Survey: If I had to create a new pakset, it would be about..

[vilvoh]

I guess many members of the community have dreamed with creating a new pakset for Simutrans. Some of them have tried it, with more or less luck, but I bet there're lots of cool ideas lost in time and space.

My dreamed pakset is called SpacePak:

A sci-fi pakset, located in space. You can transport passengers between planets and colonies, using spaceships. You can dig asteroids to get mineral ore, gas and event food. The ground textures would be different sets of space large elements, like the Milky way or the Andromeda Galaxy. The tourist attractions would be pulsars, quasars, supernovas, black holes, exoplanets, comets, etc. Vehicles will travel though the space and hyperspace at different speeds. I wish I can develop it some day

[Spike]

My new try, pak.Excentrique is also inspired by a futuristic setting, but on a planets surface. I want to break free from the "realistic" approach in most of the existing settings - a bit like pak.Tron and pak.Mars also did. I'll try to find new interpretations for the things possible in Simutrans, but I don't want to reveal too many of the ideas yet, before I have the things ready to show

Edit: Not to forget graphical extravaganza ... that is also a big driver for me with this set.

[Combuijs]

I would love to make a pak16. Minimum graphics, maximum gameplay:

- Few different houses (basically for each level and type 1, no timeline)
- Few different tourist attractions
- Introduction of villages as non-growing cities by posing them as tourist attractions
- Lots of small end-industries consuming only one product, fed by much bigger production factories (say 4 times bigger)
- Lots of different industry chains
- Provide for every waytype (road, train, ship, airplane, smalltrack, maglev, monorail)
- For each waytype per decade 3 different choices for vehicles: cheap, fast or middle-of-the-road

[Fabio]

My dreamed pakset is called SpacePak:

I have serious thoughts about a Mars pak (96, 128 or more) about the exploitation of a rocky/desert planet. Obviously this is at the bottom of a never-ending TODO list.

[sojo]

In the past, I planed a Pakset in a house. Transport some things from a cupboard to anything else. Or so. The underground could be tiles from the kitchen or wood or ... .

An other idea was a playground Pakset. Transport candies and sand and all the things for kids.

Both ideas were not to realised, because it is not possible that simutrans build walls automatic. And the indoorPakSet can not build over different highlevels.

[vilvoh]

In the past, I planed a Pakset in a house. Transport some things from a cupboard to anything else. Or so. The underground could be tiles from the kitchen or wood or ... .

This one would be awesome. A world in miniature...

[skreyola]

I would love to see some of these paksets. I'm particularly interested in SpacePak (but is it all air/sea transport?), MarsPak, and Pak16 (Why stop there? The ultimate is pak4!!!! hehehe okay, pak1... but that might be taking a good thing too far. *grin*).

[DirrrtyDirk]

Considering how tiny pak32.comic already looked (at least to me) I think a pak16 might already too small... But hey, I won't stop anyone from trying. 

[VS]

...about trying to get into Simutrans some element or at least feeling of some other game kinds/settings/themes that are related to it.

Did you ever notice that Civilization has railroads just like Simutrans? I never thought much about this, but then it just struck me how some patterns carry across even so big genre gap. First connect cities, important points and the strong material sources (ok, more like build over), then slowly cover everything with it. In Simutrans, it is very similar - first some local connections between cities and industries, and as the time progresses, eventually the transport network and buildings will expand over all free space.

It simply makes me wonder how could one transpose something else from some other game/genre at least as a background and whether it would enhance the game somehow...

By the way, there is at least one pakset hidden from public that won't probably ever make it to the public. A. Brose had a working concept for pakset that was 64-scaled but on 32 tiles... and it was sooo lovely. It must have needed days of work.

[Alex. Brose]

a working concept for pakset that was 64-scaled but on 32 tiles

What do you mean, Vladimír?

[VS]

I'm not sure if I should interpret that as a warning, irony, a sincere question or even something else...

[Alex. Brose]

I'm sorry. ^^
No - i just don't understand clearly what you want to say with 64-scaled on 32 tiles...
I mean, there's much in my graphic factory, which hasn't been shown to public.

[VS]

No problem, I assume(d) fault is on my side..

-> Size on screen as 64, but everything on 32px tiles. I think it was called pak.urban... inspired by a-train iirc.

edit: should I upload the screenshots?

edit2: sorry, it was really 32, not 64 scale...

[Alex. Brose]

Yeah, you're right. I was trying to use graphics from AIV Network$. And there was also another project with 32px tiles.
I can show you some pictures.

aiv network$ style

us (site down, do not visit) ]/image/direct/WEmoknXJBe/2008-11-23-04.png]full size

"stuttgart" style




Both projects are death but it was nice to see what's possible.

[prissi]

The STuttgart one looks to nice to just dying ...

[Alex. Brose]

Thank you, Prissi.
Well, if more than 100 people want to see the stuttgart style, i could reactivate this project.
But i can't imagine that many people want to play a 32px set.

PS: Our Facebook friends can steady get exklusive insights into my graphic factory.

[Matthi205]

Pak 16 was my idea too,because i'm a very bad drawer...But,hey,really how about a pak1 with a colour code for everything.... :p  :lol2:

[Fabio]

paks 32 and 16 could be awesome on PDAs, iPhones, and the like. I remember a iPhone port was under construction. pak Stuttgart would be amazing there

[z9999+]

I think nobody can play iPhone version without frustration.
Players can't push small buttons with their finger.

[MoTw]

Well, I really painted some 16x16 buidlings a while ago, but I hadn't time to continue...

