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Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

Shibawanko posted:

Yeah I'm also not that interested in intersection micromanagement, I want a build a city, not just a transport network, including facilities and parks and whatnot.

Since this thread is now an informal poll, same here. That said, it drives me crazy when there's no way to improve your traffic situation due to an agent based simulation and a lack of viable alternatives. I'm looking at you, lack of overpasses in SC5 and Tropico 4!

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Jamfrost
Jul 20, 2013

I'm too busy thinkin' about my baby. Oh I ain't got time for nothin' else.
Slime TrainerS
Now I just want to build a road maze between a patch of residential with two patches of commercial and industrial sitting on the opposite side of the map.

Mandalay
Mar 16, 2007

WoW Forums Refugee

Volmarias posted:

Since this thread is now an informal poll, same here. That said, it drives me crazy when there's no way to improve your traffic situation due to an agent based simulation and a lack of viable alternatives. I'm looking at you, lack of overpasses in SC5 and Tropico 4!

Road agents are pretty dumb in Cities in Motion 2 as well. Witness freeways where two lanes are clogged but the other three lanes are wide open. Whee!

Orcs and Ostriches
Aug 26, 2010


The Great Twist
That sounds a lot like my home town.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






I don't want to micromanage all intersections, but eventually on any game that tries to model individual drivers they will end up doing some stupid behavior that has nothing to do with city design, and ruins part of the fun because you have to destroy it or live with stupid traffic jams that shouldn't be there. I just want to focus on building a city too: the city i want, not the city i have to build because of dumb agents.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

crabrock posted:

I don't want to micromanage all intersections, but eventually on any game that tries to model individual drivers they will end up doing some stupid behavior that has nothing to do with city design, and ruins part of the fun because you have to destroy it or live with stupid traffic jams that shouldn't be there. I just want to focus on building a city too: the city i want, not the city i have to build because of dumb agents.

Yeah, this is why I've been not so hot on agents since the start, but it seems to be at the core of the game. Agents just mean there's so much more that can go wrong. We saw how an agent based system worked with Simcity 2013. I'd be 110% with traffic like in simcity4, just with better pathfinding and better abstraction. I just need to know this road is clogged or that bus line is over-crowded. How cars merge, their situational awareness, how hungry they are, that can all be abstracted and hidden away in "spread sheets" and data layers. Just dress it up with some agent-like traffic to decorate the streets, but have them be simply part of the games graphics, not the core of the simulation. Worse, with agents you get "emergent behavior". This isn't a good thing, this is weird unintended behavior that is hard to plan for and often only shows itself once the city gets massive. We don't even know how many agents the game will be able to handle, along with processing everything else in the game. After all this work we might find the game can only handle cities of 50,000 people before the game slows to a crawl, or weird agent behavior starts crippling the city.

Way too late to change that though, we're stuck with agents but maybe anselm can make it work.

Mandalay
Mar 16, 2007

WoW Forums Refugee

Baronjutter posted:

Worse, with agents you get "emergent behavior". This isn't a good thing, this is weird unintended behavior that is hard to plan for

I totally disagree on this point. I feel like simulations are best when you set some rules, create some actors, and then see what happens. Agents aren't the problem per se, it's that all agent-based simulations that I have seen have not been well-made, polished, fun games.

Of course, deterministic simulations are easier to make.

Supraluminal
Feb 17, 2012

Baronjutter posted:

Worse, with agents you get "emergent behavior". This isn't a good thing, this is weird unintended behavior that is hard to plan for and often only shows itself once the city gets massive.

For what it's worth, within a certain range this seems realistic. Of course the more important question is whether it's fun.

Shibawanko
Feb 13, 2013

Speaking of stuff other than transport, will we see ploppable stuff like hospitals and schools and parks and stuff? How do you plan to go about that?

anselm_eickhoff
Mar 2, 2014

aeplay.co
Livestream today (9/19) 1PM UTC!

---

Nition posted:

That merging looks excellent and also pretty realistic. Did you come up with the algorithm for that yourself, or is it based on existing work? Traffic must be such a complex thing to implement in total.

I'm probably inspired by parts of all the traffic simulation papers that I read as research when I started, but I kinda come up with everything from first principles myself.

Shibawanko posted:

Yeah I'm also not that interested in intersection micromanagement, I want a build a city, not just a transport network, including facilities and parks and whatnot.

I hear ya.

Baronjutter posted:

Worse, with agents you get "emergent behavior". This isn't a good thing, this is weird unintended behavior that is hard to plan for and often only shows itself once the city gets massive.

Or, you know, emergent behaviours might just be what most real life phenomena are. Of course it's much harder to balance and get right, but it is my strong belief that if you do manage to do that, you will end up with a much deeper, realistic and enjoyable simulation, that won't cease to surprise you (in good ways).

