New to server games - No Passenger Service

[zook2]

HI,

I'm a longtime SimEx player coming back after a few (three) years of hiatus. There seems to be a lot of new features!

Anyway, for my first game with the new version (and my first server game ever) I've connected to the Bridgewater server and after some head-scratching I've got a small company going (Player 8 in Green Bolbourne). I was (and still am) somewhat puzzled by the lag - it takes a minute or so before changes become effective, but that's probably how it is.

- I've created a bus line with a few stops and two buses happily going back and forth. But all my stations show "No Passenger Service", even after some twenty minutes waiting. What's wrong?

- How can I change the company name?

- Are there any tips on how to play in a server game? Get perhaps better performance, if possible, or how not to go broke?

[zook2]

Update: the line works now, but that took *ages*.

[freddyhayward]

Update: the line works now, but that took *ages*.

This is the system working as intended - it works through the entire world's transport networks very gradually. Not an ideal arrangement, but it prevents what would otherwise be very long freezes.

edit:

- How can I change the company name?

Press 'k' then click the green box next to your company name. It will open a dialog that also lets you set a password.

[Matthew]

HI,

I'm a longtime SimEx player coming back after a few (three) years of hiatus. There seems to be a lot of new features!

Welcome back and welcome to Bridgewater-Brunel! There are mountains of new features!

- How can I change the company name?

It will be good to know who we are playing with!  The server has helpful guidelines for company names.

BTW I am Central Trains | Cambrian Airways. At the moment we have the same colour. If that colour is particularly important to you, then I can happily change, though it might confuse everyone else! I just chose that colour because it was different from the other players.

- Are there any tips on how to play in a server game? Get perhaps better performance, if possible, or how not to go broke?

These points might be too simple, but I had to start somewhere.

Performance

How much RAM does your PC have? The server game currently uses 5.2GB. This is actually a huge, huge improvement: two months ago the same game took about 10GB! However, if your PC has less than 4 GB of RAM, the game will lag badly (and until recently would have been completely unplayable). What to fix depends mostly on this factor.

Play

As a new player, I am guessing that you will be starting with passengers and mail as freight requires a certain level of scale to work.

It looks like you already know the most important thing: passengers are trying to reach particular destinations within a time limit and therefore you need to connect to as many destinations as possible.  So you have the right idea by connecting to Green Bollbourne Village Dock, because your passengers can then connect to many more destinations by ship. Unluckily, your buses are stuck in jams caused by ARN's scheduling. One way to solve this would be to build a bus stop near the dock, and then the passengers will walk between the dock and the bus stop.

Mail is similar: Simuzens(?) send letters to particular places, so the more places that are connected through your network, the better. But mail cannot walk between halts!  So you must connect directly to the global mail network. Use the Players menu to exchange access rights with other players (again, if you are Player 8 they have already started giving you access).

If you would like to have help and exchange ideas while you play, the best way is to join the Discord server: https://discord.gg/KuaVWycD9E. The Simutrans Discord server has an #extended-help channel. Discord is better than the in-game chat because we can show screenshots and you can send messages even when the server is lagging or busy.

[zook2]

Thanks!

A couple more questions:

1) Traffic Lights: my vehicles seem to ignore green lights. Are TLs any use?

2) I found large local savefiles from the server game. Are they good for anything?

3) My player colour is reset every time I log on. Why?

4) I have bought a DAF CF for bulk fluids. Max. Axle Load is 12t. I've set a schedule with the first waypoint a couple of tiles away - but it can't even leave the depot (2547,2125). The roads are all modern.

5) I suppose there is no way to refit my hovercraft with mail space?

6) Is there any explanation in the forum for how far mail "walks" to a postbox, or how line speed affects mail being created?

7) I have a slightly older laptop with 8GB RAM and two Intel cores (~2 Ghz IIRC). My CPU is at 70% and my RAM at 80%. But the game lags pretty badly.

[Vladki]

Thanks!

A couple more questions:

1) Traffic Lights: my vehicles seem to ignore green lights. Are TLs any use?

See this thread: https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,20787.msg1/topicseen.html#new
The problem is that trucks will wait until the tile ahead of the intersection is free. So even if they have green on TLs, they will wait for clearance.
TLs in general help a little in congested towns but are far from perfect solution.

