1

OpenTTD README

     2

Last updated:    2008-06-01

     3

Release version: 0.6.1

     4

------------------------------------------------------------------------

     5

     6

     7

Table of Contents:

     8

------------------

     9

1.0) About

    10

2.0) Contacting

    11

 * 2.1 Reporting Bugs

    12

3.0) Supported Platforms

    13

4.0) Installing and running OpenTTD

    14

 * 4.1 (Required) 3rd party files

    15

 * 4.2 OpenTTD directories

    16

 * 4.3 Portable Installations (External Media)

    17

5.0) OpenTTD features

    18

6.0) Configuration File

    19

7.0) Compiling

    20

8.0) Translating

    21

 * 8.1 Guidelines

    22

 * 8.2 Translation

    23

 * 8.3 Previewing

    24

9.0) Troubleshooting

    25

X.X) Credits

    26

    27

    28

1.0) About:

    29

---- ------

    30

OpenTTD is a clone of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, a popular game originally

    31

written by Chris Sawyer.  It attempts to mimic the original game as closely

    32

as possible while extending it with new features.

    33

    34

OpenTTD is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2.0. For

    35

more information, see the file 'COPYING'.

    36

    37

2.0) Contacting:

    38

---- ----------

    39

The easiest way to contact the OpenTTD team is by submitting bug reports or

    40

posting comments in our forums. You can also chat with us on IRC (#openttd

    41

on irc.oftc.net).

    42

    43

The OpenTTD homepage is http://www.openttd.org/.

    44

    45

You can also find the OpenTTD forums at

    46

http://forum.openttd.org/

    47

    48

    49

2.1) Reporting Bugs:

    50

---- ---------------

    51

To report a bug, please create a Flyspray account and follow the bugs

    52

link from our homepage. Please make sure the bug is reproducible and

    53

still occurs in the latest daily build or the current SVN version. Also

    54

please look through the existing bug reports briefly to see whether the bug

    55

is not already known.

    56

    57

The Flyspray project page URL is: http://bugs.openttd.org/

    58

    59

Please include the following information in your bug report:

    60

        - OpenTTD version (PLEASE test the latest SVN/nightly build)

    61

        - Bug details, including instructions how to reproduce it

    62

        - Platform and compiler (Win32, Linux, FreeBSD, ...)

    63

        - Attach a saved game *and* a screenshot if possible

    64

        - If this bug only occurred recently please note the last

    65

          version without the bug and the first version including

    66

          the bug. That way we can fix it quicker by looking at the

    67

          changes made.

    68

    69

    70

3.0) Supported Platforms:

    71

---- --------------------

    72

OpenTTD has been ported to several platforms and operating systems. It shouldn't

    73

be very difficult to port it to a new platform. The currently working platforms

    74

are:

    75

    76

  BeOS                 - SDL

    77

  FreeBSD              - SDL

    78

  Linux                - SDL

    79

  MacOS X (universal)  - Cocoa video and sound drivers (SDL works too, but not 100% and not as a universal binary)

    80

  MorphOS              - SDL

    81

  OpenBSD              - SDL

    82

  OS/2                 - SDL

    83

  Windows              - Win32 GDI (faster) or SDL

    84

    85

    86

4.0) Installing and running OpenTTD:

    87

---- -------------------------------

    88

    89

Installing OpenTTD is fairly straightforward. Either you have downloaded an

    90

archive which you have to extract to a directory where you want OpenTTD to

    91

be installed, or you have downloaded an installer, which will automatically

    92

extract OpenTTD in the given directory.

    93

    94

OpenTTD looks in multiple locations to find the required data files (described

    95

in section 4.2). Installing any 3rd party files into a "shared" location has

    96

the advantage that you only need to do this step once, rather than copying the

    97

data files into all OpenTTD versions you have.

    98

Savegames, screenshots, etc are saved relative to the config file (openttd.cfg)

    99

currently being used. This means that if you use a config file in one of the

   100

shared directories, savegames will reside in the save/ directory next to the

   101

openttd.cfg file there.

