The International Simutrans Forum

Hi,

After Simutrans has started up, you see a "Load Scenario" button. Then you click on it and a scenario is loaded. In Finance window you see a scenario title just below title bar of Finance window.

I would like to know what are scenarios in Simutrans, what are for, what are the goals, and whether scenario title is actually a goal. I ask for it once we don't have a help in "Load Scenario" window.

Also it'd be nice if we write a help file for "Load Scenario" window.

Thanks,

OK I'll also write about scenarios for the next release of the Reference Manual (3.05).

From What I've observed scenarios are maps or games that actually have a specified goal.

That Scenario indicator in the finance window (which lets you know your playing a scenario) is a summary of the goal. You achieve that you have successfully completed the scenario.

The scenarios that are included with simutrans [anthill,millionare, train tycoon, and book empire] are each an example of the types of scenarios that Simutrans can currently handle.

The included scenarios  all play off the same configured game-map and their goals can be adjusted in the appropriate *.tab files. These are all found in the ./pak/scenario folder.

Ormac 8)

See also the wiki: http://www.simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=de_Szenarien_erstellen&bl=y (http://www.simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=de_Szenarien_erstellen&bl=y)

Is somewhere described how to make your own scenario? I havent found it on the german wiki.
BTW: when there was the possibility to make your own scenario, we could archieve them and than they could be accesible on "scenarios.pakXY.simutrans.com" :)

Hi 

Ive found that user designed scenarios on other transport games can be challenging. 

Perhaps its the map, perhaps its the limited vehicles made available, or the goal..or all combined.  Anyhow...is there any scenario creating tool...or any good scenarios out there?

I'm afraid that there's no scenario creating tool yet. Right now, scenarios are just text files where you specify some goals so you can use any text editor (Notepad, vim, etc..)

In reference to scenario samples, Simutrans already include some but nobody has written any feedback so it's pretty difficult to know if they're good or bad, playable or challenging.

Quote from: panda on October 28, 2008, 02:31:28 PM
Is somewhere described how to make your own scenario? I havent found it on the german wiki.
BTW: when there was the possibility to make your own scenario, we could archieve them and than they could be accesible on "scenarios.pakXY.simutrans.com" :)

Yes, here: http://simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=de_Szenarien_erstellen&bl=y
It's the same link above!

Hi

Ive played the scenarios that come with the basic V102 Pak64 download. 

As a new player I found them straightforward and ok introduction to the game. Somewhat disappointing however as each was on the same map and could be 'won' in the same way. Found myself playing the same scenario in different ways which whilst instructive became a bit of a chore. There was not a progression or goal about them.   

When I had a challenge or question it was the guide on this forum I came to..like bridge building.

Scenario's needed a time goal to make them challenging , or be designed to be so tough that they come with a health warning about just surviving being hard.  Make a million?...in 50 years or 50 weeks...one is easier than the other.

A tutorial type scenario might be littered with signs. Signs with designers comments, instructions or tips? e.g 'This is an ideal route for a road between villages but it needs to cross this hill. Up and over , around,  or through. See the three signs near here for pros and cons"

Your suggestions are greatly appreciated. Especially time constraint are easy to add.

how can we edit the file senario??

Hello Newby20

This internet page helped me recently make scenarios for the first time:
http://simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=en_CreatingScenarios

Still a far cry from the quality of scenario creators in other games of this type but its better than nothing.

Quote from: Severous on October 28, 2011, 05:51:48 PM
Still a far cry from the quality of scenario creators in other games of this type but its better than nothing.

which games are talking about? what would you like to have as scenario creator capabilities?

Hello Dwachs.

Locomotion, Railway Tycoon, Transport Tycoon are the ones I recall most.  We frequently had competitions on the forums using scenarios created by members.

Scenario creation capabilities would include:
- Map creation (map capabilites for new games are probably already sufficient)
- Industry add, move, delete (awkward, distant, interesting, unusual, realistic situations can be created as desired)
- Vehicles allowed (exclude vehicles, or select only certain vehicles) To make the scenario play as designed - eg river boat passenger ferries by not having other passenger vehicles.  Could also help compatibility and inclusion of more players in the Simutrans community by excluding mods.
- Objective setting. (More options than at present, and in combination) For example: 100 cars made, delivered to xy locaction before end year 2.

