Three New Airports

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Post by ebik »

There is bug inherited from openttd trunk: helicopters can be stopped in the middle of landing process on INTERNATIONAL airport -> and on intercontinental and helidepot too.
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The InterContinental Airport only a little bit improvement

Post by sopio »

I am sorry to tell you I feel not good about the new InterContinental Airport design.

Intercentinental Airport : 11 Airport in follow
International Airpoty: 7-Airpoty in follow.

(7 VS 11)

I had build one 7 Airport and one 11 Airport. Place 40 planes to flight between them. Althrough 11 Aiport has 4 run-way, 2 in / 2 out. But I found that the run-way usage not big improvement from 7 airport.

When the plane landing on the in runway. The plane need to taxi move 3 block, then the run-way can use by other plane!

1, I had count out that the 11 airport's taxi way only seperate in to 10 blocks. 7 airport has seperate to 7 block.

2, Once the 7 Airport Taxi Way Blocked, the in plane will land and move in to Hanger to clear the in run-way. But 11 airport was block the runway.

3, 11 Airport Block's size is big. movement is very easy to block the new landing plane.

Of cause 11 airport has two out runway is improve the traffit. But I do think it can be improve more. Like the seperate block size, and block number. And release the way to Hanger to avoid jam.

And I would like to say: RichK67, you did a GREAT start of this. Once improve the Taxi way formula, I do think more than 40 plane are also smooth.
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Re: The InterContinental Airport only a little bit improveme

Post by richk67 »

sopio wrote:I had build one 7 Airport and one 11 Airport. Place 40 planes to flight between them. Althrough 11 Aiport has 4 run-way, 2 in / 2 out. But I found that the run-way usage not big improvement from 7 airport.

When the plane landing on the in runway. The plane need to taxi move 3 block, then the run-way can use by other plane!
It is actually released when the landed plane moves away from the block 1 away from the runway. I experimented with releasing earlier, but you ended up with some very close misses, and then the aircraft sat on the runway waiting for the other to taxi.
1, I had count out that the 11 airport's taxi way only seperate in to 10 blocks. 7 airport has seperate to 7 block.
Sounds about right. So?
2, Once the 7 Airport Taxi Way Blocked, the in plane will land and move in to Hanger to clear the in run-way. But 11 airport was block the runway.
The problem for the 7 airport is that if an aircraft goes to the hangar, or leaves the hangar, it blocks arriving aircraft from leaving the runway. I consider this a far worse problem. Also, the aircraft regularly visit the depot on landing for no good reason - even when they are not due for service. This delays the delivery of the passengers - and can end up with a queue of aircraft sitting in the hangar that cannot leave because the runway landings keep blocking their exit. This does not, and cannot happen on the Intercontinental.

The *only* situation where an aircraft will sit on the runway is when the plane 3 squares ahead of it is blocked in its movement. This is a GOOD thing. It takes less time for the aircraft to fly 1/2 a circuit and try the other in-runway than for the aircraft to move 3 tiles on the ground.

I think you are looking too hard at single runway usage, where the whole efficiency of the Intercontinental comes from its dual runways. The far side terminals are accessed *much* quicker because the second runway lands only 5 tiles from its first terminal. On the International, the first it can reach is 8 tiles of slow movement away.
3, 11 Airport Block's size is big. movement is very easy to block the new landing plane.
I dont quite understand you here. The end-of-runway area is two tiles, the in-way 2 tiles. Yes, when I first envisaged this I had split the in-way into a block per tile, but this cannot be programmed without a major rewrite of the block handling code. The whole airport uses 30 blocks (I think - somewhere near that), and the maximum is 32. There just arent enough blocks spare to make the in-way any more complex, and I think most users arent going to complain.
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Re: The InterContinental Airport only a little bit improveme

Post by ebik »

sopio wrote:I am sorry to tell you I feel not good about the new InterContinental Airport design.

Intercentinental Airport : 11 Airport in follow
International Airpoty: 7-Airpoty in follow.

(7 VS 11)

I had build one 7 Airport and one 11 Airport. Place 40 planes to flight between them. Althrough 11 Aiport has 4 run-way, 2 in / 2 out. But I found that the run-way usage not big improvement from 7 airport.

When the plane landing on the in runway. The plane need to taxi move 3 block, then the run-way can use by other plane!

1, I had count out that the 11 airport's taxi way only seperate in to 10 blocks. 7 airport has seperate to 7 block.

2, Once the 7 Airport Taxi Way Blocked, the in plane will land and move in to Hanger to clear the in run-way. But 11 airport was block the runway.

