Suggestions/Fixes Megathread

[Tarc]

I would like there to be a topic devoted to sharing suggestions, instead of individual topics. (It may be better seen by devs)

DEVS:

• Please consider these suggestions.
  Some of them are crucial (real feedback), some are only wishes (suggestions) therefore not too important.
• I have marked easy-to-implement ones with the keyword: *EASY*
  Please search for these, and if nothing else, implement them only. (Excuse me if they are not in fact easy)

If an admin wants this post pinned, please do so.

So let’s keep posting suggestions guys. Here are a few from me (I will update this first post with future suggestions unless it’s a less popular (or very subjective) idea)

PERFORMANCE

• Add option to change Particles (off/low/med/high)
• Add option to change LOD (off/low/med/high)
• Add option to hide icons and UI (off/line manager/on) (*EASY*)
  (Line Manager option would make icons visible only if you open the line manager.)
• Add option to disable floating text over vehicles [income/expenses] (*EASY*)
  Most of these texts are lost as you can only observe one text at a time!
• Add option to turn off shadows (off/low/med/high)
  It might look bad, but you could give us this option for weaker computers.
• Further font render tweaks
  I see other games where thousands of individual texts can be rendered in a second.
• Add option to disable automatic grouping of stops (on/off) (*EASY*)
  I have read that having dozens or hundreds of grouped stops can cause freeze during recalculation, and may be solved when they are ungrouped.
  So it would help if the game wouldn’t auto-group them in the first place.
• Better multicore support
  Currently the game supports 2 cores, but mildly. It does not support 4 cores or more (when in reality, there must be 4 different areas of calculation, right?)
• Better performance with large population
  

MAP/TERRAIN

• Add option to rename towns (*EASY*)
• Add landmarks!
  They would be generated on maps (but not guaranteed) e.g.:
  – Airport and Harbor: They would provide passengers wishing to travel to/from cities.
  – Construction sites: They would require raw materials, but at less profit (as it would be easy to take advantage of)
• Add ownership of roads (city or user)
  
  • City-owned roads (existing infrastructure):
    Any modification would be really expensive. Deleting them would cost a lot. Deleting link [any short section] between two cities should be impossible. Upgrading sich roads may be cheaper (helping the city after all!)
  • User-owned roads:
    By default building a road would be public – add option to make it private. This way you can have your own loops or shortcuts without worrying about traffic jams (and it is realistic). Maybe do not allow large roads to be private, it would be unrealistic in the middle of cities.
    
• Add more road options
  
  • One-way roads
  • Pedestrian-only roads (pavement)
    This would give better pedestrian shortcuts.
    
  • Bus-lane only roads!
  • Option to delete pedestrian crossings
    This would help with traffic flow/jams
  • Roads with tram lanes incorporated
  • Wider roads (3 and 4 lanes)
• Add option to manually add more scenery items
  Trees, vegetation, decorative objects, etc.
• Add mini-map with several filters (showing lines, cities, resources etc.)
• Add Project Tracks Tool:
  Entering this mode would mean planning tracks in segments with more precision, with “undo” and “confirm” buttons to actually build them when the project is done.
  There are way too many errors and slope calculation problems.
  Imagine wanting to connect A and B, only to realize the slope difference is so high you could never connect them with rails, even with twists.
• Bugfix for collision errors
  ‘Collision’, ‘Terrain Alignment Collision’, ‘Bridge Pillar Collision’
• Better bridge building
  Also add help text that explains the usage of N and M (e.g. each time you click on any Road build icon.

UI

• “Save” button to show existing savegames (*EASY*)
  (I often overwrite previous savegames by accident, thinking I’m on a different map. I lost the save completely, as I had no other saves for it.)
• Quicksave/Quickload
• Add LOG window to monitor important events, summaries.
  1. Move “New vehicle is available” message here, as a text, not a popup window.
  2. Report any vehicle that has “Reached the end of its lifetime” here (instead of the slow popup)
  3. Report vehicles with “No path” status here (helps troubleshooting. currently you don’t notice it)
  4. Report vehicles that are in “Waiting for free path” for some time (x months? or the line’s frequency?)
  5. Report lines where all vehicles are in “Waiting for free path” status.
     This would indicate that the whole line is at a complete halt, waiting for each other e.g. trains on one rail, facing each other.
  6. Report lines where all vehicles are stationary for longer than 15 seconds.
     It may mean that they are blocked by traffic.
• Add a Data Layers button, with options:
  