All these possibilities could be set by GUI?

Quote
- Industry add, move, delete (awkward, distant, interesting, unusual, realistic situations can be created as desired)

In simutrans you can place industries, where you desire ,and then use the savegame. Or are you talking about something more complex?

I didnt know that.  Thank you.

I went looking for it. You mean in Public Service player I think. I could demolish factories, add new ones with production levels required, and add links between industries.  Very nice. That will save me generating random maps many times over until I get an industry distribution that I like.

Is there any way to disallow certain vehicles from being used?

Quote from: Severous on October 29, 2011, 09:47:48 AM
Is there any way to disallow certain vehicles from being used?

No. You have to put this restriction in your description of the scenario (ie when you publish it here in the forums).

I am currently working on embedding a scripting language for scenarios (not much progress up to now).

Disallowing vehicles or other objects could be done with an external text file where you
disable:
-T105
-T*
disable all and allow some:
-*
+T*
etc...
It could disable also stations, ways, etc...

After that it would be nice a tool for incorporating these files in the  .sve for easier distribution.

Dear community !

I have not found it among denied requests (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=341.msg2369#msg2369) nor has a search revealed it ( maybe it's in the archives.... ) : quest system and/or achievements for ST.

Gameplay reasons :

• Quests and achievements give goals to players who have difficulties with a sandbox game.
• Achievement bragging -- particularly when linked to uploading to the website -- can be a big popularity booster
• It may allow enhancements to long-term fun and also allow economical challenges ( and maybe even used for economical balancing ) later in the game ( see below )

Quests and achievements I do see as potentially two sides of the same medallion -- technologically in the game-code, I mean -- since the game needs to identify "aspects" of the game world. Based on these aspects then it would either select a desired aspect that is not yet reached ( that is a quest ) or point out to the player goals/situations achieved or created ( that is the achievement ). In the end, very completed quest is an achievement, while any achievements is a quest which the game did not necessarily point out to the player. The destinction between achievements and quests may simply be the selection of topics being either in one or the other category.

Requirements :

• Achievements must be listed on the UI, showing those achievements reached and ( faint or somehow marked up ) the next possible level. For levelling achievements, see below.
• Achievements should be able to be uploaded to simutrans.com ( yes, forging, map editing is an issue, but in a first step that is what players need to sort out among each other ); consequenty, a web site development to show these.
• Quests turn "active" and these need to be listed on the UI. Ideally, they show some sort of completion percentage/count.
• Achievements and quests may have a bonus attached to them.

Here is a list of what I could wish for and as a basis for discussion. It is hard for me to give only feasible ideas to which sort of goals the game can generate or which achievements it can detect, given that I do not (yet) know the code well and what the game can know about the environment. So please bear with me and do not immediately discard the idea by some of the points given being unrealistic in a development perspective.

• Total cash available ( this obviously has "levels", growing linear or exponentially, much like the following values )
• Total wealth reached
• Highest ( and lowest ! ) margin

...any further sort of financial value wrapped as an achievement

• combination of values : operative result (credit value) given a particularly low value of vehicles or running cost
• Number of industry branches connected
• All cities served ( at least one stop in each city )
• Complete inter-city network ( PX routing possible from each city to every other )
• Quickest transport across a certain range
• Heaviest load transported across a certain range

...and the rewards

• Reduced running cost for a limited time
• That reduction might be restricted to an area : vicinity of a city, along a certain industry chain, among an industry type (vertically) across chains
• Plain money value paid
• Getting a vehicle before official introduction date ( or being able to use it/acquire it for longer )

Design for long-term economical balancing
If quests/achievements should be use for economical balancing, it could look like this : quests not completed give a malus and based on achievements the economy may turn more challenging. Since the player determines (more or less deliberately) when she completes the achievement, this still is under the player's control when the economy turns more challenging. Optimally, the game will never get "unplayable", so the general availability of resource/income should be maintained, but shifted from income the player has tapped into, to income that still needs to be addressed.
How about factories going bancrupt, reducing their output so that there is some alerting to the player, and then ceasing to exist ? That should be countered by the same type of factory spawning elsewhere on the map ( factory spawning exists as a game-technology ). So potential income level is maintained.

