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Electrification for Shopping Center and Tree Plantation dropped?

Started by Claudius, March 15, 2012, 05:36:48 PM

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Claudius

Was the electrification for the Shopping Center and Tree Plantation dropped during one of the recent updates? No power is delivered to these factories anymore and in the production/boost tab the "Electricity" buttons are missing.

Both had power supplied to them successfully before. Since my recent updates it doesn't work anymore...

Thanks,
Claudius

VS

Yes, markets and agricultural sources don't use electricity at all (as a general rule). This has been enabled only recently.

You can still boost mines and heavy industry...

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!


greenling

Vs
the removing of Electrification for Shopping Center it a bad idea.
I work on some week-end on a market and there it becomes apparent immediately if no stream is there.
With stream it is sold more.
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Vladki

Quote from: greenling on March 15, 2012, 08:46:09 PM
I work on some week-end on a market and there it becomes apparent immediately if no stream is there.
With stream it is sold more.

If you take it this way, then without electricity you won't sell anything - and it would be the same for most other industries - no electricity, no production. But I do not think it should be this way in simutrans.

I would like to have the production (or consumption) of markets to be a function of the population of the city where the market is located.

Fabio

Honestly this time I agree with greenling as consumers in standard are the few electrical users in cities and I believe cities should be electrified anyway. With agriculture instead I agree suppressing electrification.

grampybear

What about the sand quarry, stone quarry and iron ore mine, they increase output by 3 or 4 times by adding electricity. How does that work?

Isaac Eiland-Hall

It's a game. Certainly let us consider reality to a large degree, but ultimately also on things like balancing and such as well.

My reply is not directed at anyone, by the way...

el_slapper

I definitively agree with farm unelectrification. Ideally, adding some refined petrol would increase productivity, but I guess it would need a big amount of work.

For supermarkets, I'm divided. I like the new setup, as you can't artificially raise demand just by setting up an electric line. You have to to it the hard way, by clever passenger transportation. That's a definitive plus. At the same time, those babies really need electricity in real life.....

Fabio

Quote from: el_slapper on March 16, 2012, 09:35:43 AM
For supermarkets, I'm divided. I like the new setup, as you can't artificially raise demand just by setting up an electric line. You have to to it the hard way, by clever passenger transportation. That's a definitive plus. At the same time, those babies really need electricity in real life.....

Well, the demand could be set artificially low, so that you need to electrify them to have reasonable demand... Or the effect of electrification is rather low (no more than a 5 to 10% raise).




Mines, quarries and oilfields instead should probably be unelectrified too, IMHO.

rfg123

Electricity can boost the efficiency of supermarkets by allowing them to be open at night or stock goods that should be refrigerated. This is a way that electricity can boost "output" of those facilities without necessarily increasing demand from consumers... An increase of 10-20% would be more reasonable versus doubling output or no increase at all.

VS

Does a supermarket need more electricity than a mine? Machinery versus lightbulbs... ;)

The current values are "balanced" (not really tested) for increased transport demand. The groups were, at least for electricity, based on rough understanding of how much power the factories might use.



Quote from: grampybear on March 15, 2012, 10:28:49 PM
What about the sand quarry, stone quarry and iron ore mine, they increase output by 3 or 4 times by adding electricity. How does that work?
Is that a suggestion, or question? There the boost should be 80%. If not, it's a bug.

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Fabio

Quote from: VS on March 16, 2012, 04:45:36 PM
Does a supermarket need more electricity than a mine? Machinery versus lightbulbs... ;)

AFAIK, many machineries are diesel-powered or use diesel-powered electric generators (plus explosives where needed).

OTOH supermarkets need a lot of electricity for refrigerators, etc...

VS

That about refrigerators is actually a good point... As to mining, I'd love to hear from an actual miner :D Water immediately comes to mind as another pipeable resource required by industry.

However: What would be the new values? There has to be more thought put into a balanced game that than just reality arguments... Not that the present state is great, but should be playable (feedback?)

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

ӔO

As far as I know, mines, both subsurface and open pit types, just use diesel machinery or diesel generators. Possibly because it doesn't make financial sense drawing a power line to the mine, because there is little in the way of permanent fixtures that require electricity.