  • “Land value”, “Cargo”, “Lines” (replacing Line Manager button), “Terrain contours” (already implemented; just to explain what I mean)
  • “Line profits” (similar to existing Land Value function, bright lines means most profitable)
  • “Traffic density” (it would show us where jams are)
  • “Show rail speed limits” (for all tracks)
  • “Show incline” (showing the degree of incline on parts of tracks)
  • “Line profits” (similar to existing “Line Manager” option)
• Save map “metadata” in savegames (*EASY*)
  
  • Store the map name (the manual name or the “random seed”)
    This is crucial… how would you know what map you had chosen? You can easily overwrite other saves. What if you want to challenge a friend or others on a forum with the given random seed?
  • Store statistics (total population, biggest city’s population, nr of lines, vehicles)All of the above should be shown at the Load screen when clicking on a savegame; with a screenshot perhaps.

• Have more statistics
  • Histographs:
    1. Keep track of cities’ growth change over years
    2. Keep track of Line stats (usage in %, frequency, both over time) (so you could see how anything you change affects a line

AUDIO

• Add option to disable “oh yeah” sound (*EASY*)
  The LOG window (suggestion above) could show you when a new vehicle is available.
  
• Add option to disable the cash sound (*EASY*)
  The cash sound when profit is made is unnecessary, it gives absolutely no pointers to what we do. However, it is annoying.

TRAFFIC/AI

• Add AI utilization of all 4 lanes (helps traffic flow/jams) (*PARTLY SOLVED*)
  In theory, at least 4 cars could take a right turn at the same time, from each direction.
• Add traffic lights option (helps traffic flow/jams)
  Currently only one car takes an action at a given time in an intersection.
• Add Waypoint button for lines (helps traffic flow/jams) (*PARTLY SOLVED*)
• Route planning for bus/tram lines:
  • Streets with bus lines should be favored (as long as it’s not too long)
  • The fastest, not the shortest route should be chosen (e.g. considering the least #of intersections; road type speed limit, etc)
• Add underpass option for intersections (helps traffic flow/jams)
  This upgrade would eliminate the pedestrian crossings in a given intersection and replace them with underpasses. (In real life, commonly found near [well, above] metro stations)

VEHICLES

• Pause maintanence cost when vehicle is in the garage (e.g. bus in a bus station, being repaired. Increase upkeep cost of garages to reflect the cost of hired mechanics.)
• Allow to purchase vehicles after they are no longer manufactured (*EASY*)
  i.e. let’s say a train model is available only between 1940-1965
  Why? In real life, you would not stop seeing companies using them in 1966. In late game, we are left with 1 bus, 1 tram, 1 truck, and a few trains only… it is very annoying. We should have a range of vehicles to choose from, always. Our task is to tailor the line to our needs with the most appropriate vehicles.Perhaps make such vehicles “used”. Calc the difference of current year minus the last year manufactured.
  Therefore, buying said train in 1975, it would be already 10 years old, with all the “perks” (higher maintain cost).
• Allow us to do a major repair/renovation on vehicles (*EASY*)
  • It would replace all major parts in theory, thus convert the vehicle to zero years.
  • It would cost a lot of money, say, 70% of the “new” price.
    This way we could renovate old trains, say, a 50-80 year old one, which would not cost us a 100-years of accumulated amount of money to maintain it (very unrealistic).

• Add more models for each vehicle type
  (more modern buses, trams, etc)
• Add public transportation on water
  Ship/ferry
  After all, almost every generated map has at least a river, if not a lake.
• Add Subway type
  
• Make old vehicles less attractive, new vehicles very attractive
  Even more than their own car (which can be 5-10 years old)
  It may help improve public transportation in a currently struggling city.

TRAIN-RELATED

• Game to break rails into multiple segments after laying them.
  Currently, if you want to delete a section of rail, you may not be able to… (it highlights the section you manually layed down).
  Also, if there are trains on that huge section, you can’t even delete it.
• Add option to see rail speed limits any time (after building them)
  

BUS-RELATED

• Add midibus and coach types
  We should be able to tailor our lines as we want: Do we want lots of midibuses or a few big ones? It should be our choice.
• Add more generations of buses
  e.g. there is only one articulated bus – in real life, earlier articulated models existed.

