My personal impression

[Theo]

Probably this topic must be moved to Praises?
[EN]
Hi. Firstly i have to sorry for any mistakes (and topic mis-choose too) cause my English is not good enough  

i've tried Simutrans after some years of TTD playing. I am impressed by the things, which are realized in Simu and wasn't in TTD. The idea is nice, settings are much more flexible, graphics is well, power of game engine is impressive. Please keep working on this project!

But i have seen some negative things.
The game is totally newbie unfriendly! It concerns not poor localizations, i understand this is an open-source =) I mean the game settings and interface. When i tried in 110.0.2 to change some default settings, i didn't know user must start a new game to have settings saved! And making general settings unreachable from game menu isn't a good idea. Every setting have their own popup-help message, which is talking "this value must be a number from 0 to 3", but it is difficult enough to find what the setting really makes. While the included readme helps only with the very first step in Simutrans, and the locale-included help refers to http://russian.simutrans.com which is not found =] Strange default interface, unusual economic model aren't help, too. And big difference between paks is sometimes... disappointing, it will be nice having exact default pak rules using the 192-like graphics...
{bug} fps is falling down to 5-6 during game is paused and returning to normal 25 while running.

I noticed the trouble with diagonal railroads is not solved at the moment. Maybe, the engine shall be modified? If building leaved as is but the drawing changes it would be possible make smooth but realistic sharps...

it's all i have at time =) Generally, Simutrans is a great game.  I will (willingly?) help Simutrans as i can...  
sorry again for any mistakes.

[RU]
Привет. Я попробовал рассказать о впечатлениях, возникших после Симутранса, если я выразился непонятно, пожалуйста, обращайтесь!
Симутранс - классная игра!

[jamespetts]

Theo,

it's always interesting to see an analysis of the game from the perspective of a new player. I shall leave the comments about the interface and the graphics/cornering to others, but might I ask you to elaborate a little in relation to the economic model? In what way did you find the economic model to be "unusual", and what effect did it have on your ability to understand the game well?

[Theo]

might I ask you to elaborate a little in relation to the economic model? In what way did you find the economic model to be "unusual", and what effect did it have on your ability to understand the game well?

Well, as TTD player, i understood the main goal of the game as: 1) find cargo/passengeres in point A, transport them to point B and have profit; 2) while using heavy loaded transport channel try to optimize cargo streams and use simple way on it full possibilities; 3) make an toy-railroad and try to make extremal routes by using pathfind and signals. The TTD game has a 4) try to restore all the system if something crash, but I think it's okay without 4) =)

Summarily, unusual in game economics for me:
- Comparatively difficult start (maybe needed an tutorial?);
- Industry placing (increase distance between producer and consumer; field-plant-shop balance);
- the only stimulating to use already built ways for a new reasons are building and maintenance costs, whose high values are surprisingly for newbie
- short passenger service is unsure-profitable (looks like it needs only but strongly for to-trainstation-ferry)
- default station covered zone is too small
- (is not an economical issue but) as vehicles tasklists are using waypoints, vehicle loading was a quiz for me before I discovered road_signals.

it's all at time, if i'd remember anything more i'll post it =) have a good night...

Code Select Expand

The game was installed, settings was set and i started the game. Firstly i tried to find an manufacture with a high cargo generation abilities. It was impressive to see that a plant request cargo only from a few fields (looks realistic, but sometimes i thought "hey, the coal from the nearest mine is the same coal as the one in mine on another end of map; probably this limitation is unnecessary"), that a plant need workers from nearest cities. But then i tried to build system "field-plant-store" and my first result was very fast bankrupt. Plant had too fast filled by raw material, the shops were quickly full. Unusual was necessary to be very wisely with volume of transporting. Additionally the industry was placed wait enough from one another, so i couldn't use simple railway for multiple routes. I understand that the industry density is easy changeable, but, maybe, the placing algorithm might be better.
So i tried to transport passengers, built a little railroad between two large towns, also i built some bus routes in the towns, but the towns weren't generating enough people to all this was profitable. In the settings the parameter 'passenger factor' was maximal, so i was surprised a bit.

[jamespetts]

May I ask - which pakset did you use? Many of the things about which you write vary by pakset.

[Theo]

?

[Theo]

of course =) i tried default pak(64) and pak128 for first time. I felt difference was not big between their economical models. Maybe it is?

[ojii]

- default station covered zone is too small

I agree (it's why I love pak128 where the default coverage is higher).

I think the proper solution would be per-station-type coverage settings. So eg a bus stop has a coverage of 3, train stations 4, airports 6 or something like this.

