Transport Tycoon Forums

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Gameplay FRD wrote:Cargo in general can be (un)loaded in different ways. You can specify one of the following (un)loading instructions in a vehicles routing table:

- Load; Forces a vehicle to wait until it is loaded 100% of it's capacity. Be aware when mixing different cargo types, the train might wait forever to receive a cargo type not offered at this station.
- Unload; Forces a vehicle to unload all of it's cargo on the current station without receiving any pay for it.
- Halfload; Let the vehicle move on when 50% of the vehicle's full capacity is filled.
- OneTypeLoad; Wait for any one type of cargo to be filled.
- TwoTypeLoad; Wait for any two types of cargo to be filled.
(ThreeTypeLoad is unlikely to be usefull and therefor we stop at 2 type load)
- Auto (default behavior); A vehicle will (un)load whatever cargo it has/is waiting at the station and move on.

A general timer can be set per vehicle. This forces the vehicle to continue no matter how much cargo is (un)loaded.

From the Design Document:

* Load X of cargo Y - load X cars with cargo named Y
* Unload X of cargo Y - unload X cars with cargo named Y

Why such a limited choice of loading options? And why only one load/unload order per destination-order?

I suggest having the following kinds of load/unload orders that can be applied in any number to a single destination-order. These can be ordered (If the order makes a difference.)

• Load M/N'ths of all cargo
• Unload M/N'ths of all cargo
• Load M/N'ths of cargo X
• Unload M/N'ths of cargo X
• Load X carriages of cargo Y
• Unload X carriages of cargo Y

Why use fractions rather than percentages? Because that's usualy what you want. Say you have 3 coal mines with rather low production, and they're far enough from each other, that they can't be "caught" from one station, but close enough that it's cheapest to make a single track that leads through them all. Then you want to load 1/3 of the train capacity at each mine.

The two first options adds all capacity together in a uniform way, and are satisfied when the M/N'ths of that capacity is filled. A slightly unrealistic example: A train is has a capacity of 80 passengers and 120 tonnes of coal. The total capacity of the train is 200. The train is set to load 1/4 of all cargo. This means it will leave as soon as it has any load where coal+passengers = 50, eg. just 50 passengers, just 50 coal, or maybe 25 coal and 25 passengers.

The last four options will of course only be available to vehicles that can transport more than one kind of cargo.
The last two options will only be available to vehicles that are composed of several units, eg. trains or lorries with trailers.

Revolutionairy thinking here. Wouldn't players mind having to click 5x before they have their desired (un)load option? Or can you check the available (un)load options against the type of wagons/lorries attached? Your suggestion would create the possibilty to drive around with mixed trains with logic (un)loading options.

Hyronymus wrote:Wouldn't players mind having to click 5x before they have their desired (un)load option?

Not if you provide sensible default values, i.e.:

Click once on a button for full load/full unload of one cargo type.
Click on some other button to specify half/quarter/whatever load.

Hehe, so instead of clicking 5x on a button you introduce 2 buttons . You don't fool me that easily. Perhaps a small prototype to show all possible combinations?

Percentages are easier for none-mathematical people. Or simply, load 5 wagons of stuff. If your not good at maths and want to know 2/3 of 18.. it may not be as simple as you think.

I agree that a prototype needs to be made, so we can see that your system can be kept simple and user friendly.

Forgot one option:
Load as much as possible in X days
(This will mostly be useful for passenger trains on less "active" stations, I think.)

I have simpeler sollution (I think)

Just add simple orders for each wagon. If you want your 3* coal example:

1) Buy a train with 6 coal wagons
2) Add coal mine 1, 2, 3 and steel mill to the schedule
3) Set 2 coal wagons to full load at mine 1
4) Set 2 coal wagons to full load at mine 2
5) Set 2 coal wagons to full load at mine 3
6) Set all coal wagons to unload at steelmill.

If you set no specific load/unload order for a wagon, the setting for that wagon from the previous station should carry over automaticly.

The problem with this approach is : you can't set orders independent of cargo type (ie : a mixed wood and coal train, you can't say start when loaded 60%, no matter what cargo).

Another thing, we might want to "synchronize" different trains on 1 route. It's frustrating to have 5 trains that service a long route, but instead of nicely spread, they alwyas end up travelling very close to each other, and then leaving a big gap.

PJayTycy wrote:Another thing, we might want to "synchronize" different trains on 1 route. It's frustrating to have 5 trains that service a long route, but instead of nicely spread, they alwyas end up travelling very close to each other, and then leaving a big gap.

How would you do that? By driving some of them slower, or waiting some extra at a station?

This is OT, let's focus on the differences between Pjaytycy's suggestion and the previous made points.

PJayTycy wrote:I have simpeler sollution (I think)

Just add simple orders for each wagon. If you want your 3* coal example:

1) Buy a train with 6 coal wagons
2) Add coal mine 1, 2, 3 and steel mill to the schedule
3) Set 2 coal wagons to full load at mine 1
4) Set 2 coal wagons to full load at mine 2
5) Set 2 coal wagons to full load at mine 3
6) Set all coal wagons to unload at steelmill.

The problem with this approach is : you can't set orders independent of cargo type (ie : a mixed wood and coal train, you can't say start when loaded 60%, no matter what cargo).

Perhaps your soulution can be an option in jfs soulution. Ie that you can give the jfs' options or an option, called specify per wagon.

Meeting Decisions:

Decided that there was no need to discuss it throughly in the meeting.
Simply agreed on the use of them.

Status: Open to discussion.

Steve wrote:Meeting Decisions:

Decided that there was no need to discuss it throughly in the meeting.
Simply agreed on the use of them.

Status: Open to discussion.

Now would be a good time to work it out. I like the initial proposal by jfs very much and I think it can me made simple by using 1 drop-down menu for all load options.

Funny, I was looking at through old RFDs and I also came across this, nice that you bring it up about 1 hour later .
I would suggest that you can adjust how far a train can load for each cargo type. So you'll get: Load X% of Y. I also think we also could do the same for unloading orders. You could drop coal from one coal mine to a power station and a steel mill this way, so they both produce a bit.
We could also imply a maximum/minimum wait time, this will overrule the load settings

Quite OT but I'll post it anyway.
It would also be nice if orders would look something like this: This would allow a collapsable orders structure, you can just show all the goto orders, and expand one of the orders to see which types of cargo are loaded and other more advanced orders. The one thing I didn't like about TT is that all the order things are at the same line, which can get quite messy at times.

I like your suggestions too, Xeryus. And (again) with a proper GUI you could make it very comprehensive.

Hyronymus wrote:And (again) with a proper GUI you could make it very comprehensive.

Yes, a good GUI is very important, it's the players portal to the game .

GUI try:

i kinda prefer the give each wagon an order option

M4rek wrote:i kinda prefer the give each wagon an order option

that would take all day!
for that a simple solution is to have a drag-over-box-to-show-cargo-in-each-wagon-thingumybob
or
sliders

ok, you give 1 set of orders to the loco, these then appear in the give wagon order box. you then give each wagon its order at each of the train's stops. you also have a give all wagons same order function and give x wagons same order.

hows that?

I'd be happier if you could just say "Load 3 wagons full with X" than giving each wagon its own orders, that's a big dent to gameplay IMO.