TRAM-RELATED

• Add longer tram stations to fit long vehicles (especially newest tram model)
• Add tram stops with “traffic island”
  

LINES

• Make vehicles keep timetable/distance (*EASY*)
  Current problems:
  • If you sell all 20 vehicles on a line then purchase 20 and set them on the line, they will never space out.
    Suggestions:
    1. Make a vehicle leave the garage only every x seconds by default
       
    2. When we click on Set Line (all), give it a slider called “Space vehicles every x seconds” which would mean releasing them from the garage every xth second.
    3. Make it automatic…. Make the game recognize which line it is, how long it that route is, so it would know the frequency. Use it to space the vehicles apart.
  • A train line with multiple trains always congest (catch up with each other) even if you spaced them out initially.
    The current workaround is to use less signals, but it really shouldn’t be manual – it should have a timetable. Signals won’t solve it for lines with more than 3 trains anyway.
• Add better options to replace all vehicles of a line (*EASY*)
  • The “Sell all” button is useful, but it should be equally easy to re-purchase them.
  • A “replace all” button would be good. (But what if you want to modernize the line with newer vehicles? Please find a solution (“Replace with” option?))
  • “Go to depot” is cumbersome to use. Put it on the first tab please.
  • Add “Sell vehicle” option to the same tab

• Make the line clickable on a bus/tram stop’s icon (*EASY*)
  When you click on a stop, it either says “nothing is waiting” or “Line 1: 6 waiting” etc.
  We should be able to click on “Line 6” here to bring up its details.
• Add option to hire a manager
  
  • The manager would automatically replace any vehicle with a given criteria:
  • “Sell vehicle if it reaches x% of its lifetime” option, with a slider between 0% and 300%
  • You could set it separately for bus/tram/truck/train types.
  • It would be a monthly expense (not viable at the beginning)
• Add option to hire ticket inspectors
  Add a system where you only get a certain percentage of income, unless you hire inspectors (not viable at the beginning)

STATIONS

• Add Upgrade button for stations
  It should apply to all vehicle types.
  – For trains it’s the existing options (# of platforms, length, even type)
  – For bus/tram add “sheltered” option, which should be more attractive (feature not yet implemented)
  – If we click on Upgrade and don’t change any options, it should still upgrade to the latest design of its time (e.g. steel bus stop from wooden ones; etc) also meaning more attractiveness
• Vehicles to not stop if there are noone waiting, noone wanting to take off, or when full. (*EASY*)
  (except if it is for keeping to the timetable, which is not yet implemented)
• Add more flexible station options e.g.:
  
  • Mixed Cargo & Passenger stations
    e.g. the outer 1/2/3 platforms would be cargo-only
  • Elevated & Underground rail station with elevated/underground rail signal and junctions (It should have same function with ground level rail, as CiM did)
  • curved stations
  • more platforms (5+)
    
• Make passenger loading/unloading time depend on # of doors (*EASY*)
  You have to add a multiplier based on the number of doors the vehicle configuration has. e.g:
  • A bus with 2 doors should unload x2 as fast
  • A train with 1 wagon (2 doors) should unload 2x as fast
  • A train with 10 wagons should unload 20x as fast.

  Currently, trains are a pain: It takes a big train 1,5 month to swap passengers at both stations, while traveling just a few months. If your game is fine-tuned on this timescale, unloading time should not affect your profit this much.

INPUT

• Add option to remap keys
  Add key for Pause

GAMEPLAY – FINANCES

• Revise game balance financially:
  • Please see an opinion detailed at post #12940 titled “Balancing Suggestions“([…] Instead of the game being about finding the sweetspot of the right mix of passenger transport capacity and frequency, it becomes a game of building as much cargo and intercity tram and bus lines as possible and not too many railway lines at the same time […])
  • Tweak tram vs train income/expenses
    I have a tram line bnetween two cities that give $5 million. I could never do that with trains, even though it’s the one that comes with much bigger investment, planning, infrastructure, city planning, etc.
    The name is “Train fever” so it’s ridiculous that people have to use buses/trams instead!