By the way, even though shown in the denied requests, vehicle break down I think can be well used to have a long-term economical challenge factor. Break-down level can easily be influenced up and down by quests/achievements.

So, what do you think ? ( P. S. I shall be happy to help coding )

I take it you did not see this topic, amongst others:

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=709.msg78564#msg78564 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=709.msg78564)

This is currently in the making, as Dwachs works on implementing skipting into simutrans.

That sounds very promising. And thank you for pointing out the scenario thread, combuijs. I only looked for "quest" and "achieve" using the forum search; the scenario thread slipped that approach, obviously.

Now, what I will ask here for the sake of this topic : are scenarios intended for "inclusion" or super-position onto a running game ? Or would they come with a map so you'd be stuck with that map and had to play that scenario and then be done with it ? Quests and achievements I would like to see as features for "your" running game to keep it challenging and give the not-so-sandboxy types new goals over and over.
Or, prissi, is your thought using the scripting abilities, and the game aspects it can tap into, to the other goal of potentially implementing quests and achievements ? Particularly, since this remark by OP author ...

Quote from: Severous on October 28, 2011, 10:43:28 PMObjective setting. (More options than at present, and in combination) For example: 100 cars made, delivered to xy locaction before end year 2.

...points exactly into the direction I am looking for.

Just to be sure : while I admire the active community of this game, a lot of players will never frequent forums. I can see that a considerable number of (potential) players just want to download the game from the website and get going. They would never look into forums or an untidy wiki to get their hands on more stuff for that game. That you cannot download paks from the game's UI -- but need to download separately and unzip and place something into a folder using the file manager -- is already a big draw back in that regard ! Either they can trigger stuff off the UI, or they will not do it -- and even then they may not find the UI trigger. So, with the achievements and quests suggestion I would first like the feedback of the "game publishing"-inclined of this community, if they agree that such a feature may be helpful to Simutrans' general popularity.

I agree that anyone who frequents the forums finds enough motivation and contents and would likely feel bossed around or not particularly infused by quests and/or achievements. You are all pros ! So this current community might not be the target group for this feature. ;)

I merged the two threads.

I wonder if we can load a game or a scenario from a folder, we can simply open it from a url. This way "officially approved" scenarios would simply be uploaded to a ftp server and the game would open them from remote url without radically changing the UI.

Quote from: fabio on January 02, 2012, 03:48:52 PMI merged the two threads.

Thanks. So is it clear and agreed that quests and achievements, as I tried to outline them, will be a... hmm "fallout" from doing the script language implementation and delivering scenarios ? I am not sure yet from reading this thread.

This goes into various directions now.

Scenarios are offered directly at the start with a dedicated button. So far they are a text file and a sve, since the location of where to deliver are based on that map. With skripting certainly more possibilities will be available. Try the branch at github.

I also very often think on the 15000 downloads a week in relation to the 100 more or less active users in the three fora and the wiki. That is the reason why there is the experimental branch, in order to keep simutrans simple yet powerful.

About UI downloads: Yes, this is discussed several times. However as there is no central repository and those addons have really extremely varying quality and cost structure, that might not even help a beginning user.

OpenTTD has a download system (which is very easy in their case as they only had one pak set and one forum and so on). But more than 20% of the user download EVERYTHING. That is also my experience from the online installer: 20% will just download everything. In case of pak sets, not much harm is done, but form addons they will wonder why their game crashes, everything is so ugly or no network server are shown. Or why the game crashes, since there are vehicles with no matching goods, or factories with nothing matching.

That can be solved of course with a better online manager using dependencies and ratings and so on. But nobody worked on such a thing or volunteered to work. If the server stores such stuff as bzipped paks, simutrans has everything on board to handle such stuff. We a web interface there could be also relating sources and so on. The simutrans program side seems rather easy to me (apart from requiring a simutrans restart after downloading the addons).

