Pathfinding?

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:46 am

I've run 2 trains along double track with them starting on seperate tracks. Later I look it over and here they are doing a faceoff! At one end or the other one of them switches tracks. Sometimes I can put an empty space at a station and they seem to behave.

The_Commodore · Post by **The_Commodore** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:13 pm

I did a few pre-patch experiment and the attach gives most of the results. They also apply post patch afaik. This is all on hard routing and the example is rather basic.
Most depends not on the track layout but on the terminals chosen for the trains.
For example: A,B & C are in a straight line. A single track can handle A to B, B to C with no passing sidings(double track with a turnout(switch) at both ends) but not A to B and A to C. If you try you will eventually get a head on conflict that can only be solved by a passing siding.

The_Commodore · Post by **The_Commodore** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:07 am

Couldn't resist a few curiosities.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 5:26 pm

Speaking of pathfinding, I played against 2 and when I took them over I really had to do some pathfinding.
The 1st (0007) I found it under tracks and a station.
The 2nd (0008) I had to look underground.

Both of these were from the AI.

Also, has anyone else found an AI train that they took over with more than 8 carsin a single train? I found one with 16!!

moshelinho · Post by **moshelinho** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:36 pm

i had noticed in a game i was playing, the game was abt 50 years to end, and there were alot of criss-crossing tracks, then i had to take coal to a city,, so i made a bit longer route, but on the route i just wanted that coal train to go without interruption, as the other routes were overflowing with other trains, but then i saw that in the first round the train took the harder/denser inner path, and came back from that way.....then after reloading, it took the longer open route i built specially, and then after again coming back, it took another route.................and then it kept moving on this third route..........while on that other longer route i saw some other train moving, which i had made years before this route was created............

and this longer open route was really long, it was a complete curved bridge on the top of an ocean............going to new york.

i loved the signal system in RRT3 where u can set points on the tracks to make the train take that particular path.

scrapser · Post by **scrapser** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 5:46 pm

The pathfinding in Railroads is incredibly simple. It's the shortest distance between two points.

You can test this easily. Set up double track with crossovers that's perfectly straight between two cities with two trains...the trains will not use the crossovers.

Now do the same thing but this time lay the track in a large arc. Put crossovers at each end from the "inner" track to the "outer" track and add an additional crossover from the outer to the inner track somewhere in the middle between both cities. Watch as each train tries to use the middle crossover to get back on the inside track.

I first noticed this when I had a city with two resources nearby. I laid track to the nearest resource, then laid double track on the "inside" that ended at the nearest resource and became single track out to the furthest resource. The double track merged just before the city. I watched as the train going to the nearest resource would use the inside track (which is the route to the furthest resource) and blocked the other train. But if I did the opposite so the nearest resource was on the outside track, I had no problem.

scrapser

darthdroid · Post by **darthdroid** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:05 am

I'm sorry, I have to ask the obvious question:

Why would you have 2 tracks not parallel to same destination? There are times to have a set of 2 (it is rare) most notably when competing for several finished goods and you want to eat opponent's share to greater degree.
My point is: YOU design a good route, stick a darn engine on it and let er rip. If later you need a 2nd engine, add the track and add an engine, it works fine and doesn't choose the wrong track. The game is complicated enuf people lol. The game is designed for YOU to create the route, not the computer, who cares if it's random, it shouldn't have a choice in my opinion...generally if it does, you are wasting track and therefore $.

-Bob the Lunatic

darthdroid · Post by **darthdroid** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:13 am

snoopy55 wrote:I've run 2 trains along double track with them starting on seperate tracks. Later I look it over and here they are doing a faceoff! At one end or the other one of them switches tracks. Sometimes I can put an empty space at a station and they seem to behave.

Seriously folks, the only time you want all this crisscrossing is for the fun of simulation....now since you don't have signals to control and the most you can really do after that is blow your horn.....I think you might do better to get one of the earlier Tycoon games.....really.

Now if you want to know how to ROUTE properly for maximum game efficiency, you need to understand that the lightning bolt you see is not Zeus getting angry....ie FORGET ALL THIS STUFF ABOUT CRISSCROSS TRACKS lol.....it is nonsense and you'll spend your game repairing and scratching your head and trying to figure out why the computer doesn't like you....

If you drop the whole concept....and SIMPLIFY the game (one engine per track except in the cases I've noted throughout the forums) suddenly you can spend the game routing and shipping and you have ZERO problems.

So as soon as you get it out of your head that you NEED to criss cross or move train x to track b and later to track a and so on, the sooner you'll lose your frustration. And frankly, even if it did work....it ain't efficient for how the game is designed. You want it to run efficient and smooth, do it simple, do it the way I'm talking about

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:24 am

darthdroid wrote:
snoopy55 wrote:I've run 2 trains along double track with them starting on seperate tracks. Later I look it over and here they are doing a faceoff! At one end or the other one of them switches tracks. Sometimes I can put an empty space at a station and they seem to behave.
Seriously folks, the only time you want all this crisscrossing is for the fun of simulation....now since you don't have signals to control and the most you can really do after that is blow your horn.....I think you might do better to get one of the earlier Tycoon games.....really.

Calm down my man... please read what is typed and not try to read into it. Nowhere did I say 'crossover'. The point being made is that two seperate tracks, running side-by-side, in now way connedted, and the game, for some unknown reason, at a station, switches a train over to the other track. Not something I did, not something that could normally be done with the setup I made. The game just picked up the train and put it on the other track.

Now, back to the discussion........

darthdroid · Post by **darthdroid** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:32 am

I'm as calm as a christian at the 2nd coming

I'm just passionate about game play.

Now regarding my confusion: I've never seen it do that and have a couple thousand hours into this game I bet (well...I AM a lunatic!) But hey, I see something new almost every month in this game. But most of the routing questions I see all revolve around improper understanding of routing.
Well...I think I do remember the computer moving a train on me once, so I take it back. If I remember right, I had trains on both tracks and next thing I knew both were on one track.

I'll have to cast my vote as "glitch"