Schedule "Starting point" is not distributed across vehicles with shared orders

[arbulgazar]

Hello.
I am running OpenTTD 1.10.0 on Ubuntu. I am new to the game so there might be something I do wrong, but I think I've tried everything. My problem is with schedules. I can't spread the traffic by automatically offseting a starting point of one vehicle. Here is a sequence:

• Create a bus, add 4 stations to order.

• Go to the timetable, press "Autofill".

• Run bus across orders until the timetable got autofilled and I get the schedule on the right sub-table in my timetable window.

• Add a lot of additional stop-time and travel-time.

• While holding ctrl - clone the bus 3 times, getting 4 busses in total with shared orders. (--End of Shared Orders-- appears at the end of orders for each of those)

• Make sure all the busses are heading toward the first waypoint in the order list

• While holding ctrl - select start date for one of the busses sometime in the future

With this sequence - nothing happens with start dates for other busses, they all show "This timetable has not yet started" and queue up at stations as usual. Either I am getting something wrong or this is a bug. I tried different kinds of "holding ctrl" techniques - from holding it only when pressing the "start date" button to holding it throughout the entire start date setting process, nothing helps.
Any ideas?

[LaRoso]

There is afaik in the base game no function to auto separate the starting times. That's a feature of the jgrpp . You might wanna give that a try instead. In the base game, you would have to separate the timetable manually by setting a different starting time for each vehicle.

[LaChupacabra]

I have known this game for over 5 years, but what is this "Start date" for? I still have no idea. I have never used it and I don't think it is needed for anything.

In any case, to separate the buses on the line - after setting the timetable - I started next vehicles at appropriate time intervals.
I admit, however, that this is a very time-consuming method, especially if the line is very long. Another problem with this type of timetables is that you have to create them again almost every time you change vehicles.

Another way to separate vehicles is to build a depot just behind the stops at one or both ends of the route. The bus first unloads (and don't loading!), then enters the depot and load with a set time - this time also sets the distance between buses on the line. This method works only for articulated vehicles because only one vehicle can be charged to keep the distance. In this case, replacing the buses with new, faster ones is not a problem.

Depot for vehicle separation.PNG (289.13 KiB) Viewed 2056 times

Vehicles separation, 2103-12-09.sav

(14.2 KiB) Downloaded 64 times

Another, the most effective method of separating buses is only available in the modified version of the game in JGR Patch Pack. Here I wrote what and how.

[LaRoso]

the Auto timetable and Auto separation tool from jgrpp is a pretty lazy tool. it's enough if you just want your vehicles to be perfectly separated from each other. But if you want to make more complex and connected timetables it's basically useless. There you need the starting time.

[arbulgazar]

It would be pretty weird if this is a feature of some kind of a patch since the functionality is suggested in a tooltip. I am following the guidelines from this tutorial by Master Hellish.

Screenshot from 2020-04-02 16-10-31.png (145.97 KiB) Viewed 2037 times

[LaRoso]

I didn't know this feature has been added to the game. But in this case, it doesn't work properly.

[jfs]

It has worked for me when I used it previously.

After setting the starting time with Ctrl-click have you tried just letting the game run for a month or so and see if they vehicles don't separate out as intended? That's what I do and it works. Yes they will typically queue up before the first stop for a good while, because that's where the timetable starts so many of the vehicles will wait for a long time before departing.

[arbulgazar]

No, tried again, not working for me. Let it run for 2 years in a rather small town. They are forming a nice, consistent, organized and time-tabled caterpillar The problem is - I don't see any starting date change on connected vehicles - it's not wrong, it is simply not working.

[arbulgazar]

I have submitted a bug report to github.

[arbulgazar]

Update - the problem seems to be with Linux build specifically. Checked on Windows - works as intended. Moreover, this is probably nothing to do with timetables and more with shared orders. When you change the waiting times on one vehicle with shared orders - it's not updated on other vehicles. I thought that's the expected behaviour, but on Windows it is changing. So I guess the problem is with shared orders in general.