Version 1.13 is now in the beta branch
Version 1.13 is now ready for testing in the beta branch. This new version is a continuation of features introduced in 1.12, which were spun off to its own version, since 1.12 was complex enough.
[h2]Pax path walk legs[/h2]
Pax are now able to plan paths including the act of walking between two stations, instead of taking a train. This includes cases where there is no possible train between stations, and when the train exists but it will faster to just walk (at least at the time of arrival). These walk legs are modeled as walking in a direct line (unrealistically fast) at 1 m/s (unrealistically slow), so it evens out.
The feature is meant to model the generic act of walking between stations. In particular it's not meant to model explicitly signaled OSIs, or fare zones for example. These real world cases are still a particular case of just walking between stations, so this feature aims at the more general case. This feature is also not able to consider things like rivers, mountains, country borders, particular streets or paths, islands, bays, etc. All these cases would require a combination of street routing and terrain routing and are an immense amount of work, and out of scope for the game.
If one or more of these cases bother you, or you just don't want to have walking legs for some stations, it is possible to disable them by changing the max walking radius of the station to 0. For a walking leg to be allowed between stations, both of their center points (the small circle displayed when you disable all station names and icons) must be within each other walking radius. A walking radius of 0 cannot contain any point so no walk legs will be possible.
[h2]Station capacity and station halls[/h2]
A recurrent player complain about the station system, always supporting an active thread in the forums, is the 10k transfer pax limits in stations. In 1.13 this limit has been lifted to 100k, and train boarding speed has been increased by 10x to compensate. Additionally there's no more limits to newly spawned pax, or limits related to the number of platforms. This is now possible since the original limits were put in place when the pax pathfinder was much slower. In the years since that decision was made its performance has improved immensely, and the game became deeply multithreaded, so now it's a good time to test this increase. I say "test" because during the beta period it will be evaluated what is the performance impact if this change and it will be toned down if it's too bad for some players.
Additionally, in order to support walking legs, station halls have been introduced. Stations can now store pax in 2 places: the platforms and the hall. Pax in platforms behave like always: they are eligible to board trains. Pax in the hall are not allowed to board trains. Instead they have a countdown timer, and when it reaches 0, they are moved to the platforms. If the platforms are full, they remain in the hall, waiting for a spot. Hall capacity is unlimited.
[h2]Assets map overlay[/h2]
Station and train asset listings can now be displayed on the map as a "blob" overlay:
These blobs are circles whose area is proportional to the listing max value. You can change the colors, including the transparency. Adjusting the degree of transparency also enables a heatmap-like view. The map updates in realtime just like the asset listing, and it can also clamp the range to the visible objects by using the existing "on map" button in the assets panel.
[h2]Pax path walk legs[/h2]
Pax are now able to plan paths including the act of walking between two stations, instead of taking a train. This includes cases where there is no possible train between stations, and when the train exists but it will faster to just walk (at least at the time of arrival). These walk legs are modeled as walking in a direct line (unrealistically fast) at 1 m/s (unrealistically slow), so it evens out.
The feature is meant to model the generic act of walking between stations. In particular it's not meant to model explicitly signaled OSIs, or fare zones for example. These real world cases are still a particular case of just walking between stations, so this feature aims at the more general case. This feature is also not able to consider things like rivers, mountains, country borders, particular streets or paths, islands, bays, etc. All these cases would require a combination of street routing and terrain routing and are an immense amount of work, and out of scope for the game.
If one or more of these cases bother you, or you just don't want to have walking legs for some stations, it is possible to disable them by changing the max walking radius of the station to 0. For a walking leg to be allowed between stations, both of their center points (the small circle displayed when you disable all station names and icons) must be within each other walking radius. A walking radius of 0 cannot contain any point so no walk legs will be possible.
[h2]Station capacity and station halls[/h2]
A recurrent player complain about the station system, always supporting an active thread in the forums, is the 10k transfer pax limits in stations. In 1.13 this limit has been lifted to 100k, and train boarding speed has been increased by 10x to compensate. Additionally there's no more limits to newly spawned pax, or limits related to the number of platforms. This is now possible since the original limits were put in place when the pax pathfinder was much slower. In the years since that decision was made its performance has improved immensely, and the game became deeply multithreaded, so now it's a good time to test this increase. I say "test" because during the beta period it will be evaluated what is the performance impact if this change and it will be toned down if it's too bad for some players.
Additionally, in order to support walking legs, station halls have been introduced. Stations can now store pax in 2 places: the platforms and the hall. Pax in platforms behave like always: they are eligible to board trains. Pax in the hall are not allowed to board trains. Instead they have a countdown timer, and when it reaches 0, they are moved to the platforms. If the platforms are full, they remain in the hall, waiting for a spot. Hall capacity is unlimited.
[h2]Assets map overlay[/h2]
Station and train asset listings can now be displayed on the map as a "blob" overlay:
These blobs are circles whose area is proportional to the listing max value. You can change the colors, including the transparency. Adjusting the degree of transparency also enables a heatmap-like view. The map updates in realtime just like the asset listing, and it can also clamp the range to the visible objects by using the existing "on map" button in the assets panel.
