Qustions (first real topic)

[Hajo]

I admit I wasn't very helpful in my last answers.

1) If you accidentally got into the main menu and want to have your game back, you can exploit an bug: click 'load game'. The main menu vanishes and a savegame selector pops up. Just close the saveganme selector. Now you have your game back.

Of course this is not how it was designed to work because you also can use this to continue bankrupt games, but ATM you can do it this way.

2) I'm developing Simutrans in my free time together with a few other people. We do it because we like to create a new transport simulation. Usually we fokus on features that expand the program with new functionality or options. Confirmation requests like "You said 'quit', shall I really quit?" usually are not considered important enoug to be worked on in near future. There is a huge list of task that seem more important ATM.

ATM the main ongoing activity is the transition to a new tile set. Simutrans used to use 64x64 pixel tiles like TTD does. This looks good in resolutions of 640x480 and 800x600 but nowadays most players prefer much higher resolutions. Since Simutrans doesn't use 3D technology, the tiles don't scale automatically (TTDs tiles wouldn't either) and appear the smaller the higher the chosen resolution. Because of this we decided to rework the complete tile set. The new tile size is 128x128 pixels which should work well in resolutions up to 1600x1400. There will be a zoom mode to support the old, low, resolutions, too.

Also we hope to improve the average image quality.

Along with that there are changes made to support more shades of player color, lights during nights and similar graphics goodies.

Simutrans uses about 2000 tiles for the summer scenario. We're through to about 70%. Finishing this task and related stuff like zooming has first priority now, and binds all our resources.

We collect feedback here:
http://www.simugraph.com/forum/

If you look at the "extension requests" and "problem reports" forums you'll see that there are quite some important and big tasks waiting. Of course everyone is encouraged to enter his feedback there.

There is alos a "help" forum where you can ask for help if something doesn't work. A few experienced Simutarns regulars visit the forum regularly and will most likely try to help.


The schedule problem that BobXP mentioned - disrupted trains after setting the "wait for load" to 100% for the current station while the train is waiting in that station and not changing the current destination to another station will be worked on. I can't make promises, but I agree that this bug is severe enough to require quick action - while "quick" means "Next weekend I'll see if I find a few hours for Simutrans and if there is nothing more important I'll take a look at the problem". So a "quick" fix can take a few weeks until it is implemented and a new version including this fix is released.

In addition new versions are most often first released in the Yahoo Simutrans Group so that the testers can take a look before it is offered on the official Simutrans homepage. Many version never become/became official because they were too buggy. So it might be a few months before you see a bugfixed version on the Simutrans homepage.

Kind regards,
Hajo