3, 11 Airport Block's size is big. movement is very easy to block the new landing plane.

Of cause 11 airport has two out runway is improve the traffit. But I do think it can be improve more. Like the seperate block size, and block number. And release the way to Hanger to avoid jam.

And I would like to say: RichK67, you did a GREAT start of this. Once improve the Taxi way formula, I do think more than 40 plane are also smooth.
Firstly, I should say, that this will be improvement only for concordes or for cargo (i.e. not passangers/mail) delivery. Using jumbos, you can handle (approximately) all passengers/mail that can be produced in area covered by this airport.

Secondly I don't have objection to your improvement idea, but I think now it is not right time for it:

I saw the code. My opinion is that it is not worth rewriting to more blocks until there is some "support for big / custom airports" in the code. Now the code is generic state machine handler, and state machines definitions. International airport's state machine has about seventy states, which tends to be at the edge of maintainability. There is no support for more (than one) landing runways (crash landing... - this 'destroys' second runway until the airport is deleted and built again.), and also other assumptions made on smaller airports that don't hold for intercontinental.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think airport handler is now the thing that should be rewritten, instead of generating 200-state machine (if that is possible, in current implementation of openttd is used nearly every bit (in savegames etc.) so some enhancements are hard to do).

But it is good to have the Intercontinental thing, as now we can imagine what things will be required for custom / big airport.

Maybe the state machine is not so bad thing, but there definitely should be easier way to define this. (To somethink more human readable, like macros or functions: ORBIT(...), RUNWAY(...), TAXI(...) DEPOT(...), TERMINAL(...), and so on....)

Also the pathfinding and pathblocking algorithm on the airport should be rewritten. (I'm thinking of something, behaving like pbs and/or presingals for trains). As one can think of two independent taxiways, so there will be two paths from one rwy to one terminal...

Okay, this post is long enough, i should stop writing here :-)
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Post by sopio »

Hi RichK67, Sorry for my English. I try to descript again what I am meaning.

About the Land and go to Hanger issue, that is really important, Please check the GoodsAirport.PNG, the Railway trans the resource to the station, And move goods out by air to City. Some times the rail may be jam by some case of bad design or too many trains. The station may be out of goods to shift out. All the plane set to Full Load, all terminal are waiting with plane. If don't has the go to hanger function, the run-way may be blocked. and lots of plane will always arounding the airport. Actually, this matter is happen in the 11-Airport.

About the taxi way isseu. You can check the next two PNG. you can find the 11-airport has 11 individual taxi way. 2 of them are Hanger way.
7-airport has 9 individual taxi way. 2 of them are hanger way.

1, You can see, 7-airport's in runway is only one step move can be clear. but 11-airport need move 3 step to clear the way. Plane can not get the runway ASAP.

2, 11-Airport's taxi way. When Plane in moving in A,D Taxi way, No matter B,E taxi way empty or not, the C and F should wait there, block the in runway. A,D taxi way are 5 block long. Quite a long moving time.

3, No matter first plane landing in which in runway, the plane are also taxi to the upper right terminal first. It fill the buttom 4 terminal until all 4 upper terminal fill up.

What I am concerning: 1, The 11-airport is not fast to release the in-runway. 2, the 11-airport's each taxi block is too big.

May be ebik is right, the taxi program shall develop new. But before that, I think smaller the taxi block size may be easy to make it. of cause the state machine may be 400 or more. :shock:

Have I said too much? Hope you can understand what I am meaning.

P.S. the left side run-way direction light is moving with wrong direct. Not concord with the fly direction.
Attachments
GoodsAirport.png
GoodsAirport.png (86.02 KiB) Viewed 5488 times
Intercontinental_Airport.png
Intercontinental_Airport.png (83.82 KiB) Viewed 5489 times
International_Airport.png
International_Airport.png (66.86 KiB) Viewed 5490 times
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Post by Grigory1 »

It seems to me, that it is necessary to remove superfluous fences and still
Very much big speed at planting to a distant strip
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Post by richk67 »

sopio wrote:Hi RichK67, Sorry for my English. I try to descript again what I am meaning.

