This might be a newbie question, but I ran into an issue: turns out buses/trucks remember their schedule as squares, and not as stations.
For example, in the attached screenshot, both buses are set to fully load at the stop.
Schedule of the second bus was copied from the first one. So it tries to go to the same square that the first bus, and doesn't consider stopping at the second platform.
I came from TTD and Locomotion background, and really enjoy the directional cargo system in Simutrans. But is there a way to configure Simutrans to choose platforms automatically?
Thank you!
There is a choose sign that has to be put in front of the station.
Thank you, I found this sign in Pak128.
However I find that I need to place this sign on the road in from of the stop. It's one way, and I can toggle it the other way.
I can also place it on the station itself, but it's only one way then.
I cannot seem to have any wiki articles about this sign.
Is there a way to make ALL stations to act as "choose the empty platform" type?
No, this is a deliberate design decision of Simutrans. Automatic choosing can involve many deadlocks and unwanted behaviour.
Actually, Simutrans is much more about using only as much cars as one needs and buidling small stations (since station upkeep is expensive); unlike OpenTTD a factory will not produce more when something is waiting there. Thus you will only rarely see megastations with more than 10 platforms. And I still have to see a game, where that many are actually used meaningless.
Yes, I understand that management of vehicles is important.
My difficulty is, however, that being new to the game, I wanted somewhat of a sandbox mode, where I can say: "buses, load in Leicester downtown and then go!"
Attached is a screenshot of an intersection with mail/bus stations that I wanted to use.
I added "choose" signs at all entrances into town, and it's much better - buses choose what corner to stop at.
I know in reality buses have designated platforms, most of the time, but again, I was looking for a "newbie" mode of sorts.
The trouble is that Simutrans can't read the player's mind. It's easy to do something that suddenly sends choose signs and signals into chaos. Probably not with a pure bus stop layout, as buses don't (normally) wait for a load. Stations involving some vehicles waiting for a load and some not is where I've been burned.
You can increase the station coverage radius as big as the city, therefore you can serve the city using only one stop.
Click New game -> (advanced) settings -> routing -> station_coverage.
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EDIT (off-topic): WOW, look at the post time (nn:00:00). ;D
@Vonjo: Station coverage is not the problem in my case. I'm OK with station coverage being 2 or 3.
There is max wait time on the stations, but it's a strange fraction that I don't understand. (What is 1/512, for example?)
My wish is for the flag on a station - or on the schedule of the vehicle - "pick the empty platform"
The "choose" sign is awkward.
But since choosing involves reserving a platform and reserving the whole path to it (or trains could cause deadlocks), there must be a point where to choose and when to reserve the platform/stop tile. So in any case there is a need for a special signal or the system woudl become either prone to deadlocks (or require those completely unrealistic OpenTTD megastations.)
Right, building huge stations for cheap was kind of a cheat in TTD.
I like the station management.
With trains, however, I'm used to knowing what track to go to, and I'm alright with signals.
Street signals are harder to see in the town. To be honest, I play with buses, truck and trams much more than anything else.
If I may follow up with another request just for bus/truck stops then: is there a way to build a long bus station, say three squares long, on the road, and have buses pass first or second square if it's busy?
Unfortunately, no. It would be really nice, but in most cases it would look strange with the current graphics as vehicles would either pass through each other or stand on top of the sidewalk.
Why can't the existing Overtaking logic, be used to pass stopped vehicles? In the case of a two- or three-tile bus stop, the first bus arrives and is waiting for passengers. The second bus arrives, stops behind the first bus... and should notice that it has stopped "at" its next stop, and thus load/discharge passengers. The first bus happens to still be waiting. The second bus, ready to depart, should simply overtake the first one. This reflects reality, and almost all the code is there already... no?
Parked vehicles are overtaken; if the are not directly before a crossing, because this cause deadlocks.
In rural areas, overtaking might be used for passing parked buses, but otherwise overtaking is something else. Overtaking requires the other vehicle to use the other lane, which therefore must be free. In this case, it is the bus being "overtaken" that should leave the lane so that the overtaking vehicle can continue normally. I image such a thing would be similar to overtaking in the code.
After playing a few more games, I have to say that without having automatic "choose empty bus/truck stop" managing stops in the city is very complicated.
The situation is this:
- If you want trucks/buses to load fully, and not incur per-km maintenance, you have to wait at the stops.
- If your buses/trucks wait at the stops, other buses/trucks often end up queuing before the stop, and expansion of the stop doesn't help.
- If I install "choose stop" sign ($1500) it's better, but I have to do that on both sides every two-three tile stop. Sign is small, and one-directional, hard to see and manage.
- Additionally, as mentioned before, if I have a double stop at the corner "choose" sign is not working, since buses sometimes are having hard time passing others that are parked.
I really like the bus/truck management, but from reading the forum, sounds like I'm in a minority.
I would really appreciate a good FAQ of in-town bus/truck management from someone who made this profitable.
You use only as much buses as you really need (usually one at the start). YOu use 100% load on ONE stop of the schedule, combined with a loading time of 1/4 month or so.
You inner city buses will be still at loss (pak set and era dependent), but intercity travel will make this up.
(Written before prissi's post)
The best way to operate buses will vary from pak set to pak set, as they have different costs and revenues. It even varies with time. I just have my buses run continuously without waiting in pak64. (Except a few shuttle buses to remote industries and attractions.) Some buses run with a profit, some don't, but those that don't, feed intercity trains whos profits cover the cost of the buses. That's the challenge of Simutrans: you have to see each line as part of a bigger network. It's the sum of everything that counts.
I see what you guys are saying, and the "part of the bigger network" is one way to look at it.
Pak creators seem to be focusing on the trains primarily, and it's understandable.
In real life, I see that some major transportation companies indeed build buses and shuttles to complement their long range lines.
Still, I was hoping to play a mainly road-based game. With expensive roads and stations, and complex landscape, it can be pretty challenging, and rewarding if I succeed!
I'm going to give Experimental build a try, they have passenger comfort levels, and some other changes. Not sure if it's going to be fun or not.
Japanese paks have passenger level 1 and 2, which is also interesting.
Still hoping for the build where buses and mail trucks will pass each other, choose empty stops if theirs is taken, etc.
Where is that "donate" button again? :)
You can still do a road only game, where big intercity buses is the money maker, and the small city buses less so. Even the same kind of bus can be more profitable between cities than inside it, because they are likely to be fuller and because they can get a higher speed bonus on the fast intercity roads than on slow city streets.
You can also create bus stations composed of several tiles. Have the bus make two stops at the same station -- the first stop at the "front" tile, where it will discharge passengers; and the second stop with a wait order at the "second" tile. This at least avoids the situation where you have twenty passengers waiting a month to disembark... and it creates a little queue of empty buses ready to depart.
Quote from: wlindley on June 13, 2013, 01:08:06 PM
You can also create bus stations composed of several tiles. Have the bus make two stops at the same station -- the first stop at the "front" tile, where it will discharge passengers; and the second stop with a wait order at the "second" tile. This at least avoids the situation where you have twenty passengers waiting a month to disembark... and it creates a little queue of empty buses ready to depart.
As far as I can tell, that only works for buses going between two stops. For buses serving more than two stops, they won't fully empty (at least not all the time).