The International Simutrans Forum

This server has now been retired, and replaced with a.128.simutrans.entropy.me.uk

Last running Simutrans stable 111.2.2 (r5583) with pak128 2.1.

Previous savegames can be found here, listed by the date when the server was shut down:

http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/server/sim128/archive/ (http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/server/sim128/archive/)

HUZZAH!


Edit: Timothy, does this use openPak128, from the nightly? Just want to check.

can you upload or give me a link to the pak set because I always have a non compatable pak set and I have downloaded the releace, please help!!!

Tip: every time you want to find out an updated download for Simutrans, there are two links to look in:

1) The most recent official releases of paksets and Simutrans engine can be found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/simutrans/files/

2) The most recent testing releases of paksets and Simutrans engine can be found here: http://nightly.simutrans-germany.com/

Granted. There are 99% of chances that you'll always have a compatible Simutrans for anything.

@werl: Try this: http://sourceforge.net/projects/simutrans/files/pak128/pak128%20for%20102-2-2/

The pakset in question is this one (openpak128 revision 1124):

http://simutrans-germany.com/stn/Download.php?d=1540

For compatibility you need Simutrans revision 4114, which unfortunately I can no longer find a link to on the nightlies site. I am going to update the version of Simutrans running on the server fairly soon though.

I'll post details of the revision running in future (with download links so you can be sure you're getting the right thing).

Ok, just need you update the nightly build. One suggestion, a map without trees is much preferable because it lowers building costs and save/load times.

So far so good.

I'll try a map without trees next time then :)

Hi, trying to connect, but can't find v1124 of openpak128 anymore?  :-[

Oh, the nightly site only keeps the last version. I'll have to think about caching the necessary files on my own server for download in future when I upgrade it.

For now you can get that version here:

http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/simupakopen128-1124.zip

Success  ;D

---

Have had a few disconnections whilst messing about. Initially there was a lot of lag - hence why several companies now created. Otherwise I'm merrily creating stuff

_{merged multipost -- VS}

Good map.

---

Is it just ke, or the game updates with the arrival of the new year?

_{merged multipost -- VS}

What do you mean?

For me, when I build or buy something it seems that I have to wait a long time. It looks like the game updates when January of the next year arrives or when you log on.

I would like to point out that I use a Mac and that might be causing some of the problems.

Ah, I was having similar issues trying to play with the mac version too. Still some issues with it (I must write a bug report). I have mostly been playing using the windows version via vmware. Do please post a bug report about this though :)

I shall.

---

@Timothy- are you playing on this server?

_{merged multipost -- VS}

Not at the moment, I've mostly been playing on the pak.Britain one.

The only thing that pak.britten has over 128 is the maglevs.

---

How do I connect via IPv6?

---

Darn, server is busy.  ::( ::(

_{merged multipost -- VS}

Quote from: werl on January 18, 2011, 10:50:55 PM
For me, when I build or buy something it seems that I have to wait a long time. It looks like the game updates when January of the next year arrives or when you log on.

I would like to point out that I use a Mac and that might be causing some of the problems.

I've been seeing this as well - playing on Win 7 though. Also sometimes get disconnected when starting a new vehicle - haven't managed to work out what the cause is yet.

 :police: mod note - I merged a few multiposts... please do try to follow the rules :)

Server is busy mean Server need restart most of the times.

Thanks VS, the other forum I'm on only allows 1 minute to modify posts.

I fixed this issue by running win XP.

FYI I will be upgrading the server this evening and starting a fresh map. I'll post a link to the savegame for the old map in case anyone wants to keep it.

Thanks fir that.

Server has been upgraded, see first topic for details. The previous map can be downloaded from here if you wish to keep playing :)

<See first topic for old savegames>

Where do you put the file to load it? I can't find it in the load screen.

Don't know where is it on MAC but it's somethings like Documents\Simutrans\save

on linux systems it is in $HOME/simutrans/save

Library/Documents or so, since a few revisions. (Was changed on request of users)

It appears the server crashed earlier today, here's the end of the log file:

Jan 22 01:29:46 pulsar sim128[10787]: Warning: command:#011id=32 init=1 defpar=Right now 0 clients are connected. flag=4
Jan 22 06:46:03 pulsar sim128[10787]: Warning: network_check_activity():#011received cmd id=1 nwc_gameinfo_t from socket[6]
Jan 22 09:06:05 pulsar sim128[10787]: Warning: network_check_activity():#011received cmd id=1 nwc_gameinfo_t from socket[6]
Jan 22 10:36:36 pulsar sim128[10787]: Warning: network_check_activity():#011received cmd id=1 nwc_gameinfo_t from socket[6]
Jan 22 10:44:55 pulsar sim128[10787]: Warning: network_check_activity():#011received cmd id=1 nwc_gameinfo_t from socket[6]
Jan 22 14:12:44 pulsar sim128[10787]: Warning: network_check_activity():#011received cmd id=1 nwc_gameinfo_t from socket[6]
Jan 22 14:12:50 pulsar sim128[10787]: Warning: network_check_activity():#011received cmd id=2 nwc_join_t from socket[6]
Jan 22 14:12:50 pulsar sim128[10787]: Warning: network_world_command_t::execute:#011do_command 3 at sync_step 3570596 world now at 3570595
Jan 22 14:12:50 pulsar sim128[10787]: Warning: nwc_sync_t::do_command:#011sync_steps 3570596
Jan 22 14:12:55 pulsar sim128[10787]: ERROR: fahrplan_t::rdwr():#011aktuell 0 >count 0 => aktuell = 0
Jan 22 14:12:55 pulsar sim128[10787]: Please report all errors to
Jan 22 14:12:55 pulsar sim128[10787]: team@64.simutrans.com


I have restarted it now.

looks like crash during save or reload  ???

I will be restarting the map with a new game version this weekend, old save will be posted here as usual.


Edit:

Map is now restarted, see first post for details.


Edit:

Map restarted again with the 110.0 stable. I am going to keep the same version of the pakset (pak128.open.r1148) since the current "stable" pak128 is very out-of-date.


Edit:

Restarted map (same map for now).

Quote from: Timothy on January 02, 2011, 01:19:57 AM
I have created a new pak128 server, please enjoy playing on it :)

Currently running r4269 with openpak128 nightly.

Download the pak needed here:

http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/simupakopen128-1148.zip

This server is accessible via both IPv4 and IPv6.

Screenshot of the map:

(http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/sim128_map.png)


Previous savegames can be found here, listed by the date when the server was shut down:

http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/networksavegames/sim128/

i have mismatch:

(http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/7574/simscr03.png) (http://img232.imageshack.us/i/simscr03.png/)

i get the pak128 1.4.6, the open pak, and the nightly, too.

Sorry I forgot to update the details, it's running the 110.0 stable now (r4303)

Quote from: Timothy on March 05, 2011, 10:34:58 AM
Sorry I forgot to update the details, it's running the 110.0 stable now (r4303)

at me that mismatch, too. how can i join? i have all what needed (or need to remove the mismatch pak files?)

Try setting up a completely new simutrans folder with only the pakset from the link above installed. It's always best to just use a clean install of Simutrans for multiplayer games as it avoids the mismatch issue.

Quote from: Timothy on March 05, 2011, 10:51:27 AM
Try setting up a completely new simutrans folder with only the pakset from the link above installed. It's always best to just use a clean install of Simutrans for multiplayer games as it avoids the mismatch issue.

i get the problem...

---

cause when i extract the open pak to pak128, it makes a simutrans folder in pak128

---

what's the password?

Mod note: please do not double-post (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=4529.0#post_item4e). The forum is not a chat. Edit your last comment instead.
~IgorEliezer

You need to switch to a player other than spectator that doesn't already have a password set.

Quote from: Timothy on March 05, 2011, 11:52:11 AM
You need to switch to a player other than spectator that doesn't already have a password set.

thanks.

Who playing now on server?

I have problem with this server. I started to play this morning, next i've locked company with password, switched to spectator and closed the client. Now i'm logging in again and... where is my company?

If your company went bankrupt while you were logged out then it would have been removed from the game, this is most likely what happened I'm afraid.

Ok, thank you.

I split the discussion about abusive players off into an extension request:

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=7050.0


Edit: Map restarted since the last one got trashed.

