Replace old vehicles even when no service?

[pickpacket]

I usually play with these settings:

• Vehicle breakdowns: None
• Disable servicing when breakdowns set to none: On
• Autorenew vehicle when it gets old: On

I understand the interaction between the first two. No need for automatic servicing if breakdowns are set to None, after all.

My issue is that it also affects that third setting. It seems to me that when servicing is disabled the autorenew is also disabled. Despite these being entirely different settings. There is definitely an argument for that: since breakdowns won't happen the reduced reliability of an ageing vehicle is irrelevant. But the age of a vehicle also affects station ratings, and more to the point I think it's confusing that the autorenew setting is affected because that interaction between these settings isn't obvious.

I suggest that disabling servicing should not affect autorenewal of vehicles.

This is the sort of thing I believe I can fix. Should I? What do you all think?

[Auge]

Hello

I usually play with these settings:

• Vehicle breakdowns: None
• Disable servicing when breakdowns set to none: On
• Autorenew vehicle when it gets old: On

My issue is that it also affects that third setting. It seems to me that when servicing is disabled the autorenew is also disabled.

To be nitpicking: No, disabling the first two settings does not disable autorenew. But yes, it affects autorenewing because the vehicles never visit a depot which is nesessary for autorenewing (and autoreplacing). IMHO the problem here is the concept of disable servicing even the depot with all its tasks is a fundamental part of the game mechanics. It's not only necessary for servicing (what in itself makes no sense with disabled breakdowns) but it's also mandatory for replacing a vehicle with another vehicle of the same or another type. No depot visit, no replacement.

You as the player can send all (or a group of) vehicles (for servicing) to depot to enforce autorenewing or autoreplacing from within every vehicle list window. You can also enforce a depot visit in the vehicles orders window with a conditional order to visit a depot depending of the remaining lifetime of a vehicle.

I suggest that disabling servicing should not affect autorenewal of vehicles.

This is the sort of thing I believe I can fix. Should I? What do you all think?

The setting to disable servicing with disabled breakdowns IMHO needs at least a mention of the consequences for autorenewing and autoreplacing in its description text.

In my imagination, making the settings depending on the state of the other settings could get very complex. Visiting a depot is a mandatory requirement for autorenewing/autoreplacement. The consequence is, that one can not disable the depot visits or, with disabled depot visits, one can not enable autorenewing. Autoreplacments (replacing a vehicle with one of another/newer type) has no setting at all but is a feature, which is offered to the player in the UI of the vehicle-class-lists. Even it also does not work with disabled servicing it can not be influenced by manipulating a (not existing) setting.

And here we are again at the point, where the consequences of the mutual dependencies should be described in an understandable manner.

Tschö, Auge

[pickpacket]

You as the player can send all (or a group of) vehicles (for servicing) to depot to enforce autorenewing or autoreplacing from within every vehicle list window. You can also enforce a depot visit in the vehicles orders window with a conditional order to visit a depot depending of the remaining lifetime of a vehicle.
Autoreplacments (replacing a vehicle with one of another/newer type) has no setting at all but is a feature, which is offered to the player in the UI of the vehicle-class-lists. Even it also does not work with disabled servicing it can not be influenced by manipulating a (not existing) setting.

Yeah, there are options in the "Manage list" menu. I don't know what you mean by "autoreplacements" but the "replace vehicles" feature works fine even with servicing disabled.

But yeah, I guess the issue is really about it being unclear how these settings interact.

I'm gonna try the conditional order idea.

[LaChupacabra]

I'm gonna try the conditional order idea.

Creating conditional orders for each connection? A terrifying form of self-sadism.

The "Send to servicing" button is not a better option either - it can cause a huge mess, especially in the case of trains that, after entering a random depot, may not be able to find their way. There may be hundreds of such trains in a large network... Nightmare.

