This pack could become the new standard, but balance holds it back.

[raveneer]

I was amazed by the beauty and diversity of the Comic 192 pack. It's truly a pack that could set a new standard! However, there were issues with the balance.

In the Standard (128 pack), players need to start with slow industrial routes, consider round-trip routes, and attempt to build fewer stations to start generating profit. To boost industrial output, offering passenger and mail services is necessary, which often leads to larger investments and greater losses than profits initially. Players then begin to expand the service range of these added passenger and mail services to improve their profitability, and over time, as these become profitable ventures, they take greater risks by investing in larger cities. I think this results in a great game that leads to building a massive transportation empire.

However, the balance in the Comic 192 pack has serious flaws. I set the beginner bonus in the simuconf.tab to 500 (50%), meaning that coal transport, which originally paid $66, now only pays $33. I thought this cut was impossible for play. However...

*I have calculated the following using Excel, taking into account:

- Purchase costs, depreciation, route usage fees (route maintenance * monthly usage rate), cost-effective transportation speed and volume settings, station usage fees based on train length, and assuming that roads and railway stations will be used for 10 years while applying depreciation to construction costs (in reality, they might be used longer, but the construction costs are negligible compared to monthly maintenance fees).


1. Ships still yield more than 10% annually even with a 50% setting:
The cost of building ports and canals is too cheap.
For this reason, ships can accomplish tasks that trains should be handling.

2. Trucks yield 16% annually even with this setting:
The cost of building and maintaining roads is too cheap compared to the income. A 30-ton truck running at 80KM/h boasts tremendous transport volumes.
For this reason, trucks can handle tasks that should be done by trains.

3. Trains are overly penalized:
If a BR75 train running at 90KM/h is set to carry the same monthly freight volume as the trucks, it operates at a loss due to the high maintenance costs of railway lines. Profitability only starts when more than four trains begin running on the same line.


Simutrans offers simulation fun in configuring routes, balancing operations, and growing cities. However, if a tycoon game loses the fun of making money, much of the content loses its meaning. Many industries in Comic 192 have the potential to create incredible synergy through route recycling. However, as it stands with excessive base profitability (where in default settings, it can print money comparable to OTTD), and with trains yielding less profit than trucks, there's a problem.

If transportation costs are set below 50%, trains can't make a profit at all.


I also understand that if everything is completely balanced, it can actually become less interesting. The essence of my opinion is that there needs to be a balancing that continuously prompts users to think about and challenge profitability, serving as the main motivation for trying new things

- I believe that a target return rate that can stimulate user engagement is one where you can recover 10% of your investment annually when played properly. Since this game allows for monthly profits and reinvestments, a return rate of more than 1% per month would result in printing money.

- Specifically, trains should yield about a 5% annual return from one-way coal/oil transportation.

- I think it would be satisfactory if users could achieve an annual return of 10-15% by increasing route usage, connecting to advanced industries, or transporting premium passengers.


The basic balance of Comic 192 allows you to easily achieve an annual return of 100%. In reality, since it's calculated monthly, it's simple to increase your initial capital by "x1000"times in the first 10 years.




I'd like to hear your opinions on this issue. If I could get permission to modify the game's balance, I would attempt to make adjustments myself. (I am an indie game developer, having released three mobile games, and I enjoy playing simulation games.)

[Flemmbrav]

it's super easy to modify the game balance in pak192comic, as most vehicles are prized by a single scribt.

You can just fork the git and try that out.

I'll be able to reply to your further thoughts in half a week.

[raveneer]

First, the balance in the current version (0.7.1) is quite easy. Users can easily double their money annually. This wouldn't be an issue if it were consistent throughout the game (since transport costs and beginner difficulty settings can be consistently adjusted).

After checking the dat files, I discovered a severe imbalance between road and train lines. For example, the industry_road has a cost of 900 and a maintenance of 250 and can run at 70km/h. However, a comparable train track has a cost of 100,000 and a maintenance of 2,000 and can run at 80km/h. Where one truck can travel, ten trains are required. This makes trucks excessively profitable. There may have been a misunderstanding with the units.

Below is the direction I think ideal balance should take. I would like to discuss this with someone who has created a list of the contents of 192 comic and set various metrics. If I could hear from them about the direction they planned for 192, I think we could have a better sense of direction.

Since Simutrans is a game about managing the economy, reflecting real-life metrics as is can ruin the gameplay. If users want to build anything freely, I think they should play in sandbox mode. The game should be challenging, motivate players to play, make them consider the appropriate use of each feature, and ultimately, the right choices by the players should create synergy. (In this regard, it would be great if there were game balance settings like 'easy,' 'hard,' 'impossible'...)

PAK 192 comic has a high quality and a large amount of graphics and contents that cannot be found in other packs. Moreover, the industries are powerful and diverse. I'd like to think of 192 comic as an expanded version of the balance of the standard (I consider 128 the standard because it is installed with the game installation). (I've also played Extended for dozens of hours, but since the industries are very weak and it has a lot of unique ideas, I'll hold my comments.)








