Various Questions

[The Hood]

No idea if this is the best place to put this post but here goes anyway. I'm turning attentions to rebalancing pak128.Britain and I had the following questions - I seem to remember some discussion about them in the past but no idea if they ever got incorporated, refused or just never touched.


1. weight limits for ways/bridges - did this ever happen? If so how does it work?
2. monthly costs for vehicles - ditto
3. monthly costs and capacities set explicitly for stations (rather than based on level) - this is fairly essential to good balancing of small capacity stops early in the game.
4. Not directly relevant to balancing, but there was some discussion (I can't find it) about having left, middle and right images for ways (e.g. to give better appearance for double and quadruple track railways by gravelling over the whole tile in the middle) as has been done for tunnel images (i.e. depending on whether there was another track to the left/right). Did this ever happen? I also recall discussion about a similar idea for bridges but I think this was swept away as being too hard.

[Leartin]

About 3: Yes, this possible in standard now, and appearently compatible to the same option in experimental - see here: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=12288.msg122529#msg122529

[Dwachs]

1) and 4) are not implemented

2) is implemented: parameter 'maintenance' (fixed monthly cost) vs. 'runningcost' (per tile travelled)

3) is implemented as well: parameters 'capacity', 'cost' (construction), 'maintenance' (monthly)

[DrSuperGood]

1. weight limits for ways/bridges - did this ever happen? If so how does it work?

Experimental only. Works based on convoy weight. Not in standard.

2. monthly costs for vehicles - ditto

Experimental only (as far as I am aware). No release version uses this feature and no pakset has it balanced. Scheduled for use in next experimental release (if ever).

3. monthly costs and capacities set explicitly for stations (rather than based on level) - this is fairly essential to good balancing of small capacity stops early in the game.

No version lets the user customize stop capacities. Only the pakset authors can by setting the level in standard or specifying an amount in experimental.

4. Not directly relevant to balancing, but there was some discussion (I can't find it) about having left, middle and right images for ways (e.g. to give better appearance for double and quadruple track railways by gravelling over the whole tile in the middle) as has been done for tunnel images (i.e. depending on whether there was another track to the left/right). Did this ever happen? I also recall discussion about a similar idea for bridges but I think this was swept away as being too hard.

I do not think this is supported.

[prissi]

1) well way and vehciles know about axle load, but it has no consequences so far.

[The Hood]

Thanks for the quick replies. There seems to be some disagreement about 2/3. Safe to assume that Dwachs is the authoritative answer as a long-standing contributor to standard code? 4. would be great as an extension request, especially for normal ways. Walsonja has made some rather nice tracks for pak128.Britain that would work much better if this feature was added. Nevertheless if 2/3 are supported then I can get on with the balancing.

[Ters]

I am also very certain that 2 and 3 is in, and has been so for well over a year.

[jamespetts]

3 was incorporated into Standard based on Experimental code some time ago. I remember changing the parameter names in Experimental to match those in Standard to improve compatibility.

[The Hood]

OK, another question about balancing - what is the formula used to calculate the drag force on a convoy? Trying to work from first principles to determine the maximum speed of some different convoys based on their power and weight.

[prissi]

THat has been written someplace. The precise answer is in convoi_t::calc_max_speed().

However, you can copy from the pak64 cars.xls for an approximation. The maximum weight a convoi can pull at max speed is roughly
(power*gear)/( total_convoi_weight_with_freight^2/2500 + 1)
So this is the weight you need for balancing

[Ters]

The basic formula appears to be top_speed = √(∑(power × gear) / ∑loaded_weight) × 50 where weight is in tons, and top_speed is capped at the slowest vehicle's top speed. If ∑(power × gear) < ∑loaded_weight, top_speed is set to 1.

[kierongreen]

Been thinking about 4 for ages now.... it's just the possible combinations required give me a few nightmares!