Dispatcher limited time.

[Patator]

To prevent players from staying too long in the dispatcher, the occupation time should be limited. For example 1 or 2 hours per day.

[SugaCane]

I think that 1 - 2 hours is too little.
But what's the point if he is kicked out after 1-2 hours but then there is someone else in there who is not you?
I am of the opinion "Who comes first paints first" [Wer zuerst kommt mahlt zuerst] (It is a German proverb). There shoudn't be an Timelimit as Dispatcher.

 

Edited May 23, 2023 by SugaCane

[Captain Morgan]

2 Hours per day per station is good. Currently some people stay in Dispatch for up to 5 hours and its really frustrating because others want to play specific dispatch stations too

[GHKtruc]

Yeah, force people to take breaks. 2 hours might be a bit much. I think 1h30 is a good compromise

[Gazz292]

i don't play as dispatcher myself.... but i can see how it must be frustrating for people who'd like to try out the bigger dispatcher posts, but see the same people in it all the time.

Someone on discord was talking about writing something that would automatically log him into his favourite post, basically by automatically spamming the server with requests to join the post he wanted, so the second it becomes free, he's in it  (thankfully i believe there are things in place to prevent this, but it can't be nice to think that same person in the best post is there due to an unfair advantage) 

 

At least with driving the trains, your shift ends at the final station, and if you are driving the ~4 hour / 270 km long passenger services, there is a new one every hour (even if now every 3rd one is a damn traxx) so others get to drive them. 

there is nothing to stop someone playing the same dispatcher post all day long every day apart from server restarts 3 times a day. 

So something needs to be done, a shift system would be what i'd go for, with the lesser used posts having longer shifts available.... something that will help spread out the dispatchers over more servers too, as for the english community, everyone wants in on EN1, whilst EN2 and 3 are pretty much empty... except for the newest big dispatcher posts.

[FirstAid]

vor 16 Minuten schrieb Gazz292:

i don't play as dispatcher myself.... but i can see how it must be frustrating for people who'd like to try out the bigger dispatcher posts, but see the same people in it all the time.

Someone on discord was talking about writing something that would automatically log him into his favourite post, basically by automatically spamming the server with requests to join the post he wanted, so the second it becomes free, he's in it  (thankfully i believe there are things in place to prevent this, but it can't be nice to think that same person in the best post is there due to an unfair advantage) 

At least with driving the trains, your shift ends at the final station, and if you are driving the ~4 hour / 270 km long passenger services, there is a new one every hour (even if now every 3rd one is a damn traxx) so others get to drive them. 

there is nothing to stop someone playing the same dispatcher post all day long every day apart from server restarts 3 times a day. 

So something needs to be done, a shift system would be what i'd go for, with the lesser used posts having longer shifts available.... something that will help spread out the dispatchers over more servers too, as for the english community, everyone wants in on EN1, whilst EN2 and 3 are pretty much empty... except for the newest big dispatcher posts.

 

Just what I wanted to say. Additionally to a shift system, I'd make the time that someone could spend on a certain signalbox depending on his reputation. If someone trolls and always makes bad desicions, why should he play Katowice Main station or another big box at all? Yeah, mistakes happen, but they should stay an exception, not become a rule. After all, for me, the absolutely best solution would be, if I could start every signalbox locally on my own pc. But I guess this is unfortunately not possible.

Edited May 22, 2023 by FirstAid

[Gazz292]

from what i've heard, operating the signal boxes in single player mode would require a lot of server side stuff to be made local,  and that would give the asshat's who pirate games what they need to get SimRail pirated 😞 Same with private servers, not going to happen due to piracy issues. 

Quite often on Discord the topic of a dispatchers points systems comes up, i don't know if it's changed recently, but having the requirement to operate a dispatchers post based on time spent driving trains isn't really working. 

Something like they earn points operating smaller posts, work their way up to the larger boxes, then lose points for every Sz signal they use unless it is a valid option, lose points for misrouting trains and so on,
lose to many points and they get demoted to a simpler post until they build the points back up again, 
 

[Lorgroth]

Katowice is just new, big and interesting.

I hope it it will soon be easier to take, just like Zawiercie is now.

Game time shouldn't be limited, at least not by devs. 

I know it's a pain to get the katowice dispatch panel, but be patient.

[Schyrsivochter]

On 5/22/2023 at 7:36 PM, SugaCane said:

I am of the opinion "Who comes first paints first" [Wer zuerst kommt malt zuerst] (It is a German proverb). There shoudn't be an Timelimit as Dispatcher.