In real life, you're much more likely to walk further to get to a train, since it get's you further. But for a bus station I would walk less far.

[Theo]

I think the proper solution would be per-station-type coverage settings. So eg a bus stop has a coverage of 3, train stations 4, airports 6 or something like this.

In real life, you're much more likely to walk further to get to a train, since it get's you further. But for a bus station I would walk less far.

youre wrong about the real life using airport or train you're taking a lot of luggage with it. So if i would live in 6 tiles from train, i'd like take a bus for one stop instead of walking 6! tiles with a heavy bag. Airports are mostly out of city border, so even if i would live in 3 tiles from airport i do need walk 3 tiles across a field. With luggage. :-\

but for small towns you're absolutely correct. The village may have only a station and none other city transport; but all the village must use only it. (but: if we are talking about industry, the station coverage is to be still low!)

[prissi]

The more difficult start is intended, since TTD does not provide any challenge at all. For easier start there is the beginner mode.

The extended settings should not be modified at all by normal users. Those are for experts. Thus there is no explaination, and this is intended. YOu can really break your games with some of them.

If you do not like the default setting for station catchment area, you can easily increase it. But anything larger than 3x3 kill more or less the incentive for local transport.

[ojii]

Another idea: How about soft-catchment areas? As in, within 3x3 100% of the goods will actually use the transports provided by the station (if the transport provides a connection they want), then withing an extra 1-tile radius, the chances drop down to 50% and then another 10% chance ring. I know this sounds complicated, but would add more realism (in my opinion)...

[Theo]

If you do not like the default setting for station catchment area, you can easily increase it. But anything larger than 3x3 kill more or less the incentive for local transport.

Not to easy, like other settings 'for experts', yeah?

The extended settings should not be modified at all by normal users. Those are for experts. Thus there is no explaination, and this is intended. YOu can really break your games with some of them.

the setting "windows buttons on right" must be not an expert setting. but i still do not understand, where and how is this setting saved. Sometimes after i change some settings, this switches to default by itself! Should i manually editing Simuconf.tab? it's incorrect... Why not use the buttons "save this setting generally" and "save this setting for this pak"?

[Theo]

Another idea: How about soft-catchment areas? As in, within 3x3 100% of the goods will actually use the transports provided by the station (if the transport provides a connection they want), then withing an extra 1-tile radius, the chances drop down to 50% and then another 10% chance ring. I know this sounds complicated, but would add more realism (in my opinion)...

o_O for passenger service it sounds native, some peoples ever won't use buses having a healthy foots. But cargo service not. Realistic will be stick station to the industry ever.

[prissi]

About some long term idea is to provide several difficulty levels for beginner, advanded and expert with different good prices, pax generation rates and so on. But so far nothing was done in this direction yet.

[jamespetts]

o_O for passenger service it sounds native, some peoples ever won't use buses having a healthy foots. But cargo service not. Realistic will be stick station to the industry ever.

There is much to be said for having a set of ranges of passengers' walking distance preferences selected by weighted random and used instead of the fixed tile radius.

It would also be rather good to allow passengers to walk from one stop to another in the middle of their journeys, but this would be horribly complicated to implement due to the interaction with the routing mechanism, which is necessarily a complicated and performance-critical part of the code.

[inkelyad]

It would also be rather good to allow passengers to walk from one stop to another in the middle of their journeys, but this would be horribly complicated to implement due to the interaction with the routing mechanism, which is necessarily a complicated and performance-critical part of the code.

In exp it will be complicated, but looks doable. We 'just' need to insert some items with 'only for passengers" into connextions table.

[Theo]

would be horribly complicated to implement due to the interaction with the routing mechanism, which is necessarily a complicated and performance-critical part of the code.

If those would be realised, just make an setting checkbox 'use the NEW passenger routing' with an attention to prevent it's use on not enough... 'linguistic trouble'... on slow one PC. As ever - performance/toys balance.
another thing is to think, need we that feature critically or not, and i would vote for "not"

[jamespetts]

It wouldn't be too difficult for the user to understand (and, indeed, would in many respects be easier for the user to understand than the current bizarre situation of two stops right next to each other between which people steadfastly refuse to pass with no sensible explanation), but would be somewhat tricky to program. Inkelyad is right, however, about how best to implement it, and it might not be quite as difficult as I thought. Still, not a top priority at present, but something to consider for the future.

[jamespetts]

In exp it will be complicated, but looks doable. We 'just' need to insert some items with 'only for passengers" into connextions table.

I have now coded this - have a look at my walking-connexions branch on Github.