2) I found large local savefiles from the server game. Are they good for anything?

Yeah if you want to play the map locally - e.g. try some big change, and do not want to bunkrupt your network game company

4) I have bought a DAF CF for bulk fluids. Max. Axle Load is 12t. I've set a schedule with the first waypoint a couple of tiles away - but it can't even leave the depot (2547,2125). The roads are all modern.

Is there any error message? Any bridges on the way? The have not only max-AXLE-load, but also max-(total)-weight of convoy.

5) I suppose there is no way to refit my hovercraft with mail space?

some hovercrafts have optional (additional) mail space.

6) Is there any explanation in the forum for how far mail "walks" to a postbox, or how line speed affects mail being created?

Mail has same coverage area as passengers, but it "walks" only on first and last stop. No walking on transfers. Mail transfers must happen on single player station. Speed imho does not affect mail, but I'm not 100% sure.

7) I have a slightly older laptop with 8GB RAM and two Intel cores (~2 Ghz IIRC). My CPU is at 70% and my RAM at 80%. But the game lags pretty badly.

Might be die to network lags?

[Matthew]

1) Traffic Lights: my vehicles seem to ignore green lights. Are TLs any use?

This should not happen. If there is space on the other side of the junction, the vehicles should proceed.

Maybe check that there are no one-way roads? Use the colon : key to see them.

If that does not help, please give me the co-ordinates (on Discord?) so I (or another player) can investigate.

2) I found large local savefiles from the server game. Are they good for anything?

When you join an online game, the server transfers the save and then the client loads it. Afterwards, the saves are only for useful for testing things offline.

But that might be helpful in your situation. When I first started playing on Bridgewater-Brunel, I had terrible lag, so I tested all my building projects offline first. If you don't want to do that, you can safely delete all the .sve files after you have finished playing.

Also, I think the client saves the game every time you exit. If you don't want this, create a simuconf.tab file in your home directory's /simutrans subdirectory and add

Code Select Expand

reload_and_save_on_quit = 0

3) My player colour is reset every time I log on. Why?

OK, it seems that player colours are bugged at the moment. I will file a bug report.

4) I have bought a DAF CF for bulk fluids. Max. Axle Load is 12t. I've set a schedule with the first waypoint a couple of tiles away - but it can't even leave the depot (2547,2125). The roads are all modern.

Waypoints are bugged at the moment. Unfortunately we have to build stops instead of waypoints. Try using stops of the 'wrong' type (e.g. for your bulk fluids, use a passenger stop) because this will minimize the stop loading time.

5) I suppose there is no way to refit my hovercraft with mail space?

Sadly there are no mail hovercraft in this year (though there were earlier, IIRC). But the new catamarans can carry mail as well as passengers.

6) Is there any explanation in the forum for how far mail "walks" to a postbox, or how line speed affects mail being created?

Sorry, I don't think so.

The Extended overview explains the basic features of mail.

I don't know for certain how far mail "walks" to a postbox. But if you click on a building you can see "Stops potentially within walking distance" and the limit for that tab is 4km, so I guess 4 km?

Mail is created for a particular destination. The mail will use the player line(s) with the lowest journey time to that destination. If the destination cannot be reached by any player route, the mail is not created.

7) I have a slightly older laptop with 8GB RAM and two Intel cores (~2 Ghz IIRC). My CPU is at 70% and my RAM at 80%. But the game lags pretty badly.

I feel your pain! I know the lag is very, very frustrating. This was my situation until James kindly reduced the server speed a few months ago.

The usual measurement of lag is 'tree-planting time'. Use the Special Construction Tools to build a tree and time how long it takes to appear on the map. How bad is your lag when you join? How bad after a few minutes?

8GB should just be enough, if you are not using any other programs. But Bridgewater-Brunel is set to use 6 threads, so a 2-core PC will find it difficult.

The server is supposed to adjust to the speed of the players' PCs, but this is a new feature and I don't think it has been tested very well.

