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[Extended] "Canterbury and Whitstable"

Started by asaphxiix, December 03, 2017, 09:05:03 PM

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asaphxiix

I myself find the larger map more a bit more attractive... well that and the higher profile and all. But I guess this will change with time.

Ves

I enjoy quite alot to play on this server as well as the other. The lower loading times really adds to playability. Also the fact that it is some years in the future from the other map makes that one can practice stuf and get prepared for when the other map catches up.

Oh, crap, I have updated the pakset beyond this server, but I dont keep the old ones due to them being quite big  :-[

asaphxiix

Hi Ves,

The server will update to the newest version in a short while.

If you play regularly, I strongly recommend to save 2 sets of file + folder, as the updates will not be frequently aligned between both servers.

Ves

Yes I suppose that is true, I will have to organize that!

AP

I find just having a canterbury suffixed pakset folder and exe works well.

AP

Seems like a new player (company name "admin please delete this company") has spent a lot of money building loads of ship canals and messing up the rivers near Walminster. But because they are company owned they can't be deleted. they've not been done particularly efficiently either (not following the existing river, so lots of forge costs).

The small rivers were fine how they were, maybe we could get them tidied back?

I'd already ruled out upgrading them to canals as not financially viable, was planning a railway instead, but what I built seems to have vanished, I assume there was a server restart.

asaphxiix

Hello,

I will look into repairing the damages caused.

AP


asaphxiix


asaphxiix

Hello,

2 subjects are on the agenda today:

1. In general, the inclination of some players to reserve vast tracts of land using mothballed ways. While this may be possible to imagine as a realistic simulation of something of some sort, in theory it can be highly detrimental to any efforts by other, as it poses limitations on any new route that should intersect or otherwise collide with these railroads. It should be debated whether the game might be changed somehow to discourage such activity, or that the server administrator must somehow regulate it, or else that it should not be regarded negatively at all. I'm thinking, perhaps land should be much more expensive to build on.

2. Lakes are included as public right of way. As such, they may not be obstructed without leaving reasonable passage for ships of any kind. This goes for all but the most insignifcant bodies of water, which in any case connect no settlements or industry. Other than that, the concept of drying up water on a narrow strip inside the lake, and building a water-level road on it, seems quite absurd to me, and should definitely be heavily discouraged, if not eliminated altogether by the game mechanics.

jamespetts

I am not sure what might be done about the building of mothballed ways. As to lakes, may I ask what players are doing to destroy them? One possibility may be to disallow non-public players from editing the landscape of anany water tiles.
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asaphxiix

Like I said, just drying up a dissecting strip of water and building a road on it: Ø.

It does sound sensible that non-public players should not be able to edit the climate of water tiles, or any tiles, come to think of it.

AP

#82
The Canterbury map is covered with tiny ponds with no cities on. I terraformed across a couple because it seemed entirely sensible to do so. If you want a precedent in the real world,  Chat Moss on the Liverpool and Manchester railway was treated that way.

There are many precedents for draining marshes and reclaiming land from the sea,  from the middle ages onwards. E.g. Brading Harbour was reclaimed by the railway and harbour improvement company.

I made sure there weren't any established lines operating that the work would adversely affect.

I am building my railway in sections then mothballed each temporarily whilst the whole route is incomplete, and there aren't any station facilities in place yet.  I still haven't finished it yet, as I haven't had the time. I'm not "reserving" anything,  it just takes time to build. And I know that decent steam engines won't arrive until the 1830s. 

I've been indecisive about exactly how it was best to connect the railway to the shipping lines. Building it in sections allowed me to 'survey' the best route for good civil engineering, building the tricky bits first. If you just build outward from one end its hard to do that.

AP

Happy Christmas everyone!

I have to report that the game server is offline again.

asaphxiix

Thanks for reporting, AP.

I should consider getting some monitoring/alert system for the server.

Sadly, I'm not even sure how to report this 'out of memory' error, which causes the frequent crashes, as there isn't anything in patricular that seems to be causing it, with the 12GB of the server seemingly at least 50% free at the time of the crash (when I did manage to check this, sort of). I did notice this also occurs on my home machine, the one I use to play, perhaps other players have also had this error?


jamespetts

Quote from: asaphxiix on December 27, 2017, 07:40:24 PM
Thanks for reporting, AP.

I should consider getting some monitoring/alert system for the server.

Sadly, I'm not even sure how to report this 'out of memory' error, which causes the frequent crashes, as there isn't anything in patricular that seems to be causing it, with the 12GB of the server seemingly at least 50% free at the time of the crash (when I did manage to check this, sort of). I did notice this also occurs on my home machine, the one I use to play, perhaps other players have also had this error?

I have noticed this. There are three separate issues here. Firstly, the Windows build is compiled as a 32-bit executable, meaning that it can only access 4Gb of memory. Secondly, large Simutrans-Extended maps inherently take a lot of memory. Thirdly, I suspect that there is a memory leak, causing the program to consume more memory than it needs to consume.

