Pathfinding / Crossroads

Production Line Game discussion
1

Hi Cliff,

been following the development for quite some time and I am playing more or less every game version. The new body types and the new financial model were a big & good step forward, great work :slight_smile:

I would like to address the biggest issue that I have with the game at the moment. It got even worse due to the new body types:

  • the pathfinding routine currenty does not search for a “fitting” Slot

This is especially annoying if e.g. I want to make an “expensive sports car” that needs all the fully equipped slots and only standard cars otherwise. I can then either:

  • put them on the same line, having to outfit every slot to the max (high costs) although its only needed for every fifth car or something
  • put them all on completely seperat lines (lots of wasted space, high costs)

What we would either need:

  • “hard” to program: Improve pathfinding so it only goes to slots with the right equipment
  • “easy” to program/maintain: include Crossroads Conveyor Belts, where you can select what kind of vehicle (by body type/car designs) is allowed to go what path

With both systems you could have production lines that split up for a certain amount of time and go back together later. That’s being done at many factories. I also think it is a very helpful basis for the different engine types (electric easy to fit, but batteries need some additional time/perhaps even a new slot that normal cars don’t need etc.).

So much for my few cents :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Dagobert

2

Indeed. I definitely want to support the idea of multiple lines and line branching with intelligent crossroads that are told to route cars of a certain design one way and cars of another design the other way. Its a bigger task than it seems because it needs to not only work and be fast in code, but also have a nice GUI that is intuitive.

I imagine that we would have a new GUI for when you click on a crossroads or other junction, which gives icons for each outwards direction, and you would be able to toggle on/off for each of your car designs for that direction.

its been on my long form todo list for a while, and it will be coming :smiley:

3

I’d love to see that list. Then I could stop mentioning things you already have planned, lol

4

Indeed,

I’m finding it’s hard to increase the production rate of my existing two line production system.

I have a single “Make chassis arrangement (individual elements)” connected to a T junction conveyor, at the moment, one car goes one way, one car goes the other way, this is great.

However, I want to expand this by adding a second set of Make Chassis arrangements, to double the production rate, if I link it to the existing conveyor on the same T junction link as the existing, they all go one way, instead of splitting off.

Now, If I make that T junction into a 4 way junction, and have the make chassis arrangement mirror of the original…

Something like this::

Make Chassis (New) | Body Fit------|------ Body Fit | Make Chassis (original)

The original works fine as expected, the cars go up and to the left or right.

However, the new make chassis is unable to find the next production slot…

What’s the best way to overcome this?

5

the make chassis have to be NOT in face to face. Something like that:

…
…

By the way, if you have two “make chassis” and two “fot body”, you don’t need to assemble and split line. The up make chassis go to right and the down chassis go left.
Else, I don’t see any benefit to do that…

6

I’m basically wanting to double the capacity on both of my production lines, hence putting in an extra make chassis into the loop.