Messages

61

Tech talk / What's this board for?

« on: September 07, 2012, 11:44:10 am »

players interested in technical details can ask questions here or discuss technical solutions for the n-ice servers.

i myself will also use this to show and explain how some things are working here, so using it a bit like a blog. by that i hope that maybe we can attract some more people with good technical skills (server administration, web coding, OpenTTD GameScripts, cross-platform software programming in general...) to help with n-ice, either by becoming a fixed member of the tech team or at least by bringing in new ideas or pointing out problems.

62

Suggestions / Re: Change of rule 4 (partly "the 50% rule")

« on: September 07, 2012, 11:23:57 am »

your screenshots look attractively clear and easy to understand at first glance. however, on second glance it leaves too much room for interpretation:
- where is the center of the city/industry? admins will say here, players will say there, at least for objects not in a simple rectangular shape
- your lines and in general the center might happen to be at the center of a tile - but you cannot use only a half tile, so can players build on this center line too or not?

what i really want to avoid is that admins get dragged into discussions about arguments on tile basis, like arguing about whether tile 152x636 can be used by a player or it is already part of the other side...

about your suggestion C i think we can do a new poll on the forum, as the result was quite close. though i don't know whether the forum is good argument, as polls here get less attention that on the main site. on the other hand when people also discuss it in text here it might increase the quality of their decisions, because they think about it more.
regardless of that i think it's too early, the last poll wasn't so long ago.

63

Suggestions / Re: Short trains

« on: September 07, 2012, 11:07:20 am »

If I understand correctly the score calculation description (http://www.n-ice.org/openttd/highscorecalculation.php), the more trains a company has, the less the score. This implies that it is better to have a small number of long trains. At the same time as Sassafrass noted here: http://www.n-ice.org/openttd/forum/index.php?topic=73.0, there are some valuable and viable strategies involving high volume of short trains. But unfortunately, for some reason (?) the scoring system doesn't favour them, and therefore we don't see such systems on n-ice servers often.

In connection with the new servers being launched, may I propose the following setup:

• long run goal (5...10 billion)
• big map (up to 1024 or 2048)
• short trains only (max trainlength=5...7)
• station spread=14...20

Large stations are intended to have many small platforms for bigger loads (the usual rule about unused station parts of course applies). This setup can be combined with FIRS too, since short trains are good for distributing supplies.

And by the way, what is the justification behind encouraging small number of long trains (with score calculation)? Speaking about assessing network efficiency, i'd name a number of wagons instead of a number of trains as a factor to consider.

we don't explicitely favour a small number of long trains. also none of the people who thought up the score system (including me) have long trains included in their usual play style. when i was more active i even never used trains longer than 5 tiles (or 10 engines/cars), just because i personally liked this length and i just don't like to play with long trains.

we had the problem that at some point players figured they can give their company value a big boost by building lots of
unused engines, using this cheat they not only won the game but also boosted their scores. so the algorithm was modified to at least give a score penalty for each train by giving more scores for "train efficiency". the idea is that if you don't actually use the train (because it was only built for cheating) you would fully take that penalty. but if the train is generating a lot of money this will give again scores (because CV and Perf raises) compensating for the penalty. now in OpenTTD a train can make more money the longer it is, this is not a rule we have made, so as a side-effect longer trains don't only make more money but also give more score and compensate for the penalty better.
so longer trains giving you an advantage is just something that comes from the game anyway and our train efficiency penalty happens to make you benefit with longer trains as a side-effect.

now that i think you will understand better why the system is like it is you are still right that simply considering wagons could lead to a better solution for the above mentioned problem. but when we thought up the algorithm it wasn't technically possible to see the number of engines and wagons, the total number of trains per company was everything we had.

with introduction of gamescripts to OpenTTD this has changed. i haven't checked on the technical details so far but i am quite sure it would be possible now, for example we could calculate an "engines to wagons" ratio and only give a penalty when this falls below a certain limit (e.g. a player has more engines than wagons).
but we collect such ideas for a future change of the score system here so please suggest there. maybe you also have good ideas about what would be good ratios to still sanction cheaters while not penalizing "short train lovers" too much.


now that was for long-term improvements. but the score algorithm also uses a score multiplier that is different for every server, e.g. server 6 has the highest score multiplier as the landscape configuration makes getting CV and Perf harder and the scores on the server could never compete with those from other servers without that.

so your suggestion got my full support and when Kadar should create such a server i will make sure it has a high enough score multiplier so it can fully compete with long train servers about the scores you get.
however, when we got the server i'd ask you to help with doing some test games for us to find a balanced multiplier value (i don't want to overcompensate either...).

