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Community => Game Servers => Topic started by: jamespetts on November 20, 2012, 02:30:23 AM

Title: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on November 20, 2012, 02:30:23 AM
This game has now ended. Download a copy of the game in its final state here (http://www.bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/saves/bridgewater-brunel-game2-final.sve). Thanks to all who played!

New
: now running Simutrans 112.3 Experimental 11.17 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=13184.0) with Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=12141.0). (Edit: Updated both Simutrans-Experimental version 11.17 - 25th of January 2014, and pakset version the 11th of July 2013.)

This is a continuation of the previous Bridgewater-Brunel saved game but with the new pakset version and new version of Experimental (11.17) . To maintain compatibility with previous networks, weight limits have been disabled.

Starting year: 1785

Screenshot of the map (when it was new):

(http://www.bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/screenshots/bridgewater-brunel-game2-start-map.png)

This map will pause when no clients are connected.

bridgewater-brunel.me.uk (//http:///) is a large map server for Pak128.Britain-Ex. I had hoped to restart the server with the forthcoming 0.9.0 release of Pak128.Britain-Ex, but it has not proved possible to finish that version in good time, so I thought it worthwhile to start the server with the interim 0.8.4 release.

The game starts in 1785 to allow players to make full use of canals, which have hitherto received limited attention.

Edit: Might I remind people of the importance of setting a password? Go to the "players" dialogue and click the little green box: there, you can set a password and also change the name of your company, the latter of which is also a good idea.

Edit 2: The previous bug in the 0.8.4 release which prevented clients from joining the game normally (making it necessary to type "net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk" from the load game dialogue) has now been fixed, and it is possible to join this game with the "Play online" button.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 20, 2012, 01:05:38 PM
ah, yeah, I am player 4, but I think the internet connection I have here in vancouver is too flaky for me to stay connected for more than 2 seconds. I tried everything, so I'm pretty sure it's just the internet connection.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 20, 2012, 01:45:12 PM
Hmm, odd. You were able to connect before without these difficulties, I seem to remember. You get frequent desyncs? Are you sure that you have the 10.14 version and the 0.8.4 version of the pakset? Have you tried the ipv4 only binary (if you are running Windows)? Are you running Windows or Linux, 32- or 64-bit? What is your ping to the server? Do you have similar trouble running Standard and connecting to Standard servers hosted in Europe?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on November 20, 2012, 01:47:14 PM
From Phoenix, Arizona, I get a ping time of about 600ms.  After about 2 seconds I also get disconnected, with a message like this:

Desync due to checklist mismatch
sync_step=91200 
server=[rand=4275749122 halt=1 line=1 cnvy=81 ind_dns_prop=3 act_ind_dens=526 traffic=20690]
client=[rand=1703971409 halt=1 line=1 cnvy=81 ind_dns_prop=3 act_ind_dens=526 traffic=20701]
World finished ...


The pak zipfile in your link contains a directory dated 18 December 2011 and called 0.8.3, not 0.8.4 ... is that correct?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Carl on November 20, 2012, 01:57:32 PM
That is a really nice-looking heightmap.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Milko on November 20, 2012, 01:59:40 PM
The map is very nice, there are islands and terrestrial areas. I unfortunately do not have time to participate.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 20, 2012, 02:05:01 PM
Quote from: wlindley on November 20, 2012, 01:47:14 PM
From Phoenix, Arizona, I get a ping time of about 600ms.  After about 2 seconds I also get disconnected, with a message like this:

Desync due to checklist mismatch
sync_step=91200 
server=[rand=4275749122 halt=1 line=1 cnvy=81 ind_dns_prop=3 act_ind_dens=526 traffic=20690]
client=[rand=1703971409 halt=1 line=1 cnvy=81 ind_dns_prop=3 act_ind_dens=526 traffic=20701]
World finished ...


The pak zipfile in your link contains a directory dated 18 December 2011 and called 0.8.3, not 0.8.4 ... is that correct?

Hmm, this latter point may be the issue - 0.8.3 is not the same as 0.8.4. For reference, 0.8.4 can be downloaded here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10144.0). To which link are you referring here - the one in this thread, or the one on the server listing page?

Carl - thank you: this map number was suggested by AEO, as it happens.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 20, 2012, 02:46:52 PM
@james
It works now, after using the one linked to the testing 0.8.4 version.

I think the pakset that you have linked in this thread was 0.8.3, which was the cause of desyncs.

ping is around 500~600ms from vancouver.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 20, 2012, 03:35:59 PM
Apologies for the error - link above fixed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 20, 2012, 06:53:24 PM
Thanks for the Password reminder James. I'm the yellow player, I'll password it now. I couldn't figure out how to do it this morning. Likewise, how do I rename my player?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 20, 2012, 07:13:58 PM
Same green button as the password.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 20, 2012, 08:59:45 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on November 20, 2012, 07:13:58 PM
Same green button as the password.
It appears not...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 20, 2012, 09:16:42 PM
^ where it says "Player #", above the password entry box. This should be editable if you have control over that player.

@AP, I would check your finances window. Your operating profit is in the negative.

@Lindley, something has happened to many of your horse & carriage routes, they have many "no routes"
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 20, 2012, 09:29:30 PM
Quote from: ӔO on November 20, 2012, 09:16:42 PM@AP, I would check your finances window. Your operating profit is in the negative.

I noticed that. Aeolas has the same issue.

I'm not immediately sure why, stagecoaches were a sure-fire money maker before. Am reviewing my routes, trying to work out where the money is going. Sold my ship (nobody wanted to use it). Added more feeder lines and mail coaches, they're now crawling their way along the network. All that leaves are depots and coaching inns. And both are rather vital to a stagecoach service.  Has the balancing been changed?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 20, 2012, 10:01:35 PM
I think passengers walking is not enabled?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 20, 2012, 10:09:10 PM
That would explain the ship not working (no interchange). But why, when my stagecoach routes are almost all full (graphs show most running at or near capacity) are they making no money? Or insufficient to cover the cost of a mere few bus stops.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on November 20, 2012, 10:23:21 PM
I had used the "Replace" function on the stagecoaches, but "Go To Depot" is broke -- vehicles never enter the depot.... the "Retire" button is pressed on many of them, and clicking has no effect, so I have to sell them all?  very frustrating.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 20, 2012, 10:40:14 PM
Was the fact that walking interchanges is disabled, a deliberate thing?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 20, 2012, 10:58:02 PM
Quote from: wlindley on November 20, 2012, 10:23:21 PM
I had used the "Replace" function on the stagecoaches, but "Go To Depot" is broke -- vehicles never enter the depot.... the "Retire" button is pressed on many of them, and clicking has no effect, so I have to sell them all?  very frustrating.

Ah, that bug is persistent...

Quote from: AP on November 20, 2012, 10:09:10 PM
That would explain the ship not working (no interchange). But why, when my stagecoach routes are almost all full (graphs show most running at or near capacity) are they making no money? Or insufficient to cover the cost of a mere few bus stops.

It might be the waiting times. You should use convoy spacing to spread out the spacing of your convoys, instead of having them run lob sided. check the refunds or profits for each of your lines.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 21, 2012, 01:19:39 AM
Apologies for the issue with the walking interchange setting: I have enabled it now. Don't forget that there are two other ways of interchanging between networks: either use the access/running powers options in the player menu, or use the rule whereby road stops placed on public roads are deemed to be common user.

As to the replace issues, I shall look into those and revert. It's good to see everybody having a good game so far! I recommend building some canals, which are more efficient than plateways or roads in this era for the transport of goods. Plateways should not be thought of as early railways, but as a means of filling in the gaps in places not suitable for a canal but where road transport is not good enough.

Edit: I have found and fixed the sending to depot bug, and hope to be able to put out a new version with the fix shortly: apologies for the difficulties with this. This is actually a new bug, not the original bug, caused by the fixing of a different bug related to railway signalling and waypoints.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 21, 2012, 08:12:55 AM
Quote from: jamespetts on November 21, 2012, 01:19:39 AM
Apologies for the issue with the walking interchange setting: I have enabled it now. Don't forget that there are two other ways of interchanging between networks: either use the access/running powers options in the player menu, or use the rule whereby road stops placed on public roads are deemed to be common user.
Cheers james. Still having revenue issues, but there's lots of passengers moving around now (alas overcrowding, but hey, can't have everything!).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 21, 2012, 09:09:12 AM
Are passengers that are refunded discarded or do they still try to find a route?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 21, 2012, 11:13:36 AM
Only discarded passengers receive a refund. Glad that the walking connexions helped!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 21, 2012, 12:58:51 PM
I would suggest we only connect networks with ships, since horse and carriages can't cope with the flow.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 21, 2012, 01:15:22 PM
Did I go bankrupt yet?  :-[ It was looking rather grim this morning... (at work now, so can't check)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 21, 2012, 01:29:50 PM
yup. I think you had some major issues with passengers and mail piling up due to the network connections.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 21, 2012, 01:47:35 PM
AP, were you blue? If so, you had stage coaches set to "wait for load" with a rather long timing interval, meaning that huge queues of horses and carriages formed behind your stage coaches waiting to be filled, which they weren't probably due in part to the infrequency of the service caused by the long intervals...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 21, 2012, 01:55:27 PM
No, I was yellow. I can't quite understand where the money was going, tbh, because my coaches were pretty full and pretty evenly spaced (I made sure of it). I think I'll try again tonight claiming those same cities and see if I can work out what went wrong. The only maintenance items I had were coaching inns. I note that green is using stagecoaches without coaching inns, which turns a profit, but seems a bit unrealistic (i.e. the balancing should allow the two used together.

I did have a period where i tried ships (which lost money), but I deleted all that infrastructure pretty sharpish when I realised that. Could the overcrowding after the walking was enabled have had an impact?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 21, 2012, 01:56:27 PM
There is still some work needed on balancing this pakset, so any thoughts about that would be appreciated.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 21, 2012, 02:32:07 PM
I don't think ships lose money too badly, so I use them, if they aren't severely out of the way.

---

can someone else confirm if the radio buttons for allowing access are working or not?

I do not seem to be able to enable them for lindley lines.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 21, 2012, 05:25:33 PM
james, could you please remove part of the road north of Caringford? I would like to dig a canal through there.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 21, 2012, 06:06:42 PM
So nice to see the server is running! I joined today as Northern Lights and will check in at night to start working, after I finish real work :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 21, 2012, 06:42:27 PM
:Outrage: Who nicked my towns  :o ;D
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 21, 2012, 07:01:45 PM
^ I nicked a some. :p


Lindley needs more ships. There's a major build up now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 21, 2012, 07:30:48 PM
Right, back in the game, but am uncertain how to balance ship lines, so we'll have to see what happens.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 21, 2012, 10:46:58 PM
for ships, you need a high capacity dock.
depending on load, you should only need up to one ship every 48min. I find one in 1h is usually plenty with these sailing ships.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 21, 2012, 11:13:37 PM
so I take it, we're using walking to connect? Maybe access permission could serve as well? As long as we keep the basic waiting manners.

We should set some guidleline for connecting, right?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 21, 2012, 11:38:44 PM
access permission are not working, for some reason.

I would suggest only connecting ship ports with ship ports, at least for this era. Road connections are too unreliable and low capacity for joining networks.

For connecting, it would be nice to ask or leave messages in chat or signs.

Personally, I don't mind too much for unannounced connections, but would prefer them to be placed at a hub, since branch lines tend to get overloaded easily without user interaction.


City claiming... I would suggest first come, first serve... But if you have to go through a city someone else is serving, try not to use the same roads, because there may be unexpected blockages. Also, try and work out a connection with the other player, because walking is enabled and may cause overloading problems if the connection is not placed strategically.


Not that one can't play aggressively at later stages ;)
Typically, I find cooperation is good in the beginning, but not entirely necessary at later stages in the game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 21, 2012, 11:42:57 PM
sounds good!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 22, 2012, 01:25:19 AM
something isn't right with my vehicle (1263) pair of horses. It's made -2,853$ this month, and it's its first month of service.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on November 22, 2012, 06:56:54 AM
Quote from: asaphxiix on November 22, 2012, 01:25:19 AM
something isn't right with my vehicle (1263) pair of horses. It's made -2,853$ this month, and it's its first month of service.

Check the line info and the re-funds. They can get pretty frightening.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 22, 2012, 07:36:29 AM
And I'm out again.  Not sure if it was refunds doing it for me or not. The balancing on this pakset is tough (but then, it always was a challenge). Might have another go later on.

EDIT: have posted some game feedback http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10893
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 22, 2012, 10:53:48 AM
Quote from: Junna on November 22, 2012, 06:56:54 AM
Check the line info and the re-funds. They can get pretty frightening.

Thoughts so too at first, but I had no refunds at all at that time... it was easy to see this was a bug

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 22, 2012, 11:07:16 AM
thought: I actually think I do need some warning before making a connection. Otherwise it creates refunds when I'm sleeping...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 22, 2012, 01:16:35 PM
server is down, it would seem.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 22, 2012, 02:24:07 PM
this morning (or was it last night?) I noticed it would freeze for a few minutes, then resume...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on November 22, 2012, 07:02:48 PM
Quote from: asaphxiix on November 22, 2012, 11:07:16 AM
thought: I actually think I do need some warning before making a connection. Otherwise it creates refunds when I'm sleeping...

Ehm, sorry about that, I tried to relieve some of the routes that were getting a bit clogged, but I guess I failed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 22, 2012, 07:05:11 PM
that's cool no worries, we will work it out when we are both playing, you can leave the connection :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 22, 2012, 09:36:00 PM
Just tried to join the game (again, I know. 3rd time lucky? :rolleyes:)...

...however I get "Server did not respond" ?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 22, 2012, 09:39:11 PM
yeah, it's down. You can check on the listing site. It would appear that it has been down for around 8h and 40min now.

Previously, there was an auto restarting script, so either it's not working, or we found a bug that causes the game to be not loadable.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 22, 2012, 09:43:15 PM
Do you happen to have a link to that? Thanks  :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 22, 2012, 09:47:24 PM
it's at the top of the server subforum http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?board=101.0
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 22, 2012, 11:27:38 PM
it is up now :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 23, 2012, 12:14:06 AM
Yes, I restarted it. It seemed to have frozen rather than crashed, which is why the restart script didn't work. I can't reproduce the problem, sadly, so I don't know what the issue was.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 23, 2012, 12:59:02 AM
james: it seems mail is too profitable? got almost 1000% margin last month on Ayl-Dun Mail line.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 23, 2012, 01:50:35 AM
server froze just now (1:50AM GMT)
also went to 50% cpu. could it be my client that's doing that?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 23, 2012, 01:55:18 AM
same, client froze. server probably froze too.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on November 23, 2012, 03:15:11 AM
Maybe it be useful with some sort of script to check for freeze at certain intervals and restart it should it find it unresponsive at thirty-minute intervals or something?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 23, 2012, 07:48:26 AM
Hmm - what did people do just before it froze?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 23, 2012, 07:57:55 AM
I was just changing the schedule of a convoy, from a normal line to a "garbage" line I created on the spot so I can use 'withdraw all' to sell the vehicle. It kinda felt like this triggered the freeze, but I can't really tell of course.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 23, 2012, 08:37:27 AM
Which line was it, and what was the schedule of the garbage line?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 23, 2012, 08:43:13 AM
This I cannot remember, I'm afraid. I just remember clicking on two random road tiles in the city to set as waypoints, then 'promote to line', then close the schedule, after a second or two it froze, as if during schedule change.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 23, 2012, 10:18:32 AM
Ahh, I think that I have worked out what the problem might be - you need to avoid making way point only routes until I fix this issue.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 23, 2012, 10:19:09 AM
you got it :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 23, 2012, 01:56:18 PM
Quote from: asaphxiix on November 23, 2012, 12:59:02 AM
james: it seems mail is too profitable? got almost 1000% margin last month on Ayl-Dun Mail line.
Don't tell him that!! It was only the mail that made up for my passenger stagecoaches being so feeble previously! :-D
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on November 23, 2012, 05:44:56 PM
When well it be back up?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 23, 2012, 06:23:38 PM
also, could player access be enabled, if it is not a bug?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on November 23, 2012, 06:27:22 PM
Quote from: ӔO on November 23, 2012, 06:23:38 PM
also, could player access be enabled, if it is not a bug?

Pretty sure it is not a bug, as I can enable that in separate games.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 23, 2012, 06:47:49 PM
I get "server did not respond" when I try to load. But the listing suggests server is not down?? :-/
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 23, 2012, 06:59:15 PM
Quote from: AP on November 23, 2012, 06:47:49 PM
I get "server did not respond" when I try to load. But the listing suggests server is not down?? :-/

maybe refresh your page?

It says offline for 17hrs for me.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 23, 2012, 07:01:52 PM
Aha. Yes that did it. Wierd. Thanks AEO
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 23, 2012, 10:57:02 PM
The server should be back online now - apologies for the delay. May I ask that people avoid creating any lines/schedules consisting of only waypoints until I fix the bug? Thank you!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 23, 2012, 11:03:57 PM
cheers james.

could I get a piece of road removed north of caringford?

also, can you enable player access rights?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 23, 2012, 11:31:03 PM
I have removed the road in question to enable the completion of the great Caringford Ship Canal, but the player access rights thing seems to be a bug. I will look into fixing that for the next version.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 23, 2012, 11:37:09 PM
Thanks james.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 23, 2012, 11:52:59 PM
A wondrous feat of engineering - the great Caringford Ship Canal has been completed!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on November 24, 2012, 03:23:07 AM
Can we get the allowing-access enabled?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 24, 2012, 11:44:29 AM
As noted above, this is a bug that I am looking into fixing for the next release.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 24, 2012, 03:15:35 PM
james, there seems to be much more generation of mail than pax, while the revenue per unit is pretty similar. But this can't be the only reason why mail cars are doing so well. Well, maybe it is, Idon't know.

Also it's me with connection problems, unfortunately my modem broke, and I'm trying through 3g network - doesn't work so well.

Also, a choose sign for road is very much needed. Can I make it and send it you?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 24, 2012, 03:35:28 PM
Thank you for your thoughts. Are you sure that there is more mail being generated than passengers? The game is designed to do the converse. Can you give an example to illustrate this so that I can look into the issue?

As to choose signs for road, there is one for the later eras, but the graphic does not look right for the 18th century. The idea was to restrict modern traffic management techniques to the modern era, but do you think that it's realistic to have a road choose sign in the 18th century? I'd be interested in people's thoughts on that. If it makes sense to have one this early, an earlier style graphic that fits with the general style of Pak128.Britain would be helpful (for both the Experimental and Standard versions).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 24, 2012, 03:57:10 PM
Guess I was wrong about the mail, it just seemed that way to me. So no, it's not the generation, but rather the revenue that's double with mail for some reason, this is strange, if you compare northern lights lines Ayl-Dun Mail and Aylstone-Dunding, you'll see the stats are pretty similar, while revenues are double for mail.

I think choose signs are especially required in the pre-rail era, since you have to rely so much on slow road traffic, even with no spacing, just the short loading time in the station can be a major bottleneck in long lines with many convoys, although this may be because I still havn't figured out exactly how to space them out properly with the large lines.

You can see refunds on some of my lines now (hunderds of dollars), but they are far less substantial than in 0.8.3, where a large network could lose huge amounts within a month.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 24, 2012, 04:02:50 PM
AP, could you please be more considerate in road usage at Daringfield?
You have created a traffic jam there.

please check road ownership with shift+O
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 24, 2012, 04:25:02 PM
Hmm - in that case, if you can produce an 18th century road choose sign graphic, then I'd happily put it in the next release of the pakset. You might want to make it known to the Standard developers that you are doing this, too.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 24, 2012, 04:47:05 PM
Quote from: ӔO on November 24, 2012, 04:02:50 PM
please check road ownership with shift+O
Didn't know we had that feature. The jam is resolved now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 24, 2012, 05:02:34 PM
I imagine how such a sign would look like, wooden, staked on the ground and carved :)

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 24, 2012, 05:23:05 PM
Quote from: asaphxiix on November 24, 2012, 05:02:34 PM
I imagine how such a sign would look like, wooden, staked on the ground and carved :)

It's the hills where you need it, so there can be multiple parallel crawler lanes!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on November 24, 2012, 05:47:35 PM
Something like the fourth row in this?



(http://www.wlindley.com/images/roadsign-old.png)

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 24, 2012, 05:49:32 PM
that would definitely work for me, I actually just started making one too :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: greenling on November 24, 2012, 06:03:49 PM
Excuse me.
But a end of chose Sign for road are missing in pak128.britain std and pak128.britain exp.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 24, 2012, 06:17:32 PM
ah, sorry, that server crash was probably my fault
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 24, 2012, 06:19:48 PM
something like this :)

I think I'll use windley's graphics still. Is it your name on it windley?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 24, 2012, 06:26:07 PM
Thank you for that - that is most helpful. WLindley - do yo have a .dat file to go with that? That does look good...

As to Greenling's point - what do people think of having an end of choose road sign? Are they actually useful for road transport, or only for rail?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on November 24, 2012, 06:48:24 PM
This should work for roadsign-old.dat ... 500 is the price from the modern choose sign, you might want to change that.

# Choose sign
obj=roadsign
name=ChooseSign
copyright=WLindley
intro_year=1750
intro_month=1
cost=500
waytype=road
min_speed=0
single_way=0
free_route=1
image[0]=roadsign-old.3.0
Image[1]=roadsign-old.3.1
Image[2]=roadsign-old.3.2
Image[3]=roadsign-old.3.3
Icon=> roadsign-old.3.5
Cursor=roadsign-old.3.4
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: greenling on November 24, 2012, 07:25:00 PM
All
A end of chose it for Rail and road it very useful.
I Build often by pax and mail a centralstation with increasing levels of Platform.
But i have a moment no photo to hand.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 24, 2012, 07:25:59 PM
AP, there is another jam at Tarleigh
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 24, 2012, 07:35:00 PM
I have added W. Lindley's choose sign to the Github repository for Pak128.Britain-Ex, and it should be included in the next version. Thank you for that!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 25, 2012, 12:00:39 AM
Did the server just go  down? It won't let me reconnect.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 12:08:20 AM
Yes, it crashed the client, too. Back up now, though. Did anyone create a line with only waypoints...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 25, 2012, 12:16:19 AM
I used transfer waypoint/station, maybe that did it?

actually, the exact point it crashed was when I deleted a house.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 12:34:46 AM
Hmm, odd. Do you remember which house that it was? Or have you deleted it again without a crash?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 25, 2012, 12:47:09 AM
yup, tried it again, and it didn't crash.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 01:01:39 AM
Hmm. Odd.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 25, 2012, 09:54:15 AM
Quote from: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 12:08:20 AM
Yes, it crashed the client, too. Back up now, though. Did anyone create a line with only waypoints...?
Yes. But it had no vehicles on it. I deleted the vehicles, then the stops (to save on maintenance) but kept the line, so I'd know where to put the stops back later. It will have had one stop at each end but that's all. But this morning the stops were all back, so I assume the server reloaded a save from partway through my process.

This morning it keeps kicking me out every time I try to add a (forgotten) Mirror Schedule order to the existing line M2 Hardford-Forton. Gives me fatal errors... am about to clone the old line (in case you need it) and just add all the stops backwards manually!.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 11:28:38 AM
Thank you for the report of the mirror schedule issue; I am having difficulty reproducing it, though, I am afraid. Have you changed your schedule since you tried to do that?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 25, 2012, 12:00:06 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 11:28:38 AMHave you changed your schedule since you tried to do that?
Alas so; I had vehicles already on it and didn't want them looping back without any stops on the return leg.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: slpak on November 25, 2012, 12:01:23 PM
help, problem connecting to the server
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/afc92e08-43f0-4331-b247-82534ca6a46f/90f938638b17a8b819ff5815e450efda/res/536c149e-925c-49fa-bcda-e52750be3cb8/skitch.jpg
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 12:10:19 PM
This is a known issue: you need to go to load game and type in "net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk". This should be solved with a future release.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 25, 2012, 04:05:09 PM
game sometimes freezes for a few minutes after save
just me?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 25, 2012, 04:06:16 PM
No. I get that too sometimes. I'd thought it was my connection though.

Does anyone else see the tile 136,386 (one off the bridge) as a modern 50kmh road tile? I shortened my bridge and the tile it left behind is from another era entirely...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 04:10:53 PM
The freezes are, I think, caused by somebody with a very slow client connecting. The game is paused until the client tells the server that it's finished loading. If somebody is trying to access the server on a very slow computer (a small laptop, for example), that might take a long time.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Sholong on November 25, 2012, 04:31:05 PM
Sorry that I am a new-comer for online game and I have had quite a difficulty. I tried to connect to the server, but the loading takes year. I also lost my synchronization once after few minutes I was on the server.

I tried to ping the server (ping bridegewater-brunel.me.uk) and I've got ~320ms. In my very limited knowledge this is a bit slow for FPS games, but I am not sure on games like simutrans.

The problem can be due to my desktop being a bit old also. It has a Dual Core E6420 with 3GB RAM and nVidia GTX275, is that too old? Hope not..... may I also ask, which part of the hardware will affect the loading speed of map most? will it be CPU or RAM?

Hope my connection to the server was not making it freezed :P
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 04:42:29 PM
Hello and welcome to Simutrans-Experimental! Don't worry about having problems - it's always worthwhile to try these things.

The important things for Simutrans-Experimental are CPU speed (it's a single threaded application, so having multiple cores doesn't help), memory (and to some extent memory bandwidth) and network bandwidth. Network ping is of some importance for responsiveness when connected to the server, but shouldn't affect loading times. The graphics card is not relevant, as Simutrans doesn't use hardware acceleration.

What is the bandwidth of your internet connexion, may I ask?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Sholong on November 25, 2012, 06:12:07 PM
I am using 100Mbps connection, which I tried for speed test like Speedtest.net will achieve at least few tens of Mbps, and I can always download file in a reasonable speed. Upload speed is good too.


Not sure if my location (Hong Kong China) will severe affect the bandwidth, but I can always connect to most of European and American web server in quite a speed.


Is that possible to test my connection speed to the game server? Or is the log history of connection somehow stored in files in simutrans folder?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 06:21:45 PM
Hmm, there's no specific way of testing bandwidth to the server of which I am aware. It might be your CPU, in that case. Have you tried loading very large single player games?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Sholong on November 25, 2012, 06:36:35 PM
Oh, I forgot to try this. Indeed it is really the problem. Think I'll need to stick to my single player games then.


Just how computers get outdated quickly nowadays. :-[  (Will there be any chance that I can pre-load the map, or at least terrain?)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 06:42:06 PM
I'm sorry to hear that that's the problem - was that processor one of the low power/budget ones? I was using a Pentium IV for Simutrans-Experimental until just under two  years ago, and that coped adequately.

I don't think that pre-loading can be made to work, sadly, as there's no easy way to disentangle things that don't change from the game state. Even the terrain might have changed between you pre-loading it and joining the game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 25, 2012, 07:11:41 PM
i think by mistake i set a waypoint line. very sorry.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 25, 2012, 07:24:53 PM
Restarting now. The version that fixes this should be working once I find out why, in some cases, a journey of 844km is being recorded as having been made in 43 minutes using a horse and carriage...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on November 25, 2012, 08:11:16 PM
Quotea journey of 844km is being recorded as having been made in 43 minutes using a horse and carriage...
We need someone to draw one with a flux capacitor... or maybe we can borrow something from pak48.Excentrique?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 25, 2012, 11:06:03 PM
severe jam in coatborne area
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 25, 2012, 11:14:26 PM
That wasn't there an hour ago  :o
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 26, 2012, 01:45:15 AM
can't believe I did it again :\
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 26, 2012, 01:48:12 AM
oh well, at least this gives me time to work on ways balancing :-p
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 26, 2012, 01:50:19 AM
I shall leave it down pending a version upgrade.

Edit: Back up with 10.15: see here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10936.msg105750#msg105750) for details of the latest version. This should fix some of the problems that we have been having with this game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 26, 2012, 03:08:27 AM
Hurrah, james. Keep up the good work.

It still seems like version mismatch is not working properly, but everything else looks to be fixed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 26, 2012, 04:03:52 AM
Joy! Superb work by you James, it must be thrilling for you as well seeing many players together enjoying the game you've been making, around the clock. Glad to be a part of this.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 26, 2012, 11:22:19 AM
Excellent, glad that things are working. The version mismatch will need a new pakset release to fix, however.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Jaridan on November 26, 2012, 01:37:26 PM
is there a reason why i can't connect? when i go into load and type net:etc. the only "respones" i'm getting from the server is : Server not responding.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 26, 2012, 01:44:18 PM
One reason that the server might not respond when you try to load a game is if somebody else is joining the game at the same time. If that happens, try again in a few minutes. Also, double check the spelling of the address.

The server has just posted a new announcement to the announce server, so it is running.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Jaridan on November 26, 2012, 01:50:38 PM
okay, tried again and got: Protocol error (expected NWC_GAME)

am i missing files?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 26, 2012, 02:07:13 PM
Hmm. Odd. Do you have the latest version of Experimental and the configuration files? How many times have you tried to connect? What OS are you running?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Jaridan on November 26, 2012, 02:29:34 PM
I'm using win7 64 bit, i'm not sure but i downloaded the latest stuff, so i think i should have everything

(http://s1.directupload.net/images/121126/ovev6cww.jpg)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 26, 2012, 02:52:51 PM
Hmm - that's most curious. Are you still getting this error? Are you typing exactly: net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk in the load dialogue box?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: greenling on November 26, 2012, 04:51:05 PM
Sorry Jamespetts i have a litle problem.
How can i find a makeobj.exe for simutrans exp 10.15?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 26, 2012, 05:04:57 PM
added temporary line for junna's lack of ships.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Jaridan on November 26, 2012, 05:23:51 PM
...

i must humbly apologize, it seems that what i was inserting, was "incorrect", and that was the cause of this problem.

However, and this may be interesting/important to note, i was lazy, meaning,  i was copy- & pasting it(net:bridgewater....) out of this browser from the first page of this thread instead of typing it on my own.

I can connect like everyone else when i type it (though it takes some time to load).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Milko on November 26, 2012, 05:35:29 PM
Hello

Quote from: Jaridan on November 26, 2012, 05:23:51 PM
...

i must humbly apologize, it seems that what i was inserting, was "incorrect", and that was the cause of this problem.

However, and this may be interesting/important to note, i was lazy, meaning,  i was copy- & pasting it(net:bridgewater....) out of this browser from the first page of this thread instead of typing it on my own.

I can connect like everyone else when i type it (though it takes some time to load).

Strange, I did copy paste (version 10.14) and it always worked.

Giuseppe
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 26, 2012, 10:37:23 PM
desynching quite often today.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 26, 2012, 11:11:07 PM
Quote from: Jaridan on November 26, 2012, 05:23:51 PM
...

i must humbly apologize, it seems that what i was inserting, was "incorrect", and that was the cause of this problem.

However, and this may be interesting/important to note, i was lazy, meaning,  i was copy- & pasting it(net:bridgewater....) out of this browser from the first page of this thread instead of typing it on my own.

I can connect like everyone else when i type it (though it takes some time to load).

Hmm - did you end up copying a trailing space by mistake?

Quote from: greenling
Sorry Jamespetts i have a litle problem.
How can i find a makeobj.exe for simutrans exp 10.15?

The Windows build is included with the Windows executable download. Makeobj has not been updated (and has not needed to be updated) since 10.12, however.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 27, 2012, 02:54:49 AM
adding canals to many cities due to overcrowding issues.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 27, 2012, 08:47:11 AM
For passengers? Hm. I really do need to reduce the passenger factor.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 27, 2012, 09:04:05 AM
Added private roads to hopefully relieve overcrowding on city roads. Will need redesign of lines (pending).  Earthworks are (rightly) **** expensive though!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 27, 2012, 10:26:23 PM
I wondered why the map was talking so long to load, so I looked at it and they are nearly 70mb. Is this intended?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 27, 2012, 10:34:08 PM
And that's without trees! Nice canals, btw. :-)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 27, 2012, 10:43:05 PM
Do canals have limited capacity, or are they, like oceans, essentially unlimited (no congestion etc)?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 27, 2012, 11:16:24 PM
unlimited. you can use them if you want, since they are impossible to jam
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 27, 2012, 11:19:10 PM
I was just wary of the maintenance of them, I don't know how that works out in reality, but any linear route has a lot of tiles, so they could really add up.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 27, 2012, 11:47:07 PM
Sadly, the high map size is inevitable as there are vast amounts of data to transfer on these larger maps. If the passenger factor were lower, there would be far fewer convoys, and so fewer data allowing the map to be smaller. Something for the next version...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 28, 2012, 03:39:13 AM
request to remove road at 1718,1272 please :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: prissi on November 28, 2012, 01:53:23 PM
At least undeveloped maps should become much smaller if trees are only placed afterwards.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 02:27:31 PM
Quote from: prissi on November 28, 2012, 01:53:23 PM
At least undeveloped maps should become much smaller if trees are only placed afterwards.

