switchyard

[Roads]

After driving everyone nuts about the train icons (I had a motive and here it is), I've come to the conclusion the game does not have a switchyard.  What I'm talking about is this situation.  You have a train running from an oilfield to a refinery.  At least you better have because if you use a truck you know what?  You will go broke while the refinery workers are outside on the platform smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and waiting for the petrol truck.  At least that's what I would be doing, but I digress.

The thing is I have a lot of plastic at that refinery and it needs to go a long way to an Electronics plant.  I already have rail about 2/3rds way to plant.  Now if I just had a switchyard where cars could be stored, I could use the train on about every third trip from the refinery to pick up the plastic.  I could drop it off at the oil field, pick it up there with my iron ore train and drop it off at the steel mill loading bay.  The trucks could pick it up there.

Maybe this is something I can already do but just haven't figured out how.  It looks like to me I will have take my train back to the depot to switch cars.

[vilvoh]

From Denied Extension Requests - Will never happen

Denied for complexity reasons (these changes would take so long to implement -and would break so many parts of the program- that the reward would not be worth the time invested)
Disassembling and reassembling of trains (or other convoys) outside of depots, e.g. at a switching yard station

The only solution I see is planning the rail network in a different way..

[Roads]

Thanks for the reply Vilvoh.  The original Railroad Tycoon has that capability and I have been hoping for many years to see it in another game.  It is beyond me why the sequels to RT1 did not incorporate it, perhaps for the reason given in your quote.  It is strange though that a game that is approaching 20 years old has more capability than what you see now.

[Lodovico]

Roads,
Simutrans works in another way.
For each type of cargo you have to keep each train.
So, you have to have one train for oil and one train for platic in your rafinery.

http://www.akrangard.cz/simutrans/pic/wait-m.pn

[Roads]

Yes Lodovico I understand that.  It is the way RT2, RT3, etc. all work.

It is the obvious and simple way to do it.  It is not the way the real world works or the most efficient or thoughtful way to do it.  I am somewhat skeptical of using real world examples for a game because after all, games often need to be different to be interesting.  Still it is a striking example when you think about needing a separate train for every good that is shipped every day.

[vilvoh]

Well, you can build mixed convoys (different freights or freights-passengers) It basically dependends on the type of stations you build on the stops. In some parts of the route, it may go half full but I think it's the only way to manage several freights in the same convoy.

Other possible solution is to send it to the depot, change the wagons config and give it the other route. The thing is that you have to repeat this action every time you want to change from a freight to another. I don't know if the cost will be less than buying two different convoys, with one of them iddle.

[Lodovico]

I have been thinking about switchyards, too.
The problem is in a level of simulated reality.
Real is to switch wagons, real is that every station is full of waiting wagons that have to be repeatedly mixed to various trains.

In Simutrans, I think, you cannot do that. Such a switching yard would have a size bigger that a medium city in a game.
Simutrans uses tile approach, one tile is one house, one piece of platform for two cars or one engine. Every bridge and tunnel
must have at least three tiles. It is a simulation and no one cannot imagine that the shortest tunnel has a lenght 3 kms.

I visited the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg.  About 700 trains, over 10,000 wagons, 4,000 cars need a staff of 33 computers
and least 3 persons at control post and another persons ready to solve failures and accidents.
Even they do not use switchyards.

Just try to make a concept of real simulated world with real traffic.
Work for real demigod. 

[Roads]

You know Vilvoh I have considered doing it manually the way you talk about.  I just wonder how much it costs to store cars at the depot.

[Lodovico]

In a fairly developed game you do no ask "how much it costs to store cars at the depot".

Once upon a time I tryied to use only ONE depot for a whole map. 
It was very nice untill the number of trains and stations reached few hundreds.
After that it changed to a very hard work.