64

Ban/Unban Requests / Re: why i have been banned

« on: September 06, 2012, 10:24:16 pm »

you are not treated as a 14 year old child. the 14 year old child got a treatment and you are affected by it, as you share the same internet connection. at least about you and badboy there is nothing we could technically do to separate your bans, a ban of one of you will always affect the other one too.
i believe you, and i understand that it is hard for you, but if the excuse "it's not me violating the rules and i cannot stop the other one from doing it" was valid we could as well delete our rules and let everyone do what he wants. let me quote something a wise person has said not so long ago:

[23:15] <Maximillion_> u have to be strict, its the only way to control it

as stated before the ban is removed tomorrow. it has a fixed schedule, there is no hurrying 
as you were writing such a nice text i tell you a secret: due to some technical problems we had with our ban system you are only banned on servers 2, 3 and 5 right now, the other bans got lost (that makes 8 servers you are not banned on right now).

65

Suggestions / Re: Change of rule 4 (partly "the 50% rule")

« on: September 06, 2012, 08:42:45 pm »

as long as it is possible to build lets say a 20 x 20 station to drop lets wood, and a 20 x 20 to pickup goods at one lumbermill im happy!!

so i go with point 2

Geert, so you agree on leave space for competitor build 2 stations of 20x20 plus the rails?

remember that the numbers are only examples. 20x20 is more than what is even the maximum size on some servers while e.g. on server 5 it would be the same as suggestion #3. 20x20 isn't much when a regular server 5 player says it while it can sound extreme to server 7 players.

in the end we would probably have to set different limits for all servers. this is the part i don't like so much about that rule, because we would need to provide a list of limits per server. this is what lead me to add #3 and #4 to suggestions, which work around this problem by relating directly to the server settings (that players can see through the GUI or by typing !limits).

66

Suggestions / Re: Change of rule 4 (partly "the 50% rule")

« on: September 06, 2012, 08:28:51 pm »

I agree with Geert, but in addition there should be a seperation between industries like Forest, Coal mine, Iron mine,...(1) and Lumber mills, Power stations, Factory,...(2)

For the 2nd group I think it's acceptable for two 20x20 stations (1 for loading, 1 for unloading). Since you an have that many trains going to 1 industry.

For the 1st group not even one 20x20 station is required. As other players have said a 2x7 or 3x7 station should suffice. As a rule of thumb I'd so only allowed to occupy 1 side of an industry.

Another reason is that industries in the first group cost a few mill to fund, while the second group costs under a mill.

yep, that makes sense. so i think if we just take rule #2 and modify it to say "one 20x20 station for loading, one 20x20 station for unloading" that would cover it. for industries where you cannot unload anything it implicitly means that only the 20x20 loading station is allowed. or am i missing something?
i want to avoid making the rule too long, too complicated or having to put a full list of industry types there. even the few players that read the rules are likely to just go tl;dr for such entries and skip over to the next point.

i modified my first post to add this as #2b (didn't want to break the numbering)

67

Suggestions / Re: Change of rule 4 (partly "the 50% rule")

« on: September 06, 2012, 08:03:01 pm »

My personal inclination is to favour the player who came there first, since he already has made some effort to grow/supply the industry in question

sure, in less extreme cases it might happen that a player has a 20x20 station there and you only got enough room for another 10x10 station (even when touching only one tile of the coverage area). and we got to ask ourselves if this maybe isn't just OK.

i know that naturally we think it's fair when people who "came first" get an advantage. but in OpenTTD there are some things you should think about:
1. you would discourage later-joiners, especially on crowded maps - the good news is: when this leads to you playing the second half of the 100 game years alone there would be no complaints about blocking anymore 
2. admin calls where players who built at the same spot at almost the same time argue about "who came first" are never easy to handle, with more advantages for first-comers we would increase the number and severity of such conflicts
3. where do you draw the line, only when someone has built his station a year earlier? or already when someone was only seconds faster? is clicking a second faster really something that must be rewarded? this is OpenTTD, not an ego-shooter...
4. even when forced to leave the same building options for a second company players already have an advantage when they are there first (e.g. more space to lead their rails through, on cities they might grow around his station over time and bring more passengers than a station at the edge of it...)
5. even the player who came first can benefit from a rule guaranteeing enough space around "his" industry: he can start with a smaller station without having to worry too much that later he won't have room to extend it to a bigger station, because another player took the space such an extension would have needed

when discussing these things there is one thing you should always keep in mind: limiting of player 1 is done to ensure enough freedom for player 2. you argue that player 2 should have more freedom? fine, but it means you limit player 1. so you rather want less limits for player 1? OK, but now you he can use his freedom to limit player 2.

the goal should be to find a good balance between limiting and freedom for all players (that's a generic idea about laws too).

also i am sure opinions will differ pretty much about whether admins should do any decisions arbitrarily (ZeroIncome is probably already preparing his protest as we speak  )

68

Suggestions / Re: Change of rule 4 (partly "the 50% rule")

« on: September 06, 2012, 06:18:16 pm »

To clarify my suggestion, i'd like to add that I'm absolutely okay with opponents occupying 90% of space around an industry, as long as I will be able to place my station and incoming/outgoing rails comfortably, if I decide to connect to it.

a rule should never need further clarification. of course i am aware that we are still in brainstorming mode and nothing is meant to be final yet 
but just to give you a feeling what things have to be thought of i have attached some example pictures that all show situations perfectly valid by your rule "Leave enough space around an industry/town for another company to be able to connect it to their network." (given they are connected and used properly).

Example 1:

here i was very kind, i even built you a street to the one tile i left for you so you can build the lorry station that i left enough space for. ain't that generous?

Example 2:

now i even gave you enough space to connect a rail station, but only of a very small size compared to what i have constructed there. also i am leaving you barely any freedom to choose size, shape an direction for your station, i rather made you a stencil that limits you.

Example 3:

unlike the first two this is from a real game and when the player was asked to leave space for other players his reply was "but i am leaving space". what he meant is that you could place 2x2 rail stations or simply bus stations everywhere - even in lots of places around the city, so he actually isn't blocking, right? when admins insisted his next offer was: of course when people ask for space i will remove signs so other people can place stations there too.
now that's better, but still forcing all the players to only use the 2 track stations he seems to like.

if you think these are rare or unrealistic examples let me tell you that these things happened so frequently before we had the extra "50% sentence" (and players were always arguing with admins how the rules don't forbid what they do) that they actually were the reason why we decided to add that sentence.

about the coverage area you are right technically it is perfectly sufficient if only one single tile within the coverage area is left free. but that rule could be satisfied coming with maximum limitations to other players whereas the 50% rule has the neat side-effect of also guaranteeing another company some freedom for creativity about how they place their stations.

69

Server 5 Temperate Long Goal (15 Bilion Goal,1960-2080) / Re: this SHOULDN'T happen

« on: September 06, 2012, 03:00:35 pm »

Sorry if I come across in a certain way, I will try to explain: Some things I just think are logical. When these things aren't done I start to wonder why not.

sounds perfectly reasonable. but there is 80% sarcasm and hate and 20% content in your texts. you're not "wondering", you're "blaming". if you don't know something you always assume the worst about admins.

maybe the rest is on your mind but you don't type it. but the view your present of yourself above isn't what others see from the outside. there seems to be a deviation between your self-perception and how you act.

70

Suggestions / Re: Caps lock

« on: September 06, 2012, 02:17:42 pm »

unfortunately it's not technically possible to colorize the chat without server patching (which we don't do). OpenTTD internally has support for it but external applications cannot use it.
if it was possible it would have been used for many other things already 

i agree with vitalikk2005 about the "childish hot temper" view, that's the same how i see it too. but still it's something that unnecessarily draws my attention and that of players. on IRC and also other game servers people have been running bots/plugins/scripts to kick players using too much caps long before your joke brought up this idea here, so joke or not, i think it's still valid to consider blocking it (at least in public chat).

whether admins should really make use of the exception they will get is another question, maybe an [ADMIN] tag would work better here (BTPro uses it too, i will ask their admins whether they made good or bad experience with it so far).

