"Manual Industries" As Part Of The Game

[RLS0812]

Manual Industries is a great plugin that fixes a 'game mechanic' that is very annoying, and sometimes game breaking - I am suggesting adding this plugin as a permanent feature to the game it's self.

In 3 separate games I have played, I went bankrupt due to most of the low tier industry closing before I made my money back.

[Sylf]

I suggest you keep trying and get better at building more efficient networks. The industries closing on you is a part of challenges.

For a starter...
1) Avoid the low-producing industries. They pose more risk that it's worth.
2) Towns never close. So a passenger and mail service may bring in more dependable income. Also, if you connect 2 towns, the vehicles make income on both trips.
3) Try asking for tips on the General OpenTTD or OpenTTD Problems forum - there many seasoned players itching to help people in need.

[Alberth]

Service rate is everything, keep an eye on the percentage in the industry window.

Make sure you always have a train loading, and use short trains for quick delivery.

[RLS0812]

Service rate is everything, keep an eye on the percentage in the industry window.

I have been told that before - it is imposable to get high cargo ratings *profitably* without exploiting an AI bug.

[Redirect Left]

Yeah. As appealing as mega trains may look, it seems better for the AI / game engine if you use lots of smaller trains, which is a bit of a shame.

[leifbk]

Yeah. As appealing as mega trains may look, it seems better for the AI / game engine if you use lots of smaller trains, which is a bit of a shame.

So, why is that a shame? It's how the game works; deal with it.

Of course, long trains do look impressive, and the game certainly will let you run them. But if you want good logistics and interesting network effects, small vehicles is the way to go. That's even more true with eg. FIRS, where monthly supplies boost production, than with the default industries.

[Redirect Left]

So, why is that a shame? It's how the game works; deal with it.

Of course, long trains do look impressive, and the game certainly will let you run them. But if you want good logistics and interesting network effects, small vehicles is the way to go..

Firstly, don't take that tone with me. I'll come down on you like a ton of bricks. Secondly, there's nothing wrong with large and lengthy trains, they run every minute of every day on the real networks, and there's nothing logistically wrong with them.

[leifbk]

there's nothing wrong with large and lengthy trains, they run every minute of every day on the real networks, and there's nothing logistically wrong with them.

It seems to be a common misconception that the TT universe tries to mimic the real world. It doesn't. Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental.

Both the station rating algorithm and the vehicle economy favour frequent visits and short loading times. If you've got an industry that pours out 1,000 tons each month, then certainly you'll need long trains or big ships to move the goods. But using huge trains to move normal industry output isn't very profitable. If a vehicle takes more than a month's production, then it's probably too big.

[Redirect Left]

I usually have enough that there is one still loading whilst the other is doing a run, so there's still always one left at the station, but the ratings still suffer more so than with lots of little ones flitting about the place

[Alberth]

I usually have enough that there is one still loading whilst the other is doing a run, so there's still always one left at the station, but the ratings still suffer more so than with lots of little ones flitting about the place

Yep, cargo aging starts as soon as you load it onto the train.

Maybe make a feeder service where you load the long train from several sources?

[RLS0812]

I usually have enough that there is one still loading whilst the other is doing a run, so there's still always one left at the station, but the ratings still suffer more so than with lots of little ones flitting about the place

Yep, cargo aging starts as soon as you load it onto the train.
Maybe make a feeder service where you load the long train from several sources?

We run into the problem of profitability ....

[Kalen]

It seems to be a common misconception that the TT universe tries to mimic the real world. It doesn't. Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental.

Cute, but this actually has little to do with realism. Long freight trains in OpenTTD are perfectly possible already and, in fact, several options and NewGRF take that strategy into account. All you need to do is put the cheapest road vehicle you have on a perpetual load-and-transfer-back order in a RV bay annexed to the station in question, while your trains transport the cargo to its actual destination. This will prevent ratings from dropping due to long waiting times, and the road vehicle's running costs will be negligible in your overall economy.

