[FRDF] Who builds airports?

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[FRDF] Who builds airports?

Post by Zuu »

http://tt2.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.p ... e.27s_List
Steve@wiki wrote:Airports : I suggest having town airports for passenger flights, where there is always a free terminal that all companies can use for a monthly fee. And they can build a new terminal for private use. But cargo airpots are built by the players and would be smaller and lower tech. Opposition could ask to build a terminal in one of your airports, which would mean they give you some money upfront and a monthly fee afterwards but can then use your airport indefiently (providing they only use their own terminal).
I think this was discussed a the end of a meeting which I wrote the minutes for.

Well, what I want to discuss is not if airports are premade or if they are built of modules that can be combined togeather in game. What I want to discuss is who shall build them. Towns as Steve suggests or the players.


I think that players should build airports, becuse it's fun to build. And if towns builds them you miss the fun of constructing efficent airports. However I'm not aginst sharing airports betwen companies. But perhaps sharing of infastructure should be a seperate topic.
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Post by Steve »

You have a point about it being fun to build efficient airports, i just didn't consider freeform airports. I was assuming they'd be pre-made designs. From the work i did in making a new airport for Locomotion, whilst it'd be A LOT easier with a proper editor, it was probaly too much work to expect a player to do ingame. And making it similer will mean we need better code to handle it, which would be tricky with all the possible combinations.

I just think it's hugely unrealistic to build your own airport for a town and it's one of the sillier things about building airports in TTD and Loco. Your trying to jam them into the town. At least if Town's built them, they could be a distance away from town whilst still having the catchment area of the releveant town(s).

As i say, i still want other airports to be built by players, so it's more a mixed system. Pre-made and module systems don't need to be seperate. There is no reason why you can't make pre-made terminal spots. Although once they all become full, you'd need some way to buy terminals from other companies and such.

Just to note: I don't think anything else, except maybe docks, should be shared between companies. The rest are small enough to be build in and around cities effectively and provide A LOT more fun in their actual building due to track layouts.
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Post by Hyronymus »

I would very much like to have local authorities constructing airports. It would prevent the unrealistic situation where you end up with 4 airports in 1 town, all from a different company. There are some problems related to this approach though.

Problem 1: How to deal with inbound aircrafts when all gates are occupied? Possible solution could be to have a trigger area around airports. The first aircraft to enter the trigger area is the next aircraft to land.

Problem 2: Which aircraft takes off first can be solved in the same manner as above. Of course the first aircraft being stuffed would get the honours.

Problem 3: Who gets the passengers when two (or more) aircraft from competing companies are loading? Possible solution to this is taking into account last month's company rating in the specific town. If Company A scored 88% and Company B scored 42% then Company A would 'gather' 88/(42+88) * 100 = 67,7% of the passengers.
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Post by PJayTycy »

Hyronymus wrote:Problem 3: Who gets the passengers when two (or more) aircraft from competing companies are loading?
That's not a problem related to this airport thing. It's more about how passengers choose a certain route to get to its destination. That's a seperate issue, still to be discussed.

About airports, I'm in favour of making modular airports, with 2 main parts: runways and loading piers. We don't need the detail of taxiing the planes from/too the runways, just put them in the loading bays and when they are full, "teleport" them to a queue in front of the runway (max 2 or 3 planes).

Who should build them? I would say players :-) More power / fun to the players. Just make it economically better to use an existing aiport with enough capacity left, than to build your own new one.
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Post by Hyronymus »

PJayTycy wrote:That's not a problem related to this airport thing. It's more about how passengers choose a certain route to get to its destination. That's a seperate issue, still to be discussed.
Forgot that already in all honesty. It would indeed solve the problem I mentioned. You approach on building airports yourself and use them for efficiently sounds easy to accomplish for human players. But how do you force the AI to see whether it's more efficient to build a new airport of it's own or to use an existing one? And how does the AI start using an airport from a human player? By kind request towards the human player?

How about a compromise: players (human or AI) can ask the local authority to construct an airport with such type of gate and such type of runway. Whoever comes first (human player or AI) defines the initial layout. After using the airport for a certain time the other players can modify the layout too, possibly in correspondence with other users/local authority.
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Post by jfs »

I favor airports being "publicly owned" (actually owned by other companies not directly affiliated with any transport companies), and then transport companies can pay a monthly/yearly/per takeoff/landing fee to use those airports. If an airport is used a lot, it might extend itself. A transport company may also fund an expansion, though.

