Possibility for a system for using competitor track/stations

[eobet]

This is the greatest fault with TTD imo, and something I feel should be rectified in OpenTTD:

After a while, the map gets crowded. Very, very crowded.

Tracks go parallel, four or five in width. Bridges to all over the place and the landscape looks like a snake pit with a termite infestation.

To me, this is a bad problem, which ruins the game.

In reality, there are a lot of rivalling companies using the same stations, roads and tracks (heck, roads are shared in TTD even). Naturally, they pay certain fees to each other, and this should be the case in OpenTTD as well.

The problem with sharing a track is collisions, and the ability to stop a train (ie. trap either of the opponents trains or block the stations).

So how do you safeguard against this? Do you build a "toll booth", similar to a checkpoint, which incorporates signals, where rivals can connect their track to? One way to stop part of the blocking problem is to loose the ability to stop a train while on a rivals track. But then the rival could still create a blockade, and you could still send in a train with 1% reliability.

There shouldn't be a problem to share an airport, however. In fact, if the game would be really realistic, you wouldn't even be able to build an airport (or a proper, large harbour), as they aren't owned by the companies who provide the airplanes.

There could be a different way to solve the crowding problem as well...

How do you decide who has "won" an city, industry or area? I don't think there is one, as you can't buy industries and control them, or lobby against, and drag your rivals names into the dust (you can't even control ticket prices).

If an effective way to gain control of an area would be presented, crowding would solve itself, by the withdrawal of the opponents.

Still, it would be nice to have both.

So, what are your thoughts?

I don't feel that this needs to elevate the game above the sandbox level it is today, if a sufficiently intuitive and simple solution can be found (TTD is not really a sim of anything, is it).

[Bjarni]

it would be nice and the train have a check for if the owner is the same as the owner of the track. Making it run on another company's tracks should not be a great problem.

About the 1% reliability, you could be heavy fined if your train have a breakdown

You should sign a contract with the other company before the track is usable. The contrack should contain stuff like fees and fines for blocking tracks and such. You should be able to do it nearly free of charge to one company and expensive to another if you want

You could be forced to allow other planes to use your airport for a fee

Well, you will not see this in the near future, but it's not impossible to add later

[Korenn]

seems interesting if the towns build airports themselves and you can use them... (is more realistic)

but then there's also the abuse factor.

and then again, realism isn't the ultimate goal of ttd...

[jixor]

There are probably too many problems involved with sharing rail, unless the ai was dramatically improved. But its still an idea that would be worth looking into.

The airport idea sounds good. Towns could build their own maybe at a certain pop size. Reserving a 6x6+ piece of land however only building a small airport. Then you can lease terminals on the airport, as the town pop increases more terminals become available, if you lease more than 2 (the number on a small airport) it turns into a large, then a large with 4, then a larger with 5, or something similar. It would have to be able to become bigger than a large because you could also have two competitors leasing terminals. I think if towns are going to build their own airports radius is definitely an issue. You could make it so the airport simply has coverage of the entire town plus its 4 square catchment. Making use of this, the town should build their airport a little distance away but still in the towns local authority area. You would also need to be able to not renew your lease. Perhaps even the more traffic you bring to the airport the more you pay for the lease.

Hmm I don't know, it sounds alright to me but there are other features I would rather see.

[krtaylor]

I agree with the towns-build-airports idea. This makes loads of sense. You could fix it so that the town built a small airport automatically when it reached a certain size, and then that airport got upgraded to a large airport if it had a certain number of flights per month over a period of time. (But, you'd have to make it so that at least the smaller jets could safely land at a small airport).

As far as sharing track, I like the idea of not being allowed to stop trains on shared track, and a heavy fine if your train breaks down on someone else's track. You're right about needing to make the AI smarter though. There should be a fee per square of enemy track used, per loco and traincar on it.