Is this server online now?

It should be.


Edit: New map up on the new stable release. Bigger map this time since these servers seem to be becoming more and more popular :)

It seems that the server is not listed in Game info,
but it works if introduced manually. What's up?
Is it properly announced?

uci

It seems to be announced ok now. Though it's showing the wrong game version on the server list (seems to do that every so often...)

I have an error that pops up when I try to enter the game (or something similar):
Running world, pause=0, fast forward=0 ...
expose: x=1436, y=856
textur_resize()::screen=0x1744adb0
World destroyed.
Calculating textures ...done
FATAL ERROR: planquadrat_t::rdwr()
Error while loading game: Unknown ground type '101'

Any idea what that means? I have 110.0.1 and the pakset at the beginning of this thread.

What OS are you running it on?

Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac. This error shows up whenever I try to enter any server, with it's respective pak. But since you asked which OS, that's the problem right there isn't it...

Yeah the Mac version is I think still quite broken, could you run the game with the "-debug 3" flag and then raise a bug report with that log?

Quote from: transporter on March 27, 2011, 04:13:27 PM
I have an error that pops up when I try to enter the game (or something similar):
Running world, pause=0, fast forward=0 ...
expose: x=1436, y=856
textur_resize()::screen=0x1744adb0
World destroyed.
Calculating textures ...done
FATAL ERROR: planquadrat_t::rdwr()
Error while loading game: Unknown ground type '101'

Any idea what that means? I have 110.0.1 and the pakset at the beginning of this thread.

After such a crash there should be a file clientX-network.sve in your simutrans directory (one level above the savegames directory). Could you copy this network savegame to your savegame director and try to load it from simutrans?

Tried what you said, and it does the same thing. Same exact code. Here's a few more lines up (I'm pretty sure that's just from the startup code):
Preparing startup ...
Loading BDF font 'font/Prop-Latin1.bdf'
Loading BDF font font/Prop-Latin1.bdf with 256 characters
Show banner ...
Running world, pause=0, fast forward=0 ...
World destroyed.
Calculating textures ...done
FATAL ERROR: dingliste_t::laden()
During loading: Unknown object type '0'

Abort trap
logout

[Process completed]

Timothy-I have no idea what that means. I'm only a beginner with the game, and even worse with code/debugging.

Well the mac version could fail at many stuff. But this rather looks like the savegame were not correctly transferred, which is somehow strange. There should be a file in your simutrans personal folder (where also a file names simu.log and default.sve should be) named "client-networkXXX.sve" (then ending is just a number) Could you upload this file?

I don't really have a way to upload the file...

pick any file hosting service, there's a comparison on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_hosting_services

Plus "our own" Frank's http://files.simutrans-germany.com/ ;)

Try this (I forgot I had a Google account :p) :
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B4x-6whHppW7NTc1OTk4MjEtNmRiMy00ZDVkLWE4MDUtMWZiMzhhYjM1MmM0&hl=en&authkey=CKCNm6UM

It should show a file with 592 kb size

I could load this savegame :/

Not cool. So let's get back to the error itself. What does it mean and how do I fix it? (If I can)

The error means that the program encountered an unexpected input. This can usually only happen if one uses a wrong version to open a game or if the game is corrupt.

Can you open a terminal go to simutrans program folder, and type "./simutrans -log 1 -debug 3"

This shoudl generate a file simu.log with much more (hopefully useful) diagnostic messages.

I have 2 different folders though. One is where the game (executable, paks, etc) and another folder that has the savegames. Which one so I go to? And if the folder is selected, do I type "./simutrans -log 1 -debug 3" or just "-log 1 -debug 3"?

You have to do this in the folder, where the executable is.

Got it. When I use that command, it runs and opens up simutrans. And I'm not sure how far to go, so I went ahead and tried to connect online. It failed of course, but now I have a simu.log file all the way from the debug to the crash that is 1.1 MB in size. Is that what I upload?

Yes please upload this (maybe zip before)

Mac Snow Leopard 10.6
Simutrans 110.0.1, pak128 1.4.6 nightly (the one at the beginning of this thread)
Fatal error when connecting online to 128.simutrans.entropy.me.uk
Try reproducing on Mac OSX.
Happened when trying to connect to server, loading bar at 100%

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B4x-6whHppW7YTE0NjNkM2QtMzFjMy00OWRjLTk3MmQtMmRjNjE2YjE4NDlm&hl=en&authkey=CKnF7oAP

P.S. This error comes up whenever I try to connect online with any pakset

The version is not matching with the server. It does not now about the trees. Your version is revision 4321 aparently. you need revision 4359 to connect. Not maybe try downloading the executable from sourceforge. (If this is the executable from sourceforge, then something went wrong with compilation).

So the pakset matched, but the executable didn't. I'll try that. And how can you tell which version the executable is once you download it?

It should be the stable 100.0.1. Usually during the build process it should generate a version number of the current version, built date and revision. Aparently for the mac version you used no revision is given and thus you can connect (but without sucess) with any version.

So go to https://sourceforge.net/projects/simutrans/files/simutrans/110-0-1/ and download you mac system matching version.

Got it to work. Thanks for the help. Btw, great job with the game :) love it

Guys how do i join? I am on the server but i want to play not spectate, it is asking for a password.

Hi sgtsammac,

You need to switch to another player (not the "spectator" player, nor the Public Service one). You can do this via the file menu -> Players, then select an open slot (where there isn't already a player) and select "human". Check the box on the left to enable that player and then click the small arrow to switch to that player. You can enter a different player name and set a password by clicking the little green box to the right of the player name.

Thanks,
Darn i connected but there are no empty slots they are all full/named

I'll restart the servers soon then :)

Thanks, i will join soon

i want to join, but some inactic players block some slots -.-

Quote from: Timothy on April 13, 2011, 04:45:09 PM
I'll restart the servers soon then :)

Have they been restarted already? Thanks :)

EDIT: By the way, I'm wondering if people are still playing? There is only one client (me) every time I connect...

I've restarted the server with the same map + game version. Old save game available from the usual place :)

Quote from: Timothy on April 18, 2011, 10:56:10 AM
I've restarted the server with the same map + game version. Old save game available from the usual place :)

I guess you want to lock the public player as well :)

Ah I can't do that without logging into the game, and I can't do that until this evening...


Edit: Restarted server with a new (slightly bigger) map and set passwords properly.

I'm on the map now :D i got 1 truck. By now i mean i managed to create a company on the map.

The 128 server appears to be down (shows "server did not respond")
The 64, Brit, 96comic servers at simutrans.entropy.me.uk seems to work fine though

Try it now?

It works now. Thanks :D - UTC 14:23

EDIT: It happens again... - UTC 16:23

EDIT: It works again. Thanks - UTC 01:12

Server restarted with new map, same pak128 + Simutrans version.

See first post for links to old savegames if you want to continue a game :)

Server does not respond
64, 96, Britain servers appear to work as normal

Looks like the server process hung, it does that every now and again, I've restarted it so it should work again.

It's not in the serverlist! (Anymore)

Beside,s how do you install the nightly? It doesn't let me extract the files...

Odd, it should be announcing to the server list every game month. Maybe the last announce failed for some reason. I've restarted it and it now shows up.

In what way is it preventing you from extracting the files?

It just shows up some random error message about not being able to catalogise the files to the selected folder, or something like that. Just like with all windows errors, i have no idea what it means, and even less of an idea on how to solve it.

By the way, i go to programs (x86), go to the Simutrans folder, and insert the pak along all other pak folders. Am i doing something wrong there?

If you are using Windows Vista or 7, it might be the protection from changes feature in the programs folder messing with you...

I am indeed using Windows 7. Is there another way to get the nightly/right versions?

Have you tried extracting them elsewhere and then copy/move the files there (then you should be told that this requires admin privileges and can accept or decline this...)?

Or you might put simutrans to a different location than your C:\Programs folder...

I did tyr to extract them when they are in the downloaded files folder, then move them to the right place... but i must be missing something... it won'tlet me choose the pak.

Map restarted.

How can we know if a company is a player or computer ?

Ok, I've found now...

It seems that the server has crashed.
It says "Server did not respond!".

