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Passenger cars of the 21st century

Started by Ters, October 05, 2012, 06:14:10 PM

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Ters

After the last of several recent change in the game's revenue calculation, I've been looking over all my lines in order to make a profit again. As far as I can see, my medium speed, medium distance passengers trains are the main source of red numbers. These lines are still served by locomotives hauling a mix of passenger and mail cars. This is a bit anachronistic in the early 21st centrury, but the mail container cars can't keep the same speed as passenger trains, and adding a slow track for them seems unrealistic and will require some micromanaging to keep the right train on the right track. I also don't use the double decker car, because I feel they are more suited for shorter routes within metropolitan areas.

But putting my perhaps strange preferences aside, there is still the fact that the Empire Alto passenger cars costs 9.70 for 86 passengers, and all locomotives are either expensive or so weak that their cheapness doesn't help. The ICE TD passenger car goes faster (higher bonus), carries more passenger, is cheaper, and requires cheaper "locomotives" that even contributes to the profit by carrying passengers. It is much of the same with the X2000. The double decker carries almost twice the number of passenger, is almost half the cost, yet looses less than half the income due to less speed bonus. All of these I am able to operate with a profit, but not the Empire Alto. I have not yet evaluated the Tigress.

Is the Empire Alto too expensive? Does the game lack a low speed, low capacit passenger car for the 21st century? Or is there some tricks or gameplay aspects I'm completely missing here? And I'm not interested in add-ons. I want pak64 to work straight out of the box without having to remember to add various more or less well made add-ons.

greenling

Ters
Please post photos from the Trains how make problems.
Thank you.
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Fifty

 Ters is right: Pak 64 is rather unbalanced, especially in the later years. Most of this is caused by problems with speedbonus. Passenger transport by rail is almost completely unprofitable after about 2020. The Tigress and Panthress Trains are not properly balanced, and there are no low-speed cars that are very effective. The double-decker is too expensive, and the alto cars are not profitable. In my opinion, the base speed for rails in pak 64 is too high in the modern/future era. A list of some issues:

       
  • About the only trains that you can use profitably after 2020 for passengers is the BR614 and the ICE-TD. It would be nice to have some more variety here, including some cheap locomotive-hauled cars as well as some electric multiple unit trains.
  • Bulk shipments (including oil) make too much profit. They are more profitable than "high-dollar" freight shipments in the later years. The revenue per unit on most of these goods should drop.
  • Trucks vary considerably in price per km, usually the older trucks are more profitable even in later years
  • Automobiles and paper can always be moved at a profit by truck, while almost never at a profit by rail.
  • The 90 passenger wagon by Hajo is too expensive to run at speeds of 120-135 km/h, especially when compared to the 100 km/h older wagons and the 120 km/h double-deckers. This makes express trains useless until the 1950s.
  • Some vehicles are not useful because of their cost in relation to other vehicles: Swiss federal railways Eb 3/5, JR9600 2-8-0, DB class 218 are some that are not too useful. Other vehicles are too cheap (SD40-2, BR 38 come to mind)
I'm more than willing to help out with doing some rebalancing, reworking the numbers in speedbonus.tab and editing prices in dat files. I just don't know how I can be most helpful to the pakset maintainers and players.
Why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?

Ters

I'm currently in 2020s, and there are more passenger trains than BR614 and ICE-TD that can be profitable. The X2000 works well, and I successfully operate several NS-1600 with double-decker cars. Maybe there's a difference in the setting for pay_for_total_distance.

As for trucks, that's one place were I cling onto obsolete vehicles. Even if they don't have an advantage over newer vehicles, their capacities (and sometimes acceleration) is better suited for some lines. In many ways, pak64 always moves towards bigger and faster, which isn't always what I need.

Diversity also decreases at the end of the timeline. In the late 2020s there are three diesel locomotives: BR 365, which is too slow to be useful outside dense industrial areas; and DB 218 and BR 234, which are very similar and only useful for freight. The latter also has length issues. All are however quite old, so some diesel contemporary to BR185 would be nice. There's also the two DMUs, one local-ish and one intercity, which work quite well.

With electric trains, there's the BR185 and the NS-1600. The former works mostly well for freight, while the latter is too expensive for goods without significant speed bonus (like mail). Both are too slow for passenger trains, except the NS-1600 with double decker cars (in my experience). There's also the fictional BR103 from 2014, but I can't figure it out either. There's also the questions of whether it should be removed two years from now, unless Hajo managed to predict the future. As for EMUs, it's all intercity expresses. I miss something akin to Stadler FLIRT. (The Pantheress could be replaced by a modern TGV or ICE. For the ICE, one could almost reuse the ICE-TD graphics, though that might be too confusing.)

greenling

Ters & Fifty
I have found vehicles they can solve your problem.
But for these vehicles, a painter who paints me missing me.
We can borrow even vehicles from Pakgerman.

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Ters

I'd like to hear the opinion of the pak64 maintainer before doing anything.

greenling

The thread:"Passenger cars of the 21st century"
must we speak on in Pak064 german to.
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Ters

This thread is on the pak64 board, and I put it here because I'm writing about pak64. pak64.german has its own board under other paksets, and I know nothing about it.

prissi

(offtopic: What is the empire alto? Is thes the H-Trans passenger car? Aparently somebody messed up again all names of the cars. I think I will remove them from simutranslator. They got always changed in a completely random style it seems.)

Ok, on topic. I am very glad that the discussion started. I did not play no big games after the introduction of the new algorithm, so indeed it may have become a little more unbalanced.

And the observation is correct: pak64 goes indeed for faster and larger capacity, as this is usually required for pax with a growing network. For freight this stemmed from times where the price of a vehicle was important for bankrupsy, since the larger one were relatively cheaper to have the same entry level for entry in the 1980ies. Thus for road freight there may be indeed not so much incentive for larger ones now.

