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Where did all the passengers go?

Started by DrSuperGood, January 13, 2018, 02:12:40 AM

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DrSuperGood

Since the optimization attempts the server game has shown a massive reduction in passenger generation amounts. At the time of writing this it happened 16 game months ago. I am not sure if this is intended "balancing" or if it is a bug.

EDIT: Seems a combination of lower spawn rate and incorrect class logic. Convoys are not loading passengers of appropriate classes and all classes of people are being picked up by stops even if no line capable of carrying them services the stop.

For example a coach stop only serviced by stage coaches that are capable of moving Low and Medium class passengers is getting a build up of Very Low class passengers which cannot be picked up. Additionally the Medium class capacity of the line is not being used to pickup the waiting Medium, High and Very High class passengers and infact is not being used at all.

Jando

#1
Are that stops within walking distance of another? If so I reckon it's related to this bug: https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=17778.0

Edit: and aye, seeing a massive drop in passenger numbers as well.
Edit 2: Massive reduction of passenger numbers. Something is broken. :)

It seems no passengers for intercity travel are generated at all (local traffic seems to work, thus distance matters). See screenshot here: http://files.simutrans.com/index.php/s/iB1MwrZtOoaRxMM

All cities have this pattern, too slow graph drops to zero, no route graph jumps up. The few passengers that are still shown seem to be arrivals from before the current nightly. The train that used to carry 200-300 passengers now carries less than 10.

Rollmaterial

It looks like it's actually intentional behaviour. The connections that don't get passengers anymore seem to be the ones where the travel time exceeds the maximum comfortable distance.

Jando

Quote from: Rollmaterial on January 13, 2018, 08:23:25 PM
It looks like it's actually intentional behaviour. The connections that don't get passengers anymore seem to be the ones where the travel time exceeds the maximum comfortable distance.

I can't confirm that, lines with a 15 minute bus ride are affected on my map (1940).

DrSuperGood

QuoteIt looks like it's actually intentional behaviour. The connections that don't get passengers anymore seem to be the ones where the travel time exceeds the maximum comfortable distance.
This has nothing to do with it... Comfort is for bonus pay only. Passengers will go on uncomfortable journeys as long as the travel time is less than required, however they will not pay any comfort bonus.

jamespetts

Apologies for the difficulties - I have spent some time looking into this to-day, but have yet to work out the cause of the problem (this is an error rather than an intentional balancing change). The trouble is that I have had trouble reproducing this on a small map, and the server map is so huge that it can only be fast forwarded  to ~1.75x the normal speed on a debug build, so actually running tests is extremely slow.

I note with interest Dr. Supergood's findings about the class issues, however, which I will have to look into, as this is a potentially useful lead as to the cause of the trouble. Apologies again for the difficulties.
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DrSuperGood

It started with the "optimized" build you released a few days ago.

jamespetts

I made a fix to one of the optimisations yesterday; however, I have not had a chance to test whether this affects this problem yet as testing this is extremely time consuming (for reasons described above), and I am in the process of working on other issues at present which might or might not relate to this issue. I should be grateful in the meantime if anyone could test and confirm whether this fixes the problem or not.
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Jando

Easy to test with this saved game, saved before the recent change: http://files.simutrans.com/index.php/s/M1biPG6s0C4BVjh

Look at any stop with no other stops in walking distance, just the first one on station list will do: Banston Bay. Wait a few minutes until a bus will pick-up the waiting passengers there. from then on no new passengers will get generated, instead you see the "no route" number go up. Same for all other stations/stops with no other stops in walking distance.

Current nightly still has the bug, no passengers will be generated at these stations/stops.

jamespetts

Thank you for confirming. I think that I have now managed to fix this, and am in the process of re-starting the server with the build containing the fix. It should be running correctly in ~10-15 minutes from now. My apologies for the trouble.
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DrSuperGood

Yaa people are going places in the server again!

jamespetts

Excellent, thank you for confirming.
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DrSuperGood

Although there are a lot of passengers now, it still seems like there are fewer than before. Specifically lines that used to be over capacity servicing only high/medium can now service medium/low without any changes to convoys or scheduling.

jamespetts

I have made one further fix to this this evening, although I have not tested the effect on passenger numbers. Can you re-check this with to-morrow's nightly build, and provide some more detail as to the difference in amount of passengers, as it is very difficult to do much diagnostically with a general impression.
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DrSuperGood

Before the great passenger crash I was transporting ~872,000 units per year. During the crash this dropped to just ~234,000 units per unit. After the recent fixes I have returned to ~600,000 units per year. Interpolating growth from the old amount to the current would have it likely at above ~900,000 per year. This is a reduction of ~300,000 units per year over what I would transport previously, and possibly even more if one factors in many line optimizations I have performed.

I do not know the break down of those numbers as far as passengers, classes, mail and freight (the game lacks graphs for that...). Most of it is passenger traffic based on what my transport network does.

The problem is determining if this passenger reduction is intentional or not. With the fixing of the waypoint timing bug I lost a lot of traffic on a major line. With the removal of traffic generation from stage posts and other unstaffed stops it is possible that there are fewer reachable/viable destinations for people to visit so fewer people are traveling. Unfortunately I do not have graphs that extend back enough showing the monthly/yearly traffic of specific lines.

jamespetts

Running a detailed analysis on a very small test game where I can control the variables carefully to be able to make sense of the data, I am unable to reproduce any error with passengers not being transported where they ought to be transported.
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DrSuperGood

I guess then the significant volume reduction must entirely be down to stage posts no longer being a passenger destination so there are fewer destinations that are viable for passengers to reach. Cities even list the same number of passengers being generated, just it seems fewer are taking journeys in general.