But then somebody would have to put everything from the japanese wiki, the addon page and all other stuff he/she knows into that server, sort it by pak and solve all dependencies. It will be a big advantage for the community, but sound also like quite a task.

Quote from: missingpiece on January 02, 2012, 03:17:25 PM
Now, what I will ask here for the sake of this topic : are scenarios intended for "inclusion" or super-position onto a running game ? Or would they come with a map so you'd be stuck with that map and had to play that scenario and then be done with it ?

This is basically the idea of scenarios. You can check out the state of the development at

https://github.com/Dwachs/simutrans/tree/master/scripted

Quote
Quests and achievements I would like to see as features for "your" running game to keep it challenging and give the not-so-sandboxy types new goals over and over.

Can you provide a showcase of what you imagine? I.e. show a savegame and describe a set of quests / achievements.

It sounds difficult to prepare quests that work with all different kind settings: different savegames, pak sets, different times etc.

Thanks for the feedback ! And in order to answer your question, Dwachs (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?action=profile;u=2420), I would like to point to my earlier post (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=709.msg82645#msg82645) ( you may have missed it since Fabio (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?action=profile;u=639) merged it ) and add the following :

I wrote under the requirements section as a possible achievement that "all cities are served ( at least one stop in every city )" or that the player has established a "complete inter-city network ( PX routing possible from each city to every other )". This could as well be generated as a quest, following my reasoning that quests and achievements really are one of the same kind in game-engine terms : "build a passenger network in city x" or "build an inter-city link between cities x and y". Obviously, quests will need to analyze the game's and the player's situation in order not to ask stuff that has already been built and also to pay rewards.

Speaking of which, in my view, achievements and quests should have rewards : an achievement's reward is out-of-game; you should be able to brag about the achievement, thus I would like to see them synced to the forum profile or some other ( yet to be built ) online representation of the simutrans players -- or post it to the facebook timeline; I imagine that is a webservice which fb offers. A quest's reward should be more ingame; taking the above example, the running cost of installations pertaining to that quest's fulfillment could be reduced over a certain amount of time or a pure credit value be paid as the most simple solution.

Also, the UI representation of achievements and quests will be slightly different : achievements more like trophies, quests like a book of challenges with those that are active and those that are completed and their reward.

As I understand the scenario design the way it is intended now, you would get one scenario, play it, and be happy if you completed it. Even more, the scenario would come with a map and certain restrictions. Now, I want that the game engine analyse the map that is already running and generate quests dynamically. Achievements are more static and earned upon reaching the success criteria.

Yes, I do see that a script engine can be helpful designing quests and achievements.

Quote
Speaking of which, in my view, achievements and quests should have rewards : an achievement's reward is out-of-game; you should be able to brag about the achievement, thus I would like to see them synced to the forum profile or some other ( yet to be built ) online representation of the simutrans players -- or post it to the facebook timeline; I imagine that is a webservice which fb offers.

I understand. Maybe an achievement like "Transported one million passengers". Then it could be compared to other players regardless of pak set and starting conditions...

QuoteNow, I want that the game engine analyse the map that is already running and generate quests dynamically. Achievements are more static and earned upon reaching the success criteria.

Yes, I do see that a script engine can be helpful designing quests and achievements.

But a script is not creative itself. Somebody has to come up with ideas to formulate actual quests. That was my question :) Please be creative, post quests.

Yes, transport one million passengers as a "static" achievement -- achievements would be more static -- to brag about it. Obviously, I mentioned that earlier I think, that raises questions about "forging" such results, using map editor, or what about taking into account map size ? But, honestly, in a first step that is something the players can then sort out among each other. If you, for example, see one of your friends having the same achievements, then you would ask them like : ok, mate, so what map size did you do this on ? Or did you use editors or was it legit ? Something like this.

You want me to come up with quests definitions ? Ok. :) Since you asked. I will post them as I gather ideas. Please be critical and evaluate if that can "reliably" be analyzed.

