Patch: Multiengine Normalization

[Bjarni]

To my opinion a message that the engine is broken down would suffice.

Hmmm, that could be done, but I'm not sure how practical that would be with 1000+ trains.

We want to get rid of the message shower, not make it worse. Besides do the player really need to know every single time a locomotive breaks down?

[athanasios]

And we will get a shower of posts from noobs that their trains are buggy.

It is true that I am not going to enable such a message to pop up. But we would avoid the above.

Well, a notification must be given.

Another idea that passed from my mind, is a text message or a small sprite somewhere on the vehicle's window.

Do you have anything better to propose?

[Bjarni]

Another idea that passed from my mind, is a text message or a small sprite somewhere on the vehicle's window.

That's a nice idea... right until somebody tries to add 100 locomotives in one train. We need a solution that will work with any number of locomotives.

[athanasios]

His problem!

For more than 3 or 4 engines we could use a single vehicle sprite and only the number(s) of the engine(s) that is(are) damaged.

If he is a fool to have 100 low reliability engines, so that all are similtaneously broken down, well again: His problem!!!

[Sir Bob]

Or possibly just have a fraction next to the train name saying how many engines are operational.
i.e. "Train 1 (3/4)"

Thoughts?

[Roujin]

Does it have to be in the main vehicle window?

We could put it into the details window, in the row of the engine that is broken...

something like this...

[kaan]

Nice idea Roujin. Then we could add number of breakdowns there too.

I have made a version with a patch option and attached it.
I'm sorry to say that this will be my last contribution to this patch for quite some time. I'm going to save my energy for work, where I'm a bit stressed out at the moment.

If anyone wants to take over I would be very pleased.

[kaan]

I had a bit of time on my hands and did a little tweaking.

screenie

details.png (13.87 KiB) Viewed 5002 times

[Timitry]

I would be in favor of a solution where you can see directly that an engine is broken down, without opening the vehicle window or such.

Imagine you have a great network, but only few depots. You don't think you need more as your trains are running - however, if you see some black smoke on them, maybe on some of the engines, you know you could use more depots!

Can't we add some new graphics? Maybe smoke which is a little less big & black as the current one?

[Bjarni]

I would be in favor of a solution where you can see directly that an engine is broken down, without opening the vehicle window or such.

Imagine you have a great network, but only few depots. You don't think you need more as your trains are running - however, if you see some black smoke on them, maybe on some of the engines, you know you could use more depots!

Can't we add some new graphics? Maybe smoke which is a little less big & black as the current one?

it would be best to see broken engines without opening windows but the black smoke code presumes the vehicle to be stopped. Because of this the black smoke starts at a certain location and will not move even if the vehicle moves. You would notice this if you read the whole thread before replying.

I think this is a decent solution at least for now. Personally I think the code should work and the impact on the game and gameplay should be investigated. There is no point in getting nice eyecandy for a function that will break the game

[razielanarki]

what if the broken down engine emits smoke with the diesel smoke sprites colored b/w?
and when a train comes to a full stop (because eg. 3 out of 5 engines are broken), the normal stationary broken down smoke could be shown on each engine.

[Anunnaki]

...When the first engine of a train breaks down everything stops like it has been all along. When an engine that isn't the first on a train breaks down it will subtract its horsepower from the front engine for the duration of the breakdown...

Very nice, great.

I have question, what is biggest think which i lack in openttd. Every train (except multiengine trains) have "running cost per year". This is i think amount of "fuel" which consum the engine per year.

However, this is not calculated on thing, how i use the engine, what i pay for train is same amount of money, independend on how much weight they are carrying. So, my question is, it is possible to change "logic" how much money i pay for one year as a running cost?

My idea is, to have train running cost calculated on weight which is train carying. I hope part of what we need is in the UKRS TRAIN SET. They are capable to have "different" sounds of engines when they are on MAX POWER, middle power or idle power. When the train is accelerating into hills, you hear louad steam engines on MAX POWER...and when engine goes down from the hill, you hear only silent noise and engines are on IDLE. So UKRS must have some way how to determine how much are actual engines used.

