[10.12] ships ignore minimum load on minimum load

[ӔO]

It seems that ships will always wait for their timetable before loading any passengers at all.
This is in contrast to how trains and buses which can be started early if they are loaded to the minimum load.

[Carl]

I can't reproduce this as you describe it, so I suspect that what you're observing is the following change: when a vehicle is waiting for convoy spacing, it will not load any passengers at all until ten minutes before its departure. I suspect you'll find that once the time waiting dips below ten minutes (minus usual loading time), passengers will load and the convoy will depart once max load is reached.

We've discussed this feature elsewhere and have agreed to make it optional on a per-line basis. Since this has come up a few times, though, let me say two things about it.

1. I'm guessing what you want is something like the following behaviour: you want to space out your convoys, but you don't want vehicles to be waiting around when there are lots of passengers. The best way to achieve this is by using "minimum load" in conjunction with "max wait for load", not in conjunction with convoy spacing IMO. When convoy spacing is turned off, the change I described above does not apply, and passengers will board a convoy as soon as they are able to. For what some people desire, this is the better option than convoy spacing.


2. Second, I wanted to explain in more detail why the change was absolutely necessary. Here's an example, with two lines:

A------B-------C--------------------------------F
                     C--------D---------E----------F

Imagine that the C-F line runs hourly, and is waiting for convoy spacing at station C. Assuming it is fast enough, passengers travelling to F will board this service -- even if it still has 45 minutes to wait until departure. But if they do this, they will miss the other service from A-F which is likely to arrive in the meantime. By boarding a spacing service as soon as they are able, passengers commit too early -- and they will have a much slower journey as a result. A-F trains will rarely pick up any passengers from C, which seems bizarre since they are the faster option. This has worse consequences, too -- if a passenger waits on a train for 45 minutes before its departure, that time all counts towards "waiting time" at station C. So not only will the slow trains be full and the fast trains empty, but waiting times from C to F will be artificially inflated. This is a bad state of affairs, and the way to avoid it is to prevent passengers from loading a service which is waiting for spacing until it seems sensible for them to commit to that service rather than waiting for another one -- and ten minutes before departure seems like a good time for this.

In sum: waiting until ten minutes before departure gives pax an opportunity to board a faster service, where it exists.

[greenling]

I think that it a bug in the loading time and convoyspaceing it.
Better it then we reconfig the loading time and the convoyspaceing.
edit:
I thing it better wachdones patch in Simutrans exp to build in.

[ӔO]

ah, okay. It seems to be working now.
Thanks carl.

Actually, what does seem to happen, is the second ship to arrive, will do this.

[Carl]

Now that does sound strange. Do you have a savegame?

[ӔO]

yeah, here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17111233/pak64_ships.sve

min load is set to 10%, yet the ship will wait for its 48:00 time slot before loading 64% pax.

[Carl]

As best I can tell, this is working as intended at Desoto Copse dock. Here's what I observe: a ship arrives, and loads nothing until 10 minutes before departure; at that time passengers begin to load, and the 10% minimum threshold is passed, so the ship leaves almost immediately. This is then repeated for the second ship which arrived while the other one was waiting. That all seems normal -- is there something else going on that I've missed??

One oddity here is the way that ships "stack", so you can't see the loading time of the second while the first is still in the dock.

[ӔO]

hmmm... run it for a while?

It seems to work on load, but after a while, it doesn't work for me.

When I saved it, the rifle police dock would step into the 20:00+ wait times before loading.

[Carl]

Hmm - I ran it again through to July 1957 without noticing any changes. What stops working at your end, exactly?

[ӔO]

ah, okay, I see what is happening.

I think I was just expecting that the convoys run more on demand, rather than be stricter to schedule.

Thanks for your help, carl.

[Carl]

No problem. As noted above, "running on demand" is best achieved with the Max Wait for Load function in conjunction with a Minimum Load value, rather than with convoy spacing.

[asaphxiix]

thanks for making this clear carl!