You will want to ensure your train is neither too long nor too short for the amount of cargo that will be waiting once it returns from the trip, though (to avoid further loading times in one case, and ending up with a huge stockpile of cargo in the station in the other case), but other than that, it's totally a thing. : ) Saves on running costs and track, too, because longer trains means less trains, which means your network needn't be as high capacity otherwise.

@topic: OpenGFX+ Industries (latest: (x), release: (x)) has options for disabling "creation/change/closure" of industries. However the description for the options only mentions appearance and closure, so I can't confirm if production changes (the "change" part in the options' name) are also disabled or not. But it's worth a try, maybe?

As for including these options in the main game, I don't see why not? There is already some manner of precedent, in that you can prevent towns from building roads, can disable new town and primary industry founding, etc. so it'd be in the same vein, sort of. Toggling natural industry appearance and/or closure, as well as production changes altogether (different economy type).

[Alberth]

@topic: OpenGFX+ Industries (latest: (x), release: (x)) has options for disabling "creation/change/closure" of industries. However the description for the options only mentions appearance and closure, so I can't confirm if production changes (the "change" part in the options' name) are also disabled or not. But it's worth a try, maybe?

I had that question too, and in the short test game I played, it seems that production changes are also frozen, except for temperate oil wells which I reported as bug (there was no answer yesterday evening, so don't know if it is intentional or not).
As such, the description text probably needs fixing, I haven't yet come up with a better description. Feel free to find one, and make a ticket about it.

As for including these options in the main game, I don't see why not?

The reason is extremely simple, the industry NewGRF specs forbid it.
A long time ago in the past of TTDP, someone considered it a good idea to let an industry decide locally about production changes and closure. On its own, it does have its merits. It's quite reasonable to let an industry that is not serviced decide to die on its own, or to let a well-serviced industry increase itsproduction. It brought us ECS, for example.

What was forgotten at the time, is to let the global game economy have a say in it too. At this moment, the game cannot supply information to an industry to let it know the global state of all industries, or the desired action by the industry.


Until giving such information to industries is added, the global game can only open new industries, and that's it.

[andythenorth]

What was forgotten at the time, is to let the global game economy have a say in it too. At this moment, the game cannot supply information to an industry to let it know the global state of all industries, or the desired action by the industry.

Strictly, the newgrf industry can choose to allow ottd to close an industry, when the monthly or random production change cbs are handled.

Most industry newgrf authors handling closure probably don't do that, because if you're handling closure in the newgrf, it's because you think the game's rules for closure are stupid, or at least not optimum. Which is a fair argument, but experience shows that it's also remarkably difficult to solve it better in newgrf, because of the problem you describe.

[RLS0812]

On its own, it does have its merits. It's quite reasonable to let an industry that is not serviced decide to die on its own, or to let a well-serviced industry increase itsproduction..

The problem is this game is not balanced.
Time is not balanced with speed. Speed is not balanced with distance. ( A city "block" in this game is roughly 620 km long )
The ####ing station rating is based on a broken time scale.
If a game day was slowed down by a factor of about 10x, we would not have so many logistical problems !!!

Some one make a Youtube video showing exactly how to get station ratings above 80% *WITHOUT* using AI bugs *AND* it has to be profitable *AND* the businesses have to be organically spawned by the game *AND* all trains have to "pay for themselves" before dieing of old age.

[leifbk]

The game obviously doesn't work the way you imagine it should work. So, what's the big deal? It's a game, for Pete's sake. Try to find out what works in this game, and just forget about your preconceived ideas of how it "should" work. I've been where you are, and I figure that most people who have ever tried to come to grips with this game have been there and done that.

Just dive into it, figure out what works and what doesn't, and I promise you a helluva good time.

[Alberth]

The problem is this game is not balanced.
Time is not balanced with speed. Speed is not balanced with distance. ( A city "block" in this game is roughly 620 km long )
The ####ing station rating is based on a broken time scale.
If a game day was slowed down by a factor of about 10x, we would not have so many logistical problems !!!

Some one make a Youtube video showing exactly how to get station ratings above 80% *WITHOUT* using AI bugs *AND* it has to be profitable *AND* the businesses have to be organically spawned by the game *AND* all trains have to "pay for themselves" before dieing of old age.