=Here's the balancing lists=

1. Coal and oil power plants
should exist to synergize with other industries, not to make users tycoons through coal and oil transport. Therefore, the profit of coal and oil is low, and barely breaking even when transported at 100%. The advantage is that coal and oil (as always) have a 0% speed bonus, making them cost-effective but slow (narrow gauge can play a role here) and will be used until mid-game or later.

2. Tiers
As the tier of the industry increases, so does the transport cost, and transporting raw materials one-way rarely results in a profit. The closer to the finished product, the lower the production, and the transport revenue increases exponentially. For example, it takes a train to move a thousand tons of iron, but a small amount of trucks is enough to move finished cars. The trucks moving the finished cars can generate a lot of revenue, offsetting the losses of the trains!

3. Road & Truck Stations
Maintenance costs are very high. Construction is cheap, but the annual maintenance costs as much as the construction cost. Therefore, building roads within a city is a huge charity, and users should intervene a little bit in appropriate places like cultivating a bonsai. Remove roads that are not in immediate use. The cost of stations is cheaper than railways. (Excluding user abuse for station capacity expansion, but it should be considered in balancing...)

4. Trucks
Cheap to purchase but have poor fuel efficiency. The cost per distance is very high, so you might not make money by transporting and burning fuel. Monthly maintenance is not high. Therefore, it is good to transport goods fully loaded. Trucks take a reasonable amount of time to load and unload, so a cargo station can only handle a few trucks.

5. Railways & Stations
Construction is very expensive but maintenance is reasonable because railways are a major infrastructure. Instead, the maintenance cost of stations is very high. Therefore, users have to decide whether to make long trains or arrange several. I think running several trains should be more encouraged because it increases the need for double-tracking and using signaling systems. The cost of installing railways increases with speed because it is considered late-game content when users have already accumulated enough money. It can be called a 'modernization' project. (But installing expensive lines from the start is a loss due to maintenance costs.)

6. Trains
High purchase cost but better fuel efficiency than trucks. Monthly maintenance is higher than for trucks. However, the high purchase cost hides the invisible costs due to annual depreciation. (It may seem profitable to transport coal one-way, but actually, it's a loss due to depreciation. Total assets decrease.) Therefore, the longer you use a purchased train, the more beneficial it is. If users can thriftily reassign each train to different routes, it will deepen the gameplay. Trains are more profitable the longer they are organized. (The trailers' fuel efficiency and monthly costs are cheap) However, this requires expanding stations and complicates route design. Trains load and unload goods faster than trucks. It might seem illogical, but let's imagine trucks add more detailed work (like a courier company where people manually move things), and trains move things in pallets or containers. (Also, trains already receive a time penalty when entering and leaving stations due to acceleration and deceleration) What users need to consider about trains is how to maintain maximum speed, prevent kinks, and solve problems with small stations.

7. Buses & Bus Stops
City buses cannot make a profit because they are designed to use city roads. They play a role in sending passengers to intercity bus terminals or stations. Therefore, city buses are cheap to purchase, have moderate fuel costs per km, and high monthly maintenance. City buses aim to barely make a profit using small stops and small vehicles. Intercity buses can generate revenue using speed. However, building highways for intercity bus lines results in lower profitability than trains due to maintenance costs.

8.Trams
Trams are a transportation system for medium to large cities. The installation cost of tram lines is high, but maintenance is very low. The same goes for trams themselves: high purchase cost, moderate monthly maintenance, and very low cost per km (fuel cost). Also, trams can be profitable if filled more than 50% and run at high speed in the city. However, the downside of trams is high infrastructure costs, like trains. Since users can frequently modify city routes, tearing down and rebuilding a tram line will cause user conflict. The downside of a tram line is that only one can enter a block section at a time. If used for more than 20 years, trams' profitability will be significantly higher than buses.

9. Ships
The installation cost of canals is very high, and the maintenance cost is low. The construction cost of ports or canal stations is also very high. Ships take an excessive amount of time to load and unload, so the longer the distance, the higher the profitability. Short distances would waste time just loading the goods. However, passenger and mail ships don't take much time to load but have high fuel costs. The larger the ship, the longer the loading time. Ships have higher costs per distance than trains, but lower monthly costs. Container ships spend a month at the port loading goods until they are full. The larger the ship, the better the fuel efficiency, so users will consider investing in increasing the capacity of the port.

10. Airplanes
I have always thought airplanes were unbalanceable since the OTTD days... If we try, perhaps by drastically increasing the time it takes to load and unload passengers to reduce the throughput per airport, causing money to be wasted on airport construction? Very high construction costs, high maintenance, and high revenue might be able to balance it. In OTTD, airplanes could be independent elements because they could crash. In Simutrans, are they just robbing the fun of trains?

