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[Experimental release] Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.2

Started by jamespetts, August 30, 2009, 09:07:26 AM

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jamespetts

NOTE: This is now superseded by 0.3. See here for details.

A new version of the preview and testing version of the Simutrans-Experimental version of Pak128.Britain is now available:superseded. This is a complete pakset and should be installed in its own directory. It is only compatible with Simutrans-Experimental - the normal Pak128.Britain should be used with Simutrans-Standard.

This is a preliminary version meant for testing and evaluation, although it should balance better with Simutrans-Experimental than the standard Pak128.Britain. Not all of the Simutrans-Experimental features are implemented yet (although I am planning to implement them all in due course). Here is a list of the features supported by this release of Pak128.Britain-Ex:


  • Comfort
  • Loading times
  • Catering
  • Upgrading (partial)
  • Way constraints
  • Reversing
  • Tilting trains
  • Overcrowding (only on a few vehicles so far - work in progress)
  • Industry obsolescence

See here for a more detailed description of the work outstanding and so far completed, and also for information on how to get involved in contributing to the project and obtaining the sources.

Changes from 0.1 include:


  • ADD: Horse-drawn, steam powered and miscellaneous road goods vehicles
  • FIX: Issues with the sheep farm.
  • FIX: Pavements not properly aligned.
  • FIX: Bus stops did not have an introduction date set.

Any feedback on this pakset variant (especially relating to the gameplay balance) would be very much welcome.
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knightly

James,

The sheep farm problem (zero output storage capacity for wool) still persists. Have you tested it yourself?

Knightly

erskie

I am just trying the experimental version for the first time (102.1 exp 6.8 in windows) with pak.britain exp.

I am probably missing something obvious, but if I start a game in the late 1800's/early 1900's the bus tab shows vehicles that will not be available until much later. Additionally, instead of showing the name,cost,maint,capacity etc column of data for each vehicle, the text "Loco_Info_Ext" is shown. The loading time, comfort, intro date etc colum shows correctly for all vehicles.

Some vehicles show ALL the data correctly (stagecoach and a few others). None of the trucks do.

Is this just not available yet? Please let me know. It would be a pleasure to try out the new features, but without the basic vehicle information it is impossoble to select the correct one!

Thank you!

The Hood

Trucks aren't in experimental release 0.2...  If you copied these across from the standard release 1.04 then you won't get experimental features.

jamespetts

Erskie,

did you make sure to turn the timeline on when you started the game? If not, you will get all vehicles available straight away. The "LOCO_INFO_EXT" is shown if there is no translation text available for your language - which language do you use?

The lorries are not available in Pak128.Britain-Ex yet - I have yet to make a new release with them in. Even the standard version of Pak128.Britain has only half the lorry timeline completed.
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erskie

Thank you for the response.

I am just using the English language. The interesting thing is that it shows the vehicle information correctly for a small number of vehicles (e.g. the Stagecoach), but the majority show "LOCO_INFO_EXT" (e.g. the horses).

And you are absolutely correct, I had not engaged the timeline - hence the surprising availability of vehicles!

Thank you for the help!

jamespetts

Erskie,

the behaviour that you describe is typical of having a translation text file (en.tab) designed for Simutrans-Standard, not Simutrans-Experimental. Make sure that you have the latest Simutrans-Experimental version of en.tab.
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erskie

Dear James,

You are absolutely right, of course.

However, it might be worth noting that I followed the instructions on the "how to get simutrans exp" post, downloading only the executables.

I then separately downloaded the exp paksets.

However, this means that en.tab in the simutrans/text is not updated, and the error described above will occur.

I have now downloaded the exp config files available a few posts down, and used the en.tab file from that.

I know that this is my fault for not understanding the en.tab fault, but would it be possible to put a comment in the download posting that might help an equally blind newb such as myself? Just a pointer to the configuration files section at the bottom of the post would do it!

Thank you,

erskie

jamespetts

Erskie,

thank you very much for your feedback. Generally, new users are recommended to download the complete package, then (if necessary) update the executables - getting the complete package will make sure that everything is in the right place.
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Dutchman on Rails

In response to the request for comments, here are some of my experiences with some short try-outs with Pak128.Britain.Experimental.

I attempted to start a game starting in 1750, and noticed the following points:

1) The single-horse drawn train doesn't appear to calculate it's running costs, in the information window this stays at zero.