After 1980 the pak64 was not playtested for starting, and after 2020 the pak64 is indeed not evolving. The dominace of multiple units is just taken from reality. There are no high speed trains which are not MU any more.

If you look at cars.xls you will indeed see that the Grossraumwagen at 180 and tiger car at 240km/h will make slight losses at the end of the timeline (v_retire resp the indices with 2). At 200km/h the Grossraumwage (maybe the Alto) will make 0.6 per tile. The double decker at 160km/h should be still make good money (6ct per tile). The balancing was done using the premise that the vehicles should give the same income per passenger when they were introduced of about 0.2 cr/tile pas. Making those less profitable in later years was my way of reducing the amounts of money you get and people always complained. It has the downside that certain years makes starting a game more difficult due to gaps in introduction of new vehicles.

If there is demand for passenger trains of seperate cars, I feel like adding another car to the collection. BUt it might need also a matching engine then? Anyway after 2010 nearly nothing has been done. That was very much too far in the future in 2007, when the last major overhaul has been done, and contribution is certainly welcomed.

With the new speedbonus code, maybe also the formular used in the excel spreadsheet (cars.xls) needs an update. If memory served me right, we actually used half of the speedbonus speed to compare it with the actual speed. That would certainly change some number very much.

Oil is made a good source of income to allow people start up games. pak128 uses coal for that. Anyway I would prefer to keep freight tariffs mostly the same. Those are calculated that ships and planes are barely profitable. But I conceed, that with online games the argument to look at chains as a whole cannot hold any more. Here some more equal incomes seems indeed required.

On the other hand the income of passengers and mail I would not touch. Moreover, the speed bonus of passengers and mail is really needed to reduce the ridiculus incomes you would otherwise get in later years by just running the game further on. I would rather prefer to change the running costs of vehciles. I would still aim for an income for the year a vehciles is introduced of 0.2 cr/tile pax. This had been a good value in the past as compromise between scaring new people away because of too much challenge and too much income too fast. pak64 is, after all, still the most basic pak on and open source distribution (pak128 has caught up in that regard).

Ters

I agree that trains should get bigger and faster, and progress away from locomotive hauled trains. Yet there are still passenger lines in 2012 that are operated by locomotives at speeds below 200 km/h. I don't know if that's more common in Scandinavia than elsewhere, but I think I've seen recent photos of locomotive hauled passenger train from continental Europe too. In general, I've got the impression that locomotives are used on rural lines, and that's what I'm also trying to use them for in Simutrans. Neither in the real world or my Simutrans games do these lines have the standard required for high speed EMUs. The 614 would fit, but that's about it. A what if the line is actually electrified?

For passenger and mail, I would like some alternatives to the 614 on lesser lines that don't have big metropolises at either end. It doesn't have to include mail cars in style with the passengers cars. As long as the passenger trains aren't made for 200+ km/h, I can easily include a BR185 or BR218 with mail containers without having them end up with a queue behind them. A bigger capacity mail truck meant for intercity use could perhaps be a more realistic way of moving mail between villages and small towns, but I have a thing for trains.

(And I don't like some of the "new" English names vehicles in pak64 got a while back, either. I did consider looking up the internal names from the dat-files, but in the end I simply didn't.)

greenling

#10
Good Day Ters,Prissi,,Fifty
The vehicle with the Name Br614 gives here in Germany not more all those Vehicle go until 2010 out of order.
In Poland and Romanian have those Trains now find an new Job.
The Intercitytrains in Europe drive not faster as 200km/h.The railjet out Austria can reach 230km/h.
In the year 2013 exchange the DBAG The Intercitytrains they are drive from Leipzig to Norddeich Mole and
The Intercitytrain from Norddeich mole to Koblenz.From single level to Double-deck wagons and the Engines
how move the train it a Br146 in Intercitycolor.In Frankfurt and kempten it the Time from The Br218 in
December 2013 over.The Engine how exchange the Br218 its vehicle they have 4 Motors.
In Stuttgart Ends in December 2013 the Service of the Br420/421a exchange to engines with Name Br430/431
In Nürnberg have beginning to Operate the Vehicle from Typ Br440.Photo reach cam soon.
Edit1:That all what i here report have thue.
Edit2: it gives more exchange those all to report be blow up my replys.
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TurfIt

Consists with the H-Trans-Tiger-Car are way out of whack. Always lose money, mainly due to the engines available. I suggest:

H-Trans-Tiger-Car - cost=1300->1000
H-Trans-Panthress-* - cost=7448->2700, capacity=48
2Ellok - cost=8406->3200, capacity=48
H-Trans-Tigress-II-* 0 cost=10126->5800, capacity=48

Which slots these late game trains in with the late game ships and aircraft. Adding engine capacity is needed to prevent even lower prices. It's also a very tight fit, might be better to greatly flatten the slope of the speed bonus curve post 2007.

Also, the BR614 in a 2 tile consist of Br614front-Br614car-Br614car-Br614back has insufficient power to attain its 140 speed. Power 745->900, or gear 64->77 will do. Assuming this is a normal setup.

greenling

Turfit
QuoteAlso, the BR614 in a 2 tile consist of Br614front-Br614car-Br614car-Br614back has insufficient power to attain its 140 speed. Power 745->900, or gear 64->77 will do. Assuming this is a normal setup.
Br614 not more in Service they are Exchange throw Br640,Br641.Br642,Br643,Br644.
That have Railroadmagazins confirms.
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Fifty

Prissi, thank you for your detailed response. Could you upload the balancing spreadsheet that you talked about?

Quote from: TurfIt on October 07, 2012, 12:12:51 AM
I'd be tempted to greatly flatten the speedbonus curve post 2007.