GAMEPLAY – OTHER

• Add more time speed options (*EASY*)
  The current game speed is too fast (we pause too often).
  Please either:
  • Change the scale (from 3 real seconds takes 1 gameday; to maybe 5 or 6 seconds) and recalculate income/expenses to arrive at the same figures at the end of the month. (Just multipliers, right?)
  • Or simply add 0.5x and 6x speed options
• Add “Fast forward one month” option
  Most people just leave the game running at max speed for 15 minutes, just to get a year or two pass. It should be easier than that. Pre-calculate what would happen in a year, even if it means a 10 second freeze (just add “calculating” on the screen)
• Add Day & night cycle
  
• Add seasons
  An excellent mod is http://www.train-fever.com/forums/topic/frosty-novemberday/#post-12859
• Add better Tutorial and Manual
  No need to explain it, I’m sure devs are aware
  
• Add Challenges / Missions (also tied to Tutorial) as it’s currently just Sandbox mode.
  
  • Fist game: If you start your first map it’s very hard to know what is profitable and what is not. A challenge system might make it easier for new players to quicker and better understand the game. Make the player complete a few challenges to show them how to do everything and how the game works (“20 minute rule” etc
  • Subsequent games: Later on, occasional game missions (from the mayor?) could help ‘spice things up’ for players who are somewhat bored in a long game (e.g. connect cities, transport a certain number of passengers/cargo, build a certain number of lines, purchase a certain number of vehicles, etc.)
• [20-min rule] Could we change its length manually?
  For those who have strong computers for the calculation-heavy things it come with. You could warn players in the settings that it can cause severe FPS loss.
• [20-min rule] Make Cargo and Leisure lines time-independent
  In real life:
  – (cargo): Companies travel with goods much longer, even crossing borders etc.
  – (leisure): People can travel to a mall or entertainment area for much longer.
  If the main reason for the “20 minute rule” is that it takes a long time to calculate everything. then it certainly doesn’t apply with cargo (it’s only a few factories, etc) as opposed to the ~5k+ population.
• [20-min rule] Make citizens aware of traffic jams
  If they actually take 2 hours by car to get from A to B, make them give up the car for good!
• Dynamic map/cities:
  • Let existing spawned companies get closed and demolished after x decades of no business (no production).
  • Let new companies spawn occasionally. Randomly or even by following demand (e.g. city X has no factory nearby, only halfway through the map – let a company spawn nearby to satisfy a possible need)
• Add more variety in the city:
  Different types of goods and resources, in other words, production chains.
• Add option to purchase land (for future planning)
• Multiplayer
  While multiplayer option might still be a long way out, and many other features/tweeks/bugs are more important at the moment, its still my most desired feature.
  

 

 

If you comment with a suggestion, please use bold lines.

Thanks!

[Viljainen]

Thank you for putting together this list. I have a couple to add:

– add button to send vehicle to depot and send vehicle to depot and sell to the vehicles list as well. We still need the automatic replacement but this would make it a lot easier to manage vehicles anyway. These commands are there in the lines panel so it’s only a matter of improving the interface.

– in the line display it would be nice to see the travel time between stops. These numbers already exist in the game for pathfinding so again it would be easy to show them.

– add possibility to choose the platforms train lines use in multi-track stations. It would be even nicer if they could pick them dynamically but this would be already better.

[sub39h]

I think the most important thing is improving the track building available. 3-way points, slips and diamond crossings are needed

[Tarc]

(I had technical issues and opened multiple threads by accident. I’d like the other ones removed and keep this one)

Also, I just came to realize that I am unable to edit my comments… first time trying this on this forum. This sucks, as it will make things very difficult (the first post could have been kept up-to-date)

[RonMaster]

Give an option to turn off the automatic trafficlights for train stations. Currently its impossible to have 3 trains drive on a 6 city line (circle). Eventually they will all drive behind eachother i want to space them out with my own traffic lights. I dont wanna be busy micro managing the space between trains every 10 minutes.

[FX2K]

@Tarc

To edit the posts, here is a workaround…. simply replace the post number (i.e   #12455 – the first post) in this url: [removed link]

It will obviously only work on your own posts, but allows editing any time.

+1 to all above btw.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 6 months ago by FX2K.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 6 months ago by FX2K.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 6 months ago by FX2K.