Some things you can do to help:

• Turn off water animations. In your home directory's \simutrans\ directory, make a simuconf.tab file and add

Code Select Expand

water_animation_ms = 0

[/li]

• If you don't listen to the in-game music, you can use start the client with the "-nomidi" parameter, so that it does not load those files.
• In the same way the "-nosound" parameter will run the client without sound, which might give you a little more performance.
• Make the game's window as small as you can and zoom in as much as possible.
• Try not to use the minimap and especially don't use the Network Mode. The Network Mode generates a lot of lag. When my PC struggled, I tried to only use Network Mode offline or just before I logged off.

[zook2]

"    4) I have bought a DAF CF for bulk fluids. Max. Axle Load is 12t. I've set a schedule with the first waypoint a couple of tiles away - but it can't even leave the depot (2547,2125). The roads are all modern.

Is there any error message? Any bridges on the way? The have not only max-AXLE-load, but also max-(total)-weight of convoy."

IIRC there first was a message about axle load (8 tons max, but vehicle has 12). That was with the original schedule of probably >200km to the first stop. I then created a new schedule that would go from waypoint to waypoint to see which one can't be reached. The first WP was only a dozen tiles away, with perfectly normal city roads in between. But now the "vehicle can't find a way", without a weight limit being mentioned. Smaller trucks never had a problem.

[zook2]

   "3) My player colour is reset every time I log on. Why?


OK, it seems that player colours are bugged at the moment. I will file a bug report."

Errrrm... should I pick a colour that has an "X", or no "X"? I assumed "X" means "taken".

[zook2]

"The usual measurement of lag is 'tree-planting time'. Use the Special Construction Tools to build a tree and time how long it takes to appear on the map. How bad is your lag when you join? How bad after a few minutes?"

Sometimes, late at night usually, it's quite nice - a second or two. Perhaps that's when no other players are online. But right now it's several minutes from clicking "New Line" before the window even opens.

Thanks for the other tips. I'll try those.

"Try not to use the minimap and especially don't use the Network Mode"

What is Network Mode? I've seen a button on the main bar (to the right) but I assumed it's for joining a game...

[zook2]

"Waypoints are bugged at the moment."

So it's recommended not to use them *at all*, right? And thanks for the Discord help - I have a feeling I'll be able to find the problem now.

[zook2]

OK, I've got that truck on the road and I can get it to move quite far - until I hit a length of ancient country road with 9t max axle load. I could upgrade it, but the cost, especially the monthly cost, is prohibitive for a small company that's now barely breaking even. Are there procedures to, cough, cough, socialize such costs? Her Majesty to the rescue!

[zook2]

I've just spent hours trying to figure out why my trucks couldn't reach the refinery in Duringham before realizing that I didn't have company access to two tiles of road where I had built my stops. It works now. I admit that was my own stupidity, but the error message said something about axle load of 1t, not lack of access. That's not the first time I've had that problem. Can the pathfinder not tell *why* a stop is inaccessible?

[Matthew]

   "3) My player colour is reset every time I log on. Why?


OK, it seems that player colours are bugged at the moment. I will file a bug report."

Errrrm... should I pick a colour that has an "X", or no "X"? I assumed "X" means "taken".

You are correct. "X" means taken and you should pick a colour that does not have an X. But at the moment, changing colours is bugged.

"The usual measurement of lag is 'tree-planting time'. Use the Special Construction Tools to build a tree and time how long it takes to appear on the map. How bad is your lag when you join? How bad after a few minutes?"

Sometimes, late at night usually, it's quite nice - a second or two. Perhaps that's when no other players are online. But right now it's several minutes from clicking "New Line" before the window even opens.

Unfortunately this seems exactly like the kind of problems that I had last year.

Part of my solution was to use a cloud gaming service. Basically I rented a PC in Canada and ran the Simutrans client there. As far as my PC in Europe was concerned, it was not doing anything more difficult than playing a YouTube video, because the cloud PC was doing all the work. The service that I used was Maximum Settings and their cheapest option (AMD Tier 1, 35¢ Canadian per hour) was enough to run Bridgewater-Brunel smoothly. I can explain more about this and other cloud gaming options if you are interested.

"Try not to use the minimap and especially don't use the Network Mode"

What is Network Mode? I've seen a button on the main bar (to the right) but I assumed it's for joining a game...

You are right, that's what people normally mean by Network Mode. Sorry, I meant the Network Mode of the minimap:



James told me that this creates terrible lag and my experiments suggested that he was right.

