Exactly as the topic title says, I'm a bit a curious to find out how many people still plays TTDP, the patched version of TTDLX? And to be even more specific, how many uses TTDP as their main source for TTDLX rather than OTTD? And to be even more curious, what are the reasons? )

This is due to some INFRA-stuff, but as I've started the topic it's only fair that I "come clean" myself;

I still play TTDP over OTTD. But not because I find OTTD to be inferior in any way. It's in fact superior, that we all know! I still play TTDP because there are some features not available in OTTD that I value when using TTDP. Also, and this is perhaps more important, the inability to change newgrf's during gameplay. I'm probably one of few - if not the only one - who tends to stick to one and the same map for years. My last Innovatia lasted for more than 5 years, and while it may seem difficult to understand I do find things to do on a map - even if it lasts for 5 years or more. I view it almost as a real life nation where changes occur all the time.

So what's your story? )

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You can change newgrf's during gameplay in Openttd.

Odd that everyone seems to want point that one out. As far as I understand you can chnage newgrf's during gamepleay, yes. But I also understand that it's not a completely risk free action as things can get corrupted. And thinking of the way I use my maps, this will most certainly be a drawback...

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I've edited a lot of GRF's during the game in OpenTT. Didn't have a lot of trouble, just keep track of what you change. Keep an archive of original grf's so you can always undo what you have done and make sure the game only has access to the edited grf's.
Sometimes I've made a mess of it and the game loaded an old GRF, but it always gave a warning at the start (something like GRF not found, compatible GRF loaded) and in the newGRF-settings menu that GRF would have a yellow dot in front of it, so you can always find out what GRF is messed up and change it back to the one you want to use.
Or to be sure, just install 2 separate games, one that you actually play and one that is the testbed for new GRF's. Check and doublecheck before you load a new GRf into your existing game and you will be ok.

Ontopic I've never played TTDP, so can't compare it with OpenTT. Only thing I have seen from screenshots and what I really would like in OpenTT is the possibility to place roads or traintracks over tunnelentrances. Hope that is something that will be available in the future.

i never got to play TTDP myself, instaling/compiling etc was harder then the easy wintendo download of the stable OTTD, later on i got the Chill Patchpack from Romazoon, so we could coop on his server. resulting is a massive online game on the cincinidi map, quite heavily played by the both of us, maximizing the potentials of the map and visual stuff in OTTD. the only setback in OTTD is CBH for me, the rest its super. even without CBH you can create nice cities, just bridging your tracks and small harborroads/canalsidings are a bit harder. nevertheless we got some cool cityscaping done on cincinidi, so i think im fine on OTTD

Bio


P.S.: OTTD still allows you to chance your newGRF's however it warns you that it is potentially very bad. and indeed that is true to some extend, most of the grf-devs or newgrfs are compatible and the warning can be ignored, i think this is because it doesnt check for eg duplicate GRFids on vehicleID or whatever..??

The risk isnt restricted to OTTD, its present in TTDP AND OTTD, its just that TTDP doesnt warn you when you do it

I'll take your word for it! I was just alarmed due to all the threads about changing .grf's in started games in OTTD! That's all...

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I play OTTD, GRF changing ingame never gave any problem for me. I change GRF's multiple times every game. But I think as long as you don't unload vehicle sets which have running vehicles or unload town/industry sets you won't have a crash.
I even swapped roadsets in a running game, without problems.

CBH will be a great addition to the game. (would lie to build some amsterdam look) But with a bit of creativity it is possible to create nice looks without them.

Gr. Jordi

Exactly, I for example have been playing the same savegame for the last 6 months, and the game started in 1850, and now I'm at 2012(funny huh?? ), and I just added some GRF and actually changed some parameters of others because of inflation, and had no problems whatsoever...

It all depends on what kind of actions you do, if you remove a train set GRF and have trains from that set running on tracks it will probably will crash, but if you change the price of tracks using the parameters in NUTRACKS nothing serious will happen...

By the way, to change, add or remove GRF while playing OpenTTD 1.*:

didn't face any serious issues from changing grfs in game. Developers have disabled it to avoid an influx of people posting false bugs of OTTD.
The most common issue you will face is missing or wrong sprites displayed from REMOVING grfs. And some grfs may change costs and other parameters. As long as you have read what a specific grf does you will not have any surprises. To avoid risks make a backup add the new grf and see how it goes. If game doesn't crash after a couple of game years you will be OK.

SAC let me ask you:

TTDPatch is somewhat dead now. On the contrary OTTD is updated daily. How will you benefit from sticking to current TTDPatch? No new features and stuck with old grfs as more and more grfs are getting only OTTD compatible.