The only reasonable solution I know is to replace the vehicles with the same model and select the "replace only old vehicles" option. But this is also not the best when you have many different models and many groups, where you want to leave some of them unchanged and replace some of them. Keeping track of all this can be downright tedious.

Autorenew.png (124.21 KiB) Viewed 1412 times

Meanwhile, there are indeed sets (e.g. Polroad) where old vehicles are becoming more and more expensive to maintain, and even if breakdowns are excluded, their replacement becomes economically very necessary. This is even more justified considering the current possibility of stopping in time and playing endlessly in the same year. Therefore, I think changing the current behavior or simply adding the appropriate behavior when autorenew is enabled would be useful.

[Auge]

Hello

The only reasonable solution I know is to replace the vehicles with the same model and select the "replace only old vehicles" option.

Even with this approach one needs to send the vehicles to a depot or am I wrong? If so, the initial questing remains, how to send a vehicle to a depot with the enabled setting not to (need to) go to depots.

Tschö, Auge

[LaChupacabra]

Even with this approach one needs to send the vehicles to a depot or am I wrong?

The thing is, you don't have to do this. The vehicles will drive themselves to the depot located near their route. This works the same as regular autoreplace, but only happens when vehicles reach their maximum age.

This works, but it would still be appropriate for the autorenew function to work regardless of whether servicing is enabled or not. So...

This is the sort of thing I believe I can fix. Should I? What do you all think?

If you could, it would be nice of you.

[Eddi]

as far as i remember, there IS a special rule to re-enable automatic servicing when autoreplace is set, but it doesn't apply to autorenew.

also, there is a separate issue where, if you play without servicing, you might not have depots within servicing range along all your routes.

[pickpacket]

I usually have at least one depot along each route, because adding and autoreplacing trains. Is this different from finding a depot for service?

[skc]

I build my non-PASS/non-MAIL lines as point-to-point lines, so don't have issues with the pathfinder sending a train down a branchline away from its current destination/waypoint.
I play the three settings you mentioned in your 1st post set the same way as you. I also have 'autorenew when vehicle is xxx maximum age' set to '6 months before', and 'autorenew minimum needed money for renew' set to 0.

When it's time to upgrade the trains on any line, I remove the straight-through track outside the depot(s) which then forces the approaching train to enter the depot - any auto-replace routine will then be fired as the train is in the depot.
As I always try to have a train or two queued-up waiting for a platform to become available, and I always place a depot on the approach to the pick-up station this tactic doesn't interfere with the service level at the station (except if it's a REALLY high-throughput station).

[pickpacket]

I have really high throughput stations and don't want to clog up the line with overflow depots

I also use point-to-point lines most of the time, because merges are hell. When I do merge two or more lines together for whatever reason I place the depot at a point where all trains naturally pass. That prevents them from going down sidelines to find a closer depot.

Can anyone see any way changing the "autorenew" setting to actually direct trains to depots to perform the autorenew would break gameplay? I understand that the "going to nearest depot and getting lost" can be a problem, but that same problem occurs when you autoreplace so it's hardly a new thing.

[pickpacket]

Okay, I know how to do this change in the code (I'll cause some stupid compile errors along the way of course). The question is whether it's a useful thing.

The reason I want to do it is because vehicle age affects station rating, but only up to an age of 3 years (I also hate seeing all the red in the vehicle lists, but that doesn't matter). The setting for "Autorenew when [...]" isn't a fixed age, however. It's an age relative to the maximum age of the vehicle, which varies but is always far more than 3 years.

Vehicle reliability depends on a percentage of the vehicle maximum age. If you play with breakdowns then setting the renewal relative to this makes sense, but if it's the stations ratings that matter then the absolute age is what matters.

Right now I'm thinking that just making autorenew work with autoservice disabled is kind of useless, unless the setting for when to do it can be expressed in either absolute age or relative to maximum age. That's a whole other beast that's definitely harder to implement. I'll look into it, if you feel like it's a good idea.