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A Few Basic Questions

Started by tubanonymous, October 24, 2016, 12:21:26 AM

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tubanonymous

I'm trying to get more into experimental and I didnt see any threads directly explaining these questions

1. Is the game "playable" on the timeline from 1750 to 20--? I'm having a hard time making money, and I'm not sure if its me or if there are still some balance issues. I know the calculation is now down on average speed and "comfort" for passengers. But in theory, that should make it easier than standard to make money on goods? :question:

2. James Pett's youtube video with signal boxes seems awesome. Realistically, if I've never compiled simutrans on my own before, will I be able to figure out how? Where do I began learning such a task?

3. What is a good method for determining the time a vehicle takes to complete a trip? Right now, in order to find times for schedules, I put one train on the service and time it for a full trip length. This obviously has a negative effect on passenger happiness in the short term as the line is temporarily calculated for a service with only one convoy.

4. Does the default station coverage for passengers seem high to anyone else? It makes a bit of an uncanny valley when it comes to intra-city transit

5. I am trying to use ships in 1750 but none seem to work? Even river/canal ships built on complete canal routes with terminus for shipyard, etc

Thank you for the awesome game  :D


jamespetts

Thank you for your interest in Experimental - as the name suggests, it is still under development, but I will answer your questions as best as I can.

1. With Pak128.Britain-Ex, the game should in principle be playable from 1750 to the present day, but the pakset has not been balanced yet. Proper balancing will require a number of new features which will be difficult to implement, so it might be some time before this is done, but it is planned.

2. There are some threads in the forum about compiling (the procedure is very similar to that for Standard), but you may find it easier to download the executables compiled by a third party here.

3. The timings, acceleration, etc., are balanced to be as realistic as possible (and, unlike the financial balancing, this has largely been completed). You can see the distance in kilometres between each stop in the schedule dialogue. You can therefore work out what would have been a realistic amount of time  for that sort of vehicle to have taken to complete that sort of trip in reality. You might also find the convoys' average speed graphs helpful in estimating this. Note that passenger happiness is not something modelled directly, although journey time is.

4. The station coverage works very differently in Experimental to Standard. In Experimental, passengers can walk all the way to their destination, can walk some distance between different stops as part of their journey and will take this walking time as well as the walking time between the origin building and the origin stop and the destination building and the destination stop into account in determining the optimum route. The coverage area represents the maximum distance that passengers can walk to get to the origin stop and from the destination stop, but, because passengers will only travel if the overall journey time is lower than their journey time tolerance (which is randomised for each passenger trip) and because passengers will always take the quickest available route from their ultimate origin to their ultimate destination, the less walking that passengers have to do to get where they want to go, the more likely it is that passengers will use your services. Thus, in Simutrans-Experimental, it can often make sense to have multiple stops with overalpping coverage areas. Just as in real life, one might walk a mile to the nearest railway station or alternatively take the 'bus from a 'bus stop a few hundred meters from one's house.

5. Can you elaborate on what you mean when you re fer to ships not working; in what way do they not work?
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tubanonymous

5. Ships show "Cannot Find Route." All ships, all way types, all station and goods types.

jamespetts

Can you upload a saved game in which you can reliably reproduce this problem? Also, can you confirm what version of Simutrans-Experimental and Pak128.Britain-Ex that you are using in which you have this problem?
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.

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tubanonymous

Seems like Im not having the problem now that I try to recreate it. It was probably just me. So my last question (ha) is: do I understand correctly that Python must be used to run the beta(?)?

Vladki

Python is not necessary for the game itself. Maybe for some support scripts (pakset download).

jamespetts

Python is only used for the script for automating the build of the pakset under Windows (MakeAll.mos). If you download the binaries for the pakset, you will not need Python. If you want to keep up to date with the pakset, you may want to install Python in order to run MakeAll.mos. (I think that Python is also used for the Blender scripts for making graphics for the pakset).
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.