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pax level and lux level for city buildings

Started by Fabio, July 15, 2012, 10:29:23 PM

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Ters

What about factories site parameter? How would it work after this, and what role could it play in compatibility? In pak64, city sited factories seem commercial, while land sited factories seem industrial.

prissi

If specified, it could cause clustering of industry around them (or in case of markets, rather commercial districts).

Iluvalar

Prissi, I understand, but with my system there could also be building in between. Like low-class residential buildings being found in polluted or high criminal area of the city.

Now I'm thinking on something even more flexible :
Alpha_emitting (quantity emitted)
Alpha_radius (area of effect)
Alpha_attraction (could be negative. Simple coefficient of reaction)
Beta_emitting
Beta_radius
Beta_attaction
Delta_...

And let's just make the pak maker decide what is "alpha" and what is "beta" and how it work. Or just leave it blank. Stop me if it's too complex to implement, but I don't think it would be that hard... At the same time, that solution could allow very complex city behavior in the future without any further coding.

Just brainstorming here...

Roads

Sometimes it will be awhile since I've looked at a particular city and if it is looking unusually or unexpectedly good, it's a nice feeling.  With that in mind, as much as I hated seeing pollution, poor areas and that sort of thing in other games, I think those things or something that makes a city ugly needs to be in the game.  The "why" is you need a reason for your cities looking good, something you have done to achieve that.  If they all look great simply because of the engine, then eventually, no matter how great they look, the game will get boring in this respect.

I have no idea how to achieve this within the confines of the game as it currently exists because the player cannot, for example, decide whether to build a coal powered plant or a waste incenerator.  I'm just posting this as something for y'all to consider.  Also, if you are going to have ugly cities, there needs to be a way of fixing this, perhaps having to choose between keeping the ugly or setting up a route that loses money.

Roads

Having thought about this overnight and the problem of where to place pax and lux level buildings, this idea occurred to me.  What about having two types of vehicles for some or all trips.  One would generate considerable pollution but be cheap to buy and operate.  The other would cost more and be more expensive to operate, although either could simply be more expensive to buy or vice versa.

The game engine would then lower the lux level of every building the polluting vehicle passed.  I don't think this would have to be done every trip, I don't know what impact that would have but probably once a month would be enough.  Of course the lux level of the buildings adjacent to those buildings directly impacted would have a reduced lux level as well but at a lower rate.

This would add an individual characteristic to the game as well as a strategic element because such things could be done as routing vehicles away from nicer areas of the city using way points, etc.

Ters

I think simulating polution is too much for the game. It's beyond the scope. Apart from that, I also believe that every trip would have to update the polution for the game to know how many times which vehicles have passed a tile. Vehicles passing a tile is already being registered anyway, so doing it then is probably not as costly, and easier to implement, than some trying to figure it out afterwards. But prissi probably knows a lot more about the performance bottlenecks of the game.

kierongreen

Having a pollution counter only for tiles a vehicle passed over wouldn't be too difficult. Having an area effects would be more time consuming and you'd have to be careful how you used this information - commercial buildings might not like being in the middle of industrial pollution but you'd still want them around major transport hubs... As has been pointed out - the more factors that are taken into account the less you'll notice individual ones.

Iluvalar

Sorry. It's me and my weird ideas again. It stroke me that with 3-4 of the parameters I talked about yesterday well designed in the pakset. The city placement for new buildings could be difficult enough so even a human could see it as a challenge. By simply calculating the city income by how well each buildings follow their own rules there could be some sort of mayor game possible.

I know it's not a priority of any sort but... I'm starting to really like my idea :D . The hard part would be to instruct each buildings about their own parameters in the pak...

VS

Being able to distinguish the various building types also helps... Similar graphics = effect wasted.

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Roads

@Iluvalar

Your idea appears quite robust and somewhat complex to me and while I normally like that sort of thing, I fail to see how it would change how the player plays the game.  Even if buildings have different lux and pax levels because of pollution, the player can't do anything to change it.  It certainly would change the look of the game but not the play that I can see.  Maybe I'm missing something?