This is what I meant by editing speedbonus.tab, perhaps I was not clear. In 1970, the speedbonus base speed is far too low: 100 km/h when I would equip almost all local trains to run at 120 km/h. by 2020, the speedbonus jumps to 180 km/h, and 8 years later jumps again for no apparent reason to 231 km/h. I would suggest raising the 1970 number to 120 km/h and then gently rising to a max of about 160-175 km/h in the 2020s.

A flatter speedbonus curve would have a lot of advantages. First, it would make it so that high speed locomotives would not cost less to run than slow freight locomotives. Pak 128 has this problem: high speed locomotives are always the best no matter the speed. Flatter speed curves will allow pax locomotives to have higher running costs. Second, a flat speed curve will prevent older rolling stock from immediately needing to be replaced. Third, a flatter speed curve will allow freight with higher speedbonuses to still provide high revenue in the future era. All of this can be achieved with proper balancing while still decreasing per-pax revenue later in the game. It will take some changing of prices across the board, but I am willing to help however I can...

Quote from: prissi on October 06, 2012, 08:50:52 PM
(offtopic: What is the empire alto? Is thes the H-Trans passenger car? Aparently somebody messed up again all names of the cars. I think I will remove them from simutranslator. They got always changed in a completely random style it seems.)

Empire alto = Grossraumwagen
H-trans Passenger car = Passagierwagen
Sing Co Pax Car = PrPersonenwagen

Quote from: prissi on October 06, 2012, 08:50:52 PM
Oil is made a good source of income to allow people start up games. pak128 uses coal for that. Anyway I would prefer to keep freight tariffs mostly the same. Those are calculated that ships and planes are barely profitable. But I conceed, that with online games the argument to look at chains as a whole cannot hold any more. Here some more equal incomes seems indeed required.

Even for a beginner good, oil makes too much money. The payment could be dropped 10-20% and it would still be very profitable. The issue with bulk goods is that there are many different prices. For stone and sand you only get paid 0.50 per ton-km, while for coal you get 0.70. In pak 128, almost all bulk goods have the same price, and coal is not very profitable (you can't make millions on a single train like oil in pak 64). I would suggest lowering all bulk goods to 0.50 per tom-km, as that still provides plenty of profit. In real life a ton of coal does not cost any more to haul than a ton of stone.

In netgames the concrete chain is perpetually unserved. Raising revenue on AAC to at least cover costs might help.

An open ended wish list if you want to fill some holes, it might be nice to have these things in pak 64:

       
  • A modern diesel freight locomotive. The American GE ES44AC is not a bad choice. I don't know if Packer's material may have one of these that can be used with only a little tweaking.
  • Some electric multiple units for low and middle speed.
  • New modern passenger cars and maybe a locomotive for mid-speed operations
  • Modern container railcar (not for cargosprinter)
  • A modern cargo plane
  • Modern truck semitrailers for paper, steel, and mail.
Why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?

greenling

Fifty
A Engine out the Usa for Pak64 as Frightengine?
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TurfIt

Quote from: Fifty on October 07, 2012, 01:08:03 AM
Could you upload the balancing spreadsheet that you talked about?
It's with the pak64 source in vehicle/

Ters

I don't think it's right to set the same price for all bulk goods. That coal is more profitable than sand and stone makes sense to me. I didn't even know sand trains existed until one suddenly started running from my home town a few years back, and I think it was only worth setting up because it returns to the quarry with finished goods.

That some parts of a chain is unprofitable adds a nice challenge to the game in my opinion, but it should be equally unprofitable no matter how you transport it unless there is a very good reason for it. AAC is barely unprofitable no matter what, so I'm not too bothered by that. However paper has a serious problem with both price and capacity in my opinion, at least when compared to most other goods. It might be more right to lower production and consumption than increase capacity, though.

I'm a bit sceptical to greenling's idea(?) of making the 614 obsolete just yet. I've seen big railroad companies retire old rolling stock, only for some of it to return to duty in smaller companies and abroad. Simutrans shouldn't obsolete the type until they are all scrapped, put in museums, or only doing work on heritage lines. A modern alternative like the one suggested is welcome, but not on top of my wish list. A wish list quite similar to Fifty's.

Quote from: Fifty on October 07, 2012, 01:08:03 AM

       
  • A modern diesel freight locomotive. The American GE ES44AC is not a bad choice. I don't know if Packer's material may have one of these that can be used with only a little tweaking.
  • Some electric multiple units for low and middle speed.
  • New modern passenger cars and maybe a locomotive for mid-speed operations
  • Modern container railcar (not for cargosprinter)
  • A modern cargo plane
  • Modern truck semitrailers for paper, steel, and mail.
The American locomotive is a good idea. It prevents European bias in pak64 from growing.

greenling

#17
I Have some photo from the Vehicles they in europe now beginn her job
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Talent_2 in german
http://www.tagesspiegel.de/zug-um-zug-erfolgreich-42-stueck-des-neuen-modells-talent-2-hat-bombardier-an-die-deutsche-bahn-ag/1100798.html in german
http://bahnspass.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/testbetrieb-des-ersten-kiss-fur-die-odeg/ in german
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40826712@N00/7566830330/ in german
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/WESTbahn in german
http://www.bahnonline.ch/wp/26133/cfl-doppelstock-triebzuege-stadler.htm in German
http://www.bahnseite.de/rs102.htm in german
http://www.lokomotive-online.de/Eingang/Triebwagen/BR640/br640.html in german
http://fahrzeuge.obs-info.de/html/br_641_0.html in german
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Desiro_Classic in german
http://www.bahnbilder.de/name/einzelbild/number/117936/kategorie/deutschland~triebzuege~br-643-talent-db.html in german
http://bahn007.startbilder.de/name/einzelbild/number/97190/kategorie/deutschland~triebzuege~br-643-talent.html in german
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Talent in german
http://www.bahnbilder.de/name/einzelbild/number/440748/kategorie/deutschland~triebzuege~br-646-stadler-gtw-db.html in german
http://www.bahnbilder.de/name/zeitachse/jahr/2007/monat/juli/seite/14.html in german
http://bahn-im-bild.startbilder.de/name/einzelbild/number/46870/kategorie/deutschland~dieselloks-br-246-private~246-002-0.html in german
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_ER20 in german
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vossloh_G_2000_BB in german
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadler_Flirt in german
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_JT42CWR in german + Class 77
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Velaro in German
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_407 in German
http://www.hochgeschwindigkeitszuege.com/frankreich/tgv-duplex.php in german
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCF_TGV_POS
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Ters

An interesting thing on the English Wikipedia page for the Talent is that it's called a "suburban motor coach", yet one of the photos show a Talent in the middle of nowhere in Norway.

