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Difficulty Levels

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Difficulty Levels 10/07/2015 at 15:43 #74081
Myrm
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36 posts
Hi

I note that when I start the SimSig up there are several levels of difficulty (Beginner, Timetable Developer, Standard Simulation, Difficult).

How do each of the difficulty levels affect the sim?

Thank you.

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Difficulty Levels 10/07/2015 at 16:08 #74083
Steamer
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3986 posts
Each scenario is described in the box below the list when you highlight it. The following is a generic description:

TT developer- everything enters on time, no disruption other than that which you cause yourself!
Beginner- No equipment failures, usually a small amount of late running.
Standard- Occasional failures, with fairly quick fix times. More late running than Beginner.
Difficult- More failures with longer fix times, and trains subject to heavy delay.

You can check the difficulty level by opening F3> Failures, and can adjust the sliders if you wish to make it easier or harder.

"Don't stress/ relax/ let life roll off your backs./ Except for death and paying taxes/ everything in life.../ is only for now." (Avenue Q)
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The following user said thank you: Myrm
Difficulty Levels 10/07/2015 at 16:14 #74085
Myrm
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36 posts
Thank you Steamer. :)

I usually use beginner with real normal speed.

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Difficulty Levels 11/07/2015 at 11:05 #74124
Stephen Fulcher
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2084 posts
It is also worth checking the manuals for the simulations concerned, as I know there can be subtle variations between them.

For instance, I know that Peter Bennet has got a couple of his Western sims coded so that TORR is disabled at Difficult level, but enabled at the others.

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Difficulty Levels 13/07/2015 at 21:05 #74211
Lardybiker
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771 posts
Difficulty levels are set by the dev. Each sim could and indeed may well be different as there is no defacto SimSig standard for this (one of the few items that isn't in fact) so the advice to read the manual is definitely true.

My personal choice is to avoid a single global difficulty settings like this covering several options and instead, where it's appropriate, break them out the options so the user can tailor the individual difficulty settings to make the sim more or less challenging as they see fit. That way they can tailor it to what they like (or don't like) as the case may be and increment the difficulty in finer steps as they get better at the sim.

For example, I typically separate out the weather so you can turn the affects of bad weather on or off. I also let the user choose how the delays should range from none to all sorts and finally, what sort of failures they would like to include. Beyond that it becomes sim-specific with potentially settings for say crossing options, TORR on or off and so on, again depending on what the sim includes.

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Difficulty Levels 14/07/2015 at 14:49 #74225
Jersey_Mike
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250 posts
Would be interesting to have a "realistic" level that could somehow import actual delays and failures from the previous day's service.
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Difficulty Levels 14/07/2015 at 17:40 #74228
Muzer
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718 posts
Perhaps instead you could just collect data on the actual average delay (relatively easy) and average equipment failure (harder, perhpas a Freedom of Information Request to Network Rail would work here) for the area.
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