11. Electric Railways
Like airplanes, it's hard to discuss at the moment. I am mainly interested in the balance of the early to mid-game. If the user has reached the late game (not started in the late game), they will have accumulated a huge amount of money, making money meaningless at that point.

12. Narrow Gauge Railways
Installation is cheap, but maintenance per transport volume is actually more expensive than standard gauge. It can be used as something between roads and railways. Narrow gauge trains are cheap to purchase, but their monthly maintenance is more expensive than standard trains. This means narrow gauge can be a good early game option. The low initial cost of narrow gauge doesn't require much consideration for transitioning to standard gauge. In the long term, due to insufficient transport volume and lower maximum speed, you will eventually switch. It can also be used for oil and coal transport, which do not receive a speed bonus. Surprisingly, narrow gauge can be used for intercity buses between cities. The initial construction cost is actually cheaper than trams, but it becomes meaningless due to the speed penalty. If you're really looking for a use, perhaps for commuting to large factories?

[Oldie]

4. Trucks
 Cheap to purchase but have poor fuel efficiency. The cost per distance is very high, so you might not make money by transporting and burning fuel. Monthly maintenance is not high. Therefore, it is good to transport goods fully loaded. Trucks take a reasonable amount of time to load and unload, so a cargo station can only handle a few trucks.

I find the exact opposite? For instance, monthly maintenance renders the beetle impossible to run after 1 month. Many other vehicles suffer similarly from extortionate maitnenance costs.

[Leartin]

Let's start with: Thanks for the compliments.


Honestly, I don't play the game enough to understand the balancing in detail. I'm less subtle - I add more factories on water to increase the use of boats, and make chains like prison and graveyard produce very little to keep road vehicles more attractive, and I play around with silly categories to avoid overwhelming amounts of boring pieced goods...

Which is why I don't do any balancing at all. Flemmbrav does... but I don't think he enjoys it either, hence using a script for auto-balance.

So if you try to apply for a job as balancer, you generally have good chances. Flemm is in charge of the interview process (poor guy is in charge of everything, since his teammates are sooo lazy...)

[raveneer]

I find the exact opposite? For instance, monthly maintenance renders the beetle impossible to run after 1 month. Many other vehicles suffer similarly from extortionate maitnenance costs.

I'm talking about the direction I'm pursuing. In fact, the current game balance is unpredictable. I made a profit of $30,000 a year per truck just by transporting oil to power plants. Therefore, there is a possibility that the balance may not be very uniform across vehicles.

[Oldie]

I'm talking about the direction I'm pursuing. In fact, the current game balance is unpredictable. I made a profit of $30,000 a year per truck just by transporting oil to power plants. Therefore, there is a possibility that the balance may not be very uniform across vehicles.

I don't think that is a balance issue. (and I think you may be referring to "heavy oil" here). There is no concept of chain balancing across the pak (yet). The fact that you and I can make a fair income across the oil-refinery-powerplant is afaik a reasonable opportunity to make "profit" and more power to that. No-one asfik said it had to be communally fair. Simuland doesn't work along generally understood economical ethics. The game is about understanding this, to some extent. No-one yet has proved to me that life is easy. :-)
Notwithstanding that, I have to agree that p192c is moderately "out of balance" in some areas. To me, that is because there are too many "players" and not enough contributors. The game I play is a highly modified pakset in which one of the major changes is the generation of fixedcost per vehicle. It too is not balanced to my satisfaction, but ...
if I may be able to whinge a bit.. the manner in which the game is assigning "monthly maintenance" costs to vehicles is far above onerous, hence the example I mentioned above. But has our honored pakset maintainers got the time to address every vehicle and add a "fixed_cost" parameter?
Anyway, my pakset uses a re-generator for vehicles that uses a bit of black magic to add a fixed cost parameter. The formulator is totally secret but I will say it involves standing on Salisbury Hill at midnight naked and never once thinking of the name Peter Gabriel (whatever). The algorithm will never be published except in my legacy to any of my great grandchildren, so there.
I think I may have have a little lay down now.

[prissi]

Please do not compare balancing to pak128, as that is the worst possible reference. pak128 was never balanced and does not come as default pak for exactly that reason. Costs in pak128 should be treated as random numbers (there were even vehicles with zero or 1 running costs until recently), and trains in pak128 are also killed by the rail maintenance. More (or at least consistently) balanced paksets are pak64, pak64.japan (balanced as very hard), pak64.german (also hard), pak128.german (easy).

Pak192 is not a default pakset because of its size (about 900 MB) which might overwhelm small phones and the downloader over weak lines. For that, a pak192 subset (possibly thoroughly balanced and fewer chains and buildings) would be needed.

[raveneer]

Please do not compare balancing to pak128, as that is the worst possible reference. pak128 was never balanced and does not come as default pak for exactly that reason. Costs in pak128 should be treated as random numbers (there were even vehicles with zero or 1 running costs until recently), and trains in pak128 are also killed by the rail maintenance. More (or at least consistently) balanced paksets are pak64, pak64.japan (balanced as very hard), pak64.german (also hard), pak128.german (easy).