In game, is the current boost 100% for everything that gets power? I think somewhere around 20 to 60% boost for the various industries is a more reasonable range.
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sdog

the major consumer in mines are the pumps, preventing the mine from drowning. Those are usually electric, if it is possible to do so.

limestone quarries for cement industry often have massive breakers, that are also predominantly electric, to allow sustained or night operation.

Colin

Supermarkets have to have electricity to even open their doors let alone run the lights fridges meat slicers etc. Removing electricity from Supermarkets is silly. How do tree loggers trim the logs to transportable size? Electrically driven band saws. I really don't know why you have to fiddle with things that are working just fine. You would be lucky to find any industry these days that does not have a use for electricity. Where are you guys living??
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Isaac Eiland-Hall

Using real-world logic to argue what should be done in a half-simulation—half-game can be helpful, but it's not the whole story by a long shot.

Colin

Yes but! What I'm saying is,
Why fix something that wasn't broken. The electricity was always there, well since it was introduced into the game, and it worked fine, Why now stop it from being used by Tree Plantations, Supermarkets, etc. That's not 'Real World Logic'. That's, where is the logic in removing something that worked and is, by any logic, used in both of the areas I mentioned. Why would Simutrans not apply 'Real World Logic' to a real world simulations game. What's so different about Tree Plantations etc and Iron Ore Mines? Are they not real world also? If they are then the same logic should apply to Tree Plantations.
You can't have one logic for one and a different logic for another it doesn't make sense.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

kierongreen


IgorEliezer

The thing is: the game needs to have a consistent behavior. That is necessary so that the player can learn just by playing, as smoothly as possible. We can use the "real world" logic because that's the most used way for the player to guess how the game works and its rules. But, this is a game, and not all players have knowledge about logistics. Then, the player would use the following logic: "If a feature works for a thing, then other similar things should work in the same way".

For example: if the player discovers (by reading the dialog boxes or just by trying the tools) that a factory can accept electricity, then the player would assume the other factories could accept electricity too. In the Simutrans environment, supermarkets, iron mines, refineries, chemical plants et al are factories: they all fit in the same object category, they have same behavior, same aspect, same GUI and so on. If a factory can accept electricity but other factories can not, this would be another thing the player would need to learn. Then the next step: the player will need to learn which factories can accept electricity... Well, we know the rest of this story.

Then, I suggest:

1) all factories should accept electricity. Period.

2) if not all factories accept electricity, the factory dialog box needs to show it clearly. These dialogs already show player which products a factory need to work.

3) if no factory accepts electricity anymore, the electricity could be used to electrify overhead lines, which makes sense for me, but it would be an extra step for the player to learn how to make an electrified track (and some players already have troubles to figure out that their electric locos need overhead lines on the tracks).

VS

1) GUI issues. After some thinking, I'm with Igor - the current window hides too much data. You can set both an amount and how much it helps for each of the three. All of this needs to be communicated clearly.

2) Sensible new values. Please suggest something more exact than just "supermarket needs power", and I'll change the numbers.

3) The solution where everything accepts electricity feels wrong to me, but if an overwhelming majority of players agrees on this, let's do it :)

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

ӔO

I think it's more sensible to just have 50% boost in production and consumption for all industries when electrified. Then it is just a matter of giving a sensible electricity consumption value to each of the industries that would represent "50% boost".

say, something like 10MW for farms, and 100MW for factories.
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Fabio

Instead I would not stick to 50% boost, but I would use a variable boost from 25% to 100%

Agricolture and mines could have 25%,
consumers 50%
manifacturing plants 75%
heavy industried (e.g. steel mill) 100%

Also power consumption would vary as AEO suggested.

kierongreen

I agree that all industries should gain a significant boost from electricity. I'd prefer this to be a set value (2x made things quite simple) but failing that a range of at least 1.25, to maybe 2 or even more would be reasonable.

Fabio

I would like this boost not to be fixed. There would be a boost for every factory (so delivering power to any factory would be meaningful and newbie-friendly), but experienced players would have to decide which factory is better electrified, adding one more challenge.
1.25 to 2.50 could be great. 2.50 would be for few factories, for which electrification would indeed be very rewarding.

el_slapper

IMHO, agriculture should stay at zero. IRL it's not much anyways, plus it elegantly solves the problem of "not being able to put a transformer there because there are too much fields".

