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Hi, after a playthrough of 200 years (2050 reached!) I noticed that whatever passenger I clicked on never wanted to go further than 2 stops on a train. This was a huge loss on my longest line of 14 stops. Is this actually how the game works (in which case is it possible to increase the value) or is it just my luck that I was clicking on the wrong people all that time?
The developers never made clear how their simulation work except that the destination is picked within 20 minutes distance. If this would be true, then passengers could travel many more stops, provided you reach the destination – including all waiting and walking times – within 20 minutes.
However, it might also well be that the developers could not write an algorithm that does that correctly and limits itself to a few stops (maybe to save computing time)…
Still, in the case of bus stops, passengers are clearly able to go beyond two stops, so I don’t see why it should not apply to trains as well.
It would be nice to hear from developers (recently they started to participate a little in the forum, so there is hope).
remembering my sample size, it was very bias due to the 3 most popular stops within 2 stops either way so that may have played a part, but I am actually interested if this is actually what happens or how the people decide where their home/work/leasure/shop is located.
Hello!
I´m happy to explain the mechanics of traveling in more detail:
Every person in the game has a fixed place to live, which does not change. If a new house is build, people move in and they stay there for the rest of the game unless it is destroyed.
On a regular basis every person is looking for a place to work, to shop and a place to spend their free time.
They look in a 20 minute radius of travel time for such a place (this is known among the community as the “20 minute rule”). To calculate the travel time to the destination every possible route is taken into account. This might be as simple as just walking or driving somewhere, or more complex like walking from their home to a bus stop, going to the train station, using the train to travel into another city, there getting on a tram and then walking from the tram stop to the destination. Here also frequency comes into play. The more vehicles there are on a line, the shorter the expected waiting and therefore travel time will be.
When all possible places are calculated, people decide based on a formula, which one they choose. Generally, the closer the place is in regards of travel time, the more it is preferred. In addition to that people tend to stick to their current workplace (also shopping / leisure) for a longer period.
So over time, the place might not change, but the preferred way of getting there. For example when people get cars, they might switch from using the train to using the car, if it is faster to go to the next city or visa versa when for example faster or more trains are used. On the other hand new travel options also open more work place (shopping / leisure) options for people to choose from.
In conclusion, there is no limit on how often people can switch lines when the travel or how far (distance) they go, it mostly depends on time.
Best Regards
Tom (Community Manager)that explains a lot, however I found that my direct trains were less popular (sometimes having no passengers) and the preferred method of transport was to travel on the more crowded “all stop” train that does have a train more often, but takes longer to get to the destination.
In that case it is all about frequency. More trains means less average waiting time. Because the trip is precalculated and people can leave there home at any time, they do not know if they will catch the fast train or have to wait for it for a long time.
An example:
If there is one fast train on a trip which takes 4 minutes to go (8 minute roundtrip), than people expect 4 minutes of average waiting time, so wait 4m + travel 4m = 8min.Now say you have two slow trains for the same route and it takes 5 minutes (10 minutes roundtrip), maybe because of an additional stop. But people expect a waiting time of average 2,5 minutes, because there a two trains on the route. So in that case, wait 2,5m + travel 5m = 7,5min. Therefore it is preferred.
And with every train you put on the “slow line” it will get even more attractive, as waiting time drops.
I do not like the system with passenger destinations in this game, because you can train your people to go where you want them to go. This works against the need to build networks in train fever and rythmn mechanic makes this even worse. In some aspects you can see this as more realistic, but the game is too simplified to make this true. If you arrange your net you won´t need many connections and will make your whole net more ineffective if you connect everything, while in reality there are enough other reasons to do that. Not very nice for a transportation game and one of the main reasons, why I gave up the game after some time.
I see nothing wrong with it, the people will go where there are connections of some sort, but also are drawn towards places with more jobs available. and I believe that as you deliver more cargo to an area, the size of the population also increases. So there is some sort of planning, but also some sort of crowd control.
It kind of makes sense to me. The larger towns grow the more jobs, leisure and homes are created, alone with new people. The places they want to go will change as the game population grows and the distance you can travel in 20 minutes becomes longer. Therefore I see it as a dynamic (real world) experience. I have seen routes within games increase in popularity as I progress through the years.
@Tom Thank you. It’s nice to see that developers now participate in the forum 🙂
@Party In reality it sounds more complex than you give credit for, at least when cars do appear. As soon as there are cars, people may go whenever they want with cars and therefore if you want to transport them you have to adapt your network. In addition there is the whole matter of city growth, with residential, leisure, work and commercail areas… Of course you can have an influence on where people go, but this is actually realistic… If I live in an house and going to a place now become faster, I might consider going working/leisuring/shopping in that place 🙂 The simulation aspect is really the major thing I really love in this game (except for the 20 minutes limit, especially on goods) in addition to its cool graphics.
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