Another trains and railroads idea

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Would you like to see it implemented?

Yes
42
88%
No
4
8%
No opinion
2
4%
 
Total votes: 48
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Greek
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Another trains and railroads idea

Postby Greek » Thu Nov 21, 2013 1:05 am

I was thinking for some time about trains and railroads, as something like that might expand technology tree and be finally a challenge for developed cities.
Old suggestions were usually quite interesting, but all had some serious flaws, so I was thinking about system which wouldn't have any of them.
Final idea came when I was changing travels code to make it work for horseback riding. It appeared that it's not so hard to add special ability for some vehicles, which is core of this suggestion.

Suggestion is about a new vehicle type: train (fueled by coal) and new road type: railroad (improvement of expressway, so road would then be called "expressway and railroad").
I've got impression that trains should be preferred mean of transport for long distances, but giving it just higher speed than car won't make it useful. Hmm, and there goes my idea.
Trains move just like cars, but when they reach destination then they automatically look for other railroad in destination location and use it to continue the travel. It means, when we have railway...
For example:
A----B----C
Distance between A and B is 50px, train has speed of 75px per tick.
Train starts in A, comes to B. It automatically continues travel from B to C and goes another 25px, so it's pretty near of C. People in train would be notified that they pass location B. People in B would be notified that train has passed their location.

Probably some of you already see one or two problems.
1. What if there are more than 2 railroads coming from the location?
2. What if we have railway: A----B----C----D----E and A, C, E are big cities where we'd like to always stop?

There's one answer for both. Solution is introduction of a special object which can be called railway platform and forces train to stop and not continue the journey. It should be built only in big locations to not lose train's special speed boost.
Building a platform when there are 3 railroads coming from one location wouldn't be necessary, but without it train would select random of 2 railroads, which is usually unwanted ;)

In the following situation platform in location B is a good idea, however it makes travel between A and C as slow as when using normal vehicle.

Code: Select all

A----B----C
     '--D

In such situation it might be better to remove railroad from B to D and connect C and D.

It should also be possible to stop train in the nearest location by setting its speed to less than 100%. It might be sometimes useful to make a stop in the wilderness. :P

Of course railroads should be expensive (iron+wood) to build. They should also require maintenance once a few decades and be disassemblable.
Trains should be expensive and consume coal. They should have big cargo capacity and have speed similar to fastest cars.

Why I think my idea is better than older ones? (if you don't know them then this point may be unclear)
- no teleportation, so you can see people who really travel
- no extensive automation
- railroads come along normal roads, so it's possible to create one main line and a few branch lines. Railroads can be reused if planned wisely
- my idea doesn't have problem of determining railroad distance like it is in idea of creating direct railroad between cities (shortest path between two points is not always possible)
- and another difference with idea of direct connection between distant cities - no magic OOC knowledge about distant locations is needed to build a railroad
- it's self-balancing. In ideas where it's possible to connect everything with everything, people would try and finally manage to do it. Here it's possible, but unwanted to build railroads and platforms everywhere, because it'd make trains useless. With this idea I think big cities would try to have as little stops as possible, while small towns would try to prove they are important enough to have one.

Some limitations and problems:
- you have to build an expressway to build a railroad (not a big problem. Expressways are expensive, while railroads even more expensive)
- it's not necessary to build a platform if city has just one railroad coming from them
- whole train must be just one vehicle (without separate railroad cars and locomotive), because it's impossible to have multiple vehicles linked together. But it'd be like that for any serious train suggestion
* to reduce problems caused by thing above it might be possible to add special lock (separate from vehicle lock) which restricts driving a train to a keyholder

Suggestion contains some technical stuff, because together with inventing it, I was checking which ideas are able to be implemented.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Swingerzetta
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Re: Another trains and railroads idea

Postby Swingerzetta » Thu Nov 21, 2013 6:04 am

This sounds pretty fun. So the benefit is that passengers wouldn't be hindered by having the distance round down at every town, and they wouldn't need to be awake on every travel tick. It makes a lot of sense.
I would like to see them be difficult to turn around, though. Like, you'd have to get to the next town before it would turn around.
Also, would multiple trains be able to pass eachother on the same railroad? That'd be simplest, but not quite realistic.
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Re: Another trains and railroads idea

Postby Uma » Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:03 pm

if trains had a distinct conductors driving cabin room thing (what's that called on the train?) and passengers rode in a passenger car. it would have a lot of use as a way to get around without having to do he unlock/lock car dance.

it would be neat if a train would pick up freight and mail containers :)
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Re: Another trains and railroads idea

Postby Uma » Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:07 pm

um. this is probably complicating your idea. but what if a 'rail platform' came with two rooms. a passenger bay, and a freight bay. When the train arrives, if the freight or passenger cars are unlocked. ANYONE in those rooms are pulled in (via mighty train strength). that way the conductor could immediately keep driving.

The town itself could deal with policing the access to the bays. maybe the conductors could choose which depots to auto load.

