[10.9] more convoy spacing peculiarities

[ӔO]

can someone confirm if they only get around 1/4 of the shown waiting time when using 12/mo?

With 3:12:00 per month, at 8/mo, I get a proper 24:00 waiting time, but when I use 12/mo I suddenly start to get around 4:00 waiting time, when the listed time is 15:59.

[Carl]

FWIW I think this (excellent) feature works exactly as intended. Here's how I understand it:

Using 12/mo spacing does not guarantee that a vehicle will wait for a full 16 minutes. Rather, it sets up a "schedule" which allows twelve vehicles per month to leave the designated stop at intervals of 1/12 of a month, e.g. 00:16:00, 00:32:00, etc. So the waiting time depends on when the vehicle arrives. The schedule will look like this:

16:00
32:00
48:00
1:04:00
1:20:00
... etc

Vehicles will only be allowed to leave the stop at these times, unless they are 100% full. So if a vehicle arrives at 16:00, just as another is leaving, it will wait for the full 16 minutes. But if a vehicle arrives at 28:00, then it will only wait for 4 minutes until the 32:00 slot. If it arrives at 33:00 but no vehicle has departed since 16:00, it will still wait until 48:00 before departing -- in this case you will have missed one of your slots.


If you want to guarantee that a convoy waits for a certain amount of time at a stop, you should use "max wait for load". Setting that to (e.g.) 1/8 will make the convoy wait for exactly 24 mins (unless it fills to 100% capacity).

I expect you know all this already, but I wanted to make sure that we weren't confused about the feature itself.

[jamespetts]

Yes, Carl is correct - if you want the vehicle to wait for exactly the time specified unless it is full (or a certain proportion of full), use the wait for load feature instead.

[Carl]

It seems to me that the "max wait for load" feature would be more useful if it functioned like "spacing shift" -- i.e. if it were possible to specify integers and set a divisor in the settings menu. This way, with a divisor of 192, one could specify a max wait for load of (e.g.) exactly 10 minutes rather than being bound by the not-always-very-useful fractions of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 month (etc).

Perhaps I'll look into tinkering with this.

[jamespetts]

That's a good idea, Carl - I shall look forward to your results if you decide to do it!

[Milko]

Hello

It seems to me that the "max wait for load" feature would be more useful if it functioned like "spacing shift" -- i.e. if it were possible to specify integers and set a divisor in the settings menu. This way, with a divisor of 192, one could specify a max wait for load of (e.g.) exactly 10 minutes rather than being bound by the not-always-very-useful fractions of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 month (etc).

According to me than the idea of ​​Carl (which I think is great) would be useful to something else, enter an offset in minutes.
I'm thinking about the case in which the same route passing through two different lines. The first line with a train that travels slower than the second line. Would be useful to set the time shift so that the fastest train leaves the station just before the slower. This can be achieved, as well as with a cadence of departure, by including an offset, by placing this offset (eg one minute) on the slower train is obtained that the latter will always start with a minute late compared to the first and not slow down the fastest train.

   This would make it possible to set the start times so that the first train departs in these times:
08:00 + offset (= 1)
09:00 + offset (= 1)

The second train instead with:
08:00
09:00 ...

Excuse me if I struggle to explain my idea ...

[Carl]

Milko -- I think that the existing "spacing shift" parameter will let you do this. Assume the month is X hours long. If you set both vehicles' spacing to X per month at that stop, and then give the slower vehicle a "spacing shift" of 1, the slower vehicle will always leave 1 minute after the faster vehicle.


Or is that not what you meant?

[Milko]

Hello Carl

I never used the spacing of trains, after this thread I understand how it works .... Your description is exactly what I wanted to understand myself.

Thanks

Giuseppe

[Carl]

No problem, Giuseppe -- I think I may attempt to write a proper tutorial for this feature at some point, since its functions are not exactly self-evident.

[inkelyad]

Don't forget about loading/reversing times. They are taken into account too.

[Carl]

I've written a guide/tutorial on this topic now; comments welcome!

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=9241