The max. size of an airport also depends on the size of the city. Only extremely large cities may have more than one airport. Airports might spawn by themself, or a transport company can fund it, if the city council allows it. A funded airport still works as a "public" airport though.

What about freight planes? If we have those at all, would they also use city airports?
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Post by Hyronymus »

Maybe freigh terminals should be an addition to 'standard' aiport layouts. I like your suggestion btw, jfs.
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Post by Steve »

Any planes that go to towns should use the town airports. Other planes go to user airports. A town wouldn't allow a user to build their own airport inside the town for obvious reasons. And they wouldn't get passengers anyway.

I hate the teleporting idea. I like to watch my vehicles roll around, not teleport.

I agree with the set order for landing, although with slow planes it might be annoying. Taking off should just be first come first serve.

To decide who gets the passengers, split the airport into the different companies. They'll go to which company they like the most (presuming they offer the service they want). You could make the mixed terminals first come first serve though.
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Post by PJayTycy »

Steve wrote:Any planes that go to towns should use the town airports. Other planes go to user airports.
Here in Belgium there is no difference between a "passenger" airport and a "cargo" airport. Both are the same airport. So why split it in the game?
Steve wrote:A town wouldn't allow a user to build their own airport inside the town for obvious reasons. And they wouldn't get passengers anyway.
Why wouldn't they allow a company to build an airport, and then build one themselves? If they don't want an airport (because of too much noise), fine, but then they won't build one themselves either.
Steve wrote:I hate the teleporting idea. I like to watch my vehicles roll around, not teleport.
This makes the whole airport design a game on its own rather than "just a station". It would require too much micro-management for the player and an airport would take way too much space if we have to include all the taxilanes from and to the runways. If you go this route, where does it end? Adding traffic lights to the taxi-lanes on the airport?
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Post by Hellfire »

Steve wrote:I just think it's hugely unrealistic to build your own airport for a town and it's one of the sillier things about building airports in TTD and Loco. Your trying to jam them into the town. At least if Town's built them, they could be a distance away from town whilst still having the catchment area of the releveant town(s).
I see two solutions to this problem:
  1. Don't give airports a catchment area at all and force the players to use feeder services. Passengers will find the airports using the suggested service finding feature.
  2. Give airports a large catchment area that can be moved, so the airport is a few tiles outside the town, but the catchment area covers large parts of the town.
As for the layout: I like the modular + predesigned layouts. Further, I'd like to have a way to dedicate runways to take-offs and landings. For example, I'd like to make airports with two runways for landings (which are the biggest bottlenecks in TTD/Loco) and one runway for takeoffs. Also, I'd optimize the structure of the airport such that planes can takeoff and land simultaneously without (much) congestion.

Also, the "Use someone else's airport" idea can fit in here. Just provide available "slots" for other people's terminals.
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Post by PJayTycy »

I agree with hellfire about feeder services. It doesn't make sence to move the catchment area of a building just because the town built it. I mean, nobody cares if an airport/station/... is owned by the government or a company.

Btw Steve, don't you think it is more fun to actually build an airport + associated feederservice yourself instead of just using an existing town airport?
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Post by Steve »

I think the feeder service would be perhaps too much. You'd have to build and airport AND build feeders before you can make any money. If we made airports like industries, then the computer players would feed them too. People have cars as well, they can drive to the airport. There are also taxis, which i doubt we'll model as they are such small scale.

I'd split the airports as cargo planes loading coal in the middle of nowhere need an airport. I don't see why they would use one that services passengers. They only need a landing slip and a control tower, no carparks terminals and such.

If they let anyone build an airport in their town, they'd have A LOT more than they need, as every company would want one. Sure, some can sahre, built ultimately, you may not want another company on YOUR airport and when they have the cash, they'll want their own. Town airports remove this by forcing everyone to get along, with the extra terminals for the more wealthy Tycoons.

Non-teleporting airports doesn't mean any micromanagement if we use pre-made designs. And the taxi ways need to be no larger than in TTD and Loco. It's part of an airport's feel, it's big and expensive, but pays out in the end. And we all know airports don't have traffic lights :)
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Post by Zuu »

Suggestion:
1. in game: use pre made airports.
2. Add a airport designer for the advanced users that want to create their own airports.