Restarted it, let me know if you still get that message.

Thanks  ;)
It works fine now.

Hmmm the server crashed another time ...   Before that, me and another player got a lot of desynchronization and lags.

Restarted it again...

Hello, it seems that the server doesn't appear in the server list when starting simutrans, I have now to retape manually "128.simutrans.entropy.me.uk:13354", otherwise impossible to connect, and yes the server is still here with a player in the same time...

I think the listings server is glitchy, does it appear now?

Do you set to update the entry every simutransmonth?

There was a bug that servers sent their data to a wrong url. Was fixed in r4365, which is after the last release.

Timothy, do you help me?
My two accounts are in bankruptcy you could exclude them so I can create a new company?

Thanks, it works fine now  ;)

@Sephiroth - I will probably reset the server this weekend, can't currently log in as a player due to my PC being packed for moving house.

I hope you'll change the map, and make it bigger than this one  ;) because a lot of players want to play on this server now  ;D
May I suggest to save and post somewhere this savegame, we made on this map so beautiful things...

I need to pack and what version? will be no way to put the link to download

I've lost contact with the server, I presume that's the same for everyone. Unfortunately the server seemed to crash while I was in the process of replacing a bridge on a mainline, and the line is currently cut. This is going to cause major rail jams, and in turn production stoppages, on my network (Integrated Freight) - apologies in advance if this spills into truck jams that affect anyone else. Please PM me as soon as the server is known to be up so I know it's up and can get back in there and restore flow. I guess there's a lesson in here somewhere about building a temporary alternative route before cutting a mainline...

Should be back up. I'm going to start a new map this weekend (bigger map, might also start a second 128 server since it seems most popular).

Oh and all the previous save games are available from:

http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/networksavegames/sim128/

Thanks Timothy. Just tried to connect from two different computers but still no response :(

Looks like the map is crashing the server immediately after it starts up. I would guess the map is corrupted.

The log file (last startup is with debug level 4) can be found here:

http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/sim128.log

I'll have to restart the map from scratch I'm afraid. The old savegame can be downloaded here (http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/networksavegames/sim128/sim128_pak128.open.r1150_r4359_05_Aug_2011.sve). Sorry about that!

I can't make a new map right now, so I'll restart it with the same blank map for now and then put a brand new map up tonight or tomorrow.

No worries, we're not going to complain if someone's hosting games for us, and gratis at that.

The idea of running multiple games of the same pak concurrently raises an interesting possibility, that of having games being played according to different "rules". Guillaume and I were discussing ways of carving up a map between players in a controlled fashion, e.g. players take exclusive responsibility for industry chains (which we could see resulting in spaghetti of the indigestible variety) or each player having exclusive responsibility for a section of the map and handing passengers and products over to neighbours at designated public stops/yards (which we reckoned might be more practical). The latter case could be implemented quite formally, a map could be set up with a number of demarked zones, say with borders "painted" by trees or dirt roads, equal to the number of player slots available (if the player list isn't full some players could manage multiple zones), and the public stop locations already defined. Alternatively it could be fluid and players could negotiate it as they go along. So if we were to have two games going, could we have one that's basically a free-for-all and another that operates according to some guiding principle or even a set of rules? What do others think of this concept, and what ideas do others have about styles of multi-play?

I'm happy to host such a game, maybe you could produce a suitable map? I'd also be happy to give the admin password (for the public service account) to some trusted individuals to help sort out issues caused by other players networks if need be. I don't actually have very much time to play the game and can't log in to fix things often so having some in-game admins would be very useful.

I've been working on improving the management tools I have, the next one will be a web page where you can view the in-game chat messages. When the next stable release comes out (with the nettool functionality) I'll be able to really improve things a lot.

That sounds great, I'm certainly happy to have a go at putting together a suitable map for whatever game style we want to pursue. For nice multiplay I'm thinking of the following characteristics:
1. Long navigable waterways and/or coastline to permit long-distance heavy transport without the need to build extensive land infrastructure.
2. Natural barriers such as waterways and mountain ranges to stop everyone sprawling wherever and force co-operation. If we go with the player-per-region idea then these also form nice natural regional borders.
3. Localisation of industries so players trying to serve industry chains don't trip all over each other, also each regional player would have an industry chain contained within their region that they could develop independently.

What size map do we reckon is ideal? From a downloading point of view I wouldn't expect we'd want to get any more than twice the area of the last one (512x512).
Also, what starting population? The last map had about 900,000 in 96 cities.

I had a browse through maps.simutrans.com with the above in mind and like the look of:
Portland
Switzerland by Groovy Kimo
Zurich Area by Statto
Romania by Joker
Poland by Joker (long rivers)

All water -2 from memory, and at high maximum heights and all except Poland at high roughness.
All of the above are available in sizes comparable to, usually slightly larger than, the last map.

How about map chalenges/competition? Some people make a map, others vote for the best map.

But there's a problem, when cities will grow, a lot of industries will be added, and randomly on the map...
May be we can make enough large cities at start to make a good passenger network, and set the growth of cities off.
A map with natural barriers as moblet said is a good idea, but we can also make a "readme" on the map when a player join the server, which will explains that there are reserved areas, because natural barriers may are very strange on a map...

When you make a map for uploading onto the server make sure:

1. That you are running exactly the same pak version and Simutrans version as the server (if you can connect as a client to the server then you should be ok)
2. That the game is run in server mode, e.g. with the -server command line flag - this is important as otherwise it won't save player passwords etc.
3. Change the name of the human player to "Spectator" and set a password
4. Set a password on the Public Service player
5. Save the game when you've done this, all players joining the game in future will see the place where your screen is when the game is saved. If you want to give new players a message then use signposts on the place where your screen is positioned when saving. E.g. you could provide a link to a forum thread/website with more information about the server.

Also please let me know what the password is :)

Map size shouldn't be more than 1024x1024, and I'd prefer you keep it down to something like 768x768. The bigger the map the more memory is used and that's the real limiting factor. :)

I've decided to use the Switzerland map, it has a good variety of terrain and at 771x459 it's bigger than the previous map but still a server-friendly size. Am deviating a little from my original plan, am exploring the idea of setting things out in vaguely realistic fashion, meaning:
- urban centres on flat land
- resources concentrated geographically and maybe even sensibly
- building end-consumption factories in urban centres in proportion to their population

I realise that the game will build things anywhere so the map will become increasingly random as time passes, but I'm interested to see how we go trying to play from that starting point. It may lead us to a scenario where some players take responsibility for distributing within urban centres and establish public distribution centres to which other players deliver products from the countryside. Either that or we establish public stops at end-consumers and converge upon them with our various products. Having resources concentrated geographically also means that "development of an industry chain" and "development of a region" are almost the same thing, and should stop everyone trying to build over the top of each other, at least for the first hundred years or so.

Will post drafts of the map as I go along, in fact the first of these can be downloaded here (http://www.moblet.net/bluedot/swiss_mp.zip) (being 10Kb too large to attach to this post). For now ignore any actual industries on the map, these were auto-generated. I have scattered some signs around the map where I intend to place various resources and factories, still working on that, suggestions welcome. Seeking feedback on the following:
- Suitability of the base map
- Suitability of current city locations and sizes

Any estimates on how many end-consumption factories we need at startup?

Nominations for city names most welcome.

I don't have any need to monopolise this process either, if someone else wants to run with this, grab it and do so. I want to work collaboratively rather than in competitive isolation though.

Thanks for the checklist Timothy.

I saw your savegame, we need more industries by far...
Do you remember how fast we connected factories  ;)
The map is very good, but I suggest to make an equitable map in number of passengers at start, you should add more larger cities in the east because the west has 2 or three big centers of passengers.

Oh another idea : maybe doing motorways as I did on the previous map; but with the public player, it will help a lot

I like your map moblet, the city placements are good, my only suggestion would be to increase the size of one of the ones in the south east corner.

In terms of industries, I don't think we need many, in fact on the last map many remained unserved, and they pop up quickly when pax are transported. Prissi often placed many unconnected supplier industries in areas to simulate the fact that resources are not available everywhere, so new industries will connect to those industries.

I will tinker with this map a little, particularly with industry, and then re upload it for you to see.

