Draw the rail path

[ske]

In FFF #113 the autorouter for rail building was presented. It looks like it finds the shortest path between two endpoints. The update in FFF #114 (bottom animation) shows some manual incremental building of a junction.

This got me thinking about how to best convey the intent of the user where the rail should go. Especially when there are already rail tiles on the ground or you want to build two parallel rails in a curved section. When going around an edge (lake) the shortest path is touching the edge, so both rails would overlap. Sometimes they shall overlap, sometimes they shall not. Sometimes you want little distance, sometimes you want a bigger distance between them. There probably isn't a optimization rule to cover all reasonable cases and we likely don't want a big configuration panel for the autorouter.

Now, my idea is that instead of finding the best path between two endpoints, the player can draw a path (like a pencil drawing) and the autorouter tries to follow the drawn path instead of finding the shortest route.

With this method, the path building of FFF #114 should be possible in one go. When you draw a straight path through a forest like in FFF #113, the shortest path is still curving through the forest, so when drawing straight paths both methods should be identical.

[ratchetfreak]

Or have a mode where intersecting/joining the rails is not allowed (cost is infinity) while planning the path.

[ske]

Or have a mode where intersecting/joining the rails is not allowed (cost is infinity) while planning the path.

The problem with that is that it is not easily explorable and might need explanation for many players. While having a control panel for the autorouter is a good idea, it also is a bad idea. Maybe a combination of

a) a good-enough autorouter which just works

b) an advanced control panel to give fine grained control over the autorouter configuration

c) access to all rail tiles for manually laying the tiles because the ******-autorouter just does not comprehend some difficult situations

would be an ideal solution.

The idea with drawing the path has the advantage that the player does not need to know how the autorouter works. It will still lay tiles from start to finish. That they follow the drawn path is self-explaining. So it adds to the functionality without adding much complexity.

In electronics routing circuit board layouts is one of the most difficult tasks and there is no easy solution which fits all needs because the problem is very complex and there are many constraints to be considered.

[ssilk]

My opinion to that is: Let's wait for v0.13 and then create better suggestions, cause we cannot know, how deep the current implementation is handling such more or less exceptional needs.

[ske]

My opinion to that is: Let's wait for v0.13 and then create better suggestions, cause we cannot know, how deep the current implementation is handling such more or less exceptional needs.

Fair point.

[ssilk]

Moved to Won't implement. See reason above.

It's really O.K. to be reopened or create a new, when v0.13 is out.