You mean manually by the public service player's tree placement tool?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: prissi on November 28, 2012, 02:32:37 PM
When I made server mapos, I made them without trees and then just drew some forests at locations where it may be nice and later scattered some trees into the landscape. You can also set trees in forest (forgot the right settig) to 3 instead of 6 which was used in some versions of pak128.britain before creating forests. THis will reduce download size up to a factor of 10 for undeveloped land maps.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 02:39:21 PM
Thank you - that is useful. (In fact, this map has no trees at all in any event...)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 28, 2012, 07:38:50 PM
Website says server is up, but repeated attempts to join tonight are being met with "server did not respond". Has savegame time got so long as to stop people joining ?!  :P
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ghlbit on November 28, 2012, 08:02:12 PM
I am having same connection issue.
"server did not respond"

And another attempt just now returned "The operation completed successfully." where It wasn't successful to connect to the server.

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ghlbit on November 28, 2012, 08:12:51 PM
Hey all till Bridgewater-Operators!  ;)

I am ghlbit newly started operation for Bridgewater.
I don't have any service at the momment.

I was thinking we could meet up on online chatting server.
I use TeamSpeaks 3 for online gaming communication.

Curruntly I am online at free to join TeamSpeaks server of "All In Multigaming Community".
IP address for this server is 78.72.150.37

There is no channel dedicated for Simutrans online gaming but I am online in "Coffe Room" channel of this server.
So I hope you come online and discuss about our Bridgewater operation!

Since I am pretty new to Simutrans so It will be nice to talk to someone to make a decision before I start the servicing.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 08:15:42 PM
The server is back up now - and welcome Ghlbit! We generally use the in-game chat on the server, but you are more than welcome to use TeamSpeak if you like.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 08:25:07 PM
Quote from: asaphxiix on November 28, 2012, 03:39:13 AM
request to remove road at 1718,1272 please :)

Done.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ghlbit on November 28, 2012, 08:45:43 PM
Hello James,

Thanks for warm welcome and for hosting also developing great simulation ever! :)

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Milko on November 28, 2012, 08:55:00 PM
Hello

I just tried to connect but crashed during loading, now the server is down, hope it's not my fault ...

Giuseppe
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 08:56:27 PM
Hmm - it might be your connexion that caused the problem, but it's not your fault, as you weren't to know that it would have that effect. May I ask - what was the nature of the error message (if any) or other behaviour that you had at your end?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 28, 2012, 09:00:25 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 08:25:07 PM
Done.
Thanks! :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ghlbit on November 28, 2012, 09:06:50 PM
I was booted out from the server on last saving somehow.

Well I had a look on industires list and I am thinking to operate dairy product delivery service on one of central islands.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on November 28, 2012, 09:17:18 PM
Quote from: ghlbit on November 28, 2012, 09:06:50 PM
I was booted out from the server on last saving somehow.

Well I had a look on industires list and I am thinking to operate dairy product delivery service on one of central islands.

If you manually save the game, it will desynch. Savings are also common occasions when the client will notice a desynch.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Milko on November 28, 2012, 09:23:05 PM
Hello

Now the server is down?

Giuseppe
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 09:26:40 PM
It's back up now. Saving locally will generally desync the client but not crash the server. I am not sure what is currently causing the server to crash. The logs aren't helping a great deal.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 28, 2012, 10:08:56 PM
Beware: wierd thing, it semi-crashed mid save, but then appeared to recover. 1.5h later, I notice a little pause button has appeared at the top - I've been playing in a strange parallel universe all evening. ****. The only clue was the chat had gone quiet...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 10:10:27 PM
Hmm - semi-crashed? What did that entail?

(Look for the network symbol in the bottom right hand corner to check connectivity).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 28, 2012, 10:13:50 PM
It did the "saving" thing it does periodically, took the usual 30 seconds or so meanwhile the game paused (as usual whilst that happens), but then some kind of popup indicating a failure (oh no, I thought), but then a split second later the game is back and carrying on playing. So I figured the popup was the error. Only just now did I spot a clue that the inconsistency was in fact the game being played.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 10:22:22 PM
You don't remember what the error message was, do you?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 28, 2012, 10:32:36 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 10:22:22 PM
You don't remember what the error message was, do you?
I'm sorry I don't. It definitely suggested the save had failed, because it so obviously contradicted what I was seeing on the screen (i.e. that it appeared to have succeeded).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 10:39:28 PM
Ahh. Hmm. The only thing that I can suggest is to check for the network symbol after something like that.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 28, 2012, 10:50:06 PM
Indeed. And I will do so in future for sure! Cheers James.  :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ghlbit on November 28, 2012, 11:20:06 PM
Quote from: Junna on November 28, 2012, 09:17:18 PM
If you manually save the game, it will desynch. Savings are also common occasions when the client will notice a desynch.

I only realized momment ago that when new client join the session It saves it.
And that was the saving I was wrting.  :)


Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 28, 2012, 11:32:29 PM
If you get frequent desyncs from trying to join, try quitting the game once. Sometimes that helps with desync on connect.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ghlbit on November 28, 2012, 11:36:30 PM
I was desynced at about 00.20 AM CET (GMT +1).

Since I am trying to connect to the session again.
All I did was changed palyers name.

It is quite frustrating.

I happen to have slow connection of internet at the momment since I am using Broadband internet. Sometimes it gets quite slow speed or bad reception.

Could having a slow internet but stable connection cause issue to connect to server?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 28, 2012, 11:40:43 PM
If possible, a direct, wired connection should help. I find wireless does not work too well for online games in general, even simutrans.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 28, 2012, 11:45:21 PM
AEO is correct - wireless is not a good idea for Simutrans.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ghlbit on November 28, 2012, 11:47:09 PM
The internet provider, Telenor, generally has stable reception and internet service once I was uploading large files for more than 2 days without losing internet.

But the broadband is only option in my area I am thinking to upgrade broadband modem for better and for 4G network.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 29, 2012, 04:05:58 AM
Not entirely sure why, but the server is crashing occasionally.
I am mainly doing line spacing and destination edits when it crashes, but it doesn't always happen, nor does it seem like the server will crash the instant the command is sent.

Will need to do a bit more investigation to find out what is causing it.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on November 29, 2012, 07:55:47 AM
i like take over companies if person wants to me run the company per AEO stated in other thread
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 29, 2012, 10:55:31 PM
server just reverted us, not sure how far back... I have saves from 00:34 and 23:37?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 29, 2012, 10:58:24 PM
It reverted quite a way, as I'd finished the engineering works linking Arlham Junction to Corwell in their entirity, whereas now they are only half built. I don't know what time zone you're quoting in?

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 29, 2012, 11:01:06 PM
Yes, the server is crashing and reverting for some reason.

I suggest you quite and rejoin to save progress after doing some heavy work.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 29, 2012, 11:03:43 PM
ah sorry, 21:37 22:34 GMT. However I loaded those and they are earlier than our current point.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 29, 2012, 11:09:19 PM
Quote from: ӔO on November 29, 2012, 11:01:06 PM
I suggest you quite and rejoin to save progress after doing some heavy work.
A good suggestion. We should all take this approach.

Quote from: asaphxiix on November 29, 2012, 11:03:43 PM
ah sorry, 21:37 22:34 GMT. However I loaded those and they are earlier than our current point.
Why does it not autosave ( at a frequency greater than once an hour)?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 29, 2012, 11:54:02 PM
Hmm - sorry about the crashes. Has anybody been able to work out what triggers them? The log files don't give any clues, sadly.

I could probably set up a script to force-sync the server ever x minutes, but the trouble with that is that it would interrupt people's playing as the saving/loading takes a bit of a while. Do people think that this would be a good idea nonetheless?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 30, 2012, 02:21:09 AM
well the server does save every time someone joins, which is usually often enough and indeed can slow down the game in busy times. That's why it's strange that we seem to have reverted so much today, since the saves were quite often; but maybe there's some illusion there.

On such a busy server, I don't think it's necessary. But on less crowded games it would be good to have an option, since the regular auto save doesn't seem to work.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 30, 2012, 03:13:24 AM
If it is possible to save only when 1 player is playing, then I think it would be good.
During busy times, usually there are plenty of people joining for frequent saves.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: kierongreen on November 30, 2012, 08:16:02 AM
You could maybe force an autosave only if there has't been a save for other reasons in the last 30 minutes for example.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 30, 2012, 12:46:43 PM
Quote from: kierongreen on November 30, 2012, 08:16:02 AM
You could maybe force an autosave only if there has't been a save for other reasons in the last 30 minutes for example.

Hmm - not sure how one would check this...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 30, 2012, 04:51:22 PM
perhaps it is also worth noting on the server introduction that it won't really run on weaker machines, I think this map has requirements that are somewhat above the basic game requirements, not just the amount of tiles, but of course the amount of lines and convoys as well that encumbers the machine quite much.

Perhaps for future games, smaller maps for less players should be considered as well (e.g. half size for 8 players, etc.). This could reduce requirements and load times, as well as general load and playability on the server. 16 players I guess is just too much for today's computers. But then, Timothy's games have been hosting 16 players for quite long now, right? Perhaps there's a difference from standard here.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on November 30, 2012, 05:52:21 PM
Experimental is more CPU-intensive than Standard because some of the more sophisticated features make it so. Large maps are important to get the most out of Experimental's more precise approach to distances and times. On the other hand, the passenger factor is far too high at present. This is greatly increasing the number of passenger and mail based convoys above what would be a realistic level, which will put great extra strain on people's computers. Once this is corrected, the computational load will be less extreme.

Out of interest, what are your specifications, and what trouble are you having?

There is much to be said for having multiple Simutrans-Experimental servers, however, some smaller and some larger, and with different paksets. I am very fond of large maps myself, but those who prefer smaller maps might do well to club together and run a server between them. As far as servers are concerned, the more the merrier!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 30, 2012, 06:21:37 PM
thanks James. I'm actually into larger maps myself as well, the larger the better - but playability is also important. I can run the current just fine on my home computer, for now (although I'm already running 40% cpu on my dual core, 50 is the limit I believe), but I understand that many other players are having trouble connecting (and when trying, inadvertently causing problems to players already on the server), and from a weaker computer at work I can't load the game (but it's really weak). I guess we'll just have to be patient for now, and when less pax are generated it will be better.

About pax generation, 2 cents: for my size of network, say, I wouldn't say pax generation is over the top, even for this era. It's just a bit too much in its very heart maybe, but generally over the network it's quite manageable, especially on long distance lines on sea that run empty. However in AEO's network and South's mail network, it's obvious that there's way too much traffic.

I think the game may still be taking legacy from standard's growth pattern, where growth in size of the network exponentially increases traffic in it. I know STX has some mechanisms to reduce this phenomenon, but maybe on such a large scale, this is still not sufficiently mitigated. Yesterday I added a two or three towns to my network before going to work, when I was back, incomes were up 10% I think.

So while it does make sense that increasing the network will reduce 'no route' and put more pax on it, I think it's worth considering, at least for very large maps, to further reduce this effect with some kind of mechanism, as always time tolerance sounds like a great tool, even though I still don't understand it very well. Also it's possible that map size should be a reverse factor in pax generation.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on November 30, 2012, 06:41:52 PM
Just FYI for other players - am away this weekend without internet, so in the event of catastrophic gridlock, I'll be completely ignorant until Sunday night. I'm hoping the game won't reach 1830 (trains!!) before then...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 30, 2012, 06:46:37 PM
trains will be at 1825. will take longer than this weekend :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on November 30, 2012, 08:51:08 PM
I think quite a significant percentage of traffic in my network is the result of pax trying to find alternative routes after they decide to abandon lindley lines at oakwich.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on November 30, 2012, 10:17:10 PM
I won't have much time this weekend to sort things.  As the game has progressed, performance is suffering badly here... suggestions on what I can do to help the Whole Game along?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on November 30, 2012, 11:33:47 PM
what's your specs and system?

You can try closing any non-necessary processes from task manager
including even explorer.exe and using the task manager's command menu to run simutrans. this may save a bit of resources depending on how much is running now. Other than that, it's machinery I guess.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 01, 2012, 12:20:09 AM
my netbook, which has an E-350 and 6GB of RAM is woefully inadequate to run the game in its current state.
I think it has something to do with the sheer number of convoys, which is around 7000, in the game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 01, 2012, 01:21:13 AM
yes. we should also consider that once transportation starts getting faster, we'll need a lot less of these. Skipping a few years  may be in place...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 01, 2012, 01:41:35 AM
Quote from: asaphxiix on November 30, 2012, 06:21:37 PM
thanks James. I'm actually into larger maps myself as well, the larger the better - but playability is also important. I can run the current just fine on my home computer, for now (although I'm already running 40% cpu on my dual core, 50 is the limit I believe), but I understand that many other players are having trouble connecting (and when trying, inadvertently causing problems to players already on the server), and from a weaker computer at work I can't load the game (but it's really weak). I guess we'll just have to be patient for now, and when less pax are generated it will be better.

About pax generation, 2 cents: for my size of network, say, I wouldn't say pax generation is over the top, even for this era. It's just a bit too much in its very heart maybe, but generally over the network it's quite manageable, especially on long distance lines on sea that run empty. However in AEO's network and South's mail network, it's obvious that there's way too much traffic.

I think the game may still be taking legacy from standard's growth pattern, where growth in size of the network exponentially increases traffic in it. I know STX has some mechanisms to reduce this phenomenon, but maybe on such a large scale, this is still not sufficiently mitigated. Yesterday I added a two or three towns to my network before going to work, when I was back, incomes were up 10% I think.

So while it does make sense that increasing the network will reduce 'no route' and put more pax on it, I think it's worth considering, at least for very large maps, to further reduce this effect with some kind of mechanism, as always time tolerance sounds like a great tool, even though I still don't understand it very well. Also it's possible that map size should be a reverse factor in pax generation.


For CPU load, have you looked at the more detailed breakdown of load by core? Simutrans-Experimental is single threaded, so 100% on one core is the maximum.

Even on your network, I think, the passenger loading is far too high: the test is not whether it is manageable, but whether it is realistic. In this era, very few people would have travelled more than short distances because of the time involved.

I am coming to suspect that the exaggerated network effect of which you write is caused in part by the high proportion of passengers wishing to travel long distances. In the next version of the pakset, I shall be greatly reducing long distance travel from 14% to 5% of all trips, and mid-range travel from 28% to 25% of all trips. (Indeed, I might adjust it further given proper consideration of the matter). The fewer long distance passengers that there are, the fewer passengers that will start to travel only when networks are well connected, and the less the network effect.

(The other mitigation mechanism is the alternative destinations feature. Currently, it is set to 6 out of a maximum of 7 - is there something to be said for increasing it to the full 7?)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 01, 2012, 11:19:41 AM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 01, 2012, 01:41:35 AM
For CPU load, have you looked at the more detailed breakdown of load by core? Simutrans-Experimental is single threaded, so 100% on one core is the maximum.

Even on your network, I think, the passenger loading is far too high: the test is not whether it is manageable, but whether it is realistic. In this era, very few people would have travelled more than short distances because of the time involved.

I am coming to suspect that the exaggerated network effect of which you write is caused in part by the high proportion of passengers wishing to travel long distances. In the next version of the pakset, I shall be greatly reducing long distance travel from 14% to 5% of all trips, and mid-range travel from 28% to 25% of all trips. (Indeed, I might adjust it further given proper consideration of the matter). The fewer long distance passengers that there are, the fewer passengers that will start to travel only when networks are well connected, and the less the network effect.

(The other mitigation mechanism is the alternative destinations feature. Currently, it is set to 6 out of a maximum of 7 - is there something to be said for increasing it to the full 7?)


I think 5% long range will fit with what I found in a bit of research on RL transport - closer to 1% there, I think.

Re-balancing this way has more effects, though, like making it much easier to start the game small, and reducing service instability when expanding the network. While this is called for, perhaps another way to challenge service stability (if by a bit) might be desired, so expansion won't be too easy? I guess self-changing demand patterns and changing schedules (daily or seasonly) are the way to go, but that's a big project there.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 01, 2012, 11:38:08 AM
I considered changing demand patterns very carefully a few months ago, and concluded that they weren't feasible with the routing system as it is, or with timescales as they are. More interesting things to challenge stability include:

(1) competition, especially in conjunction with the multiple destinations feature (where a competitor might take away one's passengers to where they really want to go);
(2) better handling of wear and obsolescence planned for the future, requiring overhauls for vehicles and renewal of ways, the maintenance costs for both increasing as they are used more;
(3) town growth; and
(4) industrial growth then decline.

All of these present longer term challenges to stability of the network which are more useful and require less micromanagement than varying demand.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 01, 2012, 11:51:54 AM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 01, 2012, 11:38:08 AM
I considered changing demand patterns very carefully a few months ago, and concluded that they weren't feasible with the routing system as it is, or with timescales as they are. More interesting things to challenge stability include:

(1) competition, especially in conjunction with the multiple destinations feature (where a competitor might take away one's passengers to where they really want to go);
(2) better handling of wear and obsolescence planned for the future, requiring overhauls for vehicles and renewal of ways, the maintenance costs for both increasing as they are used more;
(3) town growth; and
(4) industrial growth then decline.

All of these present longer term challenges to stability of the network which are more useful and require less micromanagement than varying demand.

Nice :)

I love this game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 01, 2012, 12:07:36 PM
I should note for all intending players that there is now one free slot available for playing...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 01, 2012, 12:56:07 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 01, 2012, 12:07:36 PM
I should note for all intending players that there is now one free slot available for playing...

i will take up now :)


edit; can you make the slot as company because i tried to open the company but i clicked on square button next to slot but nothing happens

please PM with password

Company name - RSD express co
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 02, 2012, 12:48:45 AM
Quote from: rsdworker on December 01, 2012, 12:56:07 PM
i will take up now :)


edit; can you make the slot as company because i tried to open the company but i clicked on square button next to slot but nothing happens

please PM with password

Company name - RSD express co

May I ask - can you describe your problem in more detail? If this is a bug, I'd like to be able to fix it. You were able to set up the company, but the name and password don't seem to have registered. You weren't able to click on the green button? The name of the company in the game is "Player 13".

Sadly, Lindley Lines has been liquidated after its revenues fell away precipitously after 1805.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 02, 2012, 12:55:00 AM
Last I checked, didn't lindley lines have around 1,500,000 credits?


I see some of my lines giving around 20,000 credit refunds.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 02, 2012, 01:03:02 AM
Unfortunately, we can't check Lindley's refunds, as he's been liquidated.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 02, 2012, 06:21:13 AM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 02, 2012, 12:48:45 AM
May I ask - can you describe your problem in more detail? If this is a bug, I'd like to be able to fix it. You were able to set up the company, but the name and password don't seem to have registered. You weren't able to click on the green button? The name of the company in the game is "Player 13".

Sadly, Lindley Lines has been liquidated after its revenues fell away precipitously after 1805.
the slot was empty when i joined so i clicked on grey square button on left of drop down box
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 02, 2012, 10:41:21 AM
Quote from: rsdworker on December 02, 2012, 06:21:13 AM
the slot was empty when i joined so i clicked on grey square button on left of drop down box

That's how it ought to work - but I don't understand what the problem that you had is; would you mind elaborating?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 02, 2012, 10:42:59 AM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 02, 2012, 10:41:21 AM
That's how it ought to work - but I don't understand what the problem that you had is; would you mind elaborating?
when i clicked on it and didn't create the slot - its was stuck being empty slot
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 02, 2012, 10:48:26 AM
Hmm, that's odd: player 13 has indeed been created. Have you tried connecting again? It might just have been a little lag, perhaps? What ping do you get to http://bridgewater-brunel.me.uk (http://bridgewater-brunel.me.uk)?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 02, 2012, 11:00:11 AM
on slower computers, you may have to wait a few minutes for the command to take effect, as the client will run behind the server.

I would recommend a celeron G500 series, Pentium G series or better for large maps in experimental.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 02, 2012, 11:11:57 AM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 02, 2012, 10:48:26 AM
Hmm, that's odd: player 13 has indeed been created. Have you tried connecting again? It might just have been a little lag, perhaps? What ping do you get to http://bridgewater-brunel.me.uk (http://bridgewater-brunel.me.uk)?

here my ping results
--- PING bridgewater-brunel.me.uk (46.32.231.222) 56(84) bytes of data. ---
64 bytes from 46.32.231.222: icmp_req=1 ttl=55 time=29.3 ms
64 bytes from 46.32.231.222: icmp_req=2 ttl=55 time=28.7 ms
64 bytes from 46.32.231.222: icmp_req=3 ttl=55 time=28.4 ms
64 bytes from 46.32.231.222: icmp_req=4 ttl=55 time=28.2 ms


--- bridgewater-brunel.me.uk ping statistics ---
packets transmitted    4
received    4
packet loss    0 %
time    3005 ms


--- Round Trip Time (rtt) ---
min    28.243 ms
avg    28.707 ms
max    29.373 ms
mdev    0.438 ms
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 02, 2012, 11:42:39 AM
Hmm - that's a good ping. It can't be that. It might well be the issue that AEO mentioned. What are your system specifications (in particular, your CPU specifications)?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on December 02, 2012, 03:53:34 PM
I tried connecting with another system, this one a dual-core 3.4GHz with 1GB RAM off a 7Mbps net connection, but the game itself seems to take about 2GB--! So it instantly descended into Swap Thrash h-e-double-hockeystick. 

Could someone please delete "Lindley Lines" for me?  Much obliged. 
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 02, 2012, 04:05:01 PM
Hmm - 1Gb of RAM is not much these days. My current computer has 6, and the Pentium 4 machine that it replaced in December 2010 by then had 2Gb, which it had had for several years. I am afraid that large maps do take up quite a bit of RAM, although on the server, it is reported as taking up 31.5% of the 3Gb available on that (virtual) machine, which is fractionally under 1Gb, albeit in that case without any graphics. Indeed, when I run the Windows 10.14 binary and connect to the server, my reported usage is 663.4Mb, although that may well be enough to cause swap usage if you only have 1Gb and have a full modern OS running, too.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 02, 2012, 04:40:18 PM
for me, it's no longer possible to run the game with other applications open such as firefox etc. (I usually have quite a lot). I run out of sync pretty fast unless I close everything, not sure if it's the RAM or the CPU (E5300 dual core and 3GB of RAM Win 7). With other applications open simutrans takes up 48-50% of the dual core (i.e 100% of its core), not sure about the memory yet, but I suspect the CPU. With no other applications it goes to 35-40%. I fear that by the time we reach 1825 (when convoy numbers should start delining rather than growing), it will stop working altogether on my PC.


Also, quite strangely, it seems that in April, all the pax companies' profits soared by 100-200%. No explanation for this, it seems that transported pax numbers increased by a similar margin.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 02, 2012, 06:38:22 PM
It is the CPU that is the main performance bottleneck for Simutrans. 3Gb of RAM is plenty - that's what the server has, and it uses less than a third of it. Hopefully, when the passenger and mail levels are better balanced, there will not be a need for anything like this number of convoys, and the game should be more playable.

Looking on the internet briefly, it seems that your CPU does not score very well in comparisons with other CPUs, which might be part of the problem.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 03, 2012, 08:50:18 AM
thanks james - I guess I'll just play as long as I can...

should we use the RC to connect to the game?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 03, 2012, 09:27:25 AM
I was barely playing with an E6400 in the previous game at later stages with thousands of convoys, while a Q6600 handles this game just fine.

You should be fine if you score 900 points or better on this chart: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 03, 2012, 09:35:40 AM
I have 1062... But encountering some difficulties still.

Maybe it's time to switch to one of those Qs....

Is it true the new RC has multithreading capabilities?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 03, 2012, 10:07:47 AM
I don't think the multi-threaded parts matter in multiplayer. There was one part with it handling map rotations with multi-thread, but not much else.


Since the game currently boils down to single threaded performance, a Celeron G530 or Pentium G840 with 4GB of RAM should be more than adequate. If you really wanted to, AMD A10-5800K, Intel i3-3225 or i5-3570k with 8GB of RAM would be the overkill solution.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 03, 2012, 11:23:24 AM
You should use the latest main release, not the release candidate, to connect to the game, as the client version must be the same as the server version, or else desyncs will occur. I have yet to look into the multi-threading capabilities of the later versions (I am not sure whether they are enabled in the RC), but they apply only to a limited number of things, such as graphics, and things that do not need to be synchronised with the server (as it is very difficult properly to synchronise multi-threaded code, and even if one does manage to synchronise it, one loses much of the speed advantage of multi-threading in the first place).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 04, 2012, 04:45:58 AM
I just looked in to patch up my lines, and we have somewhere around 11,000 vehicles running around.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 04, 2012, 07:27:03 AM
Yeah, there's just too much traffic generally (mail especially!)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 04, 2012, 07:45:00 AM
You and I will have to work out some sort of system when rail comes about, because there is a lot of overlap.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 04, 2012, 07:47:56 AM
I think sticking to the 'no waiting in city center' rule should work for all of us
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 04, 2012, 08:14:38 AM
I've been omitting waits in townsfrom my routes generally, once other players start serving those same towns. The trouble is I forget the waits are in the schedules until there's a queue. I think it must be slightly incumbent on someone joining a town which is already served to ensure the 2nd service doesn't mess up the first one, or at least flag up a request for the first one to e.g. be edited to omit the wait. Editing the urban streets to remove the infernal city-block-grid is also rather essential to avoid gridlock.

Re Rail, yes, that should be quite fun. Most of my turnpike network has been (rather obviously) designed for re-use as rail routes, I'm not planning on serving your territory too densely - only to get to the other side, or as needed to interchange really (e.g. the town with the ship canal whose name I forgot).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 04, 2012, 10:34:54 AM
actually, I think that if spacing is done right, even for two busy lines of two companies, it should be ok to run them in a town with intersecting and all, unless very extremely busy, I think. With good spacing you can avoid congestion completely, but it's not easy to fix the spacing, especially with lines so long and so many convoys and waiting for load stops.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 04, 2012, 01:16:14 PM
The problem is that the spacing must be set (or fixed) at the termini, to do it anywhere mid-route causes huge backlogs and delays goods en-route, which is catastrophic for profit.

Unfortunately most termini are in cities. So only by resorting to private roads can one have vehicles waiting around in a town without clogging it up for other players.

When a city isn't used by other players, using the city streets for waiting is fine, until another player choses to serve that town, when things have to be adapted (carefully!).

In honesty, it's mainly an issue because of the volumes of goods/traffic we have in the map at the moment, once that setting gets fixed, for future game it'll be less of an issue.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 04, 2012, 04:07:06 PM
Of course if you're alone in the city you can do as you please :) But even alone, at a certain volume, it gets tough to carry so much and not get clogged. I've found a number of ways to cope, that also help to share the routes and cities:

1. setting tight schedules that are just right to avoid clog altogether:
Evenly spread through the line, and clogging onto wait-for-load stop (terminus) = increase frequency;
Non-even spread (gaps), and clogging in mid-route behind city cars and slopes = decrease.
Even spread, no clogging = just right

I also have a formula of:
<06:24 hours / actual Travel Time = Arrivals per Month per Convoy> X <number of Convoys in a Line> = <Number of scheduled Departures>, but I've found the right number to be above that by 30-50% sometimes, so could be I got it wrong somehow. Trial and error.

Also, like you said, fixing wait on mid-route is very problematic, since you have to add another wait time, as only one convoy can wait for one departure slot in a line at a given time, no matter the direction, and mid route you have two convoys in the station. So you can do it, but you'll have to double the frequency I think (or use two stations), assuming it is your only wait stop on the line. This was somewhat against my intuition (I got it wrong for quite a while), but makes sense in retrospective :)

There's a part I'm still unsure of, as to whether having more than one wait stop in a line causes the schedule to deviate from your planning. I've been getting the impression that it does, so I'm keeping it just one waiting stop terminus in a line, but I don't really understand why yet. If the frequency is right, I can't think of a problem one wait stop should pose, and it's actually working, at least with rather short lines.

2. building the wait-for-load termini stops (or even mid route, provided what was stated earlier) outside the city, or in the city outskirts with access to all lines, as far away as needed of course.

3. head to head stop junctions, where convoys share the station but not the route (adjacent but don't meet).

So yeah, I think by sticking to these guidelines, two companies can serve busy lines for mail and pax in cities and outside them, you don't even need private roads for that IMO (till a certain point, but we're not there yet). Some of this also can also apply to sharing rail tracks and can help it work at a later stage, if one desires. Although the proportion between the pax and mail volumes and the speed we can carry them in this game is not very realistic, it does make for a nice challenge I think. It's nice to see those yellow dots go, so close and orderly.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 04, 2012, 06:56:21 PM
Are you scheduling waits at 400% (i.e. strict?) or 100%?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 04, 2012, 07:30:44 PM
yes, always. Optimally, if you get the spacing just right, you won't lose any cargo from the strict schdule, since you will be making full usage of your buses per month (in a regular interval), and waiting time will decrease. Even below optimum, it's still more harm than good to let them go early when full, I think.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 04, 2012, 07:35:48 PM
Quote from: asaphxiix on December 04, 2012, 07:30:44 PMIt's still more harm than good to let them go early when full, I think.
Glad I'm not the only one who was coming around to this way of thinking! Timetables (effectively) are the way forward!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 04, 2012, 09:57:16 PM
It also helps to take a peak into other player's lines to see where their lines run and terminate, so that you don't overlap on a terminus.

---

It also helps to make lines that don't loop back into themselves so that they will jam.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 05, 2012, 05:25:03 AM
Quote from: ӔO on December 04, 2012, 09:57:16 PM
It also helps to make lines that don't loop back into themselves so that they will jam.

I wonder if it's a game issue - since it's somewhat recursive behaviour... they get stuck there in a vicious circle, never able to get out.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 05, 2012, 06:09:34 AM
^ It has to do with route calculations and vehicles taking the path of "least resistance".
Going up and down slopes with a turn in the middle weighs less favourably than 3 turns on a flat.
Vehicles will try and go as straight as possible and at a turn or slope, will prefer turns.

There are also some other factors that I don't fully understand, but it's advisable to avoid stops in a "U" shaped layout with stops at the tips. 50:50 chance the vehicle will take the route you don't want it to, which can lead to a jam.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 07, 2012, 03:38:49 AM
Is it just me, or does the server not send over the save file after the first 1.3MB?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 07, 2012, 06:44:22 AM
what do you mean?

it's working as usual for me, I think
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 07, 2012, 08:23:28 AM
hmm, strange, well hopefully it is working now.

---

Seems like there is some issue with downloading at a decent speed from the server. The data trickles, even though ping is well below 150ms.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 07, 2012, 09:10:19 PM
Am having trouble getting onto the server tonight, and when I do (and it takes 10 minutes of trying and failing), it only runs for 3 or 4 minutes, saves, then freezes, never to get going again. Not sure what's happening...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 07, 2012, 10:49:49 PM
for me, it looks like I get around 10~50kb/s download rate for the file.

since the save file is around 80~100mb, this takes a significant amount of time to download.

After loading, it is very smooth however, now that I'm back on my i5 system.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 07, 2012, 11:08:10 PM
do you have some sort of bandwidth monitor æo?


still working normal for me. Could be a cross-atlantic issue, possibly rush hour.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 07, 2012, 11:49:24 PM
yeah, I have an Asus mobo, and it came loaded with Network iControl.
Pretty nifty tool to look at network usage per program on the computer.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 08, 2012, 12:41:03 AM
AP please could you remove waiting time from Beechton? Thanks
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 08, 2012, 02:17:29 PM
I think a clarification is in need - unless I am quite mistaken, roads (as well as road stops) built by a player in a city can be used by any player, regardless of access rights. I haven't had any adverse indication, and I checked it just now in another game.

There are limitations - you cannot build stops or set way points on another player's roads, even in the city (roads, not stops - you can stop on any city owned road, even if another player's station). But you can drive them.

Summary:
can drive and stop on any city owned road, incl. other player stop.
can drive on any road in a city
can't stop on other player road in a city (stop or no stop)

I for one think that these behaviors are quite in place, but care is required, according to etiquette.
There was a nice document written about moderation of games by moblet a while back (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=7764). Much of it is irrelevant to the current game and state, but I think it's a very good basis for working tight maps together.

