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Help for beginners.

Started by HarrierST, December 03, 2015, 01:57:00 AM

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HarrierST

Hi.

I have just joined the site.  Started playing the latest version of pak64 about 3 weeks ago. (there was an update, just after I started.)

But my question is this. As a beginner you want as much help as possible. So I started trawling through the help forum ( looked at 13 pages so far).  I soon noticed that a lot of references for beginners guides by the more experienced players no longer existed.


In particular - Docs.Simutrans.com.

So where do we look to get help. Instead of posting repeated help questions.

Ters

The forum's search function is probably the best option for finding answers in English. The German wiki seems to be somewhat better than the English wiki, although that doesn't say much.

Simutrans' versatility is something of a double-edged sword. It means it can (somewhat) satisfy the dreams of a diversity of players, but it also makes it difficult to describe, as each player sees Simutrans differently. If you ask a question on the forum, you might get five completely different answers, all of which may be correct.

In fact, the only two absolute facts that really are important to grasp the game, but which are not somewhat intuitive, are how signals work and how stops/stations work. Unfortunately, signals look differently in each pak set, and have different names depending on the translator which may or may not be misleading. How to use signals optimally is a question with almost as many answers as there are players. How stations work depends a bit on some settings, where the defaults may vary between pak sets.


DrSuperGood

I recommend checking out multiplayer servers. You can often ask real people questions that get answered and see what they are doing. For example the JIT2 server for pak64 + food pak shows some simple industry routes for pak64.

The pak128 servers show general routes you can do to make profit.

HarrierST

Quote from: Ters on December 03, 2015, 07:04:29 AM
The forum's search function is probably the best option for finding answers in English.

Yes I have used that.

The main reason for my question is that the: "Simutrans Referance Manual" is no longer available. The

site is down!? Also I think a beginners guide has been removed.  Can not remember the link to it

(which also fails).

Quote from: Ters on December 03, 2015, 07:04:29 AM
In fact, the only two absolute facts that really are important to grasp the game, but which are not

somewhat intuitive, are how signals work and how stops/stations work. Unfortunately, signals look

differently in each pak set, and have different names depending on the translator which may or may

not be misleading. How to use signals optimally is a question with almost as many answers as there

are players. How stations work depends a bit on some settings, where the defaults may vary between

pak sets.

Exactly the two parts I want to understand.

Read a lot on the help pages (that I have read so far) - so begining to understand these. Only practice will tell.

Ters

I think the reference manual is gone because it was hopelessly outdated. It was outdated already when I began playing, which is a decade ago or more.

Frank

Quote from: Ters on December 04, 2015, 06:41:42 AM
I think the reference manual is gone because it was hopelessly outdated. It was outdated already when I began playing, which is a decade ago or more.

That's the big advantage of a wiki when it is maintained since. Especially because, in contrast to the individual websites of each can contribute to a wiki.

HarrierST

I found a link to the old reference guides here.

Quote from: IgorEliezer on March 17, 2013, 09:56:12 AM
I'm afraid it's a bad time to look for documentations.

We are moving sites from a server to another, hence lots of sites are down. And we are importing the wiki from an old platform to another. Things have been busy these days.

I uploaded a copy of the starter manuals I have, use these while the actual site is not up: temp-link. They're a bit old, but they can help.

Tell us if they were of some help.

They may be out of date. But they are still useful for beginners.

Thanks.

IgorEliezer

Quote from: HarrierST on December 05, 2015, 05:41:56 PM
I found a link to the old reference guides here.
OH WOW! You found it! I forgot completely I have those in my hosting server. My paranoia served me for something.

Quote from: Frank on December 04, 2015, 04:02:19 PM
That's the big advantage of a wiki when it is maintained since. Especially because, in contrast to the individual websites of each can contribute to a wiki.
I second you.

I would also like to ask people who are more in touch with the game than I to check if the those manuals can be ported to the wiki, with corrections of course.

HarrierST

#9
OK - another question.

How do I know where true North is on the map and also East?  Is there an indicator I have overlooked?

When trying to place some objects on the map you have to rotate it.  After placing a few you can soon lose all sense of direction.   

But if you do not know where the real North or East etc. is - it makes it difficult to pace some things like traffic signals with different timings and rail signals. For instance with  trains I want the North to be a specific track and South another. The same for East and West.

Also how does Isometric view effect this?

An indicator that showed the current view position would help.


DrSuperGood

QuoteHow do I know where true North is on the map and also East?  Is there an indicator I have overlooked?
True north is always the far top corner of the map. Like wise west is the far left corner, east the far right corner and south the far bottom corner.

If you are using the map rotation feature (singleplayer only) then there is no real "correct" orientation since it literally rotates the world piece by piece (not rotating the view point). If you get confused I would recommend labelling a specific corner with what you wish to consider a certain direction. This will stop you from being disorientated if you use the map rotation feature and want to name stuff based on relative compass positioning.

Ters

Quote from: DrSuperGood on December 08, 2015, 04:27:23 AM
True north is always the far top corner of the map. Like wise west is the far left corner, east the far right corner and south the far bottom corner.

That makes no sense to me. There are no top, right, left or bottom corners. The way I understand it, north is top right, west is top left, east is bottom right and south is bottom left. You can also look at Simutrans coordinates. The first number increases from west to east, while the second number increases from north to south. But note DrSuperGood's second paragraph.

Frank



sorry description is german

Süden = south
Westen = west
Norden = north
Osten = east

from Wiki Dev-Part

Isaac Eiland-Hall

OP said they rotated the map and didn't take note as to the original direction north was, and asked if there was any indication of which way was *currently* north. Corners won't help.

The only way I know would be to get the New Map dialogue and note the mini map presented there, as that will show the initial orientation. Assuming you're playing on a map and haven't created other new maps since then...

prissi

The idea of a compass was there for ages ... jsut the graphics were missing.


An_dz

This compass would stay in the viewport? Why not only in the map window?

IgorEliezer

Quote from: prissi on December 08, 2015, 09:48:37 PM
The idea of a compass was there for ages ... jsut the graphics were missing.
Not only the compass, the coords too.

We may know that, internally, the North and the XYZ-coords are fixed. It's just the graphics that "dance around" when you rotate the gameview. But for human readability, the game should adopt a UI North and the same goes to the coords, which should be translated accordingly when the player rotates the map.

TurfIt

The game also loads with North being top right always. So if you save rotated, compass North will change.
Traffic light timing is also based on true North (dialog didn't update when rotating - fixed).

Ters

Quote from: IgorEliezer on December 10, 2015, 12:52:55 AM
We may know that, internally, the North and the XYZ-coords are fixed. It's just the graphics that "dance around" when you rotate the gameview.
I'd say that that is what doesn't happen, although it is probably a matter of how you interpret "fixed" and "dance around".

HarrierST

#20
Quote from: TurfIt on December 10, 2015, 01:37:18 AM
The game also loads with North being top right always. So if you save rotated, compass North will change.
Traffic light timing is also based on true North (dialog didn't update when rotating - fixed).

One of the reasons that initiated my second problem post was traffic lights. I could not understand why,  if I had selected n/s = 1 and w/e = 16 say, sometimes the values had switched. I guessed it must be due to map rotation, hence my post.

I now think I should have been more specific on traffic lights, as I bundled them in with rail routes.

Quote from: TurfIt on December 10, 2015, 01:37:18 AMTraffic light timing is also based on true North (dialog didn't update when rotating - fixed).

Does this mean you have done a bug fix - if so I guess I'll have to wait for pak64 to be updated. To new to this game , (and still learning) to start updating on a regular basis from the SVN.