Auto-replacement of vehicles/trains

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Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 47 total)
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  • #10918
    gGeorg
    Participant

    I didnt found how to “Qote &reply” on this forum.

    Well, Douglas
    I don’t see the need for complication. Vehicle replacement is about vehicle not lines. A button on the vehicle called Replace now is enough. Magically reset the vehicle age, running cost and value.”
    This could be a solution, but why we have depots then?  🙂 Maybe add another magical function too, just pres button and horses are transmutated to the new engine car directly on the road. I hope that this game is heading for simulation getting close to reality. Therefore, any magic functions which could be simulated by normal/ real way is not intended.

    “Usually in lines there are vehicles with extremely different ages.”
    Correct.
    “Also I don’t really replace vehicles when the game tells me to. they are profitable for much longer.”
    Correct. When you have 200 cars its pain to do it one by one. Personally, I dont like mikro-management.  What if the auto-replacement button for a line has a selector of age in percentage. This way you can On/off auto replace. When On, set the time scale for replacement. For example change from default  100% to 142%. Then your cars serve longer and finally get replaced without tiresome clicking.“The button can also be right in the vehicles window. Just sort by age and click replace next to the vehicle. Very easy.” Very correct. I think this is the exact place for the button. Here should definitely be the button for comfort replacing the vehicles one by one.

    “And most important: REMOVE POP UP ABOUT VEHICLE AGE. That is very annoying and loud and unnecessary. The player should check the age of his fleet from time to time in the vehicle window.”Correct. Although, I would have some information about my vehicles. Maybe a decent information area in the corner? something like in the Counter strike when it tells Who killed Who by small text rolling.

     

    #10920
    matsv201
    Participant

    CIM2 have a much nicer solution for this. The vehicles visit the depot for every revolution of the line then its cleand and repaired. If its not finished cleaning when its put out in service, the coustmers will not like it, if its not finished repairing the runingcost increase.

    Also, one more feature i like in CIM2 is that its the depot that own the vehicles, then the lines rent vehicles from the depot with a given interval. In that way they don´t clump up. Also, there is no runingcost of the Vehicle when its in the depot, but there is a cost of the depot, the larger depot can clean a larger number of vehicles. If i remember correctly, the large depot can hold 30 vehicles and clean 3 simultaneous. You can still have like 50 or so vehicles attached to one depot, but they can´t be in the depot simultaneous (they have to wait on the road outside until there is a free slot).

    If needing to replace vehicles just simply go to the depot and buy some new ones and sell of some old ones.

    It might not be perfectly adaptable to train fever, it is probably a good model to use.

    #10921
    gGeorg
    Participant

    “If needing to replace vehicles just simply go to the depot and buy some new ones and sell of some old ones”

    Correct. That sounds simple. Currenr status of the Train Fever allow that, just by few clics. But it cause huge economy drops. In numbers, on my las test I replaced aboout 100 horses for first lorry. It cost me about 1M. Cars go to the depot immeditaly so their load is wasted. Therfore I have sufferd about 3M losse in next two yars.

    Theoreticaly, you could chcek if they have load, en then send to depo and then buy a new picece. Pretty fun to wath if you have 5 cars. If you have 100 its pain in the a.. .

    #10922
    matsv201
    Participant

    Well, yea… its quite nice, because the vehicles in the depot is always out of service… and i think you can sort what the lines should prioritize. You can set them to take cleand buses first, but also take new or large (or small) buses first. The time table system makes it needlessly complex. In Train fever there would only need a intervall timer and a preferences list.

    For example one line can prefer to use one type of bus, the other line can prefer a other type… but if there is no available of the type it need, it takes a other. In this way they can prefer a newer vehicle, leaving all old one for sale.

    The repair and clean system also makes it beneficial to have at least 3 vehicles at a time in the depot, and in most cases around 10… because there is no runingcost in the depot, its no problem having a fiew spare.

    #10923
    matsv201
    Participant

    Well, yea… its quite nice, because the vehicles in the depot is always out of service… and i think you can sort what the lines should prioritize. You can set them to take cleand buses first, but also take new or large (or small) buses first. The time table system makes it needlessly complex. In Train fever there would only need a intervall timer and a preferences list.

    For example one line can prefer to use one type of bus, the other line can prefer a other type… but if there is no available of the type it need, it takes a other. In this way they can prefer a newer vehicle, leaving all old one for sale.

    The repair and clean system also makes it beneficial to have at least 3 vehicles at a time in the depot, and in most cases around 10… because there is no runingcost in the depot, its no problem having a fiew spare.

    #11834
    gGeorg
    Participant

    Hello Devs,

    is there any info info about auto-replacement feature?

    Would you make a video dev diary once per two weeks?
    20 minutes shot would be enough to keep connection with your customers.

    Thx

    #14335
    thess
    Participant

    Any developments?

    #14387
    Gasolene
    Participant

    I don’t know what’s possible but at least the function “drop all passengers by the next stop, return to the depot and send another vehicle on track” is the least comfort I’d like to see.

    +1

    A magic replace button that resets the life and deducts cost would be immersion breaking, but a replace button that instructed the vehicle to drop load, head to depot and send another “same/newer” vehicle in its place would be awesome.

    #14389
    LB
    Participant

    Well, auto replace worked well in Open TTD. But, that game required routine maintenance of vehicles, so you would have to include a trip to the depot regularly or have the route pass very close to a depot. If the age of the vehicle was up, it would replace itself when it went in for routine maintenance. Personally, I think doing that has better immersion than simply deducting money every month from your vehicles; it still involves the running costs, but in a more realistic way.