If someone is interested, I could upload one house

[Combuijs]

If someone is interested, I could upload one house

Well, I'm curious how small they look...

[MoTw]

I have painted 4 16er buildings yet. Here they are:

[Combuijs]

To be honest, I though that they would be much smaller. I like the simplicity of these buildings. By the way: the second link is incorrect and the fourth is the same as the first.

Hmm, maybe pak16 is not that infeasible. Even I, having two left hands (as the expression goes in Dutch), could draw these buildings (having the right example of course  ). Well, when I have time during the Christmas holidays I might have a go at it.

Thank you for your examples!

[VS]

Well, if buildings in 16^2 are easy, think twice about vehicles.

32*32 is not hard either: http://vs.simutrans.com/my_images_en.php (needs scrolling down)

[Combuijs]

Well, if buildings in 16^2 are easy, think twice about vehicles.

Why? You think they will be too small?

[VS]

Absolutely. Ask mobo...

[DirrrtyDirk]

Yes, when I saw those tiny houses, I also wondered about vehicles...

[KrazyJay]

When I saw those tiny houses, I wanted to click on them to see them full scale, not realising that it was full scale already. 32px would be better. I read that EA Games has a special version of Spore on facebook... maybe Simutrans 32px could have a start there too... accessible by millions of players one mouse-click away...

[mobo]

Well my dream set was the 32x32 set in colorful comic style. I've started it. I guess most people here have seen screenshots or even played it. The project isn't officially dead but the development is rather very slow, and i often wonder whether i should continue or give up. Especially when i'm frustrated about the small graphics and the lack of possibilities that comes along with them. Plus the game and community is getting more and more diffuse there are many paksets even a new game engine now, it's getting harder to estimate whether the whole effort makes sense and if anyone is willing to play it.

It really isn't always easy to draw in a small scale. Therefore i'd say pak 16 - I also thought about that; I'd call it "TinyTrans" - is no good idea i think. In 32 you already get problems doing recognizeable vehicles or different styles of architecture for different climate zones, you can totally forget that in 16. The other thing is you need to fit a road a busstop and a bus on one tile and if you have trams you need to add tram tramtrak and catenary to that tile too, plus there might be a bridge on top and all of the above has to fit below that bridge. I wont say this is impossible but it's hard to do and will hardly look good.

The tron pak i did was a spin off of the p32c. It was pretty easy to do: i just made the black outlines colorful and everything else black except the blue background. If someone writes a script for that you could do tron paks from every comic pak in one click.

[Combuijs]

OK, thank you for your opinions and arguments. I think you all are right. One should not look a the house sizes, but should look at the stop/track/vehicle combination. That might indeed get very tiny in a pak16.

and i often wonder whether i should continue or give up

I can imagine that, but I think pak32.comic has a rightful place in the Simutrans collection of paks. As mentioned before, it could be the mobile phone / small game devices pak, because of its small format and clear colours.

What precisely were your objectives with pak32.comic?

And what's the current status of it?

[mobo]

The objective was to make it look more like a game. Before i started there were only paksets that tried to look realistic and the UI was mostly grey so it looked a bit like some serious software. So i started with very colorfull graphics to make it look more pleasant and more like a game.

Current status is i'm fighting graphic bugs that come with long rail vehicles. I have to shorten them and align them correctly (again). Or more general i'm trying to create some decent amount of vehicles, so the set gets more playable. Then i have to balance them which i fear already. Balancing and fumbling with all those ways, alignments, rotations are for me the most unpleasant parts when making a pakset :(

I also have still some submitted/donated graphics that need to be modified sometimes and then migrated to the sources to become part of the set. That's not really difficult but a heap of gruntwork.

[vilvoh]

Some links to several possible inspiration sources for the SpacePak...

• http://www.scifi.darkroastedblend.com/2008/11/travel-distant-worlds.html
• http://blog.yaaqui.com/retro-future-mind-boggling-transportation_articulo_33_15826.html
• http://blog.yaaqui.com/retro-future-glorious-urbanism_articulo_33_12163.html

[MoTw]

*lol* Driving a train on Saturn's rings (http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hVOW2U7K4-M/SRoGzBD_ERI/AAAAAAAAk1E/ZT0bln5I0QQ/s640/456iurt6jkgtk%2Chj%2C.jpg would be very funny, i think... 

[iranair787]

London!

[colonyan]

Long Term Future Project
Name:Pak.Pacifica
Region featuring:East-Asia from Industrialization to Modern-Future Era.
Style: 3d Render with photo-shop work, rather higher contrast
         All vehicles will be rendered too.
Growth: Pass/Mail 50% Industry 50%(Wish: not separating them but combine them)
Size: 96 or 128 not decided
Vehicle proportion: They will all deformed to match to square tile
                         nature of the game. (More toy oriented)
                         (I shy seeing long vehicle turning 45 degree angle)

Ok. This is just preliminary outline which hanging around my
head for almost 6month. I was making sample vehicles and so on.
My last work for pak64 add-on served as base for creation method.
For now I have to get a job asap. When time comes....

I have some wish list concerning game mechanics.
This is only wish list and have no plan to make it a extension request for now.

1.Non climate based city building set. For example, set a and set b occurring
   at same climate zone.

2. Non parallel growth. No more growth separated by pass/mail/ind.
   Their delivery/departure should affect each other.

3. Locational fixation of some natural resource deposit instead of random appearance
    at each new chain creation.

4. Minimum city service requirement as they grow in size.

5. Whole industry-consumption change.