[New release candidate] Simutrans 112.2 Experimental 11.9001

[jamespetts]

A new version of the release candidate for Bernd Gabriel's helpful work on merging the latest stable version of Standard into the latest version of Experimental, Simutrans 112.2 Experimental 11.9001, is available here. This is just the Windows binary, but it should suffice for testing purposes.

It is based on version 112.2 of Standard (the latest release from a few days ago), merged into Experimental by Bernd, and work that I have done in the last few months to reform the routing of private cars (to make it workable on larger maps: see here for a discussion on this) and also the work to improve the simulation of passengers walking (see here for a discussion of that feature). It fixes a number of bugs from the previous release candidate (thank you to all those who reported them, and to Bernd for fixing them) as well as introduces a new way of handling weight limits: from this version onwards, weight limits on railways and roads of all sorts will be based on the axle load, which can be set in the .dat file with the axle_load=X parameter, or, with the latest version of Makeobj (people will have to compile it themselves for the present), the axles=X parameter (only to be used where the axle load is evenly distributed). The axle weights do not fluctuate with the convoy's load. Bridges will instead use the total convoy weight, which will fluctuate with the convoy's load, but this total load is shown in the depot/replacer window before dispatching the convoy. Note that the length of the convoy relative to the bridge is taken into account, so that only the maximum number of vehicles in a convoy that can be fully on the bridge (excluding the slope tiles at each end) will count towards the weight. Suppose, for example, that a convoy is 200 tonnes in total, but 5 tiles long: if a bridge, excluding end slopes, is 2 tiles long, only 2/5ths of that convoy weight (80t) will bear upon the bridge at once, so a bridge with a length of 2 tiles and a weight limit of 80t will be sufficient to take the load. This should substantially enhance the realism of way based weight limits. I am currently working on revising the ways in Pak128.Britain-Ex ahead of its next (and long overdue) release, and this change was intended to facilitate that process.

I should be very grateful for all testing of this version, which will hopefully (with whatever modifications that such testing shows are necessary) become the next major release of Simutrans-Experimental. I should particularly appreciate feedback on the new features relating to passenger walking, the use of private cars and weight limits, as well as the usual feedback on stability and performance. Please post a separate thread for each bug or topic/issue of feedback.

To make the most of the passenger walking feature, I suggest that players set their station coverage radii to a much higher than normal value (in the simuconf.tab file of the pakset used): a value of 16 is recommended.

Thank you all for testing - it is much appreciated.

[Zeno]

To make the most of the passenger walking feature, I suggest that players set their station coverage radii to a much higher than normal value (in the simuconf.tab file of the pakset used): a value of 16 is recommended.

Maximum station coverage is 8, at least in the configuration dialog...

[jamespetts]

Ahh, thank you for pointing that out! Most helpful. You can still set the station coverage to a higher number in simuconf.tab, but it is limited to 8 in the GUI. I have changed it on my Github branch to 32, which ought to be enough.

[chicken]

Missing file pthreadvce2.dll. I guess you are using pthreads.

Could you include that in your next binary release?

[jamespetts]

Ahh - apologies. Yes, the latest builds (both Experimental and Standard) use pthreads (although I am not sure whether multi-threading is enabled by default in the Standard release executables). Have you been able to download this file and run the executable?

[chicken]

Well the latest Experimental doesn't seem to have it in the ZIP file, and the latest Simutrans has something called "PthreadGC2.DLL" which is not the file "PthreadVCE2.DLL" and apparently is not good enough.

So I'm not sure where to get it.

[jamespetts]

Hmm - the GC2.dll version must be the one to use when the executable is compiled with MinGW. It might just be in the latest release version of Experimental, as I might have added it in advance - have you tried there? I can't just upload it presently, as I am away from home and therefore away from the computer on which I undertake Simutrans-Experimental development (and therefore have the relevant files).

[jamespetts]

I have updated the .zip file of the RC on the server to contain the relevant .dll, so it should work now. Let me know if you have any furhter difficulties.

[chicken]

Working now thanks.