Project: cargodest

[Gaebrial]

Just a heads up: I've just posted a crash report on the wiki. To summarise, the game crashes when delivering clay (from Pikka's brickchain grf) to a transfer station. I have included links to the crash report provided by OSX and a save game.

[dbkblk]

My game crashed too.
Here's the debug and the savegame !
I play with the last binary version (28-08 from binary.openttd.org)

EDIT: Finally, it seems that the bug is linked to the NARS v2pb2. Sorry.

[Kanibal]

I did some experimenting with the payment issue.
I'm only guessing and I have no coding knowledge but if you could effectively 'pause' the cargo so when it's on a transfer station it's not considered in transit the value wouldn't become negative...

Sorry if that was really obvious, I have no idea how you'd do it either.

Really good patch though, got me hooked on OTTD again.

[Eddi]

that might be a possibility, but it makes only sense with passengers. for all other cargo, the distance and time from point to point is what matters

[Celestar]

Forked: I've fixed the missing route problem (hopefully). Not sure about the crash you're getting yet.

Celestar

[el koeno]

I did some experimenting with the payment issue.
I'm only guessing and I have no coding knowledge but if you could effectively 'pause' the cargo so when it's on a transfer station it's not considered in transit the value wouldn't become negative...

Sorry if that was really obvious, I have no idea how you'd do it either.

Really good patch though, got me hooked on OTTD again.

It's a good thing that value becomes negative if cargo has to wait for too long if you ask me. The trick is to ensure speedy connections, then you don't have as many problems.

On another note:
How is the destination for Cargo chosen? My one food processing plant didn't supply to a town I really wanted supplied with food. I figured that it was because the town was too far, so I hooked up another food processing plant. But now , because I allowed fruit and maize to pick their own destination, I can't manage how much is produced in each one. The one that serves the least towns actually produces the most food, which is rather lame if you ask me.

[Brianetta]

I can't manage how much is produced in each one.

I should hope not; you supply them with a transport service to suit their needs!

[Alberth]

I have some weird behavior with my water transfer service.

Running a water service through a transfer station. See attached screenie and save game (for HG revision 19764:f73d2f50bb61). Delivery of the water to the transfer station happens from the top-right (not shown in the screenie).
From the transfer station (at top-right), there are 2 delivery tracks, one to RadingWorth (which works correctly), and one to both Wadborough and BinningHall Heights. The latter station (at bottom right of the screenie) never gets any water.

[Tekky]

I think that this great new gameplay feature also warrants a change in the station rating system. Instead of measuring station rating by the age and maximum speed of trains, a station's rating should be determined by how fast the player is able to deliver the goods to their final destination.

Also, the total size of the stockpile at a station should not affect station rating. Instead, the size of the stockpile for a particular destination should affect station rating. This means that every possible final destination for a type of cargo should have its own station rating.

[Scay]

I think that this great new gameplay feature also warrants a change in the station rating system. Instead of measuring station rating by the age and maximum speed of trains, a station's rating should be determined by how fast the player is able to deliver the goods to their final destination.

Also, the total size of the stockpile at a station should not affect station rating. Instead, the size of the stockpile for a particular destination should affect station rating. This means that every possible final destination for a type of cargo should have its own station rating.

Agree on this one, especially considering how competition between different companies should be handled. And on top of that, all the new AI's will also make it more important how the cargo is being divided between different competing stations.

[el koeno]

I can't manage how much is produced in each one.

I should hope not; you supply them with a transport service to suit their needs!

Well, you're totally right. That's why I built my network in such a way that every fruit plantation was connected to both factories. But the final outcome doesn't really suit their needs: one factory has a shortage of food, the other a surplus. That sounds pretty inefficient to me.

The only way around it I can see would be a full blow economic model, with prices etc. But that would go far beyond the scope of this patch, and I don't think this game should need anything that's that complex.

