Idea for next version.

[inkelyad]

Introduce loading/unloading throughput per cargo type for station tiles. That way we can have:
1) Longer platforms will be load/unload faster
2) Goods sliding/Goods sliding with Crane/Bulk goods loading tower/etc difference will not be purely cosmetic.
3) Ship transport will not be so cheat-like (no traffic jams, unlimited convoy capacity) as now.

[paco_m]

Great ideas, especially the ship transport - it is awful to see the ships going through each other and being stapled at the harbour. A behaviour like street vehicles, avoiding to occupy the same tile would be nice..

the problem might be the rivers and channels where you can't pass without going through the other ship,
maybe navigable rivers could have a width of 2 tiles?

[inkelyad]

Great ideas, especially the ship transport - it is awful to see the ships going through each other and being stapled at the harbour.

'ships going through each other' -- it is normal. It make difference between river and road. 'Being stapled' can be fixed, but I think loading/unloading throughput is better solution.

[rsdworker]

for longer platforms - you can add the platform to road or rail - its already in as current

[inkelyad]

for longer platforms - you can add the platform to road or rail - its already in as current

Said platform will load faster after that?

For example:
4x6t convoy should be loaded faster then 2x12t convoy (on the same plaform).

[jamespetts]

Hmm, I am not sure that I fully understand this - apologies for being slow. Are we talking about platform lengths for trains here? Surely, any platform length in excess of the length of the train makes no difference, and, if the platform is shorter than the train, the current Simutrans behaviour is not to load the parts of the train that are not opposite the platform at all? Or am I missing something...?

[inkelyad]

Now load speed is not depends on platform tiles at all. One passenger-enabled per halt allow load/unload passenger on all platforms -- even 'bulk-load only'. And there is no difference in load speed between 'Goods sliding' and 'Bulk goods loading tower'.

Plaform lenght:
More tiles used -> more loading equipment -> loading should be faster.

[jamespetts]

Hmm - but the more tiles will only actually be used if the train is long enough to occupy all those tiles, surely...?

[inkelyad]

Yes. And bulk loading tower next to current platform should mean nothing.
It is main problem. Right now loading/unloading know almost nothing about platforms.

[jamespetts]

How, in code terms, would you propose to detect which bit of a station/stop that a vehicle is using?

[inkelyad]

I don't know yet.
Current idea is:

haltestelle_t::recalc_station_type should calculate somethig like koord->platform map
and then we use it at beginning of convoi_t::hat_gehalten

[jamespetts]

Hmm. What .dat file parameters do you think that this would involve adding?

[inkelyad]

'load_throughput[good_type]' in station tiles.
or just capacity define throughput via some global multiplier.

EDIT:
Or reuse 'level' for that and share throughput between all goods types (It have some kind of sense to do it).

[jamespetts]

Hmm, interesting ideas. I must confess, I'm rather busy at the moment and haven't had a great time to think this through carefully. This is probably something to consider for 10.x rather than 9.x, however. I'd be interested in others' feedback in the meanwhile. Thank you for your suggestion :-)

[Spike]

I like the proposal. Particularly for freight stations, the loading equipment of the station can influence the loading time for vehicles.

So a "plain" freight station might work at "normal" loading speed, and if you add a crane or other special building it will be able to load/unload vehicles faster.

Maybe even more interesting for harbors than for train stations. But in general I like the idea to let the player influence the loading time.

[wlindley]

Perhaps the "bulk goods loading tower" could have parameters that increase goods revenue and/or reduce loading time by, say, 20% (these would be cumulative; five of them would reduce loading time to .8^5 = 33%, not zero).

And correspondingly the maintenance cost would be, say, double?

Post offices the same way for mail, and if we had hotels/restaurants they could multiply passenger revenue and decrease loading time similarly.  And again cumulatively, if a restaurant increases passenger revenue by 20%, then five of them would give you 1.2^5 = 2.5 times the revenue.

Probably the game should ignore more than five of one type of such Platform Improvement.

[inkelyad]

Perhaps the "bulk goods loading tower" could have parameters that increase goods revenue and/or reduce loading time by, say, 20% (these would be cumulative; five of them would reduce loading time to .8^5 = 33%, not zero).

It is a bit too much. It must be simple:
Goods sliding can load 1000t per month VS Bulk goods loading tower can load 10000t per month.

...if we had hotels/restaurants they could multiply passenger revenue and decrease loading time similarly.  And again cumulatively, if a restaurant increases passenger revenue by 20%, then five of them would give you 1.2^5 = 2.5 times the revenue.

Restaurants: there is no need to touch revenue. Just make 'restaurants' industry chain.
Hotels: Extension building. It should increase 'storage capacity' for passengers. Not decrease loading time. We will have advanced platform tiles for that.

[paco_m]

Well, my idea is a simple capacity check - for example each harbour platform adds 100tons, when I have 6 platforms built I could load a 600tons ship or two 300t at once, the rest have to wait. If the ships capacity is higher than the harbours same behaviour as on train station that don't have the required length, it loads until the harbour limit is reached.
For that the loading time should be increased significantly and depend on the loaded capacity, special buildings to increase the speedare an additional option. So far me ideas to limit the harbour throughput and motivate the players to make them larger than just one tile for other reasons than only eyecandy.

For passengers the same would be aplicable, maybe 250 pax per platform...

[inkelyad]

First version of patch done

[paco_m]

Is it possible to split water into ocean and rivers (rivers and channels) and force for the rivers a more road-like behaviour,
with one ship after the other (using length definition of vehicles + some space between them) ?
Most paks already have their river ships aligned to move at one side of the river/channel (for example going up right and going down right) and permit crossings of ships that are going the other way in a graphically fine way

Also I think that the rivers and channels in their system are more similiar to roads as to oceans.

[inkelyad]

It is possible,  but i don't want it. That way rivers will be just fancy roads. There must be difference between them. Anyway, this version is based on my earlier patch 'loading_queue' so ships should be loaded one after another and spread(somewhat) along the river because of it.