   102

If you want savegames and screenshots in the directory where the OpenTTD binary

   103

resides, simply have your config file in that location. But if you remove this

   104

config file, savegames will still be in this directory (see notes in section 4.2)

   105

   106

4.1) (Required) 3rd party files:

   107

---- ---------------------------

   108

   109

Before you run OpenTTD, you need to put the game's datafiles into a data/

   110

directory which can be located in various places addressed in the following

   111

section.

   112

As OpenTTD makes use of the original TTD artwork you will need the files listed

   113

below, which you can find on a Transport Tycoon Deluxe CD-ROM.

   114

The Windows installer optionally can copy these files from that CD-ROM.

   115

   116

List of the required files:

   117

	- sample.cat

   118

	- trg1r.grf

   119

	- trgcr.grf

   120

	- trghr.grf

   121

	- trgir.grf

   122

	- trgtr.grf

   123

   124

Alternatively you can use the TTD GRF files from the DOS version:

   125

	- TRG1.GRF

   126

	- TRGC.GRF

   127

	- TRGH.GRF

   128

	- TRGI.GRF

   129

	- TRGT.GRF

   130

   131

If you want the TTD music, copy the gm/ folder from the Windows version

   132

of TTD to your OpenTTD folder (not your data folder - also explained in

   133

the following sections).

   134

   135

Do NOT copy files included with OpenTTD into "shared" directories (explained in

   136

the following sections) as sooner or later you will run into graphical glitches

   137

when using other versions of the game.

   138

   139

4.2) OpenTTD directories

   140

---- -------------------------------

   141

   142

The TTD artwork files listed in the section 4.1 "(Required) 3rd party files"

   143

can be placed in a few different locations:

   144

	1. The current working directory (from where you started OpenTTD)

   145

	2. Your personal directory

   146

		Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\OpenTTD

   147

		Mac OSX: ~/Documents/OpenTTD

   148

		Linux:   ~/.openttd

   149

	3. The shared directory

   150

		Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\OpenTTD

   151

		Mac OSX: /Library/Application Support/OpenTTD

   152

		Linux:   not available

   153

	4. The binary directory (where the OpenTTD executable is)

   154

		Windows: C:\Program Files\OpenTTD

   155

		Linux:   /usr/games

   156

	5. The installation directory (Linux only)

   157

		Linux:   /usr/share/games/openttd

   158

	6. The application bundle (Mac OSX only)

   159

		It includes the OTTD files (grf+lng) and it will work as long as they aren't touched

   160

   161

Notes:

   162

	- Linux in the previous list means .deb, but most paths should be similar for others.

   163

	- The previous search order is also used for newgrfs and openttd.cfg.

   164

	- If openttd.cfg is not found, then it will be created using the 2, 4, 1, 3, 5 order.

   165

	- Savegames will be relative to the config file only if there is no save/

   166

	  directory in paths with higher priority than the config file path, but

   167

	  autosaves and screenshots will always be relative to the config file.

   168

   169

The prefered setup:

   170

Place 3rd party files in shared directory (or in personal directory if you don't

   171

have write access on shared directory) and have your openttd.cfg config file in

   172

personal directory (where the game will then also place savegames and screenshots).

   173

   174

   175

4.3) Portable Installations (External Media):

   176

---- ----------------------------------------

   177

   178

You can install OpenTTD on external media so you can take it with you, i.e.

   179

using a USB key, or a USB HDD, etc.

   180

Create a directory where you shall store the game in (i.e. OpenTTD/).

   181

Copy the binary (OpenTTD.exe, OpenTTD.app, openttd, etc), data/ and your

   182

openttd.cfg to this directory.

   183

You can copy binaries for any operating system into this directory, which will

   184

allow you to play the game on nearly any computer you can attach the external

   185

media to.

