NewStations

A new Station Set for TTDPatch and OpenTTD
by Michael Blunck
April 2004

Version 0.6 - August 14th, 2014

NewStations is a collection of various new train stations for the spiritual successors of Transport Tycoon deLuxe (TTD): TTDPatch and OpenTTD. Its stations are usable in all three major TTD climates (temperate, arctic, sub-tropical).

The set implements different kinds of stations: "way points" for better path-finding, passenger stations to allow a more variated approach to the needs of villages and cities, freight stations specific with respect to transported cargo, locomotive sheds for maintenance, and an assortment of non-track tiles to help with stations looking more "realistic".

Version 0.2 implemented way points (class "waypoints") in the form of signal boxes.

Version 0.3 added individually configurable station facilities like platforms, shelters, halls, etc. (class "platforms").

Version 0.4 added 16 small station buildings (class "small stations") which are not special for a particular vehicle set or country but should be usable for quite different scenarios. There will be more distinctive station buildings in the future.

Version 0.5 added support for OpenTTD's "custom" rail type feature, stations using "custom" foundations when being built on slopes, automatic buffers - both for platforms and free track, 4 new station buildings (Solovec, Freiburg, Bamberg, Avetri), new platform types, and mostly all-new graphics for platform tiles.

Version 0.6 adds

• two new types of entryways for underpasses
• a new waypoint w/o building
• a separating track w/o platforms
• a number of freight sheds
• depot facilities like engine sheds and roundhouses

The actual version of the NewStations set is 0.6 (grf-ID is 6D 62 06 00) and it's of August 14th, 2014.

TTDPatch

The NewStations set is available in a DOS ("newstats.grf") and in a Windows version ("newstatsw.grf"). Just copy the appropriate NewStations .grf file into the "newgrf" directory under your TTD main directory and add the entry "newgrf/newstats.grf" resp. "newgrf/newstatsw.grf" to your "newgrf.cfg" resp. "newgrfw.cfg" file.

You'll need TTDPatch version 2.0.1 alpha 58 (or higher) to run the NewStations set.

OpenTTD

Please follow the instructions found at the OpenTTD Wiki. For OpenTTD, the DOS version is recommended.

You'll need OpenTTD version r24905 (or higher) to run the NewStations set.

Supplying parameters

Since v0.4, NewStations included a novel feature: tinted glass for station roofs which has been implemented for the modern "glass roofs" station section. The actual glass colour has been set to a green tint. However, in case you don't like the glass colour in conjunction with a special player colour, or you don't like the tinted glass feature at all you may pass a parameter to revert to the original TTD "dirty" glass colour.

• 1 - disable tinted glass, (i.e. "newgrf/newstats[w].grf 1")

For OpenTTD, you can simply set the parameter from the newGRF window.

Variables to set in ttdpatch.cfg

You'll need to set following variables in your "ttdpatch.cfg" file:

• newstations on (mandatory)

NewStations v0.6 implements way point stations, platforms, small and medium station buildings, a number of special non-track station tiles, as well as freight sheds and depot facilities.

To choose between the different classes ("waypoints", "platforms", "station", ...) use the top pull-down menu in the station building window. To choose between different station types of a class use the lower menu. (TTDPatch)

All available station types are listed in the table below.

