News:

Simutrans.com Portal
Our Simutrans site. You can find everything about Simutrans from here.

bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.1

Started by jamespetts, January 26, 2014, 01:35:08 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 6 Guests are viewing this topic.

Junna

Takes about 1.5-2 minutes for me to load the map. I managed to stay connect earlier for about 3 hours, and was only disconnected during Volvo's joining process.

Sarlock

I experience a lot of disconnections these days when someone else connects.
Current projects: Pak128 Trees, blender graphics

DrSuperGood

Server is still acting painfully slow for some reason. Again it has taken me ~15 minutes to join on a connection capable of 900kb/sec. Average speed less than 100 kb/sec (more like 50 kb/sec). It never used to be this slow, I wonder why it suddenly is.

Edit after 15-20 minutes of downloading it instantly dropped me out of sync.

Sarlock

I seem unable to see the server on the list for the past 24 hour or so... is anyone else having this issue?

EDIT  I see it now, a few hours later.
Current projects: Pak128 Trees, blender graphics

DrSuperGood

The server seems to have entered an infinite loop of uploading save, running for a little while and then crashing.

What started the crashing was me restoring Blue's inter-island tunnel line to operation after something messed up during convoy upgrading.

The original mess up was that an upgrade order was issued to a convoy leaving the station before it passed the first directional signal. The result was it trying to turn around and go through the station to reach a depot using a platform in use. Obviously it caused a blockage and convoys started backing up.

The solution to the problem was to place an exit signal and block signals on the platform preventing such a deadlock from happening. However after adding the signals the server crashes approximately 1-2 minutes later. So I left the game and re-joined (so the server saved the signals) and it now crashes within 1-2 minutes of playing.

This is purely a server crash. The client simply loses connection and everything appears to run fine for a length of time afterwards. Since I cannot recreate the error on a client I cannot debug it.

EDIT: Appears fixed now.

VOLVO

The server has now entered the days of having no respond in building things.
I suggest reverting the save or it's just basically unplayable.

EDIT : Seems to get better after a restart.

Sarlock

I was on yesterday and it seemed okay... it's quite laggy due to the sheer number of convoys in motion, but otherwise still somewhat playable.

Things are at a bit of a standstill game-wise right now, however, as there isn't any significant incremental steam engine technologies, tunnel speeds are limited to 120km/h, air travel isn't yet available (zeppelins don't count) and ship technology has basically peaked for a long time with the Windjammer (especially in terms of capacity).

The pakset needs a lot of work to balance things out, allow for a smoother technological advancement of vehicle types (it's very choppy right now) and address the "dead zones" where there are no new technologies to advance the game.  80% of the steam engines seem superfluous and are just eye candy -- there is no application for these slower, less powerful and more expensive (!) engines.  There are periods where the best engine is one that was available 10-20 years ago and you're just patiently waiting for something that is actually superior to the old engines you're still using.  The power/traction/speed to cost ratio needs a close look.
Current projects: Pak128 Trees, blender graphics

VOLVO

It is. I can safely conclude that I am the only player who uses more than one type of locomotive/train.

Junna

Quote from: VOLVO on October 25, 2014, 05:37:20 PM
It is. I can safely conclude that I am the only player who uses more than one type of locomotive/train.

I think I'm using a few... Though, mostly whichever is cheapest because the running costs are generally very high. And I haven't replaced some for a long time; it's such a pain to get on and sort it out though, with the terrible lagging.

DrSuperGood

The train running costs seem to make no sense with some less powerful engines that are "more advanced" costing more per mile than older more powerful engines. I am guessing this is because the running costs are balanced for maintenance/upkeep, a feature not yet in the game.

Boats also seemed rushed. All post 1900 boats do not use the hull mechanics and hold stupidly little amounts of cargo. I am guessing this is because a balance pass never reached them but in any case they are not viable. My wooden ship can hold 3,000 units of cargo yet a dedicated metal ship only 900...

Junna

Quote from: DrSuperGood on October 25, 2014, 10:36:09 PM
The train running costs seem to make no sense with some less powerful engines that are "more advanced" costing more per mile than older more powerful engines. I am guessing this is because the running costs are balanced for maintenance/upkeep, a feature not yet in the game.

