Improvement: Unclear radius logic for signal support structure.

[DrSuperGood]

With the introduction of the Railway policeman's cottage one should be able to use some basic signalling to increase the maximum speed of trains from 35 km/h in drive by sight (and less when approaching corners or hills) to their top maximum speed. Well that is the theory at least. If not for the fact they are extremely buggy...

This is the first of 2 bug reports.

The Railway policeman's cottage tooltip states it has a radius of 1.25 km and the detail window states it has a radius of or 1.2 km. Rounding error asside, the actual problem is they do not have a radius of 1.2 km, their radius is considerably shorter.

On the server game 1 km = 8 game tiles. A distance of 1.25 km is thus 1.25*8 tiles or 10 tiles. This should mean that one can place Flag signal 10 tiles away. Now this would be grid aligned distance so diagonally one could expect anywhere between 6 and 7 tiles away due to euclidian distance. Still fairly sizable distance and certainly more than most stations players will make at the time.

However the game does not let one do that in practice. The "1250m" actually means just 2 tiles radius. One cannot even place it 2 tiles away diagonally due to Euclidian distance. This makes the structure extremely unusable as one literally has to plant it right next to where you want the signals to be. The fact it can support 4 signals is never a limiting factor because good luck placing one that can encompass enough track to need 4 signals.

There is clearly a logic error in radius calculation for these support structures. My theory is a forgotten or incorrect scaling procedure is being used to convert from metric distance to tiles resulting in 1.25km turning into 2 rather than 10.

I would rate this fairly high priority to fix as it greatly effects usability.

[Rollmaterial]

Signals have their own maximum distance to the signal box. In the case of the flag signal it is 250 m, i. e. 2 tiles.

[DrSuperGood]

Nope they do not. Nowhere are such limitations mentioned. To quote the UI for placing Flag signals.

Flag signal, Max. speed: 115 km/h, Time interval, 125.00c (4.16c)

No mentioned of this random arbitrary 250m...

[Rollmaterial]

I guess it's the maximum distance a railway policeman will get from his cottage in normal working conditions.

[DrSuperGood]

Except the box is limited to a radius of 1.25km, not 0.25km...

[Rollmaterial]

Because the same box can also control vane signals, which can be placed further away. Those are introduced in 1838.

[DrSuperGood]

Then why in 1831 does it say a radius of 1250m?

This is still a bug because there is nothing telling the user it is not a bug. Frankly 1.25km makes a lot more sense for placement than 2 tiles as at least one might be able to cover a vaguely realistic intersection as opposed to barely covering a station if placed in the middle.

[Rollmaterial]

There is no bug, simply an unclear interface. The signals' individual maximum signal box distances are defined in their respective source files.

[DrSuperGood]

There is no bug, simply an unclear interface.

So there is a bug, with the interface not mentioning that it is not a bug... Currently only via extensive research out of the game will the user find out that such signals have reduced range.

The solution is that the signals in the UI should have a hover over tooltip explaining their maximum range.

[jamespetts]

This is not a bug in the sense of unintended behaviour: as Rollmaterial states, the signals have a maximum distance to the signalbox that is separate from the signalbox's maximum radius. In the days when railway signals were an actual person standing by the side of the track with a flag and a lamp, it would clearly not be feasible for that person to have to walk 1.2km between giving a signal to a train going in one direction and a train going in another direction.

I note that it is not ideal that this is not mentioned in the tooltip. I suspect that the reason for this is that it cannot be called "radius" because it is not really a radius as such, but describing it as "maximum distance to signalbox" would be too long to fit into a tooltip.

Can anyone suggest any clear, shorter description of this value for the tooltip?

[DrSuperGood]

it would clearly not be feasible for that person to have to walk 1.2km between giving a signal to a train going in one direction and a train going in another direction.

Except neither were double tracks 250m wide. An area of 250*250m^2 would easily encompass an entire small junction. As such one likely has to use a slightly inaccurate distance for the early signals to compensate for how massive ways are in Simutrans. They should look realistic rather than use realistic distances.

Can anyone suggest any clear, shorter description of this value for the tooltip?

I would imagine something like "placement" would suffice to describe the distance. One could imply by reading that there is a limit on placement distance from the signalbox. If not then after a minute or two of failing to place the signals >250m away the user would suddenly click on to that the mentioned distance means the "maximum distance to signalbox". This is better than currently where they might do what I did and file a bug report.

[jamespetts]

Economic realism is more important than aesthetics when the two conflict in Simutrans-Extended.

As to "placement", this might work - what do others think about whether this is clear enough?

[jamespetts]

Can I ask again whether anyone has any views on whether the word "placement" by itself is clear enough to describe the maximum distance between signal and signalbox in this context?

[Ves]

Now I dont know exactly how the english works, but to me placement sounds like literally where you place it, hence would be confusing if I didnt know what it really means.
Perhaps just "distance" or "max distance"? Or nothing, so it only shows the value, like "12km" or "500m"?

[Rollmaterial]

"Max. dist." or "dist. to box".

[jamespetts]

"Max. dist. to box" seems promising, perhaps. What are people's views on that phrase?

[DrSuperGood]

Might as well call it "Distance" or "Dist" then. The idea is to expose the information to the user even if it is not perfectly clear. The in game help discussing signals could go on to explain what the distance for a signal means. The intended result is someone like myself would try to place a signal, fail to do so, then over the signal and see a small distance value and so instantly know "Ah, so that is what distance means" as opposed to currently where I initially created a bug report about it.

[jamespetts]

What are other people's views on whether "Distance" alone would suffice for this purpose?

[Ves]

Distance is fine I think, for the reasons given by supergood!

edit:

One could also write "build distance:"

[jamespetts]

Splendid, thank you. I have now added this feature to the tooltip, which should be available in the next nightly build. Any translators will have to remember to add a translation for "distance".

[DrSuperGood]

Can confirm it is working in game.