Transport Tycoon Forums

There is a new version of the Drive-Through Road Stops patch in the first post. As well is bringing the patch up to r6380, there are a couple of fixes and updates:
1. I found that, when I disabled connecting roads when building a drive-through stop, I also broke the build sound effect and the closing of the selection window. This has now been fixed.
2. Tidy-up of the code. This shouldn't change anything, but if you notice anything not working please let me know.

I found an issue with this patch, if you line up the stops end to end the buses only go to the 1st stop, then never go through to the next one.

say its like this: They stop at the 1st B, even if its already in use. But if its like this: the buses will go to the next available one.

Is this by-design?

yes, road vehicles always stop at the first bay (at difference of the trains which stop at the last tile of the first platform)
i found that is possible to imitate the trains behaviour: for example you have 4 bays in line, you put in orders
go to A load 10%
go to A load 10%
go to A load 20%
go to A load full load
and the RV will visit always the first bay, also the second, but doing so it will get loaded and doesn't wait so much at the first bays, but it waits for the full load at the last bay
doing so you waste order space, but you see a nice effect
i also noticed that if a vehicle is loading in a road stop it can't be overtaked by another vehicle which needs to pass throught the road stop but not stop and this make long queues sometimes
you can avoid this by placing the roadstop on a branch and then merge it again or use a depot so RV can service automatically after load and turn back

yep, vehicles should overtake and pass through vehicles that have overtaken to load. Thats how ttdp does it, and mart3p wanted it to be the same as ttdp's.

Wolf01 wrote:yes, road vehicles always stop at the first bay (at difference of the trains which stop at the last tile of the first platform)
i found that is possible to imitate the trains behaviour: for example you have 4 bays in line, you put in orders
go to A load 10%
go to A load 10%
go to A load 20%
go to A load full load
and the RV will visit always the first bay, also the second, but doing so it will get loaded and doesn't wait so much at the first bays, but it waits for the full load at the last bay
doing so you waste order space, but you see a nice effect
(...)

But what if you don't want vehicles to load at the first bay? It takes a lot of time when vehicles need to stop multiple times (in your example, 4 times).
Isn't it possible to make a patch option which allows you to choose between either the current behaviour, or vehicles that will automatically choose the farthest free slot? Or maybe even that when they are waiting for a load, they will drive forward as far as possible.* I'm sure this will increase traffic flow, and it allows you to build more advanced bus/truck stations.


*For example, suppose you have two vehicles (set to full load) arriving at a (drive-through) loading bay, which has an amount of cargo waiting for one and a half vehicle capacity. The first vehicle will drive to the end (the first vehicle slot) and load, the second vehicle will take the slot just behind the first, and also load. When the first vehicle has finished loading and departs, the second vehicle will drive forward to the first slot and wait until new cargo arrives to be loaded (until it is full and departs).
For another example of this behaviour, head to your local bus station.

Sorry for not answering sooner, I've been away for a few days.

Slace wrote:I found an issue with this patch, if you line up the stops end to end the buses only go to the 1st stop, then never go through to the next one.

Yes, this is a known issue, due to the existing multistop code preferring the nearest stop unless it is full.

hertogjan wrote:Isn't it possible to make a patch option which allows you to choose between either the current behaviour, or vehicles that will automatically choose the farthest free slot?

This may be possible, I already have a few ideas...

Oh dear - a man of few ideas

LOL - funny how that makes it have the opposite meaning!

mart3p wrote:Sorry for not answering sooner, I've been away for a few days.

Slace wrote:I found an issue with this patch, if you line up the stops end to end the buses only go to the 1st stop, then never go through to the next one.

Yes, this is a known issue, due to the existing multistop code preferring the nearest stop unless it is full.

hertogjan wrote:Isn't it possible to make a patch option which allows you to choose between either the current behaviour, or vehicles that will automatically choose the farthest free slot?

This may be possible, I already have a few ideas...

talking about multistops, I got this crazy idea of new block called Loading area Entrace, that would be like gate to area where loading areas/bays are. Pathfinding would go like this: Loading done -> drive to loading area gate -> free the loading area slot that was used for loading unloading -> drive to next station loading area gate -> check for free loading area slot -> drive to free slot or wait for free slot -> loading / unloading ->...

I would be investigating this myself, but right now I am wayy too busy to do it...
I'll try to find some time to make illustration/image what I am trying to show.

You wait ages for one bus, then along comes a dozen.

Patched - no errors ...compiled , started , and nothing changed ... ( patched after Passanger Destinations )

White Rabbit wrote:You wait ages for one bus, then along come a dozen.

I have had that as well, more common in large cities I find. It would be nice if there was some way to make all those lorries, and busses behind that are not stopping there overtake the still que of traffic (as long as the other direction was clear of course)

SergeS wrote:Patched - no errors ...compiled , started , and nothing changed ... ( patched after Passanger Destinations )

Well it works fine here. r6921 with destination-r6898.diff applied and then Drive_Thru_r6901.patch applied.

I was just thinking, I travel the busses A LOT in the UK, and it is rare to find a bus stop directly opposite another bus stop, instead they are normally offset from each other (this is to enable any vehicles stuck behind the bus to overtake it while it is sat at the stop).

So would it be possible to have offset or one side only bus stops? or is that far too much trouble to code?

mart3p, Can you send a source please ?

Invisble: I intend to code some updates for drive-through road stops soon. I have some code working that allows drive-through stops to be built on existing roads for example. I will also have another look at the overtaking issues. I don't think it will be possible to have offset stops though, it seems to me this would need a drive-through stop 2 tiles long and that would be too much trouble to code.

SergeS: Sorry, I'm not sure what you're asking for. Are you asking me to send the entire source code with the patches applied? This would be no different from you downloading the latest source and applying the patches yourself.

A new patch (against r7130) is available in the first post.

*** New Features ***

1. It's now possible to build a drive-through road stop over an existing road. It must be a straight road with no side turnings and the player must own the road.

At the moment, if the road-stop is removed (with the dynamite tool) the road will be removed too. I am working on enabling the remove tool for road-stops, this will allow the stop to be removed but leave the road in place.

I am also working on allowing the building of drive-through stops over town-owned roads. This is proving more complicated though, as the road needs to revert to its original owner (the town) if the road stop is removed.

2. I have added a path-finder penalty for passing through a drive-through stop. This allows vehicles to find an alternative route, rather than being held-up by the traffic using the stop. This currently only works with YAPF. Note, this is not currently saved in the savegame to avoid a savegame version bump. The value of the penalty ([yapf] road_stop_penalty) can be adjusted in the config file if required.

mart3p wrote:1.[/b] It's now possible to build a drive-through road stop over an existing road. It must be a straight road with no side turnings and the player must own the road.

i think that this can be shared with the rail stations to build stations over existing tracks, good work mart3p

At the moment, if the road-stop is removed (with the dynamite tool) the road will be removed too. I am working on enabling the remove tool for road-stops, this will allow the stop to be removed but leave the road in place.

i hope like newstations: dynamite remove all, bulldoze remove the roadstop but leave the road in place

Just a question from a complete newbee. Will this work with the nightly downloads?

Wolf01 wrote:i hope like newstations: dynamite remove all, bulldoze remove the roadstop but leave the road in place

Yes that's what I'm trying to achieve.

Ghost_dk wrote:Just a question from a complete newbee. Will this work with the nightly downloads?

The patch won't work directly with the nightly build. You need to download the latest source code, apply the patch, and then compile. If you can't do this, I suggest you try the MiniIN which has this patch included. You can download the latest MiniIN build here.

Thank you very much for your response. I think I'll go for the mini then