Topic: Lorries

[jamespetts]

The next project for Pak128.Britain, as I understand, is road haulage, right from horses and carts to the most modern super-articulated juggernauts, and everything in between. I am interested in producing the .dat files for lorries, but should like to know a little more about how goods are organised - there seem to be a *very* large number of different sorts of goods in PakBritain - are they all used, or are some leftovers from Pak128? What eras does each type of goods cover? (I mean, presumably, I don't have to produce .dat files for horse carts that carry electronics?).

Information would be much appreciated :-)

Edit: I have been looking at all the industries to get an idea of the categories. However, it seems that some of the categories are a little idiosyncratic. Newspapers as farm products, for instance? Can someone confirm that this is as it is supposed to be:

Clay      bulk goods Coal      bulk goods Woodchip   bulk goods Iron ore   bulk goods Crude oil   oil/petrol Fuel oil   oil/petrol Petrol      oil/petrol Chemicals   oil/petrol Plastic      piece goods Pharmaceuticals   piece goods Vegetables   piece goods Fruit      piece goods Flour      piece goods Books      piece goods Beer      piece goods Textiles   piece goods Furniture   piece goods Hardware   piece goods Cider      piece goods Paper      piece goods Milk      fluid foods Bricks      farm products China      farm products Grain      farm products Newspapers   farm products Wool      farm products Planks      woods Meat      cooled goods Fish      cooled goods Cement      special freight Cars      special freight Livestock   special freight

[The Hood]

Some are leftovers from pak128.  They will be removed in the next release.  You will need to use this goods.dat file which I have been working on (it's newer than SVN), but no guarantee its 100% correct.  Goods types should be:
-bulk
-piece
-cooled
-fluid (oil)
-long (wood/steel)
-livestock
-cars
-mail

Let me know if there are any anomalies you can spot.

Thanks for tackling this!

[jamespetts]

The Hood,

ahh, thank you. Are livestock and cars still special freight?

[The Hood]

Yes, livestock and cars are special freight.  I should probably add I don't think you need to have as many lorry types as you did for the buses - (a) it will take ages to draw them all for each combination of goods and (b) I don't think people will be as interested (although feel free to discuss and correct me!). 

[jamespetts]

What sort of level of variety do you think that we need? I mean, presumably, we'll have to go from horse carts to futuristic hydrogen powered vehicles, and everything in between...? It might well be, of course, that lorries for some cargoes are very similar to other lorries from that era for other cargoes, with minor adaptations, which would make your job of drawing them much easier.

Also, I have found it harder to research lorries than I did 'buses. Does anyone have any suggestions of good places to look?

[The Hood]

There needs to be a complete timeline from horse carts to present day, but I meant that with the buses there seems to be quite a range available at any one time, and new ones get introduced every few years, but with trucks I think we can have fewer at any one time, and longer between new vehicles.  What do you think?  I also know nothing about trucks, so can't help there.  Don't be afraid of just getting some generic designs  (and one design with a variant for each goods type sounds good too).

[jamespetts]

I have been researching horse drawn forms of transport. It seems that we need a new form of stop to go with them: a staging inn for stage coaches, mail coaches and stage wagons. Perhaps you could use the existing graphic for the early "depot" for a staging inn, and draw some stables instead for the depot...?

Edit: I am having some difficulty deciphering the correct names for categories of goods. Passengers and "Post" are straightforward enough, but what do I put in freight= for piece goods, for instance?

[The Hood]

I don't think new stations are necessary, certainly not for the time being.  Maybe as an extension, but there are more pressing things to draw.

For use in the dat files, I think if you put freight=[example good of that type] it works.  E.g. if you look at the dat files for bulk wagons in the rail set, they have freight=Kohle, but the game knows they can transport anything of the same goods type as coal.

[jamespetts]

Ahh, I see, thank you!