[Roads]

Well Lodivico you certainly gave the idea some perspective of the scope.  Just for the sake of argument, what about this?  You would not necessarily have a switchyard at every industry or town.  Since I assume they would be expensive, you might have just a couple in places you needed them most.  Strategic location.  Strategy.

[Roads]

Ahh yes Lodivico your point is well taken for a game of that size.  I just prefer smaller games, I like trees.

[VS]

One problem is redistribution of cars.

Before going into the depths, let's preface this whole argument by one simple statement: reuse and sharing is cheaper than duplication (in Simutrans). This means, sharing a track between more train lines -> good. Same for trucks... and so on. Naturally this is true for even for parts of trains, so reusing capacity of a train is good, too. And while we're at it, reusing the loco, which provides almost all characteristics of train except or capacity, is not bad -> shunting etc. as you want.

Let's say that shunting is possible. You move oil from pumps to refinery, then take plastics to a factory, and finally return for some oil again, since you want to reuse your train as much as possible. You need a bunch of oil tankers and some goods cars. Now how does the car switching work? I see two possibilities:

a) The loco, representing a "train", must move to a shunting yard and come back with new wagons.

b) The switching yard is part of station.

In RT1 (and 2, no idea about 3) all cars were "virtual", and you could dump them anywhere you wanted and take others. No restrictions. This is the significant difference from Simutrans, which makes the whole model a lot more complicated.

First, with (a), the train must move some distance and has higher running cost.

Second: in (b), cars needed to move the actual cargo are transported with the cargo, so to say. They are needed only for one way trip, which means they accumulate at some place and are needed at another. This calls for another train, moving them back.

So... in both cases, you have some extra costs, because of this fundamental difference. The question is, does the additional profit, caused by better use of loco, overweight the additional costs?

IMHO in (a) no, but (b) could work, if the engines used to move empty cars were significantly weaker. But then they would need additional track network, with slower traffic. Which means more infrastructure and more maintenance...



I'm not saying this is the only possible view, or that these changes necessarily lead any operation to red numbers. I may be completely wrong...

[Roads]

Yes VS I agree that I did not like how the cars (wagons, I see most are calling them) in RT1 were readily available at any station and at no cost.  That is one of the things I did not like about RT1.  I agree you should have to move the empty cars from one location to another. However I see no reason you couldn't move empty cars with your loaded ones.  It is not a problem it is an opportunity for more planning.

Since we are talking about the things we didn't like about RT1, let me point out one that I absolutely hated about RT1 and love about Simutrans.  In RT1 very often when you got a complex trip going (and cattle ranches were infamous for this), the industry would disappear.  Also I did not like how much of the cities turned into slums after they got big.  RE:  punishment for doing a good job.

[Roads]

OK fellas I've done some testing with switching wagons manually.  It worked better than I expected.  You can place the depot in your schedule and when the train gets to that point it will go there.  Not only will it go there but it will notify you when it arrives! 

[DirrrtyDirk]

Yes, that might work as long as you only have a few (rather slow) trains. Once you have several dozen trains running with a little more speed, you'll probably discard this method quickly.

[prissi]

IF you always have this problem, then attach some plastic cars to the train, Either them or those tanker will be filled. Or wait, until somebody programs usable container cars ...

[vilvoh]

What do you exactly mean with usable container cars? Perhaps something like a wagon that supports all kinds of goods that exist in Simutrans? If so, that's easy to solve..

[Roads]

Yep Dirk it would be too much trouble for a big game.  Still I'm playing with it and using it sparingly.  As I said before I like little games and I'm trying to see if I can make my transportation system profitable without making this really beautiful map into a sprawling metropolis.

Ah Prissi, there is no problem.  This is the best thing I've encountered in a long time, maybe ever.  I absolutely love the way the game looks, how the cities look and the way they grow.  I love the stats about the cities.  I love that you can name them.  Most of all I love how robust the game is with all the options that are available.  I could go on about how you can transfer goods from one mode of transportation to another but I'm sure you get the picture.