[Tarc]

@FX2X: thanks a lot, it is very useful 🙂 Well I could make it sticky with that link here, but I won’t, it’s cheating

[FX2K]

Erm…. hmmmm… I guess I will write a sticky to the Devs in the support forum… lol

I have removed the link from above to help avoid everybody doing this lol.

[omoikane]

I also wanted :

Better performance on large population. (especially over 2000 pops on large maps have abysmal framerate)

Elevated, Underground rail station. with elevated/underground rail signal and junctions (It should have same function with ground level rail, as CiM did)

More flexible station options. like curved station and modifiable platform position, more platforms, etc.

Faster loading/unloading speed according to number of cars attached or number of doors *  number of cars.

I suspect this is main reason for ‘trams are better than trains even for inter-city travel’, and rail interval isn’t so good compared to bus/tram

Less ‘Collision’ ‘Terrain Alignment Collision’ ‘Bridge Pillar Collision’ things.

I do not hate realistic restrictions over building rail/roads, but it’s too tight. ‘Collision’ on destroying stations and roads? Too many bridge pillars? and many more.

More road options, like avenues with center tram lanes, 3-lane roads, one-way roads, pedestrian roads which only accepts trams and walking people (no cars and buses)

Modifying time speed options. I think current game speed is too fast. I spend much more time with pausing game and check lines, towns, vehicle, etc. because time passes too fast with even slowest (x1) speed. so I need options to change time passing speed (e.g. 12minutes of real world per game world year -> 60min per year)  when starting the game

[Maj_Solo]

((((  I don’t use the games random seed , I call each game something so I remember the seed, then I give the maps save files the same file name. I just make up a name before I start playing.

“Washington”, “Paris”, “IronValley” Sweden” and then I look at the map and see if it is anything good, if not I make up another name “Berlin” “Germany”, oooh Germany looks like a good map … then the save files are called Germany too. Better then to have a map called “4fGh52 öIOHF<s-hklblabla ebola ebola”  ))))

 

[Tarc]

Yes I name my games as well.

But what if you think you are playing on Paris but you are on Berlin and you click on Save and enter Paris by accident?
You cannot know for sure what map name the game has. That’s the problem. Especially if you have a dozen games.
It really is a few minutes’ work to incorporate such “metadata” in the savegame file structure

(Merged first post with latest suggestions. Added some of my own)

[Skumle Rafte]

I like ALL your suggestions and want them all in sooner or later 🙂

My top 3 is:

Multiplayer. While multiplayer option might still be a long way out, and many other features/tweeks/bugs are more important at the moment, its still my most desired feature. 

Challenges. Challenges like they where in TT/OpenTTD where great for a lot of reasons. First, if you start your first map in this game its very hard to know what is profitable and what is not. A challenge system might make it easier for new players to quicker understand what is what and all that. for experienced players challenges might be good to challenge you to make lines you would not otherwise do.

Reworked line/path system. For me one of the first disappointments with the game where that the line system would not allow the same grand-scale, complication as OpenTTD would. I quickly gave up making train tracks with multiple lines, or at least not more than two. since its not possible to make fast trains pass slow train on lines with multiple tracks. then its just better to separate lines completely.

•   Make lines able to take advantage of multiple tracks on its own. So that if one track-line is taken, then pick another one if it leads to the same destination.
•   At the moment trains will not pick a free station platform if the one it “is used to occupy” is taken.
• Make it possible for tweeking line options for each train on a line, for an example: let train 1 pick up passengers if available, and let train2 wait at station for x amount of time before leaving… or other options.  

• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by Skumle Rafte.

[FX2K]

Here’s one I think would be pretty awesome…. Automatic season change from current textures to winter textures for a few months.  There is no denying, it looks awesome when it snows 😀

mod: http://www.train-fever.com/forums/topic/frosty-novemberday/#post-12859

[Maj_Solo]

one-way streets

avenues with tram tracks in the center.

tunnels for pedestrians. They are in the way for the trams at intersections.

traffic lights that shift between green and red.

bridge building tool. + ability to build passenger only walk way bridges.

all bridges need not support pillars all the way underneath.  And if two much is in the way underneath the bridge you build a susoension bridge. We need more bridge types in train fewer.

 

[dimon212909]

1. The changing of the seasons

2 . The change of day and night

3. Add more varieties of construction of buildings, roads, decorative objects, vegetation, etc.

[Author]

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