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Simutrans Extended => Simutrans-Extended gameplay discussion => Topic started by: NightElfik on August 04, 2012, 04:03:18 PM

Title: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: NightElfik on August 04, 2012, 04:03:18 PM
Hi, I've started playing Simutrans long ago and about once a year I always try a new version. Simutrans experimental is really good, thank you! :)

I always loved the passengers, especially the way how they want to specific destination (in contrast of OTTD where they want anywhere, which is ridiculous).
So I've played few games and here is my feedback. Some (or even most) of following items may apply to classic Simutrans as well, but since I played experimental, I am posting it here.

Version 111.0 Experimental 10.11 Mar 25 2012 r1011, Pak128.Britain-Ex-0.8.3

The most of following feedback is from following game (timeline on, started 1950 I think): http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/MestaMestaEx-savegame.sve
Preview:
(http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/4315/simscr06.png)


Legend:
{S} -- suggestion ({S} -- must have suggestion :)
{B} -- bug


I also noticed many more bugs with stucked vehicles but I do not have the save game since after loading the problem was resolved.

Also I have many more little things to suggest but I thing they are not as significant as things I've written.

Thank you for reading and I hope that at least some of listed items are useful.

EDIT: Reposted feature requests and bugs to appropriate sub-forums of Simutrans Standard (as jamespetts recommend):
Bugs: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10316.0 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10316.0)
Features: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10315.0 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10315.0)
Title: Re: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: kierongreen on August 04, 2012, 05:30:42 PM
That's a lot of suggestions! Underground powerlines have been in simutrans standard for a while now, maybe there's not been a chance to include them in experimental yet?
Title: Re: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: Roads on August 04, 2012, 05:54:13 PM
In standard you can cancel the "Go To Depot" order.  In fact I do it just like I change the route of a vehicle.  When you click "Schedule" you will see "Depot" in the list of stops.  Just remove it.  Most of the time you have to do this twice because often the game engine will put it right back the first time.  Also if you pause the game when making changes (which I always do) you generally have to un-pause it for a few seconds between changes.
Title: Re: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: jamespetts on August 05, 2012, 12:04:43 AM
Thank you for such detailed feedback - very helpful! A considerable number of the suggestions that you make are equally applicable to Standard as Experimental, especially those that relate to graphics or the user interface, which I generally leave alone and do not (especially in the case of graphics) have much of an idea how they work. I shall address comments on several of the points that you make using your numbers as a reference. Where I write that the issue is equally applicable to Standard, it might be worthwhile to post a thread in the extension requests/bug reports subforum (as appropriate).

1. Standard has had an improved minimap for a while. I have not yet had the chance to integrate this into Experimental, as I have been waiting to get the next release out before adding any major features. I am hoping to look into some merging after the next release.

2. This is equally applicable to Standard.

3. This is equally applicable to Standard: I might well be able to change the limit in the GUI control, but I don't know whether the graphics engine is capable of going any higher than 30fps.

4. This is equally applicable to Standard, and not an area of the code that I know anything about.

5. This is equally applicable to Standard, and not an area of the code that I know anything about.

6. There is actually a mechanism for this: two mechanisms, in fact. The one is the industry upgrade system, whereby one industry can be upgraded to another industry of a similar type instead of closing down. The other is the industry "boost" system whereby industries can increase their production when supplied with more passengers, etc.. This needs to be implemented in the pakset in order to work, and I am hoping to implement the necessary settings before the next major pakset release.

7. See above.

8. Some of these ideas have been discussed recently: see here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10276.0) for details.

(a) As to the takeoff/landing when new thing - this seems to happen when aircraft have to cross a runway to get from the hangar to their gate.

(b) On aircraft before 1965, the set of aircraft in Pak128.Britain is incomplete, but Giuseppe is working slowly but steadily on adding more aircraft: the next version should have the Ford Trimotor aeroplane from the 1930s available (this is already in the 0.8.4 release candidate for use with testing the latest Experimental release candidates).

(c) On the aircraft cost bug, this has already been fixed for the next release. As to the replacer issue, I have not encountered that before: can you give more details as to the circumstances in which this can be reproduced?

9. See Roads' answer

10. I think that this is not specific to Experimental - but can you upload a saved game in which this problem can be reproduced?

11. This is equally applicable to Standard.

12. This is equally applicable to Standard.

13. This has been discussed recently - consideration needs to be given to developing a new settings file for towns, but that is no small task and there are higher priorities. I agree that this ought to be looked into, however.

14. This is equally applicable to Standard.

15.

