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Further replacement pitfalls

Started by Mariculous, June 03, 2020, 08:24:50 AM

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Mariculous

This is related to this bug, but is not a bug itself. Anways, I'd like to report what's going on to point out the issue:

What happened?
I mass-replaced some coaches without checking all lines for suitability.
Convoys were sent to the depot as soon as they were empty and after replacement in the depot, they would attempted to enter the line again.
The way to the depot and from the depot back to the last stop might be at an excessive range, causing convoys to pile up in the depot and you will need to manually take care of this.

I know this workflow will change in the distant future, however, some thoughts about adjustments to the current workflow to prevent such annoyances:

1. When setting up replacement, the replace all functionality will check the following on a per-line-and-convoy-type base, in case of lineless individual schedules, on a per-convoy base:
- can the new convoy serve the line? That means running a virtual test-runner along the whole schedule.
- Is there at least one point in the schedule, where the old convoy can reach a depot and the new convoy can return to the schedule from that depot?
If one of the above does not apply, reject the replacement and warn the player, that a line was skipped.

2. Once empty, a convoy will search for a depot in range that does allow the new convoy to return to the route.
If one of these is not possible, the convoy will continue to the next stop to attempt this again.


That's not the optimal solution indeed, but should at least effectively prevent the worst annoyances of the current system.

Vladki

What I would prefer more is to search for stop that is nearest (before) to depot and avoid loading passengers that go beyond that stop so that the convoy is empty when close to the depot. Then after replacement continue to the next stop in schedule. That will avoid long empty runs from terminus to the depot (which will probably be centrally located near some hub) and back. Also on circular tram routes it will avoid trams trying to reach depot in opposite direction than the scheduled flow is (or go whole circle empty if on-way signs are properly set up).

Mariculous

Me too. This will be explicit once maintainance visits to depots are implemented one day, thus I suggested a rather lightweight variant.
Anyways your suggestion would not be that much more complicated I guess.

Vladki

Perhaps an explicit depot item in schedule would be helpful. That will be ignored unless replace/retire button is pressed.

Mariculous

That's exactly what frequent depot visits will achieve in the long-term.

freddyhayward

Another related problem: class prices for new vehicles cannot be changed in the replacement window - the changed prices in the replacement window button can only edit the original vehicle.
It would also be nice to allocate class prices automatically based on the original vehicle, but that is a separate and more complicated issue.