Today we have released build 5112. The build fixes a number of serious issues which came up with the last updates (build 5068 / 5080).
Most important, players reported freezes at the end of each game month. We have identified the problem and it is fixed now. Because since the last update, the game runs faster during the months, on certain systems (parallel) simulation calculations which need to be finished at the end of each month were still in progress and caused these freezes.
In addition, several small fixes and improvements are included in this update. Please find the release notes here.
Finally, let us mention that due to a lot of feedback and criticism related to the street main connection feature, we have decided that it will be possible to disable the feature in a future version. However, when doing so, the game will switch to “sandbox” mode (i.e. achievements cannot be earned in such games). Most likely this will be released together with the USA DLC. Also, we are thinking about other ways to “force” the player to maintain the main connections.
Rail Crossing so rails can cross each other we are still waiting for that
Its really bad that the rails cant cross each other. Stupid.
Rails can cross each other just fine: http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/50986086088698179/D1C329A29B18771A25BEA362F742F578DF12DAF1/
Yeah, but that’s not very realistic for the early years or freight lines. That’s nice for high-speed rail lines but that’s about it.
Personally, I like the sight of trains maneuvering through complicated “flat” interlockings.
It would be nice to be able to go up and down with the rails the same way you do it with roads (with m & n keys)
rail crossings pleaaase!!!
it’s an important feature in real life railways and yet it’s not in tha game!!
also DKW crossings are very very usefull
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_switch#mediaviewer/File:Double_slip_at_Munich_central.jpg
why don’t you try to put this in the game!!!
Dear Urban Team,
i would be pleased if you create a sandbox mode. If possible longer month in the sandbox mode would be great. For me the time is passing to fast. Money is not my Problem in the Game. It is not important if i have 5 ot 10 Billion Credits in 1980.
I would be very pleased if a moth will take double the time. And a train is not in a station for a week. Or a single bus turnaround in a city takes a month.
Thanks a lot for the last two patches.
Good work! Thanks.
Being able to upgrade signals would be nice.
You can easily up-/downgrade railroad track to high-speed track.
You can easily up-/downgrade railroad track to electrified track.
You can easily choose if a railroad crossings should be with or without barriers.
Until now you can NOT up- or downgrade signals (mechanical to electrical signals)! The only way to do this is deleting the mechanical signal, and replace it with an electrical signal.
1 – That is a LOT of work.
2 – If you had a mechanical signal set as a waypoint in your route, and delete it to replace it with an electrical signal, you will lose that waypoint. In one of my games that caused a train to enter a station at the wrong platform, causing all kinds of ‘traffic jams’.
So just leave them.
Hi Guys,
A really good business simulation!
My suggestions:
1. Map Editor
2. Modification of the 20 minute rule to bypass
Much love and keep it up!
Chris
Sorry for my English, i used the Google-Translate 😉
About the main connection: I would try solve it by first calculating the distance by road from city A to city B, measured from the city centre at the beginning of the game. Lets say that the distance between these two cities is 20km.
The player is allowed to demolish roads as he pleases, but the distance between the cities cannot become more than 120% of the original. If this rule broken for more than a month then all of the citizens will go on strike and will not go to work or travel. The player will get a message “The main connection between A and B is broken, the citizens of A and B are on strike”
I have an easier solution to implement : let the players demolish all main connections while the game is paused, but let the game resume only once all main connections are re-established.
This would enable players to do all the “cosmetic” changes they want without getting in situations where main connections between cities are lost.
I would cast my vote for this option.
… and then you run out of money and credits before you can rebuild the road which ends in being stuck in the paused game for ever. If you then have auto-safe deactivated, as you can do now, you’re even more fucked…
I don’t think it is a good idea!
If you cannot manage your budget to keep enough money to complete all your roadwords, you need to rethink your strategy :
– why are you starting huge roadworks while your budget is low ? I assume that if you do only small changes, it will not cost you a big amount of money. And in all the maps I’ve played, rebuilding a simple road does not cost millions.