Pak192 is not a default pakset because of its size (about 900 MB) which might overwhelm small phones and the downloader over weak lines. For that, a pak192 subset (possibly thoroughly balanced and fewer chains and buildings) would be needed.

Thank you. I came across Simutrans through Steam, and since only the 128 pack was built in, I thought it was the standard set (which I find quite satisfactory). I will try playing with the 64pack.

I don't think making money should consistently be difficult; this can easily be achieved by imposing penalties in the beginner settings. The point is that certain elements should not eliminate the need for other elements. For instance, if an 80 km/h railway costs $1000 to build and $20 to maintain, while a 70 km/h road costs $9 to build and $2.5 monthly for maintenance, I think there's a clear balance miss. It seems like some zeros are missing.

[Matthew]

I agree that pak192.comic is a really beautiful pack, so great thanks are due to the contributors (especially Flemmbrav and Leartin).

Raveneer, you have made many excellent points. The pakset is unbalanced and you have some good ideas about how to improve it.

You wrote that one of your aims is this:

Trains are more profitable the longer they are organized. (The trailers' fuel efficiency and monthly costs are cheap)

I agree that it would be great if you were able to make the pakset work like that. At the moment, p192c carriages/wagons usually cost more in maintenance than the locomotives. This subverts the usual economics of railway freight operations (and therefore the intuitions of players), which assume that adding a few more wagons to an existing train won't add much cost, though they might slow it down.

One of your balancing aims surprised me:

7. Buses & Bus Stops
City buses cannot make a profit because they are designed to use city roads. They play a role in sending passengers to intercity bus terminals or stations. Therefore, city buses are cheap to purchase, have moderate fuel costs per km, and high monthly maintenance. City buses aim to barely make a profit using small stops and small vehicles. Intercity buses can generate revenue using speed. However, building highways for intercity bus lines results in lower profitability than trains due to maintenance costs.

At the moment, I find that Standard p192c city buses are usually unprofitable. But they feed intercity buses, which are profitable. So it seems that you like the current system and want to continue it. I don't understand why. In real life, city buses are profitable if the city is big enough. They are much, much common than intercity buses; I think this has always been true. And I suspect that city buses are one of the first things new players like to build, because it's easy. In the tutorial, it's the first thing you learn to do. It might be frustrating for new players if the first line they create loses money. But this is only my opinion. If you are kind enough to rebalance the pakset, then your opinion is more important. 

I can mention one thing that might help you. You might be interested in looking at the pak128.Britain-Ex balance spreadsheet. The vehicles and the actual numbers are obviously completely different to p192c, so they are useless. But it does contain some formulae for calculating the cost of vehicle purchase and maintenance based on factors like the engine power and a reasonable guess at how many staff they need. The spreadsheet was used to quickly rebalance the whole pakset using one consistent set of numbers, which appears to be your aim too. So maybe it is a useful tool for you. Or maybe not!

I wish you good luck with this project.

[raveneer]

Thank you for your feedback, Matthew. I think I might have written a bit too long. I have my own thoughts, but I don't want to force them on everyone.

Personally, I want to pursue tight balancing like 128, but as you mentioned, I agree that seeing users disappointed with deficits on city routes is not a user-friendly approach.

First, I am working on adjusting the prices of roads and canals. I am also looking at the prices and speed bonuses (penalties!) of late-game content. As the years go by, the required speed gradually increases, so if the late infrastructure is very expensive, the high profits at the beginning may be reasonable. From the perspective of playing 128, it feels like everything makes more than ten times more money.

I don't want to force users to use certain tools only in specific situations. Rather, I would like there to be no significant imbalance between choices, regardless of what the user chooses.

I don't want to make the overall difficulty of the game higher. To change this, I can use the beginner bonus for penalize transportation prices. I tried this for my play, and as a result, I decided to balance it after seeing that ships and trucks were still making huge profits while trains could not get out of deficits.

Even after balancing, users should be able to make a lot of money as they did before. (But how...?)

I will refer to the Excel you provided. Thank you again.

[TurfIt]

A quick note as I've not really played p192c at all, but I note it does use 'pay_for_total_distance = 2'
This will generally make city buses show as unprofitable as they transport pax away from their destination toward transfer halts and incur negative income from that. Many paks also don't seem to provide suitable buses balanced for the 50km/h limit in town. i.e. When the speedbonus base speed goes up, a new vehicle needs to be provided that can still profit at 50km/h.

Also, IMHO paks should be unique, not just in looks, but gameplay. If they're all balanced the same, they play the same.  Pak128 used to be quite unique with rather low production rates, then it was changed, and now plays the same as pak64 excepting a little less excessive money. It's still 2-3x too profitable IMO, but the steam forums seem full of those that think it's too hard so....

[raveneer]

I am continuously analyzing the balance and checking the late-game balance (2040, 19bits).