I will look at fixing the memory leak when I get home from my Christmas holiday. Switching to a 64-bit build for Windows may take more time, and will hopefully be less urgent once the memory leak is fixed, but will probably have to be done at some point next year.
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asaphxiix

Quote from: jamespetts on December 27, 2017, 09:32:47 PM
I have noticed this. There are three separate issues here. Firstly, the Windows build is compiled as a 32-bit executable, meaning that it can only access 4Gb of memory. Secondly, large Simutrans-Extended maps inherently take a lot of memory. Thirdly, I suspect that there is a memory leak, causing the program to consume more memory than it needs to consume.

I will look at fixing the memory leak when I get home from my Christmas holiday. Switching to a 64-bit build for Windows may take more time, and will hopefully be less urgent once the memory leak is fixed, but will probably have to be done at some point next year.

I see. In that case, CPU usage aside, I gather that I can run at least 2 parallel games on the 12GB windows machine, am I right?

And of course, Happy Christmas, Your Majesty!

jamespetts

Quote from: asaphxiix on December 27, 2017, 10:05:22 PM
I see. In that case, CPU usage aside, I gather that I can run at least 2 parallel games on the 12GB windows machine, am I right?

Yes, indeed.
Quote
And of course, Happy Christmas, Your Majesty!

And to you, my lord!
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AP

Is there a download link for the pakset the game is currently using? It reports a pakset mismatch with the latest nightly pakset.The link in the first post just goes to the latter.

asaphxiix

Hello,

The file found on the link in the first post, http://54.37.159.140:15600/pak128.britain-ex-nightly.tar.gz , should contain the currently-used pakset. I will check if this is not the case.

AP

Worth noting there are two pakset links in that first post - the one with numbers and the one which links to the nightly page. Possibly I used the wrong one...

EDIT: confirmed, it was the two links that had confused me. Now I can connect.

asaphxiix

Quote from: AP on December 28, 2017, 10:04:00 AM
Worth noting there are two pakset links in that first post - the one with numbers and the one which links to the nightly page. Possibly I used the wrong one...

EDIT: confirmed, it was the two links that had confused me. Now I can connect.

Thanks! This is now corrected.

jamespetts

I should note that it is possible to use a simuconf.tab setting to specify a download link to the correct pakset, which then appears on the server listing webpage.
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AP

Quote from: jamespetts on December 28, 2017, 11:45:48 AM
I should note that it is possible to use a simuconf.tab setting to specify a download link to the correct pakset, which then appears on the server listing webpage.
Does that work even when we have multiple copies of paksets with identical version numbers (yet differing content) flying around? 

jamespetts

Quote from: AP on December 28, 2017, 01:46:08 PM
Does that work even when we have multiple copies of paksets with identical version numbers (yet differing content) flying around? 

Yes - it is just a link to a specific file download location.
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AP

The game server seemed to reset at the end of August 1827, back to much earlier in august.

asaphxiix

Indeed it crashed, such a reversion of a single month is not unexepected. I did as always, just start without specifying the save game.

I do agree this is very troublesome, but I doubt there is much that can be done about it.


You can however, for example when you are done for the day and want to ensure everything you built will be saved - leave and rejoin the server, to trigger the game to be saved. Then you go to sleep.

AP


jamespetts

On the Bridgewater-Brunel server, I have a script configured to save the game if it has been more than an hour since the game was last saved.
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AP

Asaphxiix, could we update the server to use James' latest nightly pak, so that we get all the new early-period railway vehicles he just made?  It would seem a very timely effort on his part, and a good opportunity to test them?

asaphxiix

oh yes. right away. thanks for letting me know, I  haven't really been in-game much lately.

asaphxiix

Notice: The server virtual machine subscription is up for renewal in 4 days. While I do enjoy serving the community this way, this is just a bit hefty for me, as the server costs 40$ a month to run, with the relatively high sum due to higher CPU, RAM and Windows. Perhaps this could be dialed down a bit, unless it is decided to open yet another online game, which currently does not seem to be merited.

If you enjoy playing on the server, or you want to encourage it, you are welcome to donate to its running to asaph.talmor@gmail.com on PayPal.

I will publish any donation here anonymously or by name as you choose, so if your donation was not published, you will know that I am a thief.

I will accept any donations up to a total amount of $120, i.e. 3-months worth of server. When this amount is reached, fund raising will be suspended for one month.

jamespetts

PayPal tells me that you cannot accept personal payments...?
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asaphxiix

Perhaps the new linking system will work then:

paypal.me/asaphtalmor

asaphxiix

#104
A donation of US$25 with ID #001 was received from a most reputable member of the community.
Another donation of US$25 with ID #002 was received on January 4, 2018.

The total of donations for since December 30, 2017 is now $50.

This post will be further edited.