[New release] Simutrans-Experimental 9.0

[jamespetts]

A new version of Simutrans-Experimental is available to-day: Simutrans 102.3 Experimental 9.0. See here for more information on how to download, install and set up the latest version. For those already familiar with the installation and setup, here are some quick links:

• Windows binaries
• Linux binaries (i386)
• Linux binaries (x64)
• Configuration files

Edit: Updated with better download links for the Windows binaries and configuration files.

Simutrans-Experimental 9.0 is a substantial new version, containing major new features, enhancements from Standard (including big GUI changes), and a large number of fixes reported by users of the previous versions. 9.0 should be easier for pakset maintainers to balance, and provide a better gameplay experience, owing to testing and enhancement of game balance related features since version 8.2.

Note that there is a known issue in 9.0 relating to the loading and saving of Simutrans-Standard saved games. The saving of Simutrans-Standard saved games is a new feature, but it is not working fully at this juncture. To work around difficulties in loading Simutrans-Standard saved games until the issue is fixed, load the game in 8.2 then re-save it; it should then load in 9.0. Simutrans-Experimental 9.0 has been released despite this issue, as it was proving elusive, and I thought it better to publish the latest version for everyone to benefit from its enhancements sooner rather than later. Hopefully, this issue will be fixed in a later version.

Here is a list of the changes:

