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Non-cityroad patch

Started by HyperSim, August 22, 2017, 12:15:42 PM

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HyperSim

Hi,
Here is a patch to prevent road replaced by city roads.
This patch will avoid undesired changes of high-speed roads (highways for example) in the city.

City roads are useful I know, but sometimes undesired changes of city road cause a decline in efficiency of transport.
(For example, city roads sometimes destroy highways.)
We solved this problem in two different ways.

Watch this video and see how they work.
I think it's easier to understand than to read this description.
https://youtu.be/dlHAZTVsoIM


The one method uses special way-objects and mask roads you don't want to be replaced.
We made a new category of way-object that can be used together with road catenary.
To make this way-object, write "no_cityroad" for waytype and write "road" for own_waytype in the .dat file.
Then, open menuconf.tab in the pak folder and add "wayobj(9)" and "general_tool[33],,,9" in the roadtools.

Here's advantages and disadvantages of this method.
Good Point
You can choose any kinds of roads to protect.
Very easy to use.
When you want to stop protecting road, when you build a new highway for example, just remove no-cityroad way-object.
Bad Point
You have to update makeobj.exe and edit menuconf.tab.
It's difficult to cover large area.


The other method uses config and set the speed threshold to decide which roads are replaced.
When simutrans try to turn the roads into cityroads, the program check the speed limit of the road.
If the speed limit is larger than the threshold, the road is not replaced.
To set the threshold speed, add this line in simuconf.tab.
"city_road_threshold_kmh = XX"
If there's no setting of this parameter, use 70km/h for threshold speed.
And if you set "-1" for this value, you can use current simutrans rules, all roads will be replaced.

Here's advantages and disadvantages of this method.
Good Point
You need not do anything special to use this feature.
Bad Point
You can not control which road will be replaced.
You can not protect low speed road.
If there are catenary on the road and the speed limit of the road is lowered, the road will be replaced.


I could not make .patch files, so I attach some .rar files that contain source code we changed.
We used the revision r8264 source to make this patch.

Thank you.

prissi

The oneway road wayobj will likely get this function. So maybe as a flag one could add this too. Although at least pak64 will not support this wayobj.

DrSuperGood

Right so I can drive at 180 MPH through a residential street as long as I place way objects in there... Who cares about peoples pets or children, they can all be run over as those goods need express delivery! Yeh not very tasteful in 2017.

There should be a limit that a building needs at least 1 tile of city road next to it. Replacing roads should fail if it violates this rule.

Ters

Quote from: DrSuperGood on August 22, 2017, 08:52:45 PM
There should be a limit that a building needs at least 1 tile of city road next to it. Replacing roads should fail if it violates this rule.

I was thinking the same thing, but this should be an issue also when removing roads today, so I was unsure about bringing it up.

rapidliner

== now time ==
before:
expressway
[empty yard]
city road

after:
city road
[building]
city road

== want to ==
expressway
[building]
city road


How to achieve this?

THLeaderH

I support this patch. This patch just extends the play styles of simutrans. Those who do not want to use this feature are NOT affected by this patch.

QuoteRight so I can drive at 180 MPH through a residential street as long as I place way objects in there... Who cares about peoples pets or children, they can all be run over as those goods need express delivery! Yeh not very tasteful in 2017.
There are many roads in the world that have higher speed limit and that are adjoined to buildings.

Please move on 10:00 in this video. This is a typical Japanese suburban road, national route 17. Although the official speed limit of this road is 60 km/h, Most of vehicles are driving at around 65-75km/h. Of course in the midnight, the average speed becomes higher and higher. And you can see many inner city buildings along the road. Current "cityroadization" already does not match to the real situation!

Actually, this kind of discussion does not have so much meaning even under current simutrans because we can avoid the replacing by building the road as an elevated way like this.

Marking roads as "non-cityroad" using wayobjs and building the road as an elevated way are essentially same in the point of their effect, preventing the replacement to cityroads.

