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OpenTTD
- zyberzero 3y agoMy favourite game, all categories. Endless hours of gameplay, and you can play it on almost anything!
- candiddevmike 3y agoAny tips for someone new to it? Ive tried to get into it a few times and get too overwhelmed. I really like Cities in Motion (and trains in Factorio...), OpenTTD seems like a game I'd like if I could figure it out
- petepete 3y agoI'd try watching the intro YouTube series by MasterHellish and concentrating on a particular industry to start with, it can get overwhelming when there's lots going on.
- o11c 3y agoPlay online, there's a small community running regular public coop games. The downside is the games are typically pinned to an exact nightly build. I got tired of that, but it's managable for a finite duration to get you started.
- haolez 3y agoRestrict yourself to trains for a while. Things get a little simpler.
- fendy3002 3y agoWhat're you overwhelmed to? If it's signaling, try to use one way signal with loops at the end for turnaround. If you need junctions, look it online and just copy it without much thinking until you get better with this. Turn off vehicles breakdowns, and there's setting to change towns to follow 2x2 or 3x3 grid, which will make building easier. To make early money, look for two cities (they have City label on their name) with high enough population and close enough distance, and make 7 length station on both. You'll want to run 7 length on every passenger train in the end, it'll simplify the design. The ui and menus may be confusing at first, but you'll get used to it.
- tasuki 3y agoWhy do you like it? I haven't played much, but rather disliked OpenTTD because people appeared at a random station and didn't seem to care where you take them? If it is so, what is the point? If it is not so, what did I misunderstand? I like Simutrans [0], in which people want to get from A to B and are willing to change between bus/train/plane. The routes which are central to one's network really need to be able to bear a lot of passengers. [0]: https://www.simutrans.com/ https://www.simutrans.com/
- Macha 3y agoThere is an improvement in the options called cargo distribution (cargodest for short) which assigns them a destination among available ones on your network when they're spawned. This is a bit unlike simutrans where destinations are generated and then passengers only appear in your stations when it's reachable. There were attempts to introduce more simutrans-esque behaviour in patches called cargodest, but it proved to be unacceptable performance wise for the map and network sizes that OpenTTD uses.
- tasuki 3y agoSo, with cargodest does the cargo change from a bus to a train? And without cargodest, what is the point of OpenTTD? I honestly struggle to understand this game if passengers appear randomly and pay the full price to go wherever you like to take them.
- Macha 3y agoCargo can change from bus/trams to trains anyway, either from manual orders or with cargodist. It's probably also worth mentioning that cargo quantities are usually more limited at first. Primary cargo especially grows slowly. Passengers can grow very quickly if the player understands the city growth mechanics (the count is a function of city size), but even with cargodist if you make an actual network they will dictate their stop. For me the appeal is more the mid-late game micro-optimisations, like how to make a junction work when there's constant incoming trains.
- 3y ago
- pas 3y ago> OpenTTD turns 20 this year, and to celebrate we are preparing for one of our largest ever releases. :o so far this is the first big feature announced: https://www.openttd.org/news/2024/02/10/unbunching https://www.openttd.org/news/2024/02/10/unbunching (for buses, trucks, road vehicles)
- thih9 3y agoChangelog for version 14 beta, with full list of changes: https://cdn.openttd.org/openttd-releases/14.0-beta1/changelog.txt https://cdn.openttd.org/openttd-releases/14.0-beta1/changelo... The numbers refer to pull requests and these have more details; e.g. description of the infinite money mode: https://github.com/OpenTTD/OpenTTD/pull/11902 https://github.com/OpenTTD/OpenTTD/pull/11902
- Rendello 3y agoI was never excellent at this game, but used to play it and listen to podcasts, etc. One of my favourite things to do was play single player against a particular AI that would spam out hundreds of buses. It would always quickly take the lead, so I'd set up my own bus routes, then order all my buses to stop in the middle of the road at once. This would lead to massive gridlock, effectively denying the AI profit while its operating costs dragged it to bankruptcy. When it went bust, I'd buy out the company, then allow my (now) hundreds of buses to move again!
- blibble 3y agoit's a fantastic game, but in terms of making money it's too easy! you build a small service that gets you enough capital to build a line for e.g. oil from one end of the map to the other that's it, then you can treat the entire game as a giant sandbox (which is the best bit)
- lbrindze 3y agoThis is true but if you add in some game scripts or download specific scenarios and add in the FIRS resource packs (with much more complicated supply chains) it can be quite challenging. My personal favorite was doing 5min city builder blitz online. Wasn’t ever very good but would keep me occupied for hours on end!