Changes

• FIX: Restored the feature whereby cities are more likely to be built on low than high ground (unless "cities ignore height" is selected), which was obliterated when merging an improved city generation system from Standard.
• FIX: Weight limits ignored when using platform choose signals.
• FIX: Stations connected to multiple industries would sometimes consume products without passing them onto industries.
• CHANGE: Updated the credits.
• FIX: Make makeobj handle paths correctly. (Neroden)
• FIX: Crashes on new month when industries closed down.
• FIX: Compute comfort properly. (Neroden)
• CHANGE: Detect cities within cities and always return the inner cities.
• CHANGE: Display whether land or objects are in a city, and, if so, which one.
• FIX: When the replacer is checking convois for identicalness, check all convoys *both* forwards *and* backwards. (Neroden)
• FIX: Fix crash in loading caused by call to *old* (standard-only) interface of reroute_goods.
• FIX: Speculative fix for reported crash that I cannot reproduce.
• CHANGE: "minimum_city_distance" in cityrules.tab was deleted. There is 'city_isolation_factor' instead. It set how much cities avoids each other. (Inkelyad)
• CHANGE: Water now attracts cities. How much is set in 'cities like water' setting in climate dialog. (Inkelyad)
• CHANGE: Cities now form clusters. Use 'Number of clusters' and 'Cluster size' in Create new game dialogue.
• CHANGE: Check electrical consumption after checking whether the factory has been deleted, so as not to add electrical consumption for deleted factories.
• FIX: Miscounting of the number of factories in each new month resulting in crashes.
• FIX: Convoys whose journeys take longer than a month register an average speed of zero for that month, interfereing with revenue calculations.
• FIX: NULL dereference when no demo.sve present
• CHANGE: Cities will grow with more dense central part. (Inkelyad)
• ADD: Growth code parameters for cityrules.tab: 'renovations_count' and 'renovations_try' (Inkelyad)
• FIX: Crash on generating map
• FIX: Revert to correct pak selector dialogue type.
• FIX: static variable stadt_t::welt must not be used inside stadt_t::random_place
• FIX: Added infinite loop guard to stadt_t::step_bau
• CHANGE: Per kilometre running costs are now deducted every kilometre instead of scaled running costs being deducted every tile.
• FIX: Odometer did not take account of reduced distance on diagonals.
• FIX: Stations with individually specified prices cost a negative amount to build (i.e., credited rather than debited the price from the player's bank balance)
• FIX: Occasional crash associated with route-finding for private cars.
• FIX: Overcrowding did not function.
• CHANGE: Better distribution of town sizes, especially with a larger number of towns.
• FIX: Large values for minimum/maximum routing distances for passengers would truncate to zero.
• FIX: "passenger_routing_local_chance" not properly read from simuconf.tab
• CHANGE: More accurate system for checking whether the destination of passengers is within the range specified in simuconf.tab for local/midrange/longdistance passengers
• CHANGE: Passengers going to industry or attraction destinations now check whether their journey is within the specified distance range.
• FIX: tolerable_comfort_median_short_minutes value was over-written by the tolerable_comfort_median_median_minutes value in simuconf.tab when read
• FIX: Incorrect storage of longdistance_passengers_max_distance in older versions
• FIX: Settings dialogue would not read/save values correctly
• CHANGE: Further improvements to the accuracy of checking the distance of destinations
• FIX: Default retirement dates values corrupted when opening the settings dialogue.
• FIX: Settings dialogue reversed the passenger factor and city isolation factor numbers.
• CHANGE: Allow a wider range of input for the journey time tolerances in the settings dialogues
• FIX: Average speed calculated incorrectly.
• CHANGE: Adjust size of smaller towns not to be so small on map generation
• FIX: Reversed schedules did not properly calculate journey times
• FIX (TEMPORARY): Disable dangerous reversion to default settings in settings dialogue
• CHANGE: If sufficiently close destination cannot be found during iteration, set the destination town to the current town.
• FIX: Use full range of town names again.
• CHANGE: Attempt to increase accuracy of destination finding within distance ranges
• FIX: Infinite loop in Makeobj (Inkelyad)
• CHANGE: Sensible maximum values in the GUI "settings" dialogue for "passenger_routing_packet_size" and "max_alternative_destinations"
• FIX: Climate dialog fix. button_t::square replaced with button_t::square_state for 'Hilly landscape' and 'Cities ignore height' (Inkelyad)
• ADD: Warning messages when there is not enough places for cities. (Inkelyad)
• CHANGE: More rivers generated in mountainous areas (Inkelyad)
• FIX: Refunds were not displayed properly.
• FIX: Vehicles on open water would "teleport" to their destination. (Inkelyad)
• FIX: Refunds were calculated incorrectly.
• FIX: Erroneous calculation of industry density on loading a saved game.
• ADD: goods/passengers will use one convoy if several is available. (A lot like loading queue). It works for each player separately.(Inkelyad)
• FIX: Station capacities only worked for water-based stations.
• CHANGE: Allow saving to earlier Simutrans-Experimental version types and also to Simutrans-Standard compatible save games (NOTE: Saving/loading of Simutrans-Standard games currently not working correctly).
• ADD: Passengers will refuse to board overcrowded convoy if alternative exist. (Inkelyad)
• CHANGE: Minimum waiting time for stops increased from 1 minute to 4 minutes
• CHANGE: Waiting times for halts gradually re-set to the minimum time if they have not been updated for three or more months.
• FIX: Various bugs when using the upgrade feature in conjunction with the replace feature.
• FIX: Tunnels were written by Makeobj with a maximum weight of 0t.
• REVERT: Way objects are now removed after stations, as in Standard. Prioritising way object removal is no longer necessary now that there is a dedicated way object remover tool.
• ADD: Semi-automatic spacing for lines. (Inkelyad)
• FIX: Rogue node written to tunnel files by Makeobj.
• FIX: Buttons in "replace" dialogue could become unresponsive in some cases (Inkelyad).
• FIX: Depot windows were often too large for smaller displays.
• FIX: Crashes in some cases when deleting elevated ways.
• CHANGE: More informative 'New map' progressbar. (Inkelyad)
• CHANGE: Convoys can now use other players' stops where those stops are located on public or unowned (usually city) ways.

Particular thanks go to Neroden, Inkelyad and Bernd Gabriel who together have worked hard on fixes and new features for this version.

Feedback and testing

Thanks also to all those who have tested Simutrans-Experimental and provided useful feedback: it is very much appreicated. Any feedback from this version would, as ever, also be very much appreciated, including (1) bug reports; (2) information as to how well-balanced that the game is; (3) any difference in approach/strategy needed for Simutrans-Experimental as over Simutrans-Standard; and (4) any other useful feedback.

Thanks again to all those who have worked to test Simutrans-Experimental, and happy playing!

Note

This topic is locked, as it is intended to serve as an announcement. To report a bug or otherwise give feedback, please start a new thread for each bug/topic. To ask a question about how to obtain Simutrans-Experimental, use this thread.