You are right, it's not balanced, everything has its own scale, and it has a zillion exploits, and probably more.

The bottom line is that OpenTTD is not a simulation of real world. It's a simple fun game about trains, its aim is to have fun playing it in a casual style without worrying about little details like scale of things or realism. Scales have been created this way already in the original TTD, as it 'works' for the game (try unifying all scales, you will find it looks much less nice).

If you are looking for a more realistic simulation, you should look for another game. P1Sim may work better for you.

[leifbk]

It's a simple fun game about trains

It's also a simple fun game about airplanes, ships, and road vehicles. For my own part, I find a lot of fun playing with swarms of horse carts and tiny sailing ships from 1700 onwards.

It's one of the great things about this game that you can play it almost any way you want.

Setting up long trains with routes across the board is definitely not the only true way of playing OpenTTD.

[Kalen]

The bottom line is that OpenTTD is not a simulation of real world. It's a simple fun game about trains, its aim is to have fun playing it in a casual style without worrying about little details like scale of things or realism.

I mean, (strict) realism was never the goal of TT, let alone OTTD, but if something is indeed hurting gameplay due to its implementation needing improvement, then surely that's worth discussing? Otherwise, if fun really is the only goal, then why is there even an economy at all? Might as well turn the game into a money-less train sandbox... Not to mention the game isn't just about trains, even if they indeed like to steal the limelight.

Anyway, I was an ECS player for the most part, now having migrated to FIRS, so I'm used to having to service stations and industries regularly to be most efficient (in ECS you have stockpile limits and in FIRS you have manually-induced production changes, all of which require well thought-out regular service). In addition, I'm used to industries closing due to inadequate service (though FIRS doesn't close primary industries at all). So this isn't really a problem for me.

But I don't think any one of us can deny that the current station rating system is a bit silly. I mean, there's a reason this patch was thought of. There's a reason FIRS has Improved Ratings of Stations (ha!) (if you so toggle, that is). There's a reason a lot of people consider the whole "keep a road vehicle constantly loading and transferring back cargo to ensure a check off the 'days since last cargo pickup' rating variable" quite the cheat. Because it kinda is. That's basically a cop-out to having regular train service... but when you try regular train service instead, you get sub-optimal results because the thresholds are indeed "grim and mean", and pretty much only reasonable for express cargoes, not the long haul stuff.

I've heard people say that a 100% rating shouldn't be easily obtainable because it's meant to be perfect service, which does make sense to me, but that doesn't make the 'last pickup' thresholds any less silly. There are other reasonable and logical ways to guarantee a 100% rating is difficult to obtain (i.e. age and reliability of vehicles, maybe also vehicle introduction date -- means you actually put the effort in keeping your vehicles modernized and top-notch, which means you have a better image, better service (less breakdowns) and are a more attractive partner as a shipping company).

It's actually kinda obvious that there is a problem, because we're forced to use a bit of an exploity workaround which is both cheap and efficient, in order to guarantee a pretty nice base rating. If the difficulty aspect in checking off that mark of the ratings calculation is that negligible, then maybe it doesn't really have a point to it?

And oops, this got really long haha. I guess we can just use timetables to ensure our trains are moving in a way that we guarantee regular service without resorting to exploity workarounds. But I still think the ratings calculation needs a full rework.

As for disabling industry closure as part of the main game, if it's not possible or easy to implement, then I'm guessing falling back to OGFX+ Industries is a viable alternative. That kinda is the point of OGFX+, isn't it? To expand on the base game with these sorts of features that are very close to vanilla but are better implemented via NewGRF (or even a GameScript).

[Eddy Arfik]

The problem is this game is not balanced.
Time is not balanced with speed. Speed is not balanced with distance. ( A city "block" in this game is roughly 620 km long )
The ####ing station rating is based on a broken time scale.
If a game day was slowed down by a factor of about 10x, we would not have so many logistical problems !!!

There's a patch for that...
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 0#p1142646