Hello all,
it’s my first post but I’ve played TF several dozens of hours and I feel entitled to add a few comments and suggestions.
In general the list compiled by LB meets my expectations. The devs will (let’s hope) decide what is important and what is not and what to include in TF or TF 2 (I would certainly buy it J.
Few suggestions that I don’t agree:
Different Types of Population Centre
Doing this would certainly be more realistic but in a such small world it would certainly look like a (small) agglomeration with place only for urban transports – no intercity passenger transport and no cargo (especially rail cargo) would look realistic. Right now we can at least pretend to play with a large chunk of a country. This modification should be optional at best.
City-owned roads (existing infrastructure)
Demolishing it is already expensive as You have to demolish adjacent building first. Don’t see a need to change this.
Allow X Crossings of rails
This is an obvious must (perhaps the most important). However, a double slip switch should be optional on such crossing and only if intersection angle allows it (about 30°).
Game to break rails into multiple segments after laying them.
Although this would be quite useful, one can do it almost everywhere building and then deleting a switch.
Include Wagon de-coupling and turntables
It seems a really complex task (never seen it fully implemented in a economic rail simulation). And taking into account small distances between stations (small world) and small stations themselves. The infrastructure needed for a locomotive to be put on the other end of the train takes place and moving a locomotive would take longer than a travel between destinations. I fear that this idea is not very compatible with the whole TF philosophy.
Vehicles to not stop if there is no one waiting
This behavior is indeed common for real life busses but very rare for tramways and passenger trains. Should be optional for each stop rather than generalized.
Tweak tram vs train income/expenses
This actually quite realistic. Trams are cheaper in terms of both infrastructure and vehicles so it is not surprising that they are more profitable. For a journey of max. ~30 km quite frankly I’m not surprised. The problem is rather that the game is not to scale and obviously it cannot be…
Same goes for trucks – it is not a surprise that they are cheaper. There is a reason why the vast majority of cargo is transported by truck in Europe.
Heavy rail is favored by long distances and in TF long distances we don’t have…
Construction costs increased
I do not totally agree. Construction is only cheap when building in flat terrain. When there are serious terrain modifications it is getting quite costly. Of course some adjustments are possible. Bridges and tunnels seem too cheap, that’s true.
On the other hand infrastructure maintenance costs are ridicously low. For a quite large network, totally high speed and electrified, I got annual maintenance costs easily covered by a train delivering 20 x coal + 20 x iron to a steel mill…
Fix Main Connection Issue
I don’t think it is an issue per se. In real world You wouldn’t be allowed to demolish a trunk road without providing an alternative. It’s actually the alternative that lacks – currently the game is too strict for deciding whether a road You build can be a main connection. I also believe that this “issue” was addressed by a mod for those who want it.
And few suggestions of my own to add to the list.
Buildings could serve as waypoints
As the problem with wrong route choice affects mainly trucks (trams and busses stick to closely spaced stops and trains now have waypoints) and inside cities, existing structures (buildings or intersections) could serve as waypoints.
Allow linking tracks not adjacent and not parallel
In order to link two tracks that are not adjacent one has to build a switch on a first track, then on the second. When two tracks are too close even this is not possible. It would be good to be able to do it in one time. This would be much easy and would look better if two track are not on the same height.
Vehicle spacing
Vehicle spacing could be simply addressed in adding an option in line properties window an option “do not leave the first stop if a vehicle has left it in less than xx seconds” where xx can be chosen at will. As the game knows a line frequency xx it could even be proposed automatically. The advantage is this approach is delay-resistant (if a vehicle is delayed, those following will adjust). This is realistic for cargo transport, not so much for passengers but the alternative like CiM 2 timetable has its drawbacks as well.
Platform choosing
Although I would prefer static pathfinding instead of dynamic one to be kept, I recognize the need for more flexibility. This could be addressed by specifying allowed platforms for a given station.
It goes as follows : there is default track and if it is occupied occupied a train can pick another form a list. If all are occupied, the train waits. This avoids gridlocks (as the trains would not pick any platform, only those allowed) and artificial concepts like ro-ro station.