71

Suggestions / Re: Caps lock

« on: September 05, 2012, 10:15:16 pm »

I don't agree what if a normal players wants to get another normal players attention? Then I have to call an admin to come and use caps for me?

the rule could be phrased so it only forbids caps on public chat. then you could send it as private message to the player (or if you need the attention of any player from a company send it as team chat).

72

Suggestions / Change of rule 4 (partly "the 50% rule")

« on: September 05, 2012, 09:46:40 pm »

Occupy at maximum 50% of the space around an industry/town.

suggestions on how to change the rule

instead of working with percentages we could use hard values, as they can simply be counted within the game, so it's a lot more transparent to both players and admins and leaves less room for interpretation. we could say one of these things:

You must leave room around any industry/city for at least one other company to be able to build stations of...

#1	...at least the same size and shape as your own stations covering the same resource.
#2	...at least 5 tiles length with 5 tracks. (the real values have to be agreed on, 5x5 is just a random example)
#2b	...at least 5 tiles length with 5 tracks for loading and another 5 tiles length with 5 tracks for unloading (only if accepted by industry/city). (the real values have to be agreed on, 5x5 is just a random example)
#3	...the maximum station spread in length and width (type !limits to see it).
#4	...at least half of the maximum station spread in length and width (type !limits to see it).

another option would be:

#5

keep the 50% rule but make it get checked by software. admins and players can always type something like "!usage Mousewell Mines" and they get a list of all companies touching its coverage with the percentage from the coverage they use. We could even implement an automatic warning when someone exceeds 50%.

or we can simply leave everything as it is. 

what do you think? any other ideas?

73

Server 5 Temperate Long Goal (15 Bilion Goal,1960-2080) / Re: this SHOULDN'T happen

« on: September 05, 2012, 09:44:12 pm »

@Aberwyvern so do you think rephrasing the "of the space" part to to make it more clear would help?

also i agree that your screenshot shows another problem with the rule (but honestly, what you did in the screenshots ST2 has posted is a whole different story). how about some brainstorming, let's go back to the drawing board and think what we could do. at this point no favourites and opinions from my side, just pure and neutral listing of ideas. posted it to a new thread to keep it sorted a bit:
http://www.n-ice.org/openttd/forum/index.php?topic=170.0

74

Server 5 Temperate Long Goal (15 Bilion Goal,1960-2080) / Re: this SHOULDN'T happen

« on: September 05, 2012, 09:31:15 pm »

I asked what Der_Herr's idea was so we could discuss it (albeit with other words)

"with other words" means wrapped in sarcasm and with the usual taste of "all n-ice admins are evil", later even going as far as insinuating personal agendas with ill-minded plans to let things escalate for enforcement of a settings change someone wants.
yet you expect to be taken serious and treated properly by us. did that sum it up properly?

if you want us to improve you could try to point out mistakes we made without building up whole stories around it only based off your assumptions and without expecting us to extract your critics from sentences full of negativity.

but if i really do that and extract your actual critics from all the badmouthing of our actions, i get:
- we should have pointed out the suggestions by Der_Herr discussed on IRC here too
- you don't think the rule needs to be changed, especially you don't want to disable town funding (not in general and even less because of this rule)

did i get this right?

75

Ban/Unban Requests / Re: why i have been banned

« on: September 05, 2012, 07:38:43 pm »

Then you said that he lives "too close" to together which also doesn't make any sense.

it also happens for people that are not neighbors that they share an IP range, but neighbors are especially likely to do, because many internet providers link their assigned IP ranges to geographical areas of their customers. so often when someone finds he is innocently affected by a ban he also lives geographically close to the person that actually got banned.

apart from that my last statement with "too close together" has a double meaning, it refers to both being geographically close as well as being related to each other in breaking the same rule.

but i really don't want to continue this discussion, i always happily explain how things work to people that phrase a proper question, but if you just come in like you knew what you were talking about and turn what should be "i don't understand it" into "what you say doesn't make sense" i really don't feel like it. the only thing that really had no sense was your meddling, as you didn't add anything of value to this discussion whatsoever.