So why this patch is strongly desired? Because when we build the road as an elevated way to avoid the replacement,

  • we have to dig the ground using the slope tool. This is so boring!
  • we cannot use this method when there is something right under the road, such as subway.
This patch makes the highway construction much easier. With the elevation method, we are so confused when we build a complicated junction in the middle of cities. This non-cityroad patch provides much simpler way to build high-speed road in the city and extends the play styles of simutrans. Those who do not want to use this feature will not be affected by this patch. I think the pak sets that are officially distributed should not contain the marking wayobj, since this feature should be an optional style for experienced players.

Gobanboshi

I have great expectations for this patch.

Certainly, highway and housing may be connected.
But are you prudent, will you really make such a dangerous city?
I think that this problem is a difference in play style.

Major roads in urban and rural areas, urban and rural alleys.
Everything on the game will be on the "city road", but in reality it looks all different.
I would like to use roads with different functions according to the situation.

(Sorry for bad english...)

Ters

Quote from: THLeaderH on August 23, 2017, 12:05:26 PM
[...]the official speed limit of this road is 60 km/h[...] And you can see many inner city buildings along the road. Current "cityroadization" already does not match to the real situation!

Sounds like a small difference in what the city road speed limit should be, rather than allowing city buildings to use any road for access. Unless you can find a similar video where the speed limit is closer to 100 km/h. This is also a road with frequent intersections with other minor and major roads. That is one of the things that would/should also be forbidden by this. Intersections might be worse for the flow of traffic than the speed limit alone.

Simutrans vehicles never break the speed limit (except perhaps occasionally downhill), so the speed people actually drive at is irrelevant. That the speed limit in real life seems more like a lower bound than an upper bound is a global thing, I believe.

THLeaderH

Another example that shows benefit of this patch is interchanges of highway. Please take a look of this.
The ramp ways adjoin city buildings. If we can avoid the replacement of ramp ways to cityroads by putting the wayobj, building ramp ways would be much simpler and easier. We don't have to put a fence that takes so many tiles or dig the ground.

JHSDF

#9
I'm one of the member who made "Speed limit threshold patch".

I'm agree with method of built new cityroad next to building.

In Japan, these way(limited 60 km/h) are very long. At least, there is no place limited low speed at 1 tiles like 50~100 meter.
In another country cars running 290 km/h descend speed 50 km/h for near houses and increase from there? I think there's a rear-end conclusion anytime in the world.

If player built express which is obviously fast, It should be scrapped by himself after construction of alternative of that, not by mind of city people.

Of cource, I don't want to block replacing all road.
For example if cars run 70km/h in front of my house, I think they should be under 50km/h. In this case, I agree with replacement.

And, You can use this function, and, you don't have to use this. I want to add option and GUI in this patch next vacation.
My website has some addon for pak128.japan
http://kyuujitujieitai.wixsite.com/simuexpo

twitter https://twitter.com/kyuujitujieitai

IgorEliezer

#10
Letting a highway or state road cross a populated area is, for safety reasons, considered a bad urban planning practice; but also it is, as we call, a reality fact in many cities and villages where one of its streets or avenues became part of a highway, or the town grew/was founded by the road. Many cities can't afford to transfer the road out or build barriers for lack of available space or resources.

I lived in a municipality where one of its villages is split into two by a state road. In the beginning it was just farmsteads around a "train stop" with telegraph station near a country road; then in the 1920's the village grew. In the 1950's or so its country road became the main street and then part of the state road. There are churches, malls, schools, library and the district hall by the road. The state government has plans to transfer it, but I heard some locals oppose the idea for fearing their commerce will lose customers. It's been this way ever since. :)

HyperSim

Quote from: prissi on August 22, 2017, 03:38:28 PM
The oneway road wayobj will likely get this function. So maybe as a flag one could add this too. Although at least pak64 will not support this wayobj.
I'm considering that there's some more objects to stop replacing. (for example : road with tram track)

Quote from: DrSuperGood on August 22, 2017, 08:52:45 PM
Right so I can drive at 180 MPH through a residential street as long as I place way objects in there... Who cares about peoples pets or children, they can all be run over as those goods need express delivery!
I researched some highways over the world on Google Map and found there are many highway that faces residental area separated just by a fence.
Please see these pictures in Google Photo.
https://goo.gl/photos/EAjRpr5hkEaNd9Qi9
So your concern does not make sense for me.

