Where is the game going?

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  • #18655
    moriety
    Participant

    I’ve seen many transport games, and noted the foilbles and bonuses of each.

    1)Railroad Tycoon 1, 2 and 3, Trains and trucks Tycoon, Trainz, Transport Giant, Traffic Giant, Cities in Motion, yet each and everyone cocked-up with one aspect, or more of the game: whilst the other programmers in different games got that part right. After 25 years you expect that between the combined knowledge, at least one company would get it spot on, but no.

    1) The old Chris Sawyer games: My idea of enjoyment is not replacing trains, buses or trams, forever, every 5 years…….I want to build a decent transport system without being spammed.

    2) Having a decent method of building track, single or double is good, an option for double is even better. This is the worst aspect of this particular game, it is just so frustrating trying to actually build track.

    3) I do not wish to trawl the map deleting and then upgrading Semaphore to Traffic Light systems when electrics hit the railways. When I saw this I was already frustrated, when I saw that I just couldn’t believe my eyes.

    4) I wish to replace my-200 odd vehicles when I want, and a tick-box option should be provided to upgrade all of a certain type in one single option is welcome. Despite most of my medium map having no trams or buses, my “game” is now spent upgrading /replacing “old” locomotives/rolling stock, and doing nothing else.

    5) As I said, I just wish developers would actually learn something from the quarter of a century of transport games they can actually learn from, it’s in front of every programmers eyes.

    This video is one of the last two “Sleeper trains” (Night trains) left in the UK, this is the one from Penzance in Cornwall to London.
    Give the video some time as the nearly 50 year old girl is still pulling that train, but you can hear that she can easily still do it after nearly half a century of service each time she leaves a station whilst in Cornwall and Devon before going fast into England:

    https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KLqIQt5V9VwxUArREsnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZWc0dGJtBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMQ–?p=youtube+Penzance+To+London+Sleeper&vid=59602a0fb63fef40e157197d81f78cde&l=45%3A09&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DWN.Ltw44VJrRHRtA3WcjzDv1Q%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DMwks8zJAcsw&tit=Penzance+to+London+Paddington+|+Night+Riviera+Sleeper+15%2F02%2F13&c=0&sigr=11bmpoq35&sigt=11u1fkr9t&sigi=11vjndbkn&age=1361304540&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&fr=yhs-mozilla-004&hsimp=yhs-004&hspart=mozilla&tt=b

     

    #18730
    gazac
    Participant

    I find that it needs a key to hold down to make a straight track,

    also the old Transport games had a Mail car that you could make money on, why did they leave that out, what we only use email now

    Also the years go to fast, new trains come up before you have any big money to buy them, I find I’m running the game on pause more to build, but then I don’t earn any money.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by gazac.
    • This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by gazac.
    #18734
    IKBrunel
    Participant

    I too have played many ‘trains & industry’ games and I find the track building and overall train simulation to be the best I’ve ever seen in a game.

    What frustrates me to all hell is the stupid industry/economic model.  Sometimes I can understand how it works – and then another time it doesn’t make any sense!   I wish it were more like Industry Giant where you had areas of land that produced for one natural resource or another and you had to build your own industrial segments accordingly, and then ship the final product to stores, which then sold it according to the demands of that neighborhood – that would be more realistic.  Or like RT3 that had the gradiated price map for products that showed you where to ship the goods to for the best profit.

    All gripes aside, I’m still hooked on this game.

     

     

     

    #18756
    moriety
    Participant

    Hi both,

    I found Industry Giant ok, but I favour building Transport Systems, and enjoying doing it.

    The track-building system seems to have no options or choices at all, The programmers seem to be obsessed with bridges and tunnels if the gradient rises above 0.1% yet you cannot override the programme, it is bonkers.

    This product is in desperate need of some logic and the application of commonsense.

    It seems to me to be a repeat of the good old German ‘Transport Giant’ or ‘Trucks and Trains Tycoon’ (one of the two, it is identical, but without a logical track laying method, or a decent Industry system, as Brunel pointed out.

    I also noticed the famous German 103 Class is bugged- she only moves at 87mph, not her stated 125mph.

    I’ll stick with Railroad Tycoon 2 (not 3) anyday.

    Talking of Brunel, I hope you watched the Cornwall Sleeper to London video as the train slows down to go single track over the Tamar bridge,, and at as little as £50 for the night it is now cheaper than a hotel at either end, with the added bonus that strangers are no longer allowed to share a berth (cabin/room).It’s a journey I want to do before the Tories cut the funding for it. (It has been kept going for the Cornish and Devon MP’s who have to go my town of London to sit in Parliament, and it should remain as a service to them, us and tourists, it’s a beautiful line, especially in Devon when the line and sea literally meet each other: Sleeper one way, daylight the other way.

    #18757
    Pasi
    Participant

    Track building works just fine. My grief is that it snaps to straight bit too easy, but it’s nothing one can’t handle.

    Gradients are just as steep as you make them. If you want steeper, build shorter sections or manually control the slope.

    103 is not bugged, it does go 200km/h but only with coaches able to go 200km/h. If you are restricted to 75mp/h then the limitation is coming from the coaches it’s pulling.

     

    #18777
    moriety
    Participant

    Pasi:

    The track building is easy??

    Are you serious? Have you actually owned any other transport games?

    I’ve pretty well played the lot from the A-Train onwards, and for me it has the most restrictions possible, conbined with the least amount of options: Double track, Rail and road underpasses/overpasses, the ability to upgrade level crossings (or even be able to build one across a road to start with), upgrading of signals, high speed track and electrification, none of the above actually are available, or exist in such a convoluted form as to be worthless or at best highly frustrating.

    As to laying straight track, I dream of the day I actually can, it automatically curves after drawing a few screen centimetres. What is the key you need to press to actually lay straight track?

    I’ve also noticed the Museum Line achievement is broken.

    Finally the E103: They were all pulling 125mph carriages, not one of the 20 odd trains ever went beyond exactly 87mph and all were working high speed track.

    I could talk about buses grid-locking themselves and no internal programme checks for it, nor any tool for the player to resolve that situation, or discuss the fact the (extremely low) bus passenger capacity utterly fails to keep in line with city growth, helping to cause the common grid-locks as the player is forced to buy hundreds of buses just to try to keep up with said growth.

    #18778
    moriety
    Participant

    PS:

    The iconic London ‘Routemaster’ bus which first entered service in 1956 seated 64, and carried many more with standing passengers, I’m sure other readers can point up genuine capacity of their buses within their cities. Once the cities reach 1-1.5k and the programme starts spamming you with traffic jams around 1990, the capacity of the featured buses really need to go to actual genuine capacity.

    With just 7 cities on the map, without full coverage in any of them, I still have 250 buses, none of which are matching demand, and in two cities the buses were constantly getting grid-locked (cannot move as a bus is attempting to turn left into a complete queue of buses behind it that stretches past where the left turn is), I gave up completely with one of the cities and retired all the buses on the 4 routes within it. The automatic spacing doesn’t help either, at all; late game, it becomes a hinderance. Traffic giant at least allowed you set spacing if you wished, for each tram or bus on every route.

    #18779
    Pasi
    Participant

    Yes, thanks for asking, i have played and i do own A-Train, A-train 3 V9.0, Railroad Tycoon 1,2 and 3, Sid Meier’s Railroads, this, Traffic Giant, Industry Giant and probably some other as well.

    Track building itself works just fine, straight tracks come automatically as there is a “snap” function built into the system. You really need to pull quite far to get it curving and that is annoying sometimes but not a major issue.

    Now i think you are talking about gradients, the vertical straightness of the tracks and that is little bit different. While the system mostly works well, sometimes there is little bit issues but they are caused by the player. There is a gradient limitations which can not be exceeded and thus if you end up your track on uphil, it needs to first slope to flat before sloping down. Just like in real life. If you insist on building level track or certain constant gradient, you click on that arrow on build tool which indicates the gradient direction (or flat) and you get 2 arrows more, up and down. By clicking those you can manually adjust what happens and when you set it to level for example, it truly will create level track.

