Can someone explain month wait time?

[Silverx]

Can someone explain month wait time, when you setup a convoy? I need to know how it work!

[Emil Sawicki]

Det er beløp av tid. For eksempel: 1/128 mener at toget vil vente ved plattformen 1/128 av Simutrans-moned.
It's amount of time. For example: 1/128 means that train will wait by platform 1/128 of the Simutrans-month.

[DrSuperGood]

As far as I know the only use case for it is to prevent excessive convoy stalling when waiting for goods in an indirect (linear, multi-stop) route. I have never, ever used the option and struggle to find any use for it.

A "wait at most X time with any goods" option would be far more usable, especially in experimental, because it could prevent unnecessary journeys while still keeping flow rate of goods high.

[Silverx]

Well, I have tested this, you setup bus service at 50% set month loading time to 1/32 and bus will load 50% of that month!

[Ters]

There are only two uses of month wait time that I'm aware of. One is for spacing vehicles, for which it is not an ideal solution, and it probably wasn't intended for it.

The other scenario is for cases where there is unequal bidirectional flow, and the two flows wax and wane in an unsynchronized manner. Especially when the flow in one direction depends on the other direction. This can easily deadlock, as the vehicle is waiting for goods that can't be produced until the vehicle goes to the other stop to pick up what's waiting there. I can think of no perfect solution to this problem.

Well, I have tested this, you setup bus service at 50% set month loading time to 1/32 and bus will load 50% of that month!

I think that's coincidental. The transportation demand is another important factor here. It might as well have spend 0% of that month waiting. It might even have spent almost 100% of the month waiting, just at different stops.

[DrSuperGood]

There are only two uses of month wait time that I'm aware of. One is for spacing vehicles, for which it is not an ideal solution, and it probably wasn't intended for it.

This probably only works if the convoys are loading area limited. On a multi generic platform station or with ships it is unlikely to work well as I think the timers for more than one convoy will count down in parallel. Never tested this so I may be wrong.

[Ters]

This probably only works if the convoys are loading area limited. On a multi generic platform station or with ships it is unlikely to work well as I think the timers for more than one convoy will count down in parallel. Never tested this so I may be wrong.

It's used for buses. Buses on the same line usually don't use stops in parallel, except maybe at hubs, but then the waiting time should be set on one of the other stops. (In this case, the buses are only set to wait for a certain load, typically a full load, just so that a time-out can be set. They would originally be running without loading constraints.)