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I created a loop for my trains to run around a small map, and I lost a ton of money because every time the trains would reach the largest city, and the last city I connected to the loop, they wouldn’t receive any passengers. So I ended up in a spiral of money loss because the trains would lose money after traveling there.
With all the trains in the loop the route had a 15 minute wait time running 4 trains, and 19 minute wait time running 3 trains.
I restarted the game to no avail, for some reason the station would only get 1 or 2 passengers maximum, and often none. The bus line running to it was also in good shape.
I’m at a loss. I want to make the map work, but I’m out of ideas. Any suggestions or thoughts?
I already made many experiences with that and unfortunately the only way that works flawlessly always, is to make 1 to 1 city line only. A to B and then another bay at the station B for B to C. Trains will never clog and frequency is accurate.
Another problem with circles is that if your circle is like: A > B > C > D > E > A, a person that is on B and wants to go to E will take so long that will give up the trip. I make straight lines, in diagonal. Like a huge X on the map. Which means the middle is a big hub. And then I start to connect the other cities. That creates a log of connections and small hubs. That brings huge amount of passengers, cause you give a lot of options for the passengers.
Try making 2 lines in your loop, clockwise and counter-clockwise, and make in-city bus lines to help the people come to the train station.
Still, I already did it, and was not good. The way I do, I don’t even need in-city lines. I have huge amount of passengers.I believe it is related to the 20 minute line.
I never fully understood it, but it seem that if you have 15 minutes waiting time with 4 trains, the time of a trip along your loop is 60 minutes. People are willing to travel only a few cities away… You might want to wait for faster trains or make your loops smaller.
I am also not sure, but maybe when citizens plan a travel, they also check the way back. If it is the case, then people may be getting in time (<20 minutes) to destination, but since you go only one way, they will not be able to get back in time (<20min). The suggestion by douglas seem pertinent. Try that and tell us if it goes better.
@douglas I am less convinced of your other comment. I often make longer connections between more cities and that seems to work well, and to me it seems even better than single lines only. Do you feel that single lines are better ? Do they make larger profits ? Do they increase usage ?Anyway, anyone knows if citizens also consider their back trip when deciding to travel or not via our networks ?
I have recently started making A>B>C>D>E loops but I use double track and also make a A>E>D>C>B loop going the other way. The train are very profitable and nearly full going both ways.
@gcampono: I’m not sure about the amount of passengers. I think I get a fair amount of passengers. The main point is accurate frequency. Its more reliable so steady passengers. If you go to more than 1 city you probably need more than 1 train. Even with signals its hard to make them even. The frequency will then vary and passengers calculation for destinations will change.
My main problem with that is trains full and others train empty. Its not properly synced, not properly optimized.
The frequency numbers aren’t as complicated as people might think. If you have one vehicle then the trip length is the frequency number plus half. So a frequency of 5 minutes means a trip length of 7.5 minutes between two points (5 minute wait and 2.5 minute travel to other end). With 2 trains a frequency of 5 minutes means the trip time is 10 minutes (5 minute wait and 5 minute travel).
Syncing vehicles on an uninterupted line is inevitable regardless how many vehicles are on the line, assuming you don’t have vehicles waiting for a full load and you place signals at adequate intervals and the vehicles on a line are all the same. With 2 trains on a line a simple passing lane in the middle of the line means no train will ever be waiting. They will pass by each other as if the other train didn’t even exist. As one train arrives at one end the other train arrives at the opposite end.
I have done both loops and straight lines and had good success with both. I have a straight line route with 4 trains each traveling in a straight line between 4 cities and then reversing and going back the same way (A-B-C-D-C-B-A). The 4 trains are always evenly spaced and no train is ever waiting at a signal for another train. I make as much as $14 million per year from that one line on medium difficulty.
I highly disagree with your second paragraph. Circle lines are the worst. Try making a huge loop around the map. No matter what you do, they will never be synced.
I tried making loops and its always a problem. I have 4/5 trains serving the west side of the loop while east side is piling up passengers. When the circle is too large, signals are useless;
If I put like 1 signal between each station is wrong, because the distance between stations vary a lot.