THIS would make moving via train not a circus like normal travel.
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oddedd
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Re: Another trains and railroads idea

Postby oddedd » Sat Dec 14, 2013 11:42 am

I love it Greek :-)
When you're falling off a cliff you might as well try to fly.
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Re: Another trains and railroads idea

Postby Erwin » Sun Dec 15, 2013 10:43 am

Will people be able to build rooms inside the trains?
Perhaps trains should on default have a locked control room inside the train from where someone can start the train while the main train area has no default lock.

Also, are we assuming the rails that are build are double rails?
Trains have the stunning ability to not be able to pass through eachother so if there's only single rails there will be some problems.

For example, in the following situation:
A==1>=====B====<2==C
If there was single rails and both train 1 and 2 would head towards platform B neither of them would be able to continue on towards A for 2 and C for 1.

A==1>=====B========C
A=========B====<2==C
If we were to assume that everything build is double rails you wouldn't have that problem, but what would happen if two trains would come from the same direction?

A=========B========C
A=========B=<1=<2==C
Would in this case train 1 and 2 just be able to magically pass through each other or would train 2 always have to wait for train 1 to leave before heading on, which would create some interesting railroad traffic issues.
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Re: Another trains and railroads idea

Postby Shaderon » Sun Dec 15, 2013 11:35 am

Unless we just assumed automatic switching of lines whenever necessary. It's not "Earthian" but a lot of things on cantr aren't "Earthian" anyway.
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Greek
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Re: Another trains and railroads idea

Postby Greek » Mon Dec 30, 2013 1:57 pm

I think we can assume that there are two railroads in two directions. Also, when we don't have car accidents when two jeeps are driving on the same forest path, then I don't see a reason to have it only for trains.

I would like to see them be difficult to turn around, though. Like, you'd have to get to the next town before it would turn around.

Possibility of turning around can be easily disabled.


um. this is probably complicating your idea. but what if a 'rail platform' came with two rooms. a passenger bay, and a freight bay. When the train arrives, if the freight or passenger cars are unlocked. ANYONE in those rooms are pulled in (via mighty train strength). that way the conductor could immediately keep driving.

The town itself could deal with policing the access to the bays. maybe the conductors could choose which depots to auto load.

THIS would make moving via train not a circus like normal travel.

Seems over-complicated. Especially when in my idea platform must be an object, because it's not possible to go through a building to enter the vehicle and, at the same time, be able to enter the same vehicle from outside. Vehicle can be in just one location at a time, otherwise it'd require magic teleport between platform building and train.
It's also hard to predict what can happen with such automated actions, when train that comes first is heading in the opposite direction. Or, even better, when owner of the train is a serial killer. :D

Will people be able to build rooms inside the trains?

There are some hard-coded limitations with that, but it's not the main problem, as any technical issue can be solved somehow. For me, the main problem with buildings inside vehicles with current fighting system is: it's much easier to drag people inside and kill them there than attack and kill them at location they are standing. So it would be like introduction of cargo-hold-like attacks for land vehicles. Even more, it's impossible to break into a land vehicle when it's moving on the road, so it will not be possible to save people kidnapped this way. That's why there are no plans of adding police-cages for cars, too.
Another thing is that conductor would be invisible for people outside. Other people would have to enter vehicle or building with window to see them, because it's how visibility system works. Maybe not very exploitable, but silly.

Thing that can be done is lockable train controls being an object, which use different key than train door.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Another trains and railroads idea

Postby Uma » Mon Dec 30, 2013 5:01 pm

we really should have lockable controls for all vehicles. that way a bus can be a bus to haul people without the risk of two people shoving you out and driving off some where.

We should be able to make separate keys for the vehicle vs the ignition :) or the wheel in a boat i guess?
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Greek
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Re: Another trains and railroads idea

Postby Greek » Wed Jan 01, 2014 3:44 pm

Mr. Bones wrote:If you really want something accepted and implemented quickly, then get on Prog D or RD, because in there, they are all one big happy family and will oblige you. I think I've seen some of Greek and Echoman's suggestions get accepted and implemented within two weeks.

Mr. Bones would be proud of me :)

Moving to accepted.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Another trains and railroads idea

Postby BosBaBe » Thu Feb 20, 2014 2:24 am

Oooooooh I love this idea! I'm a bit of an steam engine fanatic. Would there different types of locos? I mean if you had a railway running inbetween towns, perhaps there would be small railways connecting a few close by towns, and larger railways the go further than that connecting the different districts or that travel longers distances? Big engines like tender engines could travel further while tank engines or small tender engines travel smaller distances?

If you really wanted to get complicated, there could also be freight engines that haul goods like resources and goods for trains, or even other vehicles? Freight engines are slower than Passenger engines, but then you have the Mixed Traffic engine which can take both. Passenger engines are faster than both types though.

Each engine could be made relatively the same way, but with varying parts. And big engines have more wheels and various other parts that make them go faster.

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