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 09, 2012, 07:05:53 PM
looks like the server crashed, when I was removing a stream with the waterway removal tool. I lost sync and can not connect.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 09, 2012, 07:15:37 PM
Hmm - odd. I can't reproduce a crash involving removing a stream with the waterway remove tool. I just get "ways not connected".
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 09, 2012, 07:21:53 PM
I just reproduced it - first double click to remove a through-piece, then double click to remove edges individually.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 09, 2012, 09:21:54 PM
Is server down again - announce is overdue and I don't seem able to connect.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 09, 2012, 10:04:40 PM
Quote from: asaphxiix on December 09, 2012, 07:21:53 PM
I just reproduced it - first double click to remove a through-piece, then double click to remove edges individually.

Hmm - I still can't reproduce this, I'm afraid. Can you be any more specific about what you mean by through piece and edges? I am imagining:

-----

--X--

-XX--

-XXX-

where - is the stream and X is the deleted stream. Is this what you meant?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 09, 2012, 10:33:17 PM
yep that's pretty much it.

R is for removal



so, deleting middle point of the stream with the waterway removal tool (connected to stream on both sides) - check; deleting adjacent points to it - crash. Only the server crashes - game still runs on client - but out of sync. No effect in single player.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 09, 2012, 11:22:06 PM
Hmm - very odd. Not sure why this should crash only the server. Thank you for isolating that, though.

Edit: Having trouble reproducing this.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 11, 2012, 11:48:42 PM
Just in case people hadn't realised, all these railways that are proliferating - the LMR rocket steam locomotive will be heavily speed limited (27km/h max) on the available track until 1835.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 12, 2012, 12:17:42 AM
someone joined and then server froze but never came back. seems to be down now.

edit: seems to be back up.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ACM on December 12, 2012, 12:31:56 AM
I'm just posting to state the latency I'm getting at the current stage of the game is unbearable- doing menial things like assembling a horse and cart or opening up a convoy's schedule list can take up to around ten minutes. I don't think I can participate in this game anymore.

Right now I'm contemplating opening my company up for someone else to grab, if anyone is interested.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 12, 2012, 12:40:25 AM
ACM,

I know that we have discussed this in-game. It is a great shame that you are having difficulties with this. I suspect that this is caused by your computer not being able to keep up with the game and slowly falling behind. The problem is, in part, that the game is too demanding on the CPU and could be made more efficient. The multithreading in the release candidate builds will help a little (but, I am afraid, only a little as it only puts graphics and loading/saving into a different thread). Bernd Gabriel also plans at some point some significant optimisations of physics calculations, which should help considerably, as, at present, a great many CPU-intensive physics calculations are taken for every vehicle's every step, when many of the values could be calculated much more infrequently and stored.

Indirectly, having lower passenger numbers will also help, as there will be far fewer convoys in the game. I am currently working on the passenger generation code to calibrate this more accurately.

If you are able to upgrade your hardware (moving to 64-bit will not cause you any problems with 32-bit software, especially if you are using Windows), this should enable you to continue with the existing game.

I am very sorry that you cannot play the game any longer on the server as it is currently set up, especially as your transport company was doing so well, which is particularly impressive for a new player. I do hope that you stay around and join us for another game when these issues are addressed and/or when you have a faster computer.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 12, 2012, 05:03:36 AM
Quote from: ACM on December 12, 2012, 12:31:56 AM
I'm just posting to state the latency I'm getting at the current stage of the game is unbearable- doing menial things like assembling a horse and cart or opening up a convoy's schedule list can take up to around ten minutes. I don't think I can participate in this game anymore.

Right now I'm contemplating opening my company up for someone else to grab, if anyone is interested.

i could take over because i was thinking having running exisiting company
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ACM on December 12, 2012, 06:29:39 AM
I'll send you a password.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 12, 2012, 07:00:41 AM
Quote from: asaphxiix on December 12, 2012, 12:17:42 AM
someone joined and then server froze but never came back. seems to be down now.

edit: seems to be back up.


This seems to happen when someone joins, but quits the program part way through the loading.

And loading can take a while, since the save file is nearly 80mb now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 12, 2012, 10:24:44 AM
ACM company now taken over - will be renaming later

thank you ACM and wish luck for future
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 12, 2012, 05:52:42 PM
sorry, I crashed the server while removing a water lane underneath another player's bridge with the water removal tool. it was a canal of mine north of inglehall. James could you remove it for me please, with the bulldozer?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 12, 2012, 07:12:14 PM
server is announcing, but I can't connect. I have a recent saved game if needed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 12, 2012, 07:14:09 PM
I'm having the same issue.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: sdog on December 12, 2012, 07:55:50 PM
Quote from: ACM on December 12, 2012, 12:31:56 AM
I'm just posting to state the latency I'm getting at the current stage of the game is unbearable- doing menial things like assembling a horse and cart or opening up a convoy's schedule list can take up to around ten minutes. I don't think I can participate in this game anymore.

I experienced this also very heavily when playing about 1.5 years ago. (stoped doing this as my real life really suffered when i start playing simutrans in multiplayer)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 12, 2012, 08:04:57 PM
Tonight, no sooner I join the game, do one edit, it kicks me out again.  :o

Quote from: sdog on December 12, 2012, 07:55:50 PM
I experienced this also very heavily when playing about 1.5 years ago. (stoped doing this as my real life really suffered when i start playing simutrans in multiplayer)
Yeah, I've recently been wondering about the merits of multiplayer vs the old way we used to do it (a save game being checked in and out over alternate days, one at a time, nobody running the clock on too much). The online multiplayer demands far more attentativeness, and those whose real life doesn't permit this can find their company out-competed and bankrupt without them knowing.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 12, 2012, 08:15:45 PM
this morning when i went in to take over company - i had no lags all was smooth - its seems something needs looked at it
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 12, 2012, 10:23:23 PM
Quote from: AP on December 12, 2012, 08:04:57 PM
Tonight, no sooner I join the game, do one edit, it kicks me out again.  :o
Yeah, I've recently been wondering about the merits of multiplayer vs the old way we used to do it (a save game being checked in and out over alternate days, one at a time, nobody running the clock on too much). The online multiplayer demands far more attentativeness, and those whose real life doesn't permit this can find their company out-competed and bankrupt without them knowing.

saving and losing work is also a serious issue. I still think it's best this way, though perhaps it'd be nice to try what you said.

Also AP could you edit your bridge at the west of Appledale, so I can cross beneath? thanks
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 12, 2012, 10:27:07 PM
server kicked me out with fatal error, also kicking out with the same error when rejoining. This happened after save, when someone joined.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 12, 2012, 10:29:52 PM
i think it'd be best if no one tries to join now until james fixes the server - in hopes that the save before this bad save is not overwritten
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 12, 2012, 10:35:07 PM
Acknowledged and agreed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 12, 2012, 11:05:37 PM
although I do have a save from 20:38 CET... I'll start uploading it, just in case.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 13, 2012, 12:06:34 AM
Apologies for the problems, everyone. This was caused by a bug in the code that I have now fixed on my 10.x branch. The server should be back up again when I release 10.16, which will hopefully be soon.

As to the more general discussion about the merits of playing online, the degree of attentiveness required has featured in my thoughts about how to balance the game, which is why I use the pause when unattended setting, as well as having a very slow pace. The unrealistic numbers of passengers compromise this to some extent by making things too fussy, but things should be easier when the passenger numbers are more realistic. If anyone has any other thoughts on balancing things that would reduce the attentiveness required, I should be very interested (preferably in a different thread, as this is really for discussing this particular online game). In particular - do people think that having the years pass at an even slower pace would be a good idea so that people can do bursts of work and the leave the game for a long time?

As to the issue of losing work, might there be something to be said for having a script to force-sync the game every hour or so? The disadvantage, of course, is the time that this takes.

Edit: As to performance, the reason that RSDworker might be getting better performance than ACM is that he might have a faster computer - Simutrans-Experimental is very CPU intensive, and, if the client's CPU is slow enough, the client will slowly run behind the server, causing a great lag in the execution of commands. As indicated earlier, the following things are in the pipeline that should help this issue:

(1) multithreading - this will help only a little, since it applies to graphics and saving/loading only, but it might make a noticeable difference in marginal cases;
(2) physics optimisation - Bernd tells me the physics code could be substantially optimised when he has some time, which will make a potentially considerable difference; and
(3) control of the passenger numbers, which should reduce very greatly the number of vehicles necessary, in turn reducing substantially the computational load.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 13, 2012, 12:50:55 AM
About saving - would it be quite difficult to code a check of the time stamp of the last save file, to decide whether to auto-save?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 13, 2012, 01:05:08 AM
Hmm - I don't know much about Linux shell scripting. Can anyone suggest ideas for how to achieve this...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 13, 2012, 01:41:50 AM
yeah shell scripting... it should be easy for those who know it, I think. I can try and ask a guy at work, at least to find out what it's about. can such a script interact with the game and command it to save or not to save?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 13, 2012, 02:20:39 AM
game is back on
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 13, 2012, 11:12:45 AM
Quote from: asaphxiix on December 13, 2012, 01:41:50 AM
yeah shell scripting... it should be easy for those who know it, I think. I can try and ask a guy at work, at least to find out what it's about. can such a script interact with the game and command it to save or not to save?

Thank you! That is most helpful. It can do this via nettool's force-sync command. Another option would be simply to write this into the game itself, and have a "server_autosave_every" line in simuconf.tab, where the number assigned to it is the maximum number of minutes between saves. This might be easier than a shell script, actually.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: prissi on December 13, 2012, 12:57:38 PM
The game save every time somebody attempts to join. Autosave on the server will cause a desync of all clients immediately.

Thus to join any client can conntect and disconnect with a second simutrans running. Even using a standard version on cammandline will cause the save (and immediate crash of the client).

About CPU: Imho the braking accellerating code was the porblem. When I last tested exp, this was such a big hob and cause (imho) completely unrealistic acceleration. For that reason I did not even considered it for a moment for standard.

The routing of passengers is highly optimized by Knightly and may be as fast (or even faster) than standard.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 13, 2012, 09:56:31 PM
looks like I crashed the server again. Not sure what caused it. I removed some stream tiles with the bulldozer, not under a bridge, and made a few actions later, so I don't think that was it, I was removing a long rail bridge exactly when it happened, but it was actually too concurrent to be it considering the slight lag at the time, I think a few seconds before that I was terraforming with the elevation tool.

edit: happened again when I was removing a bridge with stops and signals on it. I've done it before, but now it crashes. the very fast response time makes me think this is something that happens on the client, but it appears the server has gone down too.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 14, 2012, 01:16:50 AM
Very interesting discussion on performance - but I agree with TurfIt that it should be split from the main server thread.

My VPS currently reports that it is running at 34.6% CPU (that is just Simutrans-Experimental's load) with me connected as a client from my local computer (and the game therefore not paused). The CPU usage might have gone down a little in the last few days as steam trains replace horses and carriages in a number of areas, reducing the overall number of convoys. I was seeing usage at over 70% at some point.

As to the performance generally, I am fairly sure that Prissi is correct that the main drain on performance is the physics calculations (both acceleration and braking now). Bernd has told me that he plans to optimise the physics at some point: presently, many things are calculated many times over that could be calculated far less frequently and stored.

The problem is exacerbated by the very large number of passengers - not because of the path-finding load, but because they create demand for a very large number of convoys, which demand the players have fulfilled, with the result that a very large number of convoys (each of which takes a significant computational load because of the physics code as it currently stands) are being used.

As trains replace horses and carriages for longer distances journeys, this should reduce considerably, as the physics calculations are per convoy, not per vehicle, and far fewer convoys are needed for the equivalent load on railways.

The interim advice to reduce the framerate is most helpful: I have edited the shell script so as to pass "-fps 18" to the server on startup, which should take effect from next time that the server restarts. Hopefully, this should alleviate things rather, too.

Edit: Looking at the number of convoys, they have not diminished that much yet: they are down to 12,009 from a peak of 13,583 three years ago. With two clients connected, the server is reporting a CPU usage of 40.2% and memory usage of 34.8%. The client reports a frame time of 71ms and a framerate of 14fps (which, I have found, I had already set in simuconf.tab, so I need to remove the 18fps directive from the shell script).

Edit 2: I have modified simuconf.tab to specify "zipped" instead of "bzip2" for the saved game format, which, according to research undertaken by TurfIt, I think, is the optimum format for online use, despite having larger files.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 14, 2012, 09:46:26 AM
at the current state, I am unable to remove city bridges, for instance in beechton, and other places. This causes the server to restart every time. If you try to do it in my stead, you'll see the crash.


edit: removing the stops from the bridge, and even from the train line does not help. This last try, it happened a while later, as I was removing city buildings to make room for the track.

further edit: the last time, mentioned above, the server did perform the removal and did not restart, only the client lost sync and crashed. so I joined, and managed somehow to get another bridge removed in another town. I played some more, then someone joined - not sure if successfully but the game was saved. Then I played some more, and the game started freezing a bit for a few seconds which I haven't seen before, with hard drive running heavily (so it seemed like a performance strain). then lost sync and server restart, for no obvious reason this time.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 14, 2012, 11:06:03 AM
I think the server is crashing when you do that.
I can tell it is reverting, because the changes I've made also revert to their previous saved state
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 14, 2012, 11:11:10 AM
yes, it does and it did just now too, and I wasn't removing a bridge in a city or with stops on it.

unfortunately I have to remove those bridges, because the station skipping bug forces me to have a choose signal in every station, and you can't have those with more than one stop on a bridge.

edit: game is online, but the client crashes when loading.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 14, 2012, 12:05:08 PM
probably a convoy is causing the crash, because it happens at an exact moment.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 14, 2012, 12:14:44 PM
not sure I understand. what exact moment?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 14, 2012, 12:29:36 PM
If you load the game locally, it will crash at an exact time, every time.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 14, 2012, 01:43:46 PM
Re passenger numbers, I've just given up on them again. There are so many that adding passenger routes means tragically high refund levels. I am replacing mail carriages with rail, but the absence of decent track is causing issues with profitability...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 14, 2012, 02:11:54 PM
i have a a thought about that, I will open a thread in the discussion forum.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 14, 2012, 04:05:42 PM
^ I've checked an older save, and the cause of your jam is because 12103 has reverse route enabled.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17111233/client3-network.sve
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 14, 2012, 07:00:45 PM
Hmm, every time I try to connect, it loads but then desynchs immediately and crashes Simutrans

That synching feeling... :-(
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 14, 2012, 08:51:53 PM
^ yeah, it's because the game is bugging out and crashing.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 15, 2012, 11:21:38 PM
Having seen this thread (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=11095.msg107872;topicseen#msg107872) just appeared, does that mean that some people are able to access the server game now?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 16, 2012, 02:32:34 PM
Sorry all for the lateness of the response to this: I have had a very busy week-end and not had time for Simutrans until now. It seems that this is another instance of a crash that is fixed on my 10.x branch, so this issue ought be corrected when I release 10.16, which I am hoping will be soon. Apologies for the difficulties!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 16, 2012, 03:31:46 PM
Well at least it means we all get a bit of a break from the server game. Railway-mania was getting a bit hectic...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 17, 2012, 12:05:20 AM
Am trying to fix the signalling error on my route (I forgot the long-block signals), but the server keeps desynching. Will try again tomorrow.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 17, 2012, 12:52:34 AM
server was down before, now crashes on join
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 17, 2012, 01:14:51 AM
I had updated the server to 10.16 (my post announcing that seems to have gone missing for some reason - odd), but there's a bug that I hadn't managed to track down before the release that's causing the crashes. I have fixed it in my 10.x branch, but it will have to wait for me to have a little more time before I upload it. Apologies for the trouble, and thank you everyone for your patience.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 18, 2012, 11:50:58 PM
The server is back up running the new version 10.17 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=11110.0), which fixes the crash that brought down the server previously. Apologies for the troubles - happy playing!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 19, 2012, 01:38:03 AM
hurrah james!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 19, 2012, 08:52:59 AM
Woohoo.

Long Block signals don't seem to work as previously, where there's a  single platform station between passing loops and trains need to check past the platform before entering the block. Has there been a change to the code? I've resorted to pre-signals instead, but I'm not sure if they'll work. Advice appreciated.

James - when you get a moment, there's a stretch of road/embankment I engineered which the public player seems to have drawn over, meaning I can't upgrade it to rail as intended. I assume it was mistaken for already-public road (being such a fine piece of engineering!). I posted a sign at the start-point about it. Can it be given back to me please so I can run the rail line? Thanks.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 19, 2012, 11:18:50 AM
AP - just about to fix the road issue now. As to the other issue, do you think that you could post that in a separate thread so that I can track the issue better? Thank you!

Edit: I think that I had already fixed the road/rail issue at 1389,1478 - or was there another one?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 19, 2012, 03:28:20 PM
Frequent desyncs today, unplayable :\
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 19, 2012, 03:47:50 PM
Is anyone else getting frequent desyncs?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 19, 2012, 06:52:28 PM
I am also getting desynchs, but am able to get a little editing done between each.
EDIT: No - desynchs are quite bad. :-(

Quote from: jamespetts on December 19, 2012, 11:18:50 AMEdit: I think that I had already fixed the road/rail issue at 1389,1478 - or was there another one?

It's still there at 1389,1475. Dark brown road is public but built on alignment I engineered, was previously player-owned. Have drawn track either side. Possibly it was fixed but got lost in a resave?

Am also becoming concerned at the financial side of the game - not sure what settings we're using, but because there's no pause in a server game, it's impossible to make changes without bleeding out a fortune in lost revenue. I think the money side of the game needs slowing down - income and expenditure, by maybe a factor of 10. This would also greatly reduce the stress/ urgency of online play- the need to check in twice daily to see if you've gone bankrupt yet.

In single player-games, large scale re-engineering is possible (essential), but it seems in the server games, not to be. My company has gone from £27M to £7m because of the time the work has taken (some of that was expected losses, but I'm nowhere close to finishing, and may well go bankrupt). Mainly it's because other players, inevitably, run the clock on substantially whilst any given player is not online. The only way I can see around this, apart from a server pause function (which would be nightmarish to manage) is to reduce the flow of money in/out.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 19, 2012, 07:11:31 PM
Works fine for me. I only get an occasional desync when the game spams crowded or stuck vehicles.

Quote from: AP on December 19, 2012, 06:52:28 PM
Am also becoming concerned at the financial side of the game - not sure what settings we're using, but because there's no pause in a server game, it's impossible to make changes without bleeding out a fortune in lost revenue. I think the money side of the game needs slowing down - income and expenditure, by maybe a factor of 10. This would also greatly reduce the stress/ urgency of online play- the need to check in twice daily to see if you've gone bankrupt yet.

In single player-games, large scale re-engineering is possible (essential), but it seems in the server games, not to be. My company has gone from £27M to £7m because of the time the work has taken (some of that was expected losses, but I'm nowhere close to finishing, and may well go bankrupt). Mainly it's because other players, inevitably, run the clock on substantially whilst any given player is not online. The only way I can see around this, apart from a server pause function (which would be nightmarish to manage) is to reduce the flow of money in/out.

Actually, it's because early rail and station maintenance is slightly too high compared to how much the pax/mail will give out.
If you overbuild without using the new expansions, then you will bleed money.

I am not making a profit either, despite +70% capacity on rail, which is mainly due to infrastructure maintenance. As a result, I am living off of interest.

A key point to watch when expanding is your infrastructure maintenance vs. operational profit + interest. Best to build in smaller segments than trying to build the east coast mainline overnight.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 19, 2012, 07:32:05 PM
so perhaps the new fps setting should be a bit more moderate...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 19, 2012, 07:37:08 PM
Quote from: ӔO on December 19, 2012, 07:11:31 PM
Works fine for me. I only get an occasional desync when the game spams crowded or stuck vehicles.

Actually, it's because early rail and station maintenance is slightly too high compared to how much the pax/mail will give out.
If you overbuild without using the new expansions, then you will bleed money.

I am not making a profit either, despite +70% capacity on rail, which is mainly due to infrastructure maintenance. As a result, I am living off of interest.

A key point to watch when expanding is your infrastructure maintenance vs. operational profit + interest. Best to build in smaller segments than trying to build the east coast mainline overnight.

I'd reckoned on the maintenance for the low grade track, but it's the absence of a pause function, that has made everything take so long. Completed, the new infrastructure should make money. But the intermediate phase has taken so **** long because the clock ticks when you're not playing *but someone else is*. (the whole "server is paused when nobody is playing" doesn't really do as much as I'd hoped it would).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 19, 2012, 07:51:54 PM
well, that's part of the challenge when playing online. The other ideas you had about playing in turns etc. sounded interesting, but I'm not sure how well they would work. Online, you can't pause and you can't fast forward. I actually think it shouldn't pause when no one is playing either - players should be sure to leave their networks in a balanced state, and assuming no sudden new connections to it, it should run well for a few years with no interference.

The fact that you and I are losing big money now is more because we played poorly, rather than problems with the game. Over-expansion is punished in the game with refunds, and we can't even handle the maintenance of the tracks. The whole racing before 1825 was quite over the top for us I think, and it would be nicer to play in future games if we're a little more relaxed in this area and start running small lines when trains are available. I can't even get my trains to go in proper spacing yet, or handle the huge amounts of traffic, which is just going everywhere.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 19, 2012, 08:03:57 PM
Ah, but here you hit the crux of it

Quote from: asaphxiix on December 19, 2012, 07:51:54 PMplayers should be sure to leave their networks in a balanced state, and assuming no sudden new connections to it, it should run well for a few years with no interference.

How can one be sure of that? With the offline shared game, I know most players would, after saving their turn, let the game run on fast forward for a few years, and assuming the whole thing didn't lead to ruin, they uploaded their evening's work. So there was certainty that what was being done, was an improvement.

Here, the game demands a lot more time/commitment than it's healthy for people to give, because players just don't know if it'll be okay or not. The only way to get away from the game is to have enough in the bank to "live off the interest" even if everything is making a loss.

Your point about the 1825 route building is well founded, I've been thinking about that. I'd like a rail tool that can be laid that consists of no track, just little-white-posts in the ground. I.e. so that, in online play, one can stake-out a route over several evenings, get it right, and then "upgrade" it to track with a couple of clicks.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 19, 2012, 08:26:34 PM
Quote from: AP on December 19, 2012, 08:03:57 PM
Ah, but here you hit the crux of it


How can one be sure of that? With the offline shared game, I know most players would, after saving their turn, let the game run on fast forward for a few years, and assuming the whole thing didn't lead to ruin, they uploaded their evening's work. So there was certainty that what was being done, was an improvement.

like I said, I'd like to try it, but I just dunno...
Also, it shouldn't be so hard, assuming your growth is organic and not over-expansive. If you just connected a city or two to your existing balanced network, you know you can look at it for a while and see it's alright, even if not it's not gonna bump your network out of business; but you can't come in one night, triple the size of your network and expect to be rich when you come in after 3 days... If you wanna do big additions you gotta be prepared to work on it for more hours afterwards, to take care of balancing, and at this stage of this game, this is not easy at all.

Quote from: AP on December 19, 2012, 08:03:57 PM
Here, the game demands a lot more time/commitment than it's healthy for people to give, because players just don't know if it'll be okay or not. The only way to get away from the game is to have enough in the bank to "live off the interest" even if everything is making a loss.

I agree about the health issue. I think therapy is the ultimate answer here, for me at least. But once again this is the nature of the online simulation - a more "real" simulation, where there's no save & load, and no pausing and FF - everything you do counts and you only get one shot for a play. Single player is the practice field, this is the real thing. it's actually what is so great about it :) In other games it's possible to simulate FF on the same game while still playing online, to test different situations, but in this game Fast Forward hardly goes any faster, and I can't run more than one instance at the same time.

Quote from: AP on December 19, 2012, 08:03:57 PM
Your point about the 1825 route building is well founded, I've been thinking about that. I'd like a rail tool that can be laid that consists of no track, just little-white-posts in the ground. I.e. so that, in online play, one can stake-out a route over several evenings, get it right, and then "upgrade" it to track with a couple of clicks.

The reason we over expanded was because we were marking territories without coverage, which is not the style of play I'm personally looking forward to in a game like this. It's nice to compete, but competition should at least be realistic and not going over the top. What you suggest would simply allow to mark all the territory for free... I do think we need some moderation in the online games.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 19, 2012, 09:41:07 PM
Quote from: ӔO on December 19, 2012, 07:11:31 PMActually, it's because early rail and station maintenance is slightly too high compared to how much the pax/mail will give out. I am not making a profit either, despite +70% capacity on rail, which is mainly due to infrastructure maintenance.

Most of my rail routes are now in use. (Exception - Warthorne, Ardton Bridge and Yenddon branches). And I'm inclined to agree with AEO's diagnosis - the rail routes are in profit, all of them, but the infrastructure maintenance is substantially exceeding the operating profit. I don't see that completing those 3 branches would help.

There's certainly scope for optimising my network, I haven't withdrawn some mail coach routes that need to transition into local feeder routes, but I don't think that's what's causing the issue either.

Since I expect my network will go bankrupt overnight, and lacking a "sell everything" button, I shall therefore bow out, and wish the remaining players good luck.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 19, 2012, 11:51:07 PM
Quote from: AP on December 19, 2012, 06:52:28 PM
I am also getting desynchs, but am able to get a little editing done between each.
EDIT: No - desynchs are quite bad. :-(

Hmm - I am wondering whether the problem is the one discussed here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=11100.new;topicseen#new), which is a specific long-standing problem only just fixed in Standard that applies to Linux servers. It might be worth pushing out another new version just to fix this, or at least see whether it fixes this.


QuoteIt's still there at 1389,1475. Dark brown road is public but built on alignment I engineered, was previously player-owned. Have drawn track either side. Possibly it was fixed but got lost in a resave?

Are you sure? By dark brown, do you mean MacAdam rather than unsurfaced? The tile that you gave was a railway tile in your ownership. I have removed a few more road tiles from the East of that area. I am not sure where it is that you want to build here. What other tiles need removing?

QuoteAm also becoming concerned at the financial side of the game - not sure what settings we're using, but because there's no pause in a server game, it's impossible to make changes without bleeding out a fortune in lost revenue. I think the money side of the game needs slowing down - income and expenditure, by maybe a factor of 10. This would also greatly reduce the stress/ urgency of online play- the need to check in twice daily to see if you've gone bankrupt yet.

In single player-games, large scale re-engineering is possible (essential), but it seems in the server games, not to be. My company has gone from £27M to £7m because of the time the work has taken (some of that was expected losses, but I'm nowhere close to finishing, and may well go bankrupt). Mainly it's because other players, inevitably, run the clock on substantially whilst any given player is not online. The only way I can see around this, apart from a server pause function (which would be nightmarish to manage) is to reduce the flow of money in/out.

This issue, and the subsequent discussions, are most interesting and need careful consideration. One thing to consider is that the high turnovers per unit of time are necessitated by the high number of passengers/mail, which are slated for substantial calibration. What I don't know is whether a game in which the number of travelling passengers was more realistic would still exhibit this issue. If it did, the question is what exactly could be made slower? The only way of achieving this, I think, would be to increase the bits per month setting, which would double (or quadruple, or multiply by eight, etc. in factors of two) the time that it takes for each game month to pass, and concomitantly change the relationship between capital costs and monthly costs and per trip/km costs/revenues. Simply decreasing revenues and running costs by the same amount would do nothing useful, as the proportion between them would be the same. I should be interested in any views on the most effective way of addressing this. Is there something to be said for increasing the bits per month setting to 22? This would mean that it really would take a long time for years to pass, I think about 1 every day, assuming that somebody is constantly connected. We perhaps need to assess how things work when the passenger generation is recalibrated, however; or do people think that the issue of the time that it takes to build infrastructure is cause enough to increase this number by itself?

As to the other discussion - station maintenance has been recalibrated completely already in preparation for the release of 0.9.0, and it is right in economic, historical and game-play terms that massive over-expansion (especially by building railway tracks just to save space long before any trains are ready to run on them) ought be financially ruinous. Early railways were built as local affairs and only slowly expanded into large trans-national networks: this should be how it is necessary to build railways in Simutrans-Experimental, too. On refunds, note that 10.16 introduced a new feature whereby a player who is already overdrawn will not be charged any refunds, which should stop players becoming bankrupt by the action of refunds.

As to "marking" routes in advance, the idea of putting down a shadow route then clicking "build" is an idea that has been mooted many times in the past. It would be a massive change to the code and require an enormous amount of work to implement. It has been rejected for Standard for now, and I do not see the coding resources being available to implement it in Experimental any time soon. The way that this would have to work, though, to avoid players just grabbing land for the sake of it or to block competition (this would not have been allowed in reality) is that players would mark their route only for their own convenience: a marking of a route would not stop somebody else from building on it first. This would, unfortunately, reduce substantially the utility of doing so, but there is no way around this. However, there is in some respects much to be said for the current situation: there is a strong disincentive (unrealistically) to "mark" routes for future use because of the maintenance liabilities that doing so will engender. Players ought only to build routes that they are about to use in the near future.

Any other thoughts on this topic would be most welcome!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 20, 2012, 03:16:08 AM
It would be nice if unused stops were deleted.

There are a bunch of them littered about and it makes it doesn't make sense that a railway has to navigate around them.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 20, 2012, 07:44:06 AM
Financially, I think the cost of building stuff is "about right" (with a few exceptions e.g. bridges). Presumabli increasing the bits-per-month would keep that the same, we'd just be able to build stuff less often. In which case that sounds right. It's quite possible that the "default for server play" needs to be very different than the default for single player games.

Quote from: jamespetts on December 19, 2012, 11:51:07 PMAre you sure
I checked again after posting - my mistake. Tile was visibly the same but unowned now. Somewhat moot, of course now.

Quote from: jamespetts on December 19, 2012, 11:51:07 PMAs to "marking" routes in advance, the idea of putting down a shadow route then clicking "build" is an idea that has been mooted many times in the past. It would be a massive change to the code and require an enormous amount of work to implement. It has been rejected for Standard for now, and I do not see the coding resources being available to implement it in Experimental any time soon. The way that this would have to work, though, to avoid players just grabbing land for the sake of it or to block competition (this would not have been allowed in reality) is that players would mark their route only for their own convenience: a marking of a route would not stop somebody else from building on it first. This would, unfortunately, reduce substantially the utility of doing so, but there is no way around this. However, there is in some respects much to be said for the current situation: there is a strong disincentive (unrealistically) to "mark" routes for future use because of the maintenance liabilities that doing so will engender. Players ought only to build routes that they are about to use in the near future.

An interesting aside is how players build routes. I was very surprised to see all the other players in game building railways up and over hills, vast viaducts and such. If one is prepared to do that, clearly no planning or survey ahead is necessary. I took the view (and usually do) that trains dislike hills, so make my railways (and in this game, roads too) dead flat, following contours and such, so that trains will never slow to a crawl going over a hill (which I assume should lose money once the game is balanced).  This is, I suggest, the more realistic approach. However, it relies on terrain at a given contour being available all the way across the map - which is why I "marked out" the route using a road first.

I agree pre-building vast amounts of network should be financially ruinous, unless the gameplay is such that it's the only way to build it - a few elements at a time. There are certainly precedents for canals being replaced by railways on the same alignment (re-using the engineering as I was doing), but it's inherently slow.

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on December 20, 2012, 10:17:43 AM
Quote from: AP on December 20, 2012, 07:44:06 AM

An interesting aside is how players build routes. I was very surprised to see all the other players in game building railways up and over hills, vast viaducts and such. If one is prepared to do that, clearly no planning or survey ahead is necessary. I took the view (and usually do) that trains dislike hills, so make my railways (and in this game, roads too) dead flat, following contours and such, so that trains will never slow to a crawl going over a hill (which I assume should lose money once the game is balanced).  This is, I suggest, the more realistic approach. However, it relies on terrain at a given contour being available all the way across the map - which is why I "marked out" the route using a road first.

I agree pre-building vast amounts of network should be financially ruinous, unless the gameplay is such that it's the only way to build it - a few elements at a time. There are certainly precedents for canals being replaced by railways on the same alignment (re-using the engineering as I was doing), but it's inherently slow.

I believe this is a product of some of our players being a bit new to experimental, and play in the manner of standard - and from what I've seen in standard save-game from multiplayer, players often build very many unsightly viaducts and bridges all over the place, as well as the prevalent sharp turns (I'd call them amateurish, but it's a perfectly sensible approach in standard, apart from being terribly ugly). I think that this is the reason for these odd play-styles!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: greenling on December 20, 2012, 10:57:27 AM
Hello on all
I think that a Tool that reserved plots for later to building Road and Rail a very useful tool it.
I self have alive, that the build from new Road and rails in later games get some problem to finance
and problem to find a good route.
With a tool that reserved plots can you save very many money.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 20, 2012, 11:49:52 AM
Interesting discussion!

Greenling - actually, there is such a tool: the marker sign. This can be used without any sign text, and acts (whether sign text is used or not) as a tool for purchasing plots of land. It can only be done one tile at a time, however, not dragged.