Quote from: rapidliner on August 23, 2017, 04:30:11 AM
== now time ==
before:
expressway
[empty yard]
city road

after:
city road
[building]
city road

== want to ==
expressway
[building]
city road

How to achieve this?
This is what I want to try to do.

There are two methods to achive this.
One method uses wayobj and the other uses threshold speed limit that is defined in simucont.tab.
I think that there are no reference to the latter method.  So, what do you think about the second method?

We want to discuss whether or not to integrate this patch and which or both of the methods to adopt.

HyperSim

I add one benefit to adopt this patch.
In the resident area, many country set the speed limit of the road less than 50km/h (mostly 30km/h).
Current simutrans, ALL roads will be replaced with 50km/h city road.
If you use no_citycar way-object, you can make these scene in a town.

Quote from: THLeaderH on August 23, 2017, 12:05:26 PM
Those who do not want to use this feature will not be affected by this patch. I think the pak sets that are officially distributed should not contain the marking wayobj, since this feature should be an optional style for experienced players.
As THLeaderH says, this patch does not affect playes who were not annoyed by city roads and do not think to use this feature.
This feature is just a option for exprienced players.
If you don't need the feature, just stop use no_cityroad way-objects or write "city_road_threshold_kmh = -1" in simuconf.tab.
(Well, I will change the source code and if there is no definition of "city_road_threshold_kmh", the program shold work in the current simutrans city road rule.)
Many Japanese Simutrans players are longing for this feature to imitate the familiar sight for us in Simutrans.

Ters

#13
Quote from: IgorEliezer on August 23, 2017, 04:50:52 PM
I lived in a municipality where one of its villages is split into two by a state road. In the beginning it was just farmsteads around a "train stop" with telegraph station near a country road; then in the 1920's the village grew. In the 1950's or so its country road became the main street and then part of the state road. There are churches, malls, schools and a village hall by the road.
There are lots of those around, which is likely why this is how Simutrans works today. But there are lots of roads running through urban areas that do not have 40, 50 or 60 km/h speed limit, and which have very strict access with few intersections and no driveways (except big gas stations and truck stops).

Quote from: IgorEliezer on August 23, 2017, 04:50:52 PM
The state government has plans to transfer it, but I heard some locals oppose the idea for fearing their commerce will lose customers. It's been this way ever since. :)
A sadly familiar concept. It gets even "better" when the local government lowers the speed limit and raises pedestrian crossing so they also serve as speed bumps to give the road a shopping street feel (which it basically is).

Quote from: HyperSim on August 23, 2017, 04:57:12 PM
I researched some highways over the world on Google Map and found there are many highway that faces residental area separated just by a fence.
Exactly. The fences cut the road off from the buildings, meaning that the buildings must be supported by another road, a city road which has a much lower speed limit. That is the whole point of having non-cityroads in Simutrans.

DrSuperGood

QuoteCurrent simutrans, ALL roads will be replaced with 50km/h city road.
Currently in Simutrans all roads that are next to a house or attraction that is built/upgraded are upgraded to the city road type. The city road way type is defined by the pakset. This means that in pak64 it starts out as a slow cobbled road and in later years a slightly faster tarmac road. In pak128 there are at least 3.

This means one can run insane speed limit roads through a city once the city cannot upgrade anymore since without upgrading buildings, roads will not be replaced.
QuoteMany Japanese Simutrans players are longing for this feature to imitate the familiar sight for us in Simutrans.
Well nothing should be familiar seeing how roads are 1km wide... It is a game, and like SimCity it will not imitate reality perfectly.

Isaac Eiland-Hall

In the US, as I've said before, pretty much all of our major cities have interstates running through them. We tend to be a little more spread out than a lot of places for historical reasons. Whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing is beyond the scope of my argument.

Without any changes to Simutrans, before elevated roads came along, the only way I could simulate a freeway passing close to a downtown area in Simutrans was to make it four tiles wide - one handy use for fences. But this uses up so very many tiles....

