No, a bug that was just fixed in r23593. Thanks for the report.Andrew350 wrote:...untraceable money cheat?
-- Michael Lutz
Moderator: OpenTTD Developers
No, a bug that was just fixed in r23593. Thanks for the report.Andrew350 wrote:...untraceable money cheat?
It does that, yes. But it is imho a good incentive to make use of different track types and to consider whether also the oldest and only infrequently used branch line really needs an upgrade to ICE or TGV level tracks while there's only a single 80km/h coal train travelling.dandan wrote:This means that players can save a lot of money by simply distributing their rails cleverly over many different rail types.
I don't agree with that argument. Maintenance costs should offer such an incentive, yes. But IMO that incentive should be exactly the fact that ICE tracks should be much more expensive to maintain (and to build).planetmaker wrote: It does that, yes. But it is imho a good incentive to make use of different track types and to consider whether also the oldest and only infrequently used branch line really needs an upgrade to ICE or TGV level tracks while there's only a single 80km/h coal train travelling.
the intention of this patch as a whole is to simulate the combined material and personal effort for maintenance of infrastructure. the intention of the non-linear scaling in particular is to simulate the management overhead. the bigger your company, the higher the amount of money you have to spend on management personal and technology (e.g. signalling, scheduling, ...) in relation to the money you have to spend on doing actual work (driving, repairing, ...)Simn wrote:I cannot see the rationale behind the cost increase this patch introduced.
Although I can see your point, this interpretation leads to hundreds of management layers in a reasonable sized company and as such hardly serves as a realistic rationale. Again, I'm not suggesting realism above all else, but this might be one of the cases where a more realistic approach might be appropriate.Eddi wrote:the intention of this patch as a whole is to simulate the combined material and personal effort for maintenance of infrastructure. the intention of the non-linear scaling in particular is to simulate the management overhead. the bigger your company, the higher the amount of money you have to spend on management personal and technology (e.g. signalling, scheduling, ...) in relation to the money you have to spend on doing actual work (driving, repairing, ...)Simn wrote:I cannot see the rationale behind the cost increase this patch introduced.
e.g: say for simplicity you have 1 person in charge for 1 tile of rail, and for any 2 persons you need one manager to coordinate the work of these people.
you see that you now need 2n-1 people for working n tiles. this is only a linear factor in number of personel, but each level of managers has a higher wage than the level below them, which makes the personel cost non-linear.
- for 1 tile you only need 1 worker (=1)
- for 2 tiles you need 2 workers, and 1 manager (=3)
- for 4 tiles you need 4 workers, 2 managers, and 1 manager-manager (=7)
- for 8 tiles you need 8 workers, 4 managers, 2 manager-managers and one manager-manager-manager (=15)
- ...
There are many differences. For starters, inflation does not react to your profit and/or network sizes. In a way it actually promotes early infrastructure spamming because it is applied to construction costs as well, so better build that long railway now while your money is still worth something. This is pretty much the opposite of what you're trying to achieve, although it is obviously diminished by maintenance costs.the effect of "labour unions" etc. is roughly covered with inflation, which is an entirely different topic.
well, the 2:1 ratio was just serving as an easy example here, but for any k:1 ratio you choose, the number of layers in the hierarchy will be log(n)/log(k), which is asymptotically the same.Simn wrote:Although I can see your point, this interpretation leads to hundreds of management layers in a reasonable sized company and as such hardly serves as a realistic rationale.Eddi wrote: e.g: say for simplicity you have 1 person in charge for 1 tile of rail, and for any 2 persons you need one manager to coordinate the work of these people.
Changed/implemented in r23931.Eddi wrote:imho the scaling should be over all railtypes combined. the incentive to not upgrade to high speed track should be purely by making it more expensive.
It doesn't. Number of tracks is only squared on junction tiles, not on parallel tracks (Internally in OTTD these are straight tracks BTW, not diagonal. Nomenclature is generally based on the screen surface, not the imaginary tilted world surface.)vtk wrote:Also, I think the way track pieces are counted, as described above, unfairly overcounts diagonal track -- especially two or more adjacent parallel diagonal tracks.
Don't get hung up on management overhead or any other explanation. Realising arbitrary curve forms isn't possible as we're limited to integer maths for cross-platform network compatibility. You can do x^1, x^1.5, x^2, but anything in between is very hard.vtk wrote:I still think the curve is too steep for big networks.
Like I said, it should be asymptotically linear. That means a power curve like x^1.5 is already too much. But I have thought of a relatively simple formula that has the gentle curve and limited slope like I described, and shouldn't be computationally expensive:Michi_cc wrote:Don't get hung up on management overhead or any other explanation. Realising arbitrary curve forms isn't possible as we're limited to integer maths for cross-platform network compatibility. You can do x^1, x^1.5, x^2, but anything in between is very hard.vtk wrote:I still think the curve is too steep for big networks.
I infer you have never worked in a large corporate.vtk wrote:Even in an arbitrarily large organization with countless levels of management, the total cost of all management levels is a converging sum which will not exceed 1/3 the total cost of those employees directly responsible for the hands-on work of infrastructure maintenance.
Why not use a much simpler version like this?vtk wrote:Like I said, it should be asymptotically linear. That means a power curve like x^1.5 is already too much. But I have thought of a relatively simple formula that has the gentle curve and limited slope like I described, and shouldn't be computationally expensive:
C = M * (N + F * (B * B / (N + B) - B))
C is the monthly maintenance cost of the network
N is the number of pieces in the network whose cost is to be calculated
M is a scaling factor which is a constant, probably varying with difficulty settings as appropriate
B is a constant representing the number of pieces in a "big" network, possibly varying with difficulty settings and/or map size
F is an easy-entry factor, a constant which should probably be between .1 and .5, and may vary with difficulty settings as appropriate.
This curve starts out looking like C = M * N * (1 - F), but bends up slightly to asymptotically approach C = M * (N - F * B), which is 1 / (1 - F) as steep as how it starts.
With a little bit of modification, I think this formula can be made to behave nicely in pure integer operations.
I do, but my boss is only paid slightly bette than I. And I have no idea how much the regional and division managers are paid.damerell wrote:I infer you have never worked in a large corporate.vtk wrote:Even in an arbitrarily large organization with countless levels of management, the total cost of all management levels is a converging sum which will not exceed 1/3 the total cost of those employees directly responsible for the hands-on work of infrastructure maintenance.
Annual Financial Report for 1928:
Train Income = +£283,962
Road income = +£54,273
-----------------------------------
Total income = £338,235
-----------------------------------
Train Running Costs = -£127,733 (only just built new ones)
Road Running Costs = -£31,986
Property Maintenance Costs = -£77,320
Loan Interest = -£5,289
-----------------------------------------------------
Total: -£242,328
Construction = -£1,458
New Vehicles = -£215,676
Other = -£348
------------------------------------------------------
Total: -£217,482
------------------------------------------------------
Total: -£121,575
My Infrastructure costs per year are:
Railway = -£19,284 (1,354)
Signals = -£2,340 (52)
Tramway = -£31,104 (1,418)
Station Tiles = -£26,028 (208)
TOTAL = -£78,756
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