Junna raises an interesting point that people may well need to adapt their play style for Experimental. As AP points out, if the Standard play style is financially workable in Experimental, the pakset isn't balanced properly. That is not surprising - much work needs to go into pakset balancing, and substantial work on the code is necessary before balancing is possible.

AEO - what do you mean by unused stops here? One can't just go around deleting any stop that doesn't have a service, as the player who owns it might need it for later, and/or the cessation might be temporary. Indeed, service might not have commenced yet.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: greenling on December 20, 2012, 01:18:16 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 20, 2012, 11:49:52 AM
Interesting discussion!
Greenling - actually, there is such a tool: the marker sign. This can be used without any sign text, and acts (whether sign text is used or not) as a tool for purchasing plots of land. It can only be done one tile at a time, however, not dragged.
Yes, I have that marker sign seen but there is when the use this marker sign a lot of problems.
Are the problems that makes it:
It is useless for the reservation of large surfaces.
Because it flooded when it is inserted the marker sign menu in bulk list which can lead to problems.
Also the purchase price and the price of the maintenance is not quite true.
These are the reasons why I do not like to use because marker sign.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 20, 2012, 01:20:12 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 20, 2012, 11:49:52 AM
Greenling - actually, there is such a tool: the marker sign. This can be used without any sign text, and acts (whether sign text is used or not) as a tool for purchasing plots of land. It can only be done one tile at a time, however, not dragged.

A dragged tool would have the key advantage of being able to be upgrade-to-track end to end with just two clicks. Would greatly assist in the building of a route over many evenings etc without ruinous costs.

Can a player-owned item be deletable by other players (just this one type of way, not anything else?) - to prevent land-grabbing?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: greenling on December 20, 2012, 02:17:50 PM
Hello to all
If you want to then I design a new country reservation tool that taken over by road, railway, Canal, maglev train can.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 20, 2012, 02:21:13 PM
Quote from: greenling on December 20, 2012, 02:17:50 PM
Hello to all
If you want to then I design a new country reservation tool that taken over by road, railway, Canal, maglev train can.

sounds good
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 20, 2012, 03:37:28 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 20, 2012, 11:49:52 AM
AEO - what do you mean by unused stops here? One can't just go around deleting any stop that doesn't have a service, as the player who owns it might need it for later, and/or the cessation might be temporary. Indeed, service might not have commenced yet.

After a year of being unused, it ought to be removed, because sometimes those stops become forgotten.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on December 20, 2012, 05:04:11 PM
Quote from: ӔO on December 20, 2012, 03:37:28 PM
After a year of being unused, it ought to be removed, because sometimes those stops become forgotten.
((scrolling bulletin))  Citizens of Tarrot Downs have removed three of your bus shelters as eyesores.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: greenling on December 20, 2012, 05:41:56 PM
Quote from: ӔO on December 20, 2012, 03:37:28 PM
After a year of being unused, it ought to be removed, because sometimes those stops become forgotten.
Sometimes I build stations, train stations, loading dock, post boxes and other things as a preliminary planning for a line to be built later.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 20, 2012, 05:50:44 PM
just bus and truck stops.
one year ought to be enough time to add a line that will use it, no?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 20, 2012, 06:50:22 PM
Quote from: ӔO on December 20, 2012, 05:50:44 PM
just bus and truck stops.
one year ought to be enough time to add a line that will use it, no?

Not on the basis of current construction times. Took me 6 game years to get a rail route put together, during which time various associated road routes were being re-worked entirely. Also in the server game another player cut off two of my stops entirely, what happens in that case? Also, re durations, can things be coded in real-life time? E.g. unused infrastructure on public road (only) gets deleted after 2 RL weeks of inactivity, irrespective of how much game time passes?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 20, 2012, 06:53:45 PM
yeah, I don't mean stations. only bus and truck stops on public roads
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 20, 2012, 07:18:30 PM
Quote from: AP on December 20, 2012, 06:50:22 PM
Not on the basis of current construction times. Took me 6 game years to get a rail route put together, during which time various associated road routes were being re-worked entirely. Also in the server game another player cut off two of my stops entirely, what happens in that case? Also, re durations, can things be coded in real-life time? E.g. unused infrastructure on public road (only) gets deleted after 2 RL weeks of inactivity, irrespective of how much game time passes?

you shouldn't be reserving so much track that takes 6 years to build. This shouldn't happen in an online game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Vonjo on December 20, 2012, 07:22:42 PM
Quote from: ӔO on December 20, 2012, 06:53:45 PM
yeah, I don't mean stations. only bus and truck stops on public roads
But what if when you work in a city on a network game, electricity in your house goes down, and when it turn back on, those stops have disappeared. Even worse, someone else can take that city.

But yes, sometimes some stops can be carelessly forgotten.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 20, 2012, 07:37:13 PM
Quote from: asaphxiix on December 20, 2012, 07:18:30 PM
you shouldn't be reserving so much track that takes 6 years to build. This shouldn't happen in an online game.
"reserving"? I was replacing my own player-owned roads with rail, over heavily engineered routes my company had paid to terraform. I don't think that's unreasonable. There's a lot of editing to setting up feeder routes - you can't set the main routes going without the feeder routes being adjusted. That it took 6 game years was also down to the other players "running the clock on" (legitimately) whilst I was away from the computer. I don't think it's at all reasonable to expect people to work at a server game for 8 hours straight, it's done over the course of several/many evenings, which can easily be an in-game decade. This goes back to the discussion of how many bits per year though, rather than how to edit /plan routes.

Also, you can't balance the spacing of vehicles on a route without the entire length of the route available; you'd end up re-doing it each time you extend it (which when vehicles are slow, is very tedious).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 20, 2012, 10:58:13 PM
perhaps, since not all players can play currently, the server could be suspended till the new version with the bugfix?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 21, 2012, 03:07:26 AM
I don't seem to be able to make a profit anymore.

Maintenance is bad, but so are running costs.

The cause seems to be a myriad of things.
1. high volume resulting in long and heavy trains
2. locomotives are not powerful enough to climb a single hill
3a. adding enough locomotives to climb the hill causes high running costs, which cannot be paid
3b. not adding locomotives causes severe backups and degraded line capacity
4. demand cannot be met, therefore refunds are issued and passengers wander around the lines, further clogging an already bad situation
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 21, 2012, 07:50:10 AM
Quote from: ӔO on December 21, 2012, 03:07:26 AM
2. locomotives are not powerful enough to climb a single hill
3a. adding enough locomotives to climb the hill causes high running costs, which cannot be paid
3b. not adding locomotives causes severe backups and degraded line capacity

These 3 are related and realistic. Hence all my lines (before their untimely demise due to financial mismanagement...) were perfectly flat across the entire map, at great engineering cost (and long construction time), and I had 3 incline planes (as did the Liverpool-Manchester Railway, Canterbury Whitstable railway, and others of the time) where altitude gain was concentrated until it could not be avoided, and 3/4/5/6 tiles climbed at once. Anything else simply does not work. I don't think this should be changed in-game.

Quote from: ӔO on December 21, 2012, 03:07:26 AM
1. high volume resulting in long and heavy trains
4. demand cannot be met, therefore refunds are issued and passengers wander around the lines, further clogging an already bad situation
This is the balancing issue. High demand is okay until it results in massive refunds, which was what I found happened to me when I tried passenger trains.

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 21, 2012, 07:57:04 AM
good point there. seems that they would run trains with cables through one incline on the S&DR line, but the line was otherwise flat. Guess we'll have to wait till 1847, if we make it till then :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 21, 2012, 03:04:24 PM
Of interest, on the question of calibration of the passenger factor, I have done a considerable amount of calculation here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10953.msg108355#msg108355), which I urge players of this server to read and comment on, particularly the discussion about urban population densities and whether journeys of under 1 mile (1.6km) should be excluded from the figures when calculating the total number of trips that passengers make per year.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 21, 2012, 06:56:49 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 21, 2012, 03:04:24 PM
Of interest, on the question of calibration of the passenger factor, I have done a considerable amount of calculation here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10953.msg108355#msg108355), which I urge players of this server to read and comment on, particularly the discussion about urban population densities and whether journeys of under 1 mile (1.6km) should be excluded from the figures when calculating the total number of trips that passengers make per year.
Reading ... understanding may take longer! In particular I can't immediately find definitions for bev, arb, and won, which may be buried earlier in that thread...
I certainly think that far too many passengers on the server are undertaking far too many uncomfortably long journeys (by sea and stagecoach), so will support efforts to curb that prior to the introduction of suitable first class rail travel etc.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: prissi on December 21, 2012, 08:21:22 PM
Standard has an exponential falling distance factor, if enabled. This cust passengers travelling probability much stronger than the three parameter modell of experimental (although I am not sure if this still in used). Instead you have now a age dependent parameter which gives a probability for a travel, the lesser the longer (and earlier in time).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 21, 2012, 10:05:10 PM
The server has been restarted with the latest releast, 10.18. Apart from fixing a few bugs, this incorporates a recent fix from Standard which should help to reduce the number of desyncs. I should be grateful for any feedback on how stable that this version is. Happy playing!

Prissi - this is very interesting. Was this introduced recently? How has this worked out in practice; in other words - how has it affected the way in which the games actually play out?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on December 22, 2012, 03:23:33 AM
With 10.18 on Linux 64-bit, the desyncs (knock on wood) are much reduced and the game is far more fluid and playable.  On top of which, specifying fps=15 on the client which is just a bit faster than fps=14 on the server, might be part of what's helping.  Huzzah!  Thanks to everyone! And to all a good night... (ignore the light at the end of the hall)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 22, 2012, 03:24:18 AM
how do you define fps on client? simuconf.tab?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: TurfIt on December 22, 2012, 03:27:53 AM
You don't. Server controls FPS in network games.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on December 22, 2012, 03:34:04 AM
Does specifying -fps on the command line have no effect?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 22, 2012, 06:40:34 AM
sadly, right now I cannot join at all - I enter the game rather quickly, and lose sync immediately.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 22, 2012, 06:44:48 AM
also a funny anecdote, that since South Empire was bankrupt, my losses have diminished to virtually nothing (pretty even now).

I guess those severe jams near coatsand (which I requested several times to resolve) were much more devastating than I thought. I think this shows how important proper moderation is in online play.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 22, 2012, 09:43:13 AM
QuoteI guess those severe jams near coatsand (which I requested several times to resolve) were much more devastating than I thought
Sorry about those, but I had tried several things to resolve them, they started moving each time. I think when adding a second route to a city that already has one, care is needed to avoid crossing and re-crossing the two lines, otherwise you get frequent gridlock (where all 4 sides of the city block are jammed so nothing can move). That seems to have been the root of most trouble, and it's quite tricky to resolve retrospectively (without traffic lights!), since one player can never delete the vehicles of another, so altering city roads to remove junctions is almost impossible.

I was also test-running a long-distance Rail Passenger service from Clacingford to Edby , which will have competed with other players, so I could get some stats about their (un) profitability. With my liquidation, that competition will have been removed.

I did notice that when railways appeared, a number of instances of players bisecting cities without checking which roads were in use by other players, and thus cutting off one or two stops on a route from the rest (e.g. near Clacingford dock). This is particularly devastating in an online game, because the vehicles with "no route" get auto-sent to depot, so if the game is run-on by other players, an entire route can be depopulated without the player knowing, which can really mess up network balance. I think building embankments and altering roads is fine, but cutting off through routes being relied upon by others, without provision of a *public* alternative, should be avoided.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 22, 2012, 11:57:14 AM
Quote from: asaphxiix on December 22, 2012, 06:40:34 AM
sadly, right now I cannot join at all - I enter the game rather quickly, and lose sync immediately.

Hmm - are you still having this difficulty? Have you made sure to update to 10.18? It's odd that you should be getting this when others are not.

Quote
I did notice that when railways appeared, a number of instances of players bisecting cities without checking which roads were in use by other players, and thus cutting off one or two stops on a route from the rest (e.g. near Clacingford dock). This is particularly devastating in an online game, because the vehicles with "no route" get auto-sent to depot, so if the game is run-on by other players, an entire route can be depopulated without the player knowing, which can really mess up network balance. I think building embankments and altering roads is fine, but cutting off through routes being relied upon by others, without provision of a *public* alternative, should be avoided.

Hmm - can you give me some examples of where that's occurred? I did introduce new code in 10.17 aimed at stopping players from demolishing roads in cities that were the last piece of road connecting any given city building to anything else, but perhaps code alone won't suffice for these purposes: perhaps we need some server rules? I should appreciate any thoughts on that question.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 22, 2012, 12:41:33 PM
The problem is when it leaves a stop unconnected, and I'm not sure how to resolve that. Example - look at a historic save of Clacingford just before SEC was liquidated e.g. 1831 - two rail routes had been cut through the town, but the southern of the two cut off a key road which the northern had left a level crossing on- thus  isolating a bus stop by the southern dock. There was a visible river crossing giving access to that stop only from a totally different direction, but it was also owned by green and so (rightly) not available to other players including SEC.

Removing city roads is fine, there's usually a lot of redundancy. When I'm building, I ususally check the road tile I'm going to remove, if only 2 or 3 convoys passed last month, it's just citycars, but if it's higher then it's usually a player route (maybe a coded solution - no demolishing roads with > 20 vehicles passing?). Removing a player-used cityroad, if there's a parallel one 2 tiles over, is usually fine too (unless it introduces lots of reversing into a previously straight route), but I suspect it'sjust player commonsense required.

It's when it's the last route or last direct route to a given area it becomes a problem, and can make a short line much longer or cut a key route in half.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 22, 2012, 12:53:19 PM
One could also greatly increase the cost of removing city roads - make the cost equivalent, example, to removing a level 0 city building. That would provide some disincentive to the removal of city roads.

The more general problem could be addressed by having a list of server rules including something akin to the following:

"Players must not remove unowned roadways where to do so would disconnect a road route used by another player, or make that route much longer than it already is".

Would that cover it, do you think?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 22, 2012, 02:43:18 PM
silly me, came back so tired from night shift, forgot to change the executables :P

about rules and moderation - I've mentioned before this thread http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=7764.0 as a good basis for discussing those. However I think a major issue is that it requires much active involvement from the public player, which is something we can't possibly ask from you James :) But even if not, we could still benefit from a set of general rules even to serve as basis for conflict resolution - there will always be conflicts. Also we should be careful not to take out all the fun :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 22, 2012, 05:49:20 PM
Quote from: AP on December 22, 2012, 12:41:33 PM
The problem is when it leaves a stop unconnected, and I'm not sure how to resolve that. Example - look at a historic save of Clacingford just before SEC was liquidated e.g. 1831 - two rail routes had been cut through the town, but the southern of the two cut off a key road which the northern had left a level crossing on- thus  isolating a bus stop by the southern dock. There was a visible river crossing giving access to that stop only from a totally different direction, but it was also owned by green and so (rightly) not available to other players including SEC.

Removing city roads is fine, there's usually a lot of redundancy. When I'm building, I ususally check the road tile I'm going to remove, if only 2 or 3 convoys passed last month, it's just citycars, but if it's higher then it's usually a player route (maybe a coded solution - no demolishing roads with > 20 vehicles passing?). Removing a player-used cityroad, if there's a parallel one 2 tiles over, is usually fine too (unless it introduces lots of reversing into a previously straight route), but I suspect it'sjust player commonsense required.

It's when it's the last route or last direct route to a given area it becomes a problem, and can make a short line much longer or cut a key route in half.

Yes, but I was already serving caringford and you cut through with your line. I had to work around it and many of your lines, even closing some, because it kept jamming and caused many refunds to my lines.

There was also no room at the city walls side, because your stop was blocking one of the only two tiles for a railway on that side.

Building north of the city walls would have been impossible again, as there was no room to route at all.


There's only so much manoeuvring one can do.  8)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 22, 2012, 08:52:12 PM
Please see here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=11144) for a discussion of possible server rules.

Asaph - glad that you are able to connect after all!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 22, 2012, 09:20:03 PM
yep, it's working pretty well too! though this could be also because we are down to 7000 convoys :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 22, 2012, 09:56:51 PM
I suspect that the lack of desyncs is caused by a fix that I brought over from Standard.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 22, 2012, 10:06:47 PM
yep - that certainly worked. I still have some desyncs every now and then, but it doesn't reduce the experience really. The big change however is in loading time - about one minute to join the server I think, as opposed to 4-5 before! And also response times are very good, hardly any lags.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 22, 2012, 11:09:30 PM
Quote from: asaphxiix on December 22, 2012, 10:06:47 PM
yep - that certainly worked. I still have some desyncs every now and then, but it doesn't reduce the experience really. The big change however is in loading time - about one minute to join the server I think, as opposed to 4-5 before! And also response times are very good, hardly any lags.

Ahh, this is caused by switching from bzip to gzip, following a recommendation made by TurfIt (or was it Ters...?) after he carried out some extensive studies as to which was the faster.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on December 23, 2012, 12:16:47 PM
Having run out of money on an incompletely executed expansion, I sure wish I could apply for a loan, even at a high interest rate, so I could get back to profitability... Where's the bank when  you need one?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 23, 2012, 12:37:04 PM
Quote from: wlindley on December 23, 2012, 12:16:47 PM
Having run out of money on an incompletely executed expansion, I sure wish I could apply for a loan, even at a high interest rate, so I could get back to profitability... Where's the bank when  you need one?

This feature is planned (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=8172.0), as a matter of fact, although there is quite a long list of planned features...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 23, 2012, 08:12:31 PM
great - i played it but i found small bug relating with interface (nothing do with server issues this time - i had once lost connection
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 24, 2012, 02:18:28 AM
server crashed and doesn't seem to be coming back up. I was releasing some vehicles that were stuck on a single tile (this happens sometimes with road vehicles).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 24, 2012, 01:12:49 PM
Thank you for the report. This one is a little difficult to fix, I am afraid at present, because I am currently staying with my parents and do not have easy access to any C++ development environment that is properly configured.

The difficulty appears to be that the game crashes on attempting to load the saved game, which is here (http://bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/saves/bridgewater-brunel-crash.sve). Can anyone else confirm that the game will crash with a Simutrans error message about a string being too long when loading? This error usually suggests a corrupted saved game - an error which is extremely difficult to trace and fix.

The best thing to do would, I think, be to find anybody's most recent saved game and re-upload that to the server, which might take us back a day or two, but is better than nothing. I have a fairly recent one at home from a day or two ago, I think, but I do not have access to it here, and will be staying with my parents for a week or two. Does anyone have a recent local save? I am afraid that my backup rotation on the server does not appear to be working properly.

May I ask in the meantime, Asaph - what were you doing to release these road vehicles, and what sort of crash did you get? Was anyone joining at the time?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on December 24, 2012, 01:19:20 PM
I was playing when the server went down.  I got the Saving Game... dialog and then it crashed on re-load.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 24, 2012, 01:37:02 PM
Interesting. Asaph - did you get the "saving game" notice?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 24, 2012, 04:28:26 PM
W. Lindley has helpfully supplied a game that he saved a couple of days ago, with an in-game date of January 1837. The latest in-game date on the server before it went down was March 1840.

What are people's views on whether to upload this one and restart things? Does anyone have any later saves?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 24, 2012, 04:36:32 PM
i have no saves :( sadly
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on December 24, 2012, 04:59:55 PM
Or we could start over... being sure that walkable connections are on, and this time with much more industry? 
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 24, 2012, 05:02:55 PM
I'd hate to destroy everyone's work; in any case, it's very useful for me to see how things play out in all eras, since if we keep starting again, we may never get to the later eras, and never have any idea of how well that the game works in those later eras. People might also have got bored of stagecoaches by now and need a railway related break...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: rsdworker on December 24, 2012, 05:33:53 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 24, 2012, 05:02:55 PM
I'd hate to destroy everyone's work; in any case, it's very useful for me to see how things play out in all eras, since if we keep starting again, we may never get to the later eras, and never have any idea of how well that the game works in those later eras. People might also have got bored of stagecoaches by now and need a railway related break...

sounds good idea because clean start could make more better because i had problems on server
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 24, 2012, 05:37:39 PM
I wouldn't mind a clean start.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 24, 2012, 07:46:39 PM
Hi everybody, Merry Christmas!!

I'm sorry for no response, I'm away today and did not have remote access to my computer.

I did not get a save message before the crash, and the save I have is from March 1840, which is amazing luck, because I was playing for many many hours in the last days, starting to get out of the red. here is the save: http://upchi.co.il/fjvf0ql3mtm9 (http://upchi.co.il/fjvf0ql3mtm9)

personally I like bridgewater a lot, but I'm cool with a new game as well (maybe start at 1840), even both.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 24, 2012, 09:35:31 PM
Quote from: asaphxiix on December 24, 2012, 07:46:39 PM
Hi everybody, Merry Christmas!!

I'm sorry for no response, I'm away today and did not have remote access to my computer.

I did not get a save message before the crash, and the save I have is from March 1840, which is amazing luck, because I was playing for many many hours in the last days, starting to get out of the red. here is the save: http://upchi.co.il/fjvf0ql3mtm9 (http://upchi.co.il/fjvf0ql3mtm9)

personally I like bridgewater a lot, but I'm cool with a new game as well (maybe start at 1840), even both.

Thank you very much for that - now back online with your very lucky save! It's best to play this one out before starting again, I think.

I shall have to look into my backup rotation when I have time, as that does not appear to be working properly at present.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 26, 2012, 05:56:58 AM
I added some mail trains on my busy pax lines (Aylston to Warton), with very low service. Now as waiting numbers of mail rise to thousands, I'm starting to get refunds on my pax lines, although stations are not crowded (with pax) at all and waiting times are low to all destinations. Could be an issue?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 26, 2012, 06:13:57 AM
dear lindley, please consult before creating a connection - this would have been welcome, but a connection between aeolus and me at this point will be the demise of all of us.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 26, 2012, 06:27:37 AM
I'm surprised I'm still alive.

How much money do I have right now?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 26, 2012, 07:59:56 AM
somehow you still have 19M$, but you lose 1M each year. I wouldn't give up - my efforts have being paying off, and trains I think are profitable, at least at a relatively small scale.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 26, 2012, 11:05:49 AM
Since joining takes less than one minute now, perhaps autosave should be turned on, say every 60 minutes? Just lost 3 or 4 hours of play when ordering a replacing of 156 vehicles :/
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: greenling on December 26, 2012, 11:29:51 AM
Hello jamespetts gives a possible free slot how i can view on the game?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 26, 2012, 11:34:09 AM
Asaph,

it is not just a matter of turning autosave on - I have to write a shell script to send the nettool force-sync command at regular intervals, which is not a trivial task, especially if the script needs to check whether the server has in fact saved a game in the last five minutes or so. I shall have to look into that at the same time as fixing my backup rotation script.

Incidentally, what was the nature of your crash? Was there an error message? Are you able to reproduce it in a saved offline version so that I can look into the cause?

Greenling,

this (http://servers.experimental.simutrans.org) listing should tell you whether there are currently any unlocked players - there appear to be 2 at present. Even if there are no unlocked players, however, you can always join the game as an observer.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: greenling on December 26, 2012, 11:51:38 AM
OK Jamespetts thank you for this info.
On the 6 January at 21:00 clock will i look as quest in the game there have i then my own Internet cable.
Before only quest of another internet cable.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on December 27, 2012, 01:16:57 AM
The game is progressing well...

Here are the upcoming rail, tram, road, and ship introductions starting "now" (1844) within the next 10 years:

Availability--- -Power- -Type-    ---Name-------------------   -Wght- Capy -Speed-
1845.03-1883.02          road     OmnibusDoubleKnifeboard          4T  24u  18km/h
1845.04-1851.05 steam    train    LNWR-crewe-type                 18T  --   90km/h
1845.04-1862.06 steam    train    LNWR-Bloomer-Tender             15T  --  110km/h
1845.05-1849.10 steam    train    SDR-Derwent-Tender               1T  --   40km/h
1845.05-1849.10 steam    train    SDR-Derwent                     22T  --   45km/h
1845.05-1850.11          train    LBSCR-4wheel-open-sided-brake    3T  38u  80km/h
1845.05-1850.11          train    LBSCR-4wheel-open-sided          3T  40u  80km/h
1847.06-1858.04 steam    train    JennyLind                       25T  --   95km/h
1847.06-1858.04 steam    train    JennyLind-Tender                15T  --   95km/h
1848.02-1852.08 steam    train    MR-130-tender                   14T  --   95km/h
1848.02-1852.08 steam    train    MR-130                          27T  --   95km/h
1849.10-1866.03 steam    train    LNWR-Sharp-goods                26T  --   50km/h
1850.11-1855.01          train    LBSCR-4wh-par-sec                4T  32u  80km/h
1850.11-1855.01          train    LBSCR-4wh-par-thi-bra            4T  38u  80km/h
1850.11-1855.01          train    LBSCR-4wh-par-thi                5T  40u  80km/h
1851.05-1862.06 steam    train    LNWR-Bloomer                    30T  --  110km/h
1852.01-1945.12 sail     ship     Fifie                           15T  15u  15km/h
1852.02-1918.01 bio      tram     Tram-Horses                      1T  --   18km/h
1852.02-1895.10          tram     1-Deck-Trailer                   3T  20u  30km/h
1852.08-1859.04 steam    train    MR-133                          28T  --  100km/h
1852.08-1859.04 steam    train    MR-133-tender                   14T  --  100km/h
1852.09-1875.07 steam    train    SDR-1001-Tender(Green)          16T  --   50km/h
1852.09-1875.07 steam    train    SDR-1001(Green)                 32T  --   50km/h
1853.09-1859.10          train    4-wheel-1850s-tpo                4T  24u 100km/h
1853.09-1859.10          train    4-wheel-1850s-brake              4T  20u 100km/h
1853.09-1859.10          train    4-wheel-1850s                    6T  24u 100km/h
1853.09-1859.10          train    4-wheel-1850s-mail               6T  30u 100km/h



Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 27, 2012, 05:00:41 AM
nice!!!
Jenny Lind should make rail transportation easier to handle...




crash and revert - not sure what I did exactly, something about a button in the replacing window of a vehicle that was in a replacing process.

lost half an hour this time. I've instated a half-hourly alarm to rejoin for saving, the crash happened five minutes before it was to go on.




Also, it may be a good time to release passwords of some of the inactive players, especially those with no infrastructure. Right now Tortoise wishes to restart, but all slots are currently taken.


Mod note: please do not double-post (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=4529.0#post_item4e). Edit your last comment instead.
~IgorEliezer
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: IgorEliezer on December 27, 2012, 07:14:23 AM
Just a notice. Some posts of this topic were split and moved to: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=11168.0
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 27, 2012, 11:39:43 PM
May I check - which companies do people here think are dud/unused at present that might need unlocking? Sadly, there is no option to liquidate at present (this could be considered), but I can at least unlock dud players. Bear in mind that some players might be temporarily absent for the holiday season.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 27, 2012, 11:45:06 PM
Player 13 and Newbie Ltd have no infrastructure.
If more slots are needed, then German Trains has stops, but no convoys ever ran. Cob & Co, IPA have very small turnover.

All these companies have not been played for decades now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 28, 2012, 03:56:30 AM
I wonder if there needs to be some code to detect and prevent loopbacks of pax.
I picked up passengers from hatingford and dropped them off at nutingham, who then immediately wanted to go back to hatingford.

This is not a short ride, nor is it cheap to operate this sea line.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 28, 2012, 06:03:56 AM
they do that when they have no better way to get to their destination. They still don't know this way is worse - until it starts registering higher waiting times.

Not easy, having a fast and decentralized network with no bottlenecks at all is the only way to counter this I think.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 28, 2012, 11:38:24 AM
I don't think that there is any sensible way of detecting this; I am extremely reluctant to interfere with the passenger routing code, as it was optimised by Knightly, and would not perform acceptably if it was not optimised in this way.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on December 29, 2012, 03:51:56 AM
^ okay, I guess there's not much that could be done about that except improve player skill.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 29, 2012, 11:51:09 AM
I hope that a more realistic number of passengers will reduce the tendency for this to occur, although I should note that a more realistic number of passengers will end up producing large numbers of passengers for local journeys in large towns in the later game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 29, 2012, 11:53:35 AM
I think the routing code is great! Having much fun, even though its just a bit too hard.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 29, 2012, 02:11:24 PM
Hmm - it seems that I can't unlock players after all: the previous unlocking feature was removed from Standard before and the current unlocking feature added to Standard after the version of Standard on which the current version of Experimental is based was released. The RC should have a feature to allow the unlocking of players based on nettool.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: dustNbone on December 29, 2012, 10:32:41 PM
Yes, it seems the game is rather full up now, which is too bad for me as I've finally got some time to play.  Anyway, it seems like tortoise transport is not going to be long for this world, and that will open up at least one slot.  The rest look to be either be solvent, or dying very slowly.  Quite the map so far though, very interesting.  I hope to get a chance to play soon :)  Thanks for all the work that James et al have put into the game in recent months, amazing!

Dustin
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 29, 2012, 10:40:04 PM
When I get back from my Christmas holiday, I hope to alter the code so as to enable players to be reset by the public player again: see here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=11182.new;topicseen#new) for details, and then release a new version. Hopefully, we can clear some slots by then. In the meantime, you can observe the game and plan your moves! It would be good to have you back playing.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 29, 2012, 11:08:46 PM
James, perhaps you could reset the password of a player with no infrastructure? This should be possible, and not a big disaster as a temp solution if someone gets to start with a little more money?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 29, 2012, 11:27:04 PM
I can't, I'm afraid, as that is not possible with this version (it changed in Standard and I merged the updated version of Standard). I will update the next version with the code suggested by Dwachs, then reset the passwords of the players who have abandoned the game.

Apologies for the difficulties!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 29, 2012, 11:55:21 PM
sorry james, I thought it would work because I tried to reset a red password as public player on 10.18 and it worked...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 30, 2012, 12:05:38 AM
Quote from: asaphxiix on December 29, 2012, 11:55:21 PM
sorry james, I thought it would work because I tried to reset a red password as public player on 10.18 and it worked...

Hmm - how did you do it? Was this on a running server?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 30, 2012, 12:29:52 AM
ah, no, that was on single player, I guess this is a multiplayer issue.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 30, 2012, 12:38:27 AM
Yes, it works differently in multiplayer now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 30, 2012, 09:36:52 AM
Quote from: ӔO on December 24, 2012, 05:37:39 PM
I wouldn't mind a clean start.

Merry christmas all.

I'd like to play with a clean start too. However, is there any chance of the balancing being adjusted prior to that? And perhaps the game time-settings slowed further (as discussed elsewhere), so it doesn't demand quite so much attentativeness?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 30, 2012, 11:49:24 AM
Quote from: AP on December 30, 2012, 09:36:52 AM
Merry christmas all.

I'd like to play with a clean start too. However, is there any chance of the balancing being adjusted prior to that? And perhaps the game time-settings slowed further (as discussed elsewhere), so it doesn't demand quite so much attentativeness?

And a merry Christmas to you, too! The balancing is currently undergoing a great deal of work in many directions (although I am currently engaged in a Christmas project of adding much more detail to canals, as I don't have access to Visual Studio from my parents' house where I am staying, so cannot easily work on the code). The passenger generation will have to be calibrated, likewise the mail (that is a large task itself), the power physics for all steam and biological land vehicles needs to be adjusted/calibrated based on real figures, all the bridges need to be re-costed, the railway tracks need some reworking in cost/speed/weight limits, the congestion density factor needs to be recalibrated and the industry boost (etc.) needs to be set up. Once that is done, I can release the next version of the pakset and start work on the coding projects that should lead to being able to balance the game properly (variable vehicle maintenance costs based on usage, way maintenance costs based on usage, vehicle overhauls, etc.). I also need to work with Bernd to fix the bugs in the RC to merge to a much later version of Standard (to enable such things as clicking and dragging of tunnels/elevated ways in online games, better online game joining dialogues, saving of block reservations to avoid trains getting stuck on save/reload) as well as a few smaller coding projects linked to canal realism, and, of course, fix all the identified bugs.

As can be imagined, this will take quite a while. In the meantime, I might as well leave the server running so that we can see how things progress through different eras and what other balancing problems/bugs might yet be waiting to be discovered.

Incidentally, as to the time settings and attentiveness: it will take more than just changing the bits per month, I think. The bits per month setting is calibrated to ensure that the same amount is earned/spent over the same period of real time (which translates in Experimental to game hours) whatever the bits per month setting. The costs per game month are adjusted. In Experimental, the number of game hours per month changes. What is really needed to reduce the need for attentiveness is a more fundamental rebalancing of the relationship between capital costs and income/outgoings, which I am afraid will have to fall with the more general rebalancing described above, and will not be a quick exercise (unless somebody else is able to do it quickly - all help very welcome!)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on December 30, 2012, 12:31:16 PM
It's September 1854. Back in February 1852, the Tram Horses and Single Deck Tram Trailer became available, but there are still no tram tracks to be built? The dat file says they should also be introduced in Feb. 1852 -- any idea why they are not yet available?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 30, 2012, 12:40:33 PM
Quote from: wlindley on December 30, 2012, 12:31:16 PM
It's September 1854. Back in February 1852, the Tram Horses and Single Deck Tram Trailer became available, but there are still no tram tracks to be built? The dat file says they should also be introduced in Feb. 1852 -- any idea why they are not yet available?