About the Land and go to Hanger issue, that is really important
No it isnt. Kids starving in Somalia is important. This is just a game.
Please check the GoodsAirport.PNG, the Railway trans the resource to the station, And move goods out by air to City. Some times the rail may be jam by some case of bad design or too many trains. The station may be out of goods to shift out. All the plane set to Full Load, all terminal are waiting with plane. If don't has the go to hanger function, the run-way may be blocked. and lots of plane will always arounding the airport. Actually, this matter is happen in the 11-Airport.
Actually that is not the airports fault. Yes, if you jam up all the planes by having all 8 terminals full, all movement locations full, then the inbound runways will fill, and planes will circle. This actually makes sense to me, as the plane will circle, and take the *fastest* available in-runway. If it goes hide in the hangar, then it can be an awful long time before it ever comes out.

If the plane waiting for a clear terminal goes beyond its servicing interval, then it will go to the hangar, and so another plane will then land.

What you are saying is like someone complaining "my 8 track station has 8 goods trains waiting, and no train can get in to supply it"... well, duh! Is that the station's fault?

Full load with poor supply will cause airports to fill. The International *always* sends an aircraft to the hangar, and the hangar is its greatest cause of jams.
About the taxi way isseu. You can check the next two PNG. you can find the 11-airport has 11 individual taxi way. 2 of them are Hanger way.
7-airport has 9 individual taxi way. 2 of them are hanger way.
Im not going to start quoting the code at you, but go read it. The intercontinental has 14 non-runway blocks. 2 Hangar, 2 entrance, 2 in way, 2 out way, 2 terminal groups, 2 x 2 bypass circuits. In theory, every one could have an aircraft in.
1, You can see, 7-airport's in runway is only one step move can be clear. but 11-airport need move 3 step to clear the way. Plane can not get the runway ASAP.
Go read the code. It clears when it arrives at position 41 & 67 - 2 tiles from the runway.

Did you even read my 1.04pm reply? YOU CANNOT ADD MORE BLOCKS UNTIL THE AIRPORT FTA CODE IS HEAVILY REWORKED. YOU ARE WELCOME TO ADOPT THE TASK.

WHAT YOU WANT CANNOT HAPPEN WITHOUT RECODING.
2, 11-Airport's taxi way. When Plane in moving in A,D Taxi way, No matter B,E taxi way empty or not, the C and F should wait there, block the in runway. A,D taxi way are 5 block long. Quite a long moving time.
If you want smaller terminal groups, you are welcome to design your own airport, movements, and finite state machine.
3, No matter first plane landing in which in runway, the plane are also taxi to the upper right terminal first. It fill the buttom 4 terminal until all 4 upper terminal fill up.
That is dependent on the algorithm to find a free terminal. Even though my code asks it to give one from the second group first when landing on the leftmost terminal, it seems to insist on picking from the top row. This is worth looking at.
What I am concerning: 1, The 11-airport is not fast to release the in-runway. 2, the 11-airport's each taxi block is too big.
Disagree on both counts. It is irrelevant how quick you release the runway if the aircraft just joins a queue. In your #7 you have 1 aircraft landed, blocking the runway, and 1 aircraft 1 tile away. Mine is just another tile away... in effect no better/worse than #7.
May be ebik is right, the taxi program shall develop new. But before that, I think smaller the taxi block size may be easy to make it. of cause the state machine may be 400 or more. :shock:
As I said before: read my 1.04pm post. YOU CANNOT ADD MORE BLOCKS WITHOUT HEAVY RECODING.
Have I said too much? Hope you can understand what I am meaning.
I understand you, and I disagree with you.
P.S. the left side run-way direction light is moving with wrong direct. Not concord with the fly direction.
You are welcome to rework the graphics, and recode the patch to meet your requirements.

Bottom line: what you point out is wish-list stuff, not bugs. It doesnt matter how often you persist in nagging about it, I aint going to recode the entire system just to make you happy. The intercontinental is a MASSIVE improvement over the international. Just not in the minutiae that you want.

So do what I did when I felt the international was limited: I learnt C programming (only started in Oct05), and recoded it. Open is OPEN for a reason.
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Post by sopio »

Understand! that is the minimum program modify to improve the capasity of the airport.
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Post by richk67 »

sopio wrote:Understand! that is the minimum program modify to improve the capasity of the airport.
Off you go then.
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Great!

Post by bdvm »

Have got to say that these new airports are fantastic; well done and thanks!
I do have two small points and two questions:

a. Are the downloadable files compatible with the new openTTD 0.4.6?
(i.e., will using them make you revert the game back to 0.4.5?)

b. If an aeroplane crashes on the intercontinental airport, you have to rebuild it as the runway it crashed on is unusable...

c. Could it be that crashes with jets happen slightly more often than normal on the new commuter airport?

d. How do you install the version2 patch? (Sorry)
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Re: Great!

