Passenger AI in Simutrans Extended

[JasoSSTO]

 Happy 2019 everyone.

EDIT: Issue only found in Extended, not in Standard

I've been playing on Pak128Britain and wanted to include some AIs to have some fun. I included a goods AI, ticked the box on the left in the player list and it started building and doing its thing.
However, I also tried to include a Passenger AI, and even though I could create the player, I was unable to tick the box in the left in the player list to start it.

I wanted to ask if this is intentional, or if this is a bug; and if it's possible to change this option.
Thanks.

[jamespetts]

May I ask whether you are using the Standard or Extended version of Simutrans?

[JasoSSTO]

I am currently using the Extended version, but it also happens on Standard.

[jamespetts]

Interesting.

In Extended, I do not recommend using the AI, as the AI has not been adapted to work with the features of Extended and probably does not work properly at all. The intention with Extended is that it be played online; alternatively, you can play a single player game and play multiple companies at the same time.

In theory, it would be possible to rewrite the AI to work with Extended, but this would be such a vast amount of work that it is unlikely to be feasible. Even in Standard, the AI is very basic and has not been much developed recently.

However, the behaviour that you describe does not seem correct for Standard. (I have just tested with Extended; I cannot reproduce the specific issue that you describe of being unable to tick the box). Can you confirm which version(s) that you are using?

[JasoSSTO]

Update:
I wanted to recheck this in case I remembered it wrong, and indeed I did.
It works in all paks I tested of Standard with no issues. I even re-downloaded a fresh clean unaltered Standard and Experimental and in Standard there were no issues.
But it doesn't seem to work in Experimental (both Britain and Sweden, 32 and 64). It was a fresh install (even the documents folder was new) and I run the nightly program to make sure it was the latest.

This isn't really a bother, and as I said, I just wanted to try them for the fun of it, to see them make bad decisions and kilometers of roads everywhere. I wouldn't consider this necessary or even important. I agree, Extended is better played with Human only players, and I run my "serious" games with different human companies played by me.
It just seemed weird that the goods AI works and not the Passengers.

I attached some screenshots to show the issue.

Also, should this be moved to the extended forums since is not an issue in standard?

[jamespetts]

Thank you for confirming - I have moved the topic to the Extended development forum. As noted, I could not reproduce this issue, but the AI is not currently a development priority.

[Sebastian]

This appears to be the intended* AI behaviour when no "buses" are available, according to the source code governing passenger AI behaviour. Among other things, the game checks whether a sufficiently powerful road vehicle is available for use. Depending on what time your game started, and the pakset in use, such a vehicle may not exist, and the passenger AI will simply refuse to activate.

I reproduced your issue today with a fresh download and build of Simutrans Extended and the Simutrans Extended version of Pak128.Britain. When I set the starting year to a later year, I was able to activate passenger AI players. The original Simutrans code also appears to perform a similar test at first glance, but I would need to actually investigate and test with that code to be certain.

The solution is, to my understanding, to either accept the current situation, or wait for new development effort on AI to address it. Once AI logic is present that performs well with a wider range of vehicles, I imagine this restriction could in theory be altered or removed.

*By "intended behaviour", I mean the behaviour of the AI code itself, not the overall behaviour of the game. It would be nice if some explanation were afforded to the player when the AI fails to activate, instead of appearing to be broken. Alternatively, perhaps the tick box could just be disabled in the first place, whenever the conditions are unsuitable for it.

[Matthew]

Welcome to the International Simutrans Forum, Sebastian!