Some Improvements, "borrowed" from OTTD (and others)

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

so I have been playing this game since Sunday, and I have to say: AWESOME! For years I have been waiting to finally have a nice and functional transport simulation. A little background: I grew up playing Transport Tycoon, later TTDX (which I do not really like because the changed the monorails from awesome, above ground railways with an awesome bridge to something not so awesome with bridges that contain the ground the monorail is built on). Later I played Railroad Tycoon 2 (mostly because of the graphics), and the “Giganten” games, however, they sooner or later annoyed me because of the not so realistic railway (and track) mechanics. I could live with the nonexisting hill in “TransportGigant”, but only 3 station track in Railroads are, well, not enough. And I will not talk about Locomotion, which at the time was a huge step back compared to TTDPatch . After discovering TTDPatch and later OTTD, the latter is (at the moment) still my favourite game, and the one I compare TrainFever with.

Which brings me to my first conclusion here: compared to a game like OpenTTD, TrainFever currently has some rough edges an needs IMHO some improvement. I take in account, that OTTD looks back to about 20 years of development (if you start counting with the original TransportTycoon), so the people there have had much more user feedback. Here are some improvements that IMHO would make TrainFever more awesomer than it is:

UI-Improvements:

– Pinning Windows: The first time I pressed “Del” I sat there and was like: “Damn, now all my windows are gone.” OTTD has that nice feature where you can pin windows so these do not disappear when closing all other windows using one button. This is especially handy when buying new trains, or when you have to follow one vehicle but have to do other stuff.

– Better vehicle list(s): It would be nice to have a vehicle list in the windows of the line, so that I do not have to open the lines window to see the vehicles of that line. The way the vehicles are currently displayed in said windows is also very beautiful, but not handy because 1) one does not see all vehicles and 2) the name of the vehicles is missing.

– Rules for vehicle replacement: OTTD offers a very basic form of rules for vehicle replacement, where one can group trains and then determine for every group which (old) vehicle shall be replaced by which new vehicle. This also includes a “Send all to repair” option.

– Train composition in train windows: I still have to look at the map to see of which locomotion and which wagons my train consists of. This should be able to see in the train window.

– Safe Games: This was mentioned already. In OTTD you actually pick the folder you want to save, and the game automatically gives your save a configurable name.

Gameplay-Improvements:
– Dynamic pathfinding: The idea of one specific track for one line is very good, however I think it would improve the game a lot if trains could choose a different path depending on the situation. An example: A 3 track train station served by two lines. One (A) uses the outer two tracks, the other one (B) the inner one. As there are no real timetables, it sometimes occurs that one train (A1) from line A and two trains from line B (B1 and B2, one from each direction) arrive at said station. A1 finds its platform, B1 also has a free platform. B2 now would have to wait, but there is still one track left the train could use – but it can’t, because it can’t choose its route dynamically. I understand that this can be a bit annoying for the people who wait for train B2 (because they now have to walk to the other platform), but compared to waiting longer for the train I would always choose walking to another platform. Another example: A highspeed train must overtake a slow fright train…

– Choosing the platform: This has been mentioned in the forums already I think, so I make it short: I would like to choose by myself which platform (and also, which track outside a station) my trains choose. Maybe you could introduce waypoints?

– Conditional timetables: It would be really nice to have a feature like “If train = empty then goto stop 1”. Example: I run a line starting at a factory delivering goods to nearby cities in the order “Factory”->”City A”->”City B”->”City C”->Start from the beginning. When the train is in city B, and has delievered all cargo, there is (usually) no sense in driving to C and then back. So there I would like to have the condition to (automatically) send the train back right away.

– “Leave this station now”-button: In OTTD, one can force a train to leave a station and modify the vehicles next stop. It is really annoying that trains leaving the depot go to the nearest, and not to the first stop in the timetable. I would like to be able to change this behaviour.

– Bigger Maps: This probably needs some modification of the behaviour, but the “big” maps are, compared to OTTD, not that big. I would still count them as small. I realise that with larger maps people and freight needs more than 20 minutes to go somewhere, so this maybe needs some more development, but it would be soooo nice to have bigger maps…

– More than five platforms: Yes, I like huge stations and five platforms are not that much I think. Especially if there were larger maps

– Stations with more than one exit: There are so many stations with exits in different directions, and it would make travelling so much easier, if people would not always have to go around the whole station to enter it 🙂

– Double/single slips: This was mentioned in the forums somewhere, so also short: Can you make single/double slips? I do not ask for inside and outside switches, but please, can you make crossings and slips?

– Timetables: This IMHO highly depends on the “Makethegameslower”-demand (which I give +1 and therefore do not suggest here again), but real timetables would be really nice.

Eyecandy-Improvements:

– Variation in vehicle texture: The vehicles look great, but as far as I could see all look the same. Would it be possible, to have different textures for vehicles, so that (most of all the freight wagons) look like they are actually used? Some with some traces of repairing, and so on? I think this is not so much work compared to making more sprites (because, well, there ware Prussian wagons without a Bremserhaus – and they also almost never all were on the same side in one train) Oh, can you allow players to turn wagons around in a train? Mostly for the Prussian wagons… (and yes, I know that most people would not even know what that little house on the wagon is used for^^)

– More vehicle types: Maybe this is something for an AddOn (or DLC, as people call it nowadays), but there are monorails, the Transrapid, narrow gauge railways, cog railways, subways, and so on 🙂 And IMHO especially narrow gauge and cog railways can help defeat hills and reach cities located on top of said hills…

I am aware that some things I mention here can be described as picky, so I do have to say again at the end: This is (after OTTD…) the second game where I can feel that it was made by people who know what they are doing, people who know how trains and tracks look like 🙂 However, I do not need the mentioned stuff tomorrow, and as a computer science student I do know about the work and effort needed to make everything work fine. So please do not rush^^

Greetings,
-RF-

P.S.: Please do not recommend Trainz or such to me – I already have those 😀

[Vaulter]

– More vehicle types

 

 

Airplanes, ships. For sure to beat OpenTTD. And yes, I’m ready to pay for well done DLC, devs.

 

[Person012345]

If you want a recommendation for another game, try simutrans if you haven’t already. It’s another freeware modification of TTD but I like it better because of the passenger mechanics (people and cargo all have a specific destination, like TF, and if you haven’t connected their origin with their destination they won’t ride). It also has a huge amount of freedom when it comes to designing your transport network and a vast number of vehicles (depending on the pakset you use). Of course the downside is that the graphics are old style.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

@Vaulter: Airplanes are nice, Ships are nice. However, I completely forgot them in the list I made, because I never really used them in OTTD. However, for those to be of use in TrainFever, the maps probably need to grow…

@Person012345: As you mention Simutrans, it comes back to my mind. I tried it, and I never really liked it – mostly because the way tracks and streets are built.

 

Greetings,

-RF-

[Author]

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