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navigable rivers

Started by Roads, September 18, 2012, 09:50:06 AM

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Roads


I realized just tonight that the public player is being charged for navigable rivers I created when I started my game.  It makes sense why this is happening.  They are, in a way of thinking, roads.


I would love to use the argument that it is unrealistic to have a large map with no navigable rivers.  I won't use that argument though because I think realistic/unrealistic is not a valid argument for a game.  Actually, maybe it is a valid argument but it is the worst one because the opposing argument is, "but we have so and so and that is certainly not realistic."  I suppose I don't need to mention trains which have the magical ability to switch direction on a single track...


Instead I'll argue that rivers are a fun element to have in the game, you have the boats already and why not?  Of course you can have them with the public player but if I'm going to stop using this capability for roads, I can hardly justify using it for rivers.


Anyone else want to see navigable rivers in pak128 that you don't have to create and the public player isn't charged for?

PkK

Aren't there rivers created automatically at game start? When they are big enough (e.g. due to confluences) they are navigable. One might argue that keeping rivers navigable requires maintenance on the river and associated infrastructure.

Philipp


Roads

In pak128 rivers are created at game start but none are navigable - ever.  If, in simuconf.tab you change the settings to make the rivers navigable then the game doesn't create any rivers at all.  At least that is what happened to me.  It could be that I simply did the changes incorrectly but I'm guessing some developer or coder would have posted by now that there was indeed a possiblity of navigable rivers in pak128 and I must have done something wrong.

I don't understand what your point is about maintenance.  There are maintenance charges on rail road tracks and roads, quite large in fact, but people still use them.

If you are talking about maintenance in real life, I think it would vary.  I've lived near the Tennessee river all my life and worked on the river a short time.  I'm sure there is some maintenance but I never saw any performed.  The locks at Wilson Dam look like double doors about the size of a ten story building.  This would be about right because the fall is, if I remember correctly, 110 feet.  The elevator inside the dam has ten buttons.  So we are not talking taking the locks down or any kind of dreging operations.

Just about any day you want, you can stand on the river bank and see barges go by.

The Tennessee river is not a major artery.  Traffic on the Mississippi is legendary.  It has been the setting of stories, songs and films.

For those inclined to use the realistic/unrealistic argument, I would say simply ignoring water traffic in pak128 is about equal to having no rail roads.

PkK

I can't test pak128 right now - it always crashes for me upon loading. I just tried pak128.britain, increasing the number of rivers in the landscape dialogogure for new game creation to ensure that there would be many big rivers, and I did get quite some navigable rivers. AFAIR pak128 behaves the same.

Philipp

Roads

Nah Philip, I tried the dialogue first...then went to the simuconf.tab file

PkK

I just started a pak128 game. I use the simutrans version in Debian (111.3.1-1) and pak128 2.1.0 (with pak128/sound/train-horn-electric-0.wav removed to it doesn't crash). I increased the number of rivers in the game start dialog, so the map has many rivers, and lots of them are navigable - mostly at 28 km/h or 35km/h. I don't have any .tab file.

Philipp

Roads

PkK,

Some questions:

What size map?
What number increase did you use?
How many non navigable rivers?
How many 21, 28 and 35?

Also, did the navigable rivers decrease in size on the map from navigable to non navigable to a stream or end bluntly?

The reason I'm asking is it looks like you are right, at least partly.  After changing the settings in my simuconf.tab file, I was able to generate some navigable rivers.  The problem is that I get either a very few navigable or a huge number of 35 km/h and very few of the others.  Also none of the navigable rivers terminated with smaller streams which which made them look odd at the source.

I really do not like the graphic on the 35 km/h but of course that's just a personal preference.

PkK

The river increase in size from the source as they should, starting as unnavigable. It works for me on every map. Using 90 or so rivers gives me lots of navigable rivers on 256x256 maps, and a few on 512x512 maps. Could there be something wrong with your installation? What happens if you delete/rename your configuration files?

Philipp

Roads

I think you just solved part of the problem...and the major part of it at that.  I'm using a 1280x1280 map and had increased the number of rivers to 50.  I'll change that to 400.  If the source of the river is blunt, I can fix that with the Public player at very little cost.

Thank you very much!