Author Topic: To merge pak files or not - such is the question! (Read 12001 times)

VS · « **on:** February 21, 2009, 10:54:31 PM »

Feel free to express you opinion, regardless of who you are - users first, it's them who is affected by this.

Zeno · « **Reply #1 on:** February 21, 2009, 11:18:57 PM »

As a user, I really don't care at all. I don't think users have to mess up with official pak files. Actually I never do (at least in my "pak128-play" folder).

whoami · « **Reply #2 on:** February 21, 2009, 11:44:08 PM »

The preceding discussion of this in the German forum is can be found here: http://www.simutrans-forum.de/forum/thread.php?threadid=4227.

Bughu Baas · « **Reply #3 on:** February 22, 2009, 10:39:50 AM »

I think the current (as of pak 128-1.4.4) system is good - except for player vehicles, which are in one huge file. A separation with respect to the simutrans menu system would be better, different paks for train, monorail, maglev, tram, street, ship, air, and special. So the player can delete a transport division to make a game of its own (personally, I would play without monorail and air...)

Malte

Michael 'Cruzer' · « **Reply #4 on:** February 22, 2009, 11:02:24 AM »

I already have posted in German Forum, but for all who can't speak German my view:

- System stuff should be packed in a package, this would make the pak directory more clean.
- Trains, buildings, trees, ... shouldn't be packed, because so it's more easier to install addons or erase trains/... which you don't like.
- Trains they belong together with other trains (like ICE, TGV, ...) should be packed in one file.

Sorry for my broken English, I hope you can read it...

agamemnus · « **Reply #5 on:** February 22, 2009, 07:44:28 PM »

Quote from: Bughu Baas on February 22, 2009, 10:39:50 AM

I think the current (as of pak 128-1.4.4) system is good - except for player vehicles, which are in one huge file. A separation with respect to the simutrans menu system would be better, different paks for train, monorail, maglev, tram, street, ship, air, and special. So the player can delete a transport division to make a game of its own (personally, I would play without monorail and air...)

Malte

Sounds like a good solution.

I think there should be one general package with everything in one file and a package with some very good naming conventions with all files. (actual object names come last, and categories come first-- more of what is there now, I guess...)

martin · « **Reply #6 on:** February 22, 2009, 09:12:18 PM »

As a "player" I like the current setup. For me also the goods may also be merged together. When a player wants to modify one of the goods, and thus knows how to use MakeObj, extracting back into separate pak-files shouldn't be a big problem.

Besides that I support Bughu Baas's idea to split the vehicles.

Martin

Fabio · « **Reply #7 on:** February 23, 2009, 09:11:14 AM »

i would merge road tunnels and bridges with way.roads.all and railways tunnel and bridges with way.tracks.all in order to have a railways pak and a road pak. At least, since I plan an upgrading/replacement for both, i intend already to make the images and the dats like this.

Spike · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2009, 11:22:13 AM »

Longer answer of mine in the german forum, just briefly: I'm pro single files, because that gives maximum flexibility (for addons, bugfixes ...).

The Hood · « **Reply #9 on:** February 23, 2009, 02:02:45 PM »

I'm generally not in favour of lots of files as you can't fit them all on one screen display on the command prompt, but I can see advantages of individual pak files. Is there any possibility of using subdirectories? e.g. citybuildings in a citybuilding subdirectory, trains in a separate subdirectory, etc.?

Also I like the idea of grouping by waytype - e.g. all road-related stuff in one merged pak, rail in another, rather than ways in one, tunnels in another, electrification in a third etc.

VS · « **Reply #10 on:** March 15, 2009, 11:35:02 AM »

OK, three weeks later and 21 people voted, which is not bad at all.

It seems the bias is towards more splitting... let's do it then! (When I have time to think about it

)

wernieman · « **Reply #11 on:** March 15, 2009, 01:36:45 PM »

Do you change your pakmap?

Trukker · « **Reply #12 on:** March 15, 2009, 07:02:22 PM »

As the hood, I agree whith as directories system it should please all people those who wants clean pak directory (few subdirectories well aranged) and those witch want replace some stuff. Perhaps even 2 or 3 level of subdirectories.

VS · « **Reply #13 on:** March 15, 2009, 07:56:44 PM »

Now only if the game actually supported that, eh?

As of now, we have to stay in one folder.

jamespetts · « **Reply #14 on:** March 15, 2009, 11:47:27 PM »

There is another consideration that has not been mentioned: coupling constraints. If one needs vehicle X to be able to couple only to vehicles Y and Z, then vehicles Y and Z have to be in the same .pak file as vehicle X, or else vehicle X will not be able to couple to anything at all.

whoami · « **Reply #15 on:** March 16, 2009, 12:18:02 AM »

That is actually another reason to use constraints only where absolutely necessary.

It's not a good idea to remove files from a pak-set, although some may want to do so to reduce the high number of vehicles in Pak128. The objective of providing unmerged paks is to easily allow for updates, bugfixes and replacements for existing vehicles and other objects.

Václav · « **Reply #16 on:** March 19, 2009, 12:44:45 PM »

Merge only logical sets - trees (I think that directory with more than 100 files of trees is not good idea), waggons by carried goods (but not only post, passengers and other goods), locomotives (not carrying any goods), high speed passenger units (for example: TGV, ICE, AVE), industries (one factory in single file is not good - but whole chains or parts of chain could be good) ... and so on - simply: like it is now but slightly more separated.

Zeno · « **Reply #17 on:** April 13, 2009, 01:55:15 PM »

I've been messing up these days with pak files and planes and so, and I've really got mad because of the huge number of pak files there are now in the pak folder; It took ten minutes to remove the planes from my pak128 folder, despite there are only few of them; I really appreciate the hard work done with the new pak folder/file structure, but I may suggest two possible ways to improve IMHO the already hard work (again) already done:

First: I would suggest to avoid splitting every single vehicle in a separate pak file. Logical grouping can be done, of course several parts of each vehicle (e.g. HSTs, EMUs, DMUs) can be packed together, but also similar objects (all Shinkansen vehicles, different goods version of each model) could. Anyway, if you are an enough advanced player to replace a single vehicle in your pak folder, you'll also know how to type in a console a makeobj extract blablabla.pak command (you know what I mean...)

And Second: If no grouping is desired (as it looks like), I would suggest some kind of sorting by simply adding prefixes to the pak name, as object_type+waytype+cargo (e.g, vehicle.track.passenger.eurostar.pak, or vehicle.track.none.br103.pak). That way you can easily and quickly find a vehicle in the folder. If you think it's quite a hard work and it isn't worthy, I offer myself to do that work.

prissi · « **Reply #18 on:** April 13, 2009, 08:35:39 PM »

The prefixes need to be added after makeobj; but the internal name would be the same; it just needs some more filename magic with python, imho.

VS · « **Reply #19 on:** April 14, 2009, 10:26:11 AM »

Another solution I have been thinking about is ~~allowing~~ making Simutrans load paks from subfolders. Another project for when & if... :-\

micslu · « **Reply #20 on:** April 14, 2009, 05:39:37 PM »

I have been hoping for subfolders for pak organization too - unless there is a better method.
My main concern is for add-ons organization as I use a lot of them, mainly Japanese trains and Hong Kong buses (many of them are fantastically economical

too!)
It would be nice if the add-ons can all be put in a subfolder; this will make Pak upgrades and trying new game versions much easier.

Isaac.Eiland-Hall · « **Reply #21 on:** April 14, 2009, 06:44:43 PM »

addons in a subfolder would be particularly handy when it comes time to share a map that uses them