For the rest, Im with Fabio.

Colin

What I don't understand is, Once electricity was introduced into the game all factories were able to be connected, Only cities were exempt, except in EXP. If they were able to be connected then, why not now? What has changed? It's a given that factories need power, buildings need power, every **** thing needs power, why would you make Simutrans different than real life? By all means make the output/usage different for different factories/supermarkets/dairies/etc. In reality if a factory doesn't have power it can't operate, that makes Simutrans an anomaly because it's factories do, Daft ain't it?
POWER TO THE PEOPLE I SAY, REVOLUTION NOW!!!
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Vladki

It's true that in real world almost every industry needs electricity. But farms can do without. They did for centuries. Electricity can save them some time, but it won't increase the amount of crops harvested. Forest can cope just with gasoline powered chainsaw, and diesel powered machinery, or even with handsaw and horses... So i think that some industries should have minimum (a few percent) or zero boost from electricity, while others (e.g. Car assembly plant) should have big boost with electricity (100-1000 %) and minimum production without. But on the other hand this would make it impossible to play without electricity at all. And I think building the power grid should be completely optional in the game. Anyway if the boost gained by electricity is not the same for all factories, it should be displayed in factory info box.

What I would consider nice option, but I'm not sure if it is possible, is, that production boost could be gained not only by providing factory with electricity. Grain and Corn farms could increase production if provided with fertilizer, Cattle or Chicken farms would need corn. In older times, many factories used steam engine and transmissions to run machinery, so coal could be used in many factories instead of electricity. Or glass mill, which requires coal only for heating the sand, so electricity could reduce the need for coal. But this is just my ideas, maybe for simutrans experimental.

Colin

It's true that in real world almost every industry needs electricity. But farms can do without. They did for centuries.

But! Simutrans is a modern game with the latest airplanes, trains, boats, etc. It survived the dark ages of the mid to late ninety's and has evolved as a modern simulation game. Not many farms today, in civilised countries, run without power for one thing or another. Dairy Farms don't milk by hand any more, well, maybe outer Mongolia. If a player wants to run Simutrans like the dark ages then he/she doesn't have to use the electricity, don't know how they would go with the city's though, they are, for the most part, very modern.
Maybe a split, Simutrans pre 1890. ;D
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Fabio

On the other hand, in standard Simutrans we deliver power to factories but not to cities and households. And, mind, most of them light up at night! How do they manage to?
Most electrical companies have two distinct businesses: retail and industrial. Imho Simutrans standard simulates the industrial power distribution, rather than retail.
All farms use electricity, just like all households in any developed country, but mostly they just have normal retail contracts. Their power consumption is anyway marginal compared to that of other industries.
Thus, in a way, either we provide all buildings, households, auctions and factories with power, either we assume that only industrial power distribution is covered by the simulation and all the other power distribution is here out of scope.

DirrrtyDirk

The real world logic starts to fail a little, when we keep one thing in mind: electricty is only a boost in simutrans. All factories work perfectly well without it. From farms to computer plants. So all arguments about "in the real world this and that needs electricity" don't really work, because in Simutrans no factory needs it at all. Never has - and probably never will. It is only a boost, a game mechanic (allowing the player, if he does A, to get reward B) after all.

For me, personally, it always felt a little weird to supply some grain field with a power line and bang: its production rate was doubled. Variable boosts from +0 to +100% (or maybe even more - if technically possible. Those could have a lower base rate of production with such a high boost - in a way simulating industries that need lots of electricity in the real world to function at all - without making it as hard in the game, because they will still work without, but much worse) sound quite reasonable for me, depending on the type of industry - if the GUI of each factory provides the player with this information in a clear manner. I haven't checked lately, but I remember these windows to be so cryptic that new players (and quite a few old players) were not able to figure out what all these percentage values meant. Ok, I know, there's always the help function, but I think it couldn't hurt to have the information itself a little easier to understand in the first place. But for all this, the whole production balancing would need to be reworked (actually, I always felt it needed to be ;)).

