Topic: Stations crowded with passangers (noted on V101, V102 and probably above) ?

[phantom25]

With the new overcrowding handling (when a station is crowded revenue is minimised) it is not possible anymore to make, nor even start any profitable passenger route!

What is the new strategy, how to accomplish profitable passenger routes?

Is there a possibility to disable/tweak this crowding behaviour, so that the crowding does not matter so much, or at least not for a longer while, then defaults coded in Simutrans?
If not, could it be added, in possible form of a new switch, which controls, if crowding is enabled/disabled, so everyone can choose what to use?

Old strategy I used was: building passenger stops, making line, starting first vehicle. Then I would look at the line, and when it becomes crowded, then set new vehicles. With the new crowding handling, this makes only loses (because crowded station make loses).
All the fun is now out  :'( , since starting a line does not ever make it profitable. You cannot know from the start, how crowded a passenger station will be (since there are passenger levels, not absolute passengers)...

Is there still a way, a new strategy to start a profitable passenger line?

Moreover, if some of the stations is a hub (server by more than one line), then there is a horror to predict crowdence from the conversion...

Making this crowded behaviour partly added to reality, but made playing with passengers almost unpossible.  >:(

[z9999]

when a station is crowded revenue is minimised

I think there isn't such a feature in Simutrans but in Simutrans_Experimental.
What version and what pakset are you playing ?

[jamespetts]

Simutrans-Experimental handles overcrowding differently to Simutrans-Standard. In Simutrans-Standard, overcrowded stations prevent any goods or passengers arriving at them, and also prevents any routes being calculated through overcrowded stations. However, both of these are optional with the settings "avoid_overcrowding" and "no_routing_over_overcrowding" in simuconf.tab. If you set both of those to 0 (e.g., "avoid_overcrowding = 0"), Simutrans-Standard will revert to the earlier behaviour of allowing unlimited overcrowding. I do not advise playing with "no_routing_over_overcrowding" enabled, since this can cause irresolvable deadlocks that mean that nothing is transported anywhere. Note also, however, that, once a game has started, the settings are saved, and cannot then be changed by changing these values in simuconf.tab without starting a new game.

Simutrans-Experimental handles things differently - in Simutrans-Experimental, passengers or goods arriving at an overcrowded station are discarded, and do not pay for their journey. Passengers from stations with a great many unhappy passengers produce lower levels of revenue than passengers from stations with few or no unhappy passengers. If passengers (or other goods that care about their speed) have been waiting at a station too long, they leave, and register as unhappy. There is no "no_routing_over_overcrowded" setting.

Indirectly, but still importantly, related to passenger overcrowding in Simutrans-Experimental is the way in which passengers are generated. More passengers are generated for local trips, and passengers have up to three alternative destinations if they cannot reach their main destination. All of that means that, in Simutrans-Experimental, the passenger level should be set lower than in Simutrans-Standard, and the game will not be harder during the earlier phases, but overcrowding will be reduced in the later phases.

I should be very interested indeed if you could try Simutrans-Experimental and see whether that makes your particular game easier, harder, or neither, as it would be very useful for me to know how it is balanced compared to Simutrans-Standard. See the link in my signature for information on how to get Simutrans-Experimental for Windows or Linux.

[phantom25]

I was using PAK128.

Now it is clearer.

Until now, I understood, that it would be logical, that "avoid_overcrowding = 1" would disable overcrowding.

But now, I will try with "avoid_overcrowding = 0"...

Just to try.

As of that, I tried both , what I assume is Simutrans-standard 102 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=1728.0) as well as Simutrans Experimental 102.1 2.5 (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=1957.0). Now I see, there are newer versions in the meantime, so will try them.

In both, I was unfortanelly not able to even start a profitable passenger service, because of constant owercrowding ()...
Simutrans Experimental has probably switches to tuning this (cities with 500.000 and more inhabitants!) ?

Simutrans Experimantel 2.5 unfortanelly is less optimised? The same game, which is generated with Simutrans Standard, is much more stocking in Simutrans Experimental, as it seems to use to much CPU power, GUI is also less responsive?
What about: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=1818.0 (New revenue model). Are all the mentioned switches implemented?
Using mentioned
max_discomfort_penalty_differential=200
max_discomfort_penalty_percent=95
, which I assumed ment something (maybe not?), did no change, still owercrowding in both Simutrans Standard and Experimental.

Just one more question to be clear: There are two simuconf.tab files, one from Simutrans, and one from Pakset (PAK128). In which to change the parameter, I assume in PAK128 one?

Thanks for assistance.

[z9999]

Just one more question to be clear: There are two simuconf.tab files, one from Simutrans, and one from Pakset (PAK128). In which to change the parameter, I assume in PAK128 one?

Simutrans reads both files, but if there are the same setting on both of files, pakset's one will be used.
But, many settings, including avoid_overcrowding, are saved in a savegame file, changing parameters will only work for new games.

