Simulating real life...

[percy4u]

Hi all,

As reported in my last post, I'm currently trying to simulate a real life city, but I'm having considerable difficulty.

I end up with one road in several sections (that don't line up) because it's impossible to build the whole city at once, and be consistent with it.

Another problem is having to simulate double tram tracks as two single lines, which take up twice the space they do in reality.

See the hyperlinked map for what I'm trying to simulate...
http://www.tfgm.com/journey_planning/Documents/PDFMaps/City-Centre-Map.pdf

If anyone could have a go at mocking up the road network only, I could probably use that as the basis for the rest of the city...
(Another 12 maps covering about 47x the area, plus the transport network [7 tram lines, over 350 bus routes, about 30+ train lines, and a full set of operators] and the buildings themselves to put in)...

I can probably provide more details if anyone asks for them...

If anyone has any tips they could share to make this venture a success, then I'd be eternally grateful...

[MCollett]

Another problem is having to simulate double tram tracks as two single lines, which take up twice the space they do in reality.

The lack of double tracking in general, and double tram tracks in particular, is a perennial gripe with Simutrans.  The best workaround is probably to go for (unidirectional) loop lines.

Best wishes,
Matthew

[percy4u]

The best workaround is probably to go for (unidirectional) loop lines.

Hi Matthew,

When I use Simutrans for random games, this works fine, but it's a real pain for simulating reality.

Currently, I place one track on road with the other next to it. The drawback is that I lose some land normally used for city buildings.

It's only just occurred to me, but would it work to have one track above ground as normal, with the other directly beneath, and stops directly above one another??

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

Some paks have trams that are coded like busses so they can be "double-tracked".

Also, alas, double-track is one of those things that would have had to have gone in at the beginning. It's never too late, but the amount of work to make it work is extremely high, so it's simply unlikely. You never know, though. Someone might win the lottery and decide to hire programmers to support the project, and that might be one of many things. At least, I have a recurring dream about that. hehe.

Which is not to discount the hard work all the volunteers put in as it is, because a lot of people do a lot for Simutrans.

[percy4u]

Some paks have trams that are coded like busses so they can be "double-tracked".

Which ones?

a lot of people do a lot for Simutrans.

Hear, hear...

Any tips for simulating reality, then???...

[Ters]

Any tips for simulating reality, then???...

Simulations are not 1-to-1. Things are simplified. Don't expect a simulation to look exactly like the real thing.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

I should say: I have seen addons *somewhere* that had bus-type "trams"....... but I'm afraid I don't remember where exactly. I think it might have been as far back as addons.simutrans.com, which has been gone for some time now. Maybe the Japanese site - http://japanese.simutrans.com/ -- but I'm not sure, I'm sorry.

[Sarlock]

I made this a couple of years back for a request from another player, it may or may not be useful:

Double tram track

It is also not half-height enabled.

[Vladki]

Double track trams are available also in Czech section:

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=8596.msg82652#msg82652

The tracks are coded as road electrification, and vehicles are coded as trolleybuses.
Also not adapted for half-heights.

[Ters]

It should be noted that these "double track trams" are road vehicles as far as the game are concerned. Unlike Simutrans' distinct trams, they have no special right-of-way. This may or may not match what you're aiming for.

[Sarlock]

Indeed.  As with most cases, when trying to simulate "reality" you often have to choose between what is visually accurate or functionally accurate.  Rarely do the two occur together.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

My answer to "reality" has always been the conflicting scales problem - ~20m^2 give or take visually, and 1km^2 scale for the distance simulation. heh.

Always nice to try and make things grounded in reality and feel real, but it never ever will be.

[percy4u]

You often have to choose between what is visually accurate or functionally accurate. 

I can get both with water and road, but as soon as trams and trains start coming in, that goes out the window.

Also, how would tram-trains be simulated (assuming that they eventually happen)??

[Ters]

Also, how would tram-trains be simulated (assuming that they eventually happen)??

I don't know what tram-trains are, but considering that Simutrans hardly draws a distinction between trams and trains (they have distinct depots, that's about it), Simutrans probably handles it as it would already.

[DrSuperGood]

A good reality improvement would be population conservation. Currently when you bulldoze a city building it "kills" people (global population decreases, they are gone forever :( ). It would be much more realistic if the population was re-allocated either to the same city, or nearby cities as is the case in real life. This would make it much more reasonable to bulldoze near a city centre to construct above ground roads/tracks as currently if you do that you are setting the city back 20 years odd.

[Ters]

This would make it much more reasonable to bulldoze near a city centre to construct above ground roads/tracks as currently if you do that you are setting the city back 20 years odd.

There is still the problem that if you want to build something train related in the city center, you have to level half the city to make enough space, due to the huge relative size of tracks (and roads) compared to cities as a whole. For small cities at least.

[Ves]

Can't the city then quite fast build some new houses matching the loss during the following month in the 'suburb'?

[An_dz]

I guess this would happen if the removed population went to the homeless population.

[DrSuperGood]

I guess this would happen if the removed population went to the homeless population.

Exactly. To me it sounds like a pretty good feature, maybe with some setting flag to control it for people who want the old system of "killing" the population of destroyed houses.

The problem with scale could be reduced similar to how Experimental does it. By making passenger pickup range and cites themselves overall bigger. This is a pak balance problem I would imagine since I think all the required features already exist.

Instead of 5*5 pickup could be 9*9 or 11*11 and the overall density of cities decreased by a similar amount (so more houses are made). During map generation the spacing between cities is made larger to allow room for growth. Overall map size is made larger to compensate for this. The result is that passenger networks of similar volume and size would cover a considerably larger area. Running an above ground station near the city centre would look less out of place due to the bigger distances between stops.

[Ters]

The problem with scale could be reduced similar to how Experimental does it. By making passenger pickup range and cites themselves overall bigger.

Then I need much bigger maps. Cities are too big compared to the whole map already.

[DirrrtyDirk]

Then I need much bigger maps. Cities are too big compared to the whole map already.

What map size do you play currently?

[Ters]

What map size do you play currently?

2048x2048, with about 30 cities I think. Which turned out to be too sparse. In my taste, 4 cities for every 512x512 seems right, with the sizes cities currently have in Simutrans. (I'd like to have some villages in addition, but they won't stay villages for long if I start serving them, and that destroys it.)

[DirrrtyDirk]

Well, you could switch off growth for the villages.

But 2048x2048 with only 30 cities? Sounds more or less empty to me, to be honest. But I haven't been able to really play much, so I don't have experience on how much cities grow...

[DrSuperGood]

Then I need much bigger maps. Cities are too big compared to the whole map already.

If you look at the last pak64 multiplayer server from Moblet/Fifty you will see that not all pak sets are well balanced for it. In there I had some pretty "huge" cities and the map was pretty small for the city number however the only way I was able to service them was through a massive underground system. However considering it took 100 game years to get cities that size with constant near-maximum growth they are not that big. In fact most of my cities were low density buildings with each only have a few high density buildings. The end result was some quite ugly cities that for 100 years of growth did not feel very "city" like. There was still a ton of space between cities for massive city sized passenger networks.

If you compare this with experimental server the differences in scale are immediately apparent. In the experimental server most of the planet is covered by towns.

[Ters]

But 2048x2048 with only 30 cities? Sounds more or less empty to me, to be honest.

Yes. It is very empty, even for my taste. At least parts of it. It should have had at least 64 towns. It is an experiment in scale, to see if I can find airplanes more useful than I have done on the smaller maps I've played. (Since I start playing before airplanes are available, there is already a train link, and less incentive to replace it with airplanes.) I'll have fill in some more towns manually at some point.