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Topic: Aiport Choose Signals (Read 9927 times) previous topic - next topic

Aiport Choose Signals

I've come across a small problem with airport runways. You can make a plane land and take off from two different runways, North and South but you can't make them choose between multiple runways, say two North and two South. If you have a lot of planes and the existing Loading Bays are full the other planes will just stack up and fly in circles above one runway.

I suppose one solution would be to designate different Loading Bays to different runways. (Just thought of that). Nah! forget that, it can't be done without making two airports.

This is not related to the Stop and Direction indicators.

Incidentally, the white arrow indicators need a detailed explanation on how they work. I've learned, at the cost of Mega congestions, because planes couldn't find a route. They don't seem to care which way the arrows point, but if you get one where the Taxiway crosses the runway, they wont move from the loading bay.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

 When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #1 –
I think of it more like a terminal 1, 2, 3 sort of deal, except each terminal gets their own dedicated runways.

there's a lot of clutter in this airport, but it's supposed to look like a real airport. Down to the core, there's simply One terminal for p****engers and another terminal for freight and they're forced to go in a loop that doesn't overlap with each other.


It can be much more compact by taking out all the eye candy pieces.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #2 –
This is what I meant by different Loading Bays, but I didn't like it, much too cumbersome.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

 When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Colin – on
I suppose one solution would be to designate different Loading Bays to different runways. (Just thought of that). Nah! forget that, it can't be done without making two airports.
Yes, it can be done in the same airport with the help of some signals, but actually you enroute your vehicles like if they were different airports. You have to divide manually by routing between the two different airport sections, just by ****igning a route to any of the "Section 1" stops, and another route to a stop in "Section 2". Unfortunately, you can't make that two planes with the same route ****igned choose different landing runways, depending on air traffic volume.

Anyway, here is an example which I usually build in my games: three runway airport.
 

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #4 –
YOu can use waypoints on the outgoing way on the airport.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Zeno – on

Anyway, here is an example which I usually build in my games: three runway airport.


This is one way but it sure is ugly. No disrespect intended.

I think I'll try Prissi's 'waypoint' suggestion it seems like it might work. What would probably be better would be some kind of 'Choose' signal that could be placed at the beginning or end of a runway. Maybe this is not feasible. I'm no programmer.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

 When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #6 –
I guess the problem is where to put the choose signal. The signal should be before the landing runway, just before the planes begin to fly in circles, so the behaviour is like if runway is busy, look for alternative runway. Unfortunately, there's no place between take-off runway and land runway to place such hypotetical signal :(

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think at the moment different schedules/lines are needed in order to make the planes take off or land in a specific runway. That includes different stops, waypoints, etc.

PS: Now that I think on that, it might be possible to use choose signals (if existed) for taking-off runways, am I right?

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #7 –
The plane tries to find a free path when cycling. But it will not start way a search, because this is way to expensive and will freeze the plane in the air if not limited to a very small radius.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #8 –
The plane could search and cache all the possible runaway paths before taking off and, while circling, just test the first one to be free.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #9 –
Isn't way search for planes almost "free", in terms of resources? There is nothing to search except for airports, the air is "empty", no?

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #10 –
Perhaps there's a way to solve this without adding to the overhead.

Picture this: a skybuoy button adds air-waypoints. The waypoint can't be added to a schedule until the user clicks on it with the magnifying gl**** tool. When the user clicks on it, a dialog opens like the create schedule dialog, allowing the user to "connect" that waypoint to one or more runways. Then, planes can have that air-waypoint in their schedules, but the air routfinder will only look (when a plane reaches that waypoint either first time or as part of its holding pattern) at the runways connectes to that waypoint to see if they are free. This can also allow the user to choose where the holding pattern occurs.
Garbage collection code can remove the air-waypoint when all its runways are rendered inoperable, or sanity check code can forbid bulldozing runway that is connected to an air-waypoint.
Since this basically doesn't exist as an object in real life, it could be represented in the game by an ATC tower (there's already one or more graphics, at least in pak64), and all it would take to integrate that graphic to this idea would be to make it buildable outside a station... or else the air-waypoint would have to be above an airport... the planes should go to that square plus some height factor)

How hard would that be to code (1-10, 1 being toss together in an hour and 10 being never gonna happen)?
--Skreyola
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Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #11 –
You can add waypoints to air schedule. If you do this correctly, you can force on or the other runway. But this gains nothing: The wayfinder must find a way from the parking position to the runway. This can be only done in a step, thus the plane has to stop there until a step occurs (about every 200ms). This is really ugly, it was present in old versions.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #12 –
Why not just a tall tower/pole with a choose signal on top. and code the plane to look for it. Pretty much like a railway train does. It would not have to be too tall, after all, the planes only 'fly' in simulated space.

This could apply to choosing a take off runway too.

Planes will not, at the moment, choose anyone one from two parallel runways even if the runways are linked together with a taxiway. they will always take the first runway.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

 When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #13 –
Choosing involve route search. Route search cannot be done during display but only roughly 5 times a second => for any route search, no matter how dimple, the plane has to stop in midair for a moment.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #14 –
You can also lay out the airport in the reverse order of what zeno posted.
The one ways on the tarmac will allow the planes to choose which stop to go to, but will force them to use one of the two exit runways.


It's not unusual to have p****engers use one part of the airport, while cargo and mail gets another part of the airport, with each having dedicated runways that don't intersect. Also not all the runways are in use all the time. Outdated runways or runways being serviced don't get any use unless there's an emergency. Longer runways are normally dedicated for heavy international flights, while the shorter ones are intended for lighter aircraft, like commuter planes.

example would be O'Hare international, that has 7 runways, but not all of them are in use and there will be new runways that will run in parallel as the airport is expanded, and so that there aren't any dangerous intersections.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #15 –
This is the way i like to put them, but if it's unworkable so be it.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Thought for the day

 When you are up to your backside in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Re: Aiport Choose Signals

Reply #16 –
Perhaps planes could check to see how many avaialable runways an airport has (or the airports could keep track of it) if the airport has a control tower, and cycle through the available runways, so that each runway will get used, and perhaps there will be fewer pile-ups in the holding pattern?
--Skreyola
You can also help translate for your language with SimuTranslator.