Actually it makes NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL, with or without signals. Cause each station is already a signal. So no matter how many signals you put, the train can always be 1 station behind the other.So look: 10 stations served by 5 trains. The trains can pile up in a way they will serve one station after another. Train 1 > Station A, Train 2 > Station B, Train 3 > Station C, Train 4 > Station D, Train 5 > Station E, while stations F, G, H, I and J are full of passengers and the next train will take long time to arrive, and when it arrives, it serviced ONE AFTER ANOTHER, and then long time again without anything.
And THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO. I tried, and I was tired of manually syncing the trains. Signals doesn’t help here.
Well admittedly I have only done a loop of 4 towns with a line going in both directions. Perhaps if you make it big enough the auto spacing of vehicles feature stops working for some reason. I had 4 trains going each direction and 4 towns in the loop and they were both making about $2-3 million in the mid game. They were always evenly spaced except for one time when I had one train that was a different speed to the others and he was always tailing another. The signals can be used to compensate for the varying distances between each stop so that the trains are never waiting for the train ahead under any circumstance.
I also have done a loop between 3 towns with both a clockwise and counterclockwise line using 3 trains on each and it too is doing very well, between $1-2 million each and I am still in the early game, the trains only do 45km/h. And they are all perfectly synced so they are evenly spaced at all times.
I will have to try it on a larger scale and see if I come up with similar problems as you describe.
“So look: 10 stations served by 5 trains. The trains can pile up in a way they will serve one station after another. Train 1 > Station A, Train 2 > Station B, Train 3 > Station C, Train 4 > Station D, Train 5 > Station E, while stations F, G, H, I and J are full of passengers and the next train will take long time to arrive, and when it arrives, it serviced ONE AFTER ANOTHER, and then long time again without anything.”
Correct. The game dont do what it says in the promotial headline article > > Automatic spacing dont work for trains.
Aside of that, double circle are the best way how to serve transport. One line ABCDE. Second line EDCBA. In case you have a huge circle about 10 cityes or so. I am using a trick for spacing. The long trains sandwich short. It works once you get RedArrow. It is not very effective train, but … it doesnt loose money and makes a spacing betwwen your long haulers. Moreover, RedArrows in sandwitch higher up the frequency, so people gather to train station, wait for your big guy. :-] Bad think is, that auto-replacement supidly replace everything regardless type. Even the comunity was asking for>”an option replace this by this.” Therfore you have to micro a lot when time for replace comes.
Anyway, I dont play this game anymore. And dont want to spend a cent for any DLC. Main connection issue, stuborness of developers, patch of the patch issue, lack of professional aproach, lack of comunication, painfuly low improvement, … and so on and so forth. Maby I could install this game again after a year or so. Now it looks like this game is done.
I has some of the same issues.
Then one day I started making just point to point stops only…no more full-loops. It seems they like to work and come home to and from a neighboring city, they don’t want to travel across the map to the fourth or fifth stop in a loop…nope just next door then back home.
So even if I make a full loop, I have started running back and forth routes with three trains per…my money doubled.
They will go to the third or fourth city from their home town. But only if your connections allow it easily. Remember, they only go when you give them the option. There is no traffic between the cities before you open up the connection as people in the game doesn’t want to go anywhere as such. They go where you want them to go.
@douglas I really don’t see what you mean with synced trains.
On a line with multiple stops (that the line is straight or loop). You don’t have to sync the train. It’s impossible as the distance between two stations is not even. But you can make the distance between two trains even (distance = frequency). This is very easy to do.
I’m actually building a loop on a medium map (which I call my main line). I’ve already connected 5 cities with 10 trains.
The frequency is 4 minutes. (60 seconds = 30 days, to keep simple take 4 months) My trains were already running but not “synced” as you said. One was too close, another one was too far, … What I did is simple. At the end station of my loop, I check the date the train leave the station. When the second train arrives, I let the passengers get out of the train, and stop the train manually. When 4 months have passed, I put the train back on service. It will creates a jam of train at this stop until all the 10 trains have passed through my hands 🙂 And then the distance between two trains will be even.
PS : I do the same with buses to make sure my buses are evenly spaced.
Simple XD
I don’t thing the perfect spacing will maintain for long. With time you will have to do that again. I did that, its what I called manually syncing.
Also you are obliged to use exact same trains. Same amount of wagons, same model.
For “even-spacing” I just make several signal blocks along a given route. I have had long routes around mountains where I might want five or more trains running to keep the flow through the stations. The blocks control my spacing.
Like this route…this is when I first turned it up but I think I had six running on this route.
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