Passenger destinations?

[krtaylor]

I remember for a long time there has been talk of a patch that would allow passenger-destinations - that is, have some portion of the passengers actually want to go to a specific town, and they would change vehicles in order to eventually get there. Did OTTD ever take up this idea?

[XeryusTC]

Yes, there is the cargodest branch like thingy, check the development forum for the thread on it and download locations etc.

[Toni Babelony]

That would be the Cargodest patch: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=39161

There hasn't been much work on it lately, which is a shame actually, as there is quite a big fanbase for this feature.

EDIT: XeryusTC was faster

[krtaylor]

Thanks. I'll subscribe to that topic and see if it goes anywhere. I've never played OTTD (stayed in the Patch world all these years) but I think if they ever got this particular feature working well, that might make me switch over. One of the things I always felt was weak in TTD was passenger operations, since they didn't care where they went; all you really needed was point-to-point and load-balancing. With this, an actual functioning connecting network becomes essential in a way it wasn't before.

[hectobar]

hhhmmm... If the passengers all wanted to go to a specific location then on a big map youd need lots of lines going to every one of the hundreds of towns.

also its quite unlikely you'd get many passengers going to the same place therefore less money

[tigerface]

hhhmmm... If the passengers all wanted to go to a specific location then on a big map youd need lots of lines going to every one of the hundreds of towns.

It encourages play where a vehicle has intermediate stops between two distant destinations.

[Japa]

it still has a major problem with it tho...

you network get's VERY clogged, and pax end up not being able to board connecting trains, and you lose a lot of money

[audigex]

It works okay as long as your trunk lines are efficient, or use a patch which reduces passenger numbers

The problem is that while before each passenger went to the next station, now they can go right accross the network.

So if you have 11 stations, before you just had to have enough trains for each of the 10 gaps; with cargodest you have to be able to move that, plus the fact that most will go more than 1 station.

[krtaylor]

Well, if I were doing it, I'd have a probabilistic model for the passengers, something like so:

For small towns, maybe half the passengers don't care where they go (they are just bored), almost all the rest want to go specifically to the next town over, and occasionally one wants to go to a random place somewhere else.

For medium-sized towns, 25% want to go to the largest city or two (i.e. the "capital" as it were), 25% want to go randomly anywhere, 25% to the neighboring towns, and 25% don't care.

For the largest cities, I'd say random distro based on size of destinations - but a smaller total.

Also, each individual passenger would be tracked through their entire journey, changing vehicles as required (including different transport companies). They'd get free transfer within a given city limits (they take a taxi, presumably). And of course they pay the going fare for however they choose to travel.

So yeah, there'd be SOME more passengers, but not so many. And the extras would be there at the beginning of the game where they're more needed.

[ostlandr]

Yeah, there are some problems with the passenger destination algorithm in Cargodest. They were being worked on before the devs on this one got busy with real life.

In my Cargodest games, I use bus networks to feed the rail stations, then run passenger trains inter-city. A usual passenger train route for my networks might be A-B-C-D-C-B-A(no load)-depot.

Once I see tons of passengers backed up at stations, then I know I need to increase capacity. When I see a lot of passengers going to the same destinations, then I add "express" buses and "limited" (non-stop) trains between these. That is where you can make some serious money.
If I get to the point of airports, they connect seamlessly to the network. With Cargodest, you can plant a couple airports well outside the crowded downtowns, then connect these to the bus/rail network. Passengers will happily take the bus to the train to the plane to the tram to get to their destination.
Another problem I have with Cargodest is that the city road stops get clogged very rapidly with buses, mail trucks and trucks delivering goods. I can have fast intermodal freight trains shuttling between city A and city B, moving goods from each city's industries to the other city, but if the delivery trucks can't keep up I end up with lots of goods sitting at the station.

it still has a major problem with it tho...

you network get's VERY clogged, and pax end up not being able to board connecting trains, and you lose a lot of money

[audigex]

Trams for passengers do that job nicely. Or, if pushed, a small train into the city centre

[krtaylor]

Sounds like it needs a dev resurgence. Ah well, in due time.