Shibawanko posted:

Speaking of stuff other than transport, will we see ploppable stuff like hospitals and schools and parks and stuff? How do you plan to go about that?

Sure, most of that will actually also make use of the zoning mechanic: You zone a park, procedural details get added. You zone for a hospital, depending on budget, a hospital building with few or many wings and extra bits gets generated, etc.

nielsm
Jun 1, 2009



anselm_eickhoff posted:

Sure, most of that will actually also make use of the zoning mechanic: You zone a park, procedural details get added. You zone for a hospital, depending on budget, a hospital building with few or many wings and extra bits gets generated, etc.

Have you decided how it would work in more detail?
One way I could imagine doing it would be setting two budget values, one for hospital development, and one for hospital maintenance. The development budget would go to construction of new hospital facilities, and the maintenance budget to upkeep of existing facilities. That would let hospital growth in zones be based on the player's funding allocation, and hospitals receiving too little maintenance would deteriorate and become unable to serve patients.
With a little extra care the same system could probably allow for private healthcare facilities to grow in commercial zones too.

xergm
Sep 8, 2009

The Moon is for Sissies!
I like this idea. Imagine puttying all your money in development and nothing in upkeep across a city. You'd end up with some weird North Korean show city with massive shells of deteriorating buildings.

anselm_eickhoff
Mar 2, 2014

aeplay.co
Another Livestream: Today (9/20) 1PM UTC

---

nielsm posted:

Have you decided how it would work in more detail?
One way I could imagine doing it would be setting two budget values, one for hospital development, and one for hospital maintenance. The development budget would go to construction of new hospital facilities, and the maintenance budget to upkeep of existing facilities. That would let hospital growth in zones be based on the player's funding allocation, and hospitals receiving too little maintenance would deteriorate and become unable to serve patients.
With a little extra care the same system could probably allow for private healthcare facilities to grow in commercial zones too.

Yep splitting in up into development/maintaenance sounds nice.

Microplastics
Jul 6, 2007

:discourse:
It's what's for dinner.
What the hell.

I step out of the Simcity 2013 thread for a mere six months and when I come back there's all this??

I am vomiting excitement.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

KKKlean Energy posted:

What the hell.

I step out of the Simcity 2013 thread for a mere six months and when I come back there's all this??

I am vomiting excitement.


Have you been following Cities Skylines at all either? You better sit down, we have TWO city builders coming down the pipes!! Cities Skylines even had a huge "OFFLINE PLAY!!!" as a key feature and and in an interview mentioned that computing has clearly advanced since 2013 and now it's finally possible to make a city builder without cloud computing helping run the simulation.

It's a good time!! I'm most excited about this one though as Skylines still uses loving square pre-modeled buildings on free-form roads. No wall to wall buildings can gently caress off.

Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Sep 22, 2014

Microplastics
Jul 6, 2007

:discourse:
It's what's for dinner.
One would be forgiven for thinking that Simcity 2013 might just have kicked off a golden age of city simulators. God forbid.

zxqv8
Oct 21, 2010

Did somebody call about a Ravager problem?

KKKlean Energy posted:

One would be forgiven for thinking that Simcity 2013 might just have kicked off a golden age of city simulators. God forbid.

That wasn't its goal, certainly. But perhaps the level of disgust it generated has partially spurred this resurgence?

anselm_eickhoff
Mar 2, 2014

aeplay.co

KKKlean Energy posted:

One would be forgiven for thinking that Simcity 2013 might just have kicked off a golden age of city simulators. God forbid.

That would be fun, indeed.

New update!



The Road to Alpha, Week 29 - Exciting Times!

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

Have a good trip. Make sure to study the roads and city planning. :v:

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Did I miss where you are moving to?

anselm_eickhoff
Mar 2, 2014

aeplay.co
I deliberatley omitted that :)
It will be a puzzle for y'all.

queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m



Congrats man! You look super happy, hope all goes well!

Koesj
Aug 3, 2003

anselm_eickhoff posted:

I deliberatley omitted that :)
It will be a puzzle for y'all.

THE SOUTH

;)

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

I hope nothing changes except his hats begin to be trucker hats and his shirts start having NASCAR and NRA logos on them and he just starts saying "y'all" more often. Maybe a growing gun and trophy collection in the background.

Also all transport tools are scaled back to only highways, stroads, and dirt roads.

