Patch: Improved Breakdowns v2.4 (r14563)

[Hirundo]

Breakdowns. For more than a decade they have been nothing but a source of annoyance for most players. Even with regular servicing, trains (and other vehicles) break down far too often, which inevitably results in major jams. Furthermore, all breakdowns have the same, unrealistic effect.

This patch aims to change all of this. As of version 2.0, it works for all types of vehicles. The patch has the following features:

• Different types of breakdowns. Not all breakdowns are the same. Road vehicles, trains and ships suffer from these types of breakdowns:
  • Mechanical failure: The classic breakdown with black smoke. 10% chance. (Renamed from Critical to Mechanical failure, on YukonRob's suggestion. Thanks!)
  • Emergency stop: Someone pulled the emergency brakes. The train comes to a full stop, but it can quickly continue. This only happens to the front engine, with a 10% chance.
  • Lower maximum speed. As the name implies, the maximum speed is lowered. The lower the reliability, the lower the speed limit will be, although this is partially randomized. 30% chance.
  • Reduction in power. There is a 25% chance that power will be reduced by a percentage (10-90%, reliability-dependant) and a 25% chance that it is reduced to zero. Braking is unaffected. The effect is that the train simply has less HP than normal, or even no HP at all. Therefore trains accelerate more slowly or they even decelerate. A stopped train with 0% power won't move at all until the breakdown is over. Trains will not roll backwards down hills, though, as train drivers are smart enough to apply their brakes to avoid that (total chance: 50%)
  NB: The chance percentages listed here are for trains. For RVs and ships they are slightly different, see line 1065-1092 of the patch file.
  
  For aircraft the breakdowns are different. They have 3 types:
  • Reduction in speed, similar to the old breakdown but with a variable speed limit. 70% chance.
  • Forced service at the next airport. If the next airport does not have a hangar, go to the closest airport which has one. (20% chance)
  • 10% chance for an emergency landing, but only when the reliability is less than ~87%. In this case, the aircraft goes to the nearest airport (actually the nearest hangar) and attempts an emergency landing. There is a 2% chance that the aircraft will crash. To compensate, regular crash chance is decreased from 0,07% to 0,01%.
  Important note: If the aircraft can't find a hangar, it will crash. Fast planes will not try to land at small airports.
• Full multiengine support for trains. Every engine in the consist can break down. This has some consequences for the GUI: The train details window now shows the average reliability and total number of breakdowns since last service. Per-engine information can be found in the information tab. (See picture below)
• A rework of the original 'when to break down' algorithm. This means better randomization and a slightly reduced breakdown chance. This is shared by all vehicle types However, because breakdowns are no longer by definition a complete stop, their effects upon a (train) network are significantly reduced.
• For trains, breakdown chance now depends on the load. An engine pulling a single car will break down less often than the same engine pulling a dozen cars. The breakdown chance of an aircraft is somewhat dependant on their maximum speed. To compensate for the fact that faster planes spend less time in the air, faster planes are more prone to breakdowns.

How to activate this patch:
Tick the box "Enable improved breakdowns" in the vehicles tab of Advanced settings. Realistic acceleration is no longer necessary, but recommended nonetheless.(Dev Note: Some parts, such as the breakdown chance algorithm and the GUI changes, cannot be switched off)

If anyone has a suggestion, bug report or anything else to say, please post. Since a patch like this can quite an impact on gameplay, feedback is very much appreciated.

Changelog
V1.1
- Fix: If without power, a train would not decelerate below 3 km/h.
- Fix: Trains would not break down at all with realistic acceleration disabled, if it had not been enabled before.
- Renamed 'Critical failure' to 'Mechanical failure' (Thanks, YukonRob! Me likes it )
- Clarified some stuff in the forum post. (in italic)

V2.0
- Feature: Support for all vehicle types.
- Feature: Realistic acceleration is no longer required
- Fix: Scrolling in the Information tab of the train details window did not work correctly.
- Other miscellaneous fixes and code changes
- Updated forum post to reflect all changes

V2.1
- Change: Non-front engines no longer have emergency stops. This should alleviate the problem of multiengine trains stopping too often somewhat.
- Fix: Reliability decreases for all train engines even if improved breakdowns are off.

V2.2
- Fix: Compatibility with previous versions was broken, causing stalled aircraft and incorrect breakdown chances.

