THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION – Train Fever /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/feed/ Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:33:02 +0000 https://bbpress.org/?v=2.6.13 en-US /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18002 <![CDATA[THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18002 Thu, 19 Mar 2015 05:21:21 +0000 vinkandoi Dear Devs

Even if real life engineers never complain about vehicle in the way.  So why is it that track upgrading is so painful. It took an hour to upgrade track. I had to destroy section of tracks first, to divide the track and then upgrade it. Now I am to play the mini find hidden object game to determine which small puny areas are still left out.

So the main point is, please make it easier, or atleast less painful.

 

]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18004 <![CDATA[Reply To: THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18004 Thu, 19 Mar 2015 05:41:40 +0000 Pasi True. There is a small trick though what you can use to make it bit more easier.

First upgrade your stations. Then work on the line. When line is upgraded it should show red when hovering over it with the upgrade tool. This red should expand to the station as well, if the connection is all the way through. If station doesn’t turn red, there is a piece of catenary missing between the line and the station itself. This helps you to pinpoint the problem location.

]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18005 <![CDATA[Reply To: THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18005 Thu, 19 Mar 2015 06:29:41 +0000 vinkandoi Well yes that would be helpful. However a true solution would be allow drag and drop style upgrading along with full upgrading.

 

]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18037 <![CDATA[Reply To: THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18037 Fri, 20 Mar 2015 13:07:15 +0000 Pasi Oh absolutely, but the way i described is how it works now. Ideally you should be able to click from line window or something like that to electrify whole line at ones without trains blocking your work.

]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18038 <![CDATA[Reply To: THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18038 Fri, 20 Mar 2015 13:15:19 +0000 larry.kubiak Even if a complex tool would not work, a simple “brush” tool would be enough to solve most of the problems. You select your brush, and all train lines below the brush get automatically electrified.

It’s not a very nice solution, but at least you would be able to pass the brush all over your line without having to destroy your eyes on your computer screen trying to figure out where the god**mn missing tiny bit of catenary is located.

]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18039 <![CDATA[Reply To: THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18039 Fri, 20 Mar 2015 13:28:21 +0000 vinkandoi One way is to make a rectangle selection  just like in rts games and electricity track that falls in the selection.

But it would be better if tracks are allowed to be upgraded even if there is a vehicle in the way

 

]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18044 <![CDATA[Reply To: THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18044 Fri, 20 Mar 2015 16:00:46 +0000 douglas I feel your pain.

]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18069 <![CDATA[Reply To: THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18069 Sun, 22 Mar 2015 13:50:10 +0000 Varana Oh yes.

Also hugely annoying: When upgrading stations, they lose all passengers waiting there. WHY?!? ;D

]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18073 <![CDATA[Reply To: THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18073 Sun, 22 Mar 2015 16:58:38 +0000 electricmonk2k At the moment, the only way to electrify track is to electrify each individual segment (including those annoying small segments that are hard to find). There are several alternative ideas which would make electrification a lot less painful:

  • Drag along a track to electrify it.
  • Drag a rectangle with the mouse and electrify all tracks in the rectangle (beware: if the camera angle is low, it becomes easy to accidentally electrify large swathes of distant track).
  • Brush tool – electrify everything in the brush-radius (again, beware of low camera-angles and distant track).
  • Flood-fill the length of track from either two selected points on the track (start and end), or the length of track bounded by either switches or station-platforms.
  • The ‘Line’ dialog should have the option to electrify all the track of the route.

Note that in some of these ideas (especially the “electrify line” from the “line” dialog), any crossovers between two adjacent tracks that become electrified should also become electrified.

Another idea is that one of the views in the ‘view’ menu should be an ‘electrification-view’ where all electrified tracks are coloured light-blue and all non-electrified tracks should be coloured orange. If a pixel covers track that is both electric and non-electric, the non-electric colour should get priority so the pixel is coloured orange. This is a lot easier than searching for missing segments in the catenary (hard to do – especially if shadows are enabled), or hovering the cursor over minuscule segments to see if they turn green.

If a pixel both electric and non-electric, the non-electric colour gets priority. This is also a lot easier than searching for missing segments in the catenary by either visually inspecting the catenary or hovering the electrification-cursor over minuscule sections of track to see if they are green.

>I had to destroy section of tracks first, to divide the track and then upgrade it.

An alternative is to build a switch where you want to divide your segment, and the segment is divided into three (the third part being the length of track where the switch is). But even this method requires the entire segment to be free of trains.

]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18092 <![CDATA[Reply To: THE PAIN OF ELECTRIFICATION]]> /forums/topic/the-pain-of-electrification/#post-18092 Mon, 23 Mar 2015 12:58:22 +0000 bythelee I hit this the very hard way. A long loop of track, serving eight towns. All was well, until I electrified it, and started running electric trains. The first line was OK, so I switched the trains on the other track/line (running in the opposite direction) to electric as well. Nightmare. Everything backed up and jammed, taking me from +8M profits to -8M losses in a couple of minutes.

The cause? One tiny sliver of non-elecrified upgraded track, formed when the game automatically chopped the track into a sliver at a level crossing.

The visual clues are useful, once you realise how they work. The high-speed track upgrade, for example, highlights from station to station indicating a contiguous section of track. I didn’t realise the electrification upgrade does the same thing.

The other clue would have been the lines themselves. A working line shows colour. If the trains cannot run, the line disappears. The booby trap was that I didn’t spot one of the two lines was showing arrows in both directions after my “upgrade”. Because, the trains had to reverse around the entire loop to get to the next station beyond the break in the line.

So, there are visual clues to show when things are not happy. But I have to agree, electrification should be a one-click thing to electrify all track between stations.

And I do like the “view” colouring idea to show electrified versus non-electrified track. The same might be said about high speed and regular speed track.

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