Agenda for the special TEmpire FRD meeting, 050205, 1900 UTC

Prepare yourself a bit if you have a big urge to speak about a certain (not yet locked!) topic during tonight’s meeting. Some preparation would speed up the meeting a bit. Download (and print?) this agenda for yourself so you can keep track during the meeting.

Remember to end your monologues with a ~ tonight.

[FRDF] discussions:

1. [FRDF] Scenarios

Scenarios will have one or more objectives. Game features available to the player may vary per scenario. Scenario-makers should be able to add triggers to their scenario to enhance the game experience for players. Next to scenarios there will be a ‘free play mode’, possibly with a switch for economy. With economy switched of the free play mode becomes a sandbox.

2. [FRDF] Weather

Seasonal effects are very likely to be dropped. Hardly anyone sees a feasible solution to match seasonal effects with the game speed. Local variation has been discussed briefly although that (of course) is a climatologic issue.

3. [FRDF] Dikes and water flow

Dikes are needed to prevent land below sea level to be flooded. It has been suggested to have dikes that belong to local authorities (LA) and dikes owned by transport companies (TC). Dikes owned by the LA are dikes surrounding map-generated water surfaces. Player-created water surfaces have dikes owned by the TC who created the water surface. Other suggestions were to add a test/ghost mode or to forbid lowering land near below sea level land at all.

4. [FRDF] Map slopes

Suggested were a logarithmical steepness scale or the RRT3 approach.

5. [FRDF] Steepness of slopes

Railroads shouldn’t be steeper to 5-6% and trucks occasionally visit hills with a steepness of 10-20%. Steepness is measured as the rise of the terrain in meters divided by the distance of that rise in meters. No steepness has been set for advanced rail bound vehicles such as monorail and maglev.

6. [FRDF] Zones

Industrial, commercial and residential zones have been suggested. The majority thinks this kind of zoning is too detailed for a normal map with multiple towns and industries. It might work on a city map (as in RRT2).

7. [FRDF] Player owned industries

Players will not be able to buy industries. After this decision the topic went OT by discussing how contracts between players and industries should look. The majority seeks for a solution where players only transport goods between industries and shouldn’t worry about buying and selling the goods (which is the RRT3 approach). An enhanced TTD approach has been suggested to, allowing free, untied construction which results in a contract. There occasionally will be offers for service subsidies between 2 industries. Bidding on this offer and successfully meet the requirements results in a contract + bonus. Another suggestion is that industries have a list of possible destinations for their goods. Taking the goods from the factory to a possible destination results in a contract for that service.

8. [FRDF] Depots

This topic has already been locked. The decision is that (at least) 1 station in the routing table of a vehicle is linked to a depot. Linking a station to a depot is very easy but how it’s done depends on the vehicle type. Train depots are build next to a train station. Depots offer the possibility to buy, sell, transfer and service vehicles. Once a vehicle has been bought it will only return to the depot to be sold or transferred. Servicing a vehicle happens when a vehicle stops at the station with a depot linked to it. The stop takes longer than a normal stop a station. The length of the stop depends on the reliability of the vehicle. To prevent vehicles literally being serviced each time it stops at a station the player will be able to set a service interval. If the interval has passed the vehicle will be serviced the next time it passes the station + depot. When a vehicle is still in good state but you need something more powerful but also refuse to sell your vehicle you can choose to transfer the vehicle to a different depot. The vehicle can be deployed from the new depot as if it were new. To make cheating less rewarding the routing table and all cargo will be erased and a time penalty for transferring your vehicle is added. Generally your vehicle will take 3-5 days to reach the new depot and has to be in that depot at least 1 day. Transferring also comes with expenses, depending on the distance, the vehicle type and the current value of the vehicle.

9. [FRDF] Who builds airports?

No decision has been made but a summary of the discussion has been made in the shape of 8 possible solutions to this problem:

A   Local authorities initiate, construct and own airports (problem: how to deal with cities that don't initiate at all?)
B   Local authorities initiate and construct airports, offering them to players (problem: what if the price is too high and how to deal with cities that don't initiate at all?)
C   Local authorities construct and own airports, players initiate the construction (problem: you need a very good rating)
D   Local authorities initiate and own airports, players construct them (problem: what if no player can afford to construct it?)
E   Local authorities initiate airports, players construct them and own them (problem: unrealistic as no transport company owns airports in real life)
F   Local authorities construct airports, players initiate and own them (problem: unrealistic as no transport company owns airports in real life)
G   Local authorities own airports, players initiate and construct them (problem: you need a large bag of money)
H   Players initiate, construct and own airports (problem: each player would build his own airport; if this is prohibited (1 airport allowed per town) you are forced to share your airport with competitors or beg a competitor to use his airport)

This might help deciding what’s best or most favoured.

10. [FRDF] How to decide how many wagons you can have in a train

Much discussion about what to take into account. The majority thinks that it’s fair enough to keep too heavy loaded trains going, albeit at 1 ^km/_h. To inform players of engine capacity an information table as in RRT2/3 has been suggested.

11. [FRDF] Load/unload orders

Two main (un)loading options have been suggested. They both allow freedom in how many wagons of a certain type to load on different stations in the routing table.

12. [FRDF] Train propulsion

The proposal from the FRD has been accepted and expanded by taking notice of hybrid trains. The topic has been contaminated by the question of fuel levels on steam and diesel locomotives. It seems nobody is opposed as long as refuelling is part of servicing the engine.