– why don’t you save your game before starting these works, just to make sure you have a backup ?
yeah. in this situation you just have to take a loan. You just take a loan and you’re fine.
First: sometimes building stuff in TF gets much more expensive than you first thought; and second: you could count on negative comments here of people having exactly this problem, if this option is implemented! A lot of people would whine about the loss of time and blame the developers. That’s the reason why the devs should not handle it as you suggested, for their own sake… Although, and there I agree with you, it is the fault of the user if this problem occurred.
@medopu: Loans are maxed at 10 M. So you can’t always take a loan and you’re therefore not always fine with your solution.
Cristoph, did not know about max. loan. Then they could make an exception that allows you take more loans. IMO loans should go to infinity anyway, it’s a very sandboxy game, as long as you pay interest, you should have 1B in loans if you want to.
This is the best idea i heard so far (bc i had the same :))
I started to play my 2nd game after the fail connection patch and rage quit after 20 min. it is unplayable now and i wont bother playing this game until something useful is done to make it work.
I guess main connections are a problem when building train stations and cities simply because of the scale. Train stations are simply too large compared to the cities, so roads easily interfere with the players construction. Also, main connections are too “free style” and messy – they go in all sorts of directions, so usually a player wants to delete them and relocate or re build them in a more organized way.
I think the best fix is a map editor, so we can design cities as well as their interconnected highways as we wish. In the real world, no one would want to demolish a well designed highway!
Finally, it would be great to display which two points the main connection is needed. My guess is we need to connect where the city names are located. But most of the time we need to guess where we need to connect.
Overall thanks for a great game UG, keep it up and dont be demoralized by the critical comments. No one is perfect 🙂
“Forcing” the use of main roads is not the real problem.
If you solve the actual problem, we do not need to demolish main roads 😉
Thanks for the update.
So what is the “actual” problem?
You need to demolish roads to build tracks across them. That is the problem. I’m not sure if that is what Chris is saying but that is my opinion.
No you don’t. In fact you can’t build tracks “across roads” if you demolish the road because you can’t lay roads over tracks, only the other way around.
Now that was a quick fix! Thanks a lot!
Thanks for the fix guys. This works really well now. Love it and saved me from having to start a new game due to the monthend lag!
Dier sid eifach geili Sieche!
I played this latest update for a few hours now tonight. It really is a HUGE performance improvement, the lags at the end of each month are gone now, and the game does indeed run a lot smoother. Thanks to the development team!!!
In addition to my prior post (upgrading of signals), I would like to suggest a few ‘cosmetic’ adjustments:
1 – If you zoom the map way out, you see all the little blue icons for every station, every bus/tram stop, and especially a blue icon for every single signal on the map. If you have a lot of signals, it just doesn’t look very nice. Would be great if you could toggle these little blue icons on and off (just like you already can toggle the goods movement on the map on and off now).
2 – Road bridges. Especially their shadow. The ‘old’ road bridges cast a full shadow, which is ok. Around 1925 the ‘new’ road bridges come available. They do not cast a full shadow, but two small bars of shadow, with sunlight inbetween them, which is very silly to see!
I hope it will be possible to implement these changes.
About the main roads issue: If I run into a main road that ‘needs a bypass’, I simply give the game what it wants: I create a large bypass (with cheapest possible road), in a huge half circle around the ‘problem area’. Now the game has the bypass it wants. Then I delete the road I want to adjust, and replace it with a new road in the angle/size/direction I want it to be. With M and N buttons you can even build a bridge, or even a tunnel, so it’s totally out of harms way. (even a small countryside main connection road can go in a tunnel that way!). When finished adjusting the main road, I delete the huge half circle bypass I created. Main road is now as you wanted it to be! If neccessary, use the terrain levelling tool, to wipe out any traces of the temporary bypass from the landscape. Program happy, Me happy, problem solved!
