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Little thought about power in Simutrans

Started by colonyan, April 24, 2009, 02:53:24 AM

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colonyan


    Electricity exist just to artificially increse the traffic volume and consequently accelerate income(deficit).
    Any other purpose on electricity on current version, any one knows?
    I really don't see why this feature exist. Especially because of that artificially part.
    Can't we add more game feature to legitimely increase traffic pattern?
    I'm sorry using little harsh tone but this is what I felt regarding supplying electricity in this game...
    (excuse: im a big fan of ST)
 
     :o Of couse I personaly can ignore power supply thing at all.
    I just wanted to hear how you think about this matter.
    Thank you for reading.

jamespetts

Why do you say that it is "artificial"? Is it not realistic that a factory better connected to facilities will produce more?
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colonyan

Artificial because it does not affect anything on economy(city growth).
From city growth point of view, power supply is practically needless.
Faster consumption has no effect on pop growth of city.(thats what I learned)

One solution might be balance so that in some situation, factory need to
supply with power to meet more consumer.
(one only thing might be
1. company earn more money
  2. company can cover cities more quickly for faster growth
   thus very indirect)

jamespetts

You know, there is some code lurking in the sources for power supply to the cities to have a small positive impact on their growth, but this may not be fully implemented. I am considering looking into implementing this fully in Simutrans-Experimental. Do you think that that would enhance the game play?

I am not sure what you mean about "faster consumption" not affecting city growth, since I am not sure what you mean here by "faster consumption". Are you referring to goods? The higher proportion of the goods required by a city that are delivered to a city, the faster that it will grow.
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colonyan

About faster consumption
Supplying electricity to consumer store make them consume good faster.
But it dost not affect anything on city growth. At least this is what I've heard in city electrify
board in extensiont request.

I need some time to think if it enhance the game play or not...

jamespetts

What do you mean by "consume good(s) faster"?
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colonyan

for example,

pak german furniture store
346 unit/month
becomes
692 unit/month
with power supplied

It consumes furnitures faster, but has no impact on city growth.

Seth C Triggs

I can see your point, and I guess that would be an interesting mechanic. Though I admit I normally play with passenger networks and do industry as an afterthought. (I really like making passenger networks, is what I'm saying.)

I think it would be interesting to make cities grow with power, though I could also see that industry + passenger effects on city growth might unbalance the game quickly (in that your cities might grow too fast)

-Seth
Pak 128 user on Ubuntu Linux with Athlon XP 64, 2GB RAM, 256MB video memory

jamespetts

#8
Perhaps. One way of addressing that would be to make it harder to grow cities that are already big, so that a medium sized city can grow easily (small sized cities are set to be less likely to grow than larger ones currently, because, in reality, small towns and villages are less attractive to people building new properties than larger ones) just by player transport, but so that really quite large ones will not grow much unless goods and/or power is supplied to them. What counts as "large" might depend on the initial "median city size" set by the player when starting the game.

Edit: Incidentally, the following appears as a code comment in the code for Simutrans-Standard, in the part dealing with the growth of cities:


/* four parts contribute to town growth:
* passenger transport 40%, mail 20%, goods (30%), and electricity (10%)
*/


However, the following code suggests that the electricity part is not yet implemented:


sint32 pas = (city_history_month[0][HIST_PAS_TRANSPORTED] * (40<<6)) / (city_history_month[0][HIST_PAS_GENERATED] + 1);
sint32 mail = (city_history_month[0][HIST_MAIL_TRANSPORTED] * (20<<6)) / (city_history_month[0][HIST_MAIL_GENERATED] + 1);
sint32 electricity = 0;
sint32 goods = city_history_month[0][HIST_GOODS_NEEDED]==0 ? 0 : (city_history_month[0][HIST_GOODS_RECIEVED] * (20<<6)) / (city_history_month[0] HIST_GOODS_NEEDED]);

// smaller towns should growth slower to have villages for a longer time
sint32 weight_factor = 100;
if(bev<1000) {
weight_factor = 400;
}
else if(bev<10000) {
weight_factor = 200;
}

// now give the growth for this step
wachstum += (pas+mail+electricity+goods) / weight_factor;


Edit 2: The following code also gives a clue:


enum city_cost {
HIST_CITICENS=0,// total people
HIST_GROWTH, // growth (just for convenience)
HIST_BUILDING, // number of buildings
HIST_CITYCARS, // number of citycars generated
HIST_PAS_TRANSPORTED, // number of passengers who could start their journey
HIST_PAS_GENERATED, // total number generated
HIST_MAIL_TRANSPORTED, // letters that could be sended
HIST_MAIL_GENERATED, // all letters generated
HIST_GOODS_RECIEVED, // times all storages were not empty
HIST_GOODS_NEEDED, // times sotrages checked
HIST_POWER_RECIEVED, // power consumption (not used at the moment!)
MAX_CITY_HISTORY // Total number of items in array
};
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colonyan

Quote from: jamespetts on April 24, 2009, 04:44:22 PM
You know, there is some code lurking in the sources for power supply to the cities to have a small positive impact on their growth, but this may not be fully implemented. I am considering looking into implementing this fully in Simutrans-Experimental. Do you think that that would enhance the game play?