The saying actually goes Wer zuerst kommt, mahlt zuerst – he who arrives first dines first. The confusion is understandable, though, since it’s rather archaïc verb.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Schyrsivochter

[CEMO]

mdrrr guys you're crazy how are you 1h 2h max don't know or what in 1h 2h you can't do anything ptdrrrr it's not because you don't have the new post that it's wrong come and say here and say that we need time limits mdrrrrr 🤣

[geluck255]

no it's technically not possible it's completely stupid to do it we don't have time to enjoy the game by doing it stop your bullshit..

Edited May 23, 2023 by geluck255

[GHKtruc]

On 5/22/2023 at 7:53 PM, GHKtruc said:

Yeah, force people to take breaks. 2 hours might be a bit much. I think 1h30 is a good compromise

Wow guys ! How is taking a 15 minutes break every two hours bad for you ? Sretch, blood flow, fresh air and all of that ? No ? No ? Alright whatever

[Deadlost]

It should be up to the user how much time to spend in a stretch, I find this discussion weird… some users might have limited time to spend on  computer let them use it how they desire. If its sitting 5 hours so be it. We have 3-4 hours train services dont we?
 

1-2 hours per session, you might just get one cycle of the timetable and just get the grips of the flow for a new station and then kicked out? No thanks. 
some will sit 30 mins, some 8 hours if you let them. We are all different. At least everyone has a chance to «snatch» the fav station during server restarts.
 

[DeadlyKungFu.Ninja]

1 hour ago, GHKtruc said:

Wow guys ! How is taking a 15 minutes break every two hours bad for you ? Sretch, blood flow, fresh air and all of that ? No ? No ? Alright whatever

We respectfully deny your proposal for us to touch grass.

No but in all seriousness, like Deadlost said, the game should not force or control how much time you can spend on a dispatching post. Playing 5h straight on a dispatching post is valid and fun to do, and having an hard limit may be very dangerous in some situations. When a degraded situation happends at your dispatching post like let's say 1h in, and you have only 30mn to solve the problem you will just pass the hot potato for the next dispatcher, not nice !

The best method if you want to access a high demand dispatch post is to contact the current dispatcher and ask him if you can take over after and when he plans to leave the dispatcher post. That's how I always have done it and many do 🙂 (And in the french community, when asked and there is a queue, the priority is always to the player that has never played or not a lot the dispatching post 😉 )
 

[Bandit]

Yes in France but in Germany it's "DAS IST MEIN PLATZ!!!"  ("This is my Place!!!")

[Gazz292]

i think here it shows how different the language based communities are, 

On the French servers it seems to be polite, professional, friendly, 

Yet on some of the other servers it's more like 'i got here first, hahaha, i'm staying on this post all day, and i'll do the same tomorrow and the next day and the next.... screw you' 
Even some people discussing how they are making a macro/code thing that will get them into their favourite dispatcher post before anyone else the second it becomes free, 

 

------------

Similar with the radio... on the EN servers it's pretty quiet, and radio com's are about train running and what you'd expect for a railway radio. 

Yet the drivers timetables that 'Zapach Kreozotu' made, he put text on his timetables telling people :
"Use your radio for essential communications only.
Do not abuse."

And i read something about on some of the Polish servers the radio topic is always about 'Mariana's ass' !? 🤔

 

[Cubey]

First come first served. That's life. Deal with it. 

[Vince_Ours]

I agree with DeadlyKungFu.Ninja and others, I am also against a time limit on Dispatch posts. There are plenty of trains to drive to pass the time when the dispatch station you want is busy. And as DeadlyKungFu.Ninja says, a radio message or a phone call asking when the position becomes available is more than enough.
On the other hand it could be interesting to have a system of "queue" in the menu of the game on which one registers on a station and when this one is released, the people in queue are automatically transferred in this one. But this system should be optional and at the choice of the player.
Joining a queue would give the player's position in the queue and the player could drive a train during the waiting time and when it's their turn, a notification could appear on their screen with a response time of 5 seconds on which he must choose to accept to go to the position for which he is waiting or cancel because the player is no longer interested in the position.

[sf_giants15]

vor 10 Stunden schrieb Vince_Ours:

I agree with DeadlyKungFu.Ninja and others, I am also against a time limit on Dispatch posts. There are plenty of trains to drive to pass the time when the dispatch station you want is busy. And as DeadlyKungFu.Ninja says, a radio message or a phone call asking when the position becomes available is more than enough.
On the other hand it could be interesting to have a system of "queue" in the menu of the game on which one registers on a station and when this one is released, the people in queue are automatically transferred in this one. But this system should be optional and at the choice of the player.
Joining a queue would give the player's position in the queue and the player could drive a train during the waiting time and when it's their turn, a notification could appear on their screen with a response time of 5 seconds on which he must choose to accept to go to the position for which he is waiting or cancel because the player is no longer interested in the position.

