Messages

1

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

« on: September 07, 2012, 01:46:38 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. But such fine distinctions in fact constitute the policy of the server (to what extent competition is encouraged), and as such should be decided by server owner arbitrarily.

also i am sure opinions will differ pretty much about whether admins should do any decisions arbitrarily

No doubt it's great to discuss and see different opinions here, but I'm pretty sure that a broad consensus will not be possible on these fine details, as to how many tiles should be left free around an industry. That is why arbitrary decision is natural here. You could decide on the basis of maximizing fun for players, or even what would be easier for admins to enforce in-game.

And by the way, the 50% rule also looks good to me as it is now, being concise and easy to understand. If the idea of modifying it came from of a single obvious violation (with clusters of mines), the 50% part isn't controversial here, see my suggestion above:

Also, considering the possibility of funding clusters of industries as discussed here: http://www.n-ice.org/openttd/forum/index.php?topic=163.0, the following text could be added to the rules: "When funding new industry/town, make sure that the requirements as to the space available around it are fulfilled."

2

Server 4 Arctic Quick Goal ( 40 Milion Goal) / Aircraft in arctic?

« on: September 07, 2012, 12:44:35 pm »

Let us have aircraft enabled on #4. It's just an alternative (easier?) way to start a business. A limit of 16...20 planes and noise restrictions on would be good. (Although people might have a hard time to please those annoying mayors.)

3

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

« on: September 06, 2012, 07:35:04 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. But such fine distinctions in fact constitute the policy of the server (to what extent competition is encouraged), and as such should be decided by server owner arbitrarily.

4

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

« on: September 06, 2012, 05:27:16 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.

5

Suggestions / Short trains

« on: September 06, 2012, 06:02:26 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.

6

Suggestions / Awarding points when no one reaches the goal

« on: September 06, 2012, 03:51:24 am »

I wonder if there is any specific reason why no one gets scored if the game finishes without anyone reaching the goal. It is especially unfair towards players on long run servers who get close to the goal but still unable to reach it in time.

I suggest that at the moment of restart, everyone logged in receives his current score, without any 'winner bonus' to the leader whatsoever.

7

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

« on: September 06, 2012, 02:58:21 am »

My suggestion: "Leave enough space around an industry/town for another company to be able to connect it to their network."

For primary industries with production under 300 most people use 2x7 railroad station (terminus or ro-ro) to connect. For higher-production industries (including secondaries) people might want to steal connect with 3 or 4 platforms, preferably ro-ro. For towns, we stress that no one builds roads on all sides of a town, thus preventing other companies to place a railroad station next to it. So, a player should leave space accordingly to this.

Also, considering the possibility of funding clusters of industries as discussed here: http://www.n-ice.org/openttd/forum/index.php?topic=163.0, the following text could be added to the rules: "When funding new industry/town, make sure that the requirements as to the space available around it are fulfilled."

PS. Congratulations on your 100th post, st2. 

8

Suggestions / Re: Caps lock

« on: September 06, 2012, 01:49:43 am »

The reason this thread was started was my joke after seeing 'bunny(admin)' shouting at players (I don't log the chat to prove, but admins can have it). Nor did I suppose it would be taken that seriously.

My opinion: absolutely no reason to write down rules regulating caps lock usage. Such rules don't add fun or anything to the game. To continue with the joke, let's specify also how many consecutive exclamation marks can be used by non-admins.

Further, caps lock usually associates not with authority, but with childish hot temper. Hence, if I may give an advice to admins, you should better use admin tags in names, and/or (if technically feasible) make admin's chat color-highlighted, instead of shouting with caps.

9

Suggestions / Re: Extreme Long Goal - Server- Feedback Round 1.

« on: September 06, 2012, 12:59:27 am »

Will #K4 map be increased? Its current size 1024x1024 looks too small to me.

10

Suggestions / Re: Rule about transfer

« on: August 16, 2012, 04:15:30 am »

Okay, now it is totally clear to me what exactly this rule is intended to forbid, thank you.

Still, I'd like to notice that your 'illegal' setup doesn't look to me more efficient than 'normal' one. Basically, in order to transfer cargo to your 'main' station continuously, you will need to have half of its tiles dedicated to unloading anyway. Otherwise your loading trains will waste time waiting for cargo. (I assume here that loading speed equals that of unloading.) So, you don't get 20 incoming tracks and 20 outgoing, but rather 10 and 10.

Update. I'm not sure about ships though, but if they can stack without collisions and load/unload simultaneously at the same dock - then it would be possible to increase throughput with your 'illegal' setup this way, indeed.

11

Suggestions / Re: Rule about transfer

« on: August 15, 2012, 10:11:17 pm »

Here is an example of what i was talking about. Seems completely valid to me, but essentially those short transferring trains' purpose is to make the big station cover several mines at once, that is increasing its spread.

12

Suggestions / Re: Rule about transfer

« on: August 15, 2012, 04:57:10 pm »

Alex, could you clarify please, what rule exactly is violated in your screenshots?

Also, consider a situation. Station A gets cargo from a nearby industry. We load and transfer it to station B which doesn't have any industries nearby. Then we load it further and deliver cargo to accepting station C. Is this setup allowed?

13

Complaints / Re: Not fair competition

« on: August 14, 2012, 03:36:07 pm »

The problem we have here is that we don't (and cannot?) have all possible tricks described and forbidden/allowed in the rules explicitly. That is why such situations arise - a smart player discovers a trick, doesn't find it being forbidden in the written rules, and hence assumes it not to be fobidden.  And if we only generally say about 'unfair advantage', there will be different opinions about what is fair and what is not.

I don't see any natural solution to this except making the rules more detailed. But there is an obvious downside to this: players reading examples of unfair play might want to try them. Still, my personal preference is to not have forbidden information.

14

Complaints / Not fair competition

« on: August 12, 2012, 08:00:19 pm »

There happened a forbidden trick from player Cossack that possibly prevented me from winning this game. Notice his long trains standing in a depot.

autosave6.sav

15

Changelog / Re: Admin request by placing a sign

« on: August 09, 2012, 02:22:09 am »

Signs starting with "!admin" should do the same.