I used the monstrous Trevago bus that can carry as many as 94 people and travel at 140 km/h.

The vehicle feels very inexpensive compared to its introduction time, speed, and transport capacity.






First, I calculated the costs before using the road as follows:

Total cost = Fuel cost (price per tile * monthly distance traveled) + Fixed costs (monthly usage fee + monthly depreciation of vehicle value) + Road usage fee.

Note: In Simutrans, the vehicle's cost per km is actually per tile. It shows the distance you can drive in a month at 100 km/h for passenger cost calculations, but this is separate from the cost per km. I know it's confusing, haha.

The results are quite interesting. The road usage fee significantly worsens profitability on intercity buses at high speeds, showing a much more discerning balance than I anticipated (wow!).





Players need to secure a very busy line if they want to make a meaningful income (5% monthly) with buses in the late game.

Normally, city buses can't reach such speeds due to urban speed limits, making it difficult to profit, but the story changes if they use public roads in the city.

However, the road usage fee from the Comic 192 pack is excessively cheap before 100 km/h, and industrial transport without a speed bonus runs fine even at 80 km/h. It seems necessary to have a proportional correlation between road usage fees and speed. I'm thinking about doing some calculations for roads for industry.


P.S.: The DAT file does not include a monthly usage fee, so how exactly did you manage to add it? I need that formula and method! Given that the actual price of the vehicle is cheaper than what's listed in the DAT, I suspect that you might have divided the total price listed in the DAT into the purchase price and a fixed monthly usage fee...

[Leartin]

P.S.: The DAT file does not include a monthly usage fee, so how exactly did you manage to add it? I need that formula and method!

As Flemm said, there is a script on github that recalculates vehicles. I'm only on my phone, I'm sure you can find it.

[Flemmbrav]

So, before I'll try to answer the whole thing, let me link you the file that calculates the vehicle values:

https://github.com/Flemmbrav/Pak192.Comic/blob/Standard/DatConverter.sh

Of course, documentation lacks a bit, and it really should have an overhaul. Basically the reason I didn't do a proper documentation yet.
In line 298 the fun starts.

[raveneer]

So, before I'll try to answer the whole thing, let me link you the file that calculates the vehicle values:

https://github.com/Flemmbrav/Pak192.Comic/blob/Standard/DatConverter.sh

Of course, documentation lacks a bit, and it really should have an overhaul. Basically the reason I didn't do a proper documentation yet.
In line 298 the fun starts.

Thank you. I found a number mismatch between DAT and PAK, so I checked GitHub and found scripts that change prices and add fixed prices. So... it looks like fixed prices are used for balancing. But... magic code does magic, right?

[Flemmbrav]

What haven't happened in the past years is anyone looking into infrastructure costs.
Mostly ways are priced in relative to other ways of the same kind.
Tracks should more or less feel consistent to other tracks.
Bridges should be more expensive than flat ways, and less expensive than tunnels.
And we once fixed a bug where a road tunnel with a tram track on it would be cheaper than a narrow gauge tunnel.
But that's about it.
So the ocean is blue here.


Stations just cost what stations cost by capacity, there really haven't been any work done in that regard either.


I personally don't really have an opinion on the return rate. I think it should be, that the player consumes the initial money with their first build, optimise that, and then should not have to wait for ages to be able to build things again. But I can't say that it should take X months etc. to regain some capital again.

[Flemmbrav]

Thank you. I found a number mismatch between DAT and PAK, so I checked GitHub and found scripts that change prices and add fixed prices. So... it looks like fixed prices are used for balancing. But... magic code does magic, right?

Magic code does more or less magic, yes.

The pricing script basically just calculates the possible income per tile, multiplies it with the speed, has some factors for this and that, and then writes these numbers with another factor to the monthly costs, the costs per tile and the loading time.

Mind that there is an "income" for power output as well as there are generic goods for the good categories, so there's no guessing game.

The good thing of that magic is that changing values becomes incredibly easy, as only the script has to be changed.

[raveneer]

I think it should be, that the player consumes the initial money with their first build, optimise that, and then should not have to wait for ages to be able to build things again. But I can't say that it should take X months etc. to regain some capital again.

I agree with your opinion that users should not have to wait too long after building. However, Simutrans' economic system grants unlimited loans as long as the player's net assets are positive.

I reverse-engineered the depreciation system of pak192 and found that there's a flat depreciation of about 0.03% per month. Furthermore, operating boats doesn't require much infrastructure (although some canal building is needed, the maintenance cost of canals is very low...). As a result, users can immediately purchase dozens or hundreds of vehicles with the $5 million provided at the start of the game, as long as the vehicle earns more than its monthly depreciation (just keep pumping out oil...).

For example, take the monstrous Dragon oil tanker. I'm at a loss on how to balance it when this beast, running at 30km/h and carrying 1000 tons of oil, generates an absurd monthly income of $70,000, especially when it costs $930k.

