Range; Better economy balancing?

[hjxbf]

Hi there!

I have just played a couple of games on rather large maps, using DBXL, Newships and Av8 (?) planes, starting in 1920. Using 0.5.3-RC2, the earliest planes are pretty much useless because of their slow speed. There's really no meaning in using aircraft until the faster jets arrive. All this will probably change with the "faster planes" patch, though. Which got me thinking...

Profits in OTTD are based on how fast you deliver a given amount of cargo across a certain map length. In other words, if you want to make lots of money, always use the fastest machinery available and send it on transcontinental missions. Having watched some multiplayer games as well as my own, several people "misuse" early-game steam engines and Concordes on missions they would never be used for in real life, simply because they are faster than their alternatives.

This could be limited if every vehicle had a "range" parameter, i.e. a number of tiles it could travel before needing to stop at a station (and refuel). This could play out as follows:

- Steam trains have to refill water and coal, sometimes often (depending on the engine). Diesel trains need diesel, but not as often as steam trains. Steam trains should therefore have the shortest range (together with some of the battery-driven metros), while diesel engines have a fair bit more (e.g. double range). Electric engines don't need anything and could have unlimited range. I see two "penalty" options; trains cannot be given non-stop orders that exceed their range, or the trains speed will be reduced to 30% of its maximum when passing its range limit, to "conserve fuel" in order to reach its destination. Running costs and reliabilty could also worsen drastically (to simulate the extra wear and tear of operating outside your limits). This would A) Limit the ability to misuse steam engines; B) Make designing track networks a bit more realistic and challenging, since you cant just send any train across the entire map, and limping fuel-starved trains will clog up your network pretty fast; C) Give people a motivation to actively consider, compare and choose their preferred type of railroad in any given situation throughout the game.

- Planes could have pretty long range. On the larger OTTD maps, long distances and vast sea distances (when playing with high sea level, which I enjoy because of a more diverse and challenging geography) can only be negotiated by plane. However, their range comparisons should be pretty realistic: A380s, 747s, DC10s, 777s and similar should be able to pretty much fly across an entire map. A300s and Concorde should have approximately half their range, and modern single aisle jets approx. one third, give or take (depending on model). Early prop aircraft should be put somewhere between the small jets and the steam engines (also heavily dependent on which aircraft type). It should be impossible to give a plane orders to fly between airports whose distance apart exceeds the planes' ranges (holding patterns and such could be ignored for simplicity's sake, since they are hardly predictable...). This would A) Limit the misuse of the fastest aircraft on ultra-long routes; B) Make range an important factor to consider when choosing equipment (long and thin routes still have to have an expensive widebody, even if it will only run half full); C) Encourage players to design their airport networks more carefully, spacing the airports in a way that would fit typical mission profiles better.

- Road vehicles could have a fairly short range which increases with every new model iteration. But their slow speed and low capacity already limit these to typical road vehicle missions.

- Ships could have a fairly long range (maybe limiting the ferries a little, widening the Cruise Liner's useability somewhat), but might not need it, as noone would use ships on too long missions anyway, because they are slow and you'd have to place buoys all the way...

If desirable (and not too difficult), one could make range dependent on technical condition (if one can take reliability as a measure of the vehichles' technical condition), which would force players to take extra good care of vehicles operating on the limits of their operational ability.

IMO, this could make the game better balanced and realistic, i.e. that one has to choose to which extent one wants to grow, as pushing the limits will require more monitoring as well as expensive upgrades, which might make running a medium-sized short-haul road vehicle & trains company as profitable and enjoyable as dominating the entire map.

And while I'm at it; is it possible to make running costs (which I assume are supposed to reflect fuel, maintenance, staffing and such) partly dependent on speed and/or state? High speed requires more fuel and maintenance, low reliability needs more maintenance, and waiting in front of a signal/in a station/an airport/dock does hardly need anything at all (short of staffing, of course). It seems fairly unrealistic to me that a train spending most of its year waiting for cargo should cost as much to maintain as a similar engine running back and forth most of the time...

[MagicBuzz]

Well, I agree with your perception of the problem but not with the solutions.

What can we see IRL ?
I'll base my analyse on what I can see in France. It should remain true for most countries, with slightly changes.

Speed VS Price :
For cargo, the industries have to choose between price and speed and easyness.
Most of the time, speed hasn't any impact on the actual transportation : you can send some coal at 50 km/h or 300 km/h, it will arrive in 1 or 2 days, and it's value will remain the same.
So the industry will prefer the cheapest transportation system.
Althought, when you send coal to a powerplant, it doesn't need 10 tons per week, but 1000 tons per week. Because of this, you can choose using only one train, or hundreds trucks. One train will be easier to schedule and track.
For perishable cargos, like meat or fruits, the refrigeration cost some money and the cheapest transport would not be the slowest.
Because of these things, for some cargo will use preferably trains, trucks, or even ships.

For mail, the speed is vital. In France, the "La Poste" service ensure any mail sent before 12:00pm must be delivered the day after before 12:00pm anywhere in France. Because of this, mail will mostly use the fastest transportation system, regardless the price (by exemple La Poste uses a lot of planes and even owns a TGV).

For passengers, price and speed are important, but easyness if the most important : when I'm in town A and want to go town B, I'll prefer any transport that can bring me from A to B without any correspondance, even if it's quite more expensive as other alternatives, or slower that others.