(a) On the revenue from electricity distribution networks: this is an interesting issue that I have not considered before; can any of the Standard developers comment on why it was done like this in the first place before I think about changing it?

(b) On diagonal power lines: this is equally applicable to Standard.

(c) On underground power lines, as Kieron says, this is in recent versions of Standard: I hope to merge this feature into Experimental some time after the next release of Experimental.

(d) On farms and fields: this has been discussed before, and is not an easy issue to deal with. Some consideration will need to be given at some point to building farms with more than the minimum number of fields, as this affects transport as well as power.

(e) On reducing production if there is a shortage of raw materials: this is equally applicable to Standard; it would also be very difficult to implement, as electricity networks are fiendishly complicated to simulate.

(f) On the graphics for the downstream substation: this has now been fixed for the next release of the pakset.

16. Weight limits in Experimental are per vehicle, not per convoy: I hope that this makes more sense?

17. This is equally applicable to Standard.

18. This is equally applicable to Standard, and I know nothing about the graphics code, I'm afraid.

19. This is equally applicable to Standard.

20. This is equally applicable to Standard.

21.

(a) On revenue from the last year: this is equally applicable to Standard; however, this might be worth considering for inclusion in Experimental if the Standard people are not interested in adding it. May I ask - what are other people's views on this feature?

(b) On a complete history of finances: this is equally applicable to Standard; I suspect that it would take a lot of heavy lifting in the code to do this with a reasonable GUI.

(c) On hovering over graph nodes: this is equally applicable to Standard and might be tricky to implement. It's a good idea in principle, though, and would make things easier.

(d) On excluding zero: this is equally applicable to Standard, but is an interesting idea. It would need careful thought about how to do it without overly cluttering the GUI, however.

22. This is actually a bug that I have now fixed for the next release - thank you for the report!

23. This is a difficult issue - motorways ought not have crossroads, but there is no easy way of prohibiting this configuration to my knowledge. Without a lot of work into a somewhat marginal issue, this is probably the best temporary solution for now.

24. This is equally applicable to Standard.


Thank you very much again for your feedback - it is always much appreciated!
Title: Re: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: TurfIt on August 05, 2012, 12:58:12 AM
Quote from: NightElfik on August 04, 2012, 04:03:18 PM
Power & powerlines
{S} Power sell value should be based on amount of power sold not on percentage value of power sold. Why I get the same amount of money for selling 24 MW to colliery as for selling 240 MW to some city?
Quote from: jamespetts on August 05, 2012, 12:04:43 AM
(a) On the revenue from electricity distribution networks: this is an interesting issue that I have not considered before; can any of the Standard developers comment on why it was done like this in the first place before I think about changing it?
I've not looked at Experimental in quite some time, perhaps there's a bug if the same amount of money is being received for both 24 and 240 MW demand.
In standard, the electricity payments are for the energy consumed. There's no demand charge. If one factory has a steady demand 10x that of another, it'll consume 10x the energy, and be charged 10x the money.


Quote from: NightElfik on August 04, 2012, 04:03:18 PM
{S} If some power plant produces max 1000 MW of power but it has materials for producing only 50% of the time (so it should produce about 500 MW) and the demand is much less (like 200 MW) the power supply is jumping form 0% to 100% so there is no steady power supply even if it could be. I'd like to see this resolved somehow. Like the power plant should have some "persistence" in producing electricity. For example to increase production each "cycle" by 1% if there are materials and decrease by 1% while there are not. If input of materials is constant this will cause production to be around 50% and power supply will be steady.
Quote from: jamespetts on August 05, 2012, 12:04:43 AM
(e) On reducing production if there is a shortage of raw materials: this is equally applicable to Standard; it would also be very difficult to implement, as electricity networks are fiendishly complicated to simulate.
The fuel consumption of power plants in game is independent of the power produced. i.e. a 1000MW plant consumes it's materials at full rate even if there's no power lines connected to it. I'd inquired if tying fuel use to production was desirable, but didn't receive any positive feedback so...
Title: Re: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: jamespetts on August 05, 2012, 01:03:35 AM
Hmm - that's interesting. The current code for calculating income is:


