New Additions to RTMT

[k808j]

We like the real photo idea

[z]

There is enough space to add logos like "The RTMT Team" or comments and additional information.

Just two comments at this point:

The letters "RTMT" are not necessary in their standard logo size on the watermark graphic, but if they are absent there, I think they should be present in some form in or the graphic.

The "additional information" part sounds fascinating.  I have been able to determine that this is yanked out of the EXE with special hex code numbers, but nowhere can I find a list of these numbers and the data that they convey (other than the standard ones used in the standard UIs).  Is anyone aware of the existence of such a list?

[catty]

The only on-line tutorials I can find on this are

http://simvision.net/simcyclopedia.php?p=view&id=28

or this one

http://simvision.net/hostedpictures/Simcyclopedia/UI_Specifications.txt

and finally this one

http://simvision.net/hostedpictures/Simcyclopedia/LUA_Constants.txt

[z]

Thanks, catty!  Before you updated your posted, I had located your third reference myself, and it's got all the goodies I was looking for.  I think some of them may be very useful for the queries, especially as they contain information not available elsewhere to the players; I'll be demonstrating them later.

In the mean time, Cogeo and I have been try to hammer out a query upon which we can both agree.  We have a few minor disagreements at this point, but I think they can be easily resolved.  The one issue upon which we hold fairly different views is the appropriateness of the tram icon.  As he wanted to see what a three-icon query (bus+subway+tram) would look like, I am posting it here, so everyone can see.  I am using my general query form simply because I don't have access to Cogeo's right now, but the main question is how the Service Quality icons look:

This is basically the same query I displayed before, although there's a little more vertical space around the bottom icons.  I've moved the Service Quality icons to the right, as suggested by Cogeo, so they're exactly in line with everything else.  I like this change, as it does add to the symmetry of the whole layout.

In Cogeo's picture, he shrank the bus icon slightly, in order to make the spacing of the labels on the left more uniform.  Such uniformity has gone out the window here, which is one of his major objections to anything using three icons (which would be the maximum).  But from my point of view, as the whole purpose of the query boxes (as opposed to the actual stations, for example) is to provide information, I have made that the first priority.  The bus icon is the standard size, which I find less susceptible to confusion with other vehicles.  (Especially for those of us with aging eyes.)  Just a quick glimpse at this query tells you that this station serves three types of vehicles, and not much more than that glimpse tells you exactly what they are.

Right now, this is the only released RTMT station that would require three icons. Currently, there is no difference between the icons displayed for GLR stations for a subway station or tram station, or a bus station plus subway station vs. a bus station plus tram station.  Introducing the tram icon removes all the ambiguity here.

Coming up in the V4 release are the URail stations, which also have one three-icon station: bus, subway, and underground rail.  I think Ebina has come up with an excellent icon there (and for the other underground rail stations), which I plan to use unchanged.  Once again, it seems to me that it comes down to how important it is to display the complete information vs. how important it is to maintain consistent formatting.

Then there are the newly-introduced T-RAM on street stations.  These actually have more room for RTMT stations that the T-RAM in/on road.  However, streets are narrow enough and their character is such that the large shelters used for GLR stations up until now in RTMT would look rather out of place.  Add in the bus and subway stations, and things would definitely get cluttered.  So my tentative plan at this point would be to have a T-RAM on street station be very much like a typical RTMT bus station; after all, trams function very much like buses in the real world.  I'll elaborate on these plans in a later post.  In this case, it would be even more important to have the queries indicate the type of station, since they will look fairly similar.  It's true that the title of the station will specify this information, but it's much easier to pick it up at a glance from the icons.

Finally, it's useful to know that the icons don't represent service quality at all, despite the label!    A station showing one fully colored icon delivers service that is exactly equal to a station showing all five colored icons.  Instead, at some indeterminate point after all the icons go light grey, service falls off a cliff.  So a better title for the icons instead of "Service Quality" would be something like "Capacity Reserve."  If label symmetry is really important to people, additional explanation of this could be included in additional lines for stations with more than one icon.

So as these stations are designed for the players, I ask you, dear user, what do you prefer?  Right now, I'm only asking about the icons; the background of the query will most likely be looking much as Cogeo displayed in his example.  But if you have feelings about how Cogeo's style of query could be combined with mine, please feel free to express them.

[catty]

I really like the bus icons as you can tell at a glance what they are, less sure about the lightrail/subway icons as my brain keeps trying to see it as one image and is getting confused or it could just be its really late at night and I should be going to bed 

Just a thought rather than three lines of icons can you have just one line of six icons or is the five icons set in the query? if its not then one line and six icons mean you could have these kind of combinations

bus only = six icons
bus/sub = 3 bus icons / 3 sub icons
light/bus/sub = 2 light icons / 2 bus icons / 2 sub icons

[k808j]

@z

We like the query you posted.