I agree with your opinion on the first post, that is the reason why I was against the ideas of this topic.

If you will start a new game, I recommend this settings below.

- Use nightly version of standard Simutrans
- Set "avoid_overcrowding=0" and "no_routing_over_overcrowded=1" (This setting only work with nightly version of standard Simutrans and are not saved in savegame file yet.)

Above settings will reduce overcrowding a little.

[jamespetts]

Phantom,

thank you very much for trying Simutrans-Experimental - your feedback is most helpful. Could you, perhaps, post a copy of your saved game so that I could evaluate why your passenger services are unprofitable? It might well help me a great deal with fine-tuning Simutrans-Experimental's settings and/or documentation.

Indeed, all of the settings described in the post on the new revenue model are implemented. Discomfort would not be a major issue for you, however, as, using Pak128, the default comfort for all vehicles would be set to 100 (which is a fairly high level), since Pak128 is not compiled specifically for Simutrans-Experimental. There will in due course be some specific configuration files available for Pak128 to make it work better with Simutrans-Experimental, including a revised speedbonus.tab, which should help to make passenger services more profitable. In the meantime, if you want to use Simutrans-Experimental with Pak128, you can always simply halve the speeds in simuconf.tab, which has been found to be a good approximation.

Also, with Simutrans-Experimental, I strongly suggest that you set the passenger level lower than in Simutrans-Standard. In Simutrans-Standard, a level of 16 or so is, I believe, the default, but in Simutrans-Experimental a level between 8 and 12 is more advisable (and, if you set the towns to be very large, perhaps even as low as 5 or 6 - this will need some further tuning and testing, however). This will reduce overcrowding.

As to Simutrans-Experimental being slower, I am working with Knightly to optimise the code, and am hoping that future versions will be a little faster (perhaps still not as fast as Simutrans-Standard, but that has to be weighed against the additional features). However, it would be very useful to me to know what sort of computer that you are using (CPU type and speed, memory, operating system in particular) to have an idea how Simutrans-Experimental performs on different systems.

Finally, as to simuconf.tab files, the rule is, I think, that the parameters in the pakset files override the parameters in the general file, but, if nothing is specified in the pakset files, then the general file prevails.

(As to Z9999's reply, he is right about the settings being saved in the save game files: you will need to start a new game for the new settings to have effect. I do not, however, recommend ever using no_routing_over_overcrowded=1, as this will cause unfixable deadlocks. For example, if there is a passenger route between A and B, and both stations A and B are overcrowded, no passengers will ever be transported between A and B.  The overcrowding will not, therefore, go away. The passengers will not ever go away unless the stops are deleted.)

[z9999]

no_routing_over_overcrowded=1, as this will cause unfixable deadlocks.

That NEVER happen with no_routing_over_overcrowded=1.

[phantom25]

Thanks for this info.

I can post the savegame, but it is pretty large (around 5 MB), and uses some aditional addons, like czech trolley busses etc...

So, when this is saved into the savegame, then there is no other way to test it, but to start a new game. Maybe, the menu for "new game" should also contain this option as checkbox?
This would be much more logical.

As for the computer (I hope enough data):
- AMD Sempron, 2800+ (1.61 Ghz)
- 1,25 GB of RAM
- Windows XP
- Graphic card: Radeon 9600

Simutrans-standard is SDL Version.

It was possible, to start the game in simutrans-standard (as I did), and then just load inside simutrans-experimental.
The same game works identically (of course), but in the experimental version everything seems a little sluggish (just enough to distract), at any speed higher than 1.00x...

As said, this is a map with large cities and some freight transport (which I understood how to use and how to battle against overcrowding and starting to get profits)...

[prissi]

Well you can alter it by saving at XML and then editing in word ... or wait a little bit because an editor to set such bits is planned.

[phantom25]

OK, I finally got the error in my thinking about passenger transporting strategy, after several trials.

It is important now, to chose the correct capacity of the station (by upgrading and/or expanding)!

This was not so important before, but now it is.

With the adequate station capacity and the correct vehicle service times (adequate number of vehicles with adequate capacity), it is still possible to have profitable passengerlines.

Now it makes fun again, to play Simutrans. 

[jamespetts]

Excellent! Glad that you're happy. I think that requiring the player to get those things right was the whole point of the changes to crowding handling in the first place Did you find that the strategy worked on Simutrans-Experimental, too?

[potato2009hk]

I don't play this game after the new strategy effected. That's no fun, my company loss profit because I just have this little mistake. sorry!

[jamespetts]

Potato,

if you don't like the new overcrowding settings, you can turn them off in simuconf.tab.

[potato2009hk]

How to turn off it?

[jamespetts]

Set avoid_overcrowding=0 and no_routing_over_overcrowded=0

[Roflcopter1]

Wahoo for you.
I can't get any freaking passengers