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Let's go Electrofishing - Electrify the ocean!

Started by Leartin, August 07, 2017, 07:56:49 AM

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Leartin

Why electrify the ocean?
Electrification can be used to create a subdivision of a type of way. The idea is simple: If every water-tile (but not water-way) was electrified on it's own, we could set all ocean ships as electric. As such, they would not be able to use rivers or canals, and would not even appear in a river depot.
I suggest this, because I assume it would be rather easy to do - at least in comparison to anything 'new'.

Ters

As I understand it, lakes would also be electric, since only waterways will be excluded. That means that one will be able to build any ship in anything bigger than a puddle.

Excluding canals might be a bit harsh. There are few ships too big for the new Panama canal, but Simutrans has no way of telling something like the Panama canal from canals like the Erie canal or even smaller ones. The Suez canal would be something of the opposite. In Simutrans, that would not be a canal, but a lowering of land down to sea level. That would be considered free for all, in many meanings of free, but I believe there are ships that are too big for Suez in real life.

Finally, I don't think you can electrify the ocean in Simutrans, as it is not a way. Also, I think one would need to do some more than simply that, because having the ships listed as electric would be very strange. The tab should have a more meaningful name. However, the basic idea of marking vehicles as ocean going or not based on engine type is interesting. But maybe turn it around, so that "ocean ships" can only use rivers and canals if they are electrified. And there is a rather sizable amount of engine types in Simutrans, of which only electric has any meaning in the game at all. Unfortunately, not even sail has any natural association with either inland waterways or the open ocean.

Leartin

Quote from: Ters on August 07, 2017, 08:37:06 AMAs I understand it, lakes would also be electric, since only waterways will be excluded. That means that one will be able to build any ship in anything bigger than a puddle.
That is true, but I don't have an issue with that. While the ship might be there, it would not be useful, so if anything, it would be a joke. And why not place the Titanic on Lake Constance? That would be entirely possible. I'm really more concerned about the "ships larger than one tile moving on rivers not even filling that one tile"-thing - and the balance options you would get.

Quote from: Ters on August 07, 2017, 08:37:06 AMExcluding canals might be a bit harsh. There are few ships too big for the new Panama canal, but Simutrans has no way of telling something like the Panama canal from canals like the Erie canal or even smaller ones. The Suez canal would be something of the opposite. In Simutrans, that would not be a canal, but a lowering of land down to sea level. That would be considered free for all, in many meanings of free, but I believe there are ships that are too big for Suez in real life.
...or the canals of venice, for that matter. But we are still talking about a game where a hot air balloon and a jumbo jet require the same amount of runway, and trains can turn 180° in two tiles. That being said, if it works via electrification, you could always have an electrified canal for ocean ships if that's desired.

Quote from: Ters on August 07, 2017, 08:37:06 AMFinally, I don't think you can electrify the ocean in Simutrans, as it is not a way. Also, I think one would need to do some more than simply that, because having the ships listed as electric would be very strange. The tab should have a more meaningful name. However, the basic idea of marking vehicles as ocean going or not based on engine type is interesting. But maybe turn it around, so that "ocean ships" can only use rivers and canals if they are electrified. And there is a rather sizable amount of engine types in Simutrans, of which only electric has any meaning in the game at all. Unfortunately, not even sail has any natural association with either inland waterways or the open ocean.
If it can't be done (easily), so be it. I thought it would be a lot easier than implementing a completely new system, that's why I suggested it.

Isaac Eiland-Hall

Quote from: Leartin on August 07, 2017, 10:33:09 AM
trains can turn 180° in two tiles.

Well, of course that's 2km on that scale to be fair. :)

Also, regarding the topic itself: Just because mad science CAN do something doesn't mean it SHOULD. At the VERY least, you should have ended the first post on the topic with a good "muah-ha-ha-Ha-Ha-HA-HA-HAH-HAH-HAAAHHHHHH!!!!" ;-)

Ters

Quote from: Leartin on August 07, 2017, 10:33:09 AM
That is true, but I don't have an issue with that. While the ship might be there, it would not be useful, so if anything, it would be a joke. And why not place the Titanic on Lake Constance? That would be entirely possible.
Yes, you do have big ships on big lakes like that or the Great Lakes of North America. There are not quite as big ships on Mjøsa. I'm not sure about Vänern. It probably used to have the biggest ocean going ships traversing it, but the ships just got bigger, and the driving force behind Göta canal has long since disappeared, so the canal stopped growing.

Quote from: Leartin on August 07, 2017, 10:33:09 AM
I'm really more concerned about the "ships larger than one tile moving on rivers not even filling that one tile"-thing - and the balance options you would get.
[...]
...or the canals of venice, for that matter. But we are still talking about a game where a hot air balloon and a jumbo jet require the same amount of runway, and trains can turn 180° in two tiles. That being said, if it works via electrification, you could always have an electrified canal for ocean ships if that's desired.
As far as routing is concerned, one tile is 1 km. Simutrans just lacks VTOL support, which is most annoying when it comes to oil rigs. Vehicles and buildings are basically just magnified. Which is why I prefer pak sets that do not aim for photorealistic images. The differing scales just create an uncanny valley effect the better the individual graphical elements get.

Quote from: Leartin on August 07, 2017, 10:33:09 AMIf it can't be done (easily), so be it. I thought it would be a lot easier than implementing a completely new system, that's why I suggested it.
I don't think you need a completely new system. The idea of using what we got is sound.

Ships use a very different path finding algorithm on the oceans, by the way, so we can't reuse train routing logic anyway. There is also request somewhere of doing the opposite, preventing river boats from going off-shore. The biggest hurdles is probably figuring out how to handle existing pak files, followed by making the depot understandable. Maybe the player builds the depot in a small lake along the river. A filter in the routing should be quite simple.

prissi

Water tiles on ocean and lakes have no actual way (and thus only a fake ribi). This is because on maps with lots of water the addional ways would add significantly to memory concumption. But a ship could easily find out if it is on the ocean by using
gr->get_typ()==grund_t::wasser or gr->hat_wege()==0
If this not true, then it is on a channel.

However, this condition is true for lakes too. So the better condition might be to use
gr->get_pos().z==this->pos.z
Only on deep water this conditions is not met. That would allow ships also to navigate the costal ways.

In terms of pathfinding these conditions are not that easy to add to the current (very fast) open sea pathfinder. However, one could of course make two pathfinder, one for only water tiles and one for shallow water and channels. However, most pak sets have very little or none at all for such shallow channel navigation.

You could set electric for the channels already (maybe for a twopath), und have electric set for all ships on channel. This will not stop large ships using this channels too. (Weight restriction, on the long todo list, could make this happen.)