The introduction of the tram track was changed from 1860 to 1852 a while ago (see here (https://github.com/jamespetts/simutrans-pak128.britain/commit/a66483a8c170f962a1683515e352319dc12120b5)), but this was after 0.8.4 was released. This change should be incorporated into the next release of Pak128.Britain-Ex. In the meantime, trams will be available in 1860.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 30, 2012, 04:34:17 PM
I wonder what the effects would be, both resource-wise and game play-wise, if recalculating waiting times were made more frequent.

I imagine pax erratic behavior on re-routing would on one hand be more sensitive to overcrowding and perhaps be even more erratic, but on the other hand, probably easier to fix, once service is ameliorated. The current situation is very hard to track and fix.

I imagine it's not much work to change it in the code, so the main resource question is probably about CPU.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 30, 2012, 04:40:01 PM
It's probably better to think about calibrating things like this when we have the passenger generation calibrated, as the environment in which the system will be operating will be very different to the present environment, I suspect.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 30, 2012, 06:21:12 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on December 30, 2012, 11:49:24 AMIncidentally, as to the time settings and attentiveness: it will take more than just changing the bits per month, I think. The bits per month setting is calibrated to ensure that the same amount is earned/spent over the same period of real time (which translates in Experimental to game hours) whatever the bits per month setting. The costs per game month are adjusted. In Experimental, the number of game hours per month changes. What is really needed to reduce the need for attentiveness is a more fundamental rebalancing of the relationship between capital costs and income/outgoings, which I am afraid will have to fall with the more general rebalancing described above, and will not be a quick exercise (unless somebody else is able to do it quickly - all help very welcome!)

Regarding the above, is it worthwhile (/possible) to consider introducing a system variable/multiplier, which can be tweaked centrally alongside bits-per-month (i.e. they work as a pair) - so that balancing of vehicles relative to each other, and then relative to time, can be done seperately and adjusted subsequently? Just a thought...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 30, 2012, 06:24:46 PM
Something that would have this effect is already planned: see the list of coding projects for Experimental (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=8172.0) under the heading "Variation of costs and revenues over time".
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 31, 2012, 09:14:08 AM
server crashed when assigning a line-less convoy back to a line (manually, not by making its stops identical). Reverted a year and a half back, 4 hours I'd been playing without saving.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 31, 2012, 11:49:58 AM
I'm sorry that you've had this trouble. Is there a way that you can reproduce this crash so that I can fix it?

Edit: I have set up a system for saving the game on the server every hour, and for producing 5 half hourly rotations of the saved game data, as well as enabling log rotation to ensure that I am better able to track what is occurring with the server and that I have a more manageable logfile from which to identify where any crashes occurred. Hopefully this will keep things in good order.

The one thing that I need to do is reconfigure my rotation shell script only to run if the latest saved game has been modified since it last run, which I am not yet sure how to do.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 31, 2012, 03:15:58 PM
maybe this would be of assistance?
1. run in shell as  $ python2 compare_time.py file_with_last_time_stamp
2. in file_with_last_time_stamp must epoc seconds as integer value

(py file)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on December 31, 2012, 03:33:28 PM
Thank you, but I have now managed to get a script working: see here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=11195.msg109063#msg109063). It should force-sync every hour if there have not been any saves in the meantime, and rotate a series of 5 backups if the save file has changed since the last rotation attempt. Hopefully, this will prevent anybody from losing more than an hour's worth of work, even if the server crashes and corrupts the saved game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on December 31, 2012, 03:50:01 PM
thank you so much james!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on December 31, 2012, 04:58:05 PM
Seconded - even if I'm not playing right now, I had this issue enough times previously!!  :D
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 01, 2013, 10:37:46 PM
Every so often, hundreds of passengers will appear at Nestinghall Blackchapel Stop attempting to get to Manford via Nestinghall Axpool Lane Stop. Manford is a town very far away across the sea, and I'm not sure what route the passengers are using, but it must be using other players' networks. The problem is that I then look at Nestinghall Axpool Lane Stop and find that the passengers there are also trying to get to Manford, but right back around via Nestinghall Blackchapel Stop. It seems there is some kind of circular route going on.


After a while all the Manford-bound passengers suddenly disappear and the stops return back to handling a few dozen at a time.

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 01, 2013, 10:46:46 PM
they appear there when the main line to go where they want is overloaded
they start taking weird routes when there are overloads.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 01, 2013, 10:48:23 PM
Chicken,

this issue has been mentioned previously. It is an artefact of the routing system that calculates the route based on the least overall time, including waiting times. Odd routes have been observed in some cases where waiting times to take what would otherwise be the most obvious route become extremely high. I do not know what possible solution that there might be in principle to this issue - even in real life, if going to London from Oxford via Birmingham was faster because there was a twelve hour wait to board a train heading to London at Oxford, people would do that.

The real issue is what causes there to be such high waiting times in the first place. This seems to be caused by passengers' excessive willingness to travel at very high journey times. That issue is being looked into as part of the overall calibration of passenger generation. Hopefully, once that issue is addressed, there will be far fewer of these odd routes.

Incidentally, which company are you playing?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 01, 2013, 11:06:06 PM
I am playing Tortoise Transport. Could those excessive waiting times cause such circular routing though, A->B->A?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 01, 2013, 11:13:13 PM
Ahh, but are both "A"s exactly the same stop? If not, one is not an "A" but a "C" that happens to be near an "A".
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 01, 2013, 11:28:02 PM
It seemed to be doing Blackchapel -> Axpool -> Blackchapel, so I believe that is the same stop.

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 01, 2013, 11:37:17 PM
Did you check the display of the passengers' ultimate origins and destinations? Presumably, they were not ultimately from Nestinghall Blackchapel Stop going only to there? Are any of the passengers at Nestinghall Blackchapel stop ultimately bound for that stop?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 01, 2013, 11:41:33 PM
They all seemed to be going to various stops in Manford, a faraway city. I didn't discern any pattern in the origins.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 01, 2013, 11:47:40 PM
The probability is that the routes were re-calculated whilst they were en route, so as to make their actual routes circular even if their planned route at any given time is not.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 02, 2013, 02:34:32 AM
I seem to have crashed the server when I tried to join.

something about a string being too long.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17111233/client2-network.sve
fatal error: loadsave_t::rdwr_str()
string longer (511) than allowed size (256)


The last save, that I have, from that is from 16h before.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 02, 2013, 04:21:33 AM
I have saves from 22:07 UTC, 21:03, and another from 20:27 (I believe they are stored on the server as well but I can upload if needed). Hurray new backup system!!


On a side note, I did see pax despaired from waiting to kirkmouth in coatsand (only one ship line goes there), starting to make loops on the map and eventually go back to coatsand. They shouldn't have left CS in the first place, but they were so excited to see a train going, they just boarded it!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: AP on January 02, 2013, 07:41:52 AM
Quote from: asaphxiix on January 02, 2013, 04:21:33 AM
On a side note, I did see pax despaired from waiting to kirkmouth in coatsand (only one ship line goes there), starting to make loops on the map and eventually go back to coatsand. They shouldn't have left CS in the first place, but they were so excited to see a train going, they just boarded it!
Oh joy, the pax are getting too intelligent!  Maybe we need a rule against doubling-back... </can of worms>
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 02, 2013, 11:59:28 AM
The server is back again, restored from the 0100h backup. Apologies for the difficulty. It seems that the saved game was corrupted somehow - perhaps the server crashed during saving. It is not clear why this should be, as the server left no trace of the crash in the logfile:


Jan  2 01:52:41 438242 brit[25354]: Warning: nwc_sync_t::do_command:#011sync_steps 1765910
Jan  2 01:52:49 438242 brit[25354]: Message: network_command_t::rdwr:#011write packet_id=4, client_id=0
Jan  2 01:52:49 438242 brit[25354]: Message: packet_t::send:#011sent 14 bytes to socket[6]; id=4, size=14
Jan  2 01:54:13 438242 brit[25354]: Message: network_command_t::rdwr:#011write packet_id=12, client_id=0
Jan  2 01:54:13 438242 brit[25354]: Warning: nwc_routesearch_t::rdwr:#011rdwr limits=(1464, 10968, 12592, 6351264, 458383) apply_limits=1
Jan  2 01:54:13 438242 brit[25354]: Message: packet_t::send:#011sent 43 bytes to socket[6]; id=12, size=43
Jan  2 01:54:13 438242 brit[25354]: Warning: nwc_routesearch_t::transmit_active_limit_set:#011transmit succeeded sync_step=1765910 map_counter=146499501 limits=(1464, 10968, 12592, 6351264, 458383)
Jan  2 01:54:13 438242 brit[25354]: Message: karte_t::laden():#011Prepare for loading
Jan  2 01:54:15 438242 brit[25354]: Warning: karte_t::laden:#011Fileversion: 111002
Jan  2 01:54:15 438242 brit[25354]: Calculating textures ...done
Jan  2 01:54:15 438242 brit[25354]: World destroyed.


The critical part, as will be seen, is:


Jan  2 01:52:49 438242 brit[25354]: Message: packet_t::send:#011sent 14 bytes to socket[6]; id=4, size=14
Jan  2 01:54:13 438242 brit[25354]: Message: network_command_t::rdwr:#011write packet_id=12, client_id=0


The server skips two minutes in logging those two messages, so it crashed after sending the first, and the second is the first after the game starts to reload when the script to check whether it is running starts again.

Because the crash/corruption occurred at 0152h, the 0200 backup was of the bad version, and therefore I have had to restore the 0100h backup. I hope that people have not lost too much work.

AEO, did anything that happened when you were joining give you any clue as to what might have caused the difficulty?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 02, 2013, 12:29:59 PM
Nope, not a clue as to why.

The game was loading, and then it simply crashed once the transfer was done.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 02, 2013, 12:32:12 PM
Very odd.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 02, 2013, 04:32:23 PM
server is down, it seems

I was lagged, made a command that never went through (at least not as far as I could see), then quit. I rejoined, and got the fatal error from above.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 02, 2013, 05:25:57 PM
Hmm, odd. I managed to get a backtrace on this one: see here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=11211.new#new). It's not the best backtrace, as I didn't have debugging symbols enabled. It does suggest, however, that the issue is a double free error - something that does not directly originate from Simutrans-Experimental specific code, as I have not used malloc/free for any of the code that I have written. The saved game appears to be corrupted in much the same way as the previous games were - it is not clear how this is happening, I am afraid. The latest clean save was at 1544h (the corrupt save being at 1617h), so I have reverted to that for the time being. Apologies for the difficulties - this is a rather difficult issue to track down, I am afraid. Any assistance would be appreciated!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 02, 2013, 05:56:33 PM
Thanks James! I wish I could assist, maybe someday...  I'm sure you will be able to nail it soon.

Perhaps until fixing save frequency should be increased to 30 minutes? Funny thing, I haven't noticed any auto-saving going on, maybe it just looks like someone is joining. If it does run in the background without interrupting, perhaps even save every 10 minutes?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 02, 2013, 05:58:40 PM
According to my logs, auto-saving is very rarely necessary, as the game has always been saved within the last hour. I could alter that to 30 minutes if it would assist? That would mean more regular force-syncing, however (which appears in game just as if somebody new has joined, but without any new players actually joining).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 02, 2013, 06:03:49 PM
I've lost more than an hour before... Personally I get really bummed from losing even a little work, so I'd be happy to pay the price to increase save frequency from 60 to 30 minutes.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 02, 2013, 06:26:32 PM
I wanted to save just now, so I saved the game locally and rejoined. Upon joining got the error message (didn't notice what message this time). Then I tried to load my local saved game, but it said:

FATAL ERROR: quickstone<T>::quickstone_tpl(T*,uint16)
slot (2) already taken

could this be related to the new backup system?


saved game (http://upchi.co.il/v933sj8egvx2)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 02, 2013, 07:24:29 PM
The backup system would not itself cause errors in the game. I have modified it now to check for a save within the last half hour.

I am sorry that there seem to be so many difficulties at present - there is not much that I can do until I get home where I can run things in a debugger. There seems to be some corruption happening on occasions when the game is saved, the reason for which is presently far from clear.

Does anyone notice any sort of pattern in these problems - any state of affairs or activity in the game world that makes it more likely that these problems will occur?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 02, 2013, 07:33:44 PM
Dear James

I hope you are enjoying the holidays! Forget about the problems, we are having a hell of a time in the game, if I may.

Perhaps a hiatus may benefit us, as well as our relations with our surroundings, and general nutrition.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 02, 2013, 07:44:42 PM
I'm glad that you are enjoying it! Hopefully your enjoyment will soon be more uninterrupted than at present...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 02, 2013, 08:57:49 PM
Oops - had incorrectly renamed the saved game when restarting the server. Should be restarted properly now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: sdog on January 02, 2013, 10:16:03 PM
the games on bridgewater appear to be quite involved and complex. Good examples of what simutrans can provide. If anyone of the players here is on g+ and in the simutrans community, would you be so kind to give a few glimpses of the game there?

There's a gameservers' category at the community where this would fit perfectly.

Showing interesting aspects, boasting with your network, giving sumaries of aeras, and anything else is appropriate i think. (i'm always looking for content that might draw in more people or increase their ties to simutrans)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 02, 2013, 11:33:07 PM
Sadly, this seems to be down again. I shall have to leave it down for the present, as the frequency of failures is presently too high to be sustainable. I shall have to look into the various bugs when I get back home. I am most sorry for the trouble. For reference, the most recent intact save is available here (http://www.bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/saves/backup2.sve).

Until I am able to fix the problem, might I suggest some forum threads in which addicts dedicated players might wish to participate in the time that they might otherwise be spending on expanding their vast and ever growing railway empires? The list is below.


I do hope to be able to put the server back online before too long. I do hope that not too much of your work has been lost.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 03, 2013, 04:58:07 PM
I think I know what is causing it.

Some of my ships are in replacement mode and they are not finding proper paths or they are getting stuck in depots due to corrupt schedules.

It seems to work fine after removing the offending ships.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 03, 2013, 05:00:12 PM
Aha - thank you very much for that lead! That is most helpful. I shall look into that when I get home.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 03, 2013, 11:29:30 PM
Thanks for all the work so far. I just wanted to mention an oddity I observed and I wonder if anyone else saw it. Sometimes when I was laying my railroad line I would get everything working and it would run fine. Then I would log out, go away, come back and and login again, and find that my railroad line was turned into a nasty spaghetti line -- although still connected on both ends -- instead of a straight line it was zig-zagging back and forth. So I would remove the tracks and relay them into a straight line and then it wouldn't happen again to that section. But it did happen again the next time I created a new segment of track.

Very strange bug, not sure how to reproduce. I'll continue trying next time. Has anyone seen anything like this?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 03, 2013, 11:39:19 PM
I think that this is a known issue in Standard with the click and drag tools which I suspect might well have been fixed in the latest versions of Standard on which the current RC is based.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: prissi on January 04, 2013, 04:18:02 PM
I have never heard of this for standard.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 04, 2013, 04:25:02 PM
Ahh, perhaps I misremembered, then: but the code in question (the one click drag tool for ways) has not been altered for Experimental, and I do have a vague recollection of this being discussed for Standard somewhere - I think along the lines that the one click tool is built on the two click tool and that it is equivalent to clicking at one end and at the other, and occasionally one does not get the result shown by the drag preview.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: prissi on January 04, 2013, 04:43:34 PM
For parallel diagonals one should always use the CNTRL-key, not matter if dragging or not. Should work in networkgames as well.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 04, 2013, 04:45:35 PM
Well, again, the track was laid out correctly and I even watched trains run over it successfully. It only became spaghetti when I left and rejoined the game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 04, 2013, 04:58:09 PM
Thank you - that is helpful. Chicken - was it a parallel diagonal that you were trying to lay?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 04, 2013, 05:00:42 PM
maybe the server crashed and reverted?


I was thinking of a large joint station at Ingleminster. I can add more platforms if needed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 04, 2013, 05:04:30 PM
Just a single track, diagonal yes.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 04, 2013, 05:11:34 PM
Hmm, if it was single (not next to another diagonal track), there is no need to hold down CTRL, but AEO might well be right that you suffered from a crash and revert, or even some sort of corruption of the saved game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 09, 2013, 05:30:10 AM
so my new 3570K is arrived and installed!

I can now run two instances of the game in its peak (13000 convoys) at once, at fast forward, with other programs running as well! :D

However, when I tried pushing the line, I started a game of 3500X4000, 900 cities, 30 big cities, 90 clusters, 3600 median pop - -this was a few minutes ago, but it's still stuck on Initializing Map... CPU is working hard (27% of the quad core), but no progress in the progress bar. Slightly disappointing, but still I'm happy :)

edit: after a long while the map loaded! It would freeze for some minutes at first, but now seems to run well! I suppose it would have been faster had I used 'no trees'.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 09, 2013, 10:46:17 AM
Congratulations on your new purchase!

Generating a new map can take a very long time, even on a fast computer. However, that is a task that is done only once per (hopefully) very long game, so this is not too much of an issue. (As it happens, it is generating cities that takes most of the time, not the trees, and you probably have too many cities on that map, although it depends to some extent on your distance per tile setting. You might also want to set "assume_everywhere_connected_by_road" to on if you have 900 cities, or else the game will not perform well once private cars become popular. The significance of trees is the map size, and hence the amount of time that it takes to transfer an online game over the internet).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 09, 2013, 11:16:17 AM
thanks james :) It was just a test to push the new machine to its limits, I'm not really playing it, but I'll keep this advice at hand when I wish to start a new mega-game (perhaps with the new US map of 5120x3276 (http://maps.simutrans.com/downloads/usa-camerica5120x3276.zip) size!)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 09, 2013, 11:23:13 AM
The best advice when you want to start a new mega-game is: make very sure before you start generating that you have the right settings, then generate it whilst having lunch'.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 13, 2013, 01:32:36 AM
I have restarted the server with the latest backup version of the saved game from November 1861 and the latest release, Simutrans-Experimental 10.19. I have fixed a few bugs in this version, but I am not sure whether this fixes the bugs that were causing saved game corruption which brought down the server last week. Nonetheless, a number of the reported issues that were causing problems, including excessively low revenues and convoys not replacing properly are fixed.

I have also unlocked players 1, 11 and 12, who are available for playing. Unfortunately, there is not yet a system for resetting their treasuries, so new players will just have to make do with starting with a relatively large amount of money - which might help in competing with the AEO behemoth.

Happy playing, everybody!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 16, 2013, 10:57:14 PM
The server is now back online with the latest 10.20 version, which should deal with the save game corruption that has caused stoppages recently. Apologies to everyone who has had difficulties connecting, and happy playing!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 16, 2013, 11:02:05 PM
wow james - i was following that stack overflow thread today, knowing you will make it. I dunno much about coding, but it seems that nut was real tough! thank you so much for the hard work.

happy playing everyone!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 16, 2013, 11:07:47 PM
Thank you!

Incidentally, still one open slot left as "player 13"...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 16, 2013, 11:59:44 PM
that was a speedy job with the stack overflow, for sure. Well done.

I think I still need to somehow clear that pileup, because it feels like the server slows down or desyncs when they reroute.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 17, 2013, 12:12:02 AM
Slowing down might cause desyncing if the server slows down more than the client. A very large number of them seem to have gone away in the last few minutes, but huge numbers of passengers arrive all the time on ships.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 17, 2013, 07:51:53 PM
I do plan to add platforms at ingleminster for NLT and tortoise.

It will probably be as large as London waterloo station at that point.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 17, 2013, 10:40:47 PM
After the most recent issue, the server is now running again with version 10.21. Thank you all for your patience.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 18, 2013, 11:20:55 AM
Seems to be down again :/
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 18, 2013, 11:44:16 AM
Working on it...

Edit: I think that I might have fixed this, but haven't had chance to test it fully or deploy the new version. The fix is on my 10.x branch, however.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 19, 2013, 07:48:19 PM
I have restarted the server with 10.22 and the most recent working backup - hopefully the saved game corruption will not occur now. Apologies for the difficulties, and thank you everyone for your patience.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 19, 2013, 08:40:04 PM
cheers james.

excellent work on the somewhat whack-a-mole nature of these overflow/corruption bugs
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 19, 2013, 08:52:11 PM
Hope that I have fixed it this time!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 19, 2013, 11:43:52 PM
sorry, I logged in using 10.20 by mistake, must have caused a crash!

edit: save game is corrupt, this happened after entering with 10.22 and someone joined, then crashed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 20, 2013, 01:13:07 AM
Hmm. Your original attempt to join with 10.20 was probably not to blame. I suspect that this is the original problem not fully solved. Apologies for the difficulties.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 20, 2013, 05:48:43 AM
I would suggest those using sailing ships to transport pax to switch to steam ships.

You can replace 40 to 57 sailing ships with one great eastern.
The comfort the great eastern provides over sailing ships also makes them extremely profitable.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 20, 2013, 08:05:39 PM
I have restarted with the latest version, 10.23. Hopefully the issue has now been vanquished! Thank you all for your patience.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on January 20, 2013, 11:44:29 PM
Quote from: ӔO on January 20, 2013, 05:48:43 AM
I would suggest those using sailing ships to transport pax to switch to steam ships.

You can replace 40 to 57 sailing ships with one great eastern.
The comfort the great eastern provides over sailing ships also makes them extremely profitable.

But that running cost! Insurmountable! Isn't it the one that is like 89?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 21, 2013, 12:59:20 AM
it's not that bad, actually. The comfort more than makes up for the running costs. You only need it to be about 25% full to be profitable too.

Pretty decent compared to 9x clyde steamers to do the same job as a single great eastern.

If you can run 4x clyde steamers, then you might as well switch to a single great eastern.


I think the recent, rather frequent, disconnects are caused by the pax at lindley lines rerouting. some 200,000+ pax change their destination occasionally.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: waerth on January 21, 2013, 06:18:24 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on November 20, 2012, 02:30:23 AM
Note: There is a bug in the 0.8.4 release, fixed in the forthcoming 0.9.0 release, which means that pakset mismatches between server and client are erroneously detected. This prevents connexion to the server in the normal way. To workaround this problem, go to the load game dialogue, and enter:


net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk


The server game will then load as usual.

Edit: Might I remind people of the importance of setting a password? Go to the "players" dialogue and click the little green box: there, you can set a password and also change the name of your company, the latter of which is also a good idea.

Unfortunately the : net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk did not work, I get: server did not respond. If I go to the normal server address I get the PAK mismatch message.

W
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 21, 2013, 11:16:28 PM
The "server did not respond" message usually means that somebody else is trying to join the game at the same time. If you see this message, wait about two minutes and try again.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 21, 2013, 11:53:10 PM
seems to be a problem now as the game often hangs and crashes, and the server restarts and reverts also, but not by much thankfully. It was very stable throughout the day.

edit: the game came back from the freeze after a while and seemed to be connected still with the small icon, but not actually connected as no operations could be made. Then, trying to rejoin, it just hangs. After a while I can join, seems there was no reversion.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 22, 2013, 12:21:36 AM
Hmm - are there any particular common factors that tend to lead to this issue being experienced? I connected to observe a little earlier, and did not notice any particular trouble.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: dustNbone on January 22, 2013, 12:40:25 AM
I noticed the same sort of behavior at least twice, a very long (minutes) stop in the game, which then carried on as normal.  Other than one time I thought I caused it by switching to underground mode, I'm pretty sure I wasn't doing that the second time (though I suppose someone else may have been).  Aside from that and occasional lag (again probably the result of another players construction/vehicle management) things seem to be working well considering how much is going on with the map.  I seem to sit around 60% use of one core (AMD Athlon X4 @ 3.0ghz) when things are rolling along normally.  Thanks for all your recent work, James.

Dustin
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 22, 2013, 01:00:57 AM
something with aeolus replacing his vehicles... He mentioned this in the chat, I see it's happened again now - frozen and lose sync, and when the game comes back I see 'replacing of aeo vehicles complete', seen it before as well. Doesn't seem to be a critical issue, though, I only saw a reversion happening once I think.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 22, 2013, 01:20:07 AM
I'm not sure. I tried reproducing the crash locally by replacing on top of replacing in progress and it doesn't seem to crash or hang.

Might be some server side problems?

It seems to hang at a specific time and date.

which is nov. 42:20ish
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 22, 2013, 01:57:31 AM
The vehicles that AEO is replacing - are they ships or trains?

The reference to a specific date and time - is this a recurrent failure in that the game will fail at that time, revert to an earlier save, and fail again when it reaches that time?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 22, 2013, 06:13:29 AM
The replacing was with trains, so it shouldn't have stalled, unlike ship path finding that is cpu intensive.
The only other thing I was doing at the time was removing some ship lines that were eating money.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17111233/stalling.sve
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 22, 2013, 09:59:38 AM
Are you referring to a slowdown that eventually concludes successfully or a crash/revert?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 22, 2013, 10:03:28 AM
yes, the slowdown that eventually concludes successfully.

It happens occasionally.

---

pretty sure the cause is the backlog on lindley lines due to a stuck vehicle.

The pax rerouting seems to cause significant CPU usage, which lags the server.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on January 22, 2013, 06:39:03 PM
Somehow my trains, which appear to be properly scheduled with proper signals, get deadlocked regularly.  Any idea why this happens?  I left everything just this way.  Looks like bankruptcy looms for Lindley Lines.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: greenling on January 22, 2013, 08:05:40 PM
Hello wlindley
I the pathfindiging code from the choosesigns it a bug!
Those bug give in Simutrans standart too.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 22, 2013, 11:10:07 PM
WLindley,

I suspect that the problem is caused by the fact that block reservations are not saved, so there is a danger of an issue arising whenever the game is saved/loaded. This should be fixed in the 112.x merge branch, but unfortunately that is not currently working properly with online games - Bernd is working on it.

However, Greenling - may I ask to which specific bug are you referring? Is there a thread in the Standard development forum discussing the issue?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 22, 2013, 11:52:14 PM
there was a reversion just now, possibly because I had nutish station open with 130K pax?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 23, 2013, 12:02:17 AM
Hmm, that oughtn't to cause a crash any longer. Did it crash your client, or merely desync you?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 23, 2013, 12:13:26 AM
only desync. maybe something else then, I wasn't really involved at the very moment it happened.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 23, 2013, 12:30:33 AM
I had just clicked the remove tool on a depot when it crashed and reverted.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 23, 2013, 12:39:09 AM
Can you give me the co-ordinates of the depot at which this occurred so that I can try to reproduce it?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 23, 2013, 12:43:31 AM
820,1204,-1

I just remembered that I did remove the depot, then laid a tram track, then realized I had to remove the road in order to build a tram depot, so I clicked remove a few times there to get rid of everything and it went splat.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 23, 2013, 12:53:03 AM
Was it on that same tile that you removed the road? Did you use the general removal tool or the road removal tool?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 23, 2013, 12:54:49 AM
General removal tool to clear everything out on that tile.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 23, 2013, 01:45:40 AM
server seems to be down - but still reporting?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 23, 2013, 02:17:41 PM
what does it mean by: "Protocol error (expected NWC_GAME)" ?

sometimes I get that instead of the server game loading.
It loads fine after trying to connect a second time.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 23, 2013, 11:12:03 PM
Hmm, seems to be working for me. Perhaps somebody was trying to connect whilst you were also trying to connect...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 24, 2013, 01:33:56 PM
client + server crash, when trying to connect an isolated road tile with a through bus stop from the side, when a bus was in it:
http://upchi.co.il/efmz9jdf0alc
Should I open a bug thread?

I couldn't reproduce this on a single player game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 24, 2013, 03:05:27 PM
Yes, please do. Looks as though it might be hard to reproduce, though.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 24, 2013, 11:55:49 PM
Cobb & Co was liquidated, but has been left with $50. I think it may need to be liquidated completely for that slot to be usable again.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 24, 2013, 11:58:22 PM
Hmm - there is no manual liquidation process, although I'd like to add one in future versions when I get the time...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 26, 2013, 04:36:12 AM
a map of the Trunkpool Metro Network, for the disoriented passenger:
(the black line is the metro-train (narrow track), the color lines are coaches, to be replaced with trams within a few years)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 27, 2013, 12:45:40 PM
so these days, the game is becoming less playable, and I suspect this can't be fixed by a new version (or can it?) - it seems that there's too many pax routing for a modern cpu to handle(my new 3570K at 100% of a single core), or maybe it's the server's cpu, can't really tell, but either way, 120K pax at a single station to route is just too much, resulting in very frequent desyncs, lagging, and even client slowness (performance).  Also, it seems the numbers of pax cannot be controlled and transported efficiently any more, due to the sizes of networks involved, despite earnest efforts. I suspect this will not improve until well into the 20th century. I imagine that if we make a fresh start with modified pax generation settings, this could work much better.

So perhaps, as we approach the centennial celebrations of BWB, it might be worth to consider starting a new game, maybe from about the year we are in now? I was hoping to wait until the next pak version, but I guess that's a long while from now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 27, 2013, 06:13:56 PM
AFAIK, It should be fine, as long as trains don't get stuck.

If you have spare money, you can also dump the jammed pax into the sea with great easterns.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 27, 2013, 08:47:54 PM
I have now restarted with the latest version, 10.24. This should fix some of the recently reported/apparent bugs, including the annoying issue with all of the industries appearing as building sites. This might also improve performance and/or reduce the number of desyncs, depending on the yet unascertained issue of the extent to which the issues that I have fixed were responsible for the problems in the first place.

I should be very interested in any feedback on the question of whether there is any change in performance/the number of desyncs with this version.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 27, 2013, 09:30:26 PM
seems to crash more often. no apparent reason though.  I was making a tram started to put signals on it, actually this may have been the case both times it crashed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 27, 2013, 10:13:33 PM
and now, more stable :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 27, 2013, 10:19:55 PM
Splendid!

Edit: How is the performance?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 27, 2013, 10:33:20 PM
much better! But only 6000 pax at nutish now, so not a stressful situation. Or is this part of the changes in the new version? I saw something involving less packets generated, but I'm not sure I understand what it means.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 27, 2013, 10:39:03 PM
I wonder why Lindley's trains get stuck the most.

I think it may have something to do with train length and how the return trip is called. Lindley uses 'reverse route', but the other players don't use it.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 27, 2013, 10:41:12 PM
The changes to the number of packets should not affect the actual number of passengers: it's just a question of how they are represented internally.

I am not sure why the reverse route thing ought to cause the stuck difficulties - but I rather suspect that they will be solved in the 112.x merge - once that is working fully.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 27, 2013, 11:13:27 PM
desyncs happen every few minutes now.

edit: and more stable again. Then there's the beginning of the month, which is normal to desync.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on January 28, 2013, 12:21:55 AM
I am in process of adding reversing loops, and avoiding choose signals that traverse crossovers, to eliminate the stuck train issue. 

It seems that at some point when a train is reversing, and a save/load occurs, that another train will attempt to occupy the same track, causing the  jam. 
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 28, 2013, 02:35:39 AM
Currently the game is very stable for me.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 28, 2013, 09:17:59 AM
For me as well, much better, even now with 120K at nutish, the client is a bit slow (performance), but much better than yesterday and almost no lags and desyncs. Kudos!

Regarding stuck trains, I noticed it's always the same spot there in finsand. I remember now I encountered this problem once in pak64, where a specific platform would cause this kind of trouble once in a while. It's strange because this bug only manifests in certain platforms, and very rarely.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on January 28, 2013, 06:56:50 PM
Can't even stay connected for more than a second without desyncing since this weekend :/
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 28, 2013, 07:21:26 PM
make sure you have updated to the latest.

Instant desync is usually caused by version differences.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 29, 2013, 07:19:00 AM
server has crashed from


FATAL ERROR: vector_tpl<T>::[]
class koord3d index out of bounds: 92 not in 0..22


The only thing I was doing at the time was replacing convoys.