Fifty / RF&P

EDIT: Here is some first work, I put in some rivers through the cities to make more realistic, and grew some cities. I have yet to do anything with industries. http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Swiss_MP_50modv1.sve (http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Swiss_MP_50modv1.sve)

EDIT 2: I placed a lot of raw material industries around the map, many in places you had signs. I increased coal mine production. I wrote some comments on signs with an * in front of the comment. By not connecting all of these raw material producers at the outset, new industries should connect to these industries instead of building new ones. I welcome any comments or criticisim. http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Swiss_MP_50modv2.sve (http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Swiss_MP_50modv2.sve)

I like what you've done Fifty, I think we just got a couple of steps closer.

I agree that we had too many industries on the last map, we had no hope of serving all of them, especially in the physical space available. I vote that the server's config file be edited to maybe halve the industry growth rate.

We can either expand the population in the east or give the east excellent industrial opportunities to offer a balanced set of possibilities and allow players to choose challenges according to their preference. I don't believe we need to make every region equal in opportunity as some players may have time to build and manage huge and growing networks while others may only have time to maintain something small, simple, and stable.

I was figuring that in each of these primary production regions we would only place one accompanying secondary industry (e.g. one sawmill in St Davids as the only consumer of lumber from the neighbouring plantations). This should still provide enough revenue potential while discouraging two players from working in the one place. Would that work?

On the tertiary industry side I was figuring on doing things mathematically, i.e. set rates of gasoline, food, beer, etc consumption per capita and place consumers of appropriate capacity in cities accordingly, which is totally realistic and might offer some interesting distribution opportunities, especially ones that can be shared between players. So, for example's sake, all cities get at least one gas station, bakery, and garbage dump (in tiny cities these would have low rates), medium size and up cities would also get at least one dairy, material wholesaler, supermarket, shopping mall, and car dealership (with consumption rates in proportion to the population of their catchment area), while large cities would also get shopping centres and publishing houses. Does that sound like a good approach?

Funny Guillaume, I was at the same time thinking that maybe the public player could build some railway track and maybe wharves. It sounds like an interesting idea we can experiment with in games once we're happy with our cities and industries.

You're doing a great job with the industry placement Fifty - do you want to keep going with it?

Hi, moblet, fifty, that is a nice map.  :)

I think it will be a good idea if we have freeway from the begining of the game, so transporting goods to a distant place can be easier. Like this (http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/map-road.png).
It also makes management easier, because it divide map into 16 region.  ;D
Save (http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Swiss_MP_50modv3.sve)

Yes, I know it is a little bit crazy.  :)

Ha! That's a really cool way to draw boundaries.

The topology of this map means that regions would be necessarily first defined by river basins, and subsequently by locations of primary industries and of large urban centres, so a simple grid wouldn't work. On a flat, evenly distributed map it probably would work. The concept is good though, of building motorways as boundaries and killing two birds with one stone - defining boundaries and providing some public long-distance transport infrastructure. Although in this map we might not be building them along the mountain ridges!

Hi, I make a map with great lines, thanks to moblet and Fifty :
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/197/simscr78.png/ (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/197/simscr78.png/)

Red : motorway
Orange : 95km/h
yellow circle : canal

I divided the map in 8-9-10-11 with white lines : I think it will need some adjustements because I did it fast, and the surface is not equal, I try to make the same population in each of it, but the industry need adjustments. The grey circles means that the population of the city should be more ( see the size of the circle  ;) ), I deleted Yessitz which is not a good place at top of a mountain...
It really needs modifications in the future, but it's a tool to think.

I didn't think about making boundaries at the first place. But when it was done, I zoomed out, and... Wow, What a nice grid! :)

The reason was to make it easier to transport anything far away without the need to build rail or road. At least for me, the most 'unFun' thing when playing simutrans multiplayer is building distant road/rail. I desync almost every 5-15 mins and the ping to server can reach half seconds sometimes.

It also reduce map chaos because the players build railway everywhere. Players will build their own way only when necessary. Using shared road is also more eficient than one, single line rail. The road also increase colaboration. Moreover, maybe it reduce savegame size for faster download.

That road has 80 km/h speed limit, so it wont get too congested, as every car will run at 80 km/h if we put speed limit.

About the grid: I usually divide the map into 16 areas to locate anything easily. I often name line and major station with somthing like '24 Southampton' where (2,4) is the coordinate of the grid. So It make me easily find the problematic line/station.roblematic line/station.

You chaps have pretty much convinced me that all that public infrastructure is a good idea, I just haven't thought that far ahead as we haven't got all the industries installed yet, which is where my head's at.

Guillaume, St Lessitz was a play on St Moritz, intended to be a mountain resort village with lots of tourist attractions. Realistic for a mountainous map but perhaps a dumb idea in Simutrans given its lack of respect for difficult topography (i.e. the little village will inevitably sprawl into a city, unlike the real thing).

As for a public railway, I was thinking of well-signalled double high speed track, maybe even two pairs, one for diesel freight and the other for electrified passenger trains. I'd be interested in trying this sometime but it doesn't have to be immediately, more than happy to work with the roads first. Roads are more space efficient at low tonnages but not at high ones, where the sheer number of trucks means congested roads and long queues - and inevitably jams affecting other players - at yards.

Quote from: moblet on August 06, 2011, 03:35:40 PM
Guillaume, St Lessitz was a play on St Moritz, intended to be a mountain resort village with lots of tourist attractions. Realistic for a mountainous map but perhaps a dumb idea in Simutrans given its lack of respect for difficult topography (i.e. the little village will inevitably sprawl into a city, unlike the real thing).

Moblet, simply turn "allow city growth" off for this city.

I am going to do some more work with industries, then we can talk about public infrastructure. A small road net is probably good, rails can be a headache to manage public. Once the game starts then players can build public freight interchanges and trackage rights with public rails. Passenger tracks should be private though, I think, with interchanges occurring only at public stops.

Also, I think areas for players are best developed organically once the game starts

Moblet, the industry growth cannot be turned down without modifying the simuconf before starting the game, so impossible without ruining all of the work we have done. But with fewer cities, the industry growth should be lower since it makes theoretical exponential population growth (which will not occur in a a netgame) linear, thus lowering industry growth as compared to the last game. (I hope this makes sense)

That all sounds sensible to me Fifty, and we can save ourselves work by not trying to be too prescriptive with the region boundaries before we've ever tried playing the map. Once we have our industries sorted we should keep a template with no public ways so we can develop different versions thereof.

If you think the industry growth config might be an issue we should go back and fix it now before we develop any further. It wouldn't be an excessive amount of work to simply copy what we've already done, as there's no thinking involved. I'm happy to do it if you reckon it could be worth it.

Is it possible for a private player to make their rails public? Or must the public player build them in the first place? We could even try playing with one player acting as the government, playing as the public player and providing efficient mainline and main road infrastructure that everyone can share instead of plastering individual spaghetti all over the map.

I like it. But players can't make public rails... But a player or two can have the password of the public player and make the "government" : motorways, rails, canals as moblet said.
I agree with moblet, I don't know where in the simuconf.tab, but if it will promise a nice game, we should do it by modifying it.

Maybe ask timothy or a devel about it, but I am pretty sure that would require the entire map to be built again from scratch. It is much easier to remove some excess industries with public service. This is why having an active public service would be good. It takes a lot of work to do the industries, I don't want either of us to have to re do it.

Lessitz has its growth turned off.

I built the Canal G suggested.

Anyway, I think industry is done. I have built the end consumers listed below and linked them with all needed steps for production. When new end consumer industries are formed, they should build secondary industries nearby if they cannot link to others with excess capacity on the map, and those secondary industries will link to some raw material producers already on the map.

I hope that I have enough power on the map, power is a percentage of total demand, so lots of unused raw material factories mean lots of power is needed on the map. If not, then a bunch of power industries will be built first.

