Topic: Great Britain simulation in Simutrans Experimental

[Urgentemente]

I only found out about Simutrans late last year , and haven't really had much time to play with it after the intial week or so , but have recently started playing with it again (just in freeplay mode for now until I'm up to speed with stuff).

One of the first things I though would be great to do , was to model the UK train network, having just downloaded your latest last night and watched it for a while , all I can say is WOW!  It's mesmerising, amd fun to watch it all rolling along. Can't wait for further North to be added (I'm from Penrith originally, now living on the outskirts of Liverpool near Aintree).

Great work !
 

[Carl]

Thanks for your comments; I'm glad you like the map!

[sdog]

Carl, if you have a moment, could you post a new high res 16:9 screenshot of the map's line network view? That is if it's not looking overly complicated, with the massive amount of lines. I should like to use it as a g+ front page. The last one you posted a year ago was greatly appreciated.

[Carl]

Hi sdog, given that the map is tall and thin, this is the best I can do for a 16:9 image:



(full size)


It's pretty crowded in the London area but otherwise not too bad.

[sdog]

That's marvelous!

Thanks a lot, it really is quite a good showcase of simutrans. Such abstract images also convey the idea that it's more than cute graphics, but quite complex in depth.

check it on the page, it looks rather good.
especially since initially only the lowest part of the map is shown, and it is shaded. So there's only a hint of what's there, but then when you scroll it out you get the whole picture.

I have yet to write a caption.

[Carl]

Thanks for putting this up, sdog! I like how it looks on the page. My only regret about the image is that there are a few too many pastel/flourescent colours, which makes it look a little more garish than network maps normally would. But this is luck of the draw, I suppose.

[sdog]

There are also a few more lines on it than typically shown ion network maps.

[Carl]

Another screenshot from some recent work, plus an updated savegame:



And the savegame/pak folder: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61716/UK-Sep13.rar (25MB -- once again, packaged with a RAM-unlocked version of 11.9)

I've "refurbished" all of the First Great Western main line stock, making it "length=10" in line with my new standard. The HST is the first longer train to which I've given this treatment, and I'm pleased with how it looks. (To appreciate the difference, take a look at the last screenshot I posted). I've also re-aligned these trains and added extra detail.

I've also added the Class 180 'Adelante' (seen heading eastbound on the fast lines, above). Previously all of my Cotswold Line services were operated by HSTs, whereas in real life very few of them are. Now the line is composed of about half 180s, a handful of 'Networkers' (like the one at Pangbourne above), and just one HST. Luckily they can all keep to the same timetable. I plan to introduce more of this variation in stock on suitable routes -- two examples are the occasional HST on CrossCountry routes, and the occasional loco-hauled service on the Chiltern main line.

Paddington to Bedwyn services are also now operated by Networkers, as (I think) in real life, rather than HSTs. Finally, all Networker-operated services now run as 3-car, rather than 6-car.

The revised HST takes up seven station tiles (when formed with eight passenger cars). The increase in "footprint" is the main obstacle to rolling out the "length=10" change to all stock. In this case, I was just about able to make room for a seven-tile platform at Paddington. This won't be so easy everywhere. For instance, I'm less sure that I'll be able to convert the SWT 444s to this new scale, since they will also require seven tiles for ten-car operation, and I can see this being a problem in some places. But we'll see.

[Carl]

Anglia has been my next target for a revamp. These were some of the very first lines I built, so many of the trains were quite tardy-looking. So, I've updated all the rolling stock on the Great Eastern and West Anglia Main Lines. This shot shows all of the updated trains, as well as some track changes in the Hackney/Stratford area:


(click for larger, or here for full-size)

Stratford has received an overhaul. The Temple Mills branch, on which the Bishop's Stortford services travel, used to be underground -- but now I've found space for it above ground. I've corrected an error where the electric lines and the main lines were the wrong way around (they now switch places after Manor Park, as in real life). The main lines now stay above ground until just before Bethnal Green.

Summary of updated trains in the screenshot: Class 379 at Cambridge Heath; Class 315 at London Fields and west of Stratford on the electric line; Class 360 west of Stratford on the main line; Class 317 waiting at Stratford (partly obscured by footbridge); Class 321 east of Stratford; Class 90 loco and Mk3 carriages loading at Stratford.

[jamespetts]

Very nice!

[waerth]

Hi Carl,

What is the deal with the farmfields? Did you rePAK them as monument with 0 pax or something like that?

W

[ӔO]

don't class 444 have trouble fitting into platforms in real life?