13. [FRDF] Computer players

Computer players (AI) should not have any advances compared to human players (HP). During multiplayer games (MP) the AI uses the slots that are left over. When a new HP joins the MP the slot is carried over from the AI to the HP.

14. [FRDF] Pollution

This discussion has been locked after the unanimous decision to drop pollution as a game feature.

15. [FRDF] Game controls

Not much resistance against the suggestion that map scrolling by bouncing against the screen border isn’t preferable. Fluid map scrolling is preferred. Left-handedness and usable mouse buttons should be considered when mapping functions to the mouse.

[RFD] discussions:

16. [RFD] Scale

Scale has been a featured discussion but no decision was made yet. The meagre replies in the topic indicate a firm discussion awaiting.

17. [RFD] Shape of the maps

The world is flat (face it!). This gives the easiest path finding but is also very common in this type of games.

18. [RFD] Cell based, freeform or something in between?

The experts embrace something in between as long as it enables the game to be 3D. We might need to decide on how many directions are preferred for vehicles to move in.

19. [RFD] Triangular or rectangular tiles

This is related to the two above points. If triangular tiles are favoured it will be impossible to have a rectangular map. The parallelogram is the mathematical feature that comes closest. Triangles offer 6 orientations and 12 directions where rectangles only offer 4 orientations and 8 directions.

20. [RFD] Tunnels (what is a tunnel?)

tun·nel (tnl); n.

1. An underground or underwater passage.

2. A passage through or under a barrier.

3. Obsolete. The main flue on a chimney.

The best suggestion in this topic was that each map square has a number of landscape surfaces and landscape roofs (always at least one surface, the ground). Structures can only be built directly on top of a landscape surface. Every structure has a height. There has to be enough space between a landscape surface and the next landscape roof/surface to account for the entire height of a structure built on the surface. A majority agreed on this approach as being the best, a minority never looked at this topic.

21. [RFD] Airports: how is they constructed? by modules or fixed

Two approaches have been suggested. A modular airport doesn’t have a standard size and shape. The player decides where to put what and also when. The other suggestion was to reserve a fixed terrain size on which players can build or not build additional buildings such as extra gates, cargo storage etc. Runways would be an exception to the fixed terrain size. They could be added to the already reserved terrain if the LA agrees.

22. [RFD] Docks

Docks should allow multiple ships to (un)load without every ship (un)loading at the same pier. Hence, docks should be larger than in TTD. The possibility to expand a dock when it’s choking in ships is highly favoured.

23. [RFD] Research

Researching in a ‘tech tree approach’ (Civilization, Age of Empires) doesn’t appeal to the majority. The research system as proposed in the FRD is accepted by that same majority, though.

24. [RFD] Signalling

This subject has been added today. The preference goes towards sophisticated signalling options. It should be possible to have trains passing a crossing if the direction where the train is heading too is clear. Signalling should also make it possible to have tracks for slow and fast trains next to each other.

25. [RFD] Finding routes and services

The following has been defined:

· Route: Two connected stations. (i.e. two railway stations with track between them or two harbours which are reachable over water. All airports are connected.)

· Connected: Two stations s and t are directly connected, if there is a piece of track between them on which vehicles can get from the one station to the other. Two stations s and t are indirectly connected if there is a station r for which the following holds:

o s is connected (directly or indirectly) to r and r is connected to t.

Please notice that it may take several recursive steps to get a path of directly connected stations between two indirectly connected stations. Also, if the word (in)directly is omitted, we mean "directly or indirectly connected".

· Service: A route on which some type of cargo is transported. (e.g. a passenger service between two bus stops in a city.)

Beyond these definitions nothing has been discussed.

26. [RFD] Company rating

A visibility rating and a local authority rating have been suggested. The latter would work as in TTD, perhaps with more functionality and factors of influence. Nothing has been decided.

27. [RFD] Liveries

As I’m still confused about what’s been said I believe it’s safer if this topic gets summarized during the meeting by someone. What I did understand is that everyone wants vehicles to show company colours for those who like that.

28. [RFD] Variable trains? (attach/deattach locos and cars)

This topic has been closed after the unanimous decision to drop it.

29. [RFD] Vehicle breakdowns

Breakdowns appear but never result in accidents. When multiple engines are pulling 1 train engine failure of only 1 of the pulling engines won’t halt the train. It does slow down of course. Because breakdowns don’t last the slowing down will end as soon as the broken down engine is fixed. The fixing of broken down vehicles in general happens during the vehicles journey. The topic ended in how reliability should be assessed. Reliability should decay with years of service. A heavy-strained vehicle decays faster than an average strained vehicle. No real decision on how to measure this has been made.

30. [RFD] SI or not SI?

This topic is already locked. The majority agreed to let players choose between SI units or imperial units. In game development game units will be used.

31. [RFD] Style

Also added today. Nothing has been decided but the majority seems to go for a flexible system. The graphical style shouldn’t be too realistic.

32. Set next meeting date and pick chairman + minute maker
When will the next meeting be held, who will lead it and who makes the minutes?

33. Deciding about the Design Document

What about the Design Document now that we have discussed the FRD all night long?
34. Pick new Featured Discussion subject

Where should we talk about next?