"Waypoints are bugged at the moment."

So it's recommended not to use them *at all*, right? And thanks for the Discord help - I have a feeling I'll be able to find the problem now.

The bug is that sometimes a convoy arrives at a waypoint and then it constantly switches between "Waiting for clearance" and "Loading 0:00". The game does not know it is Stuck so it does not appear on in the Messages Window. There does not seem to be any rule about when this happens and when it does not happen. So using waypoints is risky. I have not deleted all my old waypoints but I have stopped adding new ones (I build a stop instead).

I've just spent hours trying to figure out why my trucks couldn't reach the refinery in Duringham before realizing that I didn't have company access to two tiles of road where I had built my stops. It works now. I admit that was my own stupidity, but the error message said something about axle load of 1t, not lack of access. That's not the first time I've had that problem. Can the pathfinder not tell *why* a stop is inaccessible?

This is another known bug (discussed here, though I think there is a more recent thread too). The routing  error message about weights can be caused by almost any routing error.

[zook2]

Thanks! And some more questions:

1) I'm playing a saved Bridgewater game locally. I just noticed that I have access to Wykstoke-owned roads, which I believe I have not when playing online. Is that correct, or did I misunderstand access rights?

2) If a builder's yard can eat 6 crates of bricks per month and is not boosted, why is it actually eating up to 21?

3) I placed some postboxes in Maltbere St. James (BB server). I deleted them all, except the one in 2027/2468. I just can't demolish it, neither online or playing locally.

4) Is it recommended to always use the nightly build when playing online, or will the version control prevent problems?

5) I just tried to connect to the BB server, but ran out of disk space while loading the map. My client crashed, and when I tried again a minute later the server was offline. Did I cause that?

6) Call me stupid, but I can't find the keyboard shortcuts for Hide City Buildings.

7) I was toying around locally with two small airports: I think my runway was long enough (8 tiles for a small Beechcraft), I had a tower, one taxiway connecting to both ends of the runway and an apron next to the station building, but I got a "No route" error when the plane reached the apron. What did I miss?

[Vladki]

1) In local game you can switch to any player (no passwords), but the access rights should work as usual. If they don't, file a bug.
2) Production can be boosted by people just walking to the factory (or getting there by private car). Check the graphs for visitors/workers.
3) no idea... Locally you can switch to public player (god mode and try to delete it.
4) you should not connect with different version than what is running on server. The network game dialog shouldn't let you. If you do it anyway (I won't tell you how) any sort of problems may happen.
5) n oidea
6) press "
7) check the required runway length in depot. Check both runways (start and destination) - click on runway, length should be shown there. Check also the permitted axle load. This applies to all modes of transport: It may happen that empty vehicle/convoy is light enough, but it exceeds the weight limit when fully loaded.

[zook2]

Thanks! And another one:

I've created a new powerline connecting a gas power station (66, 578) to another player's active net. My line is not broken, it's the same Net ID from substation to the connection point. Generation is >600 MW. But even after waiting some time it doesn't seem to send power into the other net. Is connecting possible at all?

Update: it just took some more time.

Update: I'm not making any money - revenue is negative. Do I only get paid for substations?

[Matthew]

Thanks! And some more questions:

Vladki has already posted great answers so I will just supplement:

1) I'm playing a saved Bridgewater game locally. I just noticed that I have access to Wykstoke-owned roads, which I believe I have not when playing online. Is that correct, or did I misunderstand access rights?

I granted you access to Wykstoke yesterday (it doesn't have a password because the creator is on hiatus). I said I had done it on Discord, but by editing an existing comment, so you might have missed it.

3) I placed some postboxes in Maltbere St. James (BB server). I deleted them all, except the one in 2027/2468. I just can't demolish it, neither online or playing locally.

Hmm. If there are private cars on the same tile as the postbox, the game will delete private cars before it deletes the postbox. There can be a lot of private cars in BB, so maybe you could not delete them fast enough?

4) Is it recommended to always use the nightly build when playing online, or will the version control prevent problems?