   186

As always - additional grf files are stored in the data/ dir (for details,

   187

again, see section 4.1).

   188

   189

   190

5.0) OpenTTD features:

   191

---- -----------------

   192

   193

OpenTTD has a lot of features going beyond the original TTD emulation.

   194

Unfortunately, there is currently no comprehensive list of features, but there

   195

is a basic features list on the web, and some optional features can be

   196

controlled through the Configure Patches dialog. We also implement some

   197

features known from TTDPatch (http://www.ttdpatch.net/).

   198

   199

Several important non-standard controls:

   200

   201

* Use Ctrl to place semaphore signals

   202

* Ingame console. More information at

   203

  http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/Console

   204

   205

   206

5.1) Logging of potentially dangerous actions:

   207

---- ----------------------------------------

   208

   209

OpenTTD is a complex program, and together with NewGRF, it may show a buggy

   210

behaviour. But not only bugs in code can cause problems. There are several

   211

ways to affect game state possibly resulting in program crash or multiplayer

   212

desyncs.

   213

Easier way would be to forbid all these unsafe actions, but that would affect

   214

game usability for many players. We certainly do not want that.

   215

However, we receive bugreports because of this. To reduce time spent with

   216

solving these problems, these potentially unsafe actions are logged in

   217

the savegame (including crash.sav). Log is stored in crash logs, too.

   218

   219

Information logged:

   220

   221

* Adding / removing / changing order of NewGRFs

   222

* Changing NewGRF parameters, loading compatible NewGRF

   223

* Changing game mode (scenario editor <-> normal game)

   224

* Loading game saved in a different OTTD / TTDPatch / TTD version

   225

* Running a modified OTTD build

   226

* Changing patch settings affecting NewGRF behaviour (non-networksafe patches)

   227

* Changing landscape (by cheat)

   228

* Triggering NewGRF bugs

   229

   230

No personal information is stored.

   231

   232

You can show the gamelog by typing 'gamelog' in the console or by running

   233

OpenTTD in debug mode.

   234

   235

   236

6.0) Configuration File:

   237

---- -------------------

   238

The configuration file for OpenTTD (openttd.cfg) is in a simple Windows-like

   239

.INI format. It's mostly undocumented. Almost all settings can be changed

   240

ingame by using the 'Configure Patches' window.

   241

   242

   243

7.0) Compiling:

   244

---- ----------

   245

Windows:

   246

  You need Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. Open the project file

   247

  and it should build automatically. In case you want to build with SDL support

   248

  you need to add WITH_SDL to the project settings.

   249

  PNG (WITH_PNG) and ZLIB (WITH_ZLIB) support is enabled by default. For these

   250

  to work you need their development files. For best results, download the

   251

  openttd-useful.zip file from SourceForge under the Files tab. Put the header

   252

  files into your compiler's include/ directory and the library (.lib) files

   253

  into the lib/ directory.

   254

  For more help with VS see docs/Readme_Windows_MSVC.txt.

   255

   256

  You can also build it using the Makefile with MSYS/MinGW or Cygwin/MinGW.

   257

  Please read the Makefile for more information.

   258

   259

Solaris 10:

   260

  You need g++ (version 3 or higher), together with SDL. Installation of

   261

  libpng and zlib is recommended. For the first build it is required

   262

  to execute "bash configure" first. Note that ./configure does not work

   263

  yet. It is likely that you don't have a strip binary, so use the

   264

  --disable-strip option in that case. Fontconfig (>2.3.0) and freetype

   265

  are optional. "make run" will then run the program.

   266

   267

Unix:

   268

  OpenTTD can be built with GNU "make". On non-GNU systems it's called "gmake".

   269

  However, for the first build one has to do a "./configure" first.

   270

  Note that you need SDL-devel 1.2.5 (or higher) to compile OpenTTD.

   271

   272

MacOS X:

   273

  Use "make" or Xcode (which will then call make for you)

   274

  This will give you a binary for your CPU type (PPC/Intel)

   275

  However, for the first build one has to do a "./configure" first.

