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Is there a hidden cost to running vehicles over 20 years. I say this because the running cost of a brand spanking new stage coach or horse and buggy is 5k/year, I also have a 40 year old stage coach costing 11.2k per year. Thats a 6k per year additional cost but that coach brings in about 20k per year (still profit).
If I were to replace it, I loose the revenue for its current load which is usually full and I loose that vehicle production for almost a year if it’s on a cargo route. It would take 5 years to make up the savings of one single truck replacement.
Is there another cost associated with running old vehicles like loss in speed or capacity? otherwise It doesnt make mathematical sense to replace unless upgrading.
Look at this guide: http://steamcommunity.com/app/304730/guides/?browsefilter=trend&requiredtags%5B%5D=Walkthroughs#scrollTop=650
Take note in the second paragraph by “Instructions on how to replace fleet”
I’ve seen Steam is messing with the links, try this one: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=311812980
Hope it works!
Yes maintenance increases which will decrease profitability.
As well speed. People want to travel on fast things. If you have old slow buses in the city a lot of people will opt to drive instead. Creating road traffic and reducing your passenger count.
You need to use the fastest buses available to encourage people to use their cars less. As far as cargo goes, increased cargo space and speed are the factors. If your old trucks are keeping the route going just fine, keep using them. but if you are setting up new, longer routes or high capacity routes, you need the new trucks.
As far as that guide goes, it has nothing to do with what is being asked in this thread, however as an aside it really doesn’t help that much as a solution to the problem of replacing vehicles.
When you use that method you lose all your passengers on the line right now, and you lose all your well spaced vehicles when using that. Replacing vehicles in this game is just mind bogglingly stupid.
@crossmr: If you replace the vehicles, they will eventually auto-space themselves which OpenTTD even can’t. I also had trouble replacing vehicles in OpenTTD, had to find them, sent to any depot and then remove. It was difficult for me to get the vehicles to be auto-replaced and mostly my funds was depleted if I opt them to replace.
Regarding to the guide, I told to read the second paragraph under the title “Instructions on…” to show why the vehicles must be replaced. This is the only image I could find where it says the maintenance accumulated over the years in a percentage form.
I’m not talking about OpenTTD. Never really played it and don’t compare anything to it. I’m talking about this game right now.
Replacing vehicles in this game is poorly done, and combined with poorly thought out economics, it makes it even worse.
@Gasolene I agree with you I do the same thing. As far as I know the extra maintenance is the only hit. I’ve left profitable stagecoaches running many many years and keep using them after ‘better’ vehicles are available since their maintenance is so low. In fact I will sometimes not even upgrade a line if the running costs of the new vehicles (1870s trains for example) are almost as high or higher than my old vehicle including its penalty – all for just a 5kph benefit. Just not worth it.
@crossmr maybe you should play a different game 🙂 – I’m joking there is room for improvement but overall it’s a good game I feel. Personally I wouldn’t have included depots in the game – it’s silly micromanagement that exists only because it did in TTD. I’ve been guilty of same when writing software i.e. just implementing something without asking myself why and is it the best way. A perfect example is opening a vehicle window when you buy it – TTD did this so you had to assign a route, in this game you set the line from the depot and then have to close all the uselessly opened vehicle windows one by one (annoying for 10 stagecoaches) or delete close everything you’re working on.It could be a good game, but it is not a good game. The bad far outweighs the good. What little good there is (3D, reasonably modern graphics) is dwarfed by all the bad in the game (basically everything else). If the devs would actually work on the gameplay rather than disappear for weeks on end popping up with these tiny patches which really do very little on balance, this could be a great game. It could be an awesome game. There is just too much holding it back.
What makes up this game?
1. Economics – balance is completely off and as repeatedly shown it’s much easier to run this game as truck or tram fever than it is train fever.
2. cargo – useless and poorly thought out. Cities only accept one good which makes modding fairly pointless, all you can do is make some massive chain rather than multiple chains. the randomness of resources and factories only leads to the silliness. not to mention the entire situation of having these lone solitary factories in the middle of nowhere.
3. passengers – The multiple bugs surrounding these just make them a chore as well.
4. Roads – inexplicable “collisions” when you try to upgrade, lack of signals, inability to lay road or upgrade over rails.
5. tracks – inexplicable “collisions” when trying to twin tracks, or the 9000 bridge pillars you need to make a bridge go about 200 meters. no X intersections, no double fork, no 90 degree intersection.
6. The absolute cluster mess that is upgrading any roads or track. Not only do vehicles teleport for miles around, but any passengers or cargo are also disappeared. Time to upgrade electric on that station? you just lost 100 passengers.
7. Speaking of upgrading stations, how about actually upgrading stations? Delete a station try to put another in its place? 9 times out of 10 it fails for “collisions”. Even if you try to put back in the exact same station you just deleted.
8. back to cities: How about city growth? A random jumble of a mess. Zero planning, the only planning by you costs you money and upkeep despite all those houses using it. Makes no sense. If I’m going to build roads and people are going to build on them, I expect some kind of income from that, property tax, something.
I could keep going, but please, tell us what this games gets so right that it is, on balance, a good game?
It could be a good game, but it is not a good game.
Well that’s subjective – I think it’s a great game purely by the fact that I play it pretty much every day and enjoy it; as I’m sure 1000s of others do and don’t feel the need to keep complaining about it – look at the German forum. Maybe this isn’t the game for you, no one is forcing you to play it and there are a million other titles out there, or maybe you could write your own perfect one and make a fortune.