---


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17111233/client2-network.sve
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 29, 2013, 12:02:15 PM
indeed, the server is down at the moment
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 29, 2013, 06:46:54 PM
The server is now back up with the latest version, 10.25, which fixes the bug that caused the failure most recently. Apologies for the downtime - happy playing!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 29, 2013, 07:47:02 PM
seems to be a problem - frequently losing sync, then the server isn't a available for a while, then makes a new announcement - server restarts?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 29, 2013, 07:52:11 PM
Hmm - does the client crash?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 29, 2013, 08:10:11 PM
Nope, doesn't crash. This hasn't occurred since I reported it :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 29, 2013, 09:17:52 PM
the train at 1194,1131 is stuck for no apparent reason.  i've seen this today in another place too, today. I'll try to release it, but you can see this in the 21:11 save.

edit: I clicked 'schedule' then closed the schedule window, it resumed driving.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 30, 2013, 12:05:07 AM
instant desyncs, a few times in a row. you getting that too?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 30, 2013, 12:07:18 AM
Yes, that is rather odd. It seems to be working again now, though.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 30, 2013, 01:00:22 AM
i tried to connect now, instant desync, then tried again, got an error:

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 30, 2013, 01:06:08 AM
Hmm - will have to look into this error in due course when I have time - sadly run out of it this evening.

Edit: Odd - seems to be working now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 30, 2013, 11:02:46 AM
server crashed when trying to remove Reddingchester Quiver Street Dock (public stop) with the water removal tool. not sure what it was exactly that I was doing (client lost sync, didn't crash), but it can't be reproduced in single player mode.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on January 30, 2013, 03:31:27 PM

edit: after checking, I see that the track reservation bug positively doesn't occur in 10.24, for trams at least. Since the it is a very critical bug (effectively disabling tram transportation, for the most part), might I suggest that the server be reverted to 10.24, until this is fixed?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on January 31, 2013, 12:26:45 AM
I have restarted the server with version 10.26, which I am hoping will have solved this problem. Please let me know how you get on.

Edit: Incidentally, I should add that, following Junna's bankruptcy, there is now a player slot available.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on January 31, 2013, 03:25:52 PM
the block reservation bug seems to have been fixed. I don't notice any trains getting stuck anymore.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 02, 2013, 08:35:47 PM
seem that the server restarts and reverts often this weekend (since yesterday). Somehow I usually try to join in the middle of it... but happens in-play as well. And after restart, there is some while of instant desyncs. And then it's ok. So basically, although I wasn't trying very hard, I wasn't really able to play since.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 02, 2013, 08:43:14 PM
@526,1112 is a good example of how I might build a reasonably decent set of tracks, then I log-off and come back and they're all spaghettified mysteriously. I'll leave them messed up so you can take a look.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 02, 2013, 09:03:46 PM
Asaph - hmm. I haven't noticed this myself when I have been logged in, but I have not been logged in much. Does it happen in particular circumstances?

Chicken - does this always happen with double tracks on a diagonal? Do you always ensure that double tracks on a diagonal are separated by at least a tile?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 02, 2013, 09:17:44 PM
it just happened on the beginning of the month
which is often a desync, but this time restarted as well I think
also it was like this a few times as I was joining, but I can't say if before that maybe, I think one time it crashed right in the middle of joining, but again not sure about the circumstances, sorry it's not so helpful. I don't think I actually witnessed the cause, must have been something someone else was doing, or spontaneous? happens a lot though, I've tried to build some track two times already, this will be the third. an underground, in Berrywell and Kilford.

perhaps chicken's issue is related to reversion, I think this happened before.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 02, 2013, 09:20:05 PM
Reversion is caused when the server crashes and reverts to the last saved game, so this ought not be responsible for Chicken's issue in and of itself unless the tracks were like that when the game was saved.

If you can find any patterns in the reversions, I should be very grateful if you could let me know so that I can attempt to track down the cause.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 02, 2013, 09:21:19 PM
there's also the issue of instant desyncs. you'll see it if you try joining now I think.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 02, 2013, 09:31:10 PM
Hmm, I am currently in and not desyncing. Odd.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 02, 2013, 09:39:10 PM
oh my. the problem is on my side maybe? I still can't join. I'll try reopening the client.
edit: was able to join after reopening. don't know if coincidence :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 02, 2013, 10:05:02 PM
again it happened, after someone joined, no restart, just me having reopen the client.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 02, 2013, 10:10:05 PM
Odd. I have remained stably connected for some time, albeit I am not actually doing anything: just observing. Have you been interacting in any particular ways?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 02, 2013, 10:14:24 PM
I always keep the tracks apart, I hate it when they run together like that (pet peeve about Simutrans: diagonal tracks are so far apart; OpenTTD doesn't have this issue for whatever reason).

The first time I built this extension it was lost in the reversion that Asa posted about. The second time I built it, I made sure to log out and back in to save the work. But after logging back in I saw it had become spaghettified so I posted about it.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 02, 2013, 10:19:37 PM
Hmm - this is rather odd, not least because the code for placing tracks has not changed at all in Experimental compared with Standard. May I ask - is anyone else consistently having this difficulty?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 02, 2013, 10:57:22 PM
I get it by accidental input, by being one tile off of where I wanted the track to go.

A neat trick to check straightness when placing is to use the edge of your screen.


I've also noticed, that when placing track under lagged situations, what appears on screen isn't what you will get. It's like you get two separate overlays that don't interact with each other, but will when operation is completed. To describe it, you get to see TTD, compact layout on diagonals, instead of simutrans style, wide layout. You can also see "Y" switches that aren't even possible with the extended way images.

probably easier to reproduce if you have a slower computer.

---
okay, I've managed to reproduce it

looks like this

Basically, you have to input your second command faster than the first one appears, then you get an overlay that won't interact with the first command.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 02, 2013, 11:09:12 PM
Well I do make sure that the track is laid out correctly when I do it, as far as I can see. I have, in other circumstances, even introduced service onto those tracks which runs cleanly at that time, only to come back and later find them messed up.

It could be a lag or sync issue, where my client thinks they are laid out correctly but the server does not. I'm not clear enough on internals to say whether this is possible.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 02, 2013, 11:19:42 PM
Chicken - do you experience heavy lag? In other words, is there a long delay between you building a road, railway (etc.) and it appearing on the screen?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 02, 2013, 11:25:42 PM
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I think it's when the server is really busy that I get the worst of that kind of lag. In this case, it did not take more than a few seconds for things to appear when I built them.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 02, 2013, 11:30:16 PM
Do you have the issue when you have the lag? AEO seems to have narrowed down fairly precisely the circumstances in which this behaviour can be reproduced...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 02, 2013, 11:32:02 PM
It's hard to say because I usually just give up on building anything when the lag's there. In this case it was only a few seconds, which doesn't faze me much. It is possible that I laid down a few tracks before waiting for the previous one to complete. When I have a free moment I will try doing that again and compare it to a more patient approach.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 02, 2013, 11:39:28 PM
I should be grateful if you could let me know the result.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on February 03, 2013, 01:01:03 PM
Lindley Lines is in the red, with a seriously outdated set of equipment and lines, much of it going back thirty or fifty years.  With not too much chance to play lately, the sheer scope of trying to upgrade it all to the modern situation, and reorient to be "at right angles to" the competition, is a pretty stiff task.

Recommendations for course of action?  I would almost like to start over now that we are in the electric age.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 03, 2013, 01:50:00 PM
I would axe the island and concentrate around roxingham area, since that area seems to have the more modern equipment and tracks.

At the very minimum, I would withdraw the costly trains and, if possible, replace them with slow, but highly comfortable trains.

Probably, your best bet is midland 1377 (40t) and midland 1833 (44t!) with LNWR 8 wheel coaches for pax. For mail, maybe run a single 1377 with  midland 6 wheel mail carriages.


Your main problem is not having enough capacity for the flow of pax, which results in massive refunds. This destroys any wealth you have accumulated, which is why your income fluctuates greatly. Getting rid of the problematic point, and concentrating on one that can work with some improvement would be best, I think.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 03, 2013, 01:55:38 PM
I guess the question is whether your losses are due to refunds, or from operation. If it's refund, you can probably combat this by making some changes, when you get the occasional break from them and earn some money. If the operation isn't profitable, I suppose it might be better to start off.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 03, 2013, 02:02:44 PM
server seems to be restarting. I don't think a reversion is expected, I had just quit and rejoined, then desynched.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 02:05:48 PM
Hmm - as ever, the logs tell me nothing of why it restarted.

Was anyone doing anything in particular when it happened...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 03, 2013, 02:11:16 PM
another good alternative, actually, probably the best choice for upgrading, would be LNWR cauliflower (33t) with LNWR 8 wheel on improved wrought iron track.

Decently fast, tons of power, light weight, better price/performance compared to Midland 1833
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 02:15:33 PM
Quote from: ӔO on February 03, 2013, 01:50:00 PM
Probably, your best bet is midland 1377 (40t) and midland 1833 (44t!) with LNWR 8 wheel coaches for pax. For mail, maybe run a single 1377 with  midland 6 wheel mail carriages.

Out of interest, why the bold and exclamation point?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 03, 2013, 02:19:37 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 02:05:48 PM
Hmm - as ever, the logs tell me nothing of why it restarted.

Was anyone doing anything in particular when it happened...?
I had just saved and rejoined, that immediately desynced, and the server restarted.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 02:25:25 PM
Hmm. Odd.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 03, 2013, 02:26:49 PM
I was removing the canals in reddingchester, I removed from neighbouring towns and I when I got to the intersection of 1896,1454 (skipping the area between it and the public dock there, which has crashed the server before when I tried to remove it), I was using singular removals with the water removal tool (double click) to be extra careful, this is where the server restarted again just now (14:25).

Also, after restart, I must reopen my client to stay connected. Otherwise it's instant desync, with no additional server restart.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 03, 2013, 02:29:36 PM
james, do you think there's some tools we can use that do not require a lot programming knowledge to debug some things for you? I would much like to help this way, and will pull a great effort if needed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 03, 2013, 02:32:45 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 02:15:33 PM
Out of interest, why the bold and exclamation point?

to note that tracks must be upgraded to something that allows heavier trains.

There is a choice of WSSR light 75km/h (62t), IWI 130km/h (43t), WSSR 145km/h (69t), WSSR heavy 145km/h (98t)
choice between WSSR light, or WSSR, which has nearly twice the maintenance of the light version.

IMO, probably best balance between speed bonus and maintenance, if the 90km/h or faster trains can be run on IWI.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 03:05:37 PM
Asaph,

thank you for the offer of help. Short of the sort of things that require some knowledge of programming to assist with, the most helpful possible thing that anyone can do to assist with tracking down bugs is to test and document precisely how they can be reproduced. It is almost impossible to find the cause of a bug that cannot be reproduced, and finding conditions in which it can be reproduced is often the most time consuming part of bug fixing in the case, at least, of certain sorts of bugs. The bug to which you refer seems to relate to the removal of canal tiles - if you could see if you could reproduce that in a single player game, that would be most helpful.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 03, 2013, 03:31:18 PM
OK James! What I was thinking was, if I could reproduce the bug myself and send you the output of whatever debugger you are using (if you are using one).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 03, 2013, 03:33:47 PM
If Lindley gets liquidated what happens to the stations we share?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 03:37:21 PM
Ahh, I use MSVC++ (Express, 2012) as a debugger; what I need to be able to do is reproduce the issue myself and inspect the code and the values of all the variables at the point when the crash was triggered (for example, noting that a particular pointer has a NULL value, and therefore knowing to check for this before calling a method from that pointer, etc.); so the best thing really is steps to let me know how to reproduce it. Thank you for the suggestion, though!

Chicken - if you share Lindley owned stations, they will be demolished if/when Lindley is liquidated. You will need to rebuild stations to continue to serve those places.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 03, 2013, 03:56:35 PM
Quote from: chicken on February 03, 2013, 03:33:47 PM
If Lindley gets liquidated what happens to the stations we share?
apart from the stations, the tracks may also be removed, in such a case your trains will get 'no route'. If the tracks stay, your trains will simply continue going there, possibly also wait at the former station. If one of your trains is waiting in the station when the station is gone, the train will get stuck there and you'll need to release it (I've seen this happen with coaches before).

However, it doesn't seem like Lindley's going bankrupt soon.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 03, 2013, 03:59:30 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 03:37:21 PM
Ahh, I use MSVC++ (Express, 2012) as a debugger; what I need to be able to do is reproduce the issue myself and inspect the code and the values of all the variables at the point when the crash was triggered (for example, noting that a particular pointer has a NULL value, and therefore knowing to check for this before calling a method from that pointer, etc.); so the best thing really is steps to let me know how to reproduce it. Thank you for the suggestion, though!

Chicken - if you share Lindley owned stations, they will be demolished if/when Lindley is liquidated. You will need to rebuild stations to continue to serve those places.

very well - i'll do my best to narrow it down and record. I think, from previous testing, that this is one of those issues that only happen on the multiplayer server, possibly even only in linux.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 03, 2013, 04:21:21 PM
If anything, placing tracks slowly and methodically seems to make them spaghetti even more when I re-log in. I've redone the same section of track 3 times now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 06:03:57 PM
Placing the tracks slowly will involve more separate instructions; as AEO has said, the incorrect patterning seems to occur when one instruction is sent before a previous instruction has executed, so that would explain the difficulties.

Out of interest, what are your computer specifications?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 03, 2013, 06:07:25 PM
Core i5-2500k 8GB RAM

ping is averaging 92ms with near-zero packet loss.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 06:16:07 PM
Hmm. The CPU is more significant than the ping in this context, but that ought to do the task. It's odd that you are having these troubles more than others.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 03, 2013, 09:29:43 PM
Upgrading rails is hell with this problem. I come back and find the tracks I rebuilt are all messed up.

I think I might be desyncing when a train reaches a point on the track where my client believes is one way and the server sees another completely messed up way.

Any logs I can turn on to show what's going on?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 09:55:34 PM
Hmm - there wouldn't be any easy way of logging this. I should add that I have run a test, and cannot reproduce the problem. Do you always hold down CTRL when dragging a diagonal double track?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 03, 2013, 09:58:14 PM
Not always, but often I do, yes. I haven't noticed a difference yet in the outcome w/regard to the weird behavior.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 03, 2013, 10:07:49 PM
Hmm. I have to say, this is very odd. I'm sorry that you're having trouble. Could you perhaps post a video of you trying to draw the tracks so that I can see this issue in action? It's rather hard to track down without knowing exactly what happens or being able to reproduce it.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 04, 2013, 06:04:39 AM
Quote from: wlindley on February 03, 2013, 01:01:03 PM
Lindley Lines is in the red, with a seriously outdated set of equipment and lines, much of it going back thirty or fifty years.  With not too much chance to play lately, the sheer scope of trying to upgrade it all to the modern situation, and reorient to be "at right angles to" the competition, is a pretty stiff task.

Recommendations for course of action?  I would almost like to start over now that we are in the electric age.

As a challenge, I tried recovering your company into black and it was possible.

Key points
- Upgrade/downgrade all of your tracks to 130km/h, 43t, Improved wrought iron
- Make sure to use a proper return trip for rail lines, instead of reverse route.
- Make sure those rail lines are using the proper platform on each way of the journey. There were at least a pair of lines that were not using the proper platform and were looping back
- Make sure to uncheck "reverse route" for all trains
- "Bushing Duckingham Express" and "Clacingborne/Lowwater Local" is unneeded.
- The infrastructure that "Clacingborne Elevated" uses is quite expensive for the amount of usage it gets and could be revised
- Upgrade all stations with less than 5 tiles to have 5 tile length.
- Due to your track layout, station spacing and station length, you really do not need any locomotive that runs faster than 100km/h, which means you should stick to LNWR Cauliflower
- Slowly replace trains with LNWR Cauliflower with GNR Clerestory carriages. For every three old trains you retire, you can replace with two new ones
- Low usage/short trains should use Midland 1377 with 4 to 5 GNR clerestory carriages
- Start with the most expensive to run. Jenny Lind should be left to last.
- Pax should get 4 or more carriages, while only 2 to 3 mail carriages are needed per consist. 9 pieces results in 5 tile length, while 10 pieces results in 6 tile length.
- There is no need to use TPO or dining car, except on "Rox Colingham"
- For "Yerlden Finsland Limited", use 6 tile length 4x LNWR Cauliflower with GNR carriages and 1x LNWR Cauliflower with LBSCR Bogie carriages. LBSCR train is high capacity pax, which is needed to ease congestion

- Trams lines should be temporarily abandoned in favour of bus lines. The loop line configuration, coupled with low numbers on the line result in severely poor capacity. Adding signals (spacing=2) to improve capacity would bankrupt your company and leaving them running will result in massive refunds.

- Some bus lines do not have enough capacity and need more frequent service.

If you only fix the trains, and don't fix the trams, you can expect to be in healthy black at around 8 to 12 months. If you switch trams to buses, I would expect it to be less than 8 months.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 04, 2013, 06:55:09 AM
I'm surprised you dismiss the trams - i have been running them seemingly well - I would think they can run good capacity and pretty fast too, especially the large ones (80 pax)? Even for longer lines. Sometimes the last stop before the train station can be a little crowded, but they seem to make good use of themselves all and all, 75-90% full being the norm. Also, no pax congestions or annoying bus jams. Profit is alright as well, for local transportation anyway.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 04, 2013, 11:38:53 AM
It is very interesting to see in depth game play discussion!

Quote from: ӔO on February 04, 2013, 06:04:39 AM
- Make sure to use a proper return trip for rail lines, instead of reverse route.

May I ask - can anyone pin down precisely what the problem is with reverse route settings? If there was a specific reproducible error, I might be able to look into fixing it.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 04, 2013, 11:46:36 AM
I think it's on this thread james:

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10638.0 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10638.0)

the problem is in fact that the trains pass through the correct lane where they are supposed to stop, and skip the station, only to make a u-turn on the next crossing, pass the station on the opposite lane, then make another u-turn and this time stop at the station.

this will happen when there is a certain amount of trains going on the line - regardless of automatic mirror scheduling or manual scheduling of the mirror. Clearing the 'reverse destinations' buttons on all trains is important, but unless I was missing something back then, won't solve the problem.

there is a solid work around for the problem - building choose signals and crossings on both ends of the through-station, and I improved it further by building an end-of-choose signal on both of the opposite direction entrances (or forward exits) of the stations, to ensure trains will stick to their lane. You can see an example at Brambledale Highminster Station.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 04, 2013, 02:19:29 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on February 04, 2013, 11:38:53 AM
It is very interesting to see in depth game play discussion!

May I ask - can anyone pin down precisely what the problem is with reverse route settings? If there was a specific reproducible error, I might be able to look into fixing it.

Instead of properly using the opposite platform, the trains will try and loop back to use the designated platform.

Quote from: asaphxiix on February 04, 2013, 06:55:09 AM
I'm surprised you dismiss the trams - i have been running them seemingly well - I would think they can run good capacity and pretty fast too, especially the large ones (80 pax)? Even for longer lines. Sometimes the last stop before the train station can be a little crowded, but they seem to make good use of themselves all and all, 75-90% full being the norm. Also, no pax congestions or annoying bus jams. Profit is alright as well, for local transportation anyway.

Trams are not bad if they are configured properly, but they require costly signals to have great volume.
Loop lines that don't have a reverse route will quickly become overloaded, as pax must take the long way around.

Basically, they eat more money in infrastructure than they can produce, so they are a money sink
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 04, 2013, 04:53:34 PM
Quote from: ӔO on February 04, 2013, 02:19:29 PM

Trams are not bad if they are configured properly, but they require costly signals to have great volume.
Loop lines that don't have a reverse route will quickly become overloaded, as pax must take the long way around.

Basically, they eat more money in infrastructure than they can produce, so they are a money sink

For bigger towns at least, I must disagree. on Arlsley-Cornchester for a while now, profit is 14000, infrastructure can't be much more than 3000, and construction probably less than 100K,  that's less than a year ROI. signal spacing of 6 is more than enough I find, going every 10 minutes, or even less. Also, I use large bubbles, to cover a greater area, loop around eventually, and have connections where pax can  take shortcuts or go back to the stop the need on the other side of the ring. So it's like having many circular lines in one, and it works quite nicely, despite the detours.

Even Axhall, with 5 convoys makes ~1600 profit over ~800 infrastructure. Perhaps buses can beat that margin, I can't tell, but i find them less efficient in terms of player effort/trouble, as well as in terms of passenger traffic.

edit: I assume that you aeo can indeed make better profit with buses and not be bothered about it, as you are like the undefeated boss of this game. From my humble perspective, trams have made my life very much easier where I was red all over (on the 'waiting' map layer) and having recursive traffic jams, so it was a good investment :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 04, 2013, 11:18:49 PM
Hello all,

as I am already playing for a couple of days, it might make sense, that I also make an appearance here :-) I am the player behind the company New Hope Transports.

Currently, I am planing my future expansions. Regarding this, I have two in game questions. First, is someone still claiming the road from Milkingworth (1849,983) to Durdon (1906,697) or is this just a leftover from a bankrupted company? Second, I am planing to extend my ship lines to Eveford. Would it be fine if I connect with the ACMGo network at that place?

By the way, I am also troubled with a very laggish behavior of the game, but this is very likely caused by my rather weak computer (Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, running Linux). Maybe, I will find some time to help with debugging at a later time.

Best,
Felix
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 04, 2013, 11:43:17 PM
Welcome, Felix! Always good to see new players.

As for the Milkingwortk-Durdon road, if you press CTRL+O, you will see that it is unowned, which means that it is free for anyone to use. You are more than free to put carriages or traction engines to work on the road, or even bulldoze it and replace it with a railway if you take care to ensure that the public roads are not cut off.

Your lag probably is caused by your slow computer, although work is planned to improve the performance of Simutrans-Experimental code.

Incidentally, your railway passengers are a lucky bunch: your line is one of the least overcrowded and most comfortable operations on the map! (Although, sadly, it seems, still running at a loss).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ACM on February 05, 2013, 05:59:00 AM
Hi there, Felix.

I am the former operator of ACMGo. I had to stop playing after 1827 because I couldn't cope with the latency my computer was getting. Unfortunately, rsdworker, who offered to take over the company, never came back to do anything with it.

At this point I don't think anyone is going to care if you build over the company.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 05, 2013, 10:12:58 AM
maybe you should try again, ACMgo. The load on the server and clients is much much better these days, no evil's eye.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 05, 2013, 10:28:19 PM
Thanks for the nice welcome!

It looks like I can proceed with my expansion plans as soon as I find sufficient time and the lag is bearable. By the way, that the railroad operates at a loss is known. I hope this will change as soon as I get around to extend the railroad network and a larger flow of passengers gets generated.

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 05, 2013, 11:12:36 PM
I shall look forward to your extension, as, I daresay, will the inhabitants to the towns to the West of your existing network!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 05, 2013, 11:16:05 PM
^ good luck with expanding your network. When you do connect, you will want to make sure your lines can handle it, as there is a slight delay, I think around 2 to 3 months currently, before the taps really open up.


---
Lindley lines is stuck in two spots. Currently, there is a backlog of some 500,000 pax that I'm trying to sponge up and squeeze into the ocean.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: sdog on February 06, 2013, 08:25:19 PM
Quote from: ӔO on February 04, 2013, 02:19:29 PM
Instead of properly using the opposite platform, the trains will try and loop back to use the designated platform.
used to be super finnicky from the very beginning. Since for the reverse route it will calcluate the way to the designated platform. When it passes over another appropriate platform of the same station it would call there: unless there is a way to get to the designated platfom in x tiles.

The problem comes from three things: if departing journey and return journey aren't connected the trains won't move (issue with ring lines) Since x is a bit high, trains often have one station where the distance to the next connection is close eough to send it to the next platform. After loading trains 'forget' to call at the next station and go to the designated platform. The latter seems to be the main issue for online games with lots of load and save.

Quote
Trams are not bad if they are configured properly, but they require costly signals to have great volume.
Loop lines that don't have a reverse route will quickly become overloaded, as pax must take the long way around.

Basically, they eat more money in infrastructure than they can produce, so they are a money sink
Don't you build you tram lines bi-directional, so every stop is called on the way there and the way back? Either accepting two tiles distance between two platforms or doing some bulldozing to get parallel streets to be closer together?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 06, 2013, 08:42:18 PM
I build tram lines as bi-directional, but some players do not, probably due to financial issues.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 06, 2013, 10:13:11 PM
two reasons -
1. Trying to avoid housing removal - making two roads to run side by side will usually require removing many houses.
2. Bigger coverage - I get to greatly extend the number of stops on each side of the way.

The way to mitigate the long way around effect is to create inner circles with joint stops at their ends, for instance, A-B-C-D-E-F-G, then back - G-H-I-D-J-K-A. So pax going from A to H for instance, will first travel to D, then take a convoy in the opposite direction to H. Also, another line could be 1-2-3-4-5-3-7-8, and then back 8-9-3-10-11-3-12-1, so pax going from 1 to 8 can drop off at the at (1-2)-3, and take the convoy ahead of the convoy on which they came, coming from (4-5)-3, thus the pax can skip the redundant travel through 4-5.

I guess this makes the lives of pax a bit miserable (but then, they rarely have to wait more than 5 minutes for the next convoy), but it makes my life a lot easier, and is rather efficient at intra-city travel, although less efficient than a direct route of course.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 06, 2013, 11:05:07 PM
I had removed stops at aylston and reddingchester, and was starting to rebuild them, when the server apparently restarted.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 06, 2013, 11:09:15 PM
I was modifying signals at my tram line, just before the server restarted.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 06, 2013, 11:15:36 PM
The crashes might have something to do with stops being connected in walking distances of one another and the linux version.

Also, you shouldn't be able to delete the public player stop as a different player.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 07, 2013, 12:16:55 AM
Hmm - I noticed that my client also crashed, but I was not running in debug mode, so couldn't trace the source. I haven't been able to reproduce this in a debugger, sadly, even when deleting and replacing 'bus stops in Aylston.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 07, 2013, 12:42:45 AM
Quote from: ӔO on February 06, 2013, 11:15:36 PM
The crashes might have something to do with stops being connected in walking distances of one another and the linux version.

Interesting - why do you say that?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 07, 2013, 01:20:04 AM
Quote from: jamespetts on February 07, 2013, 12:42:45 AM
Interesting - why do you say that?

I think, although I'm probably wrong, it may be related to this bug: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=11227.0

I'm trying various things to crash the game locally, but I can't seem to do it. It may be a linux only thing.

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 07, 2013, 08:50:00 AM
That was fixed, though. Why do you think it the same?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 07, 2013, 10:48:39 PM
I can't seem to stay connected this evening, getting desynched after a few seconds. I did check and there don't seem to be overwhelming numbers of waiting pax. There aren't any other connected players either - anyone else having this?

Reopening the client does not help this time, I don't think this has happened before.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 08, 2013, 12:16:21 AM
I have to say, I can't reproduce this - I have been able to connect for some time.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 08, 2013, 12:26:42 AM
and stay connected as well? this is troubling. I was able to stay on for 10 minutes before. I guess if no one else is having a problem, it must be me (though I have a feeling other people are having it as well). I reopen the client, and I can join again, until someone else joins, then I'm kicked.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 08, 2013, 12:36:49 AM
Since I last posted, I did have some difficulties staying connected, culminating in a client crash a few minutes after desync. I am currently connected with a debug build and seeing whether I can trace the crashes.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 08, 2013, 12:37:32 AM
i'll keep joining as well. I suspect maybe one is kicking the other out?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 08, 2013, 12:52:55 AM
Yes, please do keep trying to connect - I suspect that the problem may be caused by some activity, but I am currently unsure what.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 08, 2013, 09:14:37 AM
I had the same problem yesterday evening. I could connect, but got a desync after a few seconds. The client did not crash and could run the -- now local -- game for several minutes. (I am using the 32-bits Linux version compiled from source.)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 08, 2013, 10:13:55 AM
I suspect these desyncs are caused by the, rather excessive build up, of pax around jammed lindley lines.
There are some 200k~500k pax in and around bushing.

Every time they reroute, it uses more CPU cycles than the server can handle, which causes the game to slow down, which causes clients to desync. The game is somewhat slow even when loaded locally, but fixes itself if you fix the jam.


maybe there needs to be a custodian who fixes jams on other people's lines?
Although, ideally, the jam shouldn't happen to start with.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 08, 2013, 10:20:27 AM
aeo, I have seen this happen while I was looking at everybody's stop lists - the maximum was 40K at one place, other than that, a few Ks here and a few Ks there, nothing serious - shouldn't slow the game down. Also, the game was not slow, only desynching.

Maybe there are two issues here - one is slowness and desyncs when many pax are waiting, the other, what we had yesterday.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 08, 2013, 10:22:39 AM
May I ask - is the desyncing continuing, or has it stopped? I was connected for some time last night with a client running the debugger, and it did not either desync or crash; yet, I do not think that anyone else was connected at the time. The issue seems to have been related to activity, although it is hard to be sure.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 08, 2013, 10:35:47 AM
for me, the desyncs seem to cluster themselves. several with less than 5mins between and then a big gap for a good 1hr.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 08, 2013, 10:42:03 AM
Interesting. Does any particular activity commonly precede the cluster?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 08, 2013, 10:59:29 AM
to me it also clusters - although yesterday the cluster seemed to span the entire evening/night with infrequent uptimes of 0.5-1 hour.

However, when I would join as the only player on the server, I would desync immediately, without performing any activity.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 08, 2013, 12:59:36 PM
Hmm - very odd. Did the clusters themselves follow any particular activity, can anyone detect?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 08, 2013, 01:04:57 PM
I am not doing anything in particular, other than building tube stations which are not in service yet.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 08, 2013, 01:18:43 PM
Hmm. If you connect and build things other than underground stations, does this still sometimes occur?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 08, 2013, 01:29:09 PM
perhaps there's a connection to something else that seems to have started to occur pretty much at the same time - when I first try join the server after coming back from somewhere or waking up, I get the protocol error message, and can only connect at the second try. I think this usually happens when the client had stayed open since the last time I was playing, but maybe this isn't always the case, but it happens most often, if not always when I haven't been logged on for a while. I'll try to keep track of it.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 08, 2013, 02:51:28 PM
Please do - any clear patterns that are consistent are helpful for tracking down issues.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 08, 2013, 03:02:25 PM
when someone joins - I get disconnected, this is constant. then if I try to connect I get disconnected after 6 seconds. I must reopen the client to reconnect. We spoke about this about a week ago, I was thinking this could strangely be a local problem of mine, but now I'm thinking that it maybe related to the general issue. This, and not being able to connect on the first try I mentioned above.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 08, 2013, 07:15:35 PM
I still get an instant desync when I try to connect. Locally the game is running extremely slow for me. The severity of the problem might be related to the weakness of my machine.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 08, 2013, 08:29:43 PM
aye, nobody seems to be able to play today.
recap of this afternoon:

I left the client open right at the beginning of december (99% sure about this)
Went to sleep, woke up a few hours later, the client is still open, I try to join:
protocol error
I closed the client, try to connect
It's still the first minutes of December, but now it says 2 clients are connected??
instant desync
try again
stay connected for 50 seconds, desync.

A while later I try again - this time the client was closed, I open it and try to join - protocol error
I reopen the client and try again - desync after ~20 seconds.

This time I check - there doesn't seem to be a great deal of waiting pax anywhere (no more than 10K at a single stop), so I don't think this is the reason.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 09, 2013, 01:14:24 AM
sometimes, the server will still see the disconnected client, or not see a connected client, and give back the wrong amount of clients connected.

You're probably seeing your own ghost(s). It happened to me a few times, but they eventually disconnect.

Quote from: jamespetts on February 08, 2013, 01:18:43 PM
Hmm. If you connect and build things other than underground stations, does this still sometimes occur?

Yes, it still does it when nothing is being done either.


---

I will ask wlindley for his password, but only for fixing jams that occur on his line. I suspect his PC may not be up to snuff for this amount of CPU load.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 09, 2013, 01:47:18 AM
This looks like some specific error that needs fixing, although it's not clear what caused it - perhaps city electrification (which, although present for some time, has, I suspect, only just become effective, as electricity.tab was configured wrongly). Alas, I do not have much time to debug this week-end. In the meantime, if anyone can run tests (including with a local "server" with another instance of Simutrans running and connecting to it as a client (use net:127.0.0.1 in the load dialogue to do this) to see whether there is any discernible pattern (for example, save an instance of the server game, open it locally, delete all the substations in cities, then run it as a local server and try to connect a client to it to see whether it disconnects; if not, try a local server again with the original server save, etc.), that would potentially save me a great deal of time.

Thank you very much for your feedback - it really is most helpful, and I am sorry that you are having trouble.

Edit: Further research shows that a debug build will stay connected whereas a release build (both from the current 10.x branch) will not. Odd...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 09, 2013, 02:58:51 AM
With another (faster) computer I did not encounter any problems this evening.

This machine is running a 64-bit Linux. Simutrans is compiled from source, too.

