Topic: 1st and 2nd Class passengers

[Hitardo]

Let me start by saying how much I love to play Simutrans.
I love the way things are put together, how much you have to think before you act, the ability to change the terrain and much more.
Simutrans is the BEST
Actually, I confess I talked about Simutrans with some professor of mine, and they adore the idea, and are thinking about create a community inside my university.

But now, let me go strait to the point:

I experimented a excellent particularity in pak128.Japan.
The ability to transport 1st and 2nd Class Passengers.

It is an huge opportunity to make money. Giving the player the option to focus on one or another service, or to make different services for the different Classes, with different planes/trains/road vehicles and its schedules.

As seen in pak128. Japan, we could have a taxi service, a Concorde plane and Maglevs.

I know it is very difficult, but I think It will be great!!

But what will be awesome is: the ability to choose the balance between 1st and 2nd class passengers when buying a plane/car/bus/train...

I will be waiting some feedback.
Congrats!!

[DirrrtyDirk]

IIRC pak18.Japan actually simply uses the freight mail as "1st class passengers" by just renaming it and classifying highend passenger vehicles for this new type of "mail" (= using the existing mail game mechanics). But there is no mail as such left in this pakset. So it's actually just a trick so far.

[Hitardo]

So, I ask: is there a way to add more one good?
Because, as far as I see it, passenger, mail and coal is the same.
The only thing that changes is the name, revenue, bonus and the vehicle cargo type.

Am I seeing this in a too much simple way?

[Combuijs]

Yes, that is too simple. Coal is generated by factories (coal mines) and produced on demand. Passengers and mail are generated by cities and produced automatically. You can define new goods and new factories, but you can't add easily add a third passengers type.

[Fabio]

It might be great, when defining new goods in a pakset, to be able to choose a "type" among pax, mail, and ware.
pax- and mail-like goods would behave like their namesakes, whereas ware would just be common goods like it is now.
There could be a ratio e.g. first_class generation could be set to 5% of pax.

[Carl]

It's worth noting that Experimental approximates this feature with its "comfort" mechanism. Different passenger vehicles have different comfort levels, and passengers are willing to pay more to travel in more comfortable accommodation (think of "comfortable accommodation" here as being first class, restaurant cars, etc). I'm not sure whether passengers have differing comfort requirements -- but I do know that passengers will require more comfort the longer their journey.

[Hitardo]

Ok. Seems far.

But I still think it is a great idea, that would bring more difficulty to the game.
Being more challenging.

But, as I said before, nothing is better than Simutrans

[Milko]

Hello

The routing mode provides that to go from A to B there is one and only one path for each individual good. It is therefore not possible to define two different paths for passengers according to the comfort.

I'm not sure whether passengers have differing comfort requirements -- but I do know that passengers will require more comfort the longer their journey.

Giuseppe

[Fabio]

First class being a different "goods" type would address this: there would pax routes (with the "best" winning) and first_class routes (with the best winning), just as mail and pax can and often have different routes. The only drawback would be that first_class would need to be handled separately from origin to destination, hence having also dedicated feeder lines (e.g. taxis).

Talking  of good types, it would be nice to have 4 types of "goods".
- pax: transport building to building
- ware: transport factory to factory
- waste: transport building to factory
- delivery: transport factory to buildings

Each pakset-defined good should belong to one of these types.
E.g.
pax, first_class, and mail: pax
iron, coal, books, oil, gasoline, etc...: ware
garbage: waste (collection door to door)
groceries, newspapers: delivery (delivery door to door).

Production rates of wares would be factory-defined and wouldn't change present behavior.
Generation rates of pax-like would depend on building level, with different rates according to res, com, and ind building type (current behavior, but additional pax-like would require new pakset-defined rates)
Production rates of waste-like goods would be similar to pax generation, with additional rates.
Production of delivery goods would be factory-defined, similar to wares.