   276

  To make a universal binary type "./configure --enabled-universal"

   277

  instead of "./configure".

   278

   279

BeOS:

   280

  Use "make", but do a "./configure" before the first build.

   281

   282

FreeBSD:

   283

  You need the port devel/sdl12 for a non-dedicated build.

   284

  graphics/png is optional for screenshots in the PNG format.

   285

  Use "gmake", but do a "./configure" before the first build.

   286

   287

OpenBSD:

   288

  Use "gmake", but do a "./configure" before the first build.

   289

  Note that you need the port devel/sdl to compile OpenTTD.

   290

   291

MorphOS:

   292

  Use "make". However, for the first build one has to do a "./configure" first.

   293

  Note that you need the MorphOS SDK, latest libnix updates (else C++ parts of

   294

  OpenTTD will not build) and the powersdl.library SDK. Optionally libz,

   295

  libpng and freetype2 developer files.

   296

   297

OS/2:

   298

  A comprehensive GNU build environment is required to build the OS/2 version.

   299

  See the docs/Readme_OS2.txt file for more information.

   300

   301

   302

8.0) Translating:

   303

---- -------------------

   304

See http://www.openttd.org/translating.php for up-to-date information.

   305

   306

The use of the online Translator service, located at

   307

http://translator2.openttd.org/, is highly encouraged. For a username/password

   308

combo you should contact the development team, either by mail, IRC or the

   309

forums. The system is straightforward to use, and if you have any problems,

   310

read the online help located there.

   311

   312

If for some reason the website is down for a longer period of time, the

   313

information below might be of help.

   314

   315

8.1) Guidelines:

   316

---- -------------------

   317

Here are some translation guidelines which you should follow closely.

   318

   319

    * Please contact the development team before beginning the translation

   320

      process! This avoids double work, as someone else may have already

   321

      started translating to the same language.

   322

   323

8.2) Translation:

   324

---- -------------------

   325

So, now that you've notified the development team about your intention to

   326

translate (You did, right? Of course you did.) you can pick up english.txt

   327

(found in the SVN repository under /lang) and translate.

   328

   329

You must change the first two lines of the file appropriately:

   330

   331

##name English-Name-Of-Language

   332

##ownname Native-Name-Of-Language

   333

   334

Note: Do not alter the following parts of the file:

   335

   336

    * String identifiers (the first word on each line)

   337

    * Parts of the strings which are in curly braces (such as {STRING})

   338

    * Lines beginning with ## (such as ##id), other than the first two lines of

   339

      the file

   340

   341

8.3) Previewing:

   342

---- -------------------

   343

In order to view the translation in the game, you need to compile your language

   344

file with the strgen utility, which is now bundled with the game.

   345

   346

strgen is a command-line utility. It takes the language filename as parameter.

   347

Example:

   348

   349

strgen lang/german.txt

   350

   351

This results in compiling german.txt and produces another file named german.lng.

   352

Any missing strings are replaced with the English strings. Note that it looks

   353

for english.txt in the lang subdirectory, which is where your language file

   354

should also be.

   355

   356

That's all! You should now be able to select the language in the game options.

   357

   358

9.0) Troubleshooting

   359

---- ---------------

   360

   361

To see all startup options available to you, start OpenTTD with the

   362

"./openttd -h" option. This might help you tweak some of the settings.

   363

   364

If the game is acting strange and you feel adventurous you can try the

   365

"-d [[<name>]=[<level>]" flag, where the higher levels will give you more

   366

debugging output. The "name" variable can help you to display only some type of

   367

debugging messages. This is mostly undocumented so best is to look in the

   368

source code file debug.c for the various debugging types. For more information

   369

look at http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/Command_line.

   370

   371

The most frequent problem is missing data files. Don't forget to put all GRF

   372

files from TTD into your data/ folder including sample.cat!

