4 ms·

I think it's nice to see order stuff that people might not be aware of on HN from time to time. I'd not heard of it, and it looks great. Wonder how feasible a

by wonko1 10y ago

I think it's nice to see order stuff that people might not be aware of on HN from time to time. I'd not heard of it, and it looks great. Wonder how feasible a iOS would be? (Currently supports Windows and Mac so at least somewhat portable).

matheweis 10y ago
Sort of supports Mac... No one on the current team has any Mac hardware. Myself and a couple others occasionally make unofficial builds but that's been about it for the last year or two. As far as iOS, as with many open source projects, a major issue is the licensing probably can't pass the App Store rules.
- Zarel 10y ago
  I used to be the Mac guy for Warzone. Nice to see it's still going strong. dak180 used to be the other Mac guy, is he still around?
- ssalazar 10y ago
  > As far as iOS, as with many open source projects, a major issue is the licensing probably can't pass the App Store rules. Are there actual documented incidents of GPL or other FOSS software being rejected from the iOS App Store due to the source code license?
  - matheweis 10y ago
    The GPL in particular is fundamentally not compatible with the App Store re distribution clauses. VLC for iOS being the precedent setting example from a few years back. To answer your question directly, I'm not sure of cases where Apple will outright reject the initial submission of some OSS app - especially if you aren't totally up front about it. But clearly re VLC they will pull it once it is brought up (also leaving to distributing developer open to liability depending on how unhappy the contributors are)
sliken 10y ago
It's pretty complex, I can imagine it being decent on an iPad. An iPhone seems like it would be difficult.
- matheweis 10y ago
  It was originally designed to be a console game... I think it might not be terrible. If the tech tree could be spooled up like in Civ V that would eliminate a lot of the necessary menuing.
  - fowl2 10y ago
    PS1 if I remember, crazy to think of the limited resources there!
toomanybeersies 10y ago
I was just recently playing openTTD (https://www.openttd.org/ https://www.openttd.org/), a clone of Transport Tycoon, on an Android tablet. For a game that was originally made in 1995 (openTTD is much newer though), the UI and gameplay work remarkably well on a tablet.
- fennecfoxen 10y ago
  OpenTTD is in fact amazing, especially considering the amount of custom content that's been created over the years. 10/10 total nerd-bait, lose weeks and months of free time. The problem is that the development of these things has been very ad hoc and all the defaults are based on the old Transport Tycoon gameplay, which... has a rather primitive idea of passenger/mail service. But if you turn on the right advanced options and have the right set of trains, it's a fun challenge to design networks with a mix of service classes (super express passenger lines, high capacity metros, branching suburban commuter networks, or trams/buses/ferries where you can't fit tracks) while facing capital constraints and the consequences of your previous decisions (like when your mainline runs through a major urban city center, which puts it close to all the passengers and was a super great idea, but now it can't easily be expanded to have longer platforms because there are lots of tall buildings hemming it in.) Oh, and you can balance the risk of live upgrades (potentially, crashes and death, if you do it wrong) against the revenue losses and operational complexity of shutting down the trains.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    I'd recommend that people who like OpenTTD try out Simutrans[0] as well. It's far less polished, and many aspects of it are much worse, but it adds a few things that OpenTTD is missing (like flexible underground/elevated routes) and feels like a much better simulation, particularly of passenger transport. After playing Simutrans, I find OpenTTD's passenger destination model kind of weak, as it seems to generate passengers to based on your network. Instead, Simutrans generates passenger journeys between populated locations at random, and then works out whether they can use your network to complete them. The resulting usage patterns feel much more realistic to me. Unfortunately the development feels kind of fractured. It allows for different "paksets" which can change most aspects of the game, including the UI. But this seems to have lead to essentially half a dozen versions of the game which all have their own deficiencies. Additionally there's also an experimental version, but only one pakset really works with it. [0] https://www.simutrans.com/en/ https://www.simutrans.com/en/

by wonko1 10y ago

matheweis 10y ago

Sort of supports Mac... No one on the current team has any Mac hardware. Myself and a couple others occasionally make unofficial builds but that's been about it for the last year or two. As far as iOS, as with many open source projects, a major issue is the licensing probably can't pass the App Store rules.

Zarel 10y ago
I used to be the Mac guy for Warzone. Nice to see it's still going strong. dak180 used to be the other Mac guy, is he still around?
ssalazar 10y ago
> As far as iOS, as with many open source projects, a major issue is the licensing probably can't pass the App Store rules. Are there actual documented incidents of GPL or other FOSS software being rejected from the iOS App Store due to the source code license?
- matheweis 10y ago
  The GPL in particular is fundamentally not compatible with the App Store re distribution clauses. VLC for iOS being the precedent setting example from a few years back. To answer your question directly, I'm not sure of cases where Apple will outright reject the initial submission of some OSS app - especially if you aren't totally up front about it. But clearly re VLC they will pull it once it is brought up (also leaving to distributing developer open to liability depending on how unhappy the contributors are)

sliken 10y ago

It's pretty complex, I can imagine it being decent on an iPad. An iPhone seems like it would be difficult.

matheweis 10y ago
It was originally designed to be a console game... I think it might not be terrible. If the tech tree could be spooled up like in Civ V that would eliminate a lot of the necessary menuing.
- fowl2 10y ago
  PS1 if I remember, crazy to think of the limited resources there!

toomanybeersies 10y ago

I was just recently playing openTTD (https://www.openttd.org/ https://www.openttd.org/), a clone of Transport Tycoon, on an Android tablet. For a game that was originally made in 1995 (openTTD is much newer though), the UI and gameplay work remarkably well on a tablet.

fennecfoxen 10y ago
OpenTTD is in fact amazing, especially considering the amount of custom content that's been created over the years. 10/10 total nerd-bait, lose weeks and months of free time. The problem is that the development of these things has been very ad hoc and all the defaults are based on the old Transport Tycoon gameplay, which... has a rather primitive idea of passenger/mail service. But if you turn on the right advanced options and have the right set of trains, it's a fun challenge to design networks with a mix of service classes (super express passenger lines, high capacity metros, branching suburban commuter networks, or trams/buses/ferries where you can't fit tracks) while facing capital constraints and the consequences of your previous decisions (like when your mainline runs through a major urban city center, which puts it close to all the passengers and was a super great idea, but now it can't easily be expanded to have longer platforms because there are lots of tall buildings hemming it in.) Oh, and you can balance the risk of live upgrades (potentially, crashes and death, if you do it wrong) against the revenue losses and operational complexity of shutting down the trains.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  I'd recommend that people who like OpenTTD try out Simutrans[0] as well. It's far less polished, and many aspects of it are much worse, but it adds a few things that OpenTTD is missing (like flexible underground/elevated routes) and feels like a much better simulation, particularly of passenger transport. After playing Simutrans, I find OpenTTD's passenger destination model kind of weak, as it seems to generate passengers to based on your network. Instead, Simutrans generates passenger journeys between populated locations at random, and then works out whether they can use your network to complete them. The resulting usage patterns feel much more realistic to me. Unfortunately the development feels kind of fractured. It allows for different "paksets" which can change most aspects of the game, including the UI. But this seems to have lead to essentially half a dozen versions of the game which all have their own deficiencies. Additionally there's also an experimental version, but only one pakset really works with it. [0] https://www.simutrans.com/en/ https://www.simutrans.com/en/