@Ters

You are right.  The introduction of pollution that affects game play would change the scope of the game.  This could very well be something the majority of players do not want.  I would like it but that's just me and I realize that majority rules.

@Kieron

I had not thought about how the adjacent buildings would be handled.  I can easily see your point about difficulty.

@VS

Not sure I understand what you are saying...

Fabio

IMHO a pollution factor might be gameplay useful introducing a bias diesel/steam vs electric.
This must be thought deeper, though.
All ways might have a pollution level (and as stated it wouldn't be hard to code) given by the total number of diesel/steam vehicles, both belonging to a player or city cars.
Pollution level could be aggregated at city level (i.e. Sum of pollution of all ways within city limits). Cities polluted over a certain limit (possibly time dependent) would grow less. Number of tiles with trees and parks would raise the limit (i.e. More pollution tolerated), whereas industries and ind building would add pollution on their own.
This would give the player an incentive to build hubs and airports outside city limits and to switch to electric vehicles when possible.

Ters

Sounds like a lot of logic. But do cities stop growing because of polution? What I've heard happening is that the cities impose a toll on unecessary traffic that isn't green, or even ban vehicles with odd/even licence plates every alternate day. The latter won't work on Simutrans' timescale. The former is simply just a raise on the running cost of the vehicles, which means even more logic, but can perhaps be simplified to a global rise in running costs over time. In that case Simutrans would need non-static running costs, maybe just something as simple as a linear interpolation based on the date, just like speed bonus.

Iluvalar

@Roads. No, you are absolutely right. At least for the first time. The city would look much more nice with downtown, industry zone, luxury house in a corner, farm outside the city etc... but it would not change the game play. Except maybe the direction of city growth. For now...


However, I thought that since the pak makers will want to review all the buildings. it would be a good time to ask them about some more things about each buildings.


But as I said, on top of that, it could be a robust base for more city simulation. Probably fun and challenging enough for a player to become a mayor instead of a transporting compagny. And simple enough to make a weighted AI system look intelligent in city placement...

Roads

#48
Trees, Fabio?  Really?  Trees?  I've got trees:















Obviously the idea of trees affecting my game would make me very happy! :)


@Iluvalar


I was missing something.  Of course looks matter and yes I can see where your idea does place a systematic approach to the idea of pollution.


@Ters


Since I know next to nothing about how the game is programmed, I really can't address what you said other than say a change should not be just additional costs for the player.  The goal of the player is to do two things.  First, avoid city pollution by choosing green vehicles when he can afford them and routing polluting vehicles away from high lux levels when he can't.








Ters

Quote from: Roads on August 03, 2012, 04:50:33 PM
Since I know next to nothing about how the game is programmed, I really can't address what you said other than say a change should not be just additional costs for the player.  The goal of the player is to do two things.  First, avoid city pollution by choosing green vehicles when he can afford them and routing polluting vehicles away from high lux levels when he can't.

But the way governments force transport companies to use greener vehicles is to make the non-green more costly. And the most expensive places to live are near transportation hubs, where the polution is highest. Except luxury villas, but those who live there don't use buses anyway. At least that's how it is where I'm from.

Fabio

Simutrans is a transport simulator. Since pollution is a big issue in transports, it's not out of scope in the simulation.

This said, we can argue
1) which effects should it have on gameplay
2) if technically feasible, without (much) impact on performance.

Ters is right, polluting vehicles should be more costly. But also the player should route the most polluting vehicles (trucks, diesel busses, diesel or steam trains) out of cities, whereas city hubs are mostly for green vehicles.

Here's another proposition:

- ways (especially roads and tracks) record a pollution level over (non-green vehicles passed in the last 12 months).
- cities apply a carbon tax to all non-green vehicles driving on a tile in their territory which exceeds pollution limit.
- the carbon tax works as road tolls; the fee might go to public service road tolls, whoever the owner of the way is.
- citycars add to pollution level but don't pay the carbon tax (as they don't pay road toll).
- pollution limit of a tile is given by year (interpolated, the way speed bona work) and by city (city might have a higher/lower limit according to size, buildings, trees and so on, if this can be easily coded; otherwise all cities might have the same limit in the same year).
- non-green vehicles outside cities don't pay any carbon tax.

