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Advice on how to improve my score please.

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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 11:26 #139132
bugsy
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Just finished playing my first game of the 1991 timetable with crossings off (as advised) and have a question regarding my score.

The "Total minutes lost" was a massive 3651. and the "Total minutes recovered" was only 193. What would be the best way to improve on this?

Just for your information, my final Total score was 15333 out of 17651 (87%), which didn't seem too bad though, or am I kidding myself?

Any helpful advice would be really appreciated as I'm about to start a second game because I enjoyed the first one so much.

Thanks

Everything that you make will be useful - providing it's made of chocolate.
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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 11:31 #139133
Meld
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I'd say 87% is very respectable playing solo on the 91 timetable.

Don't think there can be much advice you could be given, perhaps read the TTs more, then you can plan a little more ahead, and don't be afraid to slow things down when too much is going off at the same time.

Passed the age to be doing 'Spoon Feeding' !!!
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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 12:37 #139135
Table 52
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I think the other thing to consider is what difficulty settings (failures) did you have in place? Your score and the minutes lost won’t take into account if matters were totally out of your control - if you have a stack of trains behind a nasty TCF then those delay minutes rack up quickly & it is effectively impossible to get 100%. Even a delayed train coming into the sim could delay other trains if it clashes with the timetable of another service.
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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 13:12 #139136
bugsy
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Meld in post 139133 said:
I'd say 87% is very respectable playing solo on the 91 timetable.

Don't think there can be much advice you could be given, perhaps read the TTs more, then you can plan a little more ahead, and don't be afraid to slow things down when too much is going off at the same time.
Thinking about what you have said made me realise that not looking at the timetables closely enough and not doing more forward planning is probably what I've been doing wrong.

Thanks for this advice.

Table 52 in post 139135 said:
I think the other thing to consider is what difficulty settings (failures) did you have in place? Your score and the minutes lost won’t take into account if matters were totally out of your control - if you have a stack of trains behind a nasty TCF then those delay minutes rack up quickly & it is effectively impossible to get 100%. Even a delayed train coming into the sim could delay other trains if it clashes with the timetable of another service.
I had the "Beginner" setting enabled and turned the failures sliders back to the far left as per the screenshot. Can't remember why I didn't adjust the bottom two sliders though. Some trains still entered delayed so that made for a bit more interest.

I'm thinking or running my next game with a small amount of delays and with the signal and track circuit failures set slightly to the right just to make things a little more interesting and I will definitely implement Meld’s advice and pay more attention to the timetables and slowing the sim down occasionally when necessary.

Thanks
.....

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Last edited: 27/04/2021 at 13:29 by bugsy
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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 13:47 #139143
jc92
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My advice is to not focus on it to be honest. Minutes lost and gained doesn't allow for any delays (a delayed train coming in that loses more time being held for other trains still costs minutes lost for isntance) and sometimes doing the right thing doesn't score the most points.

The main things to focus on are 0 ACOAs, 0 wrong routes, 0 trains removed etc and other obvious no no's like a train passing over an open crossing.

"We don't stop camborne wednesdays"
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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 15:33 #139145
lazzer
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jc92 in post 139143 said:
My advice is to not focus on it to be honest. Minutes lost and gained doesn't allow for any delays (a delayed train coming in that loses more time being held for other trains still costs minutes lost for isntance) and sometimes doing the right thing doesn't score the most points.

The main things to focus on are 0 ACOAs, 0 wrong routes, 0 trains removed etc and other obvious no no's like a train passing over an open crossing.
When I play any sim, the score is totally irrelevant to me. Real life signallers aren't scored on whether a train is loses two minutes while passing through their patch, so I don't lose much sleep over it either.

I can't remember the last time I press F5 when playing Simsig ...

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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 16:00 #139150
bugsy
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lazzer in post 139145 said:
jc92 in post 139143 said:
My advice is to not focus on it to be honest. Minutes lost and gained doesn't allow for any delays (a delayed train coming in that loses more time being held for other trains still costs minutes lost for isntance) and sometimes doing the right thing doesn't score the most points.

The main things to focus on are 0 ACOAs, 0 wrong routes, 0 trains removed etc and other obvious no no's like a train passing over an open crossing.
When I play any sim, the score is totally irrelevant to me. Real life signallers aren't scored on whether a train is loses two minutes while passing through their patch, so I don't lose much sleep over it either.

I can't remember the last time I press F5 when playing Simsig ...
You're both right I suppose. I think that I'll just play the sim without worrying about the scores from now on.