[jamespetts]

Attached is my first tranche of road goods vehicles (without artwork), from the year dot to 1934. All non-internal-combustion-engine vehicles are included. For horse drawn vehicles, the horses made for 'buses/trams can be recycled. This set incorporates horse drawn, steam powered and miscellaneous vehicles, as ever, with links to pictures where appropriate.

I will start work on pre-war internal combustion engined vehicles shortly, which will be the next upload, but I thought that it would be more productive if I uploaded in stages, so that drawings could be done on the first batch whilst I am researching the second batch. As with the 'buses, a number of the settings (particularly relating to price) will probably need refining and rebalancing.

I shall very much look forward to seeing the artwork!

[The Hood]

Thanks for that.  I'll have a go after I've completed the rail timeline.  Not sure about the "man on a bike" though - I think this could be a little too small in terms of goods volume to be worth it!

[jamespetts]

Ahh, I wondered whether you'd spot that one The reason that I included it, though, was because it is used for mail. Mail, especially if the "passenger level" is set sufficiently low, is often generated in really tiny quantities. The man on bicycle may well be useful in small towns in respect of which mail delivery/collection may otherwise not be economically viable, to connect to a road or rail line.

Edit: As to the rail timeline - presumably, that means goods wagons and mail coaches, or are there other things that you were thinking of, too?

[The Hood]

Well I might draw it for a laugh (and I will need cyclists for use as pedestrians / citycars).  If so, I'll leave it to players to decide how useful it actually is!

Re: rail timeline, all I'm doing for the next release is completing the mail and goods wagons.  I'll open up a new thread about that.

[VS]

Mail is hard to transport profitably, so if the bicycle postman is cheap enough and reasonably (in)expensive bus stops enable mail, too, it might be worth the work.

[jamespetts]

I have now completed part 2 of the lorry timeline, being all pre-war internal combustion engined vehicles, including postal vans and articulated lorries. Part 2 is available here. Since part 1 seems to have been deleted when the forum went wrong, I have uploaded that also, and it is available here.

The next part will be lorries of the 1950s-1960s.

[stevenlim84]

Clay      bulk goods
Coal      bulk goods
Woodchip   bulk goods
Iron ore   bulk goods
Crude oil   oil/petrol
Fuel oil   oil/petrol
Petrol      oil/petrol
Chemicals   oil/petrol
Plastic      piece goods
Pharmaceuticals   piece goods
Vegetables   piece goods
Fruit      piece goods
Flour      piece goods
Books      piece goods
Beer      piece goods
Textiles   piece goods
Furniture   piece goods
Hardware   piece goods
Cider      piece goods
Paper      piece goods
Milk      fluid foods
Bricks      farm products
China      farm products
Grain      farm products
Newspapers   farm products
Wool      farm products
Planks      woods
Meat      cooled goods
Fish      cooled goods
Cement      special freight
Cars      special freight
Livestock   special freight

Hello everyone! I do not agree with the freight type classification.

Vegetable, fruits and flour should be classified as farm products. Everyday we can see many trucks transporting vegetables. Vegatables are stored in brackets or foam packing during transportation. It is totally different from pieces goods.

Fruits should be farm products or cooled goods. Tuck transporting Fruits are open sides if the fruit can be stored in room temperature for some time. Cooling trucks maybe used for some kind of fruit that cannot be stored in room temperature for a long time.

Flour packed in bags. The packing of flour like the packing of rice. This kind of packing should be consider as farm product rather than pieces goods.

Newpaper is transported in small vans (at least true for the city I live in). These van will transport other pieces goods in daytime. Newspaper transport only at night time/early morning. Therefore, Newspaper is pieces goods.

China is packed in crates/cartons. It should be pieces goods rather than farm products

[The Hood]

I don't think that list is correct.  The current system is quite simplistic, to reduce graphics drawing.  Basicly anything that gets packed onto a crate or into a container is piece goods, with meat and fish being cooled goods.  There is no category for "farm products" in pak128.Britain (at least not in my development version, which will become the next release in a couple of weeks).

