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Core game mechanics summary and analisys

Started by colonyan, March 14, 2009, 11:55:52 PM

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colonyan

   EDIT1: Finding and suggestion
   I find that all player action only lead to growth. (problem is the fact that it is ONLY)
Growth controls almost all map condition changes which give players play field.

Although this seems simple and fine but it poses one concern that

-If player wished no more serve a city(too many vehicles to control, pc slowing down), one can withdraw all public transport infra in city, but the city can continue to exist indefinitely. (Giving less challenge and too much "unrealisticness")

At the end, this makes a player feel(or can be observed as) only useful to the cities growth.
As large cities exist, wouldn't they supposed require some service to maintain it self?

All cities which has experienced certain growth should require some kind of "base service".
Any untouched city should be able to hold its size indefinitely though. (New games)

For simplicity, how about make cities lose certain population constantly depending on its size to offset its growth?
As result, if player halted augment infra in a city, city will stop growing as its growth equal to constant diminish.
With no service at all, all should go back to its initial size (after decades).

Of course, city with better than very good service state can have its penalty off. end of EDIT1

========================

Restudying current basic game flow. Please point any fault.
    ____________________________________________________________________________________________________
   
    Passenger & Mail Service   ->   City Development = Population Increase   \     
                                                                                                                         \ 
    Goods delivered to stores ->    City Development = Population Increase  __> New Industry Chain
    ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

    Electrified Factories   ->   Accelerated Good Production       \
                                                                                                 |>   Accelerated City Development = Population Increase
    Electirfied Stores       ->   Accelerated Good Consumption   /
    ____________________________________________________________________________________________________
   
                      ____________  _________________________________________
                      |                       V                                                                                 |
                      |           Did last industry                __NO__>    Complete the chain. _|
                      |           chain was completed?       
                      |                       V
                      |                     YES
                      |                       V
                      |           Are there enough              __NO__>    New power plant ______
                      |           electricity out put?                                will built.                          |
                      |                       V                                                                                       |
                      |                     YES                                                                                     |
                      |                       V                                                                                       |
                      |           New industry chain will built.                                                        |
                      |_____________V__________________________________________|

                                                                                                                                   * This chart is not my work.
  __________________________________________________________________________________________                                       

  - No relation between passenger/mail service and industry chain.
    > How to relate them with current system without making it complicated.
       Or is it really necessary to relate them? What will make this game more fun...?
 
  - New city building development and industry chain is maps reaction to players actions.
    > Some representation of improvement of quality of life? Currently we only have
       population count as measure of development/achievment.

  - Auto sufficient city buildings.
    > Once they are built, they will exist indefinitly. Simple but makes game little rigid.
       Metropolis of any size can exist without any public transit.
       Maybe make so that city(or entire map) after some population count require some kind of maintenance
       feature just to keep its existance?
   
    I'm happy to hear any thoughts on these matters.
       




   

vilvoh

Interesting and simple analysis. I must confess I usually forget that you can transport mail. Indeed, as far as I can remember I've never built a mail transport network, and well, that's more or less what your conclusions show.

Mail service is pretty independent from the rest of transport services. I mean, you can transport goods to factories, and you can transport people to factories too. Seems logical. I guess players understand that people need to go work, but imho players usually don't know how to focus mail transport. In fact, I think they just ignore it because they may think it has no influence in the gameplay, leaving apart the economical aspect.

It's a little bit confusing because it hasn't got clear objetives. I mean, when you transport goods, It's clear you have to carry them from producers to consumers. When you transport people you have to carry them from city to city, inside the cities, to tourist attractions, etc...logical destinies. When you transport mail, it's like you get lost as you have so many possibilities. The approach is too much open. IMHO, it should be more much guidance as industrial chains, or related with other game aspects and passive elements as passengers transport.

I don't know If the idea I wanted to expose is clear. A possible solution would be to include the mail transport as part of good transport, without independent stops and elements that produce mail as good, that would be consumed in cities. It's just a quick thought.

Escala Real...a blog about Simutrans in Spanish...

colonyan

    @vilvoh
       Yes, me too. Mail  is kind a pain to do. I recently started 256X256 map(overwhelmed by large maps previously) and even for this size of map, it was kind of little hassle to
       setup all mail stations and routes.
       Even without the mail service, cities grow well enough in my opinion.