- unnamed76ri 3y agoI’ve enjoyed many hours of this game in the past but like all such games in this genre, I end up wanting to be challenged and there’s just nothing challenging in the game. Your company will grow and grow without much effort at all.
- jszymborski 3y agoSimulator games are among my favourites, but totally agree that when I play Factorio, I often quit because I can't help but think "this itch can equally be scratched by working on the programming side-project you had in mind"
- skinner927 3y agoThat’s horribly depressing and exactly how I feel.
- medstrom 3y agoWhy depressing?
- bilekas 3y agoI'm not sure, but you say it like a bad thing, there is a weird few studies who've explored the game v work mentality before, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6829166/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6829166/ Not necessarily negative, but needs to be considered as a tool not a replacement. Wherever inspiration for a bit of "I need to scratch this itch" come from, personally I am the same and I love it. EDIT : Also, Factorio is top.
- jszymborski 3y agoYou're absolutely right! I'm trying to beat out the "not productive = waste of time" mentality out of myself, and I'm getting much better about it! But Factorio somehow always brings it out of me :P A reminder to spend a goodly amount of your time on this Earth just basking in its pleasures, large and small, "productive" or otherwise.
- jodrellblank 3y agoI sometimes wonder if anyone's built a network diagramming / visualisation / live monitoring tool based on the OpenTTD engine?
- Strangfort 3y agoLove TTD and OpenTTD has done a great job- I've put a lot of hours into it- but, it's honestly just a bit old hat now. No matter the industry mod or the NGRFs added, it's just not enough to keep me engrossed for long. I imagine I'll still return for a few days every year or so to play a new game, but really it's out of nostalgia.
- reustle 3y agoLooking forward to a 3D version of TTD sitting off to the side on my desk in my mixed reality headset. Rendering in 3D seems done already https://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=86412 https://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=86412
- cyclotron3k 3y agoLooks like development stalled about 4 years ago, but that looks amazing
- blibble 3y agoa little known fact is the PS1 version released in Japan had a full 3d mode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY6uIxKpItM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY6uIxKpItM
- afavour 3y agoMan, the hours I spent on this game. Haven’t played it in years and won’t any time soon because family dominates my time but is it weird to imagine myself whiling away whole days on this (and Civ) when I’m retired?
- hold3r 3y agoThis is the first and last game that kept me engaged for a continuous 24 hours when I discovered the multiplayer.
- hansonpeter 3y ago[dead]
- Linda231 3y ago[dead]
- dang 3y agoRelated: OpenTTD 13.4 Released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36940233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36940233 - July 2023 (22 comments) OpenTTD's Infrastructure in 2023 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36706453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36706453 - July 2023 (79 comments) OpenTTD 13.0 Released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34674066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34674066 - Feb 2023 (82 comments) OpenTTD Game Mechanics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32698851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32698851 - Sept 2022 (14 comments) OpenTTD 12.0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28974525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28974525 - Oct 2021 (1 comment) OpenTTD 12.0-RC1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28654753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28654753 - Sept 2021 (62 comments) OpenGL 3D viewport renderer for OpenTTD (2019) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26823536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26823536 - April 2021 (1 comment) OpenTTD Went to Steam to Solve a Hard Problem - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26772257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26772257 - April 2021 (2 comments) OpenTTD 1.11 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26660154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26660154 - April 2021 (58 comments) SpaceY 1.0 – a SpaceX-inspired addon for OpenTTD game (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26390602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26390602 - March 2021 (1 comment) OpenTTD 1.10 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22772536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22772536 - April 2020 (114 comments) OpenTTD 1.10.0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22752066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22752066 - April 2020 (2 comments) OpenTTD Compiled to WebAssembly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19538715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19538715 - March 2019 (88 comments) OpenTTD 1.8.0-RC1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16725375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16725375 - March 2018 (28 comments) Ask HN: How do I begin an open source game executable project like OpenTTD? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1780212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1780212 - Oct 2010 (1 comment)
- askvictor 3y agoI read that as openTDD, and the comments about it being a game had me confused for a bit.
- lejoko 3y agoSame here. I wondered how TDD could be more open than it is already...
- michalc 3y agoRelated: I recently made OpenTTDLab https://github.com/michalc/OpenTTDLab https://github.com/michalc/OpenTTDLab that can run OpenTTD headlessly from Python and extract data from its savegames in a hopefully fairly straightforward way. (Very recently posted on ShowHN, so maybe this is cheeky…)
- Fripplebubby 3y agoReally cool! I assume you built this to test out different AIs for the game, is that right? What other uses does it have?