V2.3
- Feature: Multiengine trains now have a reduced breakdown chance, depending on the number of engines
- Complete code check, resulting in many small improvements, changes and fixes.
- Win32 binary is now supplied. I used Tekky's language.patch, many thanks to him. (language updates are not included in the patch file itself, though)

V2.4
- Several small fixes by sbr (see flyspray)
- Fixed several minor issues, mostly regarding the behaviour when this patch is switched off.

EDIT: Flyspray task: http://bugs.openttd.org/task/2302

improved-breakdowns-v2.4-r14563.patch

Patch file

(58.04 KiB) Downloaded 1230 times

See this post for language.patch: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 45#p741445

improved-breakdowns-2.4-win32.zip

Win32 binary

(2.91 MiB) Downloaded 1121 times

Example screenshot

Breakdowns.PNG (48.02 KiB) Viewed 41859 times

[YukonRob]

Maybe 'Component' or 'Mechanical' vs Critical.

[athanasios]

Me likes it!

[Core Xii]

What exactly does 'reducing power to zero' mean? Isn't that the same as a classic breakdown?

[Eddi]

it means it's still rolling, but cannot accelerate (until the breakdown is over)

i'm not sure if that is really a good idea, because braking power is tied to accelerating power, so there's no way to stop the train without "magical brakes" in front of red signals

[Jans]

The most trains have different brakes. Only high speed trains will quite have a problem.

[zooks]

A rework of the original 'when to break down' algorithm. This means better randomization and a slightly reduced breakdown chance. This is shared by all vehicles, so it applies to non-train vehicles as well.

how about "greatly reduced breakdown chance"
That would make me play with breakdowns.

[Core Xii]

it means it's still rolling, but cannot accelerate (until the breakdown is over)

i'm not sure if that is really a good idea, because braking power is tied to accelerating power, so there's no way to stop the train without "magical brakes" in front of red signals

That's why I asked... If it means the train effectively cannot STOP... OMFG that would be catastrophic! Just imagine a heavy coal train climbing a hill with 3 other trains trailing behind it... BAM, breakdown! It slows down, and suddenly starts rolling backwards downhill! Hilarity ensues!

[Zutty]

Cool! Is it only for trains?

What happens when a train loses all power? Does it roll until it comes to a stop or does it just keep moving at a very low speed? Do they roll back down hills?

[AndiK]

Trains all over the world usually have an indirect pressure air brake that works even when the train loses all acceleration power. You'd even be able to release and reapply the brakes again until the air reservoir (if there is one) is empty. Anyway, there's always enough for the first braking procedure to stop the train.

[Hirundo]

Update in first post.

[Eddi]

Trains all over the world usually have an indirect pressure air brake that works even when the train loses all acceleration power. You'd even be able to release and reapply the brakes again until the air reservoir (if there is one) is empty. Anyway, there's always enough for the first braking procedure to stop the train.

i was speaking about the game mechanics, not about real trains

[Hirundo]

Trains all over the world usually have an indirect pressure air brake that works even when the train loses all acceleration power. You'd even be able to release and reapply the brakes again until the air reservoir (if there is one) is empty. Anyway, there's always enough for the first braking procedure to stop the train.

i was speaking about the game mechanics, not about real trains

Do not worry, the loss of power does not affect brakes. Acceleration and braking forces are indeed both tied to the power of the train, but the reduction is only applied when accelerating.

[peter1138]

Hmm, looks interesting, although I'm not too sure about the max speed being determined there. Are you able to move it else where so that it is called like the other train property functions, i.e. only when whatever it depends on changes?

[DaleStan]

Trains all over the world usually have an indirect pressure air brake that works even when the train loses all acceleration power. You'd even be able to release and reapply the brakes again until the air reservoir (if there is one) is empty. Anyway, there's always enough for the first braking procedure to stop the train.

i was speaking about the game mechanics, not about real trains

Then the game mechanics are as broken as your shift key.

[Eddi]

My shift key is fine, it's just English capitalisation that I cannot get accustomed to.

[DaleStan]

What? Like the fact that we capitalize the first word of every sentence?

[Eddi]

Yes. Either do Capitalization of Words properly, or do not do Captialization at all.

[michael blunck]

[...]

Didn´t you propose to stick to orthography "rules" in that other thread?

regards
Michael

[dihedral]

that was with regards to translations, not posting in a form

shift is an extra key to press and i too can hardly be damned to press that button unless i have no other choice!
as i also use an english keyboard layout, i cannot be damed to switch to german layout every time i need an umlaut, ae oe and ue are just 2 keys to press for that matter