[Sarlock]

The farms are just coded as individual 1x1 low level industrial buildings.

Looks great, Carl, you're doing an amazing job!

[Carl]

What is the deal with the farmfields? Did you rePAK them as monument with 0 pax or something like that?

Yes, they're currently industrial buildings at the lowest possible level. If it's possible to code them with 0 passenger level, I'd prefer that -- but aren't monuments unique (i.e. can only be placed once per map/city)?

don't class 444 have trouble fitting into platforms in real life?

Seems plausible -- but if I have trains longer than platforms in-game, then I'll get an error pop-up every time one stops at a short platform. That's too annoying to put up with!

[Carl]

A different kind of video today -- a timelapse view of the construction of Sheffield. 1800 buildings in three minutes! The subtitle, I think, should be "No suitable ground!"

When building cities I lay tracks first, followed by a skeleton of roads, followed by the buildings. The video shows only the last part of this workflow. The video is sped up by a factor of ten, so the city took about half an hour to build.

[Sarlock]

Wow, that's really cool... nice video clip

Nice choice of music, too...Flight of the Bumblebee

[Spacethingy]

Epic use of the Bumblebee... So, Sheffield took 30 minutes, just for the buildings... Umm.... dare I ask how long roughly the rest of Britain took?! Amazing work, I must get round to fitting some new RAM sticks so I can see it all in Simutrans...

[Carl]

Let's just say I'm glad that Simutrans doesn't track time played like some games do! This instance of the map has been in project for approaching 18 months now (with a few breaks), so the hours have certainly racked up.

[Carl]

A few days of track-laying has yielded the skeleton of West/South Yorkshire and the remainder of north Lincolnshire:


(click for larger, or fullsize here)

Most of the tracks are in place up to Todmorden, Skipton, York, and Hull. (As far as I know only the Huddersfield to Barnsley branch is missing, but I'm sure I'll discover something else.) Now comes some more city-building, before extended services gradually to Scunthorpe, Cleethorpes, and then up to Leeds.

The rivers are a bit of a mess here where tracks are involved: I'm hoping to replace most of the "sea-rivers" with actual rivers soon, since they allow for more flexibility with terrain.

[Sarlock]

Wow...

[Carl]

The first Transpennine Express trains are now running, on the Cleethorpes to Manchester Airport route. Here a Manchester-bound TPE train approaches Stockport (far left). A Bristol to Manchester train and a Manchester to Alderley Edge train are also in the station, while the East Midlands Liverpool to Norwich train approaches from the north.



Edit: updated screenshot to show revised XC Voyager and Northern 323 models. Old image is here, for comparison.

[Carl]

Time for a new video! This time we spend one hour observing the arrivals and departures at Reading station, which is a very busy junction. In the course of the hour we see around forty services come and go. Each service from the 1357 Bristol to the 1457 Bristol is tracked by annotations.

(I'll add some music later, but that feature of YouTube seems to be playing up right now.)

As the annotations show, most services are running more or less to time. Some -- notably those that terminate at Reading -- are running a little ahead of time, but that's fairly normal.See here to compare to the working timetable.

Here's a silly screenshot of Reading station created using the "photocopy" filter in Gimp. Full size here.


Reading is a good showcase for the graphical enhancements I've made over the last couple of months. Here is an old screenshot of Reading which shows the main differences.

The Class 458s are new, here -- previously I hadn't bothered to draw them until today, having used 450s on the Reading-Waterloo route before.

[greenling]

Hello Carl
do your game save work with the brandnew simutrans exp?
And it´s possible to update the png´s & dat´s from your pakset too?

[Carl]

It does work with 11.10, but that version has somewhat worse performance than 11.9 (a bug that will be fixed in the next version, I think).

I'll release a new version of the British Trains set soon since I've improved lots of the models since the last release.

[planestrainscomputer]

Could I have the latest save game and pakset please. I have to say this game is amazing

[Carl]

Here's the latest savegame and pak folder:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61716/GBmapSep13.rar
(that's still uploading, so the link might not be live for a few minutes)


Updates have slowed for now as I've been getting a bit busier -- hopefully some new progress to show soon.


The rar comes with a 4gb-unlocked version of 11.9, again.

[Carl]

Doesn't the time fly? I've had a couple of months off working on this, but have now slowly started to resume work. I seem to have settled into a pretty regular cycle - a few months of intense activity followed by a break, and so on.