End consumers on map now:
1 Bakery
1 Car Dealer
5 Coal power stations
1 Dairy
7 Gas Stations (1 with ethanol)
3 Oil Power plants
1 Shopping Mall (No textiles yet)
1 Supermarket
1 Waste incinerator

G, you can probably go ahead and build some highways (not too many/not every city connected), I can easily change industries around them. I think maybe just build the roads you outlined in red, leave the orange ones for later. But do make the red autobahn go close to Capital.

http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Swiss_MP_50modv4.sve (http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Swiss_MP_50modv4.sve)

I did motorways on the map, please give me some feedbacks, I can modify it on suggestion  ;)
Here the link : http://www.gamefront.com/files/20643732/Swiss_MP_50modv5.sve (http://www.gamefront.com/files/20643732/Swiss_MP_50modv5.sve)

Looks Great G! You should have the public password in case we need any more public highways, obviously you are a master :)

Moblet, what do you think? If you think it looks good, then all we need to do is set the passwords and give the save to Timothy. Put the map at a place where we can put lots of signs.

How about completing the full circle of the freeway?
Swiss_MP_50modv7.sve (http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Swiss_MP_50modv7.sve)

Why not building the orange line? Or should I help you to rebuild the orange line?

EDIT: I think we should protect the entire freeway with dirt road. I tried to grow some nearby city. The roads are replaced with city road quickly, even though the freeway is 10 tiles away. Cities grow fast. This will also protect the freeway from the industry, so it won't be built next to the freeway.

EDIT 2: Grammar correction.  ;D

Timothy, as all of this discussion pertains to what will become a new server, perhaps we should move it to a new thread rather than pollute this one.

I think the map is looking pretty good, and that once the final touches are done on the industries we should get in and try playing the map before worrying too much about this or that. The experience of a game or two will quickly tell us what we do or don't want from here.

On the subject of public roads, we have a range of views from mine (don't build many and keep the south-east relatively isolated) to Vonjo's (build a complete ring motorway with high speed connecting roads); rather than debate it too much I suggest we try playing with what Guillaume has presented and see how it goes. I agree about protecting the motorway - what about doing that with taxiway, tram track and/or watercourses in the hope that the sim doesn't convert these into urban road? (Such ways could be declared off-limits for use by private players).

In the latest revision (http://www.moblet.net/bluedot/Swiss_MP_50modv6.sve) I've done nothing but change the city names, many are plays on real place names, and many give clues as to what can be found there (e.g. the supermarket is in Cannes, corn abounds at Cobh, and so on). There's a nod to the game's creator and also one to our server host, and I couldn't resist naming a pass after the guy who was the first to build a road over it. If anyone finds any of the names offensive or irritating I will change them. Naturally I suggest that our first textile mill be placed at Knittern, if you put the mill elsewhere Fifty I'll do some renaming.

Fifty, do you want to finish your industry work and then we'll upload the map and give it a whirl? Only questions in my mind are:
- will one initial sawmill and textile mill be enough?
- do you think we also need a shopping centre chain to begin with or do you say we just try this and see how we go?
But basically I reckon we should get in and try playing the map before thinking too much more about what it does or doesn't need.

I added old taxiways to the motorway in order to protect if from players and cities.
Here the link : http://www.gamefront.com/files/20645813/Swiss_MP_50modv7.sve (http://www.gamefront.com/files/20645813/Swiss_MP_50modv7.sve)

Hi, Guillaume, why dont you connect the southwest road?

I make a new version with the 95 km/h roads, Vonjo, we need to respect the mountains to make the map realistic  ;)
Here the link : http://www.gamefront.com/files/20645866/Swiss_MP_50modv7.1.sve

@Vonjo : what you painted is done in 95km/h roads now  ;)

Ok thanks, Guillaume.

I have 2 suggestion:
1. How about making a public interchange?
2. Just upload the current savegame to the server, and see how it work. We can fix anything else as the game progress, or just fix it in the next game.

I think that public interchange will be construct when players want, where they want, and how they want  ;)
I can't upload it because I don't know how to do it, and we need to fix some things more before starting.

Okay, I have made some more modifications based off of G's revision with the 95 km/h roads. Here's what I've done:

-Added a textile chain to the shopping mall chain
-Added 3 sawmills and 2 paper mills near timber growing areas per moblet
-Changed the location of two interchanges on the autobahn at 395, 92 and at 467, 389.
-Removed and downgraded some roads around that I felt were redundant

Please share your thoughts, particularly on the roads; I hope I did not remove too many. Likewise, make sure that I did the interchanges right.

I *think* the industry is done.

http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Swiss_MP_50modv8.1.sve (http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Swiss_MP_50modv8.1.sve)

Ok, I let some 65 km/h roads for very low trucks and buses, but yes the players will built it themself  ;)
Autobahns are ready now.
Industries are ready for a good start.
Maybe we should make some east cities larger to allow early good passenger network... Or maybe not  ;)

EDIT : maybe set the open page on a particular point and make a readme with rules.

We've done some good work here, let's just run it and see how it goes. As we will have public player powers we can grow cities artificially if we need to. Once we have a better idea of what is our "perfect map" we can refine this savegame and replace it on the server.

I have set the opening scene and some passwords, will PM the passwords and request Timothy to upload once they've been tested. I've not placed any signs at the opening scene yet, we can easily do that as we go along, and it will be easier to direct players here once we know the name of the server.

Package to play on this server.

http://download-gratuitos.blogspot.com/2011/08/simutrans-11001-online-servidores.html


Edit by Timothy:

You don't need to download anything except the stable for your OS and the pakset linked to in the first post of this thread! Please read the first post for instructions for playing on this server.

Just an observation from how the current game is evolving - taxiways bordering the motorway will also protect it from players connecting to it wherever they want.

Quote from: moblet on August 08, 2011, 03:31:55 AM
Just an observation from how the current game is evolving - taxiways bordering the motorway will also protect it from players connecting to it wherever they want.

No, it will not. Anyone can delete either the taxiway and even the road wherever they want.
However I have just found that we can protect the road from players by electrifiying the road and replace the taxiway with electrified rail.

I think the 95km/h road need both protections (rail and electrification) too, and the 65km/h intercity road also need to be electrified.

Moblet, congratulations for your 100th post. ;D

I built the 95km/h road not only to connect cities but also to connect industries, so players need access to these roads. So I think protection for 95km/h roads are awful and useless.
For motorway, making electrification on railway for protection is... awful sorry  ;)  We can explain to players that they can't connect to motorway except on the existing interchanges. If they don't respect this rule : admins should destroy it. And we can keep the old taxiway, it's not awful and unostentatious, but enough to dissuade players from doing new interchanges.

How about road electrification to avoid abusive player from deleting the road?
This will allow troleybus to pass too.

Well, we want a realistic map... and we can let some liberty to the players too  ;)
A too restricted game is not good.
This is what I think, but if others think in a different way... I'll do it, but we need more opinions.

I think electrified road bordered by electrified rail is an unnecessary eyesore. We will have active public players able to delete any unauthorised connections, and because ways are identified we will know who did it. I was wrong that a public taxiway provided protection, but it still shows players where they can and can't go. This should be enough.

Client stayed paused for a few minutes during a join. I eventually closed Simutrans and the server is now down.

Timothy (no pressure, thank you for allowing us to make a map and I know you are moving) but when might you have the new map up?

Whoever is Player 12, please stop blocking other people's vehicles with roadblocks.

the server is closed?

The new map is up and running now, I'm also going to restart this game with a new larger map.

@Sephiroth - the server is definitely not closed :)

puts more factories!! has few!

Quote from: Timothy on August 05, 2011, 09:06:53 AM
Should be back up.

I would love to get any information about crashes of the server. If the server crashes on loading the savegame then please provide that savegame. Is it possible to run the server inside gdb (or any other debugger) to get backtrace information in case of crashes?

The save games all end up here when the maps are rotated:

http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/networksavegames/sim128/

The one which caused the crash is probably the 5th August one.

How would I run the server inside a debugger? Would that have any performance impact? I'm already pushing the capability of my server as it is...

Quote from: Timothy on August 10, 2011, 06:50:15 AM
The one which caused the crash is probably the 5th August one.

I could load this without troubles :/

Quote
How would I run the server inside a debugger? Would that have any performance impact? I'm already pushing the capability of my server as it is...

Is gdb available for your server? Running it inside gdb should not drain to much resources (hopefully)

Are crashes related to out-of-memory? Do you experience increasing memory consumption due to save & reload actions?

I'll get the VPS memory upgraded since it is running at full capacity at the moment.