The patches have been very regular especially for a team of two or three – I won’t go into how long software takes to write and test.
I will say one thing on collisions – I have never seen an inexplicable one. When you look at what it’s trying to adjust you can always find what’s preventing it and it always makes sense. Like a river embankment or trying to adjust the height of adjacent roads with houses on after snapping or bridge too low for track below or crossing too close to the street snap etc.
Actually it’s not subjective. I provided an objective analysis of the game. All the issues with the game can be verified by anyone and see as sub-optimal game play or outright bugs.
Your response to that is “I play it and like it, therefore it is good”. That is subjective.
Your lying if you say you haven’t seen inexplicable collisions. Have you never upgraded streets? A station? anything? While the cause of the collision is sometimes evident, the fact that it’s evident doesn’t excuse it, it often reveals further design flaws. You should be able to twin a track at an angle on a riverbank. One track might have the bridge start slightly earlier, or cause the bridge on the other track to expand, etc, but you should be able to do it. I had a situation where I could twin on one side, or the other side of a middle track, but the moment I tried to make it a triple line (a line on each side of the middle track) it would fail. I could delete both, pick one side and the other second one would fail because of “collisions” delete the first one, try the other side suddenly it can be made.
I don’t find it remotely believable that you’ve played the game as much as you claimed and never once ran into a collision that made no sense or that the “reason” for it was utterly ridiculous.
I never said “therefore it is good” please don’t miss quote me and actually read what I’m saying. What I said is “I think it’s a great game” – I THINK. My opinion and I know it’s subjective – and everyone is free to have theirs. You said “it is not a good game” – IT. That is being objective by definition on a subjective matter.
Anyway I’m not going to argue semantics of the English language. I enjoy the game, you don’t. I play it you don’t have to.
And please don’t say I’m lying thats’s just petty. Maybe I understand how the game works better than you.
@crossmr: I’ve found this guide on Steam about collisions, maybe it will help you understand why the bridge prevent you from making a triple track. The video in the guide show what you can do to build a triple track bridge. I especially liked the one where you build the bridge halfway, then further on, build the second alongside, delete the segment and then finish the bridge. Take a look here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=343929962
Lets remember this is a very ambitious deep realistic simulator that no traditional publisher would touch. I’ll deal with the UI annoyances and gameplay quirks. This game is still remarkably complex and deep, not to mention beautiful.
A note about station/track upgrading, I know when a local station gets upgraded, that station shuts down for several months while the lengthen the platform or add a track. This ads an element of realism, you not only have to weigh the benefits of the cost of the new station vs the limitation of the old one, you also have to factor in down time just as in real life. They got this right! …though a little cumbersome.
City growth is very dynamic, I like that I am not in control. The cities as far as I can tell, build in a very realistic pattern. Much more realistic than I would build a city. Commercial tends to increase for cities receiving large volumes of passengers, industrial grows if u feed alot of cargo. New development seems to spawn around bus stations. Feels very believable to me. I also like the fact that all trade comes from within the world based on real demand, not supply. There are no out of state visitors, commuters or cargo. This ads alot more control over growth than most people realize. Again, well done and ads a complex layer to decision making. If I build a train station here, will the town develop around it?
No X intersections, or no double forks?… There is a very simple reason for this. Signalling would be very complex. A signal protects the following block of track. It does not account for other lines or priority. In real life, this is all computerized with rules defined by engineers. I like the no X-ing rule.
I agree, the running costs of trains is excessive but that’s likely to be fixed with a patch. My only complaint is that trains can “turn around” which in real life is a very complex process. A wish list, is to have a freight train loco decouple the front, drive around and recouple the back after turning around or a multi head unit, just as they do in real life…. And slow time down.
Some people don’t grasp this concept for the game to be a simulator kind. They expect it to be some ordinary easy to play tycoon where you make as much money as possible and don’t matter about realism. I see this game as my own model railroad, because I don’t have the money or time to build an actual one. Regarding to town development, the placement of buildings by their type is realistic and acceptable, but the layout is a bit of a problem. Town layouts follow the old style of build anywhere and everywhere in any dimensions possible. I like to see a town or 2 with a more modern layout like grid or triangular style.
Lets remember this is a very ambitious deep realistic simulator that no traditional publisher would touch. I’ll deal with the UI annoyances and gameplay quirks. This game is still remarkably complex and deep, not to mention beautiful.
It is absolutely nothing of the sort. There is nothing complex nor realistic about it.
City growth is very dynamic, I like that I am not in control. The cities as far as I can tell, build in a very realistic pattern.
Again, have you played this game? Are you sure you’re not playing something else? There is nothing realistic about this at all.
No X intersections, or no double forks?… There is a very simple reason for this. Signalling would be very complex. A signal protects the following block of track. It does not account for other lines or priority. In real life, this is all computerized with rules defined by engineers. I like the no X-ing rule.
Didn’t you just get done telling us what a deep realistic, complex simulation this is? Which is it? It actually has nothing to do with signalling at all. It’s a failure of the game engine. These are realistic track styles based on real life.
Some people don’t grasp this concept for the game to be a simulator kind.
There is nothing about this that remotely resembles it being a simulator.
Trying to excuse random poorly designed things as “realistic” because you can dream up a reason in real life that would happen is called “apologizing”. You can’t claim that passengers disappearing from the rