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Truck Stations

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 13:31
by davery83
Need your help guys!
If I have 4 stations next to each other (so they are all the same station), why do trucks always pick the closest one even if it has a long queue/full? It does this even if there are no other trucks in the other 3 stations!
Is the way of building the roads to the station that will stop this from happening?

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 14:24
by JimboTG
Do you have NPF turned on?

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 14:39
by davery83
Yes that is on.
Here is a screenie of what I mean.

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 15:56
by webfreakz.nl
I think the problem is you deleted 1 of the 3 stations. So first you had 3 station right next to each other, and then you demolished the one in the middle?

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 15:59
by JimboTG
now I feel pretty stupid, why didnt I think of that?

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:02
by davery83
That doesn't change a thing!
If I have 3 stations next to each other, with the new one going in between the other 2 and removing the depot & placing a road - the vehicles tend to go straight on as thats the quickest route.
The reason I put that fork in is because I believed each distance to the station is the same but for some reason they always favour one. Sometimes a stray truck goes to the other, but others always join the queue!

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:03
by nicfer
webfreakz.nl wrote:I think the problem is you deleted 1 of the 3 stations. So first you had 3 station right next to each other, and then you demolished the one in the middle?
I have the same problem and I don't deleted any station.

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:04
by webfreakz.nl
Maybe the pathfinding source code of trucks doesn't have the function to look (like a train does) and check if a station is full, if it is: it will take the next one?

correct me if i'm wrong...

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:05
by JimboTG
I thin trucks use the same pathfinding code as busses, both have always worked fine for me, try recreating the problem with busses

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:07
by davery83
Ok heres a test with 20 trucks:
Only 4 of them chose a different path.

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:11
by csuke
make the entrance roads shorter, they will only go the other way when the one it wants to go down is full

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:13
by davery83
They won't though, they always pick the same one & just queue further back up the feeder road!

Another test, this one worked as expected (most trucks took the first station as it was nearest!).

Edit: Yet why do 4 out of the 12 still take different ones?

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:16
by webfreakz.nl
What version are you using?

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:17
by JimboTG
try it like this (excuse the crudeness of the screenie) that way when a vehicle gets to a station and finds that its full it can immediatley move on to te next

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:22
by davery83
The problem with jimbo is that they still queue on one road.
I was just trying to avoid having long queues, by having several shorter ones since they can be loaded at the same time.

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:22
by webfreakz.nl
Seems like OK here? :?

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:24
by JimboTG
but by adding more stations and making them immediateley accessable you dont even get a queue

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 16:30
by davery83
Seems to be a problem with the spinoff I'm playing then, I'm sure I got the problem on OTTD, not sure they had changed the truck pathfinding since then :?
There aren't enough industries on the normal OTTD for me to enjoy playing it!

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 17:06
by belugas
This is a pettern for stations that I really like. It is, to my knowledge, the one that offers the best performances.
It can be applied to industries as well as mail/passengers.
Can be spread a little more too...
At a certain point, it can run into a complete jam, but I think it has to do with how the system handle the trucks rather then the design itself.

Posted: 16 Nov 2005 17:20
by csuke
davery83 wrote:They won't though, they always pick the same one & just queue further back up the feeder road!

Another test, this one worked as expected (most trucks took the first station as it was nearest!).

Edit: Yet why do 4 out of the 12 still take different ones?
because the closest feeder road is full, make the feeder roads much shorter and it will prevent this