As Vladki said, you absolutely must. Did you know that there is a Nightly Updater so that you can automatically update? Things to note:

• Nightly Updater requires Java 9 or higher. You're on Windows, right? If so, you can get a suitable version here. On Linux, get it from your distro.
• It will update to wherever it is run, so it is very important that you run it in the same directory as the Simutrans-Extended executables (otherwise it will put ~2GB of files into some other directory).
• The command to run it in Linux is java -jar ./Nightly-Updater-V2.jar
• For Windows, remove the ./ . You might need to change java to javaw too.
• By default it displays a pop-up window with information. To show the information on the command line, add -cl.

5) I just tried to connect to the BB server, but ran out of disk space while loading the map. My client crashed, and when I tried again a minute later the server was offline. Did I cause that?

Probably! The way to check is download http://bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/misc/simu-server13353.log from your browser and look in the browser's download window for the size. If it's <1MB and it's after about 7 am GMT, congratulations, you just crashed the server! Warning: This file can get as large as 1GB and your browser may try to open it in Notepad or the equivalent, so be ready to cancel the download quickly.

6) Call me stupid, but I can't find the keyboard shortcuts for Hide City Buildings.

You're not stupid; you're playing a game without a manual! I made a Quick Reference Guide with all the keyboard shortcuts and FAQs. It's now out of date, but largely because new things have been added rather than because the information there is wrong.

Update: I'm not making any money - revenue is negative. Do I only get paid for substations?

Powerline income is a bit of a mystery to me too, but it does seem to scale based on demand, so your guess is probably right. I am not sure that you will get paid anything for contributing to someone else's network. I always expect to lose money on power lines; I only build them because they increase industry demand and city growth.

[Vladki]

Powerlines: yes, only the transformer station makes revenue

[zook2]

I granted you access to Wykstoke yesterday (it doesn't have a password because the creator is on hiatus). I said I had done it on Discord, but by editing an existing comment, so you might have missed it.

Thanks! I'm getting somewhere now. Although I spent some time finding out that the 11 chemicals that are en route to Aberafon will be shipped all the way from the refinery (mid-west) to the far east of the map and then back. My paper mill should get them in a few years, though.

Hmm. If there are private cars on the same tile as the postbox, the game will delete private cars before it deletes the postbox. There can be a lot of private cars in BB, so maybe you could not delete them fast enough?

Definitely not, I just tried again locally. Only as Ministry player I could delete it. Should I file a bug report?

As Vladki said, you absolutely must. Did you know that there is a Nightly Updater so that you can automatically update?

Thanks, I'll have a look.

You're not stupid; you're playing a game without a manual! I made a Quick Reference Guide with all the keyboard shortcuts and FAQs. It's now out of date, but largely because new things have been added rather than because the information there is wrong.

In 2017 I volunteered for some work on the wiki, which I still think this is where these things should go. If you can PM me a plain text file (or the PDF is not locked in some way), I can put it in there.

Powerline income is a bit of a mystery to me too, but it does seem to scale based on demand, so your guess is probably right. I am not sure that you will get paid anything for contributing to someone else's network. I always expect to lose money on power lines; I only build them because they increase industry demand and city growth.

I've experimented some more and after spending about 120.000 (all my cash) on my network including 3 substations, I'm making about 3000/month in profits. And that's for currently selling ~100MW out of ~650MW available, so it's easy income. I just hope I can successfully cross somebody else's line without hiccups.

[Vladki]

Regarding keyboard shortcuts - just press F1, and you'll find them. The relevant help page is IMHO autogenerated. Also the key shortcuts slightly differ in various paksets.
So especially key shortcuts are not a good topic for wiki or other static documentation.

[zook2]

I'm experimenting with freighters, but my first one can't even find the way from the two oil rigs to the island at 3800/1280. What's the max distance the pathfinder will try?

[freddyhayward]

I'm experimenting with freighters, but my first one can't even find the way from the two oil rigs to the island at 3800/1280. What's the max distance the pathfinder will try?

i think the max distance between waypoints was somewhere between 80-100km.

[zook2]

Thanks. And one more:

I've experimented with airports recently, in a locally saved game. But I ran into the old runway reservation bug. Before I potentially ruin my small company in a server game: did anyone else experience problems with aircraft? There are at least two other players running airports; I think one has/had his planes circling endlessly.