Ratio of industries

[zook2]

Not sure if this is of interest, but anyway:

After several years I'm still playing my mega-game. I began in 1860, maximum map size, 11.35 with default settings (except for reduced city growth). I've set up roughly a thousand lines, with about 5,000 vehicles, mostly freight. I didn't place or remove any industries myself, so my game should be rather typical for a long-running game, with a total of about 1,200 industries on the map.

It's 1991 now and while I enjoy the game very much, the past 130 years have brought about a strange British economy:

- much of it is broken (all print, furniture, car, clothes, cement, brewery chains are down) because of old industries not connecting to suppliers of newly required inputs, like chemicals. I posted that a while ago in another thread and the issue will be solved in the next version.
- the energy sector feels about right, with the move from small coal-fired plants to oil and then larger plants and finally gas.
- there is one department store in Britain (Harrods?)
- three Fish & Chips shops
- dozens of refineries but only two petrol stations
- which is OK, because there was only one car factory and one car dealer
- two paper mills for more than a dozen print works

I don't know where the probabilities for new industries are stored, but (with 1,200 businesses overall) in these sectors the numbers seem to be a bit off.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for that analysis: it is very helpful to have a long-term view on how the code actually turns out! May I ask how many towns that you have in order for me to get an idea of the significance of some of the absolute numbers?

The basic idea with industry is that it will always make sure that consumers' demands are met before opening new consumers; the industry link breaking on upgrades might affect that whole thing, however.

[zook2]

About 250 with 6.8 million inhabitants.

[jamespetts]

Do you remember how many industries that you created at the start? I ask because experience has shown that, for a realistic number of industries, one needs to start with more than one industry per town.

[DrSuperGood]

- much of it is broken (all print, furniture, car, clothes, cement, brewery chains are down) because of old industries not connecting to suppliers of newly required inputs, like chemicals. I posted that a while ago in another thread and the issue will be solved in the next version.

Is a bug in the server as well. Even standard simutrans should be given such logic in the long term to reduce micro management of server administrators who want to remove specific industries.

- the energy sector feels about right, with the move from small coal-fired plants to oil and then larger plants and finally gas.

Incomplete pakset. UK uses a lot of nuclear power so the pakset needs nuclear power stations starting around the 1960-1970 range, I am not sure on the history. This is even more important since in real life a recent deal with China to construct a new nuclear power station means they are opening in the 2020 time frame as such nuclear power is a "end game" power generator.

- three Fish & Chips shops

Well if you have seen how expensive their product is you would understand! Joking aside in the UK this is not a major industry so should rather be mixed as generic "fast food" or "ready made meal". Additionally most food should be heading to large "supermarket" retailers anyway as they are everywhere in the country.

- dozens of refineries but only two petrol stations

Either need to switch to a retailer depot or they should pretty much spawn in every town. I agree they should be everywhere as they are everywhere in the UK, and most of Europe for that matter.

- which is OK, because there was only one car factory and one car dealer

This is realistic. UK does not manufacture many cars anymore with a lot being imported. Sure there are some factories, but most were manufactured in the 1970 time frame with closures happening there after.

- two paper mills for more than a dozen print works

The print works should start close down post 2005. Due to the rise of electronic books and overall reduction of reading for social media less books are printed every year. I do agree it does not make sense however neither do the paper mills. This will probably be solved once long distance trading ("exports/imports"?) are introduced as a game feature.

[jamespetts]

There has been an historical reluctance to have representations of nuclear power in Simutrans for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me.

Supermarkets, however, should be in the next pakset release.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

It is my understanding that people in certain countries are sensitive to nuclear power and military; especially the country in which Simutrans began.

I, for one, dislike the number of religious buildings in the game, but a discussion several years ago showed that I was in an extreme minority - which is fine enough; I was glad for the discussion, but fine with the result.

[jamespetts]

My own view is that it is better for a simulation game to replicate real life accurately without comment than to take an overtly political stance, unless its fundamental object is to be political, which I do not think is the case with Simutrans.

[DrSuperGood]

I can fully understand avoiding weapon manufacturer of any kind, especially nuclear however nuclear power and nuclear weapons are completely different with one being controversial military use and the other civil with controversial environment implications. As Simutrans does not have any concept of environmental pollution it should not be a problem.

One of the popular comic paksets has fully functional nuclear power chains already. I see no reason why pak128 Britain should not. Especially since in real life they have been very important to the UK's power network, something that is simulated in Simutrans.

[jamespetts]

There is also, of course, the issue of developer time and priorities; a nuclear power sector would require the handling of nuclear waste and places to which it can go, not to mention that, in Simutrans, power stations are not set up in the code to allow any output other than electricity, nor to allow failure to collect an output to stop their generation.

[zook2]

Is there a table or file which specifies the ratio (or creation probability) of various industries in SimEx?

[jamespetts]

There is no such table: it is pakset dependant. You can, however, look at the sources in Github here.

[Octavius]

There is also, of course, the issue of developer time and priorities; a nuclear power sector would require the handling of nuclear waste and places to which it can go, not to mention that, in Simutrans, power stations are not set up in the code to allow any output other than electricity, nor to allow failure to collect an output to stop their generation.

Nuclear power plants may produce very hazardous output, but it's in very low volumes. A reasonable nuclear power plant would only produce one or two containers of waste a year, which is really insignificant from a transport point of view (not from a storage point of view, of course). So, in Simutrans a nuclear power plant would work more or less the same as a hydro power plant, producing a lot of electricity without any other effects. Adding them wouldn't change anything to the game play. In real life, coal fired power plants produce far more waste in the shape of slag, fly ash and gypsum.

[jamespetts]

Yet there is regular nuclear flask traffic on British railways.

[Octavius]

That could have something to do with the nuclear reprocessing facility at Sellafield, one of the just two major reprocessing plants in Europe (the other is at La Hague in France). It attracts nuclear waste from all over Europe. I think the Netherlands produce less than one wagon of nuclear waste a year from its single nuclear plant, which is then sent to La Hague. The unprocessable fraction is later returned.

But having power plants, especially the coal fired ones, produce waste could be put on the wishlist.