Re: [Rails-devel] Usability options for route awareness and revenuecalculation

[Chris S. <chr...@gm...>]

The other option I would add in my.properties is a color palette for
route highlighting.  This could be useful for people like me who would
prefer garish easy to view colors, people who like pastel palettes and
also for color blind players.

--
Chris

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On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Erik Vos <eri...@xs...> wrote:
> Stefan,
>
> I generally agree with the options that you propose.
>
> My suggestion would be to make the options selectable in the GUI, but it
> would be nice if some defaults could be set in my.properties:
> - possible tile/token lay highlighting,
> - possible tile/token lay enforcing,
> - optimal revenue calculation,
> - optimal revenue route display
> all yes/no choices.
>
> Erik.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stefan Frey (web.de) [mailto:ste...@we...]
> Sent: Thursday 22 April 2010 23:24
> To: Development list for Rails: an 18xx game
> Subject: [Rails-devel] Usability options for route awareness and
> revenuecalculation
>
> Hi,
> I would like to focus the discussion on the question in which ways
> the revenue calculation and route awareness should be available to the
> players.
>
> I first start with comments on two recent e-mails on that topic.
>
> I am myself not sure for now, if I will like playing with automatic revenue
> calculation. For sure in the last ORs, but in the beginning of the game?
> And I still like a real map, please someone come up with an implementation
> for
> an observing camera, which generates the according tile lays for Rails ;-)
>
> Jim Black wrote 2010-04-06:
>> I hope that- perhaps, as a preliminary feature to Rails-calculated routes-
>> users will simply be able to outline their routes directly in Rails (by
>> selecting the track, along the way)- 'route specification', if you will.
>>
>> I know automatic calculation is a very popular, heavily requested feature.
>>
>> Still, to me- 'route specification' is probably more important/fundamental
>> than 'automatic route calculation'.
>
> Current status:
> For now the route awareness is only used to highlight potential locations
> for extensions of the routes. It does not enforce anything more than Rails
> already does.
>
> My suggestion is to add a menu-item in the GUI that turns that on/off. See
> an
> different approach at the end of the mail.
>
> Future solution:
> Have a game option for each game that allows to set the route enforcing to
> -> none
> -> permissive
> -> restrictive
> -> semi-restrictive
> with the default option set to the official rule for that game.
> Compare:
> http://www.fwtwr.com/18xx/rules_difference_list/5_3.htm
>>
>> Indeed, I wonder if 'route specification' isn't the extent of 'automatic
>> route calculation' that would be /allowed/, in a conventional,
>> tournament-level 18xx game.  (I would expect that many 18xx experts feel
>> calculating earnings properly is part of the game- not something that's
>> necessarily /desirable/ to automate?)
>
> That is similar to the question of open/closed money. For me revenue
> calculation sometimes is simply annoying, especially in late ORs late at
> night.
> But for others it might be the essential skill of a good 18xx player...
> I admit it is not a particular strength in my own skillset.
>
>>
>> Will automated route calculation be offered as an option?  If users
> /don't/
>> select automatic route calculation, will they still get some of the
>> benefits of this work?  (Eg, specifically, for route-specification?)
>
> Current status:
> An optimal route is automatically calculated and suggested to the player.
>
> But there will be an option for the next release.
> There could be the following settings:
> -> strict (the value is enforced, player can only decide on distribution)
> -> optional (suggests a value, which can be changed or confirmed)
> -> off
> Should there be a possibility to turn it on later in the game?
> I would love an automatic mode: play the game to the end by running maximum
> and payout for all companies.
>
>>
>> Ideally, players could can still outline their own route(s), per-train, in
>> the map view- Rails would then record that, and add-up/record the
>> corresponding earnings precisely.  (And, of course- other users could
>> review the earnings/routes, in the game history.)
>
> Earnings figures are already recorded. I currently do not plan to implement
> the possibility of sketching routes manually.
>
> Aliza Panitz wrote 2010-03-24:
>> (1) Have a button that users can click to highlight every bit of track
>> that their trains can reach from their tokens.  This will be useful
>> even without route calculation, though it will require Rails to learn
>> about track, routes, tokens, etc.
>>
>> The algorithm I'm thinking of would be a simple flood-fill that gets
>> blocked by foreign tokens if the circles are filled.
>>
>> As a second stage it could limit itself to the length of the longest
>> train the company has, though the flood-fill is useful even with
>> imaginary infinite-length Diesels for showing where tokens can legally
>> be placed.
>
> The idea is similar to  the current implementation that possible extensions
> and token locations are highlighted. You suggest that it should be active
> only after player requesting it: In that sense it would be something like
> a "Hint" button. Is that something players would prefer to an always on/off
> option?
>
> Stefan
>
>
>
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