2) The same train can easily pull 15 cars with 2t of freight, compared to a horse on the road the single 1t car (you need two horses for the larger wagons and 4 for the few available stagecoaches). Therefore trains are much more economical than carts. This may be a side-effect from the train cars having a weight of 0t.

3) It is extremely difficult to set up profitable freight routes in this period with Pak128.Britain.Experimental, even with the maintenance cost of infrastructure lowered. This is a contrast with using Pak.German in Simutrans Experimental, where Hop can be made profitable and beer and wine are extremely so with horse and cart.

4) I find the number of farms (sheep, grain, livestock, orchards) in comparison to their corresponding industries excessive (normally, something in the order of 15 sprawl up).

But the graphics look very nice, as does the industry model. To me it gives an impression of what Georgian Britain looked like.

I hope these comments help.

rainer

First of all, I would like to praise the Exp Team! Many thanks for all that new ideas. I do consider most of them as improvements, some are causing problems and questions.

I agree with dutchman regarding the horse driven transport of goods. This is surely no fun (at least for me). Due to the high investment costs I ignore all goods transport until the 8 to traileres for trains are available around 1855. I would like to recommend a rebalancing of costs and revenues for early transport.

Just to quote dutchman:
"4) I find the number of farms (sheep, grain, livestock, orchards) in comparison to their corresponding industries excessive (normally, something in the order of 15 sprawl up)."

I disagree. In my eyes this is an advantage of Experimental, for it is far more near to reality. Have you ever seen a farm with an own freight station for it is producing some hundreds of tons meat or grain a month? ; - ) Do you have breweries in the Netherlands which are using grain from just one farmer? ; - )

In my opinion the diversification of transport quantities between small units like farms and shops on the one hand and heavy industry like steel works on the other hand is an important step forward. I see a tendency to create an image of typical logistic problems in reality. Agricultural goods are produced by far more farmers than diaries, breweries, etc. Just a few trucks are serving almost all shops in a city daily. No need to build a track to a butcher! I love to simulate that!

Transporting low quantity of goods from farms to the next station by horse and trailer would be funny, if payable. In my eyes, it isn't.

Since a longer time I experienced crashes in SimExp by end of a month (but not in Standard). It needed a night to find out the reason: It seems that this happens when SimExp tries to delete a factory. I can't proof that, for just saving the game in the last minutes of a month and restarting again solves the problem in the second or third try. But it seems that there is always one factory (or parts of a chain) less when the game is running again. This has never been affecting connected factories, only those I ignored for a.m. reasons.

I do not like the heavy increase of costs for outdated vehicles. I love the possibility to let old vehicles run on lines of lower importance or low quantity of transport - like in Real Life[1]. For sure, it is configurable. But I would like to recommend to check the default value for not to frustrate beginners.

Anyway, pak128,britain and SimExp is my favorite combination for the moment! I will go on testing.


[1] no URL given

jamespetts

Thank you very much both of you for your comments. Apologies for not responding sooner - I have been having difficulties ironing out persistent bugs in what will be Simutrans-Experimental 7.0 relating to industries (one of which may well be the same as the industry crash that Rainer reports - it is interesting to note that this is present in 6.8, which helps me to eliminate changes made since then as a possible cause).

When I have finished producing 7.0 (which addresses a great many problems that have been reported relating to the closure of industries without any corresponding new industries opening), I shall look seriously again at rebalancing the pakset and take into account the comments on this thread. I do agree with Rainer, however, about the farms: what he described is precisely the intention of Simutrans-Experimental.
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Dutchman on Rails

After trying out some more with this set, and finding out that my previous comment #3 was incorrect (I should have set bits_per_month from 18 to 20 to solve my problem), I have a few more comments:

1) I like to start with a positive note: sheep farms (and to a lesser extent cattle farms as well) grow over time in size and production, which is artistically appealing and gives a nice impression.

2) The bug that horse-drawn trains do not deduce running costs is also found in the cattle-driver (truck).

3) Beer is considered oil/petrol, but in 1750 there are no vehicles to transport it.

4) Likewise, fish is available for transport in 1750, but no boats are available as yet.

5) The mailbox (only available from 1910-1915, would come in handy in this early days, where all the figures (capacity, availability, cost and revenue) are of necessity low.

6) I find that a single sheep farm is more than capable of providing all the livestock needed to keep the butcher at the other end of the production chain on a balanced supply of meat (meaning that with any more supply it's stock will start growing and eventually it will not accept goods anymore).

I hope this again helps.