It has been already two weeks...
For time being, it can be used to help grow city faster as you say :) for simplicity.

I thougt about some alternatives without much fruits...

Fundamental Approach
  make electricity supply the flag required for every thing to happen.
  no power means no passenger, goods created.
This is simcity series approach. Well, I guess this is what it is supposed be, electricity
(at least once become available) is essential nowdays...
I think for now it is good to add some management element of this nature.
After all, one of reason for transportation is supposed be the backbone supporter of the society.
  This kind of feature is hard to do becuase of its obrigatory nature.

Alternative Approach
  If we suppose, as this is a simulation game, all basic necessities for cities to maintain themselves
  is served  out side of player's vision, we can treat player served electricity as "cheaper manufacturing cost"
  for industries. This means easier life for manufacturer and consumer which finally lead to
  accumulation of wealth and further city development. Which is what we currently we have.
    Hum.. since they have extra wealth, how about city affected generate more passenger/mail to further
    give challenge to the player? I think it make a good side effect as a result of faster city growth. Given that
    station overcrowding give negative effect on growth ofcouse!(even if station is outside of city limit)

Thankyou for reading... your precious time...


jamespetts

As you might have realised, the basic approach is already implemented in Simutrans-Experimental as of 3.0...
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colonyan

Hum,,, Since we have extra power to make extra goods, can't we diverge those extra goods to other cities to
make them grow faster as optional feature?
That's what I've posted on extension request as "Use of extra goods".
Seems like we are satisfied with current game flow...

jamespetts

The difficulty with that approach is that it is not for the transport company to decide where the goods want to go ;-) The current model works by giving industry chains with demand: the higher proportion of the demand that you fulfill, the faster that the city will grow. A radical overhaul of that model would be needed to implement your idea (if I understand it correctly), and it is not clear what that alternative model is.

Note that in Simutrans-Experimental, supplying electricity to the city itself increases growth. It seems that the feature was originally intended for Simutrans-Standard, but the code was never completed.
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colonyan

I've specified on that use of extra good post but
industry chain would specify the city which would accept extra good represented as construction of whole sale ware house.
I proposed to integrate in existing industry chain. Its not that player can choose which ever city to feed....

jamespetts

Perhaps instead, an extra consumer industry could be created in another city, and linked into the chain? That would be more consistent with the current approach, and require less additional programming.

However, there is a complexity there, since the consumer being supplied with electricity will increase its demand. So, if both producer and consumer are supplied with electricity, the ratio of demand and supply of both is the same as if neither were supplied with electricity (assuming that both have a constant supply of electricity). Perhaps the real issue is the fact that electricity-induced increases in demand of city consumers do not lead to an increase of growth if that increased demand is supplied, as over fulfilment of the lower, non-electrified demand. My preliminary thought is that the easiest way out of that conundrum is simply to increase growth in cities supplied by electricity...
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colonyan

#15
Quote from: jamespetts on May 15, 2009, 04:15:15 PM
My preliminary thought is that the easiest way out of that conundrum is simply to increase growth in cities supplied by electricity...

City growth encouraged by electricity supplied can be believable since abondance lead to price drop and more economic activity
and at last increase in wealth(well, population growth in ST). That can be kept.

For extra consumer chain.
My initial idea was to instead of creating double traffic for nothing(except for more revenue and traffic management),
how about let other city consume extra product given by factory supplied with electricity.
Simply instead of giving same store twice, give extra to other place so other place can benefit further growth.
EDIT:simply remove store consuming faster given supply of electricity, diverge more to different consumer destination.
EDIT3: Let there be less production line and more end conusmer delivery variation. I find it more fun than
                      repeatedly recreating same production line within resembling factory spacing.

I mean, they consume(including production aka employment) twice as more but contribution to economy is same? I wouldn't buy that...

EDIT2: Now I acquired another English word. conundrum see? This forum is educational too!  :D