Simutrans Transport Simulator

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Simutrans Transport Simulator

Simutrans Pak 64 screenshot
Developer(s) Hansjörg Malthaner (initial)
Markus Pristovsek "Prissi" (current head of development)
Publisher(s) Simutrans Development Team
Distributor(s) Simutrans Development Team
Latest version Latest: 0.99.09.3 (All Operating Systems except Intel Mac)
Stable: 0.88.10.5 (All Operating Systems except Intel Mac)
Release date(s) 6 March 1999
Genre(s) Simulation
Transport Simulator
Mode(s) Single Player
Platform(s) BeOS, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows
Media All BeOS, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows PC
Input Keyboard and Mouse


Simutrans Transport Simulator is a freeware (but not open source) simulation game for Windows, BeOS, Mac OS X (Intel Macs only) or Linux that focuses on the transporting of goods, people, mail and power. It was originally written by Hansjörg Malthaner, and is now maintained and developed by a small team. New releases for bug fixes, changes or new features are frequent.

Contents

[edit] Overview and features

Like many similar games such as Transport Tycoon or Railroad Tycoon, the main goal of Simutrans is to create a stable economy, as well as making a company grow and avoid bankruptcy. Simutrans features the ability to modify the terrain, build roads and rails, build various kinds of transportation stops, terminals and vehicles (including buses, tramways, trains (in a few variations), trucks, ships, aeroplanes and more recently monorail). Creation of power grid networks is also supported. Up to 6 computer AI controlled players are also supported, distinguished by colour scheme(s).

Underground mode is supported in latest versions, so making it possible to build a complete undergorund rail system in large cities. Certain combination of ways is possible, i.e. tram tracks may run on roads in certain combinations.

Simutrans is multilingual, and includes the option of darkened night times complete with city lights and vehicle headlights. Recent versions include a beginner mode, 14 additional primary colours and new secondary colours and there is a freeplay command-line option to allow debt without bankruptcy. Also, seasons are supported, and different climates.

Simutrans is compiled by default for Windows, Linux and BeOS. There is also a version available for Intel-based Mac, though this is compiled separately. Simutrans can make use of several graphics libraries, including GDI (Windows version), SDL (All versions) and Allegro (currently used with the BeOS version). It is in theory portable to any little endian processor architecture.

[edit] Production Team

Simutrans was originally created by Hansjörg Malthaner, who has since retired from active development. Over the course of its history many different people have contributed to the code, often these contributions take the form of "one-off" additions to the code (such as the addition of Airplanes by Hendrik Siegeln, or more recently the contribution of rendered ground tiles and the climate system by Kierongreen). Currently the Simutrans codebase is maintained by Markus Pristovsek "Prissi", who heads the development team.

Numerous artists have contributed sprites for buildings, vehicles and all the other graphics which go into the game. It is easy for newcomers to get involved in production and development thanks to the easy-to-use object creation system, creating a new vehicle or other object is as simple as producing a set of images and a short text file. The list of contributors to Simutrans probably extends into hundreds.

[edit] Graphics Sets

Simutrans Pak 128 screenshot
Simutrans Pak 128 screenshot

Simutrans is designed in such a way that the game engine is separated from the graphics displayed, this means that it is possible to easily replace all the graphics in the game if need be. This has led to the development of multiple sprite sets (known as "scenarios" or "pak sets"), maintained by various developers. The standard graphics set is known as pak64, and is the most common set seen in screenshots. This was the original graphics set and has changed much since earlier Simutrans versions. Pak128 has been developed to create a more detailed set of images that are twice the size of the standard pak64 images. There are also other sets based on the pak64 and pak128 image sets. More recently the 96x96px size has been used in the development of a Hand Drawn graphics set, known as pakHD. There are currently Pak 32, Pak 64, Pak 96, Pak 128, Pak Abo, Pak German, Pak HD, Pak Japan, Pak Mars and Pak SC.

There has also been a port of graphics from Transport Tycoon to create a set for use in Simutrans, this project is known as SimuTTD.

[edit] Comparison with other transportation simulation games

Unlike Transport Tycoon and Locomotion, in Simutrans passengers, mail and other goods have a specific destination.