I think gdb is available, how would I go about running it and what would I need to do in the event of a crash if running this way?

Timothy, would you accept donations for the cost of upgrading/replacing/duplicating/maintaining the Simutrans server you're running? I'm happy to chip in something and maybe a few others would be too.

Well if people want to make donations I would accept them, but that would be voluntary of course. I'll see if I can set up a paypal donate button or something like that - but really I like to do this for the community :)

EDIT: Chat logs for pak128 server:

http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/server/sim128/2011/08/11.html

I need to get the html generation set up to be automatic, and then see if I can produce a page for each server which simply shows the last 24 hours of chat, or last 200 messages or something like that.

I certainly don't want to corrupt your volunteering spirit, especially as things always seem to be more fun when there's no money involved, I'm just conscious of the usual volunteering maxim that volunteers should only be asked to give their time and the use of what they have anyway, and not also become poorer. If you're purchasing and running equipment dedicated to supporting the habits of online users then you're entitled to ask us to help with any real money you have to pay. You of course can choose to bear all those costs yourself, or you could take the donation button route, or you could post on here when you have or are planning a server expense, say what it is and how much, and invite users to contribute to it. I don't know how well donation buttons work, what I heard from Microsoft Train Simulator add-on developers is that hardly anyone uses them - one problem with them is that they are not transparent, the user can't see if you're receiving more or less than your costs.

The monthly cost I pay for the server is very little compared to the time it takes me to develop the associated software and maintain it. I can't easily put a price on that (and that's mainly why I consider this a volunteer effort). It is my intention to develop a comprehensive suite of management software and then offer a rental model (at cost) for individuals to own a server of their own without any of the management headaches - but that's quite a way off...

I will see if I can find a solution which allows transparency as to the amount donated compared to the running costs. Donations would certainly increase the number of servers I could host at the moment (if there is demand for more!)

Quote from: Sephiroth on August 07, 2011, 05:14:34 PM
Package to play on this server.

http://download-gratuitos.blogspot.com/2011/08/simutrans-11001-online-servidores.html

It asks for a password when I extract the files. ???

You don't need to download anything from a third-party website, simply download the latest stable (110.0.1) from here for your platform: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=7025.0

And then use the pakset located here:

http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/simupakopen128-1150.zip

Quote from: Timothy on August 11, 2011, 01:12:28 PMIt is my intention to develop a comprehensive suite of management software and then offer a rental model (at cost) for individuals to own a server of their own without any of the management headaches.

That's an interesting idea, hopefully we can generate enough participation to make that work. One package to consider offering is to include the physical server and internet connection at your end, as some of us do not have access to adequate upload speeds to operate our own server.

Quote from: Timothy on August 11, 2011, 01:12:28 PMI will see if I can find a solution which allows transparency as to the amount donated compared to the running costs.

This would also serve as an experiment to learn to what extent the Simutrans online player community will "automatically" cover its costs.

Quote from: Timothy on August 11, 2011, 01:12:28 PM
The monthly cost I pay for the server is very little compared to the time it takes me to develop the associated software and maintain it. I can't easily put a price on that (and that's mainly why I consider this a volunteer effort). It is my intention to develop a comprehensive suite of management software and then offer a rental model (at cost) for individuals to own a server of their own without any of the management headaches - but that's quite a way off...

This is indeed interesting - is your software likely to be compatible with Experimental?

There's no reason why it shouldn't be jamespetts, assuming the log file format is roughly the same and the command line options are identical (and even if they differ, writing a shim for Experimental wouldn't be hard).

Roughly the idea is to have these features:

Log files (with a patch for the game to log the name of players along with chat messages)
Status display (statistics, graphic showing the map etc. - another patch needed to get the map detail but I have that one written already)
Control functions, e.g. (re)start server, stop server, upload a new map etc.
Sysop functions (e.g. kick/ban players etc.)

Some of the functions require support directly from the game via the nettool, this was part of the reason I was so eager to improve that. Others are done via simple parsing of log files and shell scripting. At the moment I'm focusing on the chat log/statistics parsing part of it. Next I'll put in the basic control functions. At that point the entire thing will need to be rewritten using a web framework and I'll include the other functions at that point.

Those are interesting ideas indeed! Had you thought of testing as you go along with Experimental as well as Standard? Experimental has always been designed/forked with multi-player in mind. Perhaps you should start a specific thread to document your progress on this very interesting and worthwhile project?

Do you have a guide or docs on getting the experimental source and compiling it? If the latest builds are fairly stable I can set up a test server (I have RAM to spare now...)

Oh and I'll start a thread when I have something a bit more concrete to show :)

Experimental uses Git instead of SVN for its version control: the Github repository is here (https://github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-experimental). Other than that, compiling Experimental is more or less the same as Standard. Use the Master branch on the Github repository and the version that you build will be the same as the latest released version (currently, 9.12). Do let me know if you have any trouble.

Quote from: Timothy on August 13, 2011, 11:42:07 AMSysop functions (e.g. kick/ban players etc.)

Ooh! I like, I like.

I have a problem, I can't load the savegame from 05-Aug-2011 09:22     ( 2.9M)
The loading bar doesn't finish, and then : simutrans crashes.
Am I alone to have this problem ?

Quote from: Timothy on August 10, 2011, 06:39:24 PM
EDIT: Chat logs for pak128 server:

http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/server/sim128/2011/08/11.html

I need to get the html generation set up to be automatic, and then see if I can produce a page for each server which simply shows the last 24 hours of chat, or last 200 messages or something like that.

Hi Timothy,
Thanks for the chat logs. We can check what happens in the game when we are away.
Are you still working on this?
I played with it yesterday and I made an html page which can read all of the csv files direcly using only javascript. So, no server side processing required. Tell me if it interested you, so I can continue developing it, then it can be put on your server.

Oh, well it's almost done to be honest, I quite like the style of the comments though so I might use that.

Edit: I've set it up to automatically re-parse the last two days of logs every 5 minutes. I'm going to add a page which shows the last 200 messages for each server too but I'll do that tomorrow.

Ok, no problem, if you have done it.
Thanks :)

Quote from: Guillaume on August 15, 2011, 03:08:41 PM
I have a problem, I can't load the savegame from 05-Aug-2011 09:22     ( 2.9M)
The loading bar doesn't finish, and then : simutrans crashes.
Am I alone to have this problem ?

This is a bug, which has been fixed in the meanwhile. Not sure when, though.

Server did not respond! ...:( ,, i today played this server and now i dont join the game.....i played brown color (express goods a.s.)....help me


is it  15min...i dont join the game

Yes, looks like it has crashed. Probably overdue a fresh map anyway.

:( , so I m not alone..... when i can play ? :D....or it is restart map.....srr i dont good speak english

what is happening? :(

Server has been restarted with a new map. Note: The version of pak128 used has been increased to nightly revision 526. See the first post of this topic for download details.

ok thanks all in team :) ...i now download pak :)

Timothy,

Using this pakset with the stable program seems to yield some strange issues that are not seen when using it with a program nightly (aside from the fact that translations are broken).
-Fields do not appear
-Oil rigs and fisheries appear on land
-many industries have incredibly high production (10000 -40000 units/month)
-City industries do not appear in cities

Maybe you need to run this with a nightly program, but then again this bug may appear:http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=7868.0 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=7868.0)

P.S. 64 server is down.

Ah, I didn't realise it was so incompatible. I don't have time to compile the nightly tonight. I'll try to get to it tomorrow. :(

translations are broken ....accept 

i playing..now, i am waiting tomorow :)

when restart this server timothy ?? :(

Sorry I am a bit busy at the moment getting a new listings server up and running, I'll try and get to this asap though.


Edit: Map has been restarted (same map as before).


Edit: New map, new Simutrans version :)


Edit: Same map, new stable Simutrans version.

Where can i find the pak set + nightly build?
The ones from the first post dont work anymore..

Hm I really need to restart this map, and upgrade to pak128 v2.0... I'll see about doing that tonight.

This map has gotten pretty impressively developed. I am almost begrudged to restart it!

(http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/networksavegames/sim128/sim128_pak128.open.2.0_r4911_24_Dec_2011.png)

Also it's odd, I can connect using pak128 v2.0, despite the server running 1.99...

