequence of Transport Tycoon is almost epic, though.)

I got my hands on a copy just to see one time.

It did remind me much more of a "Tycoon" game than the more abstract simulation experience of simutrans. It sort of had missions and stuff, which is cool. I very much like the scenarios in simutrans. Sometimes its nice to conform to some hard objectives, rather than just building somewhat aimlessly