I also get an impression that most short distance multiple unit trains in Europe are diesel powered. Is that right?

kierongreen

QuoteI also get an impression that most short distance multiple unit trains in Europe are diesel powered. Is that right?
Most of the modern multiple units families are available in diesel and electric versions, and in principle there is no difference in how long each can be. In Britain most EMUs are 3 or 4 carriages long, with a few 2 or 5 carriage classes. These are often coupled together to form trains of up to 12 carriages. DMUs however are mostly 2 or 3 carriages long, although can range from 1 to 7 carriages, and in service are coupled together to form trains of up to 10 carriages.

The reason EMUs tend to be longer, both individual units and when coupled together, is that they are used lines with more traffic. Low traffic lines do not justify being electrified, therefore use DMUs

Fifty

Quote from: TurfIt on October 07, 2012, 01:27:59 AM
It's with the pak64 source in vehicle/

Ah, thank you. I found it, now I must try and understand it :) Actually I understand most of the calculations, just some of the numbers that have no calculations I do not...

Quote from: Ters on October 07, 2012, 08:12:52 AM
I don't think it's right to set the same price for all bulk goods. That coal is more profitable than sand and stone makes sense to me. I didn't even know sand trains existed until one suddenly started running from my home town a few years back, and I think it was only worth setting up because it returns to the quarry with finished goods.

That some parts of a chain is unprofitable adds a nice challenge to the game in my opinion, but it should be equally unprofitable no matter how you transport it unless there is a very good reason for it. AAC is barely unprofitable no matter what, so I'm not too bothered by that. However paper has a serious problem with both price and capacity in my opinion, at least when compared to most other goods. It might be more right to lower production and consumption than increase capacity, though.

The reason IRL that stone and sand are not shipped long-distances is that they are cheaper per ton than ore and coal, and are usually easily sourced locally. Thus it makes little sense to move them long distances, and short distance transports are usually by truck. That said, the cost of moving them per km should be the same (and in some cases IRL is even more because they are moved in smaller quantities and require more shunting work). Many shortlines in the US survive on concrete & aggregate plant traffic.

The problem with an end-product making a loss like AAC is that some money-hungry players will just "dump" the end product instead of bringing it to end consumers in netgames. I've even seen it done with profitable chemicals because the oil revenue is by far the biggest revenue source.

Proportionally to the size of the paper truck and the steel truck and railcar, the paper rail car should have almost double the paper capacity.
Why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?

Ters

Quote from: Fifty on October 07, 2012, 05:28:22 PM
The problem with an end-product making a loss like AAC is that some money-hungry players will just "dump" the end product instead of bringing it to end consumers in netgames. I've even seen it done with profitable chemicals because the oil revenue is by far the biggest revenue source.
How do you dump the end product? The whole chain needs to be served in network games too, don't they? If not, I'd blame that.

Quote from: Fifty on October 07, 2012, 05:28:22 PM
Proportionally to the size of the paper truck and the steel truck and railcar, the paper rail car should have almost double the paper capacity.
Paper rolls are quite large and heavy. A steel car can carry 32 t of steel. A paper car carries 20 t of paper. However, steel has a much higher density than paper, so the fact that there is less paper than steel on a car might be due to volume. There simply might not be room for more than 8 rolls. (Given some of the rolls I've seen, even 8 in a single rail car seems like a tight fit.)

prissi

#22
The XLS is in the sourceforge archive for pak64: http://simutrans.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/simutrans/pak64/vehicle/cars.xls
For the calculation of running cost, the maximum ability of cars to attach is considered. (The 614 usually gaos as double or triple units, almost never in realy live as units of four.)

Second: The speedbonus does not jump. Between those points linear interpolations is used. Thus in 1985 you will have about 120km/h for rail. The curve was done in such a way that it approximated the mean speed of the available engines (that was how the speed bonus speed was calculated before this file or when it does not exist.)

With the tigress at 450 km/h you need really a high speedbouns or you would get really excess income. If you make the speedbonus less, than your destroy the distiction between freight and high speed engines. Look at pak46.german. There is always a best engine, not matter how old or what consists.

A high speedbonus allows for passenger engines to have very high running cost. You cannot run freight profitable by a Br1034. And that is fully intended. (Look at the second tab of the spreadsheet. Some engines are not balanced using the passenger cars but slower cars.) How would make lower the running cost of high speed (which requires high power) make them more distinct?

About pak128 coal: You can make lots of money with three coal trains supplying one pwoer station. More (in relation) than in pak64. But making oil less profitable is ok with me (since you will have to transport large amounts anyway).

About the middle speed units: You could use trams instead. Most light rails use them. I could also offer some japanese EMU, I have them for 135 km/h in player colors.

Container cars are on my eternal todo list. Vilvoh did some, but the had soo many stray pixels and no player colors. I had prepared some other too, but was not too satisfied. Still speed would be like 140 km/h I think.

