Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: Bug / Figuring out Convoy's Speed (Read 4210 times) previous topic - next topic

Bug / Figuring out Convoy's Speed

NOTE: After some research I note the "max speed" line in the depot dialog, which addresses my concern about figuring out the load limit.  I guess there's still maybe a bug in 6.6.  I'd sooner delete this forum post.



Hello,

I spent some time playing with 6.6 and I found it incredibly frustrating to build a train, watch it roll down to the station to pick up goods, then creep along at 1kph after loading.

A bug seemed to be that even after the goods were offloaded, the train continued empty to the depot at 1kph.  I rationalized that as by overloading the engine, I burned it out.  I like to think this is a known bug the developers will fix, or at least, here I've shed some light on the issue.

What would be a handy guide, and maybe it exists, is a little table, a la Railroad Tycoon, which can take a power rating, and predict the speed at which is may carry various tonnages.  Then I can just know how long to make the convoy without wasting precious "months" of business time experimenting with trains that are losing money because they are underutilized or moving at a snail's pace.

If there's a pretty straightforward universal equation for land-convoys, I'd be happy to whip up some tables along these lines.  Ideally, though, this information could be presented in the depot build convoy dialog, and tell you the expected top speed of the train empty / full based on the consist.  Then I can just string cars on until I see the top loaded speed start to dip below what I want.

Thank you for any advice in this matter.  I'd even be willing to put my limited C / C++ / SDL programming skills to work if it might be helpful. :)

Cheers!

Sincerely,
-daniel

Re: Bug / Figuring out Convoy's Speed

Reply #1 –
Don't know about in experimental, but in standard, when you build a convoy in a depot, it gives a max speed just underneath the convoy near the top of the window.  The first number is the theoretical max speed, the one in brackets is the max possible speed fully loaded.  If this isn't in experimental, it would be a good idea to code it in...

Re: Bug / Figuring out Convoy's Speed

Reply #2 –
We generally prefer to preserve discussion - it is very often useful later :)

Re: Bug / Figuring out Convoy's Speed

Reply #3 –
Quote from: The Hood – on
The first number is the theoretical max speed, the one in brackets is the max possible speed fully loaded.  If this isn't in experimental, it would be a good idea to code it in...
In fact, both numbers are for fully-loaded convois. The first number is the max-speed when the convoi is fully loaded with the heaviest possible goods, the second one is for loading with the lightest possible goods.
This effect is most notable with boxed (or piece) goods in pak64 / pak128, where the weights of the different goods can have large differences.
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and maggikraut.

Re: Bug / Figuring out Convoy's Speed

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Dwachs – on
In fact, both numbers are for fully-loaded convois. The first number is the max-speed when the convoi is fully loaded with the heaviest possible goods, the second one is for loading with the lightest possible goods.
This effect is most notable with boxed (or piece) goods in pak64 / pak128, where the weights of the different goods can have large differences.

Dwachs,

Dang!  Maybe that line should be reformulated like:

Speed: %d unloaded, %d-%d loaded

Re: Bug / Figuring out Convoy's Speed

Reply #5 –
In June 2009 I changed the 'max speed' preview in ST experimental to x..y, where x is the maximum speed with the heaviest possible load and y the max speed of the empty convoy.

A speed range for heaviest to lightest load would ask for a list of goods, which lead to these weights. 
The journey is the reward!

Re: Bug / Figuring out Convoy's Speed

Reply #6 –
In standard version, I didn't use the max speed of the empty convoy, because that is meaningless.