Idea for the build tool

[Pasi]

Just playing another round on large map and creating long lines spanning between 6-7 cities. Whilst doing this i just thought, what if the track building tool would work like this:

1. Click the intended start and end points for the new line

2. Tool comes up with a railway line between them which consists of several way points, or nodes. Each node is movable along the surface and also up/down. Kind of like working with a route on Google Maps where dragging adds a waypoint and creates an alternative route.

3. For each section between the nodes you would see the max speed and also height and grade information. Move the nodes as you want to create the line you want and then at the end click accept and the whole line will be built at once.

How’s that and would that be possible to implement to game?

[Krogoth_mk2]

It’s already been suggested.

A “Track planning” mode where you can create a track, double-track, triple ect… and then go along the line and “grab & drag” to change it’s path, and maybe “shift+drag” to change it’s height.

And while it’s a great idea, it would be a lot of work for the dev’s to rewrite the code while there are bigger issues such as performance and balance.

[LB]

I think what the OP is suggesting, in particular, is that we could create a long length of track which includes separate nodes for splitting it up into smaller sections, instead of building each section one at a time. Similar things have been suggested, but this is a slightly different idea on those other ideas. They would all work well together.

That way you could define start and finish points and you could also “bend” the track around obstacles or hills without having to create thousands of small segments one at a time. Also, instead of creating a long length that has massive fill in one section and massive cut in another, having separate nodes will let you decrease the fill and cut by allowing multiple grades on the same length of track.

I really like that idea, I think it would work by having the default method at first, but as you click on the track, you can create new nodes to move around as you like. Or another mode that allows the road or track to conform to the natural surface within specified guidelines like choosing the maximum/minimum allowable grades. I’d like to be able to create a long country road that just follows the natural grade of the terrain instead of large cut and fill all over the place.

It shouldn’t be too hard to implement, they’d just need to include a “build plan” option or something similar that keeps it different to actually building it. Also, a clear all plans button would be necessary. In reality, engineers will design the entire length of road/rail before work even begins.

But, performance issues definitely are the priority right now.

[gGeorg]

I was thinking the same like OP. Such a tool would be great.

– options to check build dual track

– bending track should work same like bending curves in CorelDraw. Two weight drag point on the node. At the same point you could move up/down by another slider. Very comfortable.

– there should be also a test tool, to let the train make a test ride before the build. It makes a chart of speed reached. So you will have an idea how to change layout to achieve more smooth line.

This is so great but also so difficult to program, that I could rather see that as an DLC : “The Project Builder”

You know no-one could live from air, even programmer. 😀
At the moment, there are bacis functionalityang bugs on top. Like Disapeaing cargo, people, crashes, performance, … . And in the first – remove the Main connection feature.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by gGeorg.

[Pasi]

LB and gGeorg you got the idea exactly! That would make the whole game play so much more interesting and frustration part would be left out 😉 And i never meant that it would have to be done right now, rather just at some point and maybe as a DLC like mentioned. As long as it comes at some point, maybe even in Train Fever 2, if it can’t be easily implemented on this.

But for now, main connection bug should go and routing algorithm should be improved amongst several other urgent issues. It pisses me off to try to get the bus routes to work correctly, rather than have buses to go around the block first before stopping, on the wrong side of the street etc.

[Author]

Posts