Cargo by plain is a nightmare. Some (medicine) has a speedbonus, while others do not. Either the plane can only transport these goods profitable (and people will complain, even if it is realistic). There should be also a trailer for steel in the pak. A mail trailer I have available. The freight of steel and paper are taken from reality. 32t is already really the upper limit, in reality such heavy truck are forbidden almost everywhere. 20t of paper is really a lot.

There are different challenges with freight. Once Gotthardlok did an (abstract) freight pak (all factories coloerd squared) that used really high production. There the challenge was not the money but to supply everything with the sheer amounts needed. (Some might say like pak128 iron chain ... ) It was challenging, but was not too popular then.

EDIT: some container cars. First length 8, would go best with the mail container. Second length 12, based on vilvoh and strongly edited afterwards. Steel trailer in player colors (but too long) is in pak64.german. Can be edited. With slight recoloring it may serve also for paper then. Mail trailer (also too long) is there too. As EMU I could offer the E233, with very high capacity but only 120 top speed. Intro would be 2007.

greenling

Quote from: prissi on October 07, 2012, 06:08:36 PM
(The 614 usually gaos as double or triple units, almost never in realy live as units of four.)
That what you here be said have it some thing wrong.
I have be dig out some old Photos.

Quote from: prissi on October 07, 2012, 06:08:36 PM
Second: The speedbonus does not jump. Between those points linear interpolations is used. Thus in 1985 you will have about 120km/h for rail. The curve was done in such a way that it approximated the mean speed of the available engines (that was how the speed bonus speed was calculated before this file or when it does not exist.)

With the tigress at 450 km/h you need really a high speedbouns or you would get really excess income. If you make the speedbonus less, than your destroy the distiction between freight and high speed engines. Look at pak46.german. There is always a best engine, not matter how old or what consists.

A high speedbonus allows for passenger engines to have very high running cost. You cannot run freight profitable by a Br1034. And that is fully intended. (Look at the second tab of the spreadsheet. Some engines are not balanced using the passenger cars but slower cars.) How would make lower the running cost of high speed (which requires high power) make them more distinct?

About pak128 coal: You can make lots of money with three coal trains supplying one pwoer station. More (in relation) than in pak64. But making oil less profitable is ok with me (since you will have to transport large amounts anyway).

About the middle speed units: You could use trams instead. Most light rails use them. I could also offer some japanese EMU, I have them for 135 km/h in player colors.

Container cars are on my eternal todo list. Vilvoh did some, but the had soo many stray pixels and no player colors. I had prepared some other too, but was not too satisfied. Still speed would be like 140 km/h I think.

Cargo by plain is a nightmare. Some (medicine) has a speedbonus, while others do not. Either the plane can only transport these goods profitable (and people will complain, even if it is realistic). There should be also a trailer for steel in the pak. A mail trailer I have available. The freight of steel and paper are taken from reality. 32t is already really the upper limit, in reality such heavy truck are forbidden almost everywhere. 20t of paper is really a lot.

There are different challenges with freight. Once Gotthardlok did an (abstract) freight pak (all factories coloerd squared) that used really high production. There the challenge was not the money but to supply everything with the sheer amounts needed. (Some might say like pak128 iron chain ... ) It was challenging, but was not too popular then.

EDIT: some container cars. First length 8, would go best with the mail container. Second length 12, based on vilvoh and strongly edited afterwards. Steel trailer in player colors (but too long) is in pak64.german. Can be edited. With slight recoloring it may serve also for paper then. Mail trailer (also too long) is there too. As EMU I could offer the E233, with very high capacity but only 120 top speed. Intro would be 2007.
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prissi

The Br614 was constructed as three units. The BD tried to drive them also a four units. But it was no success as their engine were too weak for it. Exactly like simutrans I would say ...

TurfIt

Sounds good then.  8)

For the tiger cars - can you actually make a profit with these? No matter how I work the numbers, it's negative...

Fifty

Quote from: Ters on October 07, 2012, 05:53:47 PM
How do you dump the end product? The whole chain needs to be served in network games too, don't they? If not, I'd blame that.

Set up a transfer station near the plant, put a truck from plant to transfer station, then put a truck from transfer station to end consumer, but make it wait for 100% load at the consumer so it never leaves.

Quote from: prissi on October 07, 2012, 06:08:36 PM
With the tigress at 450 km/h you need really a high speedbouns or you would get really excess income. If you make the speedbonus less, than your destroy the distiction between freight and high speed engines. Look at pak46.german. There is always a best engine, not matter how old or what consists.

A high speedbonus allows for passenger engines to have very high running cost. You cannot run freight profitable by a Br1034. And that is fully intended. (Look at the second tab of the spreadsheet. Some engines are not balanced using the passenger cars but slower cars.) How would make lower the running cost of high speed (which requires high power) make them more distinct?

Are you taking about speedbonus speed or speedbonus percent? Percentage is fine, it's the base speed that I think needs to be lowered. A high base speed actually requires that passenger vehicles get cheaper and cheaper for a given speed while freight vehicles can keep a relatively constant price.

The Tigress and Panthress are very much overpriced right now. There are only 2 ways to make them profitable, increase revenue or decrease running costs, so lowering the speedbonus base speed would increase revenue. I don't see why excess income from high speed trains cannot be compensated with high running costs.

The BR 103 is just as profitable on freight as a pair of BR 140s. Passenger locomotives become more lucrative than freight locomotives as speedbonus increases. If you implement TurfIt's suggested price for the Panthress locomotives, they will be less than one-third the cost of similar freight power. I have seen Panthress locomotives used profitably in freight service too. The way to fix this problem, in my opinion is to let the cost of passenger cars (wagons) drop over time, while keeping locomotives and freight cars (wagons) fairly expensive.