There is a certain protection inherent to the way TTD handles square ownership: you can't build track on a square where somebody else already built track. This means that you can't just build a switch off of their track, THEY have to build a stub-end facing you that you can connect into. In effect, this would mean that you couldn't share tracks with the AI, but you could share tracks with a human opponent. Which makes sense, because you could negotiate with them (not over the fees maybe, but over operating scope). And if you were gratuitously mean to them by sabotaging their network, they could boot you off their track by blowing up the connection-switch, which you couldn't rebuild because it would be their square. Then your trains would be trapped in their network forever, you couldn't even build a depot and get rid of them unless you could find some loose end-of-track somewhere that you could build a depot off the end of.

Another thing that would be nice would be to allow a "union station." Like, if they have a train station, you could come alongside and build on some tracks of your own - it's still the same station, but you both own tracks in it, and you can tap into the draw of the station. That could be cruel but realistic. Unless of course they took the precaution of buying a piece of land in the way.

[Bjarni]

There are probably too many problems involved with sharing rail, unless the ai was dramatically improved. But its still an idea that would be worth looking into

What about sharing rails and multiplayer
ludde is working on network multiplayer right now

[mpettitt]

This is one of the things I suggested on the Wants thread. I think having multi-company stations would be very sensible, but would really be more useful if you could have variable length platforms as well. You'd also need to be able to attach multiple road vehicle terminals to a single station: the traffic jams are bad enough with just one player trying to run a number of trucks!
The airport thing is difficult: making it so one player builds each airport then leases it to competitors who want to run services there may be simpler than having the towns build them, and mean that towns don't end up with lots of airports from each company. I've never found that congestion is a major problem with airports really, certainly not to the extent with road vehicles.
It could also be useful to be able to use opponents depots, for a fee, as sometimes they are just much closer than your own facilities...

[eobet]

Using opponents depots doesn't seem realistic.

The idea of building multiple bus/truck stations next to each other is also a very good suggestion.

Variable track length is also nice, but there should be a rule that at least one new platform is aligned to one of the original ends of the first platform (otherwise, you can imagine a diagonal station worming itself across the land).

The penalty fee for breakdowns sounds great, as well as a fee for each square of track used!

Since there isn't a system for setting prices yet, I guess there would be fixed, until more variable economy is introduced.

[Korenn]

I've never found that congestion is a major problem with airports really, certainly not to the extent with road vehicles.

having 3 planes loading, 3 other planes taxi-ing, several planes looping around the airport waiting to be able to land, AND 4 aircraft waiting in hangar because there was no terminal free.

believe me, airports can get VERY congested.

[orudge]

I've started working on new airports for OpenTTD (based on the airports in the wishlist at the Semi-FAQ), but it'll take a while to get it all working nicely, so no guarantees it'll be in the next version, or the version after that!

[Bjarni]

Using opponents depots doesn't seem realistic.

Why not? It happens in real life

The idea of building multiple bus/truck stations next to each other is also a very good suggestion.

That is not easy. How should the bus/truck know which one to go to?

The penalty fee for breakdowns sounds great, as well as a fee for each square of track used!

Come to think about it, in real life, there is no penalty for breaking down. There is a penalty for delaying trains, that you don't own yourself. If you break down and delay the next train 15 min, so that delays another train 12 min and that delay...... it can quickly become very expensive to have unreliable trains. In real life, one breakdown can delay more than 50 trains that way and that's expensive. The fines are so big, that it's cheaper to maintain the trains properly and that's the idea.

[krtaylor]

I think that it's already planned to have better bus and truck stations that don't jam. So you don't necessarily need more of them, just better ones.

[eobet]

Using opponents depots doesn't seem realistic.

Why not? It happens in real life

No, no, no! What? A depot is where they service the trucks, where the drivers start and end their day! That is absolutely company owned and not shared. Well, at least in Sweden.

The idea of building multiple bus/truck stations next to each other is also a very good suggestion.

That is not easy. How should the bus/truck know which one to go to?

Ehm... the one that's free?

[Bjarni]

Using opponents depots doesn't seem realistic.