Post by richk67 »

bdvm wrote:Have got to say that these new airports are fantastic; well done and thanks!
I do have two small points and two questions:

a. Are the downloadable files compatible with the new openTTD 0.4.6?
(i.e., will using them make you revert the game back to 0.4.5?)

b. If an aeroplane crashes on the intercontinental airport, you have to rebuild it as the runway it crashed on is unusable...

c. Could it be that crashes with jets happen slightly more often than normal on the new commuter airport?

d. How do you install the version2 patch? (Sorry)
Thanks. Answers follow:
a) It is currently a patch on the SVN, so it more follows the nightly. It should patch the *source* code for 0.4.6, but I havent tried. It is still in dev really.
b) Resolved. Im not sure if I uploaded the correction, but it was 1 missing line of code! Ive now watched aircraft crash, and the northern runway reopen immediately it cleared.
c) The commuter airport is a SMALL airport. Jumbos will crash :)
d) Its a source code patch, so it doesnt patch the executable, but the source code. You will need to follow all the wiki instructions for downloading the source, installing a C compiler, applying a patch, and compiling your own download. If you are on WinXP, I would strongly recommend using the MingW32 compiler.
Hope that helps.
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Post by Arne »

May i ask why you are using so many fences?
Are they really necesarry?

Btw, the airports are great!!!!
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Post by richk67 »

Arne wrote:May i ask why you are using so many fences?
Are they really necesarry?

Btw, the airports are great!!!!
Initially I had the fences there to help mark out the pathways and help me design it, but I can see that some are no longer necessary. The ones near the IN_WAYs arent really needed, but the separators between the runways I think really help see what is happening.

What would be cool would be some new tarmac graphics with taxi-lines. I know someone has done this for the City airport, but I would like to have some arrows on the taxiway lines, and perhaps some runway numbers, etc.

Any graphic artists out there willing to help?
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Post by Blackandy »

I found a bug in the Intercontinental airport:
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Post by richk67 »

Blackandy wrote:I found a bug in the Intercontinental airport:
Nope, those two terminals are meant to have the aircraft dock at an angle. Exactly as I intended. :)
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Post by ebik »

Another bug (I'm not using latest patch..., but I think it is still there):

Total lockup, when several aircrafts decide to go to hangar...

The two aircrafts that are waiting near take-off are heading to hangar...
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Shortfingburg Transport, 29th Oct 2034.sav
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Locked airport picture...
Locked airport picture...
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Post by ebik »

Oh, I missed other thing: the aircrafts that are locking blocks between hangars and terminals are heading to oposite hangar!, I cannot made them to go to hangar at their side, so they lock everything...
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Post by richk67 »

ebik wrote:Another bug (I'm not using latest patch..., but I think it is still there):

Total lockup, when several aircrafts decide to go to hangar...

The two aircrafts that are waiting near take-off are heading to hangar...
Looks like some of these have been there ... a few years! If you have one of the first versions, then there was a problem with the hangar in the north.

I see you have 32 aircraft assigned to this airport, and other than the ones we can see, they are *all* in the northern depot. I changed the behaviour in v2. "Version 2. Modified hangar operations on northern half. It is now extremely rare to get a graphic conflict. It does still happen, but until there is full "pathing" support for airports, or serious mods made to code, it will hiccup occasionally."

Your situation also highlights another potential problem in the south. The aircraft that has left the entrance and is pointing around the inner bypass is locking the other aircraft from circulating. This may be correctable.

Unfortunately, your airport is doomed. A newly rebuilt patch will not reset the state machine unless the airport is destroyed/rebuilt, which you cant do if there are aircraft.

Sorry... I'll look into this problem.
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Post by ebik »

richk67 wrote:Unfortunately, your airport is doomed. A newly rebuilt patch will not reset the state machine unless the airport is destroyed/rebuilt, which you cant do if there are aircraft.
I realized that. I do not understand the state machine well, but I think that sending the two aircrafts near hangar to correct hangar should be possible.

If this will be implemented, then everybody can easily solve lockup by hand... (reseting the aircraft using send to hangar button...)
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Post by richk67 »

ebik wrote:Oh, I missed other thing: the aircrafts that are locking blocks between hangars and terminals are heading to oposite hangar!, I cannot made them to go to hangar at their side, so they lock everything...
OK, Ive nearly solved it, and you will be able to get your aircraft back too. The blocking aircraft is Aircraft 24 on Term8. It wants the hangar and has reserved it. But it cant leave cos Aircraft 12 has reserved the taxiway. I can override this by giving Aircraft 24 the taxiway as well.
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Problem solved
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