The pathfinding algorithm in Simutrans is often recognized to be one of the best in any PC traffic simulation[citation needed], and is commonly regarded as better than that in some commercial products. Traffic Giant is among the only traffic simulation game which contains a similarly advanced pathfinding system as Simutrans. However, Traffic Giant uses precomputed pathfinding, while Simutrans has a dynamic pathfinding system which can adapt itself. Routing algorithm is very good, althorough not perfect, if parallel operation is used on the physically same station. The stationhub concept can be utilised very good, and works spleneded. Light-rail concept and Suburban-rail concept can be utilisied, due to passengers behave very predictive. The internal as also suburban bus traffic can be easly mastered.

Cargo routing tries to find the shortest possible route, not the more capacitive one, or even distributed by cargo carrier vehicle, which is the least realistic part.

Mail is also a good to transport. Mail has the specific issue, that very little mail is produced, so transporting mail makes only sense between many Mail officees in large towns with very few vehicles.

Waypoints should be utilisied, if not the shortest, but some specific route is to be used.

Building transportation infrastructure is very easy, and can be generally accomplished by just two clicks. Just click on start and the target. The way is automatically filled with the transport route. The chosen direction is usually really the optimal shortest one. Traffic congestion control is possible, i.e. One-way roads and high-capacity roads (highways) can be done. Traffic signals, ranging from simple right-of-way all the way to light signals exist.

Slopes may be used, to gain space inside big crowded cities. They can be used for elevated ways, or to make extra space on hills.

Bridges can not be curved as for now, only straight bridges may be built, but combinations of bridges over and under work with ease. Also slopes and bridges might be very flexibly combined.

Tunnels can be built with just a entrance and end in the tunnel or you can make another exit which is not exactly the same point as the tunnel entrance. Both road tunnel and rail tunnel have such feature. Version 0.99.04.2 and below won't have such feature supported.

Simutrans makes it possible to have many vehicles, large towns and lots of fun. Also large complex networks are handeled by ease with the quick optimised game engine behind.

[edit] Modding

Simutrans is designed in such a way that adding new objects to the game is easy. Graphics are created as 24bit .png images, which are then compiled by the tool Makeobj to form .pak files. Information about the object (such as name, type, statistics etc.) is provided in the form of a .dat file conforming to certain specifications. Makeobj reads the .dat file and uses the entries to compile the finished object. This system means that only very rudimentary tools are required to create a new object, it can be done using a bitmap editor (capable of outputting .png files) and a text file editor.

Many objects in Simutrans are created using 3D modelling applications, such as Blender, the rendered images are compiled into objects in the same way as pixel-drawn ones.

Sounds may also be customized, it is possible to add a unique sound for each vehicle. It is also possible to add midi music to the game.

[edit] Additional mods

Since recently, Simutrans features the concept of wayobjects. Also overhead street catenary (in addition to normal rail catenary) is possible. Also some trolley-busses exist as addon. Monorail and Maglev addon packs, together with matching tracks and stations can be installed as addons. Different rail power supply systems also exist as addon, like third-rail and forth-rail power supply. Also matching subway vehicles can be obtained as an addon.

[edit] Command Lines and Cheats

Simutrans has a number of command lines and lots more other cheats in the tips and cheats section of the forum. The few commands are -freeplay, -nomidi, -no sound, -debug and if you want you can put them together.

Sign: If the word appears bold it means that is the original form and if the word appear a Italic that means it is an addition to the address.

How to put these command lines. It is actually very simple just follow these steps below:

1. Right click on simutrans.exe (it appears as simutrans) and than click "Create shortcut"
2. A shortcut should be created in the folder as "Shortcut to simutrans"
3. Right click on the shortcuts and click "Properties"
4. In the address bar you should see the address of the shortcut of the simutrans.
5. The last part should appear as this "simutrans/simutrans.exe"
6. To insert -freeplay simply type this "simutrans/simutrans.exe" -freeplay (Note the space between " and -)
7. You can also insert others like "simutrans/simutrans.exe" -nomidi etc...
8. Or together "simutrans/simutrans.exe" -freeplay -nomidi -no sound -debug (note all should have a space in between)

[edit] See also

  • H-World - A now GPL Roleplaying game also written by Hansjörg.

[edit] External links


  • Note: All Audio, Images, Videos and any other media is Copyright of Simutrans Community.
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