Stations could have selective storage, e.g.: enables=pax,first_class,mail

This would give paksets greater customization, from present behavior to extremely complex goods types.

[Ters]

The fact that first class passenger would be different all the way makes this seem too artifical to me. It might work if the category system was hierarchical, so that both first and second class passenger could be a subclass of passenger, but I don't think it is.

Fabio's suggestion of pax, ware, waste and delivery could be interesting.

[Bear789]

Each pakset-defined good should belong to one of these types.
E.g.
pax, first_class, and mail: pax
iron, coal, books, oil, gasoline, etc...: ware
garbage: waste (collection door to door)
groceries, newspapers: delivery (delivery door to door).

Production of delivery goods would be factory-defined, similar to wares.

Rather than a door to door delivery, it would be interesting if delivery goods would go to commercial buildings and consumer "factories" like greengrocers and markets are removed.

This would also make the consumption rate dependant on the city size: currently a market in a huge metropolis consumes the same amount of goods of another market in a three buildings village.

[Ters]

I thought markets and wholesales were commercial buildings. (That they're implemented as a type of building called factory in the code is an implementation detail, though it may shine through in some of the texts.) But it would make sense that every town has one, and more as they grow. Consumption could perhaps be tied to the number of passengers, rather than city population, which the passenger boost may be used for.

[Bear789]

I ment another thing: in the city buildings list (public service menus), buildings are labelled as residential, commercial and industrial. I don't know if that's just cosmetic or it's actually functional somehow (passenger and mail generation level, perhaps?).
Since Fabio suggested door to door delivery, it would be interesting if commercial city buildings consumed finished goods. This would make commercial "factories" superfluous and would automatically make the city consume more goods as it grows, since it would spawn more shops.

[Vladki]

Talking  of good types, it would be nice to have 4 types of "goods".
- pax: transport building to building
- ware: transport factory to factory
- waste: transport building to factory
- delivery: transport factory to buildings

I was also thinking about this, especially the waste collection stuff. Then I thought also about commercial buildings as final consumers, and then even about industrial buildings as sort of factories without contracts (consume something, produce something). But then I thought, well this would be completely different game, which I would like to play...

However pak128.britain, where final consumers are small shops in the city, is pretty close to the "delivery" idea.

[Ters]

I ment another thing: in the city buildings list (public service menus), buildings are labelled as residential, commercial and industrial. I don't know if that's just cosmetic or it's actually functional somehow (passenger and mail generation level, perhaps?).
Since Fabio suggested door to door delivery, it would be interesting if commercial city buildings consumed finished goods. This would make commercial "factories" superfluous and would automatically make the city consume more goods as it grows, since it would spawn more shops.

The thing is that if a building is a specific consumer of something (I assume that you don't want every commercial building to be a consumer of a little bit of everything), it becomes more than a normal building, which is what factories are. Since consumer factories spawn when city grows, it would also spawn more shops as it grows, but it could perhaps spawn more often, and of lesser size.

[transporter]

garbage: waste (collection door to door)
groceries, newspapers: delivery (delivery door to door).

Production rates of waste-like goods would be similar to pax generation, with additional rates.
Production of delivery goods would be factory-defined, similar to wares.

I like that garbage/newspapers idea! You want difficulty, try finding an efficient route door to door.

[prissi]

The mail is asymmetric. Industrial and commercial buildings produce more mail than they recieve. One the other hand industrial building produce less passengers, tahn commercial and residential. Attractions produce even more asymmetric, more than 1/8 recieved/sent.

If you want to play with generic ware accepted everywhere, then there is OpenTTD. But in the end ware will not be much different from mail or first class or whatever. Just an additional net. Even wares going to every building are not different than passengers going from factory to every building in catchment. Only there is not return, i.e. trucks have to return empty then.

The only thing which may enrich the game is imho waste, since it goes from buildings to factories, which is somewhat unique. Those garbage dumps/recycling centers would have then been linked to population sizes.