Anyway, here's an up-to-date savegame. The latest updates are in Yorkshire, with Huddersfield and Bradford receiving their first services.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61716/GBnov13.rar

And a screenshot of Sheffield:



Sheffield station poses a few challenges. Several of the platforms are "split" so that two trains can use them at once. And the extra track between platforms 1 and 2 (which is real-life fixture) allows trains approaching from the south to access the Northern end of platform 1 even when there is another train in the southern end. Sheffield has almost all its real-life services now. It's still missing the Hull/Bridlington ones, which are not far down the to-do list, as well as the irregular train to York via Pontefract. There are no trams, yet -- they will appear soon™.

Once the Knottingley services are sorted, I plan to work on the Calder Valley - trains from Leeds to Manchester Victoria via Halifax and Bradford. This requires some tricky diagramming work, but I think I've figured out how it will all go.

And, of course, I hope to get new videos out in the near future. I was thinking of a Great Eastern Main Line video, since a lot has changed in that area since the old Clacton-London video.

[KneeOn]

Wow, I love it. If you have any Thameslink related questions I might be able to help!


Two small points regarding services out of Brighton - the Brighton - Ashford service is formed of only a two car 171 rather than the four car 171 and FCC run 377s as well as 319s.


I don't know where you are from and I'm not trying to criticise but you said you wanted in your videos as accurate as you could get 


What is even more impressive than the map in my opinion is the pak. I play 128 Britain exclusively but the variety of EMU's on here that are current swings it - Its also really well balanced!


Please keep adding to it, you're fully utilizing almost every feature of an expansive game and that pakset is just beautiful! I do have one suggestion which is that this pak is more playable than your older map's pakset however it is very... oddly named in some parts (wa-platform-3 doesn't mean much to me).


Kudos to you though - I could not have done better in 10,000 lifetimes.

[Carl]

Thanks for the comments KneeOn!

There are quite a few places on the map where formations are too long, e.g. the 171s out of Brighton. This is because, until recently, even the lowest passenger_factor setting was really too high for hourly services, so I exagerrated the rolling stock in places. This has now changed, so I'm gradually changing services back to their proper formations.

The FCC thing is entirely out of laziness -- I never got around to painting the FCC-liveried 377! But it also has another problem now, in that 8-car 377s take up five station tiles, and stations such as Blackfriars and City Thameslink have only four station tiles. I'll think of a way around this someday I had the pleasure of using FCC from Gatwick to London a couple of times last week -- in particular, I squeezed onto the first offpeak service from Gatwick towards Bedford which seems to always be formed of only four cars!

The platform names are, I agree, not very user friendly - since these platforms are modified versions of ones I found on the Japanese website, I kept the same names. It might be a hassle to change them now.

I will of course keep adding to this, though my time is at a premium right now - I'm likely to be relocating and starting a new job in the next few months. But I will certainly return to this in earnest when time allows!

Thanks again for your comments!

[Junna]

I do have one suggestion which is that this pak is more playable than your older map's pakset however it is very... oddly named in some parts (wa-platform-3 doesn't mean much to me)

Number with nothing after it = island platform
-s = side platform
-u pedestrian subway
One of the others is filler and two-sided platform (-f I think).

[Matthew]

Just wanted to say that I've enjoyed viewing the YouTube videos as prt of my Christmas holiday relaxation. I've watched the first nine and have been impressed by the amount of effort and care that you have put into this, the remarkable achievement by jamespetts, prissi (and many others over the years) of a simulator that is so sophisticated that you can plug in the National Rail timetables and get real-life results, and the high level of politeness and credit-sharing amongst the Simutrans community.

This is really a kind of art work. It doesn't feed the hungry or put a roof over people's heads. But neither does it necessarily harm anyone and it has its own kind of beauty, turning chaos into order within its virtual world. And like good art, it helps me understand the real world better and makes me question the way things are.

Thank you to Carl, jamespetts and the Simutrans developers for the gift that you provide to users and viewers all year round.

[prissi]

I eally thank you for your kind word. That is an extremely nice way to describe simutrans (and of couse CCalrs work in special).

[Carl]

Hi Matthew, many thanks for your kind comments! I'm glad that you enjoyed the videos. And I'd like to reiterate your thanks to the coding teams for both Standard and Experimental for building a simulator with such incredible capabilities!

[some help please]

Hi,

Just to say your map and work is great, and i would like to download it, but i cannot get it to work for me.

I have downloaded simutrans and expansion paks for it, which are great, but dont know how to get your UK map to work - any ideas please ?

being new to simutrans it all seems rather compicated, so any help would be very greatful.

Thank you.

[kierongreen]

What are you having difficulty with - finding where to put the game or with loading it?