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Road maintenance costs

Started by emperon, September 09, 2010, 09:26:31 AM

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emperon

Thanks also please check the road - rail maintenance costs. It's just too high, in 24 bit time mode, 1 tile's road's construction cost is lower than it's maintenance cost (technically it means reconstructing the road everymonth is cheaper than building it from scratch

Mod note: Topic split from this topic on vehicle costs,

AvG

Basic vision for the roads: the higher the price the higher the speed but lower maintenance.
I am experimenting now with almost no existing road at the start.
The idea behind this is that your company is paying no taxes, but has to invest in its own roads, rail,etc.
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ӔO

roads that are used often by heavy lorries are the most maintenance intensive, but this can be reflected in the maintenance cost of the vehicle.
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AvG

That is a possebility. I think however that this would be the best solution if the government would be responsible for road-maintenance. You have sort of toll-ways thatway.
At present in my Italy-scenario there are in 1750 no roads at all, so you have to build them yourself.
In 21-bits mode you can build : cart-road cost 1Cr, maint. 0,32Cr, max V 10km/h max 10t.
That is alltogether very cheap but also such a bunch off limitations that you are urged to improve the roads.
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emperon

In 21-bits mode you can build : cart-road cost 1Cr, maint. 0,32Cr, max V 10km/h max 10t.

So monthly cost is 1/3rd of contruction cost ? That doesn't make sense . It's too much

AvG

Cheaper is not possible. In the dat-file you can not enter a smaller figure than 1. This is maintenance in Cr-cent per tile.
James recommends to play EXP in 4 tiles/km >>> maintenance 4 Cr-cent/km
21-bits mode multiply maint. by 8 >>>> 32 >>  0,32 Cr/km
So the alternitive is 0 maintenance.
IMHO maintenance of 0,08 Cr/tile is so little that you can copy with it.
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jamespetts

24 bits per month is a very high value: time will pass exceedingly slowly at that setting. Even 21 bits is slow. At any value of road maintenance cost other than zero, it will be possible to make the monthly maintenance cost exceed the purchase cost at a sufficiently high bits per month setting. The pakset therefore needs to be calibrated to a particular bits per month setting. Bear in mind that, with each increment of the bits per month value of 1 (the default value being 18), the real-world time that has to pass for any given unit of game time to pass doubles. All monthly costs equally double to compensate.

If the road maintenance costs are still a significant proportion of the construction costs even at a sane bits per month setting, then the alternative to reducing the maintenance cost is to increase the construction cost. Which of the two is the right thing to do if that is the case will depend on a very thorough and lengthy investigation of the correct calibration and balancing of all costs and revenues compared to each other which is an exercise that will have to be undertaken some time in the future, but not before the next code and pakset releases.

In respect of the discussions about the involvement of the public player, that's another matter entirely. Per use road tolls would require a very significant change to the code that would probably not be justified by the usefulness of this feature: toll roads are not common in reality, especially in an urban setting. There is nothing to stop players, as things stand now, building roads as the public player in any event, of course.

One long-term plan that I have had in mind for Experimental for a while, relating to the possibility of network multi-player games, is to allow the public service to levy general taxes both on players (as a percentage of profits) and on towns (which would reduce their rate of growth but yield revenue proportionate to the population), which would be the public service player's means of raising funds. In reality, it is more common for roads to be funded by general taxation of that sort than a pay-per-use model, and the latter will be very difficult to implement in the code in any event.
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ӔO

if you want to go further with the taxation idea, there can also be amount deducted from your profits to fund employee benefits and training. Happier, well trained employees reflect better on the service of your system, which would make your system more desirable to use than a competitor with less happy employees.

If you've ever had to deal with a public transportation strike, that would be a fine example of rock bottom unhappy.
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AvG

James,
Thanks for your answer, but why are you talking about 24-bits per month?
I am only talking about 21-bits per month. why 21? It gives me (by experience) just enough time to control the scenario without having to pause often.
When needed I can accelerate.
All buildings, factories, etc will be accordingly.
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jamespetts

AvG,

I was referring to 24 bits per month because that was the value to which the OP referred. I'm currently experimenting with different settings: at 20 bits per month, a year takes a great many hours to pass, and so is not ideal. 19 seems to be a good balance for now.
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AOE,
I do NOT want to think about taxation etc.; I only mentioned it as a possibility.
I try to use only ideas that:
-fit in the existing code.
-add to realism
-add to playability and fun

With respect to the maint. of the cart-road I can only say that 0,01 Crcent/tile is not a problem IN THE GAME.
If the average player consider it as a problem I can even use (if possible) maintenance 0.
By cart-road is meant, the trail you get if a horse+wagon is running a couple of times exactly the same way on a part of the country.
In reality there is not realy building or something like that involved.
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James,
Thanks again, but WTH is meant by OP?
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jamespetts

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OK, thank you James.
Did not realize that AEO started this thread.
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jamespetts

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ӔO

I didn't start this thread :)
I was just adding on some thoughts to previous posts, that I probably should have quoted for clarity.
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