Just my 2 cents on this issue. :)
  
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isidoro

I hesitate somewhat before posting, because I am not sure about my position...

I think there should be freedom and production for each industry should be A + B e, being e the electricity you provide to the industry.  A a B whatever depending on the pak developer and e, also whatever, but with a maximum value.

My point of view is that this can give richness to the game.  For instance, if you come to know that boost production for a wheat field is low, you don't invest in an electricity line to a zone of the map with mainly wheat fields and invest in another one with heavier industries...  That is richness in game playing.  If the boost is the same, this cannot be done...  If you think that this is complication, so is the high number of different industries, with different products and different prices...

In pak128.Britain, there are final consumer industries like butchers', fishmongers', etc.  I can think of another one: "City transformer".  It consumes electricity and produces nothing.


Colin

My final words on Electrification.

After all the discussions have finished, all I want is the option to use, or not to use, ELECTRICITY, at my discretion.  Please put the option back in the game. I find it rather arrogant that this option was removed without any discussion. It doesn't matter if electricity in the game is not liked by some. Once it was implemented, the option should be there, after all it doesn't slow the game down, it doesn't detract from the game, in fact, it can enhance the game if used properly.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

dom700

Just a note by a user:

The new system is great, thanks for being one of the first paksets to implement the new feature :)
I also very much agree with the idea that factories in towns rely on people and post and instead of electricity for boosts. I think overall the ammount of boosting is well balanced and so is the distribution among pax, post and power.

Colin

My final words on Electrification.

Sorry  lied!!

I now find that Coal Mines and Iron Ore Mines are not being fed by power even though I have a national grid and transformers to each. Power is being generated but not received.

I'm in serious trouble because I shot all my Pit Ponies when they became obsolete.

Edit. It appears it's only Solar power that isn't supplying. Coal Power Stations are supplying ok.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Packer

For the tree plantation; What about electric chainsaws?  :P

Quote from: Fabio on March 26, 2012, 09:57:44 AM
Instead I would not stick to 50% boost, but I would use a variable boost from 25% to 100%

Agricolture and mines could have 25%,
consumers 50%
manifacturing plants 75%
heavy industried (e.g. steel mill) 100%

Also power consumption would vary as AEO suggested.

I like this idea. One addition I would like to make is that power plants consume products more rapidly based on the power supplied. I.e. increase precentage consumed by the same amount as posted above for each connected industry of that type. It's far to easy to overload powerplants IMO.
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ӔO

Yeah, that is one thing that struck me as weird.
The power plants are either on or off and some larger ones can guzzle its supplies, even if demand is only at 50% of its output.

I realize that this is more of an extension request than tweaks to dat files.
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various projects rolled up: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17111233/Roll_up.rar

Colour safe chart:

Roads

Until now I have avoided electricity like the plague.  I hated the power lines in SimCity, hate them in Simutrans and the one in my front yard.

I think the real life argument is really an RPG argument.  If it is something that is so un-realistic to you that you begin feeling like you are simply doing data input into a graphical environment, then the argument is valid but it may only be valid for you.  The next guy may have no problem with it whatsoever.  I think this is amply demonstrated in the responses above.

For me, I won't use it unless I'm forced to do so and if you go that far, please, please, please allow for underground power lines.

Packer

I noticed the gas station doesn't take power either.

What about having to use mechanical gas mups instead of electric pumps?
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Colin

Quote from: ӔO on April 06, 2012, 03:52:01 PM
I realize that this is more of an extension request than tweaks to dat files.

Actually it isn't. We've had electricity in Simutrans for years until it was suddenly pulled with no explanation. Of course the developers have every right to do this. Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that we have power lines everywhere, so, to remove power from Simutrans is a backward step. If power is not to be supplied to factory/producers/users then it should be removed altogether and we will have to go back to coal powered trains etc.