     The thing is that every thing is pretty predictable. Cities has no characteristics so one can predict what to build where judging from distribution of population on the map.
     (still growing cities and updating network is fun)
     Now its like plate ful of pancake. If you chew it well, its tasty but its same or similar taste every time. We need some spice in this game. (Look at me complaining again! :-[)

     Still current mechanic is pretty good for people enjoying building up network over and over again. But if I say differently, thats it. It may be not for people seeking other kind of
     element in the game. (Ok, but I still love this game  :D) edit: (I will play some more before going bed)

Rohal

I'am normally playing 256*256 maps (16 Cities) , beginning in 1930 with passenger transport. As soon as the combined Passanger and mail Busstop can be build I start combined passanger and mail service on the whole map. The only that I'am missing in the later years is the possibillity of combined Highspeed Passanger and Mail Trains. Because many Highspeed trains only can carry Passangers. I try to connect every industry and Attraction to my passanger network, so that I get the maximum number of destinations for Mail and passangers.

Greets

Rohal

vilvoh

#4
Well, that`s not a game mechanics issue. I mean, there aren't high speed mail transport because nobody created anything in that sense. That's all. Does Gauthier's pak128 maglev have the possibility of combining mail and passenger transport?

Escala Real...a blog about Simutrans in Spanish...

Rohal

Your are right I forgot to point out what I wanted to say.
I just wanted to say that with introduction of combined Passanger and Mail stops, the transporting of mail is no problem, because you can do it on the same route that you build for passengers. And that there are relations between Passenger/Mail and Industry at least every Industry accepts workers from citiey arround it.

Greets

Rohal

vilvoh

I see. Perhaps adding a new flag to stops like enable_mail, similar to enable_ware and enable_pax would be a good solution to integrate mail transport in freight stops.

Escala Real...a blog about Simutrans in Spanish...

VS


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!

prissi

Some commetns to the chart:
The production and consumption rate is independent for the city growth. Higher consumption of a store make it rather more difficult to have it always supplied and would rather reduce city growth.

vilvoh


Escala Real...a blog about Simutrans in Spanish...

wipi35

Quote from: Rohal on March 15, 2009, 11:06:43 AM
The only that I'am missing in the later years is the possibillity of combined Highspeed Passanger and Mail Trains. Because many Highspeed trains only can carry Passangers.

What about the Thunder (350 km/h) and RVg Thunder 2 (370 km/h) in Pak128? They can carry mail. There's also the Seagull mail wagon (385 km/h) but this cannot be combined with the other Seagull wagons. This is a bug IMHO.

colonyan

Quote from: prissi on March 15, 2009, 02:15:17 PM
The production and consumption rate is independent for the city growth. Higher consumption of a store make it rather more difficult to have it always supplied and would rather reduce city growth.

So supplying electricity to final good consumption is useful to make the traffic more frequent to allow player to make more profit?

prissi

... because the whole chain may suffer from little consumption ...

colonyan

I see. It is more like an control factor. :)

colonyan

I find that all player action only lead to growth. (problem is the fact that it is ONLY)
Growth controls almost all map condition changes which give players play field.

Although this seems simple and fine but it poses one concern that

-If player wished no more serve a city(too many vehicles to control, pc slowing down), one can withdraw all public transport infra in city, but the city can continue to exist indefinitely. (Giving less challenge and too much "unrealisticness")

At the end, this makes a player feel(or can be observed as) only useful to the cities growth.
As large cities exist, wouldn't they supposed require some service to maintain it self?

All cities which has experienced certain growth should require some kind of "base service".
Any untouched city should be able to hold its size indefinitely though. (New games)

For simplicity, how about make cities lose certain population constantly depending on its size to offset its growth?
As result, if player halted augment infra in a city, city will stop growing as its growth equal to constant diminish.
With no service at all, all should go back to its initial size (after decades).

Of course, city with better than very good service state can have its penalty off.


prissi

Shrinkage is also non-trivial if it is done in a proper way. ANd how about towns which recieve a "little" service?

colonyan

-Town with "little" service
  They get little population increase from service. But most likely they will go back to
  initial population state because population count will subtracted according to its size.
 
  Cities/town should not shrink than its initial population size I think.

  Maybe supplying goods to city can used to offset city's shrinkage as goods supply city
  /town residents economy and or survival.