Ideas, volume 2

Discuss a Transport Tycoon-like game being programmed by forum users.

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Parkey
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Post by Parkey »

The most important thing (in my opinion) missing from Locomotion.

Passengers have a SPECIFIC DESTINATION in mind when they board a train. They might have to take connecting services to achieve this (tram to the station, train to the next city, bus to destination etc).

Now, any ideas how on earth that could possibly be done?!
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Post by aarona »

In my mind thats not a hard one to answer. (Just so you know, we have always intended to have this feature in TE)

First of all you have to bear in mind that a passenger will not go from A to B unless there is a path there. So the first thing to remember is that passengers will only go to places on your network.

Now networks are objects which computers are good at handling! (After all, the internet is nothing but a series of complicated networks)

You have the nodes, which are the stations and every time a service connects from one node to another then you have the connection. This connection will contain details about how much volume there is between the nodes. (This way passengers will find the best route which is well serviced) To aide visualisation, every time a new connection is made, you can see all the other stations which your new station is now "connected" to.

To create passengers you just need to know what the desire is to get from some location A to destination B. This desire can either be before or after the introduction to the service. (i.e. people want to get to work at B but the service is not there, or people want to visit B, but only realise this after the service is available)

For the passenger to get from A to B you simply have to trace a path from node to node and calculate which one obtains the best KPI (key performance indications, such as time to arrive, frequency of service, etc) or whatever criteria you deem necessary.

I believe this has already been done in "simutrans".
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Parkey
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Post by Parkey »

I guess it's easy enough to get the computer to calculate route demands etc. Might be very difficult to present it to the user though. It would be a lot of data!

Rating a service between two stations via a third might be done by multiplying the ratings of the two legs of the journey. For example: Station 1 to Station 3 = 80%, Station 3 to Station 2 = 50%, Therefore Station 1 to Station 2 = 80% x 50% = 40%. So direct routes are always better but this can be made up for by running a regular service on the two separate legs.
aarona wrote:I believe this has already been done in "simutrans".
Sounds interesting, I'll have to have a look!
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Post by m4rek »

aarona wrote:If we are going to have a stock market then you could simply float Company B on the stock exchange and based on shares being "limited liability", no stockholder (including the original owner) can be held liable for any debts the company owns. This is what happens in real life.
we are making a game you know....
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Post by Hyronymus »

M4rek wrote:
aarona wrote:If we are going to have a stock market then you could simply float Company B on the stock exchange and based on shares being "limited liability", no stockholder (including the original owner) can be held liable for any debts the company owns. This is what happens in real life.
we are making a game you know....
You see, that's not constructive. You are questioning aarona's mental state in a way. Right from the start we decided that TE should have a stock market. Aarona's idea isn't strange, out of place or questionable therefor.

Please read the DD before you make (witty) remarks.
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Post by m4rek »

apologies, but i do hope that people dio see i eas trying to be funny. but unfortunately i have no idea how the stock market works and how it affects companies. so i need to do a fair bit of reading before i try to help out with that.
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Post by Hyronymus »

If you don't know how things work you can consider not having an opinion (seriously!). Many folks know how to say nothing. Few know when.
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Post by m4rek »

ok, that last line in my post was my cue to stop talking. you should know that. now we are totally off topic as i am well aware, so feel free to read, and then delete this post (and perhaps your previous post, although that is very good and i will probably quote you on that)
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Post by Dave »

Hyronymus wrote:If you don't know how things work you can consider not having an opinion (seriously!). Many folks know how to say nothing. Few know when.
I know nothing.

Still - the stock market idea is plenty interesting. But could there be an option to turn it off... PLEASE!?
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Post by m4rek »

:lol: LOL :lol:

hear, hear
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Post by aarona »

Dave Worley wrote:Still - the stock market idea is plenty interesting. But could there be an option to turn it off... PLEASE!?
How about not using it? I don't see how it can affect you if you dont participate in it.

Do you invest in stocks in real life? No? But its there if you wanted to.