In terms of paper and steel cars, I am talking about rail cars (wagons) not trucks, sorry if there is some confusion. It just seems like the paper cars are smaller and lighter than they could be, but I agree it is not perfect to increase the capacity of those ether as paper rolls are so heavy. I like the containers that are primary player color so that they are not confused with the secondary player color mail containers.
Why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?

greenling

#27
Prissi
Quote from: prissi on October 07, 2012, 07:33:14 PM
The Br614 was constructed as three units. The BD tried to drive them also a four units. But it was no success as their engine were too weak for it. Exactly like simutrans I would say ...
No it have gove longtime use from Br614 with 2 Br914.
That have i haer from a old worker the have be work by the Deutsche Bundesbahn.
I have here some more photos from Br614.
https://sites.google.com/site/000002expend/DB%20BR614%20mit%20zwei%20Mittelwagen%20ohne%20G%C3%BCterwagen.png?attredirects=0
Out the Year 1982 a Br614 with 2 Br914.

https://sites.google.com/site/000002expend/DB%20BR614%20In%20Ozeanblau-beige.png?attredirects=0
Those color Be goves in the year 1982 too.

https://sites.google.com/site/000002expend/614022-135-01.jpg?attredirects=0
Here a Br614 with 2 Br934 those Consistes was very rare in the Year 1982.

https://sites.google.com/site/000002expend/DB%20-%20DMU%20train%20at%20Bad%20Canstatt%205_19_84Edited.png?attredirects=0
Here a constistes out the year 1984.

https://sites.google.com/site/000002expend/DB%20BR614%20Zugreihung.png?attredirects=0
Here view the Possible constistes for the Br614 they was until 31.12.1989 in use.

https://sites.google.com/site/000002expend/800px-614_071-9_1998-10-11_14-05_Neuhaus%2C_SE_5624_NNP_-_NN.jpg?attredirects=0
Those color was in the year 1995 until 2000 in use.
And the constis was from the year 1990 until 2010 in use.

https://sites.google.com/site/000002expend/800px-614_in_Hersbruck.jpg?attredirects=0
Here a Photo out the year 2008.

And here it the Page from the br614:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_614
Photo from the Br614 out easteuropa coming sone.

I Have here a work aroundet Br614.
Please test it.
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prissi

The panthress /Tigress should be profitable with 5 or 6 cars. (2020 resp. 1520 per train/tile fully loaded.) And that just with 48 passengers needed per cars for completely filled train. The Br103 in 1970 also got 1600 but you needed 9 cars with each 86 passengers for that.

But it makes a slight loss of 3000 instead. Aparently the formula from the XLS is no longer correct. That would affect all the balancing of course.

The raw power needed to achieve high speeds make any passenger engine seemingly suitable for freight. Only very high running cost could prevent this. For 103 for which freight it works? This rather indicates that 103 running costs need to be even higher. (It could be easily doubled for passenger service without reducing income of the train much, as the engines runnign cost is only 5% of the total maximum income per tile for now. (Tab T in the second sheet) Maybe for dedicated passenger engines the running costs should be 10% instead. And maybe rather some freight engines need to be cheaper to run.



EDIT: The BR614 was run with four cars unit. But it showed soon, that those are too weak and they used from the lat 80ies only three car units. Just consult wikipedia, which gives a similar story as simutrans.

greenling

#29
Prissi
QuoteThe BR614 was run with four cars unit. But it showed soon, that those are too weak and they used from the lat 80ies only three car units. Just consult wikipedia, which gives a similar story as simutrans.
Wikipedia it in those point not exactly.
I gives that back what the People be know.
Edit : Prissi by the Vehicles in pakgerman beginnn the overolding,they need a work around.
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prissi

Read for instace here: http://www.nahverkehr-franken.de/rbahn/614.html Very few units from 1985 to 1994 before they gave up with that.

Here is a four unit from 1988. The poor engine is really maxed out on the slope and crawls up with about 50 km/h: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs7uczY3V-0&feature=related




Ters

I noticed a commit mentioning mail, paper and iron semi-trailers, but "only" the mail trailer has been defined. Is there some work to be done on that part, or is it a "forgot to submit file" thing?

prissi

They need to get numbers. However, since everything is not correct any more (or my formula is wrong) I can only introduce them like now. That is quickly done though. I also added the E233 as modern EMU.

I just have not had any comments on which container cars.

sdog

Quote from: Fifty on October 07, 2012, 07:43:45 PM
Set up a transfer station near the plant, put a truck from plant to transfer station, then put a truck from transfer station to end consumer, but make it wait for 100% load at the consumer so it never leaves.
That can be quite a nuisance, since it is a blatant cheat. Perhaps some extension request topic in itself?
(perhaps changing the "no routing over full stops" could be made freight/pax specific. Since for pax the game becomes hardly playable with this.)

Fifty

Thank you prissi for the new truck trailers & EMU. I cannot see them yet as the nightly was not built...

I like both the green and the blue and white container cars (for trains). Assuming the Blue is player color, it might be nice to have blue and white.

I spent some time tweaking the balancing spreadsheet: I was able to devise a new formula using effective kwh that gave higher speed trains more sensible running costs with lowered speedbonus base speed, but ran into problems with low-speed locomotives being too expensive.
Why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?

Ters

Will the look of the container depend on its contents, just like open bulk vehicles do? That would add a nice touch to such trains where lots of different goods lines are interconnected.

prissi

The km/h to tons formula is correct. But it seems the speedbonus is not what I think it should be. This gives the wrong income in the game compared to the one in the spreadsheet. I think it it due to only half of the speed is actually used or so. Otherwise I had a full convoi running at full speed the correct distance but got like 30% less than expected.

I think a corrected formula is needed anyway. The way the number came out before was quite ok for the players, so I think if the income from the spreadsheet matches again the one from the game than everything is well. Apart maybe some tweaking with pure freight locos.

About container cars: Unfourtunately those are not player colors, only the base is. That needs still to be done manually. Different containers were planned. I would like to get also liquid containers for Oil, but nobody did them so far in a recognisable way. (I may need to check my OpenTTD files though).

