rowinofwin

@rowinofwin@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a good transportation game that actually simulates traffic as well as factorio does trains?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I hear you, I feel you, and I want the same, but…

  I want more. I want pedestrians to step off the curb a little early sometimes, to take risks when things seem safe. I want people driving to be distracted and run a red light or even hit a car or pedestrian. I want the grade of the track and rain to impact the acceleration and deceleration of a train. I want card driven late at night to have a higher rate of intoxicated drivers and to get stopped by police.

  The simulation could go deeper. The angle of the track at a turn could increase or decrease the safe turning speed for a train. The time since the last rain would change how much current rain makes the road slippery due to oil build up. People going home from a football game at a stadium would start bunched up together and saturate public transport and roads unless you put extra services on. Maintenance issues caused by you penny pinching would manifest in a range of ways from a minor difficulty getting to speed to derailing a whole train. Neglected IT systems could have ever increasing outages. Outsourcing development of your infrastructure could lead to increased cost over time especially if the cost of switching was high.

  At the same time the increased use of public transport would lower the number of visits to the emergency room for asthma attacks. Making extra services available for big events would reduce the number of altercations and following that incarcerations. Everything could have flow on effects not by having them hard coded but by having natural reactions in the way entities interact. Someone is more stressed because industrial noise is happening close to their house late at night? They are more likely to be hasty crossing the road and get hit by a car.

  Most of this is too big for a single developer or even a fairly good team, but the description of the interactions could be done at higher levels by having summary interactions, more general things like good or bad mood, short or long travel time compared to expectations, and rates of interactions rather than actual events playing out. Still, it would be awesome.