Train maintenance + trams

[terx]

Hello there!

I’ve been playing the game for some hours, and I noticed a few things

Train maintenance cost is really high, Higher then I expected it to be, None of my trains made any profit while being 75% or more filled. But i love to play with the trains, and they look quite good. but I get limited because of the non profit
Might need a bit of balacing, (but this could be just me!)

 

Also Trams are a free win.
I build a tramline between 2 cities, Drop 15/20 trams on it, make 2Mil profit,
Seems a bit easy way to win. I could repeat this with many tram connections all making 1mil or more profit.

I hope this feedback could be usefull in some way!

[doc0c]

Hi terx, it’s quite an interesting game and I’m no expert. I have noticed and read around about the way people in your cities “think”. If the total time for the trip takes more than 20 minutes, they will most likely just not take the trip. That said, if the distance between cities is great enough, your trams will not be able to breach this time barrier. So, trams will work great for inter-city trip if the cities are close. Once the gap widens, you run into the time barrier and must use higher speed vehicles.

Regarding the train maintenance cost, it can be prohibitive later on in the game. So far, my strategy has been to get a train line as quickly as I can. So, I pick 2-3 cities that are close to each other (preferably in a straigh line). I quickly build road infrastructure in all three cities to get the people moving. Once I’m profitable and my loans are paid off (usually within 10 years), I start building the first train line. It will lose money at first, but once it gets established, your citizens will fill the train stations.

[genburson]

I think, I have solution for developers with this. For every ticket price add base ticket cost.

Tram ticket: base cost + distance
Train ticket: base cost (higher than tram base cost) + distance

Increase tram track maintenance cost.

For trams in this situation good strategy is short distance transport with many people.
For bus good choice is medium distance because bus track cost is low.
For trains good choice is large distance and high traffic (maintenance cost is high).

[terx]

Thanks for the info, This 20 minute trip time is really usefull, and explains alot for me.
I will give it a try see if i can fix it that way.

But Cargo seems very fidly for me, because I can’t get that working with trains but trucks work wel for me.

[KilrBe3]

Yup train running cost is really high compared to Trucks/Trams. It’s a balance issue for sure. You can try and use the Cost Mod, and make Running Cost cheaper, but it does that for ALL running cost. So it just makes trams/trucks cheaper aka more profit. While just making trains cheaper. Aka your gonna make money no matter what.

So really, its a balance thing that Devs need to sort out.

[doc0c]

The only time I’ve had issues with running costs is with higher difficulty and being gung-ho about trains. Although the name of the game is Train Fever, it really doesn’t work well when you’re starting the train lines early. Regarding cargo, it works the same way as passenger transport, which is to say use it for long distances only at the start of the game. Short distances are better served by a lot of trucks.

[terx]

I managed to figure out some trainlines, I had to up the frequency and now they make profit, but not that much, but i can live by it.
Also long range goods doesn’t seem to go for me, Trucs for short distances are great and they make the company expand and work well. but longrange, not for me but I think it will be possible to pull of.

[connorboy2000]

Ive found maintenance costs to be perfect in my play through , as it help identifies the most profitable roots in all areas and which trains i should be using for different jobs ect.

Ive had fluctuating profits from 28 to 17 million by late game due to experimenting with different train networks, this shows that trains do in deed cost ALOT of money but if you’ve set up to deal with the hit and miss nature of the business simulation side of the game its all part of the learning and mastery of this great game!

[Decrayer]

Although the trains have quite high costs, if they run properly, they also give you the most revenue. In the early years, one line can give you easy 100.000 – 600.000 revenue. If you compare that with bus lines, you can almost say they are insignificant. In the modern times, some of my train lines give me 6 million in good years. And I run 4 passenger lines, so sometimes I have 18 Million income per year.

But some hints: Don’t run cargo trains in the beginning, a factory has to have about 3-5 cities as connected markets in order to grow to dimensions where it makes sense to use trains.

[Author]

Posts