Re: [Rails-devel] Automatic route calculation

[Stefan F. <ste...@we...>]

Alex:
Some more comments on a potential test for automatic route calculation:

I think there is no need for one of the more "exotic" types (18US, 18C2C, 
1844) to create a (reasonable) difficult scenario. 

It is easy to create a quite involved track layout with maps and tiles of one 
of titles already implemented in Rails (for this even the partially 
implemented 1835 or 1870 would work).  

Then rails could supply:

* A map (here I mean the collection) with map hexes and tiles. From my point 
of view it is still open, how it is converted to the graph you need to run 
your algorithm.

* The trains available to the one company could be easily changed. And we can 
make things more difficult by requesting scenarios, which are not possible in 
1870: For example running a  8, 10 and 12 at once.

* I think, that there is no need for tokens so far (either simply assume that 
there are none (which would allow even more connections than usual) or create 
a network that is usually available to one company after considering the 
effects of tokening, if we want to built a more realistic test case).

If no other wants to jump in, I would volunteer to create such a network on 
the 1870 map.

Stefan


>
> >> Perhaps it can be tested? There is no need to have complete support of
> >> such games in Rails to make experiment. We could create a graph
> >> representing "difficult case" and run algorithm on it.
> >
> > Yes, though it could take time to manually build the graph the way your
> > algorithm wants it.
> >
> >> > Some I would look at would be 18US, 18C2C (for sheer size and the
> >>
> >> ability
> >>
> >> > for a company to run lots of large trains), 1844 (which adds tunnels
> >>
> >> and
> >>
> >> > mountains that affect the route score), and 1860.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately, I don't own any of them :(
> >
> > The complete rules are available for at least 18US and 1844, and ps18xx
> > includes the map/tiles for all of them.
>
> Are there some cases you would consider examples of "difficult" ones that
> are available in some kind of format? From some PBEM games perhaps? It
> might be relatively easy to convert them into the graph I need. And it's
> difficult to get an impression of what realistic end game layout would be
> without playing the game.