Everything that you make will be useful - providing it's made of chocolate.
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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 17:20 #139154
DonRiver
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Just wait until I build a TRUST simulator which requires you to account for and attribute every delay and cancellation
(named for the one in Tasmania, not in Russia)
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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 18:56 #139157
DavidSplett
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bugsy in post 139132 said:
Just finished playing my first game of the 1991 timetable with crossings off (as advised) and have a question regarding my score.

The "Total minutes lost" was a massive 3651. and the "Total minutes recovered" was only 193. What would be the best way to improve on this?

Just for your information, my final Total score was 15333 out of 17651 (87%), which didn't seem too bad though, or am I kidding myself?

Any helpful advice would be really appreciated as I'm about to start a second game because I enjoyed the first one so much.

Thanks
The answer is that for the minutes gained / minutes lost, there is little you can do when there's failures or delays happening. However you should have a feeling at the end of the game whether you've had a positive effect or not. Even with failures and delays set to off, it may still not be possible to achieve a 100% score as the real-life TT may contain issues.

Also if you're doing a bit of "control" decision making, sometimes good decisions don't necessarily recover late running straight away.

Stuff like wrong signals or putting signals back is more of a reflection of performance IMO.

One thing which I've always wondered, on some of the sims (including King's Cross) one seems to accrue occasional "other points lost". I've no idea what causes these.

Last edited: 27/04/2021 at 19:33 by DavidSplett
Reason: None given

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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 19:17 #139158
bugsy
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DavidSplett in post 139157 said:

One thing which I've always wondered, on some of the sims (including King's Cross) one seems to accrue occasional "other points lost". I've no idea what causes these.
I was wondering what those points were for too. I only had 13 of those anyway so wasn't really concerned.

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Advice on how to improve my score please. 27/04/2021 at 20:20 #139159
jc92
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bugsy in post 139158 said:
DavidSplett in post 139157 said:

One thing which I've always wondered, on some of the sims (including King's Cross) one seems to accrue occasional "other points lost". I've no idea what causes these.
I was wondering what those points were for too. I only had 13 of those anyway so wasn't really concerned.
Some non exhaustive examples:

Pullman/bonus scoring train delayed

Train passing over crossing with barriers up

Custom penalties, eg leaving crossley Evans yard points uncollared at shipley.

Level crossings down for too long

"We don't stop camborne wednesdays"
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Advice on how to improve my score please. 28/04/2021 at 07:18 #139160
kbarber
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I'd have said 87% is pretty respectable for a first run-through.

In real life, a bobby has to make the best of what's thrown at them. And even ARS spends quite a bit of its time working out which is the lesser of two evils. Remember, too, that there's more than one signalman's position in virtually all sims, and that in real life even a novice bobby is doing a job they've learned intensively for (at least) a week on each shift for each position they cover. Once they've been doing the job for a while they have more & more of a feel for what's likely to be critical and what can look after itself.

For instance, a train taking the left-most route at a diverging flat junction can have the route set through the junction as soon as it's the next one over, whereas a train taking any other route will take a conflicting route and it's better to wait until you have a clear idea how things will be as the train approaches the junction. With experience a bobby can tell where potentially conflicting trains are likely to be when it matters and sometimes set routes a bit earlier, or at least see in advance that today that particular train needs more careful monitoring than usual.

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Advice on how to improve my score please. 28/04/2021 at 09:41 #139161
bugsy
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kbarber in post 139160 said:
I'd have said 87% is pretty respectable for a first run-through.

In real life, a bobby has to make the best of what's thrown at them. And even ARS spends quite a bit of its time working out which is the lesser of two evils. Remember, too, that there's more than one signalman's position in virtually all sims, and that in real life even a novice bobby is doing a job they've learned intensively for (at least) a week on each shift for each position they cover. Once they've been doing the job for a while they have more & more of a feel for what's likely to be critical and what can look after itself.

For instance, a train taking the left-most route at a diverging flat junction can have the route set through the junction as soon as it's the next one over, whereas a train taking any other route will take a conflicting route and it's better to wait until you have a clear idea how things will be as the train approaches the junction. With experience a bobby can tell where potentially conflicting trains are likely to be when it matters and sometimes set routes a bit earlier, or at least see in advance that today that particular train needs more careful monitoring than usual.
I found your reply most interesting and can appreciate what you say about gaining experience and thus a better understanding of what to do in differing circumstances.

Thanks

Everything that you make will be useful - providing it's made of chocolate.
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