What about the first ones I already posted about :

• establish passenger transport in city x ( where x is a city with at least 1000 inhabitants and has no stops "near" ) ^{I admit, that is cloned off OpenTTD; the number 1000 and the term "near" obviously need some refinement depending on what is balanced and technically feasible; reward could be reduced cost on the passenger network in said city for a year}
  
• complete the inter-city passenger network ( meaning there is a "hoppable" connection from each city to every other ) ^{now this one is a bit tricky, since I do not know, when the game should trigger it and what could be the reward; to make it worth-while, maybe it should be triggered if the player has progressed quite far, but did not yet connect the last city for more than a year}
• connect the industry chain off of factory [name] at (n, m) ^{this one could be triggered once the first industry chain is connected and target one with a different final consumer and another initial producer; reward could be 20 times a full train load of the final good (pak-dependent) as credit payment}

Oh, I just thought about other achievements :
- "Tree cutter" ( player has felled 10000 trees )
- "Tree hugger" ( player has planted 10000 trees )
- "Magnate" ( all industries are connected by a freight-enabled station )

Achievements could be limited to stuff that you would usually not necessarily/deliberately do during your game, maybe even a bit silly : as opposed to the inter-city network from above, that is more of a quest. But financials ( have/win/lose a lot of money; or margin ) and speed/transport related stuff ( tiles per hour per ton payload over an extended range, like half the map ) could also be achievements since they are too singular for a quest.

Quote from: missingpiece on January 02, 2012, 05:57:07 PM
[..]
Speaking of which, in my view, achievements and quests should have rewards : an achievement's reward is out-of-game;
[...]
A quest's reward should be more ingame; taking the above example, the running cost of installations pertaining to that quest's fulfillment could be reduced over a certain amount of time or a pure credit value be paid as the most simple solution.

The question is whether Simutrans is more a game or a simulation, or both.  Surely there are opinions for all possibilities.  But certainly the general tone is that Simutrans should be realistic.

I can't see how in-game rewards can merge easily with that...  Why should I get in real life a discount on wagons if I am able to transport 100 tons of wheat before September 1977?

<joke> It won't be realistic until we get double-track!</joke>

I do think there's room for some game characteristics - after all, sometimes we defend some choices saying that it's a simulator -- and a game. :)

Quote from: isidoro on January 02, 2012, 11:30:05 PMThe question is whether Simutrans is more a game or a simulation, or both. [...]Why should I get in real life a discount on wagons if I am able to transport 100 tons of wheat before September 1977?

That's a good one ! Yes, the community can decide on that simulator vs game question. I'd go with Isaac saying : both. It should be fun and challenging ontop of being as "realistic" as possible.

Now, I see several ways to "realistically" simulate rewards :
- transport 100 tons of wheat before September 1977 for an early market entry which grants you extra margin on the market
- in OpenTTD they say you'll receive so called public funding; that is how they reason the discount on running cost of vehicles and asset maintance. Let's say our quest was to established first local transport in city x before the year 1952 and that results in reduced running cost.
- a different kind of speed bonus : be fast and transport x number of passengers at at least 100 tiles per hour across more than 200 tiles before 1972 ( with today's vehicles available ) to get prototype access one year early to a new vehicle introduced else in 1974.
...other stories I can think of surely if you push me. ;)

What I also think is that the quests I suggested could lead to a more dynamic economy/industry. Please indulge me, since I am an ST noob and do not know how volatile the industry already is anyway ( might be pak-dependent, too ). But what I am thinking of is that -- scripting may come in handy here, too -- an industry branch faints, the producers go out of business, and the same type pops up elsewhere on the map. Same total number of goods, but the new industry needs adjustment of the whole network, of course.

Difficulty could be tweaked "dynamically" by the game observing certain key performance indicators of the player, for example
- margin
- how much infrastructure investment ( both by build and tear down )
- number of line schedule adjustments in the past two months
... all to the goal of : once the player gets too confident and the game stalls ( too stable ), then change something on the map.

We don't want desasters. But why not shuffle the industry around somewhat ?

I think it's important though that the "simulator" aspect is not changed much for those players who wish to ignore quests ( should they be implemented ). So that you can still play at mostly no adverse impact if you ignore quests.

Usually, simutrans games are larger than OpenTTD games, time progresses slower, and whole industry chains grind to an halt when a supplier is missing. Thus a closure of an industry would really affect the whole economy quite badly. For that reason, simutrans standard did not implement industry closures.