It's rather that they are not really balanced at all. Only a few modifications have been made. Most of the numbers are vague and the only touch with reality are things like, certain types known for having been costly to operate might have higher maintenance cost, etc, but the base costs are more or less randomly chosen depending on when they were added with no real coherent oversight as to the cost (certainly for railway locomotives, iirc there were some efforts to see over the 'buses and the trams).

jamespetts

Thank you for all your feedback and apologies for not having noticed many of the recent posts until now. I am at a loss to explain the downloading speed issue: I have never been able to reproduce it, and I do not even know where to start looking into a possible cause.

Sadly, I have not had time to look into desync bugs lately for reasons explained elsewhere. Particularly unfortunately, desync bugs are fantastically difficult to track down: I once spent about four months doing nothing other than finding one single desync bug. The provisional plan at present is to move ahead with the next major version when my house is sorted out and re-test for the bug(s) in that version, since the changes between this and that are significant enough that a patch applied to this version may either work differently or be unnecessary in that, and may also take a lot of work to merge.

As for balance, cost balancing has not really been attempted in any significant way, so most of the cost figures are wild guesses. However, the other numbers should now be balanced. If anyone thinks that, completely aside from cost, there are some things that are significantly unbalanced in the pakset, I should be interested to know. The balancing is based on real life figures where I can find them and extrapolations from figures to fill in missing spaces.
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

Junna

Who changed my password? Was it you supergood, if it expired? Why did you place no sign anywhere?

jamespetts

Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

Junna

Yes, I suppose that would be good. I assume someone changed it if it expired or something. I looked for any signs but couldn't find any.

jamespetts

Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

DrSuperGood

Junna who were you again? It gets confusing who is who.

We (well A-Train and I before he left) use a common pool of passwords for large "no show" companies to prevent trolls using them to vandalise the map (or just being destroyed by nasty people). Placing them as a sign would defeat the purpose of putting a password. However we are more than happy to give anyone credible the passwords (if we are online).

Junna

Well, unsurprisingly, mine was Junna Railways. I tried that password you used on AEO's before but that didn't work either. There's a chance I just forgot the password on the other hand, my memory is utterly rubbish, but as it had lapsed a good 15 years since last I logged on...

Sarlock

This does raise the question of what to do with these companies that people started and then stop playing for an extended period of time.  Keeping them out of the hands of new players is a good move, and maybe they shouldn't be allowed to do this at all, and just be put in stasis after 15 years and then after another bunch of years, actually disbanded and liquidated.  Otherwise the areas that that player served become locked and unaccessible to other players (unless you can somehow navigate the spaghetti of their old network and work around it, but that is very difficult, or impossible, to do).

Our solution thusfar has been to take these wayward companies and give them a new password and keep them safe until if and when the player returns, which is an acceptable strategy, but I do object to people trying to actively play them, especially when this leads to unexpected competitive behaviour towards existing players - making new lines, upgrading convoys to newer types, etc.  We're limited to one company each for a reason.
Current projects: Pak128 Trees, blender graphics

jamespetts

This is actually a more complex problem than it first appears, especially given that people sometimes have limited time, go on holiday, have an especially busy period now and then, etc.. It seems difficult to formulate programmatic rules that don't cause more problems than they solve. The current community solution seems to be as good as anyone can come up with for the time being, I think.
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

DrSuperGood

Personally the best solution would be to encourage people to work together. When I played OpenTTD people seldom played alone and there was at least 1 other player with them who helped run their company. For some reason I find players of Simutrans slightly more selfish and less willing to share companies.

Sarlock

I wonder if it's less of a community thing and more of a nuance of Simutrans that causes this.  I haven't played OpenTTD, so I can't compare, but I wonder if the mechanics of the game lend itself to certain gameplay behaviour.  Everything is so interconnected in Simutrans that anything you do can and will affect another player, often in an unintended negative way, due to the complexity of the simulation.  If you make a journey slightly faster than another player (even if only because of the available technology at the moment, which is an upgrade to what the other player had put in place), cargo/pax/mail may choose to take that route instead.  Because you've impacted another player negatively, thing brings out a competitive edge.