So I think there are two things to take in account in order to fix that problem :
- Adding a perishable flag on cargo. No perishable cargo would pay the same price for a transportation, regardless the duration, but only the distance. For perishable cargo, the duration (and not the speed) should have a very important impact on the revenues : when you bring tomatoes for 3 weeks, even if you traveled for Brest-Vladivostock, you won't get any revenues, as they are just rotted.
- Using a "destination" patch (like the passenger destination patch), but with 2 modifications :
1/ Pre-calculate "contracts" regardless of your network : from a city A, 50% of ppl want to go city B, 25% to C and 25% to D. Currently, if you open a line between A and B, 100% of the passengers from A will use your service, regardless the destination. So when you open a second line A to C, it just splits the passengers between the two lines, etc. I would be fixed in order to get more realist services. This must be generalized to all cargo types : any industry would sell stuffs to any city/industry, regardless your service.
2/ (currently in dev in the current patch) Passengers should choose the "better" correspondance system : (based on number of correspondances, speed and price)

With these modification, ships could become usefull for heavy cargo, trucks for small lines and long range of non-perishable cargo, while planes will become less usefull as soon as any concurrent opens a line with the same destinations with a cheaper service but acceptable duration.

[hjxbf]

If I understand you correctly, I think we are talking about two different approaches of balancing the economy.

You mention that the industry willl choose the cheapest option of gatting the cargo from A to B, in other words, they want to pay you as little as possible if the service is good enough. However, if I understand the mechanisms correctly, income is a fixed rate derived from amount, distance and delay (deviations from an "idealised" timespan), so if you have a MagLev and a slow jet each transport 50 passengers over the exact same distance in exactly the same amount of time, their gross income would be equal. Their running costs would be different, however, since they are vehicle-specific. So while you want to refine the income system, I want to refine the running costs and mission profile possibilities of the vehicles as described above. Both our approaches will probably affect the economic behaviour of the game in some way, and they could probably complement each other in order to achieve the same goal.

In case I wasn't clear enough in my previous post; I'd like to compare different transportation methods on more ground than just speed and fixed running cost, since transportation planning becomes unrealisticly simple the way things work now, hence the different "misuses" of different vehicles (you only need to focus on speed really...)

[Tom0004]

I think we are talking about two different approaches of balancing the economy.

have a read of whats going on with this here

[yoyo1505]

I agree with both these suggestions so far. I especially like the idea of servicing vehicles after they have travelled a certain distance - not necessarily in stations but in depots (actually looking at real life - road vehicles and trains are serviced separately from where they load, whereas ships and planes have it all done at once). This could add a whole new meaning to servicing (in reality it is more dependant on how much use the vehicle has rather than the time since last service anyway). I myself turn breakdowns off but I and people like me would still have a reason to service vehicles if this happens.

As for the penalty for overlooking this rule - using YAPF maybe the vehicle would plan its route so that it could be serviced in time and have the most efficient journey possible (I don't know if it is possible for YAPF to do this). But if you made it really inconvenient and it was impossible for the vehicle to do this even with the craziest of routes then it could just refuse to travel until it was even remotely possible to get a service within the required distance.

Incidentally on that note - especially if this does become reality - it would improve efficiency if trains were to be serviced in sidings, allowing the infrastructure to be co-ordinated just as with platforms. I don't know if this is an idea being considered or if it's even worth considering but I think it would be a good idea.

Putting reliability, running costs and possibly this new feature all together sounds like an exciting prospect too.

Have I heard perishable goods being discussed elsewhere by the way? That feature might already be close to integration, I don't know. I like the idea of different goods having completely different payment rate parameters (e.g. perishable goods having a maximum transit time and mail demanding fast transit time).

I know everyone will have a difference in opinion and some of the things I have suggested could just be plainly stupid, but I felt I should at least give my two cents.

[athanasios]

If my memory is correct, about the range of aircrafts exists a patch that crashes airplanes when reliability goes down. So an early plane cannot go very far.

[hjxbf]

If my memory is correct, about the range of aircrafts exists a patch that crashes airplanes when reliability goes down. So an early plane cannot go very far.

I haven't tried anything containing that patch, but it sounds a little dodgy; would a player have to constantly monitor his planes to ensure that the ever-changing reliability has the desired value? And how does this work with daylength patches? And what about people who turn off breakdowns and crank the service intervals as high up as possible? Would they be inhibited in some way?

What I like about having a "range" parameter, is that it is a fairly fixed, easy-to-relate-to, time- and options- independent gadget that would improve realism and spur proper vehicle use, without being vulnerable to adjustments in the other aspects of the game... Any thoughts?

[EngiNear]

I believe this is an excellent idea. In fact, recently I was thinking how great and realistic it is to have a range system for planes just like in RTS games like Rise of Nations and so. This would add a nice challenge to the game and would also increase the need for connection flight and supply type of airports. But now seeing your idea of refueling even for trains and ships, it makes even more sense and adds more pleasure to the game. It's true, I often see small buses going non-stop from one side of the map to the other, to carry some dinky few tones of coal. that's not possible!

also, the range system should make planes with more range much more expensive (more running cost too), but also more desirable, faster and more profitable because they use less connection flights.

I think it's an awesome idea!