A small bug about roads is the forests (the lumber industry). It is possible to create a road that runs through a small corner of the lumber’s area (the white ‘square’ that appears when you put the mouse over it). But if you lay a road that runs within this square, there will be produced absolutely no lumber anymore! I discovered this when I had a lumber mill that produced quite well, and suddenly stopped producing when I laid a road that ran that way. When I removed that road, it started producing again! With all the other industries it is not possible to lay a road that runs through a corner of the industry’s area (I think), only in the lumber mill’s area.
Rail crossings is something I would like to see very much though. Although I suspect it will take quite some programming to create such complex crossings, and possibly a lot of headaches placing the signals in the correct positions.
Last issue (for now): Bus stations. If you use a bus station opposite to a train station as a ‘hub’ where all buses of the city deliver their passengers, the number of buses (and/or trams) at the station cause their own traffic jam. I think it is because they have the entrance and the exit on the same side. If a bus station would have an entrance on one side, and an exit on the other side, buses and trams would (I think) drive much smoother through them. Of course, you would have to connect it to two roads then instead of one, but that shouldn’t be a problem I think.
This works only outside cities.
As always, thanks for the patch. I am just waiting for the DLC after which I will start to play this game again. Unfortunately, I deleted my previous hectic save game, otherwise I could have tested the performance and reported to the devs.
May be a scenario system, and a seperate small sized cloud based saving system would be useful
Thanks
You listened! Thanks.
Hello everyone.
For me, time is running too fast: one minute a month is too much !!! Do not have time to take a train that is already old! I would do a minute a day.
Then in the “line management” would remove the button of the automatic replacement of the vehicle and put it directly on to the replacement vehicle. 25% / 100% / 150% / 200% / (new button) replaced immediately without waiting for the age of the vehicle / no / yes / image vehicle / set vehicle. So now you have an overview of the vehicles that you have to change and the period when changing because I happened to leave set at 25% and was spending money unnecessarily.
then change the window company balance because you do not understand so well.
See you soon!
Use google translator to write!
1 minute for a day would take you 900 hours to finnish one game from 1850 to 2000. No way!
That’s a month and a half of non stop 24h/day playing.
sorry wrong comment
Great work performance is much better. Just starting my first large map. With the new bridges and performance I am able to create complex junctions
Requests:
ability to disable new essential connections (on easy)
sandbox mode (no money)
vehicles never expire mode
auto signal placement
one way roads
Select station platform/ bus stop/depot
British Intercity 125 🙂
Keep up the good work
I play this game to have fun, I enjoy building a train layout. I am not competing with anyone for achievements, I really dont care about them. I do not understand what the problem is that required the essential connecting roads “fix”. Now I have less fun and more frustration creating activities in a game with an already high level of frustration. I do not understand why this was done just when the game was getting to the almost playable condition. Who was complaining about a problem with people deleting roads ? could they not have just decided to not delete the roads in their own game ? I really dont care what other people do in their game, I would hope they are trying to have fun, but it really is not my concern is it ? Would consider enhancing performance of the game as a much higher priority any way… theres this customer satifaction thing I heard of, its a business concept, anyone else hear of it ?
My 2 cents about the problem regarding MAIN CONNECTIONS and SANDBOX.
As a basic solution, I second Gatw’s idea of allowing works on main connections only when the game is paused. But I definitely like the whole idea about a “sandbox”; only I intend as sandbox something like this:
– sandbox only available when the game is paused;
– during sandbox any kind of destruction and rebuilding is allowed, including on main connections;
– when done, the player has the choice to “apply” all the changes made in sandbox mode, or “cancel” and revert to the previous map layout;
– when the “apply” button i pressed, the game checks if the main connections have been correctly restored.
HOWEVER, the idea of having (especially in the early years) some small town scattered on the map *without* connections could be an interesting scenario to play with; therefore, maybe the game should allow the player to destroy connections at will (still granting a sort of “integrity check” on request).
Two-stage suggestion for a less infuriating way of handling the “street main connection” situation:
1) Make it possible to construct streets over tracks (as far as I can tell only the reverse is currently possible)
2) Make main connections automatically rebuild themselves, even across railway tracks, on a very short timeline.