[Hitardo]

I think you are overthinking and overcomplicating things

.Ok, my idea started with the 2 classes of passengers (1st and 2nd class).
.The garbage idea came up. That's a good one!!
.The newspaper and other goods (food, wine, milk, etc...) is complicated a system that is already good, I think. If you want this system, simply add (with public service) the shops to sell the goods to increase difficulty.

I do not have any idea how complicated it will be to program it, but want will be great is add levels to the building, as it has already passengers and mail.
Now, the buildings have passengers and mail level.
How difficult it will be to add another level?
A 1st Class Passenger Level. That acts the same way as (2nd Class) Passengers and Mail.
It could be a percentage of one of the two that already exists. Five per cent as someone suggested.

Garbage is a great idea!!
But the complicated thing with it is: garbage do not have the will to travel from point A to B. It simply needs to go from point A to B.
The way to manipulate/get away with this problem is to create a factory that produces garbage/trash. This factory/trash container, as to be created in the middle of the city (unlike other factories that are created outside town) and treatment centres have to be created to consume that trash.

We can increase the chain.
The Treatment Centres can produce two things: electricity or fertilizer to farms.
Fertilizer can also be produced with Oil Refinery.

What do you think?
And do you have to say about adding other level to the buildings (1st Class Passenger)?

[prissi]

Another levle of special passenger like freight is not useful, imho, as already almost never mail is transported much. Even well developed maps never go above 10-15% mail coverage, but up to 70% of passenger coverage. This I do not see many people using such a third independent network.

Waste would be different, as it is a cargo that can be processed into fertilzer, glass, electricity of only dumped. Thus you would need a collecting network (i.e. making slow small trash truck expensive.) and long distance transport to the processing/dumps by making those high speed trucks as well as trains or ships relatively cheaper.

[Combuijs]

I am in the "almost" category then: I always try to have full mail coverage in a game.

But, yes, I don't see the need for an extra third category.

[Roads]

Adding more complexity does not offer more strategic game play.  I can not see any strategic possibilities here.  What difficulty does is make the game more interesting until you learn how to do it, then it's point and click until the task is done.

The down side is making the learning curve steeper for beginners.

[Hitardo]

Ok, I admit that 1st class passengers will turn the curve steeper and complicate networks. I admit that.
But I continue to admire that idea, with the possibility to build different terminals, different networks with different vehicles and schedules.

The garbage idea is a pretty good idea!!
But I do not think it will be possible - here is where the programmers can help me and correct me - to take what is in the buildings (like passengers and mail) to factories.
Or is it?
Because if it is, it will be awesome.

If it is not possible, I will suggest the creation of a local trash service, like shops (furniture, newspaper, meat, milk, etc...) and then a factory outside the town to produce electricity or other things.

What is your idea?

[The Hood]

If 1st class were to be implemented in a way which is intuitive, I would suggest it for experimental in combination with speed/comfort. Split the passenger demand up: some prefer fast routes, some prefer comfortable routes, others want the cheapest (why else can EasyJet or RyanAir run a profit?!??!). A whole separate network for 1st class doesn't make much sense to me.

[Fabio]

Goods categories and single goods could be both selected for vehicles, with preference for the specific good.
E.g. there are bulk cars but there could be specific coal cars as well. If a route is served by both, coal goes into coal cars, if only bulk, coal goes into bulk cars (good category).
This would apply perfectly to first class being a sub category of pax.

[Ters]

Goods categories and single goods could be both selected for vehicles, with preference for the specific good.
E.g. there are bulk cars but there could be specific coal cars as well. If a route is served by both, coal goes into coal cars, if only bulk, coal goes into bulk cars (good category).
This would apply perfectly to first class being a sub category of pax.

This is what i meant with hierarchical category system. In computer programming terms, there would be abstract goods types. No factories would produce or consume abstract goods types, nor would they have a value or speed bonus, but there would be vehicles able to carry them.

Oh, and by the way, I almost always build a parallel mail route when I build passenger routes.

