too many connected industries?

[Roads]

Laboring under the belief that all Simutranians need to eat, I might have over done the max connections allowed for supermarkets.  I have two truck routes to a drop off at dock where a ship is supposed to pick up the goods, drop those off and another truck pick them up and deliver to a supermarket.  I have done this before and it worked fine.  The only dif is this time is there is a single truck at the pickup point where the ship delivers.  All the goods are piece goods (beer, canned meat) so I can't see that would matter.


The number of connections for the brewery is 6 and the number for the meat factory is only 4 which doesn't seem exorbitant to me.  At any rate the stations do show the goods ready for pick up but the truck just sets there...


Would be happy to upload the game if someone points me to where instructions are for doing that.  Can also upload to dropbox and share if that would be better.

[Carl]

You can upload here (should be fairly self-explanatory), but using your dropbox public folder and copying the public link is just as easy.

[Roads]

Many thanks Carl!  The file is named test2.sve and the subject of this message is listed in the comments.  The version is 111.0, r4911.  It is pak128 with some vehicle and building addons - will list those if needed.  Also I have an addon which changes the display of signs but hopefully that won't matter.

[Carl]

Here's the link: http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/test2.sve

[Roads]

BTW, the name of the route that won't load is "Davidson dropoff Shuttle (beer - dead head)."

[prissi]

If you use via amount, you will see there is no beer routes over that stop. And other routes are not served, since the truck wait at the unloading station for 100% load.

[Roads]

Prissi, you are right but...
I had just prior to setting up the route created the connection from the brewery to the supermarket.  The station should have said "xxx crates via Davidson stop" rather than "Ocean stop."  Any idea why this happened?


Modified:


Okay, what I just did was delete the route for the beer leaving the route for the canned meat.  Guess what?  The canned meat loaded with no problem.  It looks like if you have two routes carrying the same type of goods, i.e., both piece goods, the AI gets confused.  Am I wrong?


Modified or Edit:


Please note that originally I had waited until both trucks were at the loading stations (origination point) and until the canned meat was produced and neither truck loaded.

[Roads]

Please read the edits to the previous post.  After further testing and with a saved game just prior to creating either of the routes from Davidson to Ocean I can't find a problem with anything specifically.  A route with drop off and pick up exactly like the brewery route works perfectly fine for the canned meat as I stated in the edit to previous post.  A truck route from the brewery to the Ocean supermarket works fine as well.

The problem is this:  As soon as the drop off/pick up route is created, the station at the brewery immediately creates goods for "Ocean branch" instead of "Ocean West stop via Davidson stop."

I apologize for the double post and realize this is pretty much just re-stating what I've already said but was hoping this might clarify the situation and also might get someone's attention who thought I had made an error and had corrected it.

[omikron]

I think your main problem is that there is a direct line for beer from Davidson Brewery to Ocean Branch Stop. As long as this direct line exists, you won't have any beer wanting to go via Davidson Stop.

In Simutrans experimental, the beer would at some point realise that it may be quicker to go via Davidson stop, but in standard, I don't think  that's ever going to happen.

omikron

[Roads]

Omikron, I had just logged in to say I have solved the problem.  It may be what you describe.  If I destroy the dock at Ocean branch and create one at Ocean city, I can create a route from Davidson via Davidson dock, ship the beer to Ocean city, pick it up and deliver it to the supermarket.

Possibly the problem is if you have a dock station directly connected to a factory which is the destination of the first trip but the return trip requires a truck delivery before the ship can leave the dock, there is a problem.  Hope that makes sense, it is difficult to explain.

[Roads]

Omikron, you were right, I was wrong.  I didn't actually have a route to Ocean for beer but I did have one for flour.  Turns out, the truck shuttle to the dock worked fine until I added the return trip for flour.  I guess this means you cannot have both a truck route and a sea route?  If I recall correctly this does not happen with train routes - at least not for passengers.  I'm like 99% sure I've transported passengers by both bus and rail from and to the same destination but please say if I'm wrong about that as well.

At any rate, thank you very much for the help.  Were it not for your post I would likely still be searching for the problem or would have given up.


Edit:  When I added the canned meat to the route, both beer and canned meat loaded on the same ship - I love this game!

[Ters]

You can have two routes between two places as long as they both are direct. If both routes involve the same number of transfers, it seems that one of them will be selected at random at random times. If one route has fewer transfers than the other, then one with less transfers will always be used. All routes are considered bi-directional by the game.

So you can have both a truck route and a sea route between a consumer and a producer, but the truck route must use the same trucks all the way, and the sea route must consist just of ships that also run all the way also. If you use trucks to move the cargo to and from the docks in additions to the ships, the ship route will have more transfers and lose to the direct truck route.

[Roads]

Thanks Ters.  No doubt this info will come in handy at some point since I really like shipping.  I especially appreciate the detailed explanation.

[omikron]

Roads: What you could do, would be to delete the flour truck route entirely. Then the beer would pass via the docks and the flour would use the same route in return.

omikron

[Roads]

That's exactly what I did, Omikron.

In fact that is how I knew you were right.  I had left the beer truck at the brewery station and began sending the flour trucks to the depot as they unloaded.  When the last one hit the depot, I deleted the route.  Immediately the beer truck loaded as well as the truck at the Ocean flour factory which was set to take flour to the dock.

[Roads]

You know, there is foresight and then there's foresight.  Sometimes no matter how much of it you try to have, you still end up with situations you didn't anticipate.  Such is the case with my current game.  Deciding I wanted to reduce the road traffic between Davidson and Cody, I built a railroad.  The citizens won't use it, preferring to take a bus. :(

The situation is that the railroad is connected to Davidson station directly but not at Cody - there is a shuttle.  Ters explained this in his post but I simply didn't recall what exactly he had said until I saw the problem in game.  I'm probably posting this prematurely because even as I write this I'm thinking of things I can try.  If y'all have any ideas they would be greatly appreciated.  It is not possible to run the railroad into Cody and make a direct connection there.  The city is not only hilly but placed beside a river.

[Combuijs]

Ehh? Stop the bus line?

[Roads]

I mean something besides doing that Combuijs.

I haven't got a chance to play around with it yet but I'm thinking the first thing I will try is sending the buses to the station in Cody where the train terminates.  It seems reasonable based on what Ters said that if the engine cannot determine which is the shorter route, then the passengers will take whichever is available.

Sometime ago I had a game going prior to the knowledge I have now where I had both a train and bus lines between two cities.  The train stopped at the same station the buses did in both cities.

The reason I don't want just a train route between the cities is I don't want to have to upgrade the train every time the city grows or put one on that is way bigger than I need and have it wait for a long time for a full load.  Of course I could make the station bigger but I don't like doing that.  I imagine 'Tranians don't like waiting any more than we do.

[isidoro]

I sometimes have a similar problem and the best solution I've come so far is to move the bus station to the train station and make a local connection inside Cody.

If buses are cheap and train expensive, I make the train wait until 80-100% loaded and let the buses take the surplus.  It is artificial, but it works.

Since in ST standard, neither ticket price, nor real speed, nor comfort, etc. is taken into account when routing, I don't think there is much you can do besides that.  You can also try Experimental.  There, some of these factors are considered.

[Roads]

Yes Isidoro, that's exactly what I did and it works perfectly.  I hope that sometime, and maybe they have done this in experimental, to see preferential modes - in the case of passengers - perhaps bus, train, air.  But for the time being it appears all you have to do is have the same number of stations for both modes to load.