With elevated roads, it gets easier because at least it only takes two tiles wide (because freeways are two lanes in each direction at least). But that's not optimal either because most freeways in the US are at ground level, although there are plenty of examples of elevated freeways. But still, the vast majority of miles are ground level.

I understand the argument others have made about houses usually not fronting on roads with high speed limits, and I understand that argument and don't disagree, but it means that anyone who wants a freeway that's actually intended to be limited access cannot put on in without a huge amount of workaround.

While any feature like this is gravy on top, rather than a necessary feature; I can say that just like the ability to do freeways in the first place (even before the one-way patch gets incorporated - even with the present limited enhancement to traffic) - this will greatly enhance the joy of many players. Surely the cost to those that don't want this feature will be minimal to none as long as it has to be specifically sought out (i.e. a config file change or supported road paks or whatever).

Of course as with all enhancements to Simutrans, speaking as one who isn't able to help do the coding work - all effort is appreciated. :)

Leartin

Quote from: Ters on August 23, 2017, 05:15:00 PM
The fences cut the road off from the buildings, meaning that the buildings must be supported by another road, a city road which has a much lower speed limit. That is the whole point of having non-cityroads in Simutrans.

I agree, but sadly there is no consensus that buildings must be "supported" by a road at all. As prissi showed in the multi-tile city-buildings thread, he would make buildings NOT connected to a road a requirement for multitile buildings, not only allowing, but almost enforcing them.
Furthermore, if buildings are not buildings, but representations for a bunch of buildings, we need to assume they also represent the internal roads to all those buildings, while in-game-roads are just the main lines of traffic. Hence there is no problem with buildings not having access to a represented road, they are just connected via non-represented internal roads somehow.

Not even the cityroad connecting to high speed roads would be an issue - if each tile is a kilometer, two intersections which are not next to each other are at least 2 kilometers apart. That's an okay distance between two Autobahn-exits in a dense area.

Ters

Quote from: Leartin on August 24, 2017, 08:43:51 AM
Not even the cityroad connecting to high speed roads would be an issue - if each tile is a kilometer, two intersections which are not next to each other are at least 2 kilometers apart. That's an okay distance between two Autobahn-exits in a dense area.

Except that when driving down an autobahn, I doubt you regularly have to stop to yield to other traffic turning off from or on to the autobahn, or even traffic just crossing the autobahn. For traffic flow reasons, it is preferable that intersection distances follow the vehicle scale rather than the landscape scale. Although there is another factor that Simutrans only has one type of intersection, which, apart from traffic lights, is something like the all-way stop intersections they have in North America, just with simple yield rather than full stop.

HyperSim

Quote from: Ters on August 23, 2017, 05:15:00 PM
Exactly. The fences cut the road off from the buildings, meaning that the buildings must be supported by another road, a city road which has a much lower speed limit. That is the whole point of having non-cityroads in Simutrans.
I agree that the buildings must be supported by road, but I don't agree that all roads supporting buildings must be "city road."
City roads are not the same all over the city.
If there's a school near the road the speed limit of the road may be lowered.  (30km/h for example)
On the contrary if the road is a multilane national road, the speed limit of the road will be raise. (50 or 60km/h, or more)
Perhaps there's a farm or forest near the city, the road may not be paved.
So, why simutrans uses the same road as "city road."


The reason why this patch need is very simple.
Players build high/low speed road for some reasons but program never understand what we intend to do.
Sometimes replacing road with city road is medding to us.
So, we want to control that.

It is important that this feature offers a new play style for experienced players.
And for the other playes who don't want this feature, there's no side effects.
(You won't say "Remove road catenary because I don't use."  It's the same.)

Ters

That is more an argument for different types of city roads. Our primary problem has been the inability to have any kind of high speed (above 80 km/h) road running anywhere near a city without either: using tunnels (unrealistic and expensive), using bridges (which are expensive and causes graphical artifacts since buildings ignore them) or wasting a lot of space (might have to destroy a significant portion of the buildings that generate passengers in the city). Different low speed roads for different parts of the city is more like eye candy.

isidoro

I agree that there should be a method that allows the player to build perennial roads, specially for motorways.