- michalc 3y agoShort answer: yes, exactly Long answer: trying to make it much easier to do simulation-based research using OpenTTD, and for any results found to be as reproducible as possible. There have been a few papers/dissertations that use OpenTTD, but it's tricky to do exactly what the authors did, or even in a few cases I suspect it was hard for them to repeat their own experiments or extract results from them. OpenTTDLab seeks to make these easier. And, such research seems to often (/always?) use AIs, so that's the focus. I also would like to be able to train an AI in some automated(/formal?) way, and maybe use OpenTTD to investigate something a bit more... supply-chain-y, but that's a work in progress (I've not even written an AI yet!) But also a bit of a less formal "just run an AI/some AIs over some seeds and see" is also very much a use case. Am trying to strike that balance between something quite... exploratory, but still reproducible.
- michalc 3y agoI thought it was time I got off my... and starting making an AI (https://github.com/michalc/SupplyChainLabAI https://github.com/michalc/SupplyChainLabAI - but it does nothing but log a debug message repeatedly at this point, I feel I have a long journey...) But it makes me realise there is another use case for OpenTTDLab that I don't think I considered: regression tests for OpenTTD AIs? Edit: And it has been mentioned to me separately that maybe it could be used as part of regression tests of OpenTTD itself https://github.com/OpenTTD/OpenTTD/discussions/11863#discussioncomment-8201989 https://github.com/OpenTTD/OpenTTD/discussions/11863#discuss...
- aquafox 3y agoIn the original TTD, you could trigger an integer overflow by building a very long tunnel from one end of the world to the other, so that the billions of money subtracted got negative. ;) https://www.playdosgames.com/online/transport-tycoon/ https://www.playdosgames.com/online/transport-tycoon/
- harph 3y agoI remember getting this bug on accident when I was a kid. I was building a tunnel, but clicked the wrong tile. It popped up a huuuge sum of money and I got scared that I messed up and I'll go bankrupt, only to realize I now had 2B dollars...
- butz 3y agoIt's amazing, how much new features still can be added to this game for so many years.
- npteljes 3y agoI loved OpenTTD (and Transport Tycoon before that), but since I experienced bot building and copy-paste in Factorio and Mindustry, I can't go back to manually place each rail. The auto-rail feature is nice, as is the one where it lets you to semaphore up a straight line with a single mouse drag, but building each rail junction by hand... I just can't find it in me anymore. It feels like typing out boilerplate code by hand.
- Beardy 3y agoHey, I'll preface this by saying I've never played or contributed to OpenTTD, but I was a little fascinated by your comment. I always wonder when I see feature requests like this, where are the limits that have stopped something like this being added in the past? Are there technical or historical limitations in OpenTTD that you can see from a player that makes it obvious no simple-fix would work without a full overhaul of certain systems? From an outsider, and at the risk of sounding like a project manager right before receiving a whole range of "Sure, but..." answers, it seems like if they already have a system for drawing straight lines, can't it automatically draw a junction when those two lines meet? Also, not to knock those "Sure, but..." answers, there is usually a whole lot of information in the but.
- wruza 3y agoSurely no limits, cause computer opponents build proper railways most of the times. I also wish there was an option for "build railway through here-ish, suggest budget classes for landscaping". OpenTTD is a cool game, but you quickly hit all the realistic walls: micromanagement, weak accounting and planning, scale-related issues. As a former ERP guy, it drives me nuts sometimes. Dammit, put all the data into a database, so I can write a proper resource planning system mod with all sorts of reports and automatic orders!
- npteljes 3y agoI agree, I love the game, but the game design is very dated. This is the thing about old games, it's not just that the graphics get old, but the UX, and the game design itself also gets outdated.
- zilti 3y agoI like the idea of OpenTTD, but some things just always bothered me with basically all games in the genre. No shunting - which would make dealing with small suppliers more efficient, if they'd exist in the first place -, and cities and industries basically just keep growing as long as you have the transport capacity. For some towns, more growth just makes no sense. Same goes for industries in certain locations.
- butler14 3y ago20 years.... Factorio feels like it's the only thing that's really come close since!
- OezMaster 3y agoIt is available on MacOS M2 with brew: brew install --cask openttd
- joveian 3y agoIt is also on GOG and other game stores so for anyone who also plays commercial games it is easy to track updates the same way you do with other games. https://www.gog.com/en/game/openttd https://www.gog.com/en/game/openttd
- nubb 3y agoi just happen to try this game recently... is it just a micromanager sim? seems like (early game at least) i am just micro managing a bunch of trucks and trains telling them where to go individually.
- robblbobbl 3y agoCool, thank you for creating this :)