Class	Station ID	Type	Year	Number of platforms	Platform length	Cargo animation	remarks
Way points
WAYP (waypoints)	0	Signal-box	1920 1940 1960 1980 2000	1 - 7	1	no	non-stop
	1
	2
	3	Signal-box (gantry-style)
	82	footpath only1
Passenger stations
PLATFORMS (platforms)	4	Roofs	1920	1 - 7	1 - 7	yes
	5	Platforms		2 - 7
	6	Benches		1 - 7
	7	Car park (front)	1950				Cars only on edge, else roofs
	8	Car park (back)
	9	Flat roofs	1960	2 - 7			Underpass for lengths > 3
	10	Glass roofs	1980				Underpass for lengths > 3, tinted glass
	11	Bridge	1920	1 - 7	1	no
	12	Hall (small)		1 - 4	1 - 7	yes
	13	Hall (large)		2, 4
	14	Underpass		2 - 7	1	no
	15	Free		1 - 7	1 - 7
	16	Void
small SMALL_STATS (small stations)	17	St. Andrae2		2	1	yes (platform tiles)
	18	le Brassus
	19	Kritzendorf
	20	Vacha
	21	Whitehorse			2
	22	Leba
	23	Schaan
	24	Forbach
	25	Stenar	1930
	26	Sitges
	27	Taucha	1940
	28	Nottingham			3
	29	Montelusa	1950
	30	Olten	1960		2
	31	Kufstein	1970
	32	Buir	1980
	34	Solovec	1920		1
MEDIUM_STATS (medium stations)	58	Freiburg (back)	1940		3
	59	Freiburg (front)
	60	Bamberg	1920		5	yes	must be built on slopes
	61	Bamberg (extension)			1 .. 4
	33	Avetri	1980	1	3, 5, 7		tinted glass
NON_TRACK (non-track)	35	automatic buffer stop	1920		1	no
	36	empty platform
	37	St. Andrae
	38	le Brassus
	39	Kritzendorf
	40	Vacha
	41	Whitehorse			2
	42	Leba
	43	Schaan
	44	Forbach
	45	Stenar	1930
	46	Sitges
	47	Taucha	1940
	48	Nottingham			3
	49	Montelusa	1950
	50	Olten	1960		2
	51	Kufstein	1970
	52	Buir	1980
	53	Solovec	1920		1
	54	Separating track
	55	Stairs					must be built on slope
	56	Hall (small)		1 .. 4	1 .. 7	yes
	57	Hall (large)		2, 4
Freight stations
GENERALFREIGHT (general freight)	62	void with fence	1920	1 .. 7	1 .. 7	no	no fence on coast tiles (harbours)
	63	automatic buffer stop with fence			1
PIECEGOODS (piece goods)	64	small sheds		2 .. 4	1 .. 7	yes
	65	agricultural trade		2	1 .. 2
	66	half-timbered sheds		2 .. 7	1 .. 7		PBS aware
	67	goods sheds		1 .. 7		no
	68	modern goods sheds
	69	modern freight sheds				depending on configuration
	71/72	modern warehouses	1950	1 .. 3		yes	entrance doors aware of track connection
	73/74	modern warehouses		2 .. 4
	75/76	cold storages	1960	1 .. 3
	77/78	cold storages		2 .. 4
DEPOT (depot)	79	engine sheds	1920	1 .. 7		no
	80	roundhouse (vertical)		3, 5	3	yes	may be electrified
	81	roundhouse (horizontal)

¹ Not for TTDPatch!
² These are just "code names" to avoid the hassle of having "station 1", "station 2", etc. pp. The stations have nothing (well, nearly nothing) in common with any stations possibly existing under those names in reality.

The NewStations set allows composing railway stations from pre-defined building blocks (objects) of the same or even different classes.

While way points are used in a single-building layout, passenger stations are intended to be composed in a mostly free form from the available building "sections" to make the overall stations look more variated. To allow this in a most flexible way, this set provides mechanisms for automatic adjustment of station sections, i.e. you won't always exactly get what you're putting together (!).

The "platforms" class introduced in v0.3, containing various non-station building objects like generic platforms, over- and underpasses, shelter, car parks, halls, etc. is intended to be used for passenger stations.

Most of its objects of this class are animated and provide a mechanism for automatic adjustment with regard to neighbour objects depending on the overall layout of the station.

Cargo animation is done on a per-tile basis. However, the total size of the station is considered as well to get a balance between the total amount of cargo available at the station and the number of cargo (passengers) shown for different sized stations. This could result in loosing cargo animation when building a station from too many un-animated tiles, or for large stations with small cargo amounts.