But I don't like the idea of houses not served by city roads, just because of aesthetics or game mechanics.

Here's my idea (2 rules):
1) When a building upgrades, the roads besides it changes to city roads unless they are "perennial" in any of the ways expressed in this patch (I like the speed threshold more).
2) But, if it happens that all the roads besides the said building are "perennial" then the building is automatically demolished (and optionally a park is built where it was).

And that leads to another question: would it be nice if buildings sides could be marked as "façade" or not?  Then, the rules above would only apply to the sides marked as "façade".

Leartin

Quote from: isidoro on August 24, 2017, 11:04:26 PM
And that leads to another question: would it be nice if buildings sides could be marked as "façade" or not?  Then, the rules above would only apply to the sides marked as "façade".
If you had buildings sides marked as facade, you would need to link that marking to rotations. But then, you could pretty much use rotations to find out where facades are. A building without rotation would have four facades. A building with two rotations would have facades on opposite sides. A building with four rotations has a facade on one side, and a building with 8 rotations would have versions which have facades on one side, and versions which have facades on two neighbouring sides. So it's pretty much already there, just add a few options. Any building with 3, 5 or 9 rotations would mean the last rotation has no facade and does not rotate - a bit like the snow image is always last. Only buildings with that rotation can be free-standing with no road on any of the 8 tiles around it.

HyperSim

I should organize the point at issue.
I'm afraid that the relationship between road and city is completely different in Japan, in Europe or in US and the primise for this issue does not shered.
I would like to know what you are thinking.


  • Sometimes, city road would destroy highways or ramps, it is true.
  • What do you think about this?  Should it be prevented by the program (using this patch or something) or by playes (as the city grows, we rebuilt the high speed way)?
  • Do you think all buildings should face city roads?  In other words, do you allow buildings to be surronded by other buildings?
  • Is it a matter that cityroad can be connected to highway without any limit.

And here's my answer for these questions.

QuoteSometimes, city road would destroy highways or ramps, it is true.
What do you think about this?  Should it be prevented by the program (using this patch or something) or by playes (as the city grows, we rebuilt the high speed way)?
It should be prevented by the program.
Simutrans is a "transport simulator", but city road replacement cause destruction in transport.  It is a failure "to simulate transport" I think.
I admit that building high speed road near the residental area is not good, it is dangerous.
Cities and highways should be separated with fence or something.
But using two extra tiles to privent replacement is not practical.  Then why can I use way-object for fence?
This screenshot shows some example using way-object (road catenary) as fence.  This addon made by a Japanese player.
I think these addon are a likely one for no_cityroad way-object.


QuoteDo you think all buildings should face city roads?  In other words, do you allow buildings to be surronded by other buildings?
I suppose that all buildings should face roads not city roads.

QuoteIs it a matter that cityroad can be connected to highway without any limit.
Yes, it is a matter, but setting limit in connecting city roads, we have to edit source related with city rules.
I think that we should discuss about that in another thread.


Mmm... I have lots of thing to say but I can not explain well...

Ters

Quote from: HyperSim on August 25, 2017, 05:05:26 PM
I suppose that all buildings should face roads not city roads.

Since Simutrans does not have rural buildings that interface with roads, any road that has a building facing it would by definition be a city road. Roads that have buildings facing them have drastically reduced speed limits compared to highways, or even any type of rural road. The actual speed may vary from country to country, and even between different roads in the same town.

Unfortunately, the discussion about support for non-city roads in a city has been spread out over several topics now, some of which might actually be about slightly different concepts, like multiple types of city roads.

Leartin

Quote from: HyperSim on August 25, 2017, 05:05:26 PM
Sometimes, city road would destroy highways or ramps, it is true. Should it be prevented by the program (using this patch or something) or by playes (as the city grows, we rebuilt the high speed way)?
A city should not be able to destroy highways. This, however, needs to be implemented in an acceptable way that does not cause other issues.