[pierreh]

I like the query box as shown above, and I especially like the tram icon. The fact that the icons don't have the same size (the bus is the largest, the partial subway car is the smallest) does not bother me. I think that the 3 means of transportation are clearly depicted.

Regarding T-RAM on street stations, I agree with having very minimal sidewalk shelters like for bus stops, rather than the large GLR shelters between the tracks.

[Amtrak7]

I like Z's latest one.

[tamorr]

   I like the triple icons, as you said it would make it easier to recognize at a glance. Well for me anyway... And adding cogeo's stuff as you said would definately make it look feasible. So it's a  for all three icons for me.

[cogeo]

Just a thought rather than three lines of icons can you have just one line of six icons or is the five icons set in the query? if its not then one line and six icons mean you could have these kind of combinations

bus only = six icons
bus/sub = 3 bus icons / 3 sub icons
light/bus/sub = 2 light icons / 2 bus icons / 2 sub icons

This must be possible, I guess. When making the query you don't specify how many icons to display, instead you specify which icon to display and the area in which it will be displayed. Normal-size icons are 24x22, and the area 120x22 pixels large, ie there's space for 5 icons. That is the game tiles images, if the area they are displayed on is larger than their size.
So if you make an icon 120x22 pixels large (or 144x22, if you want to have 6 icons instead of 5), this should work. I had made a query for HSR some time ago, using a (new) elecric engine icon. I considered displaying an icon with 1 engine and 4 cars, but finally I followed the beaten path.

[z]

- There is enough space to add logos like "The RTMT Team" or comments and additional information.

There sure is...

Once again, this is not necessarily the final form of the query, but it shows what can be done.  I've gone through the different variables related to traffic and displayed the ones that I think are most useful for the query.  A few notes:

• I've changed the inaccurate (though standard) label "Service Quality" to "Reserve Capacity," for reasons mentioned near the end of my previous post.  The icons will still lose their color with usage over 100% as before, but the players will no longer be deceived into thinking that the station's quality of service is declining.  Instead, "Reserve Capacity" is the best label I could think of (in two words or less) that indicates that the actual service quality will not decline at all until sometime after all the reserve capacity is gone.
• Each travel type gets its own five-line descriptor, separated from the others by a horizontal line.  Since almost all RTMT stations contain one or two travel types, this is the largest size the user will see almost all the time.  For stations with only one travel type, the last divider and the bottom five lines would not be present.  In terms of a watermark background, there would need to be three, corresponding to the three sizes of the query, which in turn corresponds to the number of travel types at the station.
• Each travel type section displays the same type of information, starting with the number of stops or stations for that travel type in the current city.  (BTW, the "Jamaica" here is the neighborhood of Queens, not the island.)  Following this is the average usage for stations for this travel type.  Note that for stations that service multiple travel types (such as this one), there is a single usage figure that is used in this average.
• Next is the number of network tiles used by this travel type.  For buses, this is further subdivided into street, road, or avenue, depending on the location of the queried station.  Since this query reports a road tile count, this station is located on a road.  Notice that the actual road tile count is half the reported number.  I originally thought that this might be due to the fact that there are two lanes per road tile, but this doesn't apply to subways, which have two tracks per subway tile.  And the reported number is sometimes odd (as in this case); I haven't been able to figure out what that means.
• The last two lines in each section are pretty much self-explanatory.  The average road utilization is the percentage of network road capacity in use, averaged over the city.  The number of congested road tiles is the number of road tiles whose utilization is over 100%.

Now there are other interesting traffic statistics, and you might want to see all networks or travel types at once, including those not currently supported by RTMT (such as monorail).  So I suggest the creation of an RTMT Mass Transit Authority (MTA) building, which would have a purpose similar to RippleJet's Census Repository Facility, except that the MTA building would show all traffic statistics in its query.

So what do people think of these ideas?  Would these extra statistics be helpful?

[CaptCity]

While I admit to being the last person to give any advice on aesthetics, I do love numbers. Don't know about others, but I think this is a super idea. And the RTMT Mass Transit Authority (MTA) building sounds like a great idea. I was thinking of just such a thing as I was reading through the post (before getting to the last paragraph).

Now a couple questions just to be sure I'm understanding the info presented (and forgive any questions of the 'stupid' variety  )...

Since this is an example of a Combo Bus/Subway station, are the values given for 'Bus Stops...' and 'Subway Stations...' for just the Combo stations or does it include the solo bus and subway stops. If I'm understanding the description correctly, they include the usage of both types... correct?

And when you say "...this is further subdivided into street, road, or avenue...", does that mean that the information is only for the stations or stops on similar transportation types? For instance, the query in the example is showing a Road (2X1) combo station. So the values given are only for other Road (2X1) stations, not avenue and streets... again, correct?