   373

   374

Under Windows 98 and lower it is impossible to use a dedicated server; it will

   375

fail to start. Perhaps this is for the better because those OS's are not known

   376

for their stability.

   377

   378

With the added support for font-based text selecting a non-latin language will

   379

result in garbage (lots of '?') shown on screen. Please open your configuration

   380

file and add a desired font for small/medium/-and large_font. This can be a font

   381

name like "Tahoma" or a path to a font.

   382

   383

Any NewGRF file used in a game is stored inside the savegame and will refuse

   384

to load if you don't have that grf file available. A list of missing files

   385

will be output to the console at the moment, so use the '-d' flag (on windows)

   386

to see this list. You just have to find the files (http://grfcrawler.tt-forums.net/)

   387

put them in the data/ folder and you're set to go.

   388

   389

X.X) Credits:

   390

---- --------

   391

The OpenTTD team (in alphabetical order):

   392

  Jean-Francois Claeys (Belugas) - GUI, newindustries and more

   393

  Bjarni Corfitzen (Bjarni)      - MacOSX port, coder and vehicles

   394

  Matthijs Kooijman (blathijs)   - Pathfinder-guru, pool rework

   395

  Victor Fischer (Celestar)      - Programming everywhere you need him to

   396

  Christoph Elsenhans (frosch)   - General coding

   397

  Loïc Guilloux (glx)            - General coding

   398

  Jaroslav Mazanec (KUDr)        - YAPG (Yet Another Pathfinder God) ;)

   399

  Jonathan Coome (Maedhros)      - High priest of the newGRF Temple

   400

  Attila Bán (MiHaMiX)           - WebTranslator, Nightlies, Wiki and bugtracker host

   401

  Owen Rudge (orudge)            - Forum host, OS/2 port

   402

  Peter Nelson (peter1138)       - Spiritual descendant from newGRF gods

   403

  Remko Bijker (Rubidium)        - Lead coder and way more

   404

  Benedikt Brüggemeier (skidd13) - Bug fixer and code reworker

   405

  Zdenek Sojka (SmatZ)           - Bug finder and fixer

   406

   407

Inactive Developers:

   408

  Tamás Faragó (Darkvater)       - Ex-Lead coder

   409

  Christoph Mallon (Tron)        - Programmer, code correctness police

   410

   411

Retired Developers:

   412

  Ludvig Strigeus (ludde)        - OpenTTD author, main coder (0.1 - 0.3.3)

   413

  Serge Paquet (vurlix)          - Assistant project manager, coder (0.1 - 0.3.3)

   414

  Dominik Scherer (dominik81)    - Lead programmer, GUI expert (0.3.0 - 0.3.6)

   415

  Patric Stout (TrueLight)       - Programmer, webhoster (0.3 - pre0.6)

   416

   417

Thanks to:

   418

  Josef Drexler                  - For his great work on TTDPatch.

   419

  Marcin Grzegorczyk             - For his TTDPatch work and documentation of TTD internals and graphics (signals and track foundations)

   420

  Petr Baudis (pasky)            - Many patches, newgrf support, etc.

   421

  Simon Sasburg (HackyKid)       - For the many bugfixes he has blessed us with

   422

  Stefan Meißner (sign_de)       - For his work on the console

   423

  Mike Ragsdale                  - OpenTTD installer

   424

  Cian Duffy (MYOB)              - BeOS port / manual writing

   425

  Christian Rosentreter (tokai)  - MorphOS / AmigaOS port

   426

  Richard Kempton (RichK67)      - Additional airports, initial TGP implementation

   427

  Michael Blunck                 - For revolutionizing TTD with awesome graphics

   428

  George                         - Canal graphics

   429

  David Dallaston (Pikka)        - Tram tracks

   430

  All Translators                - For their support to make OpenTTD a truly international game

   431

  Bug Reporters                  - Thanks for all bug reports

   432

  Chris Sawyer                   - For an amazing game!