NoCAB - Bleeding Edge edition Version 2.2a4

[Kogut]

Because

All comments are welcome, because I hardly ever play OpenTTD myself I can get all the input of what good strategies are for building train networks. At the moment there is not layout scheme, but I'm looking for a model which allows me to evolve my rail roads over time (i.e. start with a single platform and gradually expand).

[Morloth]

Hi Kogut,

Thanks for the advice. I like the setup you propose, I was thinking about something along these lines. I was also thinking about a setup suggested here called the "RoRo_Sleek" (not sure what it stands for) detailed here: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?p=765627#p765627.

I'll probably try different setups and see which one works best.
Thanks for your suggestion! If somebody else has some ideas I'd love to hear them!
Bram

[Kogut]

"RoRo_Sleek" is very efficient (protection from traffic jams, easy to check is it too many trains for station), but unfortunatelly it is completely unrealistic.

[Kogut]

During test of my own ai openttd decided to load nocabBE, nocab discovered that almost all places for stations are occupied and crashed on savedata
All red lines are visible.

[Morloth]

During test of my own ai openttd decided to load nocabBE, nocab discovered that almost all places for stations are occupied and crashed on savedata
All red lines are visible.

Thanks for the bug report! Will be fixed in the next release. I'm currently working on the stations to get them right, so expect improvements for the next version .

[Kogut]

That appear on every map after some time.

[Morloth]

Thanks for the bug reports! The newest version takes care of all of these. Although my pathfinder does not reuse existing rails (yet), so don't be put off by the amount of rails it builds. This is simply for testing the pathfinder, the final version will be much better behaved! Please let me know when you see something weird (like 90 degree turns!!!).

Known problems:
* Signals are now yet build on diagonal rail pieces.
* Rail network is a mess!
* Depots builds 90 degree turns.
* No proper vehicle management (I just build a train and go with it).
* Town connections are not handled properly.
* No bridges / tunnels are being build and utilized yet.

Hope you guys enjoy the new version and let me know if something goes wrong and I'll try to fix it ASAP. Next release will include a better pathfinder (using tunnels / bridges and reusing existing rails).

Thanks for all the feedback so far!
Bram

[Brumi]

It's really good to see NoCAB using trains, good work Morloth! I'm looking forward to the next stable release.

[Morloth]

Thx Brumi, hope to finish a stable release as soon as possible. But I think station layout is going to be quite a hurdle to get correct.

Nonetheless a new version, with the following improvements!
- We can now work with bridges and tunnels!
- Better station placement for towns.
- Build the wagons at the same depot as the locomotive for bidirectional connections.

List of open issues:
* Signals are now yet build on diagonal rail pieces.
* Rail network is a mess!
* Depots builds 90 degree turns.
* No proper vehicle management (I just build a train and go with it).
* No proper station layout.
* Will crash as a fail safe mechanism if a piece of rail couldn't be build (will be removed in final version).

Thanks for all the bug reports, keep 'em coming!
- Bram

[Brumi]

I'm not sure if this is some work-in-progress problem or an actual bug, so I'm posting it here:

rail crossing.png (92.58 KiB) Viewed 3005 times

One signal is missing, so the crossing doesn't work.

I really like the bridge/tunnel usage of NoCAB, the roads and rails built by it are very smooth and nice.

[Morloth]

"RoRo_Sleek" is very efficient (protection from traffic jams, easy to check is it too many trains for station), but unfortunatelly it is completely unrealistic.

Could you please explain why? Because I'm sure I've seen a couple of AIs already building stations which looked very similar. Also, I was thinking of you train station evolution scheme and it struck me that it might be better to skip the 2nd step. Otherwise you'll have to do a lot of removing / rebuilding (the depot has to be moved as well as the crossing between the two lines).

I'm currently reading into using signals and try to come up with a cool - workable - evolution scheme.

I'm not sure if this is some work-in-progress problem or an actual bug, so I'm posting it here:

rail crossing.png

One signal is missing, so the crossing doesn't work.

