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Automatic building of signals in tunnel.

Started by dschr, September 30, 2014, 12:13:29 PM

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dschr

When signals are build by drag&drop (or by pressing control key), only signals overground are placed correctly. As this mechanism cannot place underground signals, it leaves out tunnels. It would be neat if the mechanism is able to place automatic underground signals in tunnel as well.

Junna

I seem to recall that it is possible! Are you sure you have used the drag-and-drop with the underground signals? Be wary, however, for I think they might not be available until 1890 (there are currently no underground/tunnel semaphore signal graphics). This feature used to force regular (non-underground) signals in tunnels but this bug was corrected, and you now have to use the actual dedicated signals (alternatively, should you so desire, you can remove the restriction for "allow underground=" in the .dat file of your compile to allow conventional signals be built underground).

dschr

Hello Junna,

well, it is possible to drag underground signals in Tunnels and it is possible to drag overground signals on overground tracks. But the point i wanted to show here is that i want to drag signals along a route, without caring if there are tunnels or not. It would be neat if mechanism would be able to build overground signals on overground tracks and underground signals in tunnels at the same time without having to care so much about where tunnels are.

DrSuperGood

I agree that it would be useful if underground and overground signals were coupled together during drag. With the tool automatically swapping to overground signals when dragging underground signals above ground and swapping to underground signals (if possible) when dragging above ground singals underground or across a tunnel.

Aquin

Why are there 2 different buttons/functions for signals in the first place? It would be more user friendly if there is just 1 button/function and the correct version is chosen automatically by the program (while placing a single one and while dragging)?

DrSuperGood

QuoteWhy are there 2 different buttons/functions for signals in the first place? It would be more user friendly if there is just 1 button/function and the correct version is chosen automatically by the program (while placing a single one and while dragging)?
For cost and art reasons. Underground signals are smaller and have appropriate signal art for underground as well as cost considerably more than above ground signals. Above ground signals have appropriate above ground signal art and cost a lot less than underground signals.

dschr

Well, the figures on the map would look exactly as they look now, as Aquin proposed just to change the tool-buttons, not the actual build signals. So art reasons cannot be the reason.
But i see the point that there might be a price difference between over- and underground signals.
So as a compromise, i propose to leave the buttons as they are but to swap to the right kind (under- or overground) of signal while dragging, as DrSuperGood proposed.

Vladki

I'm reviving this old thread.

In this thread http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=15011.0 I have asked about the dual design of signals for electrified and non-electrified track. James stated that it should work, but is not used in pak128-britain.ex. I do not know how many other extended paksets use that feature, but I agree that having automatic switch of signal design for electrified and non-electrified track is not very useful. Even in real world it is perfectly fine to have mechanical signals on electrified track and vice versa. It was just historical coincidence, that mechanical signals were phased out at about the same time as electrification was introduced. And when a rail line was electrified, it was a good idea to improve the signalling (and rails and everything) at the same time.

So I would propose to change this so, that the second set of pictures would be not for electrified track, but for underground track. The proper signal would be chosen automatically - this would allow players to drag signals over a line with tunnels, and signals would be built on the proper place. Of course this should work only for signals that would be allowed to be build both over and underground. All color light signals should fall into this category. Overground - signal on pole (mast), underground - signal without pole (attached directly to the tunnel wall). Yes they may differ in price, but I think that it won't make too much to be significant in the game.




jamespetts

This is an interesting idea, albeit, given that this is not balance critical, the time to implement this in the near future is likely to be lacking unless somebody else would like to do so (and note that about 75% of the work for this will be in amending the pakset, and so anyone doing this would also have to amend the pakset for this to be incorporated).
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