Quote from: HyperSim on August 25, 2017, 05:05:26 PMDo you think all buildings should face city roads?  In other words, do you allow buildings to be surronded by other buildings?
To some extent, this is currently adjustable via cityrules, so each pakset might have a different approach. The general question of whether a road is needed does not really fit in a cityroad discussion anyway.
But IF a building needs a road, it needs to be a cityroad, or at least a road that the game is allowed to convert to a cityroad.[/quote]

Quote from: HyperSim on August 25, 2017, 05:05:26 PMIs it a matter that cityroad can be connected to highway without any limit.
It matters. Intersections are what makes roads slow, so if the goal is to have faster roads, there needs to be a way to have less intersections - for immersions sake.




I'd like to throw one more thing in here: Players only get angry over a city devouring their roads, but seldom wonder what a city thinks about their "refurbishing" attempts. Perhaps the solution would be to tie it to ownership. Add a gamemode in which players are no longer allowed to build over or delete public ways, or at least make it very expensive. In return, cities can't use roads owned by players to expand. So essentially, the "road" used in cityrules would always refer to a road owned by the public hand, which would only be city roads, overland-roads in existence since the start of the game, or roads the player buildt and gifted to the city by turning them public (for easier access, perhaps a make-public-tool that can do more than a tile per click would be in order)
Gains?
  • Players could not upgrade city-roads, hence there are no upgraded roads the city could turn back to begin with. Many new players wonder why their upgraded roads would switch back, not even allowing to upgrade would make more sense.
  • If a high-speed road is buildt around a city, the city will not claim it even if it grows to it. It will not even connect to it, unless the player provides access points and makes them public.
  • Buildings would not be able to spawn off of player roads.
  • Not mentioned yet, but citycars would not spawn on player roads either, even if they are within the city borders.
  • Once the basics are implement, one could think about some kind of simple relations-system to soften it a bit. Essentially an variable for each city that falls whenever you do anything destructive in the city (delete buildings, delete roads, build anything within city boundries) and disables those actions if the value is too low, but raise it over time based on mail and pax coverage or perhaps instantly with some cash. Furthermore, the value would normalize over time.

Ters

Quote from: Leartin on August 25, 2017, 06:52:14 PM
I'd like to throw one more thing in here: Players only get angry over a city devouring their roads, but seldom wonder what a city thinks about their "refurbishing" attempts. Perhaps the solution would be to tie it to ownership. Add a gamemode in which players are no longer allowed to build over or delete public ways, or at least make it very expensive. In return, cities can't use roads owned by players to expand. So essentially, the "road" used in cityrules would always refer to a road owned by the public hand, which would only be city roads, overland-roads in existence since the start of the game, or roads the player buildt and gifted to the city by turning them public (for easier access, perhaps a make-public-tool that can do more than a tile per click would be in order)
Gains?
  • Players could not upgrade city-roads, hence there are no upgraded roads the city could turn back to begin with. Many new players wonder why their upgraded roads would switch back, not even allowing to upgrade would make more sense.
  • If a high-speed road is buildt around a city, the city will not claim it even if it grows to it. It will not even connect to it, unless the player provides access points and makes them public.
  • Buildings would not be able to spawn off of player roads.
  • Not mentioned yet, but citycars would not spawn on player roads either, even if they are within the city borders.
  • Once the basics are implement, one could think about some kind of simple relations-system to soften it a bit. Essentially an variable for each city that falls whenever you do anything destructive in the city (delete buildings, delete roads, build anything within city boundries) and disables those actions if the value is too low, but raise it over time based on mail and pax coverage or perhaps instantly with some cash. Furthermore, the value would normalize over time.
If only public road construction wasn't so idiotic. I often need to tidy up things. Having to switch to the public player or remember to hand over ownership adds more tedious work to the process. The entire concept of me, as a generic transport company, building roads is rather silly altogether. Unlike railroads and canals, I've never heard of such a thing, except the minor roads inside logistic hubs (basically behind choose signs in Simutrans). Roads are built (or rather planned and paid) by either some level of government or the industry being served by the road (which may have its own fleet of vehicles, but that is different). Getting the AI to do things better would probably be enough for a doctorate, so we have to live with players filling in for the simulated governments (which are only the local government). In multiplayer games, you can at least have a gamemaster doing this full time.

isidoro

I would not tie road ownership (public or player) to rules about replacing roads.  There are many ways to enjoy Simutrans.  I prefer, for instance, to use public player to build infrastructure and only use the players to do the transportation.  I wouldn't like my public built motorways to be rebuilt by the town and patched here and there to city roads...