This is where the fundamental difference between the economies of pak128 and pak192 arises. In pak128, a 15% depreciation occurs immediately after purchase, so if a user buys 10 Dragons in the first month of the game, it's game over in three months because they lose about $150k in total assets with each purchase! Therefore, users must generate profits, and they can't invest in anything else until they've recovered the lost $150k. Users should 'invest' wisely.

However, because pak192 has flat depreciation... Even with just $5 million, you could buy about 20+ units, retire a few idle Dragons within the month, and not lose more than $10k. And a Dragon filled with oil pumping $70k per month. Why buy Nvidia stock? Invest in Dragon shipping! This isn't just about growing faster than in pak128; it means you can grow at every moment because users buy $3 million planes on credit. (Since you get back 99% even if you resell it after one ride.) to me this is not looks like 'investment'. because there is no 'risk'.



(up-128, down-192 comic)

The concept of a fixed price per month is interesting, but upon reflection, it's merely part of depreciation. However, there's the advantage of simulating different rates of depreciation for different vehicles.

also I believe that the reason user do not get any money back when demolishing roads and buildings in Simutrans is to implement this concept of sunk costs.

I wish we could bring over pak128's depreciation system. However, if that feels like it undermines the uniqueness between the packs, it seems necessary to significantly increase the cost of infrastructure. Additionally, the prices of vehicles and ships, or the fixed prices, might need to be increased several-fold.


It may sound extreme, but I experimented with setting the construction cost of canals at ten thousand dollars per tile and a monthly expenditure of $500, and quadrupling the price of the Dragon, but it still did not resolve the issue. This adjustment would reduce the Dragon's monthly income to about $20,000. So, should a user wait 200 months to reinvest because the purchase price of the Dragon is $4 million? No! The income mentioned above is the 'net asset increase' after depreciation! Users were able to purchase vehicles immediately.

in pak192, because there are no major sunk costs in investments, the faster the user's hands, the exponentially more money they can make...

[Flemmbrav]

Alright, let's move on to the balancing list with the nine bullet points:

0. The pak is easy to play because a lot of people expected a comic pak to be easy to play and complained / became frustrated with it being tough to play. Thus I made it easier to play over time.

1. Coal traditionally has the role as easy starting industry as it's just a two point path. As we have things like the farmers market now, that might be a thing to change.
Narrow Gauge should not play a role here, as transport volumes are high. I think coal is the perfect industry for railway transport. Although the current numbers of the coal power plants are a bit too high. Oil seems quite similar, maybe with better numbers on the factories right now.

2. Tiers should be a thing already. One important thing here is that not always the company transporting the iron is to be the very same company to transport the cars, and that all these companies should be able to do proper profit enabling network games with split maps. Thus, tiers can't be too significant.

3. Road & Truck Stations: I like the idea of having to bait the public hand to build roads for the player. I'm not exactly sure which values would be right, but making roads more expensive seems like a good idea.

4. Trucks: I think adding some virtual speed in the running cost and loading time calculation process might be good here. I'd try that out before cutting purchasing costs.

7. Busses & Bus Stops: Imho it is important that city busses can make a profit. This is actually a feature of this pakset. We have dedicated 50kph busses that are supposed to run on small profits within a city. This is because a lot of newer player see red numbers on really any vehicle as a bad thing. Profits by city busses also don't exactly make you rich, so I think this is something we already have a pretty good base as is. Intercity busses result from the changes to trucks and roads.

6. Trains: The high purchase costs would only be high compared to trucks I suppose? Thus I'd try the other changes first and try that later.

8 & 9. Trams and Ships: I agree and think we'd be good changing infrastructure costs here.

10 Airplanes: have you tried the airplanes? I think the loading times already are quite long. Making the maintenance of the stops expensive sounds like a good idea, but keep in mind that airplanes offer a very wide range of capacity and speed making them hard to price.

11. Electric Railways: I think this works really well at the moment. Diesel and Steam costs around 25% more than Electric power, and the catenary is around 10% of the way costs.

12. Narrow Gauge: The current idea here is to offer lower capacities than normal trains for cheaper ways. I'd keep it that way to make a good difference to road vehicles. The capacity distinguishes enough from standard rail.

[Flemmbrav]

I find the exact opposite? For instance, monthly maintenance renders the beetle impossible to run after 1 month. Many other vehicles suffer similarly from extortionate maitnenance costs.

The beetle is not supposed to finance itself, it should run in addition to at least one of the trucks to render profit.

[Flemmbrav]

Pak192 is not a default pakset because of its size (about 900 MB) which might overwhelm small phones and the downloader over weak lines. For that, a pak192 subset (possibly thoroughly balanced and fewer chains and buildings) would be needed.