Nition
Feb 25, 2006

You really want to know?
I was looking at some stuff by Timothy J. Reynolds just now, and I could imagine Citybound going somewhere like that with its graphics eventually:

StealthArcher
Jan 10, 2010




Nition posted:

I was looking at some stuff by Timothy J. Reynolds just now, and I could imagine Citybound going somewhere like that with its graphics eventually:



Is that a modelling of the Canada Line Skytrain split in Northern Richmond? I seem to recognize that exact setup of rail, elevated and the river. All its missing is the casino.

Nition
Feb 25, 2006

You really want to know?
I don't think so because the work is from France, but it could be.

anselm_eickhoff
Mar 2, 2014

aeplay.co
Livestream today (9/25) 1PM UTC!

---

Nition posted:

I was looking at some stuff by Timothy J. Reynolds just now, and I could imagine Citybound going somewhere like that with its graphics eventually:



I also really like that style.

PoizenJam
Dec 2, 2006

Damn!!!
It's PoizenJam!!!

Nition posted:

I was looking at some stuff by Timothy J. Reynolds just now, and I could imagine Citybound going somewhere like that with its graphics eventually:



I really like this approach to graphics and would be happy to see CityBound go in that direction. It seems, like TF2 and other games, to have a distinctive style that I imagine would prevent the game from looking dated for a very long time. I'm excited about Cities Skylines, but any attempts at realism get outdated as fast as graphics can advance.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Trains are way too long to be skytrain or Canada line.

Mandalay
Mar 16, 2007

WoW Forums Refugee

anselm_eickhoff posted:

Livestream today (9/25) 1PM UTC!

---


I also really like that style.

His work is part of a Los Angeles-area art exhibit. Some city rendering from a game called Earthbound:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/13931183/Entertainment-System-Group-Show-June-2013

(Now that I think about it Earthbound sounds a lot like Citybound)

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






if graphics get in the way of "city size" or things I can do, then get rid of graphics. Simulation should always come first, and I'd totally play a city sim that looked like that gif up there, which seems not computationally expensive.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

For these sort of games I'm pretty sure simulation is always the biggest CPU budget. Pathfinding is bloody expensive.

Interesting piece of news out of Cities: Skylines. They are going to model parking along with having the option to have street parking on your roads. I really really hope citybound models parking as well. Road design/capacity is only half the story in vehicle transport systems, parking is the other half. Parking is one of the biggest forces that shapes cities.

nimper
Jun 19, 2003

livin' in a hopium den

Baronjutter posted:

For these sort of games I'm pretty sure simulation is always the biggest CPU budget. Pathfinding is bloody expensive.

Yeah at the tail end of today's livestream there was a question about whether lower-end video cards could handle Citybound, and Anselm said that CPU power would factor more into the equation.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Yeah it's really easy to have a few graphics settings, graphics are so optional and "cheap" today. But the core simulation will always be a huge hog and not really something you can scale for different computers other than just scaling the playing area/population.

I mean dwarf fortress is actually a very cpu intensive game and it basically has no graphics.

ToastyPotato
Jun 23, 2005

CONVICTED OF DISPLAYING HIS PEANUTS IN PUBLIC

Baronjutter posted:

For these sort of games I'm pretty sure simulation is always the biggest CPU budget. Pathfinding is bloody expensive.

Interesting piece of news out of Cities: Skylines. They are going to model parking along with having the option to have street parking on your roads. I really really hope citybound models parking as well. Road design/capacity is only half the story in vehicle transport systems, parking is the other half. Parking is one of the biggest forces that shapes cities.

Is there a singular place for Skylines news (that kind of collects any and all sources) or is there just like a main page for blog posts?

Iunnrais
Jul 25, 2007

It's gaelic.

Baronjutter posted:

Yeah it's really easy to have a few graphics settings, graphics are so optional and "cheap" today. But the core simulation will always be a huge hog and not really something you can scale for different computers other than just scaling the playing area/population.

I mean dwarf fortress is actually a very cpu intensive game and it basically has no graphics.

Ironically, despite having no graphics to speak of, one of the first major FPS boosts in dwarf fortress came from someone rewriting the graphics engine for it pro bono. Apparently, the non-graphics engine it had previously used was somehow hogging CPU just to display 30 lines of text.

So... even in simulation intensive works, you can't COMPLETELY ignore graphics.

AMISH FRIED PIES
Mar 6, 2009

by Nyc_Tattoo
If I remember right, the original "graphics" was literally text-style lines that had to be "redrawn" whole every frame, and that the rewrite switched out for an OpenGL tile map approach.

Vahakyla
May 3, 2013

ToastyPotato posted:

Is there a singular place for Skylines news (that kind of collects any and all sources) or is there just like a main page for blog posts?

/r/citiesskyline

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anselm_eickhoff
Mar 2, 2014

aeplay.co
Livestream today (9/27) 1PM UTC

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