HyperSim

Quote from: Leartin on August 25, 2017, 06:52:14 PM
I'd like to throw one more thing in here: Players only get angry over a city devouring their roads, but seldom wonder what a city thinks about their "refurbishing" attempts. Perhaps the solution would be to tie it to ownership. Add a gamemode in which players are no longer allowed to build over or delete public ways, or at least make it very expensive. In return, cities can't use roads owned by players to expand. So essentially, the "road" used in cityrules would always refer to a road owned by the public hand, which would only be city roads, overland-roads in existence since the start of the game, or roads the player buildt and gifted to the city by turning them public (for easier access, perhaps a make-public-tool that can do more than a tile per click would be in order)
Gains?
  • Players could not upgrade city-roads, hence there are no upgraded roads the city could turn back to begin with. Many new players wonder why their upgraded roads would switch back, not even allowing to upgrade would make more sense.
  • If a high-speed road is buildt around a city, the city will not claim it even if it grows to it. It will not even connect to it, unless the player provides access points and makes them public.
  • Buildings would not be able to spawn off of player roads.
  • Not mentioned yet, but citycars would not spawn on player roads either, even if they are within the city borders.
  • Once the basics are implement, one could think about some kind of simple relations-system to soften it a bit. Essentially an variable for each city that falls whenever you do anything destructive in the city (delete buildings, delete roads, build anything within city boundries) and disables those actions if the value is too low, but raise it over time based on mail and pax coverage or perhaps instantly with some cash. Furthermore, the value would normalize over time.
I don't think it is a good idea to relate city road replacement to owner of the road.
It is wrong method to privent replacing and this should be achieved in other way.

ampersand

I am one of the players angry over a city devouring their roads and I support this solution and any other preventing turning highways into alleys.

Isaac Eiland-Hall

Quote from: Ters on August 25, 2017, 07:46:29 PM
If only public road construction wasn't so idiotic. I often need to tidy up things. Having to switch to the public player or remember to hand over ownership adds more tedious work to the process.

Oh, not just me, then. lol

I always have to fix the little lonely stubs of road (single tiles) that are surrounded and will never connect to anything, and fix the cases where the roads *nearly* connect but don't. Or connect stupidly.

I mean, really, for a random process built tile-by-tile, I'm not unimpressed. Cities really do a decent job since there's no over-arching intelligence to the process. But even acknowledging that - I'm always having to fix things. heh

Ters

Tiny stubs and other dead-ends are not in themselves so much of a problem, and they are sort of realistic. It is all the intersections where they all start that, along with just plain turns, make it almost impossible to place bus stops. At least if you also try to do mail in addition to passengers. Monuments tend to be particularly bad. They can quite easily be surrounded by alternating tiles of turns and intersections.

Leartin

Quote from: Ters on August 25, 2017, 07:46:29 PM
If only public road construction wasn't so idiotic. I often need to tidy up things. Having to switch to the public player or remember to hand over ownership adds more tedious work to the process.
That could be fixed by having a "build public road"-tool in the road toolbar. It would be pretty much the same as building a road and making every piece public, so it does not change what you can do, just how easy it is to do.
By the way, isn't it alarming when a normal game requires you to use the public hand, which enables functionality you would have in cheat menus in other games? I'd think one should be able to enjoy the game without public hand, so if there is such idiotic construction it needs to be fixed anyway. Perhaps different cityrules are enough, perhaps a city needs a way to delete roads - imagine if a city could remove one piece of a 4-tile-road-square, or replace a piece of a diagonal to the other "side"
##..                    ##..
.##.   could become     .#..
..##                    .###

...I think there is a lot of potential in how citys can be generated a bit smarter so manually adjusting them would not be required.