I really don't understand why this discussion is still going on. Every operation needs power so it should be available. As far as I'm concerned, the removal of power to certain industries has done nothing to enhance the game. It's a mystery why it was ever removed.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Roads

Yes Colin, in real life we do have power lines everywhere and everywhere they are ugly.  Have you ever heard anyone say, "look at that beautiful power line?"  Even if you have, I seriously doubt anyone has ever said, "I'm sooo happy I have a power line in my front yard."  Mine is actually off to side but I still do not like it but do freely admit, I love having electricity.  It is one of my fav things. :)

For me, a game is about thinking, figuring out how to do something, that is the most interesting thing about building roads and of course power lines fall right into that category.  Still, how much of this particular thing do you want?  After a week or so of playing SimCity I was bored to tears because of the lack of variety of things to do.  But a game can offer more than just figuring out how to do something, it can allow you to create!

Whether by design or accident, Simutrans has accomplished this to some extent and for that I will be forever grateful.  I know of no other game that has come even close to it in that respect.

sdog

Colin, you don't connect your rail electrification to powerlines either. This is a simplification in the game, we have to life with them. I'll argue now that this far worse than what you critizise above.

In simutrans standard we don't connect cities to the powergrid either, we just assume they are connected. Minor consumers of electricity like farms and butchers are negligible in comparison to major consumers eg steelworks or refineries. Those  get their own 115 kV substation. The former get their own low voltage (up to 1 kV) transformer at best, if not just connected to the consumer (eg 400 V / 208 V three phase) network.

The model in the current implementation of electrical power is not so unreasonable. Experimental goes one step further, by allowing cities to be connected. Industries within city limits are connected in turn (without their own substation). It covers one aspect, but introduces the cases where a major consumer like a steel plant is connected through the city grid, not by their own high voltage line.

I return to my initial statement again: A modern Taurus locomotive (Siemens ES 64) has a power output of 6 MW! And that's just one single loco. Now show me the farm or supermarket that needs comparable power.

Colin

Look guy's i agree with most of what you are saying but, my argument is, Factories/Stores/Producers need power, Factories/Stores/Producers can't operate without power,  Factories/Stores/Producers had power in Simutrans. Now Power has been removed from some Factories/Stores/Producers with seemingly no good reason.

OK so you don't like power lines, neither do I, but this is a simulation game for heavens sake not a discussion on the dislike of power lines. As for exp, my feelings on that are well known, so the less I say about that the better.

I've been playing this game since mid/late 1996 when the thought of electrification probably never entered anyones head, a bit like airplanes. So when electrification became possible it was welcomed, as were airplanes, believe me at the start airplanes were not much cop either.

The whole point is, electrification is a fact of life, it's also a necessity in life, so it should not be removed just because someone doesn't like power lines.

Incidentally my power pole is in the middle of my front garden, but then I have 8 hectares so I don't notice it so much. Also, too, as well, I spent my youth in Stoke on Trent, UK. and was surrounded by power lines and power poles. Didn't even notice them but, if you let yourself become obsessed by then, of course you'll notice them.

                                                         POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!! (and to Simutrans please)

Sorry I forgot. @sdog I didn't mean that you should, or would, connect your power lines to you railways. (Although it's a thought, they have to get power from somewhere, and to my knowledge there are no underground power stations.) What I meant was, if you remove electrification from businesses that need electrification, you might as well remove it alltogether.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

sdog

Colin,
what i tried to explain is, that those low level power consumers like farms would not get their own high- or mid- voltage connection either. Not simulating the consumer distribution grid is a minor approximation in comparison to not considering powering of rail electification.

There's a way to remedy your troubles:
you can make a branch of the source code at either sourceforge (needs svn)
https://simutrans.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/simutrans/pak128/

or github (needs git)
https://github.com/pak128svn/simutrans-pak128

on windows this pak is best built with pakmak.py, included in the svn. you only need a version of makobj and python installed. the control files for pakmak are already set up, and recursively work through the pak, so you don't need to know details on usage, just run it.

here's an example for a dat file
https://github.com/pak128svn/simutrans-pak128/blob/master/factories/steel_mill.dat
look at the electricity amount and electricity boost lines.


Colin

Thank's for that sdog. Unfortunately Programming is not my forte. :-[ I have trouble programming the TV Remote. I was an electronics tech in my younger days and still build/repair computers for friends, but that's it. Programming for me is looking at the TV guide. ;D
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.