// Income
if(!fab || fab->get_besch()->get_electric_amount() == 65535)
{
// City, or factory demand not specified in pak: use old fixed demands
max_einkommen += last_power_demand * delta_t / PRODUCTION_DELTA_T;
einkommen += power_load  * delta_t / PRODUCTION_DELTA_T;
}
else if(welt->ticks_per_world_month_shift >= 18ll)
{
max_einkommen += (last_power_demand * delta_t / PRODUCTION_DELTA_T) >> (welt->ticks_per_world_month_shift-18);
einkommen += (power_load  * delta_t / PRODUCTION_DELTA_T) >> (welt->ticks_per_world_month_shift-18);
}
else
{
max_einkommen += (last_power_demand * delta_t / PRODUCTION_DELTA_T) << (18-welt->ticks_per_world_month_shift);
einkommen += (power_load  * delta_t / PRODUCTION_DELTA_T) << (18-welt->ticks_per_world_month_shift);
}

// Income rollover
if(max_einkommen>(2000<<11)) {
get_besitzer()->buche(einkommen >> 11, get_pos().get_2d(), COST_POWERLINES);
einkommen = 0;
max_einkommen = 1;
}


Is this wrong?
Title: Re: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: TurfIt on August 05, 2012, 01:15:55 AM
Seems fines. 99.9% the code from standard... power * time = energy.
Perhaps the fixed (2000<<11) factor has confused the OP. It is rather bizarre.
Title: Re: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: kierongreen on August 05, 2012, 08:28:36 AM
The fixed factor is so the factory only gets charged every $20 it uses instead of every simloop. Over a month the amount charged will be the same, but it means a lot less cash floating writing being drawn.
Title: Re: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: NightElfik on August 05, 2012, 11:53:10 AM
Thanks for the interest! :)

15.a (power revenue) As jamespetts and kierongreen corrected me, I was confused, that revenue will show after reaching $20. I was looking only at numbers but not at their frequency. It is true that big city throws $20 much more often that colliery. But this brings me to another suggestion: {S} It whould be nice to have revenue listed in the Downstream substation window in the same way as some vehicle (to be able to check its revenue :).

23. (missing sprite for crossroads of motorway) As jamespetts says, this is not bug but feature. {S} So I suggest to set the crossroads tile to some "Forbidden configuration" tile. Because with this transparent tile, lonely segments are invisible (which can cause some unexpected behavior). This happend to me when I had cross 3x3 and deleted middle "invisible" tile. All others turned invisible (since they become lonely 1x1 "crossroad").

I've also edited those comments (and some explanations) to original post to keep it all in one :)

EDIT: And I forgot to comment those stucking vehicles.
Quote from: jamespetts on August 05, 2012, 12:04:43 AM
8.c On the aircraft cost bug, this has already been fixed for the next release. As to the replacer issue, I have not encountered that before: can you give more details as to the circumstances in which this can be reproduced?
I can only say that I've set all planes to replace. It happend in included game. It is hard to give you the save because after saving and loading, it was OK.

Quote from: jamespetts on August 05, 2012, 12:04:43 AM
10. I think that this is not specific to Experimental - but can you upload a saved game in which this problem can be reproduced?
I can't. Same reason, after loading it was OK.

Once I've sent a train (which was standing in the station) to the depot and it stuck at "changing schedule" (standing in the station) till save-load combo. After loading, it went to depot normally.

An another case: I've built Oil well after year they can appear, then I've built oil cairs and started them (everything in pause). After about one minute the Oil well disappeard and cars was stuck completely, cant even send to depot. And again, after saving&loading the game it was resolved.

To summarize those stucking problems, It happend to me about 10 times and save-load combo helped in all of them.
Title: Re: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: jamespetts on August 06, 2012, 09:40:43 PM
Thank you for the more detailed description in relation to the loading/saving - that is useful to know (although does make the bug rather hard to track down, unfortunately).

There's one thing that I forgot to mention that might be of some assistance to you in relation to no. 12: if you go to the "settings" dialogue (key "i" in Pak128.Britain-Ex) and look under the general tab, you will see buttons for "pedes_and_car_info", "tree_info" (etc.): these can be used to customise the properties of the inspection tool without editing simuconf.tab. I hope that this helps!
Title: Re: General feedback -- suggestions & bug reports
Post by: NightElfik on August 07, 2012, 01:22:25 PM
Quote from: jamespetts on August 06, 2012, 09:40:43 PMThere's one thing that I forgot to mention that might be of some assistance to you in relation to no. 12: if you go to the "settings" dialogue (key "i" in Pak128.Britain-Ex) and look under the general tab, you will see buttons for "pedes_and_car_info", "tree_info" (etc.): these can be used to customise the properties of the inspection tool without editing simuconf.tab. I hope that this helps!
Thank you! This was exactly what I was looking for! {S} There should be definitely way how to open this dialogue with UI (to be possible to find it). I've searched all menus and didn't find it.