Weight of cargo | General Balance

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  • #12209
    uzurpator
    Participant

    I am an old school modder of Transport Tycoon. I am, for example, an author of Tropic Refurbishment Set: http://uzurpator.com.pl/self_www/tropic_refurb/index.html

    This work required a proper balancing and research onto historical reality of costs of various technologies and whatnot. I am greatly enjoying TF, but in all honesty, game balance is horridly wrong. So, I am currently working on a game balance mod for TF, and I found an interesting problem.

    In short – how much does an unit of “cargo” weigh?

    It seems that all cargo in the game is weightless, which in my opinion is odd as hell. Moreover, it makes the distinction between freight and passanger locomotives moot.

    I am kind of working with an assumption that:

    1 passanger = 100kg ( includes luggage ;))

    1 unit of coal, oil, wood and ore – 5 tonnes

    1 unit of goods – 2.5 tonnes.

    However, I might be missing something.

    Devs?

    #12216
    FX2K
    Participant

    It seems that all cargo in the game is weightless, which in my opinion is odd as hell. Moreover, it makes the distinction between freight and passanger locomotives moot.

    I know the weight of the carriages have an effect on the train, I have tested that with racing trains with various carriages 🙂 but not really thought to test laden vs unladen…although it wouldn’t be the easiest thing to test and gather usable results..

    I would be interested in a reply from the dev’s just because I am curious now you brought it up.

    Ill keep an eye out for your mod in the future 🙂

     

    #12217
    Kiwi-NZ
    Participant

    Its already done.

    Simply split the vehicle what they can carry and the amount of loading capacity.

     

     

    #12219
    FX2K
    Participant

    Fixed your image for you Kiwi-NZ:

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by FX2K.
    #12222
    Traian Trante
    Participant

    Oh, uzurpator, i can barely wait for your mod to come up. the balance in this game IS horrid. It seems that there is no difference in acceleration between a loaded train or and empty one.

     

    #12223
    Tattoo
    Participant

    The balance in this game IS horrid. It seems that there is no difference in acceleration between a loaded train or and empty one.

    I agree. I have a train with 2 gp40-2s and 23 coal cars, 15 each load, and the train moves alone like there is nothing in it. Even tho I don’t mind that, it is very unrealistic for a train carrying that much to accelerate to full speed as if it’s empty. This game has NO realism what so ever that I can see. again I don’t mind. I don’t play for realism, I just like the game but it would be nice to have something to act like the real thing since this is a simulation supposedly.

    #12226
    bv
    Participant

    I do not see any good reason for any of the parameters to be other than normal metric units, so that a unit of bulk cargo should be one ton.  Passengers are a bit different, it looks like a unit of passengers is four persons. I guess that is in order to keep a reasonable number of people walking around.

    It seems the power curve used for steam engines is wrong, initial acceleration is quite fast. A steam locomotive has good pulling power from a standstill, but poor acceleration. Rated effect is only available at maximum speed. This is why they are not fond of grades – they cannot shift gears.

    For road vehicles it looks like the rolling resistance of carriage wheels on dirt roads is seriously underestimated, and even on cobblestones carriages move rather too easy.

    Keeping at least the internal workings working rationally with SI units will avoid lots of misunderstandings and bugs. If users want to see something different, it can always be converted for display.

    #12229
    NeighborKid
    Participant

    It has to make some sort of difference.. I’m noticing.. the first 100 km/h train running freight only gets to 70 hauling cargo.. that or my game is bugging out. Because the train is running on 120 track and has way more than enough room to reach 100…

    #12276
    uzurpator
    Participant

    bv: Modern european freight car is aboyt 20 tonnes empty and 80 tonnes full. This would imply 60 unit capacity, which is not true in game.

    I have yet to play a game with a realistic acceleration for steam engines. Most realistic acceleration models appear to use a ‘constant power’ model, which is fine for diesel-electric, diesel-hydraulic and electric locomotives. But for steam locomotive a ‘constant force’ model, up to a certain speed, is required.

    If devs wish, I can elaborate 🙂

    HeighborKid: It appears that TF uses realistic acceleration/deacceleration model. This may result in a different speed curve when a train is running A->B then when train goes B->A, which may result in what you are observing.

    Anyways. The goal of my mod is to introduce somewhat level playing field for trains and trucks. My goal is to assume:

    Trucks and buses are capacity limited – loads and loads of them are needed to service a given route, but setting them up is easy.

    Trains are infrastructure limited – they are cheap to build and run ( per unit of capacity ), but their infrastructure is expensive to build.

    For what I have gathered so far, it seems that cargo is weightless ( shame 🙁 ). Morevoer, the acceleration model is way too restrictive – it takes alot of space to reach full speed. In my tests I have increased power of locomotives by a factor of 10, and then inter-city trains were able to reach their full speed. Anyhow, I am still researching.

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