[ӔO]

1st class usually means you have to reserve your seats before hand and pay a small fee for increased luxury. It also means you decrease carrying capacity of those who don't want to pay extra.

Also, people who can pay for 1st class, would normally rather just use their own car to drive themselves, if they could.

Also, with regards to reservations, quite a lot of airline seats are booked in advance.


I don't really see a good way of implementing passengers with higher demands in service.

[prissi]

Implementing garbage as special freight from buildings with only factories as destination is actually rather trivial. The only thing missing is the routine which suitable garbage processing factories. All the other stuff is there and can be reused.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

That would be a cool network to have

[Vladki]

Implementing garbage as special freight from buildings with only factories as destination is actually rather trivial. The only thing missing is the routine which suitable garbage processing factories. All the other stuff is there and can be reused.

Can I help somehow to see this garbage collection thing done?

[sdog]

If 1st class were to be implemented in a way which is intuitive, I would suggest it for experimental in combination with speed/comfort. Split the passenger demand up: some prefer fast routes, some prefer comfortable routes, others want the cheapest (why else can EasyJet or RyanAir run a profit?!??!). A whole separate network for 1st class doesn't make much sense to me.

Most sensible idea so far.

1st class pax as an own category does not work very well, since also all local lines and buses would need first class vehicles. Having sub-categories as someone suggested would solve this, but is a complicated sollution to something that could be achieved much easier through comfort level.

It isn't important that one pax has always the same properties, it's the average that counts. The way experimental does it is likely good enough.

[sdog]

Implementing garbage as special freight from buildings with only factories as destination is actually rather trivial. The only thing missing is the routine which suitable garbage processing factories. All the other stuff is there and can be reused.

Instead of having garbage created at buildings, would be a change in factory code allowing more, local facilities be an alternative? Such that every town builds a waste site after it reaches a certain size, also a bakery and a supermarket. That way we could have the typical problem of distribution (collection) from many small sites, without having to cluster all cities with cargo stops and running countless local lines. (Mail is bad enough already with low-capacity mail trucks clogging everything.)

The consumption of those factories could be dependent on the city size. Eg. in the same way as the transformer code for city electricity supply already does.


Someone (AvG or AP) experimented a bit with something like this a while ago: He changed dat files of consumer industries to accept very small amounts and placed them manually in all cities. (Couldn't find it ad-hoc, perhaps someone could point us to the thread.)

[isidoro]

What about a garbage extension building?  I have seen some stops with mailboxes integrated.  These stops extensions would have garbage containers integrated.

Would garbage have a destination or would it be possible to throw it in whatever industry capable of processing it?

[prissi]

Gargabe could be a fourth special freight which needs to be eanabled at stops like good, mail and passengers. Or garbage could be enabled like normal freight, which would mean much less effort programwise (and also more consistency).

[ӔO]

Waste only has two or three ultimate destinations, land fill, incinerator or compost, but collection is similar to buses.

If it were implemented like a factory, where you only have the collection facility to link to land fill or otherwise, then it's already possible by giving garbage its own goods category.

For waste collection to be meaningful, it should be up to the player to collect it from various dwellings and deliver the waste to land fill, etc.

[wlindley]

1st/2nd

• for Experimental: how about, passengers traveling to a "commercial" destination have a higher preference for comfort, while passengers to an "industrial" destination prefer lower price or speed.  Passengers to residential areas have the current preference.
• As a test, the above could be simulated by increasing the weighted preference for comfort when traveling to stops with Mail capacity, and increasing the preference for speed when traveling to stops with Goods capacity.

Garbage:

• A Garbage Collection Facility could be coded as a combination of Factory and Monument, exactly one of them to be built in each city reaching a certain size.  It would send a new category of Goods, to a Landfill.  I shudder at the alternative of Garbage Trucks (or, like in Grandmother's day, horse-drawn wagons) stopping at each house and delaying the mail trucks that are delaying my buses!