The NVIDIA OpenGL driver lost connection…
Error code? 7
I got usually this message after 1-2 minutes. 1 year old config, I7, 8GB ram, 2GB video.
I wasted 29 GBP on this product, in the current state it worths about zero.
What about refund? I think I’m not alone with my problem… So together we can do something…
Works fine for me. Must be your machine (driver or hardware).
So why should they refund the game when you machine is the problem?
Good effort on the new patch, game is way smoother and I only get a minor pause when there is major city expansion.
a few things however:
1, The main routes issue is really annoying, i agree with the posters above. Allow us to change what we want in pause, then have an apply button….. then there’s no issue with running out of money and we can sort out the mess that is the default road system.
2, I’m sure its a major job, but the stations need a complete rethink. The game would definitely be improved for all of us if you were to make them modular, start off with a nice village stop, then expand as the demand is increased. All stations should be able to handle freight, however you could make them only able to handle a small amount before you need to add dedicated freight platforms. The stations should also be able to have bus/tram stops integrated into their footprint.
3, Give the option to extend the amount of time one month will take (this has also been asked for repeatedly) especially as i spent hours changing a huge swathe of train build dates to try and extend the various eras, only to find a 2050 hard time limit, no new trains will appear after this….
4, Please expand the cargo, I think the game would be better if the resources are left as is, but the actual manufacturing/processing plants are moved into the cities, maybe even making them purchasable? all be it make them a very expensive purchase. Cities should also generate their own cargo (mail?) This would be a lot more true to life in the earlier eras as most trains would have been mixed freight and pax. (also previously asked for please double or more the time limit and amount for cargo, this will make for more realistic freight trains, especially with the US mod, the Big Boy looks ridiculous pulling 3 wagons)
5, Also repeatedly asked for, please try and implement a way of crossing tracks (both road on rail & rail on rail). The other annoying thing is the games inability to put 2 sets of points (switches) next to each other, you end up with long protracted junctions taking up the already small space between cities.
6, Last one, please look into the maps, I would love to see maps twice the size or more, but with the same number of towns, maybe introduce some way of throttling back the development of some of them? Thus causing the player to have to build nice long intercity lines with branchlines coming off them. (and a map editor would be really well received)
I know this post seems critical, but i’m really enjoying the game, these changes will make it absolutely brilliant.
Cheers
Jim
P.S. whens the British DLC coming? Intercity 125’s, The Flying Scotsman, GWR Kings……. 🙂
sorry just re-read my comment, for the cargo, I meant the time required to move the goods, and the quantity produced need to be increased.
and another quick afterthought, maybe the addition of shipping ports etc as a place to move the freight to.
Thanks again,
Jim
I forgot to ask for a feature that would be fairly easy to implement: a warnin message to ALERT THE USER when a train stays blocked for a long time “WAITING FOR FREE PATH”, or with “NO PATH” at all.
When the user alters a complex railway layout, the game always recalculates the paths, but leaves the trains in their current position; therefore, a train that has operated correctly for a long time suddenly may find itself in a “face-to-face” locked position with another train, without the user being aware of it.
I’d find extremely useful a warning message like “Train #5 has been waiting for free path for 24 hours”.
Right at the beginning, I want to thank you for a great game! 🙂
My comments …
– I agree (and it was also my idea) with the need to pause the game during the demolition of the main road. I think the amount of money for rebuilding’d be able to keep an eye on. It would actually like in the real world. 😉
– Railway crossings would be very helpful.
– The possibility of building a road across the railway line.
– I agree also with a slowing down of playing time as well.
– My suggestion is:
firstly – the possibility to build a railway station with exits on both sides (the connections to the road).
secondly – the possibility of receiving passengers and goods together.
thirdly – trains could choose the rail in a train station, which is currently empty and not by the position of its lines.
The same would help in other types of stops.
Thanks.
I love this game, any update that will make it better im all in.