Edit: I think, I am using the release build on both computers. The one causing trouble is definitly a release build.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 09, 2013, 03:17:26 AM
i am connected now as well.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 09, 2013, 12:17:17 PM
Hmm - very odd indeed. Have the problems magically vanished...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 09, 2013, 02:30:48 PM
hmmm, definitely alleviated, but i'm not sure if it's really vanished (haven't played much since last night).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 09, 2013, 06:34:01 PM
I tried a few things, and it seems that if you are getting instant disconnects, restarting your game may fix it.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 09, 2013, 09:44:23 PM
again joining after the server's been empty for a while, protocol error, then instant desyncs, even if I reopen the client.

edit: I'm now working on removing the substations. At first I must test to see if the bug happens at all on my server. CPU usage is very high - 27% for each process (more than one core? I have four so it should be more than 25%?). It's running very nicely now with ~29 fps, but I should let run for a while, and then let it run with no client for a while, and see how that goes. Maybe some performance testing as well.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 09, 2013, 11:02:15 PM
Please try to join the game at simu.zapto.org:13300 , and play for a while. Then try to reconnect and stuff, see if you get desynched or protocol error. If not, try this again in a few hours.

Mind that this is not the actual game, only a copy for testing purposes :)

edit:
I am connected with two clients, and have the server running in graphic mode. Both clients run fine but occasionally lose sync. They can rejoin. Right now both clients are frozen, and from network activity it appears someone from the outside is joining, but this is taking long due at 0.8 mbps. It looks like they desynced instantly.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 09, 2013, 11:36:29 PM
Might be me, I've tried connecting a few times in the past half hour, but get dumped pretty quick.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 09, 2013, 11:40:36 PM
when deleting the substations, you only need to do it in 5 spots, which are directly at the power stations.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 10, 2013, 01:57:54 AM
meanwhile in my test run, I was able to keep two clients connected for many hours without a desync (but I wasn't playing either, only preforming the occasional action such as chat or build roads, sometimes it was lagged. At some point I went to sleep). So this may be a platform issue, or a network issue?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 10, 2013, 05:15:00 AM
the server connection has been pretty stable after I deleted 4 of my transformers at power plants. There's one more at asaph's coal mine, which should also make a difference.

---

I tried running the game locally, and it does indeed disconnect for some reason. I still need to test more, if it's powerline or pax rerouting related
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 10, 2013, 11:07:32 AM
I was connected for a long while on the server (more than an hour), but then someone joined, I got kicked, and I can't rejoin.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 10, 2013, 12:46:32 PM
Thank you all for all the testing. Asaph - can you try deleting the remaining substation and seeing whether that helps?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 10, 2013, 12:48:24 PM
already had done that beforehand. But since I disconnected before, after a few minutes I connected again, and been connected since.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 10, 2013, 12:59:39 PM
Thank you - please keep me up to date on developments.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 10, 2013, 06:00:40 PM
if you get a frequent disconnects in december 1903, it's because something is eating up a lot of CPU cycles.
I'm running it locally and it's stuttering every 5 seconds.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 10, 2013, 07:33:51 PM
it's been very heavily slow most of the day. I was thinking it was due to pax at nutish. 180K there now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 10, 2013, 10:35:56 PM
according to my testing, the game may crash, sometime in april.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 11, 2013, 12:35:07 AM
Hmm - can't reproduce a crash at the end of April, I'm afraid.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 11, 2013, 03:03:26 AM
on closer inspection, it was removing an end_of_choose with track removal tool bug again.

removing the switch and end_of_choose signal at 919,988 to 918,988 on lindley lines caused an instant crash.

the stuttering/high CPU load still persists, however.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 11, 2013, 04:18:21 AM
Still can't stay connected for more than a few seconds. And it's getting weird since my company is starting to lose money. Not sure why. I don't see any refunds happening.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 11, 2013, 05:11:49 AM
I think you are losing money for the month, because your mainline's usage is fluctuating and quite low this month, from the rerouting pax.

If you look at your monthly finances for operating profit, you will see that it's in a 7 month wave pattern and this month of May must be where it bottoms out.

You should be okay for now, because your interest is covering the loss and your yearly profits are still positive. You should only worry if your profits are no longer covered by your interest.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 11, 2013, 07:31:36 AM
also, to find and fix the sources of the problems in your lines, open the 'details' window of your main stations, and check waiting times there, especially to other main stations. This will give you an idea of the problematic lines. The most main line, the backbone line, should be low waiting times for all stations. If it's not, you can expect problems on other lines too, but they originate at the main line.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 11, 2013, 12:16:38 PM
AEO - I have found and fixed the crash on deleting signs bug - this is actually a bug from Standard.

Chicken - I shall have to look into the desyncing issue (what is the latest status with power stations and electricity distribution, everyone?), but the reduction of income might be related to a steadily climbing speed bonus.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 13, 2013, 07:45:49 PM
the server is down at the moment - something wrong with the save, I imagine.

Perhaps we can revert to a previous save.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 13, 2013, 10:07:04 PM
Investigating now...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 13, 2013, 10:31:48 PM
yeah, that dead-end save is my fault, when I replaced 250 buses with diesel buses.

That client-2 save I posted earlier is the last working one.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on February 14, 2013, 02:23:21 AM
Well now instead of desyncing my client crashes after about a minute.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 14, 2013, 05:46:28 PM
Yes, I am aware of this issue - it has been fixed on the 10.x branch, but will need a deploy of a new version for this to be resolved. Before I do that, I want to have a go at fixing the desyncing issues.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 15, 2013, 06:11:11 PM
The server has been restarted with the new version 10.27, which is not prone to the crash that most recently caused difficulties, and should resolve some other problems as well.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 15, 2013, 06:48:39 PM
Hmmm. Instant desyncs seem to not happen anymore. However, the game is running even slower now, and it was already very slow before, due to the overwhelming amounts of pax at Nutish, trying to get to aeolus' network. Every few seconds, it freezes for a few seconds, and in that state a desync is likely to happen as well.

So, I'm afraid, it's not quite playable now, for me at least.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 15, 2013, 07:00:25 PM
I am glad that the instant desyncs issue is resolved - it seems not to be related to the power network at all. I am not immediately sure why it is slower (although it may be to do with the large number of replace orders currently outstanding on AEO's fleet of 'buses; try again in a few hours when those have completed).  However, I am working on the next major version of Experimental, which should end the problem of the vastly excessive number of passengers that seem to slow things down at present.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 15, 2013, 07:06:46 PM
That's very exciting to hear James!

Nevermind any problems, kudos to your amazing work.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 15, 2013, 07:14:57 PM
Well, it's been in progress for a while, and may take a while yet...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 15, 2013, 10:00:31 PM
I think replacing is done. I can't remember if I did 100 or 250 vehicles, but it seems like I did 100
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 15, 2013, 10:09:14 PM
I plan eventually to change replacing so that a depot visit is no longer required. That should get rid of these problems.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 15, 2013, 10:14:41 PM
I probably need to add an express line from nutish to chilwick for there to be some improvement at nutish.

---

On second look, the pax want to go to...

Eveford - ACM
Islingham - ACM
Monkinghall - wlindley
Brownton - ACM
Birningcaster - ACM
Berryden - ACM
Peachhampton - ACM

etc...

So not really my network that is crowded.

---

Some testing, and I think you can do around 120 vehicle replacements at once without slowing down the server.

P.S. Is electricity working again, or should it still be kept offline?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 16, 2013, 12:15:15 AM
The problem seemed not to be with electricity after all, so you should be able to reconnect everything. If things go wrong after you do, we shall know what caused the problems.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 16, 2013, 12:48:11 AM
yes, there are more pax wanting to go to the yellow isles now than there were before - but still more than those, many tens of thousands want to go to featheringfield, chilwick, yerlhall, arlsmouth, jarhall, trunkwick, kisden etc.

and those heading to the isles, well, they're not gonna swim the way :)

edit: just remembered that those poor pax are actually likely to swim the way.... I'd help with the mass-killing, but I have no access to ACM.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 16, 2013, 05:57:00 AM
The pax don't actually want to go to chilwick etc., but instead those destinations are the result of them bouncing back to nutish and trying to find another route to their destinations.

They would be less inclined to head to nutish, if the east island was well connected to the north islands.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 16, 2013, 07:34:01 AM


I see. Well, still, it'd be best to come up with a solution for that, since it's been going on for a very long time now, and isn't expected to improve.

We should name those islands somehow.... What city is on the eastern island? I will try to improve the connections.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 16, 2013, 09:19:32 PM
nutish is all clear now, and the game is running almost as fast as a local game :)

but I'm getting the desyncs again.

The electricity after all?
It be noted that I was getting some desyncs last night as well, but played very little, and it was very slow then, so I thought the desyncs were on account of that, and anyway, there weren't so many - but now it's pretty instant (can be a minute though).

maybe it's the bus replacing, though there doesn't seem to be the hiatus of restarting.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 16, 2013, 09:48:58 PM
I cleared out nutish, but they are now building up at yerlden, hatingford, templeley and trunkington and a few other places.

Actually, all the pax I am clearing out, I dump at hatingford and templeley.

---

if you replace most of your horse depots with diesel depots, you should be able to replace 300 or more vehicles at once. It seems like the replacer is inconsistent in sending vehicles to depots to get them replaced with another power type.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 16, 2013, 11:45:35 PM
Quote from: ӔO on February 16, 2013, 09:48:58 PM
if you replace most of your horse depots with diesel depots, you should be able to replace 300 or more vehicles at once. It seems like the replacer is inconsistent in sending vehicles to depots to get them replaced with another power type.

I have been working on fixing this to-day, as it happens, although this won't be deployed until the next major release.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 17, 2013, 12:16:15 AM
that's great to hear! :)


I can't wait for the next major upgrade. It seems like I can't keep pace with the ever increasing number of pax.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 17, 2013, 01:50:20 PM
just me not able to play these days?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 17, 2013, 02:18:51 PM
When you say that you're not able to play, can you be more specific?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 17, 2013, 03:15:59 PM
sorry! I mean because of desyncs - can't stay connected for more than a minute or two...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 17, 2013, 03:57:19 PM
Is anyone else having this problem?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 17, 2013, 05:23:26 PM
out of 5 tries, I get maybe 3 or 4 quick desyncs, but can stay connected for quite a while after that.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 17, 2013, 06:06:41 PM
Asaph - is this the same experience that you have?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 17, 2013, 06:17:04 PM
trying now. It's true that I wasn't very persistent :)

aeo, do you reopen your client between attempts?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 17, 2013, 06:28:52 PM
yes, I reopen after 3 attempts
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 17, 2013, 06:35:05 PM
and the first attempt is usually protocol error?
Also sometimes no response.

I've been connected for a few minutes now, on the fourth attempt I think, after prot. error, desync, and no response.


Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 17, 2013, 06:56:11 PM
I get, roughly, 1 in 10 for protocol error. The rest are desyncs.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 18, 2013, 12:25:06 PM
I usually also get an immediate dsync when trying to connect. With a faster computer, I was sometimes able to connect. With my regular machine, I was never able to play in the last days.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 18, 2013, 03:56:41 PM
For me, persistence was helpful - quite stable now, except the usual first of the month desyncs.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 18, 2013, 07:14:10 PM
Felix - sorry that you are having trouble. Are you still unable to connect? May I ask - what is the specification of the computer with which you can and the specification of the computer with which you cannot connect?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 18, 2013, 07:30:46 PM
I still get an immediate desync. The weaker computer is an old Macbook Pro with a Core 2 duo T7600 and 2 GB RAM running Linux (Gentoo, 32 bit). The faster one has a i5 CPU and 8 GB RAM also running Linux (Kubuntu, 64 bit). I compiled simutrans experimental myself based in the sources from git.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 18, 2013, 07:43:18 PM
May I ask - which branch did you use? Have you tried using the official Linux binary?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 18, 2013, 09:12:01 PM
I am using the master branch.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 18, 2013, 09:20:53 PM
Have you tried the official binaries?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 18, 2013, 09:30:30 PM
I just gave it a try with the official 32-bit Linux binary. Sadly, I get the same behavior.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 18, 2013, 10:42:51 PM
Hmm. How many times do you try to reconnect?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 19, 2013, 07:39:11 PM
there's much desynching when two players are connected.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 19, 2013, 08:44:51 PM
yes, it seems like two players cannot stay connected for any significant amount of time.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 19, 2013, 10:05:49 PM
@jamespetts: I usually tried to connect between two and four times.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 19, 2013, 11:29:41 PM
Hmm - sorry everyone for all the difficulties. I shall have to look into this in some detail when I get a chance. It might take a fair while, though.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Felix on February 20, 2013, 10:07:28 AM
Don't worry, and take your time. As the server runs the bleeding edge of experimental, I surely did not expect the game to run without issues at all times. Anyway, thanks for your effort!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 23, 2013, 12:23:16 AM
Just FYI, I tried the server game on an i3-3217U with 4GB of RAM (popular in ultrabooks) and the game is right at the limits of what the CPU can handle.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on February 25, 2013, 10:50:26 AM
Lindley lines was liquidated. I'm not entirely sure why, since it looked like it was going fine for a while, despite the refunds. I wasn't even there when it was liquidated, so I have, practically, no idea what happened.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on February 25, 2013, 03:02:01 PM
Alas, I can hardly play on the server for a while now. I can connect sometimes until the end of the month, but then I desync and try to connect until I give up.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: dustNbone on February 25, 2013, 06:06:51 PM
Yeah I'm in a similar boat.  The game is running my CPU fairly hard during the month, and at month end it just falls too far behind to remain connected.  Also another player joining will generally result in a desync.  My CPU is an AMD Athlon x4 840 running at 3.3Ghz, so not stellar but also not low end.  There aren't many CPUs in the AMD family with better single core performance, so I think the "practical" limits of CPU load have been reached and somewhat exceeded. 
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on February 26, 2013, 11:08:25 PM
I am sorry that you are having difficulties - thank you very much for reporting them. Bernd Gabriel has been doing a lot of work on improving performance on his 112.x-merge branch, but these will take a while to test and integrate fully. This game has been a very useful testing ground for these performance issues, however, so your feedback is extremely valuable.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: chicken on March 01, 2013, 03:22:09 AM
I think it crashed when I tried to replace my trains, earlier.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on March 01, 2013, 08:51:46 AM
Has it reverted or stopped completely?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on March 03, 2013, 11:40:01 AM
I tried replacing a few hundred buses, and it never reverted.

Replacing up to 200 at once should not cause a desync, but over 300 at once does.


btw, when do cities start demanding electricity? I thought they started demanding it in 1910.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on March 03, 2013, 12:29:43 PM
Looking at electricity.tab in my Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4 directory, it looks as though you will have to wait until 1925. I must have amended the date back to 1910 after distributing 0.8.4. Apologies!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on March 15, 2013, 07:11:13 PM
lindley lines has 3 stuck trains at finsland. Luckily, it's still working with one functional platform.


P.S. Capacity problems between Enthorne and Yerlbridge.
P.P.S Deanpool tram and bus line also has capacity problems.


Also Capacity problems around Coatsand and Rainleigh for NLT. I can't pinpoint it exactly, but it seems to overflow once in a while.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on March 15, 2013, 07:59:51 PM
Ah, ...I replaced the stub-end terminal at Finsand with a one-way loop.  Even with curves and a tunnel, the elimination of reversing -- plus the hassle of whatever in the game is fouling the choose block reservation -- makes that station a much happer place.  Will look ar the others.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on March 15, 2013, 10:36:33 PM
ah, now a lot of buses are getting no route because they are too heavy for cobblestone roads...

Cities really ought to upgrade their roads more aggressively, rather than rely on players doing the job.

I'll try fixing up the roads as best I can, but I can't do anything about the buses that were sent to depots.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on March 15, 2013, 10:47:34 PM
Hmm - the current rule is that roads upgrade when the buildings in front of them upgrade. What other strategy would you suggest?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on March 15, 2013, 10:51:41 PM
would it be possible to upgrade/downgrade all roads (that are not bridges or tunnels) within city borders to X road type after X date?


Bridge at Enthorne City Hall Railway Station is too light (9t) for the fully loaded AEC Q2 buses
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on March 15, 2013, 10:57:55 PM
Hmm - this seems a little arbitrary, and will require a lot of manual intervention to set up for each specific road type.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on March 15, 2013, 11:20:55 PM
or just automatically upgrade/downgrade all roads built within city borders to be of the road type for the given age, although that's also a bit unrealistic.

Ideally, inside cities, well used roads with X convoys traveling over them should upgrade themselves.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on March 16, 2013, 12:04:47 AM
How would we decide what X is...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on March 16, 2013, 12:55:43 AM
There should be a theoretical limit of convoys a stretch of road can handle in a month if it has Y speed.

But it may be more practical to look at the scheduling. I would consider anything over 64 convoys/month to be a fairly busy bus line for a 6h:24m month. 32 to 48 co/mo is what I use on medium usage lines.


---
For giggles, I tested out theoretical limits, when both ways are used, and it looks like this:

around 685co/mo for 15km/h road.
around 950co/mo for 25km/h road.
around 1100co/mo for 35km/h road.

Which is far more convoys than possible inside cities that have many intersections.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on March 17, 2013, 05:40:27 AM
NLT has stuck trains at wingbury.

probably because convoy 4663 has reverse route enabled.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on March 18, 2013, 03:17:38 PM
strange, I don't see any stuck trains, and convoy 4663 doesn't have reverse route...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on March 18, 2013, 03:25:27 PM
yeah, I sent 4663 to the depot with some effort. The game was quite unplayable otherwise, with the +300k pax constantly rerouting.

ah, maybe it wasn't 4663, it was 4660.
It should be in the depot at wingbury.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on April 11, 2013, 04:36:05 AM
dustNtrans has a stuck train.


All player profits are going down and some players are losing money, although not badly yet.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on April 27, 2013, 10:01:59 PM
convoy 4773 is broken. It keeps trying to go to the bus depot at durdon, but the road underneath the depot is too light for the convoy.
End result is the schedule has 254 stops and the game stutters every time it tries to send the convoy to the depot by adding another line.

the road underneath the depot needs to be upgraded or convoy 4773 needs to be removed to fix the stuttering.


P.S.

I notice that the server runs smoother after restarting from crashes and keeps that way until 3~4months later
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: wlindley on April 27, 2013, 11:53:38 PM
I have relocated cities and will be unable to play for anohter (physiological) month or two, if someone could please deactivate lindley lines (assuming it's still around).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on April 28, 2013, 12:27:02 AM
lindley lines is still doing quite well. It has been in financial equilibrium for the past 5 or so years.

There are only two points that bleed away money.

- Lack of Mail road vehicles causing extensive backlogs
- electrified branch lines have inadequate capacity


Other than that, it's not in bad shape. Nothing extensively old, but nothing new either.

It's 1954 right now, so there won't be anything good to update road and rail vehicles with for another 5 to 8 years.


If you would like, I can fix the problematic points.

There's nothing that needs to be done (more like nothing to do until 1959) with my own network, so my hands are free.



---

P.S.

If anyone has trouble getting in, it may require at least 3 tries.

login 1 may result in a no connection error, if the server had no activity for some time.
login 2 may work, but the server takes some time to get moving
login 3 should work after 5~10mins after login 1
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on May 26, 2013, 10:46:38 PM
This server is now offline, as I try to upgrade to the latest Release Candidate to see how the latest version copes with a large network game. Unfortunately, I am having some trouble making the command line server version work properly: for some reason, it seems to compile as a version that demands graphics and refuses to run on my Linux server; the server will remain down until these issues have been fixed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on June 29, 2013, 02:13:45 PM
The server has been restarted with the 11.9007 RC for testing purposes - comments on how this RC works in network mode would be most appreciated!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: asaphxiix on June 30, 2013, 09:34:51 PM
crash and revert now, for no obvious reason this time - I was just looking around, last action I think was open a station window - Eveingham Fountain Railway Station. This does not reproduce.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on June 30, 2013, 10:07:16 PM
Hmm - perhaps somebody else created a line?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: japadapa on July 02, 2013, 08:41:45 AM
I get disconnected when creating a line.

EDIT: But I seem to be able to create line if I first set up individual schedule and then promote it to line.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on July 02, 2013, 09:48:31 AM
Hello and welcome to the forum! Thank you for your feedback. The issue with creating a line crashing the server (but not the client) is a known bug and will be fixed in the next version. In the meantime, your workaround is very useful - thank you.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on July 02, 2013, 02:00:02 PM
At Limburg Junction station we have an example of a train stuck due to a new bug with reservation blocks, I think. I've had this in single-player, too.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on July 02, 2013, 10:58:05 PM
I cannot find any town called "Limburg". What are the co-ordinates of this station?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on July 02, 2013, 11:09:38 PM
Apologies - it is Lumbury. Pos. 1935/721.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on July 02, 2013, 11:48:11 PM
Is this not perhaps an instance of this (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=12088.0) bug from Standard (and as yet unfixed there)?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on July 02, 2013, 11:52:01 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on July 02, 2013, 11:48:11 PM
Is this not perhaps an instance of this (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=12088.0) bug from Standard (and as yet unfixed there)?

It might be, though I have had it happen without long-block signals, but maybe that can happen with that bug?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on July 03, 2013, 12:29:24 AM
I don't know - can you reproduce the occurrence of the problem that you describe without a long-block?

Edit: It seems on further testing that the problem is more that the long-block signal does not recognise the implicit signal of a station as a further signal: adding a further actual signal releases it.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: japadapa on July 03, 2013, 11:34:22 AM
I'm Player 6 and have two trucks in depot at 1041,1025 that can't find route from oil well 1041,1020 to oil refinery 1076,1043. I can't figure out what's wrong. The trucks find their way to the first stop, but after that they say no route and head back to depot :/

Another truck 1599,1491 works fine :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: Junna on July 03, 2013, 02:31:25 PM
Quote from: japadapa on July 03, 2013, 11:34:22 AM
I'm Player 6 and have two trucks in depot at 1041,1025 that can't find route from oil well 1041,1020 to oil refinery 1076,1043. I can't figure out what's wrong. The trucks find their way to the first stop, but after that they say no route and head back to depot :/

Another truck 1599,1491 works fine :)

Are there bridges between the first stop and the destination? If so, it might be that another player owns them and has not given you permission to use their ways. If so, you'd need to build an alternative route.

Also, the roads might not support the weight.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on July 07, 2013, 03:17:31 PM
The long-block problem was indeed caused by the bug identified in Standard: I have now applied the fix from Standard to this issue, which also works in Experimental.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on July 09, 2013, 11:20:43 PM
The server is currently (possibly intermittently) down for testing/upgrading.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: jamespetts on July 11, 2013, 01:25:00 AM
The server has been restarted (with the same map for the time being) with Simutrans-Experimental 11.0 and Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0. See the relevant forums to download the updates.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.4
Post by: ӔO on July 11, 2013, 07:01:39 PM
fantastic work stamping out all the bugs and performance hogs!

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 11, 2013, 10:05:24 PM
Glad that it is working for you!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on July 19, 2013, 10:27:52 PM
seems like the server game will hang upon loading and will cause an immediate desync.

only problem I've noticed is one of my airplanes at pointingfield is in limbo upon loading.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 20, 2013, 12:31:26 AM
The crash on loading is now fixed, and the server upgraded to 11.1. Thank you for the report!

Edit: AEO - why so many aircraft...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on July 20, 2013, 01:41:49 AM
Well, the busiest link is between PTF - MAN - CTH and the 707's are having trouble keeping up with demand, so I had to increase the number of flights between those points.

The other places only run 4 to 6 airplanes, but I haven't optimized their numbers just yet, since the PTF - MAN - CTH link does overflow and pax have to reroute along the other airports.

It doesn't look like 727-200 can keep up with demand either, so I'm waiting for 747's.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on July 20, 2013, 04:15:19 PM
i can't stay connected for more than a few minutes these days... even when not doing anything and no-one else online. just lose sync, no crash.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 20, 2013, 07:27:32 PM
Hmm - at the moment, I have been able to stay connected for a while. Is there any evidence of a server crash (server unavailable for a while immediately after disconnexion, reverts to last saved state on reconnexion) when this occurs?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on July 20, 2013, 07:31:36 PM
no - only a desync and I can rejoin. This happens frequently.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 20, 2013, 08:11:19 PM
Hmm. I am testing at present, and have just had the first desync for perhaps about an hour when upgrading some public roads.

Edit: Upgrading roads seems to cause somewhat frequent desyncs. Not entirely sure why at present.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on July 21, 2013, 03:23:34 AM
for me, i can usuall stay connected for 5 mins, then desync, but occasionally i can get an hour.

i have also noticed that sometimes the server will crash and revert to the last save when the month changes, which is not a big issue, since i only average around 20 to 30 mins of work.

---

I'm not sure what was going on at daisyworth. The schedule was definitely set to load 100% at the colliery, not the power plant.

opening and closing the schedule window fixed it.

---

To add to the server crashing and reverting, I notice that industries are closed down, so maybe it has something to do with that?

For me, the server crashed and reverted when the arable farm at 1,493 closed.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17111233/client1-network.sve
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 21, 2013, 01:45:07 PM
Hmm - I can't reproduce the crash locally. Do your desyncs occur after doing things, or after merely observing? I find that after spending some time upgrading public roads, I tend to be desynchronised, but not (at least, not for a long time) if I merely observe.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on July 21, 2013, 04:01:20 PM
yeah, it does not crash the client, but for some reason the server crashes.

desyncs are mainly after doing something, although occasionally happen while no commands are sent, i.e. in the midst of editing a line
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on July 21, 2013, 05:37:23 PM
to me it happens a lot when start to i log in, and doing something in other windows for a few minutes, when I open the game window again i'm desynched.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 21, 2013, 11:54:38 PM
Currently down pending the investigation of a bug causing it to crash.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 22, 2013, 08:38:36 PM
Now back online running Simutrans-Experimental 11.2 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=12232.0), hopefully with a few bugs fixed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on July 23, 2013, 10:22:52 AM
For some reason, my password no longer works.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 28, 2013, 09:15:48 PM
The server has been restarted with the latest version 11.3, which should fix the crash that was occurring just after joining. AEO - you should also now be able to buy Boeing 747s.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on July 28, 2013, 09:55:18 PM
Alas, the connection doesn't keep in sync.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 28, 2013, 10:01:43 PM
Hmm - are you sure that you have 11.3? I have been able to keep in sync - I am in now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on July 28, 2013, 11:34:54 PM
it's working fine for me.

I think I managed to crash the server by building an underground transformer and connecting it to the powerline network at nutish.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 28, 2013, 11:55:06 PM
It does seem to have restarted at some point about thirteen minutes ago. Can you see whether you can reproduce this on a local save, and, if you can, post a bug report with full instructions to reproduce?

As to the desyncs that people are having, these are invariably activity related. I shall have to look into tuning the various networking settings to see whether this helps. Anyone with any suggestions about what to tune is encouraged to share them.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on July 29, 2013, 01:09:11 AM
I cannot reproduce it on a local save, but it most definitely has something to do with connecting and disconnecting active powerlines and transformers.

---

okay, I suggest not editing active powerlines at all at this point in time.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on July 29, 2013, 05:04:09 AM
to me it happens right away after the initial freeze, even if I do nothing, just (but strangely, not if the window is inactive). Also, now it's not on the list, so apparently down.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: wlindley on July 29, 2013, 09:52:47 AM
I was able to connect briefly but got quickly desynch'd. It is wonderful seeing how the cities and networks have grown over more than a hundred years game time.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 29, 2013, 07:48:33 PM
Asaph and W. Lindley - do you consistently get desyncs as soon as you connect?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on July 29, 2013, 07:52:34 PM
yes, that was the situation quite consistently last night. At first I had a few minutes of play, but after the first desync it was always about one minute after the freeze of joining.

but today I can't connect at all - the server doesn't show in the list either.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 29, 2013, 08:52:26 PM
I have now restarted the server, so it should be working now. I have not yet investigated the reported bugs - looking into those now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 29, 2013, 10:00:58 PM
After a brief interruption for testing the power lines issue, the server is running again.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on July 30, 2013, 04:07:18 AM
the connection seems much more stable now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 30, 2013, 08:45:29 PM
Excellent; not sure why, though.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on July 31, 2013, 05:14:00 PM
I forgot to close the client before going to work, when I came back it was still connected! however shortly after that desynched, but still a good connection.

just now, lowering tiles to ocean level (with 'd' button) caused a server restart. I was trying to use the new 'flattening' feature, keeping the mouse clicked, when it restarted.

edit: the server is down currently.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on July 31, 2013, 06:30:47 PM
Job posting / Contractor wanted

Is there anyone willing to setup local bus/tram/metro transport authority for Nightingborough-Swaningfield-Doringfield-Nutingham-Saltington-Hendingfield Islands?
I'll pay for most of the infrastructure, so one only has to setup the lines and pay for buses with their own company.
I'm still in the process of adding the bus stops, but hopefully I'll be done by tonight.

Requirements
Must be willing to maintain lines semi regularly to fix jams or severe overcrowding.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on July 31, 2013, 08:59:09 PM
It seems like the server has crashed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 31, 2013, 09:06:19 PM
Hmm - the current saved game seems to lead to a reliable crash. I shall have to test this and update to the new version to fix.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on July 31, 2013, 10:27:14 PM
Hmm - the saved game was corrupt for reasons that are not easy to ascertain. I have reset to the latest backup save and the server is now running again.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 02, 2013, 10:13:28 AM
aeo, do you think those lines you planned for this area are economically viable? from what I see, short routes (especially those not in a straight line) don't make profit. It's quite hard to turn a profit on passengers in this game now, isn't it? I hope it gets better with a larger coverage.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 02, 2013, 05:39:17 PM
might as well cover everything if the money is available.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 02, 2013, 08:02:56 PM
could we please upgrade the pakset?

fixing the APT and aircraft depot bugs would help greatly at this point in time. (1981)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 02, 2013, 08:12:05 PM
The APT bug is fixed in the code rather than the pakset...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 02, 2013, 08:15:16 PM
oh, okay...

both need a small update at the very least.

I know that is easier said then done...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 03, 2013, 04:43:37 PM
is it a known issue that ships have difficulties finding path over a long way? especially when part of the way used to be land (i.e. canals of reduced land)

for example, ships can go from Aylham Rickman Dock to Yenddon Vestige, and from Yenddon Vestige to Colport Junction Dock, but not from Aylham to Colport (sometimes, they can go in one direction but not the other, I think)

(posted this in the dev forum)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 03, 2013, 09:28:19 PM
Give them a waypoint or dock somewhere in the middle and they should be able to path find.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 03, 2013, 09:47:41 PM
i tried that, but they seem to always just skip the waypoint and head straight to the next station. and if I let them dock at a station, it takes a lot of time to load (I do that anyway).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 04, 2013, 12:00:58 AM
There is a maximum routing depth that probably affects them that could in theory be adjusted easily, but needs some data for calibration. Can you work out the maximum distance over which a ship can currently route so that I can look into working out by how much that I need to adjust the routing depth?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 04, 2013, 09:32:20 PM
the server is down at the moment.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 04, 2013, 09:37:29 PM
It's not down - I'm in at present. Have you remembered to upgrade to 11.4?

Edit: I might have forgotten to announce the version increase in this thread - apologies.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 04, 2013, 11:48:54 PM
working great for me.

excellent work!

I'd pat you on the back if I could.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 05, 2013, 01:14:11 AM
Splendid! Glad that it works.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 09, 2013, 06:00:25 AM
major jam at HRS airport
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 12, 2013, 09:54:00 PM
I wonder if there's anything that can be done about the long pauses (4-5 minutes) that follow joining.

That would make the game quite a lot more playable than right now, even frequent desyncs (5 minutes apart) would hardly be an issue.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 12, 2013, 10:07:42 PM
For me, the game starts 20 to 30 seconds after joining.

Although, I think, when you (asaphxiix) join, the game pauses for a good 4 to 5 minutes on my side too.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 12, 2013, 10:27:14 PM
that's odd. indeed, on my side as well the pause is very long, but also when other players join, including yourself I'm sure, sometimes it's a bit shorter, say 3 minutes, but never less than two minutes by all means. could the game be starting for you faster than it does for me when we're both on? or will the delay be so short when you're alone on the server? In such a case, I would be causing very long delays :\
I wonder what other people experience.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 12, 2013, 10:58:05 PM
Hmm - Asaph: when you join, can you interact with the map for 5 minutes in pause mode, or does it take 4-5 minutes just to load/transfer the game? How long has it taken this long to load/resume?

The thing that normally takes the time is the loading of the map by the server: because I am only renting one CPU core, the server is single-threaded, whereas the clients use multi-threading (11.0 and onwards) to speed up loading/saving. Until the server has finished loading the game, it will be paused for all the clients.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 12, 2013, 11:03:19 PM
yeah, i can interact and send commands, and if I am not desynched immediately upon resuming (which happens sometimes), the commands I sent are then performed. It's always been that way since I remember playing bridgewater... but I think, not at the very beginning. Anyway, it's been like that for a very long time now, and not quite variably.

