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Display city foundation year

Started by Fabio, October 12, 2012, 11:22:04 AM

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Fabio

Quote from: prissi on January 03, 2012, 12:10:40 AM
Ok, gradual town growth will appear in next nghtly.
Quote from: prissi on January 03, 2012, 10:26:13 AM
The year when the gradual growth occurs is first_town_year + difference*(2^n-1), and the first step will be at 32 inhabitant. THis will double at each step.

First growth is at the found ing year of the first townhall/road (1400 in pak64) by +32 people.
Next growth is +64 at 1400 + (starting_year-1400)/2 (= 1667 for 1930).
Next growth step is +128 at 1400 + (starting_year*3-1400)/4 (=1801).
Next is +256 at 1868 then 512 at 1901 and so on until the target level is reached.

Thus a 1000 inhabitants will not be reached until 1901 in the above example.

A few time ago the gradual growth of cities was introduced in the code.
If I got it correctly, this means that different cities are created at different ages.
I would like to see, as an eye candy element, the actual year each city was founded, in the city dialog.
Something like:

City of Mapleborough

Inhabitants: 45.000
...
Founded in 1793


I believe it would be easy to add, futile for gameplay, but a nice addition to a city's history.

Roads

If adding it would be no big deal, for me it would be an RP thing and I really like it!

greenling

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prissi

So far this information is not saved and would only show on things after a patch. But I am not sure if showing more stuff will not confuse more people.

Roads

But, but, but, Prissi!  Confusion is good!  Boredom is bad.  Take me for example.  I'm almost always confused and for most part, couldn't be happier. :)

Ters

Foundation years for cities should be a familiar concept. Why would it cause confusion? Because of the bogus values for games that were not created with this feature?

prissi

Because the homeless and jobless number also generate confusion an they are eyecandy resp. serve bedugging use only. And the dialoge is already quite full. Anyway, saving city foundation years should be straight forward preparation.

But I had a look in the code: All cities have exactly the same foundation year, i.e. the first year cityhalls can be built. Only the building years of city attractions is changing.

IgorEliezer

Quote from: Roads on October 14, 2012, 08:20:58 AM
Confusion is good!  Boredom is bad.

Variety is good. Confusion is... confusing. ¬¬'

prissi

Anyway, this is mood since the initial cities have all the same data ...

Roads

Well yeah Igor, but I was thinking of confusion in terms of learning/understanding something new.  But you are right, variety comes first.

Actually Prissi, the homeless and jobless numbers bother me a little.  It didn't take long to realize they were meaningless and really I don't know why they are there.  It would be great if they had some meaning, like if a factory was built nearby the jobless rate would go down or if you bought a house the homeless rate would go down or some other act by the player or event that would impact those numbers.

Geez, it looks like I was testing to see how many times I could write "or" in that sentence.

Fabio

When homeless rate raises, next city building to be built will be residential (res), when jobless rate is higher, a com or ind building will be built instead.

Ters

Those numbers sound more like debug output for the city building AI rather than information for a player. Does anyone pay attention to it? Or use it to guide their actions? A foundation date is of course also just trivia (and slightly city builder debug outputish), but at least the number is self-explanatory.

Roads

I did not know that Fabio.  But, what effect does the player have on those numbers?  I'm guessing none and if true, then it is meaningless for the player other than knowing the next building will be residential or commercial/industrial.  That's a little like a naked man who has no clothes hearing the weather forecast.

prissi

Well res nd com and ind have different mail output. But other than that, more factors go into the next building. Like it is next to other res/ind/com or if there are appropriate buildings of the next level and so on. Really more a debug output which confused people on the german forum at least. They tried to transport more workers to their factories to get less jobless. But that creates more of course until the next house is built ...

Fabio

Maybe those two strings should be displayed only if a "debug_display" flag is enabled in settings (off by default).
This flag might trigger also other current or future debug outputs.

Roads

Yes, if it is used for debugging or for the game engine to progress the game, it is not only not useful to players but implies there is something there the player can or should do something about, so it is really detrimental to game play.

An_dz

Quote from: Fabio on October 15, 2012, 12:57:35 PM
Maybe those two strings should be displayed only if a "debug_display" flag is enabled in settings (off by default).
This flag might trigger also other current or future debug outputs.
What about the ribi in track dialog? I can't see any use for a normal player.

Sarlock

This opens a larger discussion of whether there should be an "Simutrans Advanced" option in the settings menu that enables features like this.  There is a lot of information on station statistics, vehicle statistics, etc, and it might be nice to pare down much of those to a "Basic" level so that the newer players are not overwhelmed by all of the extra information that isn't that important when you are just starting to play.  At some point, players can turn on "Simutrans Advanced" and get all of the additional information when they won't feel overwhelmed or confused by it.
Current projects: Pak128 Trees, blender graphics

IgorEliezer

#18
Debugmode = on/off

Many games out there have an option that enables/disables debugging features, e.g.: speed of an object, coords, object ID, memory usage, FPS, graphs etc and other things that are meaningless for a 'normal' player but they are useful for a programer, add-on maker, or an advanced user interested in knowing how the game works.

We don't need to get rid of them, just some "reorganization" of the info to be displayed would suffice: the info the player most needs come first, then the other info are accessable by opening dialogs, and the least necessary are hidden and accessable by command input or configuration.

Ters

Actually, the ribis can be important (finding ways that aren't connected is one example), but the way they are presented is not optimal and limits their usefulness. Not only must one understand bit fields, one must also know the binary compass directions.

Fabio

Maybe RIBIs should be translated in the dialog, e.g. NS, EW, NSE. etc...