Again, sorry if I'm asking the obvious...

[z]

Since this is an example of a Combo Bus/Subway station, are the values given for 'Bus Stops...' and 'Subway Stations...' for just the Combo stations or does it include the solo bus and subway stops. If I'm understanding the description correctly, they include the usage of both types... correct?

Correct.  For example, for the bus station statistics, a combo bus/subway station is identical to a standalone bus station.  It all comes down to how the game keeps its internal statistics.

And when you say "...this is further subdivided into street, road, or avenue...", does that mean that the information is only for the stations or stops on similar transportation types? For instance, the query in the example is showing a Road (2X1) combo station. So the values given are only for other Road (2X1) stations, not avenue and streets... again, correct?

Almost.  The size of the station doesn't enter into this at all; only the roadway type.  So if you have a large 5x5 bus terminal, it's counted in here as well.  Also, this counts all stations, not just RTMT ones.  So for example, if you have one of Ralphaelninja's five-way stations, they count too.

[catty]

This must be possible, I guess. When making the query you don't specify how many icons to display, instead you specify which icon to display and the area in which it will be displayed. Normal-size icons are 24x22, and the area 120x22 pixels large, ie there's space for 5 icons. That is the game tiles images, if the area they are displayed on is larger than their size.
So if you make an icon 120x22 pixels large (or 144x22, if you want to have 6 icons instead of 5), this should work. I had made a query for HSR some time ago, using a (new) elecric engine icon. I considered displaying an icon with 1 engine and 4 cars, but finally I followed the beaten path.

cogeo

Thank you for the information if I ever get my nerve back from the last time I had a go at creating a query I will give this a try 

z

As to the new query I'm of the same opinion as CaptCity

Don't know about others, but I think this is a super idea. And the RTMT Mass Transit Authority (MTA) building sounds like a great idea

my only concern as such is how big would the query be if it was for (bus+subway+tram) station or would you want to do something different for these?

[pierreh]

I agree with CaptCity: the numbers in the query would be very useful, and a MTA building to show more stats about mass transit would be excellent. In order for it to be of reasonable size, it could be built as the administration building for the city's MTA.

[z]

my only concern as such is how big would the query be if it was for (bus+subway+tram) station or would you want to do something different for these?

I planned to put the information for the third icon just below the other two, so it would be about 30% larger than the one I showed.  I've measured, and this would fit on an 800x600 screen, which is the smallest supported by SC4.  Such a query would be a little large, but it's also relatively rare.

I agree with CaptCity: the numbers in the query would be very useful, and a MTA building to show more stats about mass transit would be excellent. In order for it to be of reasonable size, it could be built as the administration building for the city's MTA.

Exactly. 

[catty]

I planned to put the information for the third icon just below the other two, so it would be about 30% larger than the one I showed.  I've measured, and this would fit on an 800x600 screen, which is the smallest supported by SC4.  Such a query would be a little large, but it's also relatively rare.

Exactly. 

My monitor is 15" so this is what I see when I change it to 800 x 600 screen



I would think tho that 15" monitors are also relatively rare these days as well 

[cogeo]

I agree that city statistics should rather be used in a Ministry of Transport -type lot, rather than in queries for individual stations. It clutters the whole thing, displaying information not concerning each station. So they should rather be separated.

Combo stations (eg bus+subway) are indeed "double-counted", but this isn't actually wrong. A "combo" station is indeed a busstop plus a subway station at the same place, not a different type of station (no matter how it is modded), so this is very acceptable. Otherwise we should have separate stats for all transit type combinations, not to mention that this wouldn't work.

I remember some discussions with Orion (he wanted to mod all stations as busstops). Well, this wouldn't work in such a case.

Steve, have you checked if these counters really count the stations? In some cases (like the el-to-subway transition) they actually count the tiles occupied by the stations, so for 1x2, 2x1 and 2x2 stations these may be multiple-counted.

We could also try catty's idea for combo icons.

Also the term "Reserve Capacity" might be technically more accurate, but we may be getting questions like "What Reserve Capacity means?", so I think we should revert to the standard one. If you insist in "Reserve Capacity", you should also add an LTEXT (and point to it in the query), so that it can be translated.

And something else, the query I designed is taller than the normal, however this wasn't intentional, it came out that way in order to accomodate the RTMT-logo in the background. But as long as we use photos, this is not necessary (we can resize and/or crop the photos), so it can be normal-sized again.

[z]

I agree that city statistics should rather be used in a Ministry of Transport -type lot, rather than in queries for individual stations. It clutters the whole thing, displaying information not concerning each station. So they should rather be separated.

