Latest Posts

Topic: Road transport restrictions

Notabilis
Avatar
Topic Opener
Joined: 2016-11-03, 20:37
Posts: 41
Ranking
Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2019-06-08, 16:50

Hi,

I am currently considering whether I should implement transport restrictions for roads. The idea would be that roads receive a menu similar to that of warehouses, where the player can select which wares (and workers) are forbidden to use the selected road.

My use-case for this would be to cut off certain parts of the economy from the rest, e.g., creating a separate food production that is only able to deliver food to the training sites, but not anywhere else (e.g., not to the mines).

Are there any opinions regarding this? Is it worth implementing this or is this a feature no-one wants?


Top Quote
Nordfriese
Avatar
Joined: 2017-01-17, 18:07
Posts: 1929
OS: Debian Testing
Version: Latest master
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: 0x55555d3a34c0
Posted at: 2019-06-08, 17:26

This is a nice idea, but it will create great difficulties while implementing:

If there are two flags which are connected e.g. for Fish but not for Iron, then they belong to the same economy for Fish but to different ones for Iron. I worked on exactly this problem with the ferries, and without the numerous challenges resulting from such mismatches the diff would have been a tenth as long, and the coding time a thousandth face-wink.png
You will have to change the economies-related code such that every PlayerImmovable, Worker etc has not just one Economy (as now) or two (as after the ferries will be merged) but one for every ware type and one for every worker type. Keeping all those strictly apart is not trivial, not to mention that the memory consumed and time required to check for economy split/merges will multiply accordingly and possibly reduce performance.

The idea is good, though personally I think I would not use it much. I believe the coding effort outweighs the benefits here.


Top Quote
king_of_nowhere
Avatar
Joined: 2014-09-15, 18:35
Posts: 1668
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Posted at: 2019-06-08, 17:48

I don't think it would be a good idea. First, if you want the training sites to get more food, you can always give them high priority. Worrks better, because otherwise you risk having an excess of food that is not delivered anywhere.

Second, it would be too complicated to deal with. there are so many risks of screwing up the economy, cutting off stuff from warehouses, or accidentally opening new paths that would make the carefully arranged configuration obsolete.

If you really want to ensure that the training sites have food, we could instead add a "highest priority", defined by "every available ware will go here, as long as there is request".


Top Quote
niektory
Avatar
Joined: 2019-06-03, 20:06
Posts: 206
Ranking
Widelands-Forum-Junkie
Location: Poland
Posted at: 2019-06-08, 18:22

king_of_nowhere wrote:

If you really want to ensure that the training sites have food, we could instead add a "highest priority", defined by "every available ware will go here, as long as there is request".

This is a good idea I think. I feel the priorities as they are now are not strong enough and I have to use other means to direct wares to critical places. A "lowest priority" would also be useful, defined as "only send wares here if no other place requests them".


Top Quote
WorldSavior
Avatar
Joined: 2016-10-15, 04:10
Posts: 2091
OS: Linux
Version: Recent tournament version
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany
Posted at: 2019-06-08, 20:40

Notabilis wrote:

Is it worth implementing this

Not sure

or is this a feature no-one wants?

At least the feature would probably not bring disadvantages, as long as current road buttons are not affected (for example the feature could shift the road-destroy-button, this could make destroying roads harder)

niektory wrote:

king_of_nowhere wrote:

If you really want to ensure that the training sites have food, we could instead add a "highest priority", defined by "every available ware will go here, as long as there is request".

This is a good idea I think. I feel the priorities as they are now are not strong enough and I have to use other means to direct wares to critical places. A "lowest priority" would also be useful, defined as "only send wares here if no other place requests them".

Yes, good idea. Directly at the right side of the current buttons one could create some space for two additional buttons. The height of the first could be between the height of current green and yellow, and the height of second could be between the height of current yellow and red.

The economy tutorial even talks about the current buttons like they would be like in your suggestion, as far as I know. And they are called like that (at least in the German translation).


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

Top Quote
mxb2001
Avatar
Joined: 2019-05-20, 18:49
Posts: 243
OS: Linux
Version: 1.1
Ranking
Widelands-Forum-Junkie
Location: The land of the thirsty spider
Posted at: 2019-06-08, 20:57

IMHO it is part of the challenege of the game to deal with wares going not where you might want them to. If I am not mistaken there are already some tools to allow us to influence (not control absolutely) things via distance from producer to consumer the priority buttons and of course the storage limits.


--
To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before

Top Quote
GunChleoc
Avatar
Joined: 2013-10-07, 15:56
Posts: 3324
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: RenderedRect
Posted at: 2019-06-09, 07:53

I think having at least an "emergency" option would be beneficial for less-skilled players. It would make it easier to recover from mistakes.

WorldSavior wrote:

king_of_nowhere wrote:

If you really want to ensure that the training sites have food, we could instead add a "highest priority", defined by "every available ware will go here, as long as there is request".

This is a good idea I think. I feel the priorities as they are now are not strong enough and I have to use other means to direct wares to critical places. A "lowest priority" would also be useful, defined as "only send wares here if no other place requests them".

Yes, good idea. Directly at the right side of the current buttons one could create some space for two additional buttons. The height of the first could be between the height of current green and yellow, and the height of second could be between the height of current yellow and red.

I think that would be too messy. I also don't like how tiny the buttons are - how about having a pictorial dropdown, just like we have for multiplayer tribe selection? The time needed for the extra mouse-click would be mitigated by the time saved because positioning the mouse will be easier.