This algorithm shouldn't be hard to code nor should it impact on performance as it takes advantage of mechanisms already within the simulation (i.e. road tolls, statistics of transits per month and so on).

I specifically ask for no carbon tax outside city limits as this would make diesel trains (and trucks) good for countryside areas (and diesel busses good for intercity trips too) while penalizing them in heavily urbanized areas.

ӔO

If I may add.
There is more than one type of pollution.

- Noise pollution is one of the main reasons why residential areas remain cheap nearby railroads and airports. Some factories also do this, even if they are clean, due to the machinery they use. Highways that run nearby residential areas often have sound barriers installed at additional cost. Some railways also have sound barriers installed.
- Light pollution may not desirable to some attractions, like an observatory, natural preserve or camping sight.
- Visual pollution, like overhead powerlines, tend to lower property value.

For the sake of simplicity, all the pollution types can be rolled into one.

Other types of pollution that don't quite work in simutrans are: water pollution, thermal pollution and soil pollution.
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Roads

Europe must be much different from the U.S. in respect to cost of green vehicles.  I haven't priced anything lately but last time I checked, anything green cost anywhere from considerably more to a lot more than traditional vehicles.  Of course this is also a game and it doesn't have to reflect reality as long as it is not so removed from reality that you get the feeling you are just inputing data.  None of the ideas presented here would even approach that level of unreality.

That said, I don't understand why the player would ever buy a polluting vehicle if the green ones cost less to either buy or operate.

Fabio

Green vehicles cost much more but are cheaper to operate (here in Europe e.g. natural gas cost half of diesel) and can be spared carbon tax or equivalent. It makes strengthen the trade of between high purchase cost and high operating cost.
Also newer vehicles are greener than older ones, so it pushes renewal of the fleet.

I wanted to add to my proposition also a statistic of pollution in a given city and at map level. These wouldn't affect normal gaming but could be used by scenario engine, e.g. setting the goal to restructure a network in order to half the pollution level in a target city or at global level and so on...

ӔO

Green vehicles for consumers don't make much sense, because they are not used to such an extent that the true cost of ownership will pay for itself. I think you need around 10 to 12 years of use, before the costs finally start to equalize.

'Greener' commercial grade road vehicles, on the other hand, do pay for themselves, because they cover great distances yearly and are used for around 15 to 20 years.

For trains, the newer, vehicles are naturally greener, due to improvements in technology, but the costs can be quite astronomical for the company. Typically, trains can get anywhere from 10 to 60 years of usage, but the ones being used for over 20 years are due to the owner not having any money to replace them.


As to what pollution may do to cities, I would say stunted growth and adversity to luxurious structures. People do not want to live in filthy cities if they can help it.
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Roads

#55
Yes Fabio, I should have said that here in the U.S., only the initial cost of green vehicles is more.  Operating expense is lower but as AEO pointed out it is often at least questionable whether those operating savings would ever cover the initial cost.

The thing is, I suspect the Simutrans engine already forces the player to upgrade vehicles as soon as new ones are available.  At least I've found that I begin slowly losing money if I don't do that.  If green vehicles are introduced into the game and they simply cost more but the operating expense is less, how would that be any different to the way the game already works?




MODIFY:  doh!  Nevermind, I was being dumb.  Of course it would affect game play.  It would affect routing...thing I've been pounding the table about for a few days...sorry!

Ters

I think it's generally the speed bonus that forces upgrades in Simutrans today. As the expected speed increases (explicitly given in speedbonus.tab, or calculated from average among available vehicles), you no longer get paid as much for using the older and slower vehicles.

