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payment system

Simutrans 101.0 release note: "CHANGE: payment is now only for the decrease in distance to the next transfer stop"

Can someone explain me what this change exactly means? How does it work?

I realise it has something to do with reducing huge earnings but the only effect I noticed is that it disadvantages lines with larger number of stops - lines that go from one stop to another and back make nice profit, while a plane fully loaded on a line with five overcrowded airports loses horribly (the same with trams or buses). It seems that payment is only made when the p****anger meets the final stop and even only for distance between the two last stops. ???

Re: payment system

Reply #1 –
In the old system, you get paid for distance traveled between each station.  There is a way to cheat with that system.  If a p****enger is in A and wants to go to B, you can make him travel several stations around the world to make easy money before reaching destination.

In the new system, if you take p****engers away from their transfer/destination station, you don't earn money any more.  The side effect is that circular lines are not as profitable as before.

In last versions, the system is configurable.

Re: payment system

Reply #2 –
I recently changed to version 101 and discovered that my p****enger system is now broken because most of my p****enger trains are not generating a profit despite being constantly full.  At this point I have no idea on how to fix it because I don't understand the difference in how p****enger income is calculated. 

I've looked around the forum and frankly this new payment system is confusing and frustrating because there are no clear explanations on how it works (apparently it's no longer a simple matter of how far the p****engers travel).  I still do not understand how it works. I know what the perceived problem that it was trying to fix was, but that doesn't tell me how the new system works.

Any help would be appreciated including a way to choose the old method if possible because I don't see how the old system was broken even though some apparently thought you could "cheat" under it.
 

Re: payment system

Reply #3 –
Use a nightly. There it is back the previous one, since it really did a very strong decrease on circle lines.

THe payment has three settings:
- payment relative to distance to the las stations
- payment relative to next transfer (or destination)
- payment relative to destination

101 was set this to the middle value to avoid some cheat when bouncing a completely filled bus between two stations.

Re: payment system

Reply #4 –
Is it possible to choose different option somewhere in the confuguration? I think the most fair way of paying is to take the actual distance between 2 places.

Re: payment system

Reply #5 –
In the nightlies there is a new parameter in simuconf.tab. It is called
pay_for_total_distance = 0

The values are in the same order as described above, either 0 (old system) 1 (dist. to transfer) or 2 (distance to destination).

Re: payment system

Reply #6 –
Thanks prissi.  I downloaded the nightly and now it's performing now the way it did under 100.  I'll have to play around with the new settings sometime.