[Discussion] Changing stopping/passing behavior of boats and road vehicles

[Spenk009]

The issues:

-Boats can stack infinitely, which has its benefits in terms of simplicity and management in large batches (e.g. server game). This is unrealistic and not the prettiest. The same goes for canal quays, which isn't realistic either.
-Bus stops in real life allow for other vehicles to pass (albeit slower) and not block the traffic as they currently do.

My proposal(s):

-Disallow boat stacking, like road vehicles. They can still pass each other coming opposite ways.
-Making a stop (road & water) "hold" vehicles. This means it's moved sideways a few pixels and other vehicles coming from the same previous tile can pass through the tile. And multiple units could sit in the bays, raising effectiveness of individual tiles (two buses behind each other at a large stop, several lorries in the goods bays that load up simultaneously)
-Tiles can hold up to a certain number of vehicles depending on a "lane" value. Faster vehicles can pass slower ones and we can cram more vehicles into one direction. (Eye candy for moving vehicles up and down the tile visually would be pretty brilliant)

In terms of programming, player vehicles could check the tile they want to stop at before entering and otherwise just continue along as normal. Not sure of how boats are handled though, my thinking was more in the direction of canal vehicles. As for lanes, allowing a vehicle to enter a free lane in the next tile could be the best solution.

Thoughts on this?

[jamespetts]

Something similar to your boat stacking proposal is already implemented on the way-improvements branch, albeit it does allow for limited (and customisable) stacking as large rivers might be rather wide and allow many boats astride at once. It is, however, very difficult to detect direction accurately in the code, so far as I have found at least.

The idea of lanes is an interesting one, but would require very substantial code re-engineering, and is thus not likely to be given serious consideration for a very long time unless a talented coder comes along to help sooner.

[Spenk009]

Limited stacking is a very good way of realising a limit. Do different boat types account for different widths in the stream?

Lanes and single way roads (dual carriageways) have been in discussion for a long time, I thought approaching the issue by still allowing them to take vehicles in both directions would build on the same basis, but extend their possibilities. The mysterious, talented coder probably won't be found for a while..

[jamespetts]

Limited stacking is a very good way of realising a limit. Do different boat types account for different widths in the stream?

No: this would be quite complicated to implement, I imagine, and would require a new parameter for every water craft.

Lanes and single way roads (dual carriageways) have been in discussion for a long time, I thought approaching the issue by still allowing them to take vehicles in both directions would build on the same basis, but extend their possibilities. The mysterious, talented coder probably won't be found for a while..

If you happen to find any elves who are proficient in C++, please let me know.

[Spenk009]

Probably, but we don't have anywhere as many water vehicles as rail or road. Dependent on type, selecting a width value that is added per boat up to the total maximum value of the type of river. I can see big boats on large canals immediately causing problems. Having two parallel canals for any larger movement areas will be unsightly, unless the graphics support it. Are there currently limitations for large vessels on lakes?

Wish I did know any...

[jamespetts]

Lakes are treated as open water, and there are no stacking limitations.