RE: [Rails-devel] Train ownership limits

[John A. T. <ja...@ja...>]

On Fri, 14 Oct 2005, Erik Vos wrote:

> Because of this, train limits should IMO be linked to CompanyType,
> and be an array with an element per phase.
> 
> For instance: 
> <CompanyType ....>
> 	....
> 	<TrainLimit number="4,4,3,2"/>
> </CompanyType>
> 
> where the last number ("2") applies for any later phase as well.

Keep in mind that companies may change "types" -- ie, in 1826 a company 
starts as a 5-share company then may convert to a 10-share company once it 
reaches its destination (so somewhere there needs to be descriptions of 
the rules for conversion).  In 18US, a company may start as a 1-share 
company (a private), become a 4-share company as soon as it has a legal 
route, become a 5-share company, then a 10-share, and finally may become 
part of a system that has 20 shares.  The train limits for each of these 
may be different (although in practice it is usually 2 or 3 different 
values).

You can also have private companies which influence the train limit for 
the owning or assigned company.
 
My personal feeling is that it will be too difficult to describe in XML 
every possible way this can be done, and a better approach is to implement 
that in Java, with part of the files distributed for a game being .class 
files which can be loaded with ClassLoader.  That was the approach I took 
for a partially-completed Cosmic Encounter long ago -- the basic timing 
issues were codified, but all the powers that allow you to break the rules 
in specific ways were implemented directly in Java.

-- 
John A. Tamplin					ja...@ja...
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