The economy tutorial even talks about the current buttons like they would be like in your suggestion, as far as I know. And they are called like that (at least in the German translation).

The tutorial can always be adapted for new or changed functions.


Busy indexing nil values

Top Quote
Nordfriese
Avatar
Joined: 2017-01-17, 18:07
Posts: 1929
OS: Debian Testing
Version: Latest master
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: 0x55555d3a34c0
Posted at: 2019-06-09, 09:44

Yes, good idea. Directly at the right side of the current buttons one could create some space for two additional buttons. The height of the first could be between the height of current green and yellow, and the height of second could be between the height of current yellow and red.

I think that would be too messy. I also don't like how tiny the buttons are - how about having a pictorial dropdown, just like we have for multiplayer tribe selection? The time needed for the extra mouse-click would be mitigated by the time saved because positioning the mouse will be easier.

Or how about a slider? That would also allow setting in-between priorities like "better than default but less than highly prioritised buildings".


Top Quote
kaputtnik
Avatar
Joined: 2013-02-18, 20:48
Posts: 2433
OS: Archlinux
Version: current master
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany
Posted at: 2019-06-09, 11:35

king_of_nowhere wrote:

If you really want to ensure that the training sites have food, we could instead add a "highest priority", defined by "every available ware will go here, as long as there is request".

Isn't this what everyone expect when switching the green light on? In the opposit switching the red light on means: 'Bring this ware here only if it will go to a warehouse (so not requested by any other buildings)'.

Nordfriese wrote:

Yes, good idea. Directly at the right side of the current buttons one could create some space for two additional buttons. The height of the first could be between the height of current green and yellow, and the height of second could be between the height of current yellow and red.

I think that would be too messy. I also don't like how tiny the buttons are - how about having a pictorial dropdown, just like we have for multiplayer tribe selection? The time needed for the extra mouse-click would be mitigated by the time saved because positioning the mouse will be easier.

Or how about a slider? That would also allow setting in-between priorities like "better than default but less than highly prioritised buildings".

I guess most players would just apply the max/min values when using a slider face-grin.png We may need also a representation of the slider position as text (percent?), which needs more space in the window.

Regarding the initial idea: I Agree with king_of_nowhere, niektory and mxb2001. There are already many options to route wares, adding another option wouldn't result in more fun, imho ( like every thing which makes a game complicated). If the available options didn't work, the implementation should be reconsidered.


Fight simulator for Widelands:
https://wide-fighter.netlify.app/

Top Quote
WorldSavior
Avatar
Joined: 2016-10-15, 04:10
Posts: 2091
OS: Linux
Version: Recent tournament version
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany
Posted at: 2019-06-09, 11:52

kaputtnik wrote:

king_of_nowhere wrote:

If you really want to ensure that the training sites have food, we could instead add a "highest priority", defined by "every available ware will go here, as long as there is request".

Isn't this what everyone expect when switching the green light on?

Maybe... Because it is already called "highest" priority (even though "high" would be a better word) and because the economy tutorial tells this, even though it's wrong.

Nordfriese wrote:

Yes, good idea. Directly at the right side of the current buttons one could create some space for two additional buttons. The height of the first could be between the height of current green and yellow, and the height of second could be between the height of current yellow and red.

I think that would be too messy. I also don't like how tiny the buttons are - how about having a pictorial dropdown, just like we have for multiplayer tribe selection? The time needed for the extra mouse-click would be mitigated by the time saved because positioning the mouse will be easier.

Or how about a slider? That would also allow setting in-between priorities like "better than default but less than highly prioritised buildings".

I think that a slider is used in situations where one would have too many buttons. If we have buttons, we can just click one* time, a slider needs more clicks. Or it's one of the sliders which is also click-compatible, then it doesn't have this big disadvantage. It wouldn't be that bad if building-windows would cover some more space at the right side as they can be shifted anyway. How many steps should the slider have, more than five? (five could be the current setting plus the new "absolute priority")

I think if there are only five options one doesn't need a slider, buttons would be the better choice. The buttons could be bigger than now and not round but rectangular, easier to hit.

GunChleoc wrote:

I think having at least an "emergency" option would be beneficial for less-skilled players. It would make it easier to recover from mistakes.

Emergency on roads I guess... How should it work?

WorldSavior wrote:

king_of_nowhere wrote:

If you really want to ensure that the training sites have food, we could instead add a "highest priority", defined by "every available ware will go here, as long as there is request".

This is a good idea I think. I feel the priorities as they are now are not strong enough and I have to use other means to direct wares to critical places. A "lowest priority" would also be useful, defined as "only send wares here if no other place requests them".

Yes, good idea. Directly at the right side of the current buttons one could create some space for two additional buttons. The height of the first could be between the height of current green and yellow, and the height of second could be between the height of current yellow and red.

I think that would be too messy. I also don't like how tiny the buttons are - how about having a pictorial dropdown, just like we have for multiplayer tribe selection? The time needed for the extra mouse-click would be mitigated by the time saved because positioning the mouse will be easier.

I'm against dropdowns, here they have this very big disadvantage; I'd say that bigger buttons would be a better solution, or a button-like slider

The economy tutorial even talks about the current buttons like they would be like in your suggestion, as far as I know. And they are called like that (at least in the German translation).

The tutorial can always be adapted for new or changed functions.

Yes. I wanted to report this low priority bugs while we were already discussing the topic...

*edit: typo

Edited: 2019-06-09, 18:06

Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

Top Quote