I wonder how indeed this pause could be shorter for aeo.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 12, 2013, 11:07:15 PM
Hmm - I just joined and timed it (without using a second hand, so approximately): I joined at 0005 local time, and it started running at 0006.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 12, 2013, 11:16:18 PM
that's strange, I was trying to join at that time i think, and it said the server was down....

just joined again now. loading and transferring took 70 seconds... then the pause took about 90 seconds. I'm sure it usually takes more than that! I play 2 games of chess during the wait and still it won't have resumed.

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 12, 2013, 11:17:48 PM
when will joined, it was very fast for me.


---


When james joined, my client seems to have timed out. It will probably desync the moment I issue a command.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 12, 2013, 11:25:55 PM
Hmm - the numbers given by Asaph are consistent with what I usually see. (Incidentally, if you try to connect when somebody else is connecting, it will say that the server is down).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 12, 2013, 11:56:21 PM
Just for posterity, after a long delay, my client was behind by a good 1:00:00 from james' client.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 13, 2013, 01:07:07 AM
did the server crash?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 13, 2013, 02:17:22 AM
Not according to my terminal client. Can you not get into it?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 13, 2013, 02:34:58 AM
It does not even show up as online, according to my client.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 13, 2013, 06:21:53 AM
for me as well, it is offline.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 13, 2013, 10:07:17 AM
Hmm - must have got stuck in an infinite loop somehow. The process was still running on the server. I have restarted it now. If only I could reproduce that in a debug client...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 13, 2013, 05:35:45 PM
currently, the server is listed and doesn't disappear, but doesn't respond.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 13, 2013, 06:22:20 PM
Hmm - I can see that. I am trying to reproduce what is causing this. Downloading the saved game gets me about July 1993. Running it forward in debug mode is not producing any problems so far. Did you (or anyone else) do anything in particular when this occurred?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 13, 2013, 06:26:16 PM
nope, I don't think I was online then.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 13, 2013, 06:27:42 PM
I deleted the powerline between 1900,955 and 1900,978 when it did that.


oddly enough, it was fine when I did it with a local copy.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 13, 2013, 06:33:41 PM
Did you desync when you deleted that?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 13, 2013, 06:53:01 PM
I deleted that section, then I noticed it didn't accept the command. I tried it again, then it desync'd.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 13, 2013, 08:01:06 PM
Hmm - odd. Must have caused an infinite loop somehow, but I can't reproduce it. I am restarting the server now, so it should be available again in a few minutes. Sorry about the trouble.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 13, 2013, 10:19:44 PM
Hmm - server seems to have crashed and restarted. Unable to work out why, as, for some unaccountable reason, my logfiles have stopped working ever since the upgrade to 11.0. AEO - what were you doing just before it went down?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 13, 2013, 10:28:47 PM
I was doing some powerline editing, placing transformers underground at durdon and lumbury.

I used the trench tool to slope the powerline tunnels.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 13, 2013, 10:38:11 PM
Hmm. The issue of power lines remains problematic, it seems. These bugs are very difficult to reproduce, and therefore fix, however.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 14, 2013, 09:20:46 PM
Server now restarted with 11.5 - you will need to update to this latest version in order to play.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 14, 2013, 09:28:50 PM
I have a suspicion that the powerline issues may be caused by cities being powered from anywhere within their borders, rather than at one specific location. This can cause unconnected industries and powerplants to be connected from a transformer that both delivers and receives if it is inside the city.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 14, 2013, 09:45:56 PM
Hmm - I am not sure that I quite follow. Substations are of one of two classes: upstream or downstream. They are represented by different graphics: the brick building is the downstream substation that distributes electricity to industries and cities, and the substation with lots of visible transformers is the upstream substation. One substation cannot simultaneously deliver and receive power, if this is what you meant...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 14, 2013, 10:59:13 PM
yes. If a powerstation sprouts up near a city that is already powered, then it can be detected as connected, despite not having a transformer built next to or under it.

one has to delete the city transformer first, if transformers to powerplants or industries are to be built.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 14, 2013, 11:07:07 PM
You mean that the power station is recorded as being connected to some power grid despite not being connected to a substation? How is this shown/demonstrated?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 14, 2013, 11:35:15 PM
If you attempt to build a substation to a powerplant or industry, the game will tell you that it is already connected.
I don't recall if they were shown as connected in underground mode, where you will get different colours for connected and unconnected industries

---

Here is a small map showing the problem at peterborough. You cannot build a substation at the coal power plant, because it is detected as being connected already.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17111233/powerline.sve
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 15, 2013, 01:39:00 AM
I think I may have crashed the server again when editing the powerlines near pride power station
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 15, 2013, 09:29:45 AM
Hmm - another infinite loop. Server restarted now. If only I could reproduce this error...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 17, 2013, 10:40:44 AM
i was building/destroying tram tracks and bus stops, when the server crashed and it does not resume.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 17, 2013, 11:30:45 AM
Must have been another infinite loop - I should love to be able to track down what is causing this: I still do not understand why this happens on the server but not the client. I have restarted the server, and it seems to be working correctly, but the announce server does not seem to be working now: you will have to join by opening the load game dialogue and typing "net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk" for now.

I shall report the announce server issue presently.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 17, 2013, 11:34:07 AM
I feel you James. If only I could help with this matter somehow.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 17, 2013, 09:20:34 PM
It seems that the server is generally slow to respond for me at this point in time.

I'm getting those 5-10min waits and disconnects asaph was getting.

Also I notice there being a pax surge concentrated around MAN airport (and connected airports) and finsand docks where lindley lines is based.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 17, 2013, 10:54:08 PM
i've been having those lags as well this weekend, although the sync has somewhat improved, although still frequent sometimes (and sometimes not, especially when idling).

The surge might be because of the new Kirkmouth-Coatsand line which has been a point of interest since its reopening.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 17, 2013, 10:58:57 PM
actually, I think I see something wrong...

the catamarans at finsand dock are stuck in an infinite loop. they wait for 19:3x and the x just keeps counting down with the other numbers remaining the same.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 17, 2013, 11:44:24 PM
I have fixed the infinite loop bug now on my 11.x branch - thank you for the report.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 19, 2013, 12:15:09 AM
Server restarted with 11.6. Sadly, the listing server issues remain, so, for the present, I am afraid that it is necessary to log in by typing "net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk" in the load game dialogue.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 19, 2013, 01:41:05 AM
AEO - you have a massive jam at Reddmere Airport.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 19, 2013, 05:16:49 AM
fixed the jam.

asaph has some massive jams on his network too.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 19, 2013, 06:43:22 AM
I think there are some problems with the new version! :\

i only had a quick glance before desync as I must to work, but I saw trains going past one way signals from the wrong direction, and trams getting stuck from intersecting with road vehicles...

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 19, 2013, 05:52:20 PM
seems like there is a bug that will cause both client and server to crash.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 19, 2013, 07:08:15 PM
Thank you for the report - found and fixed in the 11.x branch. We shall have to wait for the next version to resume the server, however, as a result of this bug.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 20, 2013, 01:30:06 AM
Server restarted with 11.7 - the crash that was causing the problems earlier should now be fixed.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 20, 2013, 01:53:03 AM
still need to type in " net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk ", but it looks to be working correctly.

excellent work james!

---
actually, I notice trains getting stuck on platforms, but I'm not sure if this is due to their old schedule not being updated yet or if it is a bug that persists.

opening and closing their schedules will unstuck them, so hopefully with enough of this action, the trains will have updated schedules that won't get them stuck.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 20, 2013, 06:20:18 AM
still on [1822,918] the train is stuck, and I can't release it...

edit: I released it with the 'b' key.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 20, 2013, 09:32:20 PM
a train in swaningborne is stuck, 'loading 0:00'. This seems to be a repeating occurrence, also trains reserving a tile ahead, requiring release with 'b' are quite frequent now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 20, 2013, 09:33:36 PM
I fixed the bug that causes this this morning: the fix is on my 11.x branch.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on August 20, 2013, 09:48:25 PM
awesome! much obliged as always, I am.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 22, 2013, 08:27:34 AM
scheduled ships are acting weirdly.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 22, 2013, 08:31:25 AM
Can you elaborate?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 22, 2013, 08:47:52 AM
basically they are bunching up as if they are using maximum wait instead of spacing.

or, I think they are not properly detecting that there is already another ship there for that time slot.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 22, 2013, 11:49:02 PM
Server restarted with version 11.8 - I suspect that my fixes to the issue causing trains to get stuck will also fix the ships issue - please post a bug report if not. Thank you for all your feedback (and interested to see Lindley Lines trains using Chicken Flyer's tracks!).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 23, 2013, 10:33:56 PM
maglev looks like it is offering some good competition to airplanes.

Carving out an extremely straight path is surprisingly hard in some places and super easy in others.
The good thing is it can climb steep hills with ease, the bad part is there are a lot of structures that get in the way
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 28, 2013, 08:13:30 AM
the server seems to get stuck at the current save point in mar 2010 2:12:00.
The save game works just fine offline.

---

seems like it was a bunch of desynchs.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 28, 2013, 09:49:01 PM
Have restarted the server with version 11.9 - the announce server issue is now fixed thanks to TurfIt's helpful suggestion, so it should be easier to join games once again.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 29, 2013, 12:05:42 PM
I think you will see some sort of vector_tpl error in september at 2:36:14.

It's probably the airplanes that serve nowhere and oblivion, as I don't get it when I withdraw all of them.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 29, 2013, 10:30:58 PM
Did this error actually occur...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 30, 2013, 02:40:46 AM
Here is the last functional save I had

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17111233/tpl_vector_error.sve

it should crash sometime in september, but if all the airplanes serving nowhere and oblivion are removed, it should not.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 30, 2013, 11:31:14 PM
Looking into this now.

May I ask, however - what exactly are you doing with those charter aircraft...?!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 31, 2013, 01:33:38 AM
bad investments to reflect loss of money >_>
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 31, 2013, 01:44:41 AM
I see that we need more economic challenge...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Junna on August 31, 2013, 02:36:06 AM
Quote from: jamespetts on August 31, 2013, 01:44:41 AM
I see that we need more economic challenge...

Question of taste, that...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on August 31, 2013, 02:44:16 AM
well, I'm attempting to throw out something like 75% of my bank account, because having $100,000,000,000 gives $222,000,000 interest per month, which is a lot of money that I can't use.

and I am using Javelins and super voyagers, which are costly to run already, and still, they can't even dent that interest rate.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on August 31, 2013, 12:01:31 PM
I think that I have fixed this on the 11.x branch. (Edit: Or will have done when Github comes back online again).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 01, 2013, 04:37:41 PM
Now restarted with Simutrans-Experimental 11.10 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=12479) - the crash a short while after starting should now be gone.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on September 02, 2013, 04:50:25 PM
FATAL ERROR: ()sim_new_handler - OUT OF MEMORY (server is down)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 02, 2013, 05:13:18 PM
I issued a few replace commands for the buses, so maybe that did it?

My local copy is running just fine, however.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 02, 2013, 05:24:56 PM
Seems to be running now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 02, 2013, 06:00:39 PM
500 airplanes apparently costs 100MB RAM.

If I withdraw them all on a local copy, the game goes down from 1050MB to 940MB.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Parachute on September 06, 2013, 10:05:13 AM
Keep getting disconnected after 1 minute
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 06, 2013, 10:11:57 AM
Hello, sorry that you are having trouble. What version of Simutrans-Experimental and the pakset are you using?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Parachute on September 06, 2013, 11:26:16 AM
Simutrans 112.3 Experimental 11.10, Pakset 0.9.0
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 06, 2013, 01:25:07 PM
Hmm - that is curious.  Is anyone else experiencing this issue? I
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 06, 2013, 01:31:35 PM
I tried it just now, and I am getting desynced after 1~2 secs.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 06, 2013, 05:54:17 PM
Hmm - when were you last able to connect successfully?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 06, 2013, 06:20:55 PM
I'm in currently, seems to be fine.  (except for the part where it's impossible to turn a profit starting at this late stage of the game, but that's a different issue ;) )

On a side note, I love the wayward jets and Abyss train line circumnavigating the map.  Hilarious!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 06, 2013, 06:46:05 PM
Update: dy-synched after about 10 minutes, now de-synching almost immediately after connecting.  Given that it takes over 5 minutes to transfer all the files to connect, this is a painful process.  In past connections, I usually de-synch after 5-10 minutes.  I had originally figured this just had to do with my distance to the server (and maybe it still does, though ping time at 160ms isn't too bad).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 06, 2013, 06:59:12 PM
Hmm - odd. I don't have time to investigate this evening, I'm afraid, but will look into this when I have time. Any updates as to any changes, or whether anything in particular seems to be causing this, would be appreciated.

I wonder whether it might have to do with AEO's excess aircraft...?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 06, 2013, 07:00:19 PM
Update: Tried to connect 4 times, de-synched at the exact same point every time.  It loads the files, calculates paths and then brings up the map.  Then there is a 60 second or so wait while, presumably, the game is doing some calculations.  Then the vehicles start to move in a jerky motion for a few cycles before it smooths out and the map works fine.  It is during this stage that the game de-synchs.  The vehicles move once with a jump and then the server drops.

It might be sheer number of convoys/data to transfer, not sure.  I'll try again in a bit and see if the same problem occurs.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 06, 2013, 07:24:25 PM
I think it might be the extra convoys too.
It worked better before I started those trains and airplanes.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 06, 2013, 09:03:15 PM
I'm in now... I see you've removed the planes and circular train route.

I imagine there is an interplay between how much data is required for synchronization how much data can actually be transferred (bandwidth) over a certain period of time.  Perhaps we've just reached that tipping point where the data transfer speed can't quite keep up to what is required.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 06, 2013, 10:41:45 PM
yeah, from a local copy, I've worked out I need at least 350 airplanes in order to beat my monthly interest rate, so I gave up that idea.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 06, 2013, 11:24:55 PM
Are things more stable for people now?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 07, 2013, 12:15:29 AM
only slightly more so.
Now I can stay connected for about 1 to 10 mins before desynching.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 07, 2013, 03:11:39 AM
Was able to play for about an hour earlier today and stayed connected the whole time.  Will try again later.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 07, 2013, 05:25:11 AM
maybe the server game needs to be restarted after a certain amount of connections or hours?

I notice the game continually using up more memory until it crashes (at around 1.5GB) due to the game running out of memory.

restarting the game frees up quite a lot of memory. For me, the server game starts at around 1GB, then eventually creeps up to 1.5GB, even though the game does attempt to free up memory every now and then.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 07, 2013, 08:37:47 AM
Hmm - the server is currently using about 1.3Gb of RAM, the server having a total of 3Gb available. I cannot immediately see how restarting or even reducing memory consumption would help. However, I am restarting now to test whether this makes any difference - I should be very interested in whether this assists.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 09, 2013, 06:10:35 PM
the restarted game was consuming under 1GB, so there is definitely not enough memory freeing up going on.

It didn't really change connectivity, however.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 09, 2013, 09:54:55 PM
Are people still unable to connect for more than a very short time?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on September 12, 2013, 08:49:57 PM
it is quite more stable now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 12, 2013, 09:29:42 PM
Interesting - thank you for the feedback.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 28, 2013, 06:46:12 PM
Updated to the latest version of Simutrans-Experimental (11.11).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 28, 2013, 07:18:11 PM
Any plans to start a new game?  I've tried to start something up but it's too late in the game for any possibility of profit with small starting capital.  Patiently awaiting a restart :)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: prissi on September 28, 2013, 07:38:38 PM
It may be wise to start a new thread each time you start a new servergame. Not least for clarity.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 28, 2013, 07:49:39 PM
I think this has been the same game running for many months.  Year is 2026 now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 28, 2013, 09:04:03 PM
Sarlock - I was wondering about starting a new one. I was hoping to be able to do so with a new pakset release or with the new passenger generation code, however, as each server game takes a very long time to get to the end of time, as it were. I should be interested in others' views on the point.

Prissi - Sarlock is correct: this whole thread is about the one game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 28, 2013, 09:43:21 PM
Could you run a second server game?  Are you running this on a local machine?

Having a long running game certainly has the advantage of taxing the overall system's capabilities (as we discovered with the 50000 airplanes zooming around the map  ;) ).  It is also a great way to test the organic city growth in a complex game.

With a lot of new features coming soon, I certainly can see your desire to wait.  Perhaps a shorter month-long game in the interim?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 28, 2013, 11:01:55 PM
I run the game on a rented virtual server. I only rent a single core, so adding another game would mean both games running on the same core, which would impair performance. It may be necessary for the next game to be a shorter one if we start in 1750 and find that the game does not work very well in that era and some pakset adjustment is necessary, for instance.

I should be interested in a variety of people's views on the subject, however.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 29, 2013, 06:14:38 AM
I wouldn't mind having a new game, however it would be nice if the pakset bugs discovered so far are fixed with the new game.

I think the main ones were:
- lack of truck power
- cities consume too much power
- airport depot
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 29, 2013, 11:23:14 AM
Is the cities consuming power thing pakset specific...?

Edit: See here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=12648.new#new) for some more detailed discussion on the topic.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: wlindley on September 29, 2013, 01:52:09 PM
Despite what sounds like major upcoming game-engine changes, I support restarting at 1750 sometime soon. It would be splendid to see how the progress over the past almost year of Real Time will work a new world.  After a few months away, seeing the current world after two hundred fifty years is quite a lesson in real-world development -- we are all still "stuck" dealing with some of the decisions and compromises made centuries ago!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 29, 2013, 01:56:58 PM
Thank you for your input.

What do people think about the (likely) eventuality that we will get through a good few decades of a new game, then the new major release will be upon us before the game gets any further? Would people want to go on then with a game calibrated with the 11.x series, or start afresh with 12.x even though the then current game will have many more years left to run?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 29, 2013, 04:52:22 PM
I wouldn't have a problem with a reset after next major release... I see it as a test bed for new features.

Either turn down the bits_per_month to make a faster game or start in a later year (1920+/-) with more starting money so that we have more transportation options available.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Junna on September 29, 2013, 05:50:30 PM
Quote from: Sarlock on September 29, 2013, 04:52:22 PM
I wouldn't have a problem with a reset after next major release... I see it as a test bed for new features.

Either turn down the bits_per_month to make a faster game or start in a later year (1920+/-) with more starting money so that we have more transportation options available.

Yes, more starting money for everyone except AEO! He doesn't need it!
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 29, 2013, 05:55:44 PM
Quote from: Junna on September 29, 2013, 05:50:30 PM
Yes, more starting money for everyone except AEO! He doesn't need it!

AEO should start bankrupt and see if he can build an empire from that ;-)
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 29, 2013, 06:26:47 PM
This does bring up the small flaw with the interest model: a large company reaches a point where interest becomes so significant an income source that it allows the player to completely disregard any need for profitable operations.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 29, 2013, 06:35:49 PM
That is why we need to simulate inflation...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 29, 2013, 08:29:56 PM
Quote from: Junna on September 29, 2013, 05:50:30 PM
Yes, more starting money for everyone except AEO! He doesn't need it!

hey, I tried to dump some 90% of my bank account, but my attempts crashed the game :D
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 29, 2013, 08:37:50 PM
I wonder whether, if we make this realistic enough and then set AEO on it, he'll work out how to solve lots of apparently intractable real life transport problems...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on September 29, 2013, 10:14:43 PM
I do think the old game has reached a point worth concluding at, not least because the station coverage is no longer quite relevant.

As for the next game and the major release after that, I would gladly volunteer to set up another vserver when that time comes (or even before that), perhaps even one that can host more than one game for a variety of tastes etc., so the next game won't have to be stopped.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on September 29, 2013, 10:16:06 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on September 29, 2013, 08:37:50 PM
I wonder whether, if we make this realistic enough and then set AEO on it, he'll work out how to solve lots of apparently intractable real life transport problems...
And I was wondering whether AEO's profession is a transportation engineer, or an engineer of another sort.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on September 29, 2013, 10:41:02 PM
Asaph - thank you for your input. Any more Simutrans-Experimental server hosting would indeed be welcomed. I should rather like to get the next pakset release out before restarting the server: I am currently working on finishing off the project that has been on the go for an awfully long time: finishing off the Midland Railway carriages. I then need to integrate Junna's recent creations before releasing the next version.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on September 29, 2013, 10:55:46 PM
lol, no I'm just a gamer.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on September 30, 2013, 06:23:26 AM
Quote
That is why we need to simulate inflation...

Inflation and interest rates are related to one another.  Having an interest rate only seems to serve the most profitable players that have accumulated enough cash reserves.  Inflation is already a factor in the game with vehicle prices increasing over time - though there is a corresponding potential for higher cash flow/profits as well.  If anything, an inflation rate should be in place instead of an interest rate, serving to erode the purchasing power of accumulated excess cash reserves.  The player should always have incentive to create and maintain a profitable transportation network.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on October 05, 2013, 02:12:51 PM
I have now upgraded the server to the latest version of Simutrans-Experimental, 11.12. Users will need this latest version to join the game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on October 05, 2013, 03:40:42 PM
seems like there is a problem with trains not using choose signals anymore.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on October 05, 2013, 05:20:36 PM
Is this specific to the server, or is this a general issue with 11.12?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on October 05, 2013, 05:27:34 PM
seems to only be on the server, as I cannot recreate the problem in a new local game.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on October 05, 2013, 05:30:19 PM
That's extremely odd... what happens when you are running on the server and disconnect (by saving locally, which will engender a desync); does the problem then persist?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on October 05, 2013, 06:09:02 PM
hmm, maybe the game simply needs to update the paths from their old one they had in 11.11?

With a local copy, after I manually reset their paths, they seem to properly use choose signals.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on October 05, 2013, 06:19:41 PM
Yes, it's possible that the bug in 11.11 that was fixed in 11.12 would leave trains with bad paths that will eventually sort themselves out. Thank you for reporting this, though.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Carl on October 06, 2013, 09:49:40 AM
From some brief testing, it seems that trains will not use choose signals until they have completed a full "round trip" of their schedule. I couldn't override this by manually resetting their paths (assuming that by this you just mean opening and closing their schedule windows).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on October 06, 2013, 11:18:39 AM
Is this a full round trip from loading from 11.11, or a full round trip from newly creating a schedule (either in a loaded game from 11.11 or a new game or both)?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on October 06, 2013, 02:38:37 PM
ah, yes, since freight is point to point, they cycle through their schedules quite quickly.

and I only use choose signals at terminals, so I generally don't have problems with trains getting stuck somewhere in the middle trying to use a choose signal.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: sdog on October 11, 2013, 07:52:04 PM
Quote from: asaphxiix on September 29, 2013, 10:16:06 PM
And I was wondering whether AEO's profession is a transportation engineer, or an engineer of another sort.
Quote from: asaphxiix on September 29, 2013, 10:16:06 PM
And I was wondering whether AEO's profession is a transportation engineer, or an engineer of another sort.
Living also in Toronto, I think I can definitely rule this out. The public transport here is in such a pitiful condition that AEO's involvemen in it is most unlikely. He'd either fixed it already or the local politics here would have driven him utterly and irrecoverably insane, deadly depressed, and misanthropic.

Being a planner here one would either have to be incompetent, ignorant or not care for one's work being destroyed every five years. To be stayed from scratch, doing exactly the opposite.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: AP on October 27, 2013, 08:09:17 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on November 20, 2012, 02:30:23 AM

Screenshot of the map (when it was new):

(http://www.bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/screenshots/bridgewater-brunel-game2-start-map.png)


Slight aside, but what map settings were used to generate this map. I quite like it...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on October 27, 2013, 08:19:28 PM
Gosh, you know, I can't remember now. I think that the map number was one of the ones that SDog posted a while ago, but I can't remember which now.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on October 27, 2013, 08:35:14 PM
I think it was map 645
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: dustNbone on November 14, 2013, 10:38:31 PM
Just tried to login to server game, it transfers map and loads but before it unpauses it desyncs.  Nothing on my end seems to be hanging up, CPU never gets maxed and once the server desyncs it's smooth as glass playing by myself.  Has anyone else recently had success connecting?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on November 14, 2013, 11:06:08 PM
Have just tried logging in now, and I cannot reproduce the issue. The pause is normal as the server loads the game (it is not multi-threaded as I only rent one CPU, so loading takes longer), but I do not get the desync. What you describe is consistent with you using an older version of Experimental. Are you using 11.12 with Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: dustNbone on November 14, 2013, 11:15:27 PM
Wow, thanks for the quick reply! My version should be OK, I pulled Master from Git and built it (Linux64) myself.  Running the prebuilt Linux32 binary gave me a protocol error without making any connection at all.   I see that the date has advanced to April, so someone is having success staying connected.  It's just me :)  Might be a problem in my compiler but it looked to go OK.  I did have to update my G++ from 4.6.? to 4.8 to get it to build so maybe something is gimpy here.  Currently having a go with the Windows binaries via WINE and failing that via native Win7.  Thanks for your attention.  Will get this sorted.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on November 14, 2013, 11:21:12 PM
Ahh, the pre-built Linux binaries are currently not working alas. If you can work out what you did in compiling that caused the trouble, that would be helpful.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on November 16, 2013, 02:25:57 PM
Server now upgraded to 11.13.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on December 21, 2013, 11:19:35 PM
Server restarted with the latest version, 11.14.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on December 24, 2013, 05:29:58 PM
Seems to run quite well, despite having stuck trains and lots of backed up passengers.

There don't seem to be that many bugged out trains, so the network ought to run fine once they are cleared.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: wlindley on January 12, 2014, 02:37:00 PM
With this game now in the year 2029, we are past the introduction of anything new. Is there a plan for restarting in the 1700s with the current pak and rules?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 12, 2014, 03:59:45 PM
That is an interesting question. There have been numerous pakset changes on my Github branch (but not released) since this server was upgraded to 0.9.0 (and we will recall that it was actually started with 0.8.4, and retains some settings from that time), and there is much to be said for starting any new game with a new version of the pakset, once that is released.

Another thing to take into account is that Bernd has been working on merging the latest changes from Standard, which will include double heights - once we start a single height map, it will not be upgradeable to double height, which, given that these games last a long time, is a potential issue.

I should be interested in people's views on these questions.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on January 12, 2014, 04:34:35 PM
maybe a short game starting from 1880?

I have seen two bugs while playing on a new map yesterday.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 12, 2014, 04:49:03 PM
Hmm, may I ask why 1880? One of the things that has yet to be tested in online play is the canal era. As to the bugs - would you mind posting bug reports for each? I should be most grateful.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: greenling on January 12, 2014, 04:58:11 PM
Hello Jamespetts
I Have read that you want build in the double height code in pak128.Britain exp!
Those code bringing noting as trouble!
The double height code they in the latest pak128 nightly and pak128.Britain nightly it can not load old samegames they have
a highentry from tile_height=16 have.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 12, 2014, 05:04:04 PM
I don't think that that's a good reason never to incorporate this feature from Standard, is it? It will allow great flexibility and depth of play as regards gradients.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: greenling on January 12, 2014, 05:21:19 PM
Hello Jamespetts
Since the double height code in the Latest pak128 nightly and pak128.Britain nightly from Simutrans standart gives, can i not more
load old gamesave.A transfer from a old gamesave in a Nightly with double high code need a complet new build of transportnetwork.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on January 12, 2014, 05:49:33 PM
1750 would be fine too, but I found that profitable industries were far and few in between, with the main requirement being easily connected by sea.

Coal was simply too unprofitable and the chain industries sprouted up too distantly inland for canal boat or horse and cart to be useful.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on January 12, 2014, 06:00:17 PM
I think the question is whether anyone is playing the online game these days? If not, there's much to be said for starting a new game, at any year, and perhaps deciding in advance to restart, come the new major version / pak.

I find the current game irrelevant, as I said before mostly because of the rather obsolete station coverage.

Just out of curiosity, any far fetched / large scale ideas regarding the schedule about the new pak/major release?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 12, 2014, 06:41:29 PM
AEO - interesting. I have substantially reduced the cost of boatyards for the next version, which might help. May I ask - what do you think lead to the transport of coal by canal being unprofitable? Would it be enough just to seed a greater number of industries?

Asaph - yes, I understand what you mean about the current game being rather obsolete now, although I daresay that it was fun while it lasted. Your idea about having a game that may well be stopped short and restarted is one that I had contemplated, too. I am interested in others' views on this generally.

Greenling - I am aware of the backwards compatibility issue. However, short of making the last version compatible with single height saved games available for download in perpetuity (which should be easy enough), I fear that there is little that can be done; but this is not a reason to get in the way of progress, I think.

As to scheduling, this is hard to predict, as it is very difficult to know in advance how long that any given task will take. If there is strong support for starting a new online game now even though it may be stopped short whenever a new major release becomes available, then I might well expedite pakset work (I do wish to recalibrate warehouse and industry storage capacities before releasing the next pakset (minor) version, on the basis of Jando's reports of problems in this area, and also look into finishing rescaling earlier steam locomotives, as the current mismatched set looks bad).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on January 12, 2014, 07:27:01 PM
I think I lost my train of thought in the previous post.

What I meant to say was that Colliery to Coal merchant is the go-to for a profitable business in 1750.
The problem is finding a suitable pair with the way the industries distribute themselves. The vast majority of connections end up being extremely distant for the convoy speeds of the time, which is a bit unrealistic.
For industries that require a chain, this problem is exacerbated.


Horse and cart Passenger transport in 1750 is doable, but requires living off of interest
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 12, 2014, 07:32:02 PM
Ahh, I see. Would a higher number of industries help, do you think?
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: ӔO on January 12, 2014, 07:43:33 PM
I think having a higher number of cross connects or always cross connect would solve the problem.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on January 12, 2014, 08:18:56 PM
Perhaps... 1750 games are heavily water based for quite a while in the early years (which is also realistic historically).

I've been wanting to participate in the online game for a couple of months now but have been biding my time until a reset as after a couple of attempts at starting a company late-game I was unable to make it profitable with such a small amount of starting capital (speedbonus is too high by that point and a starting player doesn't have the capital to be able to purchase any high speed vehicles or ways).

Given the updates to come with Standard merging and other items, I don't think anyone will mind a game that just lasts a few weeks.  If you want to test the canals, we could make a canal-based map (no water, just a land map with lots of rivers), set the year to 1750 and go nuts with canal infrastructure a la Britain in the 18th century.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 12, 2014, 08:21:50 PM
Interesting thoughts - thank you. I don't know how long that a short term game will last, as I do not know how long that it will be before the next major release is available, but it is likely to be months rather than weeks, so a full sized map is probably preferable to a small one.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Sarlock on January 12, 2014, 08:23:12 PM
That sounds reasonable.  Whether the game is 6 weeks or 30 weeks, just start a normal length/speed game and we'll decide when it's time to upgrade - I don't think anyone will mind much knowing that a reset is in the semi-near future.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 12, 2014, 08:31:17 PM
That is helpful. I shall still wait until the next minor release of both code and pakset, however, to address the known bugs in 11.14 and the issues with warehouse balancing.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: asaphxiix on January 12, 2014, 10:07:59 PM
Oh it wasn't just fun - it was epic! I've been a gamer all my life and never so involved in a game :)

some confusion - what's the latest release? I downloaded from the latest release post
[New release] Simutrans-Experimental 11.14
« on: December 21, 2013, 11:18:06 PM »

but the download runs 11.15 which has version incompatibility.

edit: Ah I see... it's fresh out of the oven :)

Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 12, 2014, 10:32:05 PM
Server now restarted with version 11.15, which should answer Asaph's question...
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: Junna on January 13, 2014, 02:20:01 AM
New game, please. It's a mire of problems that seem unsolvable now. No way to get an awl in the weather, either.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 20, 2014, 01:05:00 AM
Now updated to version 11.16.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 25, 2014, 09:40:27 PM
Now updated to version 11.17.
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: jamespetts on January 26, 2014, 01:38:06 AM
This game has now ended. See here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=13186) for details of the new game with the new pakset, 0.9.1, starting from scratch in 1750.

Thank you to all who played and made this game most enjoyable (and for all the invaluable feedback that this generated, which has helped to improve Simutrans-Experimental no end).

May the new game be at least as good as the old!

A saved game of this map in its final state (the year 2029) can be downloaded here (http://www.bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/saves/bridgewater-brunel-game1-final.sve). For those with a penchant for nostalgia, the game as it was in the year 1832 can be downloaded here (http://www.bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/saves/bridgewater-brunel-game2-1832.sve).
Title: Re: bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental - Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.9.0
Post by: kazarmy on January 05, 2015, 08:20:58 AM
The first saved game link should be to here (http://www.bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/saves/bridgewater-brunel-game2-final.sve) i.e. game2 instead of game1.