If you're using a nightly baked shortly before release, the important data might be indentical :)

New map up, with pak128 2.0.

So i have 128 2.0 and a nightly sim-wingdi. But i can't connect. So what am i doing wrong?

You need the 111.0 release version, not a nightly.

server not responding. I have 111.0 r 4911. Is this the corect version?

Ok, try it now :)

yep thats got it. Thank you

Whoa,

If I fill in the server info (128.simutrans.entropy.me.uk) and press enter,
I cant connect because simutrabs says its a pak64 map.

Quote from: Parachute on December 26, 2011, 09:32:18 PM
Whoa,

If I fill in the server info (128.simutrans.entropy.me.uk) and press enter,
I cant connect because simutrabs says its a pak64 map.

You need to enter the port number, 13354, so your address should say 128.simutrans.entropy.me.uk:13354. It should appear if you click the drop down box though.

Timothy, you might want to edit your first post to include the port number  ;)

Best to use the drop-down to select it, rather than typing it in :)

Click on the green button, there you can edit your company name and fill in a password :)

hehe was a good game, East was almost entirely mine! ;)

Server restarted with new game version and a new map.

Server has been restarted with the new stable (111.2.1) and pak128 2.0.

Timothy, there is a new Pak128 version 2.1 ready to be released after 111.2.1 is announced.
Check it out here: DOWNLOAD (http://sourceforge.net/projects/simutrans/files/pak128/pak128%20for%20111-2/pak128-2.1.0--111.2.zip/download) pak128 2.1.0 (68 MB) for Simutrans 111.2

as I can not join this game? I need to do?

Server restarted with 111.2.2 and pak128 2.1.

Server restarted.

is there something wrong with the server? some of my lines just disappeared or seem to belong to other players now? :( thats not funny

I've restarted this one too.

Hi Timothy, game has suddenly become slow and laggy by yesterday, maybe server/game needs to shutdown and restart?

I'll try restarting it then...

I'm amazed by the development, players even setting up their own rules on the servers, and working together. This latest map someone has even reclaimed land from the sea to expand onto... I think due to the popularity of the pak128 servers I'm going to have to look into having two of them running.

could you or one of the players elaborate what you/they did or what rules you set up or what kind of co-op play you established?

Quote from: Jaridan on September 01, 2012, 04:07:59 PM
could you or one of the players elaborate what you/they did or what rules you set up or what kind of co-op play you established?

Getting an account:
* Added a password to all the "free accounts" and told people to read the chat in order to get the account.  Why? There was two basic problems: 1) Players would get an account and never play or only play for one day, then stop playing.  This used up several slots that real players could have used.  2) Very few people know how to use the chat in Simutrans, or find it rather difficult to use.  By forcing them to know where the chat is before they get an account, it increases the chances they will actually communicate with other players in-game.

Rules:
not so much rules as things that sometimes cause conflict in games.  Really, I guess it boils down to: don't steal passenger/goods from another player.
* Don't duplicate someone else's passenger & mail system in a city.  (Basically it amounts to: don't steal passenger & mail from another player by copying their lines.)  Another reason is that some players really enjoy developing a city using passenger & mail, so it makes sense for only one player to handle one city in that case.
* Don't copy a factory or industry where someone else is already transporting 100%.  (Again, this is basically the same as the first point: not stealing goods from other players.)  Since Simutrans has a max amount that can be delivered or produced, it is not possible for many players to use the same factory without it adversely affecting the other players.  Of course, this isn't a fixed rule.  For example, it makes sense to share during the first week of the game ... or sometimes a player only needs one of the goods, so someone else can get or deliver the other good(s).

Things done in game:
* Someone added a public airport so players can exchange passenger & mail -- makes it very easy for anyone to start a passenger & mail system.
* Added a lot of land to the map.  The map used to have a lot of water, but new players needed somewhere to build, so it was filled in.
* Added a lot more cities to the map so new players have a chance to transport passenger & mail and grow their own cities.
* Added a lot of power plants as needed -- because there is too little power by default.
* Built some roads and interstates around the map for anyone to use.

There are also things that need fixing:
* Currently, there are a few public stations on the map that were created by accident that are causing big problems for players.  We really need a way to get them deleted.
* The map is littered with way way way too many industries.

Suggestions for future pak128 games:
* Make the map 80%+ land so all players have somewhere to build.
* Add more cities (so more players can build passenger & mail).
* Add just a few more factories and shopping to the starting map.  Currently, there's only 1 shopping center on starting map, which is a little difficult for several players to share.
* Raise the rate at which industries appear by 8x.  For example, if factories show up everytime a city grows by 5,000, then change it to something like 40,000.  The current rate litters the map very, very quickly.
* Perhaps slow the city growth rate?
* Need many many more power plants (with high rates 9,000+) to deal with the lack of power on the map and pak128 -- or just let players build them I guess.

Problems with the game itself:
* The public station "feature" causes all kinds of problems: namely, they produce lots of stations that can never be deleted by the players.  Right now, the map has several stations causing big problems (that need to be deleted) that were made accidentally when trying to make a road public.  It would be better if there were NO public stations; instead it would be better if you could designate that some of your stations can exchange goods with certain players.
* Power: (1) Not enough power in pak128 for all the factories/players.  (2) Players can't share power with other players (3) Multiple players cannot provide power to same factory -- the only solution right now is to build a bunch of 9,000+ power plants on the map as needed, but if this is ever disabled, it will make things difficult for all players.
* Players stop playing, but there is no way to free the account so new players can build stuff there instead.
* Stations keep backing up with more and more passenger/mail/goods way beyond station capacity.  It is difficult to fix this when they are controlled by another player... and I wonder sometimes if all this might cause some lag in multiplayer.

Regarding electricity, do you think power plants should produce more energy per unit? How much? This is rather easy to change, but probably depends on single-player mode results, too.

About power: The setting is electricity_promille in the simuconf.tab. With this set to 1000, the electricity output should hopefully match the demand. Currently this is default at 33% (330) to create a lack of electricity to supply factories strategically. (However, I am not sure how well this system copes with the change of electricity consumption by the new factories).

Passengers piling up at stations should not affect too much, as routing 10000 passengers to 100 destinations is not more demanding than routing 100 passengers to 100 destinations. Since the number of destinations should somewhat follow the square root, this increase is less severe as the increase from more stations (= more connections, exponentially) and more vehicles (linear).

Quote from: VS on September 05, 2012, 09:43:33 AM
Regarding electricity, do you think power plants should produce more energy per unit? How much? This is rather easy to change, but probably depends on single-player mode results, too.

I, personally, prefer at least 100% ... but that's single player (and maybe another topic altogether?).  However, for multiplayer there are actually a number of problems that come up: You can't share power; some people might hoard all the power plants, some might "reserve" them for future use, sometimes it's hard to get a powerline somewhere blocked by other players, players might not provide maximum resources to power the plant.  All these problems mean you probably need a high percentage set.
The ideal solution would be to add the ability to "sell" or share power.  For example:
> Basically, you can connect to any other player's power and it auto-sells you any extra power.
* Any player can connect their powerlines to another players substation.
* Any player can build a substation next to another player's powerline and it auto-connects.
* The game automatically sells extra (unused) power to other players (you can't turn this off).
* Add a global option when you click on any powerline/substation: "don't purchase power from these players" that prevents you from ever buying power (so you don't lose money).
* Allow multiple substations to be built on same factory (first person to build one, provides as much power as they can first, second person, second, etc...)

With this power sharing, I would still suggest extra power (like 200% power?) to account for player problems that naturally occur in multiplayer where some powerplants can't be accessed by others or used to fullest extent.

In the game's current form, without power sharing, you would need to raise the percentage significantly (like 500% to 1000%) to account for all the problems of one player having too much and another too little.

Quote from: prissi on September 05, 2012, 12:27:42 PM
Passengers piling up at stations should not affect too much, as routing 10000 passengers to 100 destinations is not more demanding than routing 100 passengers to 100 destinations. Since the number of destinations should somewhat follow the square root, this increase is less severe as the increase from more stations (= more connections, exponentially) and more vehicles (linear).

What about 10 Million spread across > 1000 stations?
In fact, this brings me to another point I didn't mention (because I really didn't want the server to get reset), but the current pak128 server as it is now would be a perfect one to study in terms of performance problems with Simutrans multiplayer.