I'm still playing (testing) in TTDP. In fact I'll do all my GRF development and testing under TTDP, as it is faster and more efficient. I'm satisfied with what I have in TTDP; it's stable and very predictable as no more development takes place. Some features are not available in OTTD, such as programmable signals, a must have feature for comprehensive rail networks. Rail tracks over tunnels and custom bridgeheads come in very handy in tight spots. Then, proper support for AI purchase selections as well as automatic vehicle upgrades are a necessity for a good rail vehicle set. Finally, I need a challenge to play a game, especially financially. In a TTDP game it takes about 20 years to become financially independent. In a OTTD game it is a mere 2 years, that is not a challenge.

Why haven't I moved across to OTTD ? I have no need to do so, I've got everything I need in TTDP.

As for my last game, it has been in the making for almost 3 years and I have reached only the early 70s. But, as soon as I have the NEW Canadian Stations ready (currently applying some finishing touches) and with CanRail (the NEW Canadian Trains) finished, I'll be starting a new game soon in order to play test the lot ... taking a few years, I guess, as I must reach 2050 this time round ...

I cannot say anything about OTTD, but in TTDP it is generally no problem. If I encounter problems, then it is certainly my fault when the game crashes ... keep your save games, find the problem, then fix your GRF.

Players should not have any problems ... stations are tricky, if you suddenly remove a stations set; you may have to rebuild them all, and you may end up with stuck trains, but there is always the DeleteVehicle cheat to fix them up.

Interesting! I had no idea it's soo easy to cross the financial barrier in OTTD compared to TTDLX. And I do agree about the missing features in OTTD...



So there are others who tends to stick to one and the same map for years... Then I'm not that much of an outsider after all...

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After having problems getting TTDP to work in the first place, and then not being very userfriendly when I first stumbled across it, I decided to try OTTD instead and got stuck there instead.
As for the features, the ones I wanted from TTDP sooner or later got included in OTTD as well, so it's just a question of time until CBH is there too I guess.

Just play OTTD with property maintenance ON and you will ALWAYS go bankrupt!

I started out years ago playing on TTDP, but I lost the hard drive it was on, and didn't think about it until a few years later, after OpenTTD was in the 0.6x version. I tried it and never looked back, it was just much more simple for me to install and get going. The development of OpenGFX to replace the default graphics was a huge step forward, and inspired me to also get the music replaced so that OpenTTD could be it's own stand-alone, fully distributable game.

I started playing TT(D) in 1995.
In 2004 i recovered TTDP (thx to the german community at TTDLXHQ!)
Then i changed to a Laptop, and had problems with the display, TTD-Patch wasn't able to use the entite LCD.
Than OTTD started with the enlarged maps ... and everything was fine! Since that Day i never returned to TTDP (even after the Patch had fixed that problem). I like the OTTD-handling much more than the Patch-handling.

My longest Game/Map? Startet with Rev.3464 (from 02/2006?) changed to MiniIn one day and played until end of 2008 (or longer?). With the same map!

I played TTDP exclusively for many years, but after finally switching to OTTD about 18 months ago I haven't really looked back. These days I only tend to use TTDP for some grf testing. There are a few things I miss -- enhanced buoys, enhanced tunnels, custom bridgeheads, to name some -- but I find it curious how people would avoid using OTTD because of a few missing features when TTDP is missing so much more. Still, each to their own!


How so? I personally find having to exit the game and edit cfgs manually to be a bit of a chore. Just wondering.

Okey, so judging by this we're at least two still playing TTDP... Well, what a huge community we are...

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There must be more and most probably a few will be returning ...

A very compelling reason is emerging to stick with TTDPatch. It is 32-bit Graphics. I won't touch it as a coder and artist. 8-bit graphics must look very ordinary among 32-bit ones, especially in zoom levels. What an increase in workload to have to draw and code multiple zoom levels, I read somewhere there are six of them. A 4 MByte 8-bit GRF (eg CanStn v2.0) will most likely turn out to be at least 50 MBytes !!

I haven't seen any GRF specifications about the implementation of 32-bit graphics yet, must be a real secret. Therefore, judging is a bit difficult at the moment. Anyone wanting to play with those very nice 8-bit GRFs that we already have or will have need to come back to the old and truly tested TTDPatch ...

I don't have a problem with that. Normally, I don't need to touch the configuration settings during GRF development at all. However, I do find the constant changes to the game a problem. What worked one day, does no longer the next time I get a newer version of the game.

OpenTTD, as far as I can tell, is not switching from exclusively 8-bit to exclusively 32-bit graphics. Just like you have a choice between downloading OpenGFX or installing the original TTD graphics, you'll have an additional choice of choosing other graphics packs. One of the packs I'm currently looking forward to seeing finished is the 8-bit Comic set.