Better Train Load Management

[Nizzy]

Hi,
I looked through the forum and couldn't find the following, thus I guess it has not been posted before. Additionally I
have to admit my usage of english tends to be rather arcane and I probably make many mistakes. Please excuse that kindly
and feel free to correct me. After all, I'm still learning.

1) Allow multiple unload and load parameters and time-specific wait times
2) Enable complex passenger transportation

1) Multiple load parameters
It would be nice to allow

goto Station A (max stay 5 days)
-- full load
goto Station B
-- unload coal (transfer)
-- full load steel
goto Station C
-- unload steel

and, additionally, to allow basic "partial load"-setups of, say, 25/50/75/100 percent loads and unloads

goto Station A (max stay 5 days)
-- load coal to 25%
-- load steel to 50%
goto Station B
-- load coal to 75%
-- load steel to 50%
goto Station C
-- unload coal to 0% load (default)
-- load steel to 100% (default)
goto Station D
-- unload steel to 50% load
goto Station E
-- unload steel to 0% load

So complex multi-ware trains are possible :)
If the player does not specify partial load, time or multiple load parameters, standard handling would be used, thus
if the player does:

goto Station A
-- full load
goto Station B
-- unload steel
-- unload coal to 50% load
goto Station C (max stay 5 days)
-- full load
goto Station D
-- unload

in the background it would be (with all ideas implemented)

goto Station A (max stay unlimited)
-- load coal to 100%
-- load goods to 100%
-- load steel to 100%
goto Station B (max stay unlimited)
-- unload steel to 0% load
-- unload coal to 50% load
goto Station C (max stay 5 days)
-- load coal to 100%
-- load steel to 100%
goto Station D (max stay unlimited)
-- unload steel to 0% load
-- unload coal to 0% load
-- unload goods to 0% load


2) Passenger transportation
In RL, people go from point A to point B through several stations and sometimes even have to change trains.
An implementation of this would be nice, for instance having an additional window

**************** Passengers for Station A Central ******
* Passengers from Station A Central to Station B Woods *
* Passengers from Station A Central to Station C Cent. *
********************************************************

And once a train connection exists for that people use it.

As I had been a programmer myself I know that handling this is rather hard. It includes routines for finding out if
connections exist between Stations and both save and handle passenger starting and ending points.

Thus I'd like to encourage at least (or for a first step) to let passengers to stay on train and not leave at the first station possible
(which they seem to do everytime I set up passenger transport), so that you pick up 40 passengers at station A, then at station B a random
number, say 22, leave and 18 stay on train and leave on Station C. If this already happens and just never occured when I played, sorry for the
inconvinience of reading all this.

The same goes for mail and other means of transportation. Due to the complexity of this part of my request it probably should be made optional
for players which want it to be turned on.

If this has been posted before, all apologies. After all I'm just a dumb blonde :)

[XeryusTC]

1. There is a patch out there that lets you load up to a certain percentage, but not different kind of goods. I don't know if it allows you to set a maximum waiting time.

2. This will come in 0.6.0

[gigajum]

1. There is a patch out there that lets you load up to a certain percentage, but not different kind of goods. I don't know if it allows you to set a maximum waiting time.

The only version that is up to date is that what is in the MiniIN, i'll update the trunk version if i have time and there are no more bugs found in the MiniIN.
Different kinds of goods is not supported, and i have no idea why that should be supported. The available buttons are still too much, why increase them for every good? There is a maximum waiting time, but it is in the station options and not in the vehicle order options. Maybe you try the MiniIN version which is available at http://nightly.openttd.org/MiniIN/files/

[Nizzy]

[quote="gigajum"][quote="XeryusTC"]1. There is a patch out there that lets you load up to a certain percentage, but not different kind of goods. I don't know if it allows you to set a maximum waiting time.[/quote]

The only version that is up to date is that what is in the MiniIN, i'll update the trunk version if i have time and there are no more bugs found in the MiniIN.
Different kinds of goods is not supported, and i have no idea why that should be supported. The available buttons are still too much, why increase them for every good? There is a maximum waiting time, but it is in the station options and not in the vehicle order options. Maybe you try the MiniIN version which is available at http://nightly.openttd.org/MiniIN/files/[/quote]

On why different kind of goods percentage loadage:
Imagine a Station A with coal supply, B with coal and iron ore, C a steel mill, D a power plant -> Load 50 % coal on A, 50 % coal and 100 % iron ore on B, unload all ore at C and all coal at D.

Meanwhile thanks for the quick answer :)

[gigajum]

On why different kind of goods percentage loadage:
Imagine a Station A with coal supply, B with coal and iron ore, C a steel mill, D a power plant -> Load 50 % coal on A, 50 % coal and 100 % iron ore on B, unload all ore at C and all coal at D.

Meanwhile thanks for the quick answer

Normal waagons can only load coal or iron (can newgrf waagons load both? not sure) So build a train and tell him to drive to station A and set to load 50% of any cargo, drive to station B and order him to load 100% of the whole train. Drive to the Station C and D without a unload setting.

Now you have exact that what you wanted I know what you are wanting to say, but for now there is no need for it (imo)