I think that what I have suggested, and what people like, is a combination of the two approaches.  I tried hard to strike a balance here, separating the query into sections and making things easy to find.  The information I added to the query, though global in nature, is information that I thought would be most useful for people building their transportation system, or who want to see how it's doing.  For example, "Average Bus Stop Usage" may be a global figure, but I think it's very convenient to be able to compare it against the usage of the bus stop you're currently querying.  It's my understanding that all of the responses up until now have agreed with this dual approach.  On the other hand, questions such as, "What is the highest road congestion in the city?" and "Where is this maximum road congestion located?" are very useful questions to have answered, but are not really relevant to building stations, and are best answered by the Mass Transit Authority.  (BTW, I chose the name "Mass Transit Authority" because "Department of Transportation" sounds way too American, whereas ministries don't exist in the US.  And it's a complete coincidence that "MTA" is also the old acronym for the mass transit system in Boston, where I spent most of my life.  )  If I continue to get a unanimous response supporting the expansion of the queries, I will keep them; if a fair number of people think that they're too cluttered like this, but others still want them, I'll make them an installation option.  In any case, everyone seems to agree that an MTA building (by whatever name) is a good idea.  I think what we would want here is something that's not too modern, but would look good in any type of city.  I'm thinking of the buildings in Washington, D.C., which by and large aren't very new, but have an elegant look with their classical Greek architecture.  Hmm, classical Greek architecture - could we interest you in designing such a building, Cogeo?

I remember some discussions with Orion (he wanted to mod all stations as busstops). Well, this wouldn't work in such a case.

Also, it's no longer necessary, as the new NAM automatically installs the subway building view that I wrote, and that satisfies Orion's needs.

Steve, have you checked if these counters really count the stations? In some cases (like the el-to-subway transition) they actually count the tiles occupied by the stations, so for 1x2, 2x1 and 2x2 stations these may be multiple-counted.

Foolish me!  I actually believed that a variable named "game.g_bus_station_count" would be a count of the number of bus stations.  But you're right, I just checked it out, and it actually counts the number of bus station tiles.  I just need to fix the query here to change "Bus Stations" to "Bus Station Tiles," and similarly for other stations.  Thanks for pointing this out.

We could also try catty's idea for combo icons.

I see two problems with this.  First of all, it gives the impression that stations keep track of the different travel types separately, when they only remember the total number of Sims passing through.  Secondly, it's yet another departure from the standard interface, and I think that this combined with its design would reinforce the confusion I mentioned in my first point.

Also the term "Reserve Capacity" might be technically more accurate, but we may be getting questions like "What Reserve Capacity means?", so I think we should revert to the standard one.

It's not merely that it's more accurate, but that "Service Quality" is completely inaccurate; a change in the state of the icons never results in a change in the service quality.  I think you're right that we may very well get questions such as "What does Reserve Capacity mean?", but I would rather answer that question accurately and let users know what they're actually being shown.  In fact, it would be good to put a detailed answer to that question in the FAQ.

If you insist in "Reserve Capacity", you should also add an LTEXT (and point to it in the query), so that it can be translated.

I did this when I first implemented it, and it's in the new locales.dat file.  All strings that I have added have been implemented with translation in mind, and Brian is going to be getting this done once things settle down.

And something else, the query I designed is taller than the normal, however this wasn't intentional, it came out that way in order to accomodate the RTMT-logo in the background. But as long as we use photos, this is not necessary (we can resize and/or crop the photos), so it can be normal-sized again.

Understood, and I agree that there's no need for those giant "RTMT" letters on the watermark.

BTW, I've been playing around with PSP myself here, seeing some possibilities for the watermarks.  I gather that you used an inner bevel for the upper text box.  As I mentioned before, I really liked what you came up with.  Could you tell me the PSP setting you used to get this particular shape?  Also, what settings did you use to get the edge effects around the box?  These are very distinctive effects, and I would find it helpful to know how to make them.  I'm sure some others reading this would appreciate that as well.

[tamorr]

I would think tho that 15" monitors are also relatively rare these days as well 

It maybe a rariety, but my 13" is even more rare, although I can technically get it up to 1280,1024 resolution. I don't know if that is the correct number but I do know it is 12## and 10##. Anyway....


  I'd have to say the more information to help with building mass transit the better, and besides having that relevant information in the query would help quite a bit especailly if you don't want or feel like looking for the MTA building. I know the building would be useful as a whole, but when you are in a certain part of a city far from the building it is beter to have a quicky glance look at some basics rather than scroling to get to the building. So I say it would be a good idea for both the combo query and the MTA. To me it doesn't truly matter if it is part of the default install or an option made for, as long there is at least a choice. I would definately use it to the best of my ability, if I can't reach the potential of the information being there.
  Both are great ideas and I await in patience.