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Tram tracks on plain land

Started by Mariculous, October 04, 2020, 04:23:24 PM

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jamespetts

Quote from: Freahk on October 19, 2020, 07:12:37 PM
Organising things by throwing them all on a huge heap of stuff seems contradictory to me.
I want to improve usability, not trample on it!
Throwing everything into the same menu does not organise anything. Sure, we don't need to open two menus, but it's simply even more chaotic.

At least in my opinion.

I'd rather welcome moving light-rail related stuff into the light-rail/tram menu.

As explained, this is problematic because there is no clear boundary between heavy and light rail, thus, there is no sensible way of deciding which should be in one menu and which in the other. It would be extremely confusing to players building a railway to find that, when they want to lay relatively cheap/light tracks (e.g. for a branch to a small goods terminal or for carriage sidings), they have to look in the tram menu.

Quote
A dat file parameter could be used to stick different rail types together, so we can simply drag tram tracks and that will build the selected tram track on roads as well as the related "usual" rail on plain ground.
In pak192.comic, I expect both to be coded the exact same, except from one being tram track, the other one being "real" tracks, but other paks might for sure handle this differently.

Is that an acceptable solution?

Do I understand that you mean by this a system of associating a rail line and a tram track in the .dat files to allow a player to drag a tram line off a road onto plain land and for it to turn into the associated rail line and vice versa?

I can see potential merit in this but also potential problems. first of all, we still need the first tile of dragging to remain a proper tram track to allow depots to be built (unless there is also a solution for building depots without needing to do this?). Secondly, I can see potential problems with associations between rail and tram tracks needing to be different at different points in time, or players sometimes wanting to have choice over which rail track is associated with a tram track and preferring something other than the default, leading to confusion.

If we can solve the issue of tram depots (and connecting tram to rail lines in paksets that do not implement this), then I do not object in principle to this if someone else were to code it, but I recommend that careful thought be given to just how universal that the pakset determined association between tram and rail is really likely to be from the players' perspectives.
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Mariculous

#36
Quote from: jamespetts on October 25, 2020, 02:00:42 PMAs explained, this is problematic because there is no clear boundary between heavy and light rail, thus, there is no sensible way of deciding which should be in one menu and which in the other. It would be extremely confusing to players building a railway to find that, when they want to lay relatively cheap/light tracks (e.g. for a branch to a small goods terminal or for carriage sidings), they have to look in the tram menu.
I don't see any issue in adding an icon to the exact same (and this does really mean the exact same, you don't even need to duplicate the object in the dat) heavy-rail light track type to the tram/light-rail menu. the same track will appear twice, but that's by-far less confusing than throwing everything onto the huge heap of universal-everything-rail menu. And I guess it's even better than the need to manage two menus of which most stuff in the larger menu is is completely irrelevant to your light rail.
No matter which kind of light-rail network you build, you will never ever need a speed of more than 100 km/h nor heavy axle loads . The same applies to briges and tunnels.




Yes, I guess you understand the idea correctly.

Quote from: jamespetts on October 25, 2020, 02:00:42 PMI can see potential merit in this but also potential problems. first of all, we still need the first tile of dragging to remain a proper tram track to allow depots to be built (unless there is also a solution for building depots without needing to do this?).
This does already work without any problems.
The only thing that does not work is placing tram catenaries on normal rails, but the other way round works just fine...
It should not be a problem to associate a normal rail catenary to a tram catenary in the same turn and way as associating rails to each other.

Quote from: jamespetts on October 25, 2020, 02:00:42 PMSecondly, I can see potential problems with associations between rail and tram tracks needing to be different at different points in time
The parameter should respect the availability of a track. Itrate the list of associated track from the first to the last until a suitable track is found. If none is found, refuse building. A track that is not available at a specific time is not suitable!

Quote from: jamespetts on October 25, 2020, 02:00:42 PMor players sometimes wanting to have choice over which rail track is associated with a tram track and preferring something other than the default, leading to confusion.
Instead of picking the very firs tsuitable track, we might add a setting menu to tracks and list all available tracks there, so the player can explicitly set a specific one instead of "automatic selection". I do not think this is neccessary and I don't t want to implement it for that reason. I'll keep this in mind for an eventual later implementation though.

Quote from: jamespetts on October 25, 2020, 02:00:42 PMconnecting tram to rail lines in paksets that do not implement this
I'll keep especially this point in mind, but there shouldn't be any problems with this. If there is an attempt to place tram rail on plain land and there is no suitable track in the related list, finally use the current logic to determine if that tile is a immediately connected to a tram track on a road. If it is, exceptionally allow construction on that single tile of plain land.