It is strongly recommended to built up stations with smaller building blocks using whichever objects fit best. This will increase realism: It's better to have many different objects making up a station than to use the same element for all of its tracks.

In addition, since TTDPatch alpha 47, it was possible to "overbuild" parts of stations. This is a very useful feature, but take care not to destroy parts of your existing stations which are composed by multiple tiles, i.e. halls, under- and overpasses or double-tile platforms.

Way points

For way points there are 4 different buildings available for each of the 5 time periods (1920-, 1940-, 1960-, 1980-, 2000-), i.e. a total of 20 different buildings are implemented at the time being. Please note that way points have a special use in the game and cannot be used as normal stations, e.g. trains never stop at way points.

Shelter, roofs

This is the most versatile object and although it can be well used as a stand-alone object for smaller stations, it can be combined best with all other objects. When adding "roof" objects adjacently to any other object, mostly both of them get adjusted automatically, i.e. their fences get removed and additional roofs are created in the right places.

Generic platforms

This object may display various views. Depending on it's dimensioning, it'll display objects like shrubs, billboards, benches and underpasses automatically. Shrubs and billboards are changing according to seasons. Note that only edge tiles will be animated, not the center tiles (shrubs and billboards) nor the underpass tiles due to sprite limitations.

Benches

Another versatile object, fully animated.

Parking (front & behind)

Car parks will show parking cars either in front of the station or behind. Because for a single track station it cannot be decided automatically if there should be a car park in front or in the back, you�ll have to choose the appropriate object yourself. In addition these objects are showing roofs depending on their neighbourhood and there�s also a waiting queue shown at the ticket machine.

Please note that you cannot built car parks on slopes where no street access is available.

Modern flat roofs

Slightly more modern style, this object shows company colors and adds an appropriate underpass automatically for lengths > 3.

Modern glass roofs

The most modern station building block shows an elegant design and a creative glass roof. This could be used well for the high-class trains like ICE in the later years. Fully animated, it includes an underpass for lengths > 3. Fitting underpass tiles on neighbour platforms aren't animated.

Overpass, pedestrian's bridge

Customizable pedestrians bridge, unanimated.

Halls, small and large

Stations halls (concourse) suited for larger stations, fully animated.

Underpass, pedestrian's tunnel

Customizable underpass, not animated.

Empty platforms

Platforms without fences and other facilities to be used for the outskirts of a station or for mail or goods services. Not animated.

Void

No platforms or anything at all. Just the bare track. Could be used to break up the rather "monolithic" view of a typical TTD station.

Medium stations (Bamberg, Avetri)

These two stations are intended to be built on slopes. "Bamberg" and its extensions always needs to be built on a "front slope" (i.e., towards the viewer). "Avetri" may also be built on flat terrain, but in this case won't display its forefront complete with entrance and shops.

• back fence for small and large halls is 1 px too high. This cannot (will not) be fixed ATM, because it's a complicated bounding-box problem. And it'll need a set of additional 18 new sprites plus additional code for nearly no improvement.
• the roundhouses lack snow. This will be added in the future.

V0.6 (Aug 14th, 2014)

• fixed wrongly rotated ground sprite in one of the large station hall´s loading states
• fixed foundation check for "flat water", not always working
• fixed graphics for parking lots back
• fixed bug showing wrong loading sprite (passengers) for "Nottingham"
• added two new types of entryways for underpasses
• added a new WP (ID 82) w/o building (footpath only, not for TTDPatch!)
• added separating track (ID 54) w/o platforms (automatic)
• added a number of freight sheds (IDs 64 .. 78)
• added depot facilities: engine sheds (ID 79), roundhouses (ID 81)

V0.51 (Dec 21th, 2012)