Why not? It happens in real life

No, no, no! What? A depot is where they service the trucks, where the drivers start and end their day! That is absolutely company owned and not shared. Well, at least in Sweden.

I was talking about rail depots, not road depots. There are rail depots, where more than one company maintain their trains. I know it's the same in Sweden

The idea of building multiple bus/truck stations next to each other is also a very good suggestion.

That is not easy. How should the bus/truck know which one to go to?

Ehm... the one that's free?

That's the human way of saying it, but how to tell the computer, that's another thing. Besides, if they are not close to each other, one might be full and the other empty, so the truck (let's call it A) will head for the empty one. Meanwhile two other trucks so when A gets to the empty one, its full and the other one is empty because the trucks there have unloaded. A then returns. Starting all over because two more trucks just showed up. Right now, I have no idea on how to fix that

[BobXP]

I've started working on new airports for OpenTTD (based on the airports in the wishlist at the Semi-FAQ), but it'll take a while to get it all working nicely, so no guarantees it'll be in the next version, or the version after that!

You mean airports with a choosable number of runways, hangars and places for the aircraft to load? Hooray!

[Korenn]

That's the human way of saying it, but how to tell the computer, that's another thing. Besides, if they are not close to each other, one might be full and the other empty, so the truck (let's call it A) will head for the empty one. Meanwhile two other trucks so when A gets to the empty one, its full and the other one is empty because the trucks there have unloaded. A then returns. Starting all over because two more trucks just showed up. Right now, I have no idea on how to fix that

when a vehicle arrives at station, run through vehicle list and reevaluate all vehicles that have this station as destination_tile.

[eobet]

That's the human way of saying it, but how to tell the computer, that's another thing. Besides, if they are not close to each other, one might be full and the other empty, so the truck (let's call it A) will head for the empty one. Meanwhile two other trucks so when A gets to the empty one, its full and the other one is empty because the trucks there have unloaded. A then returns. Starting all over because two more trucks just showed up. Right now, I have no idea on how to fix that

Since additional train platforms have to be built right next to each other, why shouldn't truck stations follow the same rule? It will look the cleanest, and probably function easiest.

And, allow me to indulge in a little pseudo code:

Code: Select all

if dest_station.free_slots > 0 then
	reserve_slot(dest_station)
else
	drive_around_block_and_try_again()

When should it reserve a slot, you may ask? Same way I believe trains check for signals: look one square ahead.

[mpettitt]

The idea of building multiple bus/truck stations next to each other is also a very good suggestion.

Just to clarify, I was thinking more along the lines of each player being able to add their own road stations to a single superstation. Of course, making it so you could have multiple ones of your own would be nice too, but less essential. Possibly having variable size road stations, with different numbers of bays in (2 bay for small ones, up to 20 bay for stupidly large ones where you should probably be using a train...)

Variable track length is also nice, but there should be a rule that at least one new platform is aligned to one of the original ends of the first platform (otherwise, you can imagine a diagonal station worming itself across the land).

I have a screen shot of a station using variable length platforms (from a very poorly adjusted OpenTTD - I just commented out the bits about being the same length... ) but it does follow the rule that the platforms still have to be in the same alignment. Apart from anything else, most real stations seem to do that (with some exceptions... However, to model those, you'd need multiple level stations where the upper tracks are perpendicular to the lower...)

[Bjarni]

I have a screen shot of a station using variable length platforms (from a very poorly adjusted OpenTTD - I just commented out the bits about being the same length... ) but it does follow the rule that the platforms still have to be in the same alignment. Apart from anything else, most real stations seem to do that (with some exceptions... However, to model those, you'd need multiple level stations where the upper tracks are perpendicular to the lower...)

I would like to see that screenshot and I'm most other people would like to see it too

[BobXP]

Right, let me suggest my always-proven-useless ideas again...

Let's say you can build any number of bus stations next to each other. So, when a truck starts heading for that station it heads for the closest station part of that station with a free bay. If that bay is subsequently taken the road vehicle(s) heading for it will recalculate their destinations and routes on the fly.