This reminds me of people who keep saying, take show XYZ off TV. If you don't like it, don't watch it!
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Post by DaleStan »

You obviously haven't played any RRT lately. If ever. There are scenarios that CANNOT BE WON without using the stock market.
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Post by Hyronymus »

That's RRT Dalestan. Why can't we create a scenarios for TE that doesn't need the stock exchange. Surely we can create scenarios that do need them too and make that clear to the players.
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Post by XeryusTC »

I would like to see the stock market as something additional, you should be able turn it off or on (before game start). But it should have an influence on the course of the game when turned on.
Note that I never liked the stock market in RRT because it had a too big influence while I didn't use it or looked at it.
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bob27
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Post by bob27 »

I'm sorry if this has already been mentioned but I have two ideas.

Maybe a "modular" system for vehicals, buildings, etc. This way if you wanted to add a industry you could just download (or make it), drag it to a "items" folder and click on something in the game to add it.

Another one would be harder (or maybe impossible.) A modular system for patches or add-ons so you wouldn't have to change any code in the game to include it. I don't program but could this be posible in the code but letting it refer to editable text documents for code?
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Post by m3henry »

I think I know what you are thinking, I like the way Auran trainz handles add-ons.
so you download an add-on and you install it then instead of the game deciding what to do with it, apart from the basics, the object is scripted and can do whatever it is scripted to do, instead of what the game is scripted to do, this may work, and may not include your idea.
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Post by bob27 »

Ok sorry about one part. I have never played "Auran trainz."
Maybe this will help.
-EDIT- Sorry, I think you are on the right page, never mind :)
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ohlidalp
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Idea

Post by ohlidalp »

Idea: "Planning mode" for construction.

"Planning mode" would be an alternate way to do any construction. Player can toggle it on/off anytime he wants. While it is on, he builds as usual (whatever that means in TE), but the construction he does is not immediately performed - instead of that player sees it displayed/highlighted somehow (transparent track or some such) and he can view the total cost of it. When he wishes to end "planning mode", he may either choose to build the project (all the construction he "planned" is performed for real and he pays for it) or delete it (and continue from the place he toggled the "planning mode" on).

I think everyone sometimes has to "go back and try again" when building. I definitely do :). And there is an annoying fact about this - removing track doesnt earn back as much money as the player has put in it. But with this system implemented, that wouldnt be a problem anymore.

What do you think about it?
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bob27
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Re: Ideas, volume 2

Post by bob27 »

Oooh nice idea.
Or you could have a virtual world to build in that look like the real one but isn't.
But the more I think about it, a translucent track (or whatever) would be cooler and easier to work with.
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My "Intelligent passengers" solution

Post by ohlidalp »

Parkey wrote: Passengers have a SPECIFIC DESTINATION in mind when they board a train...
Now, any ideas how on earth that could possibly be done?!
I have an idea how to implement this: Instead of having one cargoType "passengers", that is produced in all towns and accepted in all towns, lets dynamically generate N "passengersTo" cargoTypes for each destination in the game.

:arrow: Example: There are two towns on the map: Bigville and Smallville. Bigville produces "PassengersToSmallville" and accepts "PassengersToBigville". Smallville produces "PassengersToBigville" and accepts "PassengersToSmallville". PassengersToBigville and PassengersToSmallville are 2 different cargos, like coal and oil (of course, there is only one passenger car for both passenger-cargos :D ).
:arrow: If there is a third town, Middleville, there would be one more cargoType: PassengersToMiddleville. In that case, Bigville would produce both PassengersToSmallville and PassengersToMiddleville. Much the same way like farm in OTTD produces both livestock and grain. You may transport both or only one cargo (or none :D ). The farm produces both whether you transport or not and the production is stated in its window. Much the same way, a town produces several passenger-cargos whether you transport them or not. If you only want to transport livestock in OTTD, grain wont flow into your station - and analogically if you only want to transport one passenger-cargo, others wont visit your station - but they are still produced and you may start transporting them whenever you want.
:arrow: The amount of specific passenger-cargo production would be destination-town-size dependant. Bigville will produce more PassengersToMiddleville than PassengersToSmallville because Middleville is a bigger town.
:arrow: City transport: Every city will also produce its own passenger-cargo for city transporg: Bigville will produce PassengersToBigville and so... These passengers will be dumb as usual - they wont matter in which part of town you load/unload them.

:mrgreen: How's that?
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