    The only big annoyance is the uphill automatically created at the end of the level crossing with the road unless you pull the track slightly away from the road while building.

    Double tracking is as easy as in Railroad Tycoons for example, you had to manually upgrade the track unless you built it directly to double. On this game, granted, you can’t build double track on one go, but doing it the way this game does it, is not again major flaw but rather minor inconveniece. I tend to start with single track with passing loops anyway and upgrade later on when the need is there.

    Upgrade functions could be more user friendly, especially for the overhead lines and high speed track, but not again a major issue. Signals… Who cares, you can’t see them anyway so why would you even bother upgrading them? I used to upgrade to high speed by building completely new tracks and maybe straightening out few sections at the same time, so had to place new ones anyway. Now i just don’t bother with signals, they are what they are.

    Station upgrades? Just build a 5 platform station if you are unsure of your future needs. Not that much more expensive to do.

    #18780
    Pasi
    Participant

    That 103 issue is something wrong in your game. I’ve never had that problem. Usually there isn’t enough track between the cities for them to reach 200km/h but they would do it if the map would be bigger. 16kmx16km hardly justifies high speed trains…

    Buses, well, you are doing it wrong if you have that many buses for so little amount of cities and managed to get them gridlocked.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by Pasi.
    #18787
    moriety
    Participant

    Hey Pasi, we have to meet one day. Since RRT2 I’ve never seen a transport game to match it: Competition, a Stock market and a straight forward track building system,

    Last night I spent £40 million on trying to double up the track, then having to erase it as the AI would simply not allow me to double up on the huge bridge it had decided I must build. I eventually seperated the Up and Down lines, and it looks as stupid as the faces of the programmers.

    A huge graceful bridge began in flat-land, that ended in flatland, the other simply stayed on the ground. As I said before, the programmers are obsessed with anything over a 0.1% gradient, and you are not allowed to override the programmers choice which is always tunnels or bridges.

    Double track is really important if this bunch of developers wish to retain credibility for the next version.

    The 103: What can I say: Passing through Germany on my way to the Roskilde Music Festival in Denmark several times, via the then boat-train from London Victoria to get on the Nord and Viking trains from Spain to Helsinki/Stockholm/Oslo via Aachen on the Belgian border where us British were collected, courtesy of Belgian Railways, once onboard these huge trains I noticed the equally huge German freight trains, .The loco was generally a 103 and ties up with my fond memory of the 24  (exactly) journey from London Victoria to Roskilde, via Kobenhavn. (Copenhagen)

    Anyway, the 103 isn’t working at her true speed, and I monitored it to get the confirmation I wanted.

    Buses: Allowing gridlock as opposed to a traffic jam without any tools to deal with it is poor. I personally design 4 routes that all pass through the bus station at the railway station, late in the game traffic jams, as opposed to gridlock become a problem, even on the 7-city small map I struggled to keep up, especially as the AI never warns you about anything on the map, bar no road connection for a railway connection, and certainly never warns when the busses on a line are stuck.

    I like the game, but I look forward to an actual working version of the game, charged at full price (£30). Support small companies in Europe, It gives all work ultimately!

     

     

    #18788
    moriety
    Participant

    PS all:

    Re: The video of the night-train.

    Although that one of the two remaining night trains  still exists at all is good I noticed that the service arrives at 5am in Paddington,, but nobody need leave the train before 7am. We in the UK have little to tie our identity to any mast, this train is one of those quirks for us British that reassure us that we are British. The NHS is being privatised before our very eyes, the BBC will be offered for sale soon: It’s this ongoing bit of Brunels legacy that reminds of us all of our past: The thunder of the locomotive as it pulls out of Cambourne, whilst the UK faces politicians.

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