You'd probably have to set out clear boundaries for operation in order to avoid this.
Current projects: Pak128 Trees, blender graphics

jamespetts

This is quite an interesting discussion. Ideally, I think, what I should like to see is a mixture of co-operation and (friendly) competition. Competition was, after all (and in many places remains) an important part of the history of transport, and it would be a shame for it not to be simulated. However, there is much to be said for multiple players running single, large companies and agreeing a division of responsibilities between them: people often have insufficient time to do everything themselves, and could achieve more in concert. With such a mechanism, a company in Simutrans becomes more like a company in real life.

Players in such a situation would have to have a high level of trust in each other, however, as there is no practical way to police intra-company relations (in case of a serious dispute, all that an administrator could realistically do is reset the password and give the new password to just one of the former players, and decide to whom to give it on the basis of who founded the company, if other players were introduced later, or, if they all stated at the same time, by the toss of a coin).

Whether people will need that amount of help or will want to trust another that much remains to be seen, but there seem to be a goodly number of people here in whom it seems that such trust could be reposed (although those are often those players who seem not to need much help, too).
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

wlindley

Is it possible for more than one person, to play in one company slot?  That would let us play as a team ("You take care of buses and trucks, I'll handle the ships. George is doing our railways.")

jamespetts

Quote from: wlindley on November 28, 2014, 03:10:45 PM
Is it possible for more than one person, to play in one company slot?  That would let us play as a team ("You take care of buses and trucks, I'll handle the ships. George is doing our railways.")

Yes, this is indeed possible, both in Standard and Experimental.
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

Sarlock

When the server game first started, there was about 4-5 of us playing simultaneously.  AEO and I were the two most active players and he concentrated on the north west portion of the map and I on the eastern island coastal area.  He had more industry on that side (due to industry clumping) while I had a lot less and early on focused on a pax/mail service.  There was another player who focused on the internal area of the eastern island and the other players took up the remaining areas but were less active and created smaller networks.

While boundaries were never formally discussed, there was an implicit understanding that we each concentrated in an area and only in minor ways connected to other areas.

In the early part of the game, this was easy, as convoy speeds were slower and there was a lot of open space to expand.

Fast forward to the mid 1800's and most of the initial players went inactive and new players came on the scene to either attempt to build a new company or revive an existing one.  Not being present at the initial start and faced with a map that was highly connected with few new opportunities for expansion, some of these new players set up networks within the areas already served by existing companies.  In some cases they were complimentary services, providing local access to customers that was not otherwise present, but in same cases the services were directly competitive.  New players see the profits and success of the old, large companies, and want to have a chance to compete and match their output.  Old players want to preserve what they have and continue to service these areas.

The moment competition begins, it changes the dynamics for everyone.  Old players protect, new players expand.  And the action of both, while individually noble, ends up creating a competitive atmosphere that tries to carefully balance between friendly gamesmanship and aggressive predatory expansion.

It's an interesting case study in human economic behaviour.

Part of the dynamics in this particular game were brought about by issues in the pakset/game, that once resolved will not put pressure on players: very little new industry was created after 1850 (and now is almost entirely just coal power plants) and city expansion was rapid and covered a significant portion of the land area on the map.
Current projects: Pak128 Trees, blender graphics

DrSuperGood

Personally I would have preferred to enter with a large existing company but all I had was a tiny "fail startup" company which I swung around to become the big freight company it currently is. At the time I joined all big companies were still active or password locked and later after starting up my wrought iron industry it was too late to move across.

There is no way to tell if a new player is a troll, a newbie or a serious person who wants in at managing something.

jamespetts

I should be interested to know how much trolling activity that there has actually been in this server game.
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

Sarlock

Current projects: Pak128 Trees, blender graphics

Junna

Supergood mentioned someone having done so (some kind of sabotage), but I haven't seen any directly.

DrSuperGood

There has been no purposeful trolling as far as I can tell. That said they are pretty much limited to a normal starting company so cannot troll that much (usually the people try to make profit and then quit to never return after they go bust).

jamespetts

Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

jamespetts

This seems to be failing on startup: the virtual server had run out of free space, but, even after clearing it of free space, it still seems to fail. I am afraid that I do not have time to find and fix the problem at present.

Edit: The saved game was corrupted. I have restored a backup version of the save, and it seems to be working now.
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

DesiroUFOSound

Someone has Blocked   shipping routes not me im building underground railways
Coming soon... A BIG TRUCK

jamespetts

Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.