Ters

Had it been 30 % percent of the expected price, a certain odd division could be to blame.

I have also plugged the formulas (I think it's the right ones) from the game into my pak browser, allowing me to set up convoys and see how they should work at any given year in the game. As far as passenger trains go, after about 2005, only the double decker car seems to be profitable.

greenling

The Next NightlyPakset from pak64 comes on monday.
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prissi

#39
Good list shows the expected values from the XLS. But aparently the vehciles do not gain thoses incomes.

EDIT: The differences are subtle. Good list for the X2000 say 0,32 per passenger, but actual revenue is 0,3033. It seems somewhere my 10% are lost. Need to look longer at the formulas.

Ters

They are tricky these formulas. I have trouble getting my calculations to fit the game also, and I've copy-pasted most of it. Lots of "unnatural math" in order to stay integer.

prissi

Well my spreadsheet was correct until half a year or so. I think somewhat the formula was messed up. This needs to be checked before next release.

Ters

#42
Another thing is that the formulas are repeated all over the place. That way it is easy for one of them not to match up with the others. I was considering refactoring out at least some of it into a common place, but there are slight variations in how things are calculated in the goods list, in the convoy details window, and when calculating income on arrival. Perhaps one should write out the definitive formula in an unoptimized fashion, along with important notes on how this is transformed into a pute integer calculation. It might be easier to check against that. Or does this exist already?

EDIT:
The calculation in calc_speedbonus_kmh() doesn't seem to cope well with weights close to, but less than, power. As far as I can tell, when power and weight are equal, the speed (0) is less than when weight is greater than power (1).

prissi

Putting them into one place would be were nice. Maybe even have an unoptimized one for testing and an optimized one below for the use in the game. I would vote for simhalt.h ...

TurfIt

Quote from: Ters on October 16, 2012, 03:16:34 PM
The calculation in calc_speedbonus_kmh() doesn't seem to cope well with weights close to, but less than, power. As far as I can tell, when power and weight are equal, the speed (0) is less than when weight is greater than power (1).
The calculation could easily be clamped to always return at least (1).
But if the convoi is so overloaded to trigger this... not really significant effect. It's going be limited by the min payment anyways (grundwert128?).

Fifty

#45
The specifics of the code are way over my head, but, in game,

(((100MaxSpeed/BonusSpeed)-100)*BonusPercentage)+100)/1000)*GoodBasePrice


Seems to work for matching both the goods list and actual revenue. I built a test track in 2020 with a Panthress and 5 cars. The test track was 81 tiles long. By the formula above, the price per km was .3475 credits, which rounds to the goods table value of .35 credits. The base speed is 180 km/h and the bonus is 15%. The actual revenue was 8917.0 credits.

If you take the raw 2020 value, .3475 credits, you get a revenue of 9007.2 credits, close, but not exact. Now, speedbonus in 2020 is still increasing, in fact by a rate of 6.375 km/h per year. Since this test track run was was very close to February, the speedbonus base speed had actually increased a bit, to a little over 180.5 km/h. This reduces the revenue per km to about .3462 credits. Using this value you get 8974.97 for total revenue. Close, but not quite.

Then I started playing around with numbers, and it seems that simutrans actually counted the total distance as 80.5 tiles. Unclear why, but using 80.5 tiles and the revenue of .3462 credits, I calculated a revenue of 8919 credits, only 2 credits away from the actual value.

So Perhaps, the formulas have not changed after all: the constant increase of speedbonus and this odd way of calculating .5 tiles too few of revenue is throwing off revenue in your testing, prissi.

If the formula above is correct, then this formula in the XLS must be incorrect:

(1+((100*MaxVelocity/BonusSpeed)-100)*(BonusPercentage/1000))*(MaxVelocity/100)

EDIT: I can upload this test track save if you want to take a look at the behavior.

EDIT 2: Just looked at the nightly, the new trailers look nice, but the paper and steel ones are flipped (the one with paper takes steel and vice-versa)
Why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?

TurfIt

IIRC the speedbonus is only updated yearly each Jan 1st.

Integer calculations in the code will introduce some differences vs if you use floating point ala Excel. The spreadsheet I'm using for checking forces int where needed; And matched 100% the in game revenue, but I've not looked in ~2 years if somethings changed...

Note the distance is applied on a per vehicle basis. The distance travelled by each car in the convoy is tracked seperately starting from their position when loading. If the train turns around before starting its journey, and then heads straight into the destination station, the cars at the end will have travelled less distance than the front front.

Ters

My attempt at getting to the core of the formula gave me:
speedFactor = convoySpeed/referenceSpeed - 1
price = basePrice * (1 + 10 * speedFactor * speedBonus) / 3

Note that here 100% = 1 (affects speedFactor and speedBonus). I've just run a simple test against the goods list in the game, and except from speedFactor being off by 1 (not sure if that's because the goods list calculates backwards here), it yielded the correct result.

Fifty

Quote from: TurfIt on October 17, 2012, 05:02:01 PM
Note the distance is applied on a per vehicle basis. The distance travelled by each car in the convoy is tracked seperately starting from their position when loading. If the train turns around before starting its journey, and then heads straight into the destination station, the cars at the end will have travelled less distance than the front front.

Ah, that makes sense: because of my setup, the average car traveled 80.5 km, while the locomotive traveled 81. So, the formula would give 8951.6 for revenue, only a 0.3% difference, which must be due to integer rounding.
Why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?

Ters

I agree with Fifty that the graphics for the paper and steel trailers have been mixed up. Easy to fix without one, but I've attached a patch nonetheless.