[Brianetta]

Looks like the two factories are in extreme competition with each other, with a bidding war for the produce of the plantations.

[Wibblebutt]

I did some experimenting with the payment issue.
I'm only guessing and I have no coding knowledge but if you could effectively 'pause' the cargo so when it's on a transfer station it's not considered in transit the value wouldn't become negative...

Sorry if that was really obvious, I have no idea how you'd do it either.

Really good patch though, got me hooked on OTTD again.

Maybe a new station building could be introduced, such as a hotel or inn, which pauses, or slows down, the loss in value?

[Kanibal]

..or any other host of station facilities, I like that idea a lot... But I can see it being hard to pull off.

[Brianetta]

Maybe a new station building could be introduced, such as a hotel or inn, which pauses, or slows down, the loss in value?

How about an option in the cheats menu? Do you think your customers care whether you stored their goods in a warehouse or a slow train? Late is late.

[WWTBAM]

Maybe a new station building could be introduced, such as a hotel or inn, which pauses, or slows down, the loss in value?

How about an option in the cheats menu? Do you think your customers care whether you stored their goods in a warehouse or a slow train? Late is late.

Didn't this all start as a way of resolving the issue of cargo being unloaded and then reloaded if it wanted to continue on?

[el koeno]

Looks like the two factories are in extreme competition with each other, with a bidding war for the produce of the plantations.

Yeah, but with the one that has the least customers (and presumably the least money, unless the people of Tena pay a lot for their food ) outbids the richer one.

I think I'll offer food from both food processing plant the choice to go to all towns with a food service, by running a train between both factories (the train will stop at the towns on the route as well I guess). This is sort of what I did with the raw fruit, so it should work. It would also prevent the trains from riding around empty half of the time.

This is quite fun by the way. I'm still looking for ways in which I can play best. There's messy solutions all over my network, that need attention. But it's hard to optimize the routes in such a way that every type of cargo is served often, by fast trains, and with good connections. And as long as I'm not sure what the best way is to do so, I opt for quick and messy solutions that are easy to change. I have just one rail over rail bridge in my entire network. The rest are level junctions, because they offer maximum flexibility, and because traffic is pretty spread out, they don't form a real bottleneck.

[Regiovogel]

I've got some problems with the routes passengers take to get from one point to another.

Let's say we have a line with four stations A to D.
On this line, there are some trains:
- an express train that directly connects A with D
- some local passenger trains which stop at every station between A and D.

With the current version, passengers who want to go from A to D will only use the express train. This leads to the local trains being rather empty.
Even decreasing the stopover penalty to 1 doesn't change anything.

If you add a station E, where the local trains and the express train are going (so it drives A-D-E-D), passengers from E to A, who get on a local train, will change at D to the express train.


My suggestion would be to distribute the passengers to both services.
At least here in germany, there's a massive difference in the price of those transport services. The thing is, that not everybody is able or does want to pay an immense amount for travelling, so many people use the regional trains, even if there were better connections which they could use. I know that this is not true for everywhere (Switzerland, for example), but it could also be configurable as a patch like the stopover penalty.
I think that something like this is already "implemented" in TTD since you get more money when transporting passengers faster to their destination.
I don't think the passengers have to change their route according to which train enters the station next, they could also have a predefined route with some using the "fast" and others over the "slow" route. (developing this idea a bit further, the chance for passengers from big cities to take the faster train could increase compared to small towns... because they presumably have more money)

Just as a suggestion to solve this issue without getting unrealistic... I would love to have some profitable regional trains in addition to the fast trains

[bokkie]

that's a feature for in the future (says Wiki) Seems like an important one to me btw

[Regiovogel]

that's a feature for in the future (says Wiki) Seems like an important one to me btw

Oh, well. Do you think of

Route load balancing (don't send everything via the cheapest route)

then? Didn't think of this by now. But, well, basically the fastest route is not the cheapest, but the most expensive one... (except "cheapest" was talking about route cost )