Quote from: isidoro on August 25, 2017, 09:57:55 PM
There are many ways to enjoy Simutrans.  I prefer, for instance, to use public player to build infrastructure and only use the players to do the transportation.  I wouldn't like my public built motorways to be rebuilt by the town and patched here and there to city roads...
You could create a secondary player, call him "government", and use that to build infrastructure. Only change required would be that "no bankruptcy" becomes a player flag, rather than a game setting. Your style would need to adapt a bit, but it would not disappear.  :)

Ters

I was thinking of having tools that built a public way in one step, but it would basically double the amount of road building tools.

As for that diagonal being turned into two 90 degree bends, I would rather have stops that could be built on diagonals (an age old feature request). Having cities and towns that are not just rectilinear grids adds more visual diversity, but are a pain to build stops in. Making a decent route is a valid part of the challenge, though. That the payment model is based on distance as the geese (only bird in pak64) flies can cause problems from another angle.

THLeaderH

#33
Amm... the original aim of this patch is to provide an option to avoid the replacement to cityroads. Discussion should focus on whether this should be integrated and the method of prevention of the replacing.
So many of you are arguing that this patch should not be implemented because of the gaming reasons. I have to admit there are so many reasons that the current replacement system is introduced. However, there are inconvenient situation where this replacement system is not suitable, such as a ramp of highway and a  cutting. This patch is an optional solution for experienced players. With the "wayobj" method, we do not put this marking wayobj in the officially distributed pakset and the gaming aesthetics will be preserved. Those who want to use this feature just have to put the marking wayobj into their pakset by theirselves. It's all up to players whether this feature is used.  There are many ways to enjoy Simutrans, aren't there?

Leartin

Quote from: THLeaderH on August 28, 2017, 01:59:59 PM
It's all up to players whether this feature is used.  There are many ways to enjoy Simutrans, aren't there?
Sure, there are many ways to enjoy Simutrans. I even enjoy it when I don't play it.

However, it is not all up to the player whether a feature is used.
First of all, between the programming and the player, we have a layer of pakset-devs who can decide what is or isn't in 'their' pakset. I don't like that particular implementation, hence I would not put it in p192c, so players of that pak can't decide anymore. This is because the pakset-devs too are free to decide whether to use a feature or not. But it does not end there.

The good is the enemy of the better. Prettymuch everyone agrees that cities taking over roads is an issue. Once this patch is implemented, some will say it's solved, while some will say it isn't. A future extension request or patch might be denied on basis of "it already exists", even if the newer version would be better. So at the very least, a discussion about alternatives is in order.

Just because a player does not use something does not mean it doesn't exist. Once things exist, you might want to have them just because you can, even though you never thought about it before. Imagine there was a level skip in a platformer, and you could skip every level until you reach the end sequence. Sure, you don't have to use it. But why bother struggling when you can click a button and be done with it? And once you gave up on a level, does it matter if you do it again? You might, eventually, skip through the whole game and hate yourself for it, you would spoil all your fun and the fact you did not need to would not stop you from thinking it's a bad game for giving you such an option. (Which is why even games who have it, like newer Mario games, only show it once you lost a few times, so you have to at least try.)

There are many games where you can change a thousend things in the settings - again, you can play whatever you want - but if your settings are easier than standart, you won't get achievements - because you need to earn those. Even with difficulty settings, the game often tries to make fun of you for choosing easy mode, or withholds content so there is incentive to pick a harder mode. This is not because of bad game design, it's because a game needs to be a challenge in one way or another to be fun, and not every player is good at creating their own challenge.

In Multiplayer, it's especially important to have a look at what players can and can't do. A multiplayer game in which one player starts replacing every city road with the road of highest level? I ragequit, because that's nothing I'd ever want to see.


You don't have to agree, especially not in context to that feature. But I don't like it, not because I won't use it, but because I think it should come at a price (less intersections and no building spawning would be a nice tradeoff. Just making it expensive as hell would not be very popular)