I started that and went a bit overboard by giving every object a new name etc.
But it ain't forgotten and will be a thing one day! I promise. You can see the current state of things here: https://github.com/Flemmbrav/Pak.Basic

[Flemmbrav]

This is where the fundamental difference between the economies of pak128 and pak192 arises. In pak128, a 15% depreciation occurs immediately after purchase, so if a user buys 10 Dragons in the first month of the game, it's game over in three months because they lose about $150k in total assets with each purchase! Therefore, users must generate profits, and they can't invest in anything else until they've recovered the lost $150k. Users cannot grow quickly.

in pak192, because there are no major sunk costs in investments, the faster the user's hands, the exponentially more money they can make...

While I don't know how to add these 15% depreciation, I'm totally down to adding something there. Maybe not that much? 5% or so?
Sometimes I'm glad there's no such thing as that makes trying trains in the depot expensive, but I totally see your point there.

[Flemmbrav]

You wrote that one of your aims is this:I agree that it would be great if you were able to make the pakset work like that. At the moment, p192c carriages/wagons usually cost more in maintenance than the locomotives. This subverts the usual economics of railway freight operations (and therefore the intuitions of players), which assume that adding a few more wagons to an existing train won't add much cost, though they might slow it down.

This is on purpose as people used to think "I buy Loco X, so I need Y wagons for it" and that made the game very much non-diverse looking. Now people should be forced to form the train based on demand, which leads to a more diverse game.

[RESTRICTED ACCOUNT]

I've always wanted to see a table like this in a game...
Of course with sorting and filters.
Compare many vehicles at the same time, that's what's important. Not from a pakset developer's point of view, but from a player's point of view.

[raveneer]

I've always wanted to see a table like this in a game...
Of course with sorting and filters.
Compare many vehicles at the same time, that's what's important. Not from a pakset developer's point of view, but from a player's point of view.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/st-mass-dat/
sadly it does not have filter 

anyway, we can see the price calculated with carrying per km. I think later vehicle should have more price. because speed makes more money per carrying. (and user getting richer by time)

[makie]

I've always wanted to see a table like this

https://makie.de/translator/script/pakset_info.php?vers=85&obj_auw=vehicle&obj_sub=track

sadly this is the content of the .dat and not result of the script
for this the modified .dat should upload

[raveneer]

2. Tiers should be a thing already. One important thing here is that not always the company transporting the iron is to be the very same company to transport the cars, and that all these companies should be able to do proper profit enabling network games with split maps. Thus, tiers can't be too significant.

Thank you. Your answer helped me understand that this pack is balanced with multiplayer in mind. If multiple people manage different supply chains, the existence of various industries does not complicate the gameplay. I have only played in single-player mode, so I was a bit overwhelmed by the vast array of industries in the comic pack. The balance between multiplayer and single-player should be different, as the focus in competitive and cooperative play isn't necessarily on how much more one vehicle can earn, but rather on the differences between you and your competitors.

I will try to balance it for single-player (maybe) sub set version. I am learning a lot from analyzing with the comic 192 pack. I respect the inspiring work you and your team have created.

[Flemmbrav]

I think it's best to aim for a viable compromise for both. There already are too many versions of this pakset, adding a single player option would not exactly be what I'd want to do.

By the way, I did some updates on the way costs and the vehicle costs of road and river vehicles.
It'd be awesome if you could take a look at the newest nightly of the pak and see if it's a step in the right direction.

https://github.com/Flemmbrav/Pak192.Comic/releases/tag/Nightly

[raveneer]

Thank you for the quick update! I have done some calculations and tests, but the road toll values are coming out very high, which is confusing. I am testing this solo and have routed through the city to save on road tolls, but it seems I am paying excessive tolls to the public player.

also I could see too many version at link. I understand you. 




I saw on GitHub that road toll values were added. It seems to be creating some synergy with the increase in user road tolls. (How many times the maintenance cost have to pay for the road toll?)

It seems a bit odd that the monthly usage fee for roads is higher than the installation cost. How about raising the installation cost as well? The impact of the installation cost on a user's assets is minimal compared to the usage fee (unless it's as expensive as a canal).

A 5% reduction feels quite low. Shouldn't it be at least 10%?
With this modification, the profitability of trucks seems to have decreased significantly. I think a comparative analysis with trains and ships is necessary. I will post the test results tomorrow.

[TurfIt]

While I don't know how to add these 15% depreciation, I'm totally down to adding something there. Maybe not that much? 5% or so?

This is the parameter:

Code Select Expand

# vehicle can loose a part of their value, when the are once used
# the loss is given in 1/1000th, i.e 300 mean the value will be 70%
used_vehicle_reduction = 0
P192c is not specifying -> default = 0.  Pak128 = 150.

Sometimes I'm glad there's no such thing as that makes trying trains in the depot expensive, but I totally see your point there.

The reduction only takes effect when the vehicle leaves the depot, or at month end. You can buy and sell within the month freely while you 'play' with a convoi configuration in the depot, just don't press 'start'.

[raveneer]

I have an idea that might seem a bit extreme, but I'll share it anyway.

The actual amount invested by the user is not the purchase price of the vehicle but the vehicle price * reduction rate.