I've also attached another patch for the X2000. That patch wasn't as important as I thought it might be. Although unable to reach maximum speed, my overlong X2000s still generate a nice profit, and a double set with enough cars to cover the running cost of additional locomotive might be too long for my platforms. Still, realistically, it should be possible to combine two X2000s, and other players might like longer platforms than me.

prissi

In reality X2000 were never coupled, since the swedish platforms would not have allowed for that. But if it helps gamesplay, why not.

I will check the XLS and apply new values depending on the outcome of it. Hopefully tomorrow, so a new corrected release can be done.

Fifty

In the same vein as Ters' request, I would suggest that the SD40-2 allow more than 2 locomotives back-to-back, as triple or quadrouple headers were (and still are, maybe not completely dash 2s anymore) common on US railroads.

I've changed this setting and re-paked to allow me to use more than 2 locomotives in game; I don't know how to make a patch file, but all that needs to be added to the dat of the SD40-2 Back is:

Constraint[Prev][1]=SD40-2-back
Why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?

Ters

Quote from: prissi on October 19, 2012, 10:26:57 PM
In reality X2000 were never coupled, since the swedish platforms would not have allowed for that. But if it helps gamesplay, why not.

Actually, it was a picture of a 5 car X2000 coupled to a 4 car X2000 that prompted me to make the change. Judging by the comment made by a person working as conductor in Sweden (I think it was he who posted the picture), it didn't seem unusual. Most (but not all) pictures in the gallery the picture was posted in feature a single X2000, but it is very common for the covering over the coupling to be removed. The Norwegian descendants of X2000 routinely run two together, even if that's not the norm. They have a fixed length that might shorter than a typical X2000, though.

How much it helps gameplay, I don't know. It wasn't as much help to me as I thought.

prissi

Oh, sorry, when I added the X2000 I found six cars, single unit. Sicne those are (internally) more like engine and normal cars, any size variation (and coupling) should be possible. Thank you for that.

Still have to do proper rebalancing to do.

Ters

Makes me wonder whether one (in real life) can put an X2 (X2000 actually seems to be a brand name for high speed lines) locomotive in both ends. I have also seen a photo of just the locomotive unit driving around, but I think it's quite okay for Simutrans+pak64 to require one or more full sets with just one locomotive per set.

(I also found the image: http://www.jernbane.net/bo/subpage.php?s=0&id=159263 Looks like it was 5+6, not 5+4, locomotives not included. The photographer wrote that it was train 428 between Stockholm and Göteborg/Gothenburg with 114 1st class and 430 2nd class seats.)

greenling

Ters
The Photo it up to date it was be make at 07.09.2012 it.
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prissi

#56
OK, I found the error. The data in the spreadsheet were using the raw values from good prices (0.15) so the /3 was omitted. Aparently when that change was added, the /3 was not added to the list. Simplest solution is multiply all prices by a factor.

EDIT: But the goods file still has 0,45 written. Using the 1/3 in the list should give the right result. One time 1/3 too many crept in. That should actually affect all paks ...

In the Excel, I used the indicated prices. However, the price in the good list I only get with the 1/3 ???

EDIT: To make it more clear: In Excel, I only get the correct result, when I use 15 as the good price, but keep the division by 3.

prissi

Excel and most pak files are fixed by now. I will work on the container trailers.

Ters

Good work.

A recent thing I've begun wondering about is whether the most profitable way to transport mail inside a city is by train. Modern mail truck and trailer can't reach more than half of max speed inside a city, while trains are not restricted in that way.

prissi

A very good remark. That is not factored into the costs of the mail trucks.

Ters

All this time, I just thought it was that way to prevent mail trucks from being too profitable outside cities.

Fifty

I wonder also if it is factored into the costs of busses? Particularly the jointed bus seems to have fairly high running costs to run inside of a city at 50 km/h.

For mail, moblet and I made a profit in the later years with a fairly large network in this netgame if you want to look (RF&P):
http://entropy.me.uk/simutrans/networksavegames/sim64b/sim64_r5583_pak64-r810_05_09_2012.sve
I used the old "copy convoy" trick to keep the old mail trucks for use in cities, and still made good profit. Now that we have a semitrailer for long-distance hauling, you could lower the max speed of the newer mail truck. I know here in the USA at least many of our mail delivery vans top out at ~80km/h.

The mail container wagon in this game is the reason I suggested flattening the speedbonus curve. It made a killing in 1970 at .29 credits per km at 140 km/h, But in the later years, it makes a reasonable profit at 140 km/h at less than a third of the revenue, only .08 credits per km. Because pak 64 has a relatively limited selection of vehicles, many need to span a long number of years and thus tend to be either too cheap at entry or too expensive in later years.

Also in this game, you can see another player using the panthress profitably for freight service, and Garratts still in service in 2174: iirc in cars.xls it has a considerably higher running cost for garratt, this needs to be fixed in-game because these locomotives are very lucrative.
Why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?

Ters

The jointed bus doesn't have as high max speed, and from my experience, it can be profitable while for mail trucks that seems impossible. Lowering the speed of the mail truck seems like a good idea to me.

prissi

The mail truck has 60kmh and city roads is 50kmh. That is in the calculation.

The garrat cost were increased.

Fifty

Thank you for your hard work prissi!

The 60 km/h mail truck is retired in the 1970s: perhaps that retire date could be removed? I was talking about dropping the max speed and cost of the 100 km/h (HVPosttransporter) mail truck to make it essentially a replacement for the older one if you don't remove the retire date.
Why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?

greenling

Fifty
That´s it a very good idea they you speak on.
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Ters

The containers cars for boxed goods seem to be working fine for me now.

Though not part of the pak64 core, another thing that seems to break down around 2025 are cooled goods on trains. At least one of them (I don't remember if it's meat, fish or both) become even less profitable than paper. The challenge might be that for trains, speeds for passengers and freight diverge extremely towards the end, and the speed bonus follows the former.

prissi

Maybe best to reintroduce the same car with different costs ...