• fixed blinking ground tile of non-track large hall (in menu)
• fixed some translations (Dutch, Espagnol)
• fixed corrupted buffer ID counting (due to late inserting of "Avetri" into the low ID range)
• fixed corrupted nopylons() and nowires() functions for all non-track tiles
• ground sprite fix for monorail & maglev rail types (in menu)
• changed: draw platform buffers only for this newGRF, not for others

V0.5 (Dec 12th, 2012)

• fixed availability dates for non-track stations "Buir", "Taucha" and "Sitges"
• fixed all platform rear edge graphics to better fit new custom foundations
• fixed platform edge graphics for snowy non-track small stations
• fixed wrong passenger sprite allocation for "roofs" (pedestrian overpass)
• fixed: "Montelusa" was lacking company colour on southern station tile
• fixed: graphical unification of pedestrian crossings for "roofs", "parking lots" and "empty"
• fixed some translations
• modified warning stripes on all platforms
• modified the AI support
• disallowed building of parking lots on "wrong" slopes
• removed automatic building of underpasses for "platforms"
• added small station "Solovec"
• added medium stations "Freiburg", "Bamberg" and "Avetri"
• added two new non-track station types (small/large hall)
• added "automatic" buffers
• added a "separating track" station tile (mock signal)
• added a "void" buffer variant (for free tracks)
• added platform type "stairs" (custom slope)
• added "passenger shelters" on "platform" tiles
• added standard custom foundations for building on land or near water
• added fences for all platforms when build on different height levels
• added snow for "void" station and buffer tiles
• added snow for standard buffer tiles
• added cargo triggers for station tiles showing passenger graphics

V0.44 (Dec 27th, 2005)

• Coordinate tweak in non-tile station buildings because of sprite sorter issues.
• Changed fence appearance on non-track platforms.
• Taucha got chimneys.

V0.43 (Dec 23th, 2005)

• added non-track tiles (small station buildungs).

V0.42 (Sep 5th, 2005)

• added non-track tiles.

V0.41 (Jun 5th, 2005)

• fixed animation bug with sprite ordering of "modern flat roofs".

V0.40 (May 5th, 2005)

• added "void" platform type,
• added "small stations" class objects,
• added AI station type selection,
• added "snowy" versions for all objects,
• added tinted glass for platform roofs.

V0.30 (Feb 15th, 2005)

• added support for monorail and maglev track (although not recommended with this set),
• added "platforms" class objects

V0.20 (Nov 26th, 2004)

• added support for arctic and sub-tropic climate

V0.10 (Apr 5th, 2004)

• introducing way point stations

NewStations Set - © 2004 .. 2014 Michael Blunck - All Rights Reserved.

This Software is protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties, as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties. All copyrights in and to the Software are owned by the aforementioned copyright holder.

Permission to use, copy and distribute this software as it is (consisting of the graphics and its implementation code) and its documentation for non-commercial purposes, without fee and without a signed licensing agreement, is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice, this paragraph and the following four paragraphs appear in all copies and distributions. Contact the above Copyright holder for commercial licensing opportunities.

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES, LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

THE SOFTWARE AND ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION, IF ANY, PROVIDED HEREUNDER IS PROVIDED "AS IS". THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER HAS NO OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS.

ALL COMMERCIAL USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

ALL REDISTRIBUTION OF THIS SOFTWARE TO OTHER PARTIES FOR COMMERCIAL USE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

The availability of new stations was only made possible by the outstanding work of Josef Drexler and Marcin Grzegorczyk on TTDPatch. In particular I'd like to express my gratitude to Josef for the fruitful collaboration during further developing TTDPatch.

For version 0.5, I'd like to thank alpha testers wallyweb and Raichase for their tireless bug-hunting, through a series of 20 alpha versions. Also, I'd like to thank ziond and Kraks for the Russian translation of NewStation's text strings, as well as Voyager One for the Croatian translation. In addition, the French version of this text was kindly created by wallyweb.