In a very profitable game(like comic 192), it might be possible to play with a reduction rate set at 100. This would make vehicle purchases more cautious. While this may go against sense, it could potentially make the game more interesting.

- Users would lose exactly that amount from their total assets when they purchase a vehicle.
This would allow for clearer gameplay. If the text at the bottom of the screen turns red, it means the game is over! (because the assets are always at zero)

- Most vehicles can earn a lot of money without problems, making balancing also easier. All you need to do is calculate how much money each vehicle makes relative to its purchase price each month.

- However, buying the wrong vehicle could lead directly to game over, so it would be necessary to provide more initial funds. I think it would be no problem to double the current initial funds. (10m)


It's a risky idea to implement, but it might differentiate it from other packs and lead to lighter gameplay. This clarity might also prove to be an advantage in multiplayer game.

[Leartin]

If the text at the bottom of the screen turns red, it means the game is over!

Since I'm a fan of this, I requested a setting to get this a while ago, which simply changes what's displayed there. I wasn't aware that this is not yet used in p192c by default! But anyway, no extreme reduction required for this.

[raveneer]

Since I'm a fan of this, I requested a setting to get this a while ago, which simply changes what's displayed there. I wasn't aware that this is not yet used in p192c by default! But anyway, no extreme reduction required for this.

After starting the game with a reduction = 1000 and purchasing 10 oil tankers, the game ends after 3 months. (Of course, the screen displays 'You are bankrupt!' and you can continue to play, but this is a problem with the game itself. In reality, it is a game-ending condition and notification.)

[raveneer]

this is final report and propose of balancing rev 1246 Comic nightlty.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(in short)

After comparing the balance of each transport type, I propose the following adjustments for the nightly 1246 version:

1. Increase the installation cost of roads to five times the current amount please (excluding bridges and elevated roads). (ex: 100km highway 320 -> 1500$)

2. Triple the current cost per km for road vehicles.

3. Double the current monthly cost for road vehicles.

that's all!


Below is the rationale for my proposal.




----------------------------------------------------------------------

The calculations below have been verified through actual gameplay to be within a 20% margin of error.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z6gxRbb5CyxNpGkt8MNJJ-95ottM2EetBythbfD1TpE/edit?usp=sharing



- Train : in the 1246 version are profitable but still less so than trucks. As trains are backbone of the game, I compared other options based on the current trains.

- truck : it shows very high profit, but anyway I focused with balance of transport types.

- ship : In 1246, ships incur low canal maintenance but require less infrastructure, providing a slow but stable income compared to trucks and trains. They are not suitable for early-game due to their lower profitability and higher investment costs. In a typical scenario of transporting oil from an oil field to a refinery, deploying 5 ships turns profitable after 7 months. Because they require little infrastructure, even operating just one ship is slow but does not lose money. (Assuming only 5% of the route involves canals.)
Additionally, due to the canal speed limit of 25km/h and ship loading time penalties, the actual transport volume is about 70% of the displayed figure.

Investing in 10 oil tankers and installing about 20 canals results in a monthly profit of 320k from an 800k investment. Boosting a refinery to increase production fivefold involves an investment of 2.7m for 50 ships, generating a monthly income of 1.6m. While extreme, this scenario is feasible as ships do not cause congestion at ports, unlike trucks or trains, which can become paralyzed by congestion if 100 are operated on a single line. Given this convenience, the lower profitability of ships compared to other transport modes seems justified, especially as they provide a small but consistent income.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary:

1. Expected monthly revenue from a route investing 1m$ in raw materials transportation like coal/oil:
Truck: return 1.5m$ / month
Train: return 1.2m$ / month
Ship: return 0.5m$ / month

2. Vehicle profitability excluding infrastructure:
Truck: 401%
Train: 306%
Ship: 191%

3. Cost of transporting 1 ton 1 km:
Truck: $0.000035
Train: $0.000027
Ship: $0.000077

4. Fixed cost per buying price:
Truck: 3.3%
Train: 5.8%
Ship: 4.8%



I believe the profitability should be train > truck > ship.

This is because trains are the most complex to build and require extensive infrastructure.
Also, trucks currently have very good fuel efficiency, and their fixed price is about 50% of that of trains. it needs to be higher than trains. Because road vehicles require frequent maintenance and naturally have poor fuel efficiency (the reason of railways!).





----------------------------------------------------------------------

After my proposal (top of this text), the profitability will be as follows:

Train > Truck => Ship


However, when trucks utilize public roads or share loads with other trucks, their profitability is higher than ships but little lower than trains.

I believe even after balance, 192 comic will still be very profitable, so there should be no significant complaints from players. However, the balance among the three transport modes will enhance the enjoyment of choice.

I will check the balance by vehicle/type/year in the next version. will be huge work!

Personally, I think the game should become much, much harder. but that can be adjusted by the player(me) without modifying the pak through beginner bonuses and reduction rates.

Thanks for reading.