    Also, routine maintenance prevented the vehicles from breaking down and blocking traffic which added more to the realism; ie: the older and more infrequently the vehicle was maintained, the more frequently it would break down.

    And, @gGeorg: Although a video diary would be a nice touch, making a 20 minute video can take up to a week to produce, so it would be quite unpractical and would take them away from actually working on the game itself. The fact that the devs actually appear on these forums shows that they do read these comments, which is more than what other developers do. I think that is an encouraging sign by itself and, from reading their comments, I know that they have already mentioned that they’re focusing on performance at the moment which would arguably be the most important issue for the game right now. The other “nice” features will have to wait for the performance issues to be solved first; all of which will take time.

    In the meantime, I’ve got several other games on the go with similar problems. Between them, updates occur quite regularly so I can switch between them as they are released. You’ll go crazy if you only have one game that you’re hanging out for. 😀

    #14392
    douglas
    Participant

    I think the OpenTTD way is not possible. In TF I make trains leave the depot and run long way till they are actually in their route. They can’t easily go back for replacement, unless I manually guide them. The devs would need to work a lot on AI pathfinding to make it possible.

    I wouldn’t mind a magic button to reset vehicle age. Simple because who wants a more realistic way already have it.

    #14394
    gGeorg
    Participant

    @LB 20 minute video – yes it could take. however I am not talking about super-professional short move with orchestral music and digital tricks. I am talking about a “Skype-like” chat to the camera. Check the paradox dev diary. – 2 guys in front of a camera with Picture in picture are chatting and showing the unfinished code, the game hangs up sometimes. I think the paradox have a great style, Urban games could go even lower to satisfy and hype-up (cheer-up) the players.

    The trick have few game and switch works well – I like Assault Squad for example – also small team, painfully slow development. 😀

     

    Well auto replacement would be great for cars in the first. – althout game name is TRAIN fever – for good economy you usually have vehicles in car:train ratio in about 15:1 .That means a lot of cars(trams).  In this case, nothing special is needed. At the moment the car hit his age,the vehicle switch to – unload only mod, and goes as long as he deliver all the loaded stuff.  At the moment it switches the mode the new car leaves the nearest depo and follow the original route. Easy to program, easy to debug. Nice to watch and close to real.

    As far as I remember all the complains for replacement was about cars. Not trains. So, solve the issues as it is no something else.

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 12 months ago by gGeorg.
    • This reply was modified 9 years, 12 months ago by gGeorg.
    #14397
    LB
    Participant

    I think if the time scale of the game was lowered, even to 5min per game day instead of 2 seconds, it would allow for the provision of taking time once every 6months to put a train in for servicing as it wouldn’t hurt the passengers or cargo as much. That would also allow for day/night as well, but would require a lot of scaling for money and passengers etc. A depot, or maintenance yard could be put into the route as a “only if necessary” way point, that would be ignored if the vehicle didn’t need servicing at that time. Servicing could take a whole game day to complete, so you would need enough vehicles in the line to cope with servicing.

    I’ve always thought that it would be great to have the trains decouple their wagons so that they could turn around on turntables and even go for servicing without all of their wagons attached (Even for turning around at a station, the current method is extremely unrealistic). Maybe a “spare” loco could pick up the wagons while the other went for servicing and became the new “spare”. But that’s another idea altogether and would require a lot of new features including track configurations and turntables.

    But, being able to run the train in reverse would allow for zig-zag tracks up hills… 😉

    But, my original comment was more about road vehicles or trams anyway; trains are fairly easy to replace because you tend to have a lot less of them, but the idea could work for them anyway.

    I wasn’t talking about a super professional video either, I’ve made videos before and to get a watchable video, you need to edit it which is where all the time is spent (also, I could just be terrible at making videos 😛 ). Even a simple video takes a long time to edit and produce, and would take a day out of their schedule, at least. But, I would happily settle for a weekly update in text if they didn’t have time for a video (a video would be better, though).

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 12 months ago by LB.
    #16849
    chillybmf
    Participant

    So ive just really got into my first 150 year game, and vehicle replacement is a major pain in the ass!!!!

    Any new on this feature or if its even under consideration by the dev team?

    #16850
    uzurpator
    Participant

    It has been implemented about 2 months ago.

    #16851
    sovetskysoyuz
    Participant

    It still needs some work, though.

    In in my current game (large map), I have about twenty cities connected, with about ten bus and team lines in each for a total of 200-ish road vehicle lines (maybe 50 tram and 150 bus).

    Whenever a new bus is available, and I want to set all the bus lines to autoreplace with the new bus rather than the previous model, I have to:

    • Open the line up
    • Click on “Vehicle replacement” (since clicking the auto-replace icon in the lines window doesn’t go straight to this tab)
    • Click “Set vehicle”
    • Click the new bus
    • Click “Buy Vehicle”
    • Close the line

    That makes a total of 900 clicks to switch each line over.

    The devs should add a feature to switch all lines of a certain type (bus, tram, truck) to a new auto-replacement vehicle at the same time.

    Alternately, the options on the “Vehicle Replacement” tab of a line’s window could be moved to the overall Lines window as additional columns, so that changing the vehicle would require only two clicks per line.

     

Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 47 total)
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