What we need:
a) Every train must have 4 variables inside, which representing 4 degrees of "how much is engine used" = how much fuel consume in that right momment (high, medium, low, idle), and values are increasing by every title depending on which "usage" is engine on that title. Tran.High, Train.Medium, Train.Low, Train.Idle. Than the train on every new title on which he comes, check how is engine actualy used. When high, than train add +1 to Train.Height variable, when idle then +1 to Train.Low variable. That means, in every variable is stored, on how many tittles was engine used in HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW or IDLE usage. At the end of day, COST PER DAY would be calculated (due to poind d.) and than train reset all 4 variables to 0.

b) When game dont have any function which can easy check how much is engine used, we can calculate that self, like:

Code: Select all

function Usage (Train)
{
 If (Train.Acceleration => 0) then      // engine is used, in other case we are going down from hill = engine is not used
 {
   If (Train.Speed < (Train.MaxSpeed*0.75) Return "Hard";      // less than 75% of max. speed, accelerating, = HIGH usage
   If (Train.Speed <= Train.MaxSpeed Return "Medium"    // from 75% to 100% , not need to much accelerating, MEDIUM usage
   If (Train.Speed > Train.MaxSpeed) Return "Low"    // more than max. speed (more than 100%), no more acceleration needed only stay, LOW usage
 }
 ElseIf { Return "Idle" };     // train is standing on place or is stopping or going down from the hills, IDLE - no power needed
}

c) At the end of every day:

Code: Select all

Function TrainDayPayment (Train)
{
  DayCost = Train.StandardRunningCostPerYear / 365;
  TotalTitlesUsedPerDay = Train.High + Train.Medium + Train.Low + Train.Idle;

If (TotalTitlesUsedPerDay<=1) then        // train was all day standing = engines off, but maintance still there.
{
  Train.High=0;Train.Medium=0;Train.Low=0;Train.Idle=0;     // reseting train variables to be used in the next day
  Return 0.10*DayCost;     //train will pay 10% of standard DayCost
}
elseIf   // train was "active" in that day, was on more than one title
{
  PayForOneTitle = DayCost / TotalTitlesUsedPerDay;
  PayForHigh = (1.25 * Train.High)*DayCost;              // 125% of DayCost per HIGH title
  PayForMedium = (0.75 * Train.Medium)*DayCost;    // 75% of DayCost  per MEDIUM title
  PayForLow = (0.50 * Train.Low)*DayCost;               // 50% of DayCost per LOW title
  PayForIdle = (0.10 * Train.Idle)*DayCost;               // 10% of DayCost per IDLE title
  Train.High=0;Train.Medium=0;Train.Low=0;Train.Idle=0;     // reseting train variables to be used in the next day
  Return PayForHigh + PayForMedium + PayForLow + PayForIdle;
}

This all will work with daylenght too i hope.
Be aware.. the code there is only for imagination, it is not code compatible in game, i am not programmer in C++ and i dont know how it is internaly working in openttd, i was only posting this code for imagination and inspirating openttd prgrammers/modders to make change.

[kaan]

update in first post.

[planetmaker]

I added an update to r13397. But that version has the same error as version for r13130: it asserts: see attached savegame & let it run on fast forward.

Code: Select all

/Users/ingo/ottd/wwottdgd/trunk/src/train.h:33: failed assertion `v->type == VEH_TRAIN'
Abort trap

[kaan]

thanks for the bug report planetmaker

I will look into it as soon as possible.

[Tiberius]

seems just a small miss
EDIT: ahh, damn, now I made a huge miss ...

[pavel1269]

I am looking forward to see this patch in some final release or even in trunk.
I will play with brokedowns once again.

[audigex]

I dislike the "first engine broken so the train doesn't move" idea - that makes it pot-luck as to whether your train stops or not, and has the same number of breakdowns as without multi-heading and it seems to me that the idea of this patch is to encourage multi-headed trains.

Apart from anything, if there are two crews the first can surely either call up or use hand gestures to indicate to the one behind what to do. Or the ones behind can stick their heads out of the window.

I'd cut the horsepower by the weight of the dead loco, without removing its weight (which is I think how it is now) - more realism isn't really required.

Great patch though would it be possible to make the BR HST/TIM/Asiastar (or other multi-car locos) work with the same options? Ie if one fails the horsepower/TE halves but it keeps going?

[Bjarni]

Apart from anything, if there are two crews the first can surely either call up or use hand gestures to indicate to the one behind what to do. Or the ones behind can stick their heads out of the window.

Usually only the first cab is crewed and the controls will be mirrored to all engines. This means that you have to be able to control the train from the front. If an engine dies then the train stops and the driver disables the engine and then continue driving. However there are a lot of failures that would cause the train to stop (like failure to release brakes, door fails to close, somebody pulled the emergency brake...). The question is how much realism/gameplay will we request of this patch?

I'd cut the horsepower by the weight of the dead loco, without removing its weight (which is I think how it is now) - more realism isn't really required.

Why not just set the power of the engine in question to 0 while keeping the weight of it in the train?

[Doorslammer]

My thoughts would be this:

Maybe represent the broken unit in question with permanent "clag". This is the smoke you normally get from a diesel when it's pulling hard up a hill (very evident in this game ). So using the smoke from the normal use I daresay wouldn't be too obtrusive would it?

I don't know how it would work on steam/electric or other railed appliances though. Unless it's possible to add the clag to them as well?