Bukkit

Just noticed this: jerky minecart movement happens with an unmodded 1.4.5 client, but I use a modded one (vanilla + OptiFine + LiteLoader etc.) and with that client, minecart movement is absolutely smooth!

I can definitely verify leagris's bug report: the cart movement is jerky, and while it IS hard to catch evidence from it, it is very presentable while playing.

On the other hand, 1.4.5 seems to handle carts in general more "smoothly"; less random warping and damage to players while riding. Anyway, I think this should be investigated, although to me it isn't a showstopper, just an annoyance.

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@bergerkiller: you have any ETA on your trials for pathfinding fixes? I'd be happy to test out whatever test builds you might have!

While anxiously waiting for bergerkiller to work his magic on TrainCarts and fixing the pathfinding, I decided to write a little more thorough README file for my small TCGraph program. My fellow miners, here you are:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6411310/Readme.pdf

If you have your destinations.dat files available at your server, go ahead and install DOT tool and give this tool a try. I will do my best to develop the program into something which would really be useful, not only to the plugin users but also bergerkiller himself!

@leagris

I do not - the program produces both the .txt AND the .dot files in one run from destinations.dat (or whatever your TrainCarts destination file is called).

Here is a working version of my program called TCGraph, which produces a DOT output of the TrainCarts destinations.dat file. https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6411310/TCGraph.jar

DOT is a common description language for graphs and DOT files can be neatly output into graphical PDF format, for example. You do need the free DOT tool, which can be found here: http://www.graphviz.org/Download..php

The source code for my tiny program can be found from my GitHub account: https://github.com/Etsija/TCGraph

I hope this helps the users of this excellent plugin to pinpoint problems in their pathfinding! I will write a better manual for my SW when I have time.

@bergerkiller

About the "command to perform path finding automatically": how would such a command work? I myself have no preference other than that the server doesn't crash at the 1st junction, so whatever is best to implement for you, is fine to me :D

Regarding my small program: it is ready, but I haven't been able to run it "from the command line", so far only from inside Eclipse's debugger. As soon as I find a way to run it just by clicking the corresponding jarfile, I'll share the code and jar on my GitHub account. Note that the tool does need the free "dot" program, however. I'm not planning on writing my own viewer, since dot does far better job at producing the graph than anything I'd be able to write.

As a pre-taste, here's the DOT my code produces atm: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6411310/destinations07.dot

Then I just feed that file into dot (actually, neato), by writing to command line:

and voilá, I get the nice and neat PDF.

I tried various things to get the path finding to work, but to no avail. I can once again verify that path finding is completely broken - it crashes our server 100% on the first junction the cart with a destination drives to.

EDIT: I even tried to remove the check from the code that checks whether the train has a destination set when it drives over a switcher sign, but probably my small change didn't make any difference. The server still crashes at the first junction.

chest in and chest out doesn't work -.-

this and the path finding is most important for my server :(

P.S. bergerkiller can you speak german? :D

@rcth

bergerkiller kindly provided me with a source code that converts destinations.dat into an ASCII file. I changed the output format into a DOT file, then just used the free (and great!) dot tool to create the graph. I will share my code when it's ready - it will maybe be of some use to other plugin users as well.

@Etsija

How did you made that file with your network?

Just an idea: some time ago, to reduce tick lag in normal train usage, you did remove the feature that a new switcher node was added to the node list whenever a train moved over a new switcher, right?

If that's the case, then fine - for the normal usage, when the train network is ready and people just want to use the system. Then the normal usage would be that only the carts with a destination set should trigger node- and pathfinding at switcher nodes.

But, I think you have at the same time introduced a huge problem. Let me explain:

• after a "/train reroute" the whole system is completely virginal. No nodes, no edges, no destinations
• now, as I drive along my metro system without any destinations set, only the new destinations the plugin finds are added to the system. (I have a destination sign set for every station in my system.)
• so, after I have visited each and every station in my system (note: still without any "/train dest" set!), the system consists of my destinations as nodes, and only them. No switchers whatsoever as of yet

This introduces a problem: what happens when a user sets "/train dest x", starts driving and arrives at the first switcher? I think now the plugin goes into a massive trouble of trying to find all switchers leading to a destination. That hangs up the whole server, and we get a severe crash on our server.

So, in the end, you did save a few ticks on normal usage by disabling switcher addition when trains with no destination set are driving on the server. But at the same time, you took almost all of that saved calculation and inserted it into one massive heap for pathfinding. And, as iKoze and I have found, that really is fatal to the server - or, you have a bug somewhere which is causing this.

My suggestion is this: why not implement another admin command, say "/train addnodes", which does this: whenever I take a cart and do "/train addnodes", the plugin would register each switcher I drive over, see if it is a new one, and if so, adds it into its set of nodes, maybe at the same time also connecting the new node into its corresponding neighbour nodes (ie. finding the egdes).

I think this could be a fairly good compromise: I (as an admin) would of course be the only one ever using that command, so the usual usage for the plugin would be as it is, but with the added functionality of "incremental pathfinding". So, if I ever would need to run "/train reroute" again, then I just had to do "/train addnodes" and then drive all of our tracks again. I know that is a bit of work, but at least it would be doable. (And, we have nice scenery on our server, so the job wouldn't be too dull, either :) )

I think actually this same command could be used for incremental building of a big network.

Example: our current metro network, as the plugin sees it, is this: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6411310/destinations07.pdf

As you see, the destinations "komentola", "linnake", "louhos" and "traktori" are yet unconnected. To issue "/train reroute" would be an overkill, since that deletes ALL info. TO do it incrementally -> take a cart, issue "/train addnodes" and drive over new switchers connecting those new destinations.

(BTW, the picture linked also demonstrates the work I've done so far with the code I received from you. My code is almost ready to be published now.)

@bergerkiller: as iKoze and me have noticed, /train reroute causes a situation, where in practise, using this plugin with route finding becomes quite impossible - since the server crashes in the first junction, when it starts to find the nodes and edges again after they have been resetted.

Please could you investigate and try to come up with a solution, since this is killing us now. We cannot use route finding at all on our server.

I think what you're saying is that on a massive system, this would be inevitable, but clearly, it is not an acceptable situation. I have numerous earlier destinations.dat files from our server stored in my PC. They implement a "subset" of the routes we now have, so why not implement some kind of an incremental way of adding new nodes to the system? I mean, I could feed the server our destinations.dat from three days back, and then the plugin would try to add to that when finding new nodes, rather than start all over again, which in a massive system is impossible in the way it is done now.

For reference, here's our metro system atm. It is quite massive, I must say. http://46.253.195.79:17965/

Route calculation with /train reroute crashes our server big time. I do "/train reroute", take a cart, start driving, choose a destination far away on the map with "/train dest" -> as soon as I hit the first intersection, the whole server crashes and "read timeout" is on the log.

Any ideas? This happened for three times in a row.

@ Schwarzmonch

I volunteer as a translator here, please write the German text xD

Danke Todd