During town growth, new industry chains are generated thouhg. So it is not static.

I still have to see a map where everything works perfectly and everything is connected with very little overcrowding of goods or passengers/mail. So I think that as a normal player (and even in multiplayer) you are not easily running out tasks soon.

Industry closure was the most exotic and extreme thought, a potential result of using a quest and scripting engine, and in fact I do not know how to wrap it as a "quest" anyway.

So what about the rest ?

For multiplayer games, the simplest thing I can think of which would add a little flavour would be that the first player to purchase a newly-introduced type of vehicle, would receive a discount on that vehicle for one year, while other players would have to pay a premium for one year. 

I would see quests primarily as a thing for single player games. Simply switched off once more than one human player slot is filled.

I like wlindley idea.  No need to limit that to single player, imho.

But going back to topic, about the game vs. simulation issue: should Simutrans observe the game state, the player's activity, key strokes even and, if too low, do something artificial about it?  A thing that would otherwise not happen if the player happens to be busy?

Or should the game be more fair and have specific rules about what happens or not at the risk of being dull sometimes?

The first option seems to me the same as breakdowns, natural disasters, etc. of other commercial games: something to keep the player playing with nothing behind it.  I feel deceived with such things, and a little used somehow.

I think that the posited dichotomy between game and simulation is rather a false one; Simutrans is a simulation game: that is, a game which is founded on simulation. That it is a game does not mean that it cannot be a simulation, and that it is a simulation does not mean that it cannot be a game. It is possible to have a game that is not a simulation, and a simulation that is not a game, but the categories are not mutually exclusive. A game is something whose purpose is to be fun to the player, and is in some material sense artificial. A simulation is an artificial recreation of some facets of reality. A simulation game is a simulation whose purpose is to be fun; more particularly, where the fun is derived from the very fact that it is a simulation.

Different people enjoy different aspects of Simutrans, of course, but, from my perspective, up to a point, at least, the more realistic the simulation, the more fun the game, as it is far more satisfying to succeed in the game and know that doing that same thing in that part of reality that is being simulated would probably likewise succeed; the fun of a simulation game comes from suspending one's disbelief, and imagining oneself immersed in the world of actual transportation, pretending for a moment that one really is a canal baron, railway entrepreneur or airline mogul; imagining that one actually is working out what 'bus networks in a town will give optimal results within a transport company's budget. The more places in which the game does not accurately simulate reality, the more that those limitations jar with one's imagination and the less immersive and fun that the game becomes.

Quote from: jamespetts on January 04, 2012, 12:57:39 PM(argument against game vs simulation dichotomy)

Well spoken. Now what is your position towards the suggestion in the OP, and which on-topic posts do you favour ?

Hello, sorry if this was already answered, but I can't find it in the forum.

Where can I find a description of all the current objectives available for use in scenarios, and how they work?

I have read this useful entry of the WIKI, but it's not exhaustive:
http://simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=en_CreatingScenarios (http://simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=en_CreatingScenarios)

Currently, I would like to build scenarios with my homemade maps, where a certain number of specific cities must be connected by railroads to win the scenario, recreating real life situations of the past.
Is it possible at the state of the art? Can I add more objectives to the same scenario?

Thank you.

The wiki page describes the current state-of-the-art. I work on making scriptable scenarios possible, but it is not finished.

I strongly encourage you to publish your scenario idea in this forum board:

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?board=60.0

That is, posting the map, rules, objectives, story, everything you want to see in your finished scenario.

Then possible players of the scenario will have to download the map and then play according to your guidelines written in the forum. In the forum board there are some examples of such an undertaking.

Thank you, Dwachs. I'll see what I can do.

I have some good homemade maps of Italy and italian regions (I did them using digital elevation models, and manually placing all the cities, even the smallest ones, in the correct locations), but they were done with previous Simutrans version, so there could be some compatibility issues with the latest versions (for example, with the roads).

Compatibility issues can be resolved.It would be some work but it is not impossible.

Does anyone knoe the passwod for the New York scenario?

Could you give a little more context regarding your question? Perhaps it wasn't this thread, but another?