Topic: Ferries
Nordfriese Topic Opener |
Posted at: 2018-08-01, 20:04
There is no situation in the game currently equal to two road networks with waterway-only connection. The trouble is, economies are currently handling target settings and routing for wares and workers. So permitting this state would necessarily cause massive problems in-game, either with workers being assigned to buildings but never arriving or ware target settings getting messed up. That´s why it is necessary in my opinion to prohibit waterways between otherwise separate economies (two-unit roads on tiny islands are also a separate economy, and a single flag with only waterways and no roads also is!), and this must apply both to new and existing waterways. As I said already – there´s so much code that assumes economies to be well-defined, I can´t rewrite it all… Development status report: The good news is, ferries now assign themselves to waterways. The bad news is, they cause an assert fail when doing so. I currently can´t compile debug builds, so I´m now waiting for the appveyor builds to see if the latest change fixes this. Top Quote |
einstein13 |
Posted at: 2018-08-02, 08:56
Currently there can be many situations where you want to have separate economies connected only by waterways. I can imagine about 4 of them:
In all cases you have working economy on both sides or the "other economy" is a single flag without any building. About 4.: it is possible to connect all woodcutters by land roads and wait till the building will be working. Then you connect the woodcutters by waterways (and necessary roads) and remove land roads. Finally you have several economies connected by waterways. Will you prevent that somehow? Please let me show all the cases on example from Settlers II game (there were working waterways). But I need some time. Maybe today evening I will have some. @Tibor: the point 1. is exactly what I meant. And as I remember, new economy is still running with no problem, except the fact that final wares are going nowhere. With existing waterways they can be transported to the warehouses and/or other buildings from the first economy. Edited: 2018-08-02, 08:59
einstein13 |
GunChleoc |
Posted at: 2018-08-02, 10:27
The way economies are currently implemented, no ware or worker is transported from economy a to economy b, ever. Ship expeditions are their own economy, and as soon as the port is built, the new islands forms a single economy with the original economy and the ship. Busy indexing nil values Top Quote |
Tibor |
Posted at: 2018-08-02, 11:40
if ferries were able to transport workers, the problem would not exists... Top Quote |
einstein13 |
Posted at: 2018-08-02, 12:06
Oh... I see the problem now. You don't want to touch the economy, because it is rather stable situation and major part of the code. So my question is: what is happening when the territory is split by the enemy or you destroy too much flags & roads? Edited: 2018-08-02, 12:07
einstein13 |
Tibor |
Posted at: 2018-08-02, 12:22
They become two distinct economies. I ferry was able to transport workers, both separate road networks could still form one functional economy - as long as connection with ferries exists. Top Quote |
Ex-Member |
Posted at: 2018-08-02, 16:53
Ferries transporting workers and wares is a basic necessity. So is being able to expand from one shore to a nearby one without the time and expense of ports and expeditions, if expeditions had a few extra wares and a soldier to protect the port while proper dence was built then that would be perfect. Top Quote |
einstein13 |
Posted at: 2018-08-02, 18:31
My examples of points above: 1. Enemy conquered your territory, but you can access that by water.
2. Bypass
3. Shortcut between two islands
4. Woodcutter/forester efficiency
einstein13 |
Nordfriese Topic Opener |
Posted at: 2018-08-02, 21:07
It is working!More or less. Correct routing for wares and workers already works. So does ware transporting (if the ferry manages to find its waterway). If anyone wants to testplay already – it is now possible but still a bit buggy… @einstein13: Point 2 and 3 is what ferries are mainly intended to work like, provided the water distance is not too high (and you have ports on both islands in 3). This is what they do work like (though with no flag stops on the way) in my current design.
(2) is the easiest solution to implement by far; I´d prefer it. (1) is very tricky, and in my opinion it would make ships completely obsolete on maps where the next island is just within the range limit. This will break many map designs, so I´m against it. Edited: 2018-08-03, 08:34
Top Quote |
einstein13 |
Posted at: 2018-08-03, 09:18
@Nordfriese And about your routing/economies: from my point of view it is necessary to rebuild economies, but I am not the only voice here. Settlers II game was very simple and didn't have "economy" as it is in Widelands. "Economies" were introduced in Settlers III and they worked a bit different since there were no flags and roads. Going back to the topic, I haven't thought that economies in Widelands will cause so many problems. I thought that working ports and ships are enough to introduce ware transportation via ferries. You can just make two separate (but very similar) functions to path finding: one for ware and second for worker. Ware path finding will include ferries and waterways, but worker path finding will not. That would be simple, but will include going through the whole code. einstein13 |