I've attached a graph for the 707 in pak64, where planes quickly become unprofitable. (I think there is a small error in it. The blue line should be labeled "Income", not "Profit".)

greenling

Good day.
There is a new problem!
Missing From because year 1995 new 'environment-friendly vehicles' in all Paksets.
We should first this missing vehicle manufacture.
And only then on the protection of the environment speeches!
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(In Night from friday on saturday and saturday on sunday it possibly that i be keep longer in Forum.)
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Working on a big Problem!

Roads

@Ters

You have confirmed or at least said what I have surmised to be true.  IMHO, too much emphasis is placed on speed bonus.  I see no why why a perfectly good vehicle carrying coal should be penalized just because it is old.  And that is what the speed bonus effectively does.  Really I think it is penalty enough that the slower vehicles cause the faster vehicles to slow down especially since all the vehicles of a line tend to cluster thus forming a long slow line behind the slowest vehicle on the road. :(

@greenling

From Mark Antony to Martin Luther King, speeches have moved people to action.

Fabio

But actually coal has/should have no speed bonus or almost. It matters instead for pax, mail, cooled goods and the like.
On the other hand, greener vehicles might have same speed or even be slightly slower.

I don't like too much the way obsolescence is dealt with in Simutrans. Obsolete vehicles are those no longer manufactured, although I might have bought them just one month before.
IMHO lines and vehicles list should mark as obsolete (and hence suggest for replacement) those convoys with negative speed bonus or something alike, regardless of their retire date.

Ters

This thread is jumping from topic to topic, but as for the obsolescence is Simutrans, the dates in pak64 is for when vehicles become obsolete, not when they stop being made (not sure how other pak sets see it, but that seems to fit how the game handles them). If you buy a vehicle just before the obsolescence date, it would realistically speaking be a second hand vehicle (though it costs as much as a new one). On the other hand, Boeing 737 is still in production, though the oldest are pretty much obsolete. And to veer back towards the former, though not original, topic: a 737 of today is probably greener than a 737 from the 70's.

Iluvalar

I opened my own topic for the various effect of buildings in their city neighborhood.

it's here : http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=10318

Because I don't want to flood that excellent pax/lux idea with off topics.

ӔO

Quote from: Fabio on August 04, 2012, 11:17:51 AM
But actually coal has/should have no speed bonus or almost. It matters instead for pax, mail, cooled goods and the like.
On the other hand, greener vehicles might have same speed or even be slightly slower.

I don't like too much the way obsolescence is dealt with in Simutrans. Obsolete vehicles are those no longer manufactured, although I might have bought them just one month before.
IMHO lines and vehicles list should mark as obsolete (and hence suggest for replacement) those convoys with negative speed bonus or something alike, regardless of their retire date.

Although it would depend on the pakset, I think coal should be given some speed bonus. It is an energy source, be it for power plants or steam engines, so it is very important that the coal be available constantly and on time. If the supply were to run out, the costs of the downtime could be astronomical.

For a power plant, shutting down and starting up again would not only be very tedious, it would also mean less power on the grid. For a steam engines, both ship and train, it means they have no fuel to move goods. Around the world, coal is still an important resource and it shows, because some railways are only kept alive by the coal they move.
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jamespetts

Didn't industries used to stockpile the stuff in bulk?
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ӔO

Quote from: jamespetts on August 05, 2012, 11:55:51 PM
Didn't industries used to stockpile the stuff in bulk?

that's the contingency measure, just in case there are delays with delivery.
It's really not so different from backup generators and battery banks in some buildings we have today.
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Roads

AEO, perhaps you are confusing on time delivery with urgent delivery.  Remember the story of the disease out break in Alaska many years ago and they had to get the medicine there by dog sled?  That was urgent.  It deserved a speed bonus.

On time delivery is how most of the industrial world operates.  It has nothing to do with how important the product is, most products are important, doubtless some more than others but the vast majority only require just in time delivery.  IMHO, if I were going give or penalize rates for delivery, then I would set a delivery date each time a vehicle left the destination for most goods.  If the vehicle made it to the delivery point on time, then good, if not he would be penalized.