Not a bad Idea, but if 10 players are in a queue for katowice and each player spends 4 hours in that station, then it doesnt matter if there is a queue or not 😄

[Vince_Ours]

4 hours ago, sf_giants15 said:

Not a bad Idea, but if 10 players are in a queue for katowice and each player spends 4 hours in that station, then it doesnt matter if there is a queue or not 😄

You are not wrong sf_giants15. After all, not everyone stays on a dispatch post for long. There are some who will actually spend hours on the same one but others who will just come for 30min/1h and who will release it. The purpose of the queue would be to avoid getting stuck on the game menu while waiting for your position to become available. This system would allow you either to play with a train or to take another dispatch station where there is nobody while being registered in the queue. Afterwards, the queue can be very long, but that doesn't stop you from doing something else in the game.

[DazT]

On 5/24/2023 at 4:02 PM, Gazz292 said:

Even some people discussing how they are making a macro/code thing that will get them into their favourite dispatcher post before anyone else the second it becomes free, 

For which I think it should be an automatic ban if you're trying to cheat the system.

Which is probably why it's pretty much the same old faces on Katowice on an afternoon, I've only managed to get onto there first thing in the morning or last thing at night when the 'children' are in bed!

I'm perhaps guilty of sitting on a panel/workstation for lengthy periods, but it's certainly not the norm, as I like to alternate days, a day of driving, a day of signalling (and if that means a full 9 hours 1500 - 0000, so be it!)

From what I've seen of Katowice, yes it's shiny and new and a lot of buttons so the demand is going to be high in the first few weeks but after about the 4th rotation round the timetable on there you've pretty much seen it all it has to offer really. I've actually found a new favourite; Grodzisk Mazowiecki, which on this new timetable is a whole bigger beast than Katowice could ever be, Katowice becomes merely a branch line box compared to Grodzisk Mazowiecki in full action 🤣

Edited May 26, 2023 by DazT

[DeadlyKungFu.Ninja]

1 hour ago, DazT said:

For which I think it should be an automatic ban if you're trying to cheat the system.

Which is probably why it's pretty much the same old faces on Katowice on an afternoon, I've only managed to get onto there first thing in the morning or last thing at night when the 'children' are in bed!

I'm perhaps guilty of sitting on a panel/workstation for lengthy periods, but it's certainly not the norm, as I like to alternate days, a day of driving, a day of signalling (and if that means a full 9 hours 1500 - 0000, so be it!)

From what I've seen of Katowice, yes it's shiny and new and a lot of buttons so the demand is going to be high in the first few weeks but after about the 4th rotation round the timetable on there you've pretty much seen it all it has to offer really. I've actually found a new favourite; Grodzisk Mazowiecki, which on this new timetable is a whole bigger beast than Katowice could ever be, Katowice becomes merely a branch line box compared to Grodzisk Mazowiecki in full action 🤣

It is probably not because of "cheating" that way. The technique this player was suggesting at implementing would not have worked, or very rarely for the simple reason that the public API is not immediate, there is a layer of 7s atleast where data will stay stale before being refreshed (wich was not made against cheating but for performance).

Some third party tools use this exact technique to notify you when a station is available, but in high demand stations like Katowice, the 7s delay is too much and someone has already took it.

I honestly think the ppl you are refering to probably just either camp the selection screen waiting for the station to be available, or are so used to the position on the selection screen at reboot that they are way faster to click on it than someone that has never clicked on it 😄

[nortsen]

Since Katowice was added, it has not been possible to try it on any server, because someone is on it on every server. I don't care about the game as long as it's this complicated.

Edited May 26, 2023 by nortsen

[lund456]

19 hours ago, nortsen said:

Since Katowice was added, it has not been possible to try it on any server, because someone is on it on every server. I don't care about the game as long as it's this complicated.

And you think all sorts of different restrictions, that many people wont like, will make it less complicated?

[the810]

22 hours ago, nortsen said:

Since Katowice was added, it has not been possible to try it on any server, because someone is on it on every server. I don't care about the game as long as it's this complicated.

Maybe it's a matter of time you're playing at? I've been able to play Katowice on less crowded servers several times.