I really like the bridge/tunnel usage of NoCAB, the roads and rails built by it are very smooth and nice.

Hey Brumi, thanks for your comments . I'm quite happy as well how things are going. Just fixed a couple (hopefully the last!) of bugs in the pathfinder / builder so I can now focus on the 1) station layout and 2) building signals.

What I do now is to simply put a signal every so many tiles and don't really care if they get build or not. So the signals you see now are only to get the trains to run, so very much work in progress. But thanks for the comment, this is definitely something to keep in mind. I'm not to sure yet if I want my rails to cross or if I want to use bridges like the pathfinder library is doing. Suppose I'll just test and see whichever gives me the most profit .

Keep those bugs coming, next version will include proper station handling!
Bram

[planetmaker]

In my current AI test game NoCAB had a bit trouble getting started. The first instance bancrupted after 6 years, but now the new one seems to do quite ok. I guess trains will only be started to be build when there's more money and more profit already available?

[Morloth]

In my current AI test game NoCAB had a bit trouble getting started. The first instance bancrupted after 6 years, but now the new one seems to do quite ok. I guess trains will only be started to be build when there's more money and more profit already available?

I'm not to sure. In this version I only worked to get the pathfinder working so I can build "a" connection. The actual process of choosing which trains, how much profit it makes, etc. hasn't been done yet. So I'm not too surprised it doesn't work that well, after all it's still an Alpha version . But thanks for the testing, hopefully the final version will do a lot better ^^.

[Morloth]

Hey everone,

A new test version available. It mainly includes fixes to the pathfinder, better vehicle management and signal / station building. The complete list is below:

- Additional fixed and improvements to the pathfinder (nearly there .
- Bridges and tunnels are handled better (always select the fastest!).
- !Save games are incompatible with previous versions!
- Can now build both RoRo-stations and Front-to-Front stations.
- Better vehicle management.
- Signs are now properly placed.

The following open issues still have to be addressed:
* Rail network is a mess!
* No proper station layout (almost done though .
* We do not upgrade when new rail tiles become available, in fact we can only work with the first basic rail type.
* We do not utilize all platforms on a station (this is coupled with the fact that we do not - yet - reuse existing rails).
* When building a Front-to-Front station we do not connect both rails, so the trains build there have nowhere to go...

I hope to work towards a final version this week, so stay tuned!
Bram

[Brumi]

Nice! It looks like there is some serious development going on...
I have one little suggestion: Could you please implement building the HQ? I know it has no real purpose, but sometimes I miss it.

[Morloth]

Hehe, sure. I'll implement a function to build the HQ. Or rather copy it from OtviAI or another AI which already does this .

[Zuu]

I prefer placing it close to the first town that gets a connection. In your case it could possible be near a coal mine or an other industry as well unless you think that the HQ should be next to a town. CluelessPlus place it near one of the towns of the first completed connection. The HQ-placement function should be in main.nut which is not very easy to read since Clueless originally was a one-file-AI due to the old limitation that AIs only had one nut-file long long time ago. But if you search for HQ you should probably find it.

[Morloth]

Cool, thanks for the heads up . I'll use your version than!

[Zuu]

To not miss-credit OtviAI, I should say that I don't know what strategy it uses for placing the HQ.

[Morloth]

Hey everyone,

New update! NoCAB is really shaping up, almost all the components are in place. The only thing still to do is to handle signal handling properly. Things work good for single connections, but when multiple railways start to interfere the whole system breaks down. Here is the update:

- Better path finding and rail road building.
- Better signal building (not perfect though ).
- RoRo stations are now build properly as are Front-to-Front stations.

Example of current station layout:

A couple of RoRo stations :)

Standing issues:
* Rail network is a mess (but less of a mess now, depending on how you look at it ).
* We do not upgrade when new rail tiles become available, in fact we can only work with the first basic rail type.
* Build HQ at the start of the game.
* Handle building errors better.

Hopefully I'll be able to release the last test version at the end of this week. Hopefully in time for the launch of OpenTTD 1.0 .

- Bram