[jamespetts]

I don't think that list is correct.  The current system is quite simplistic, to reduce graphics drawing.  Basicly anything that gets packed onto a crate or into a container is piece goods, with meat and fish being cooled goods.  There is no category for "farm products" in pak128.Britain (at least not in my development version, which will become the next release in a couple of weeks).

I'd better get working on the rest of the lorry timeline sharpish, then! :-D

And welcome to the forums, Steve :-) Thank you for your interest in PakBritain. I do agree that it would be helpful to have a separate category for newspapers one day (because they would have a high speed bonus rating compared to other goods; and it would be very easy to adapt mail vehicles as newspaper vehicles just by changing the livery slightly), but, because at present there are few people actively working on PakBritain, we need to make compromises at this stage in order to get it released within a sensible timescale. Of course, if you're interested in contributing to the effort, the number of compromises needed for future releases may well be reduced

[The Hood]

I was thinking of dropping lorries from the next release as I don't have a lot of time over the next couple of months, and a new release is long overdue.  Current thinking is to finish the wagons, do some very crude balancing of the rail vehicles, and then release.  I can then do the lorries as and when I get time without worrying about needing to do a release.

[jamespetts]

Ahh, that's a pity. We need to find a way of cloning you :-D. Perhaps a release will spur more people to be interested in contributing, though.

As to balancing, one thing that will need to be looked at is the cost of buses/trolleybuses against the cost of trams, as the trams seem to be far cheaper than trolleybuses, which is not correct (they would be a little cheaper than motor 'buses to run, as they would not have a prime-mover on board, but not cheaper by many orders of magnitude as they are now).

[The Hood]

Here's some graphics, finally!

-livestock drover
-mail coach
-horse & cart
-horse & wagons
-postal bicycle

[jamespetts]

Excellent! *Is excited*. I love the livestock drover and the bicycle The mail coach graphic is rather splendid, too. I shall have to get around to doing all the post-war vehicles at some point!

[The Hood]

Here are the traction engines and trailers.  One thing though - is there a way to offset the smoke?  It is quite off in some rotations...

[jamespetts]

Nice!

[The Hood]

Here are some steam trucks (unfortunately not so many, it takes a long time to get all the goods types and full freight graphics done!):

travelling l-r: Sentinel S series
travelling r-l: Sentinel DG series, Foden Compound (the small black one)

[jamespetts]

Those are superb! I am most impressed.

[jamespetts]

Incidentally, I noticed that you have done the horse carts - but I think that there were some stage wagons in the set, too...?

[The Hood]

Yes, I couldn't quite see what they added.  I have therefore done one set of wagons (4 wheels, capacity 5) and one set of carts (2 wheels, capacity 2).  I think that should cover everything well enough.

[jamespetts]

Stage wagons are larger, faster, more expensive types of vehicles used for longer distance journeys. The standard wagons are really meant only for use within towns.

[The Hood]

Maybe the way I have drawn things it would be best to think of the wagons as the stage wagons you talk of, and the carts as the short distance ones?  That's more or less how I saw it...

[jamespetts]

Hmm, but stage wagons were covered...

[The Hood]

OK, I will add a piece goods and cool goods stage wagon then (I think that the passenger and post ones will end up duplicating stage coaches and mail coaches though in terms of what they do).

[jamespetts]

My research suggested that the stage coaches were the fast, comfortable, more expensive (and later) variant of the stage wagon, the latter of which lingered for a long time after the introduction of the former, well into the period that Pak128.Britain re-creates.

[The Hood]

Here's the rest of the lorries from part 1 of the timeline, including a stage wagon.

- Stage Wagon
- Sentinel Standard
- Thornycroft Wagon
- Thornycroft Steam Van
- Yorkshire Steam Tank

Sources are now available in SVN revision 177, so if you can't wait to play with them, go there and makeobj is your friend

[jamespetts]

Looking very good - and worth the wait!