PJayTycy: That will be a little game it self to construct good airports. But its a huge game to create an efficent rail network in most transport games. So maybe by adding more to airports/RV/ships we can create a Transport Game that is not only a rail-network game.
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Post by Steve »

We may as well make a junction designer too, as i think track building will allow you to enter prebuilt junctions. Good plan.
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Post by Hyronymus »

Rewriting the above with my own preferences as a guide:

Airports are built by the local authority and can be expanded in a modular way by the users of the airport. Possible modular expansions are cargo (un)loading bays, extra gates, extra runways and such. Airports are supplied through feeder services (which is realistic btw). Airports shouldn't appear without a company requesting the local authority to build one.

Something different: aircraft won't be able transport coal, they can only transport cargo that they transport in real life too. It's in the FRD.
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Post by PJayTycy »

Hyronymus wrote:Airports are built by the local authority and can be expanded in a modular way by the users of the airport.
Would this be built next to the airport, or on the existing airport? If it has to be built next to it, there probably won't be any space to build it.
Hyronymus wrote:Airports shouldn't appear without a company requesting the local authority to build one.
I feel a compromise being reached here :D The towns will not allow more than 1 or 2 airports (some won't even allow 1). Whichever company asks first, gets the right to build one, has to pay for all of it, but has to play by the rules of the town (I don't have any examples now) . That company does have the benefit of getting airport fees from all other companies that use the airport.
Hyronymus wrote:Something different: aircraft won't be able transport coal, they can only transport cargo that they transport in real life too. It's in the FRD.
The FRD isn't our DD yet :P If you want to transport coal by air, go ahead, it will cost you a lot more, and you won't get more money because it is delivered 1 day after mining instead of 1 month after mining. Bananas and passengers on the other hand, do have a benefit of being deliverd next-day instead of next-month.
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Post by Hyronymus »

I wrote before that cargo bays could be built on a empty corner of the airfield terrain, with an auto-runway function setting up a runway to it i.e.. It doesn't seem wise to have expansions be build outside the reserved terrain.

About the suggested compromise: Company X builds an airport and as soon as it's build the airport belongs to the local authority. To please Company X it doesn't have to pay airport fees for the first 10 years though. This contract is rendered null and void if Company X goes bankrupt in the mean time. The airport fees are a (random?) figure set by the local authority in the same way the (AI) player can set fees for allowing competitors to use their track/stations.
Possible option:After the initial 10 years (or earlier if the company who build the airport went bankrupt) other companies can buy shares in the airport, just as buying shares in industry. The gain here however is different: your company doesn't gain control of the airport but gains control of the airport fee-free status for 10 years.
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Post by Zuu »

Finnaly I have split off this thread. The split off has the topic "[RFD] Airports: how is they constructed? by modules or fixed"

My intention was to create this after
Rewriting the above with my own preferences as a guide:

Airports are built by the local authority and can be expanded in a modular way by the users of the airport. Possible modular expansions are cargo (un)loading bays, extra gates, extra runways and such. Airports are supplied through feeder services (which is realistic btw). Airports shouldn't appear without a company requesting the local authority to build one.

Something different: aircraft won't be able transport coal, they can only transport cargo that they transport in real life too. It's in the FRD.
but due to problems with my ISP I could't submit untill now.
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Post by Hyronymus »

But what about my previous post, any comments on that Zuu?
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Post by Zuu »

Hyronymus wrote:About the suggested compromise: Company X builds an airport and as soon as it's build the airport belongs to the local authority. To please Company X it doesn't have to pay airport fees for the first 10 years though. This contract is rendered null and void if Company X goes bankrupt in the mean time. The airport fees are a (random?) figure set by the local authority in the same way the (AI) player can set fees for allowing competitors to use their track/stations.
Possible option:After the initial 10 years (or earlier if the company who build the airport went bankrupt) other companies can buy shares in the airport, just as buying shares in industry. The gain here however is different: your company doesn't gain control of the airport but gains control of the airport fee-free status for 10 years.
I have difficulties to understand exactly what you mean with 'it' at many places of this. Could you please try to rewrite this?


Argh!! My ISP is going on and off all the time. Gona call them tomorrow. Hopfully it can be fixed before next meeting.
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