Currently, the server has major issues with performance; nobody can stay synchronized for long ... and I don't think it is a server (machine) problem.  This might be a good game for someone to study in terms of selectively trying to narrow down the exact performance problem areas.

Desync do to the server (or a client) running ahead/behind due to heavy load could not be mended by the software. It would rather require more safety margins in terms of timing serverside (since the server essentially dictates the lag). Because certain actions (rerouting very large stations, new month, ... ) will take long for instance on the server (since it shares several simutrans processes). Then it will try to catch up, but in between the clients may run ahead.

(A server run at 10-15% average CPU usage means it is already more or less maxed out and will not have many spare cycles needed for spawning new industry. Especially if it runs more than one instance.)

And desync due to not handling certain cases are almost impossible to find on such a large maps. Simply too many possibilities to look at.

The map is available here, if you want to investigate further: http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/networksavegames/sim128/sim128_r5583_pak128.open.2.1_05_09_2012.sve

I'm changing the name of this server, and so starting a new thread for it.

Quote from: Kevin Ar18 on September 05, 2012, 08:52:09 PM
I, personally, prefer at least 100% ... but that's single player (and maybe another topic altogether?).  However, for multiplayer there are actually a number of problems that come up: You can't share power; some people might hoard all the power plants, some might "reserve" them for future use, sometimes it's hard to get a powerline somewhere blocked by other players, players might not provide maximum resources to power the plant.  All these problems mean you probably need a high percentage set.

As far as I know, this 100 percent of demand would cover oil rigs, end consumers, farms, timber plantations, and many other industries that do not use power. Moreover, the practice of creating new power plants litters the map with industry chain creation that would otherwise be used to create power chains that are not nearly as extensive as, say, a shopping mall. If people are smart about electricity use (not electrifying things that don't need it!) 33% is more than enough in any netgame I've ever played. I personally dislike powering everything as it litters the map with powerlines that make building more difficult.

But, I agree, it would be nice to be able to build a public power substation of sorts that would appropriately deal with excess power between players. At the moment, the best practice is, if it can be coordinated, to use a central player for all powerlines.

Quote from: Kevin Ar18 on September 04, 2012, 10:48:22 PM
Getting an account:
* Added a password to all the "free accounts" and told people to read the chat in order to get the account.  Why? There was two basic problems: 1) Players would get an account and never play or only play for one day, then stop playing.  This used up several slots that real players could have used.  2) Very few people know how to use the chat in Simutrans, or find it rather difficult to use.  By forcing them to know where the chat is before they get an account, it increases the chances they will actually communicate with other players in-game.

Rules:
not so much rules as things that sometimes cause conflict in games.  Really, I guess it boils down to: don't steal passenger/goods from another player.
* Don't duplicate someone else's passenger & mail system in a city.  (Basically it amounts to: don't steal passenger & mail from another player by copying their lines.)  Another reason is that some players really enjoy developing a city using passenger & mail, so it makes sense for only one player to handle one city in that case.
* Don't copy a factory or industry where someone else is already transporting 100%.  (Again, this is basically the same as the first point: not stealing goods from other players.)  Since Simutrans has a max amount that can be delivered or produced, it is not possible for many players to use the same factory without it adversely affecting the other players.  Of course, this isn't a fixed rule.  For example, it makes sense to share during the first week of the game ... or sometimes a player only needs one of the goods, so someone else can get or deliver the other good(s).

Are there still problems with pax/good routing over different networks*, or why are you trying to prevent competition between companies? Having players compete against each other might allow more to play without needing more cities. In other words, what's wrong when a new arrival has a better service in a particular part and reduced profitability of the established players, perhaps driving them into bankruptcy?


*with alternative routes one route took all in the past.


I've had a brief glance at the servers currently running, and it is not quite obvious how to get a login for one of the locked players. Or are they all actually being played?

Quote from: sdog on September 08, 2012, 07:24:42 AM
Are there still problems with pax/good routing over different networks*, or why are you trying to prevent competition between companies? Having players compete against each other might allow more to play without needing more cities. In other words, what's wrong when a new arrival has a better service in a particular part and reduced profitability of the established players, perhaps driving them into bankruptcy?

Difference in goals I suppose.  A lot of players play solely for the purpose of building something they like (even in multiplayer).  Some people like to focus on developing a particular city ... or maybe focus on a particular factory and trying to make the most efficient route that delivers the maximum.  Someone else building in the same city could potentially cut off all the passengers -- even if the newcomer develops a really aweful line that never transports anyone and the other player has a really nice, complex line that potentially transports everyone efficiently without any waiting times.  Also, if the player finds their enjoyment on developing and growing a few cities, then someone else coming in and blocking their efforts can throw days or weeks of work they put into that city down the drain.

Having the goal being competition and trying to bankrupt the other person might fit best into a different type of game -- one I've never seen in Simutrans....  Something where the goal is not to build anything nice, but to get the most income in a certain time period, bankrupt other players, and generally try to thwart the other players.  ....  Only problem, is such an alternative game would not work very well in current Simutrans.  There are things you can do to the game that would make it easy for one player to "win" in no time -- little tricks of the game because it wasn't designed for that kind of competition.

QuoteI've had a brief glance at the servers currently running, and it is not quite obvious how to get a login for one of the locked players. Or are they all actually being played?

There are accounts available.  Just read the messages that appear when you join the game.  There is one that tells you how to proceed.  However, people like to build in this game, so I hope you won't try "competitive" play in this server. :)

Quote from: Kevin Ar18 on September 10, 2012, 10:30:43 PM
Difference in goals I suppose.  A lot of players play solely for the purpose of building something they like (even in multiplayer).  Some people like to focus on developing a particular city ... or maybe focus on a particular factory and trying to make the most efficient route that delivers the maximum.  Someone else building in the same city could potentially cut off all the passengers -- even if the newcomer develops a really aweful line that never transports anyone and the other player has a really nice, complex line that potentially transports everyone efficiently without any waiting times.

...

There are things you can do to the game that would make it easy for one player to "win" in no time -- little tricks of the game because it wasn't designed for that kind of competition.

Have you ever tried Experimental...?

Quote from: Kevin Ar18 on September 10, 2012, 10:30:43 PM
Having the goal being competition and trying to bankrupt the other person might fit best into a different type of game -- one I've never seen in Simutrans....  Something where the goal is not to build anything nice, but to get the most income in a certain time period, bankrupt other players, and generally try to thwart the other players.

Well, that's quite an extreme opposite of the cooperative game. There's also something as fair competition in a game.

Quote
There are accounts available.  Just read the messages that appear when you join the game.  There is one that tells you how to proceed.  However, people like to build in this game, so I hope you won't try "competitive" play in this server.

I've seen a message telling me to go to a map position, where i found nothing. Chat was not helpful either, at one server it was almost empty, on another one it was full with a long discussion not relevant for anyone joining.


I'm certain i'd find a way to get into it. In particular as i've played online before, and know how it works in general. However i'd guess it might be awfully difficult for anyone  comming online the first time. Please bear in mind, those servers are something like the official game servers of simutrans, the first servers anyone would connect when trying out this game.


Perhaps, when you are taking the job of locking accounts, writing extensive messages, you might also write something here, and in the wiki, and most importantly provide some way to contact you while you are not in the game.

I had hoped others might run game servers, these ones have rather become the only ones in constant operation... I guess the barrier to entry for running a game server is still too high.

There are many differing play-styles one can employ in Simutrans. I deliberately take a hands-off approach to running these servers (mostly I don't have time to log in often and see what's happening). The idea was to provide a nice taste of what online play could be like, and then hope that people would go away and set up their own servers with their own rules to enjoy the game in the way they want to. I was always happy to look into setting up servers for this purpose (e.g. the Moblet games), although it's harder for pak128 due to the rather massive memory footprint of the pakset.

I appreciate Kevin Ar18's attempts to moderate on the server, but I would encourage people to set up their own games if they want to play a certain way and to try and avoid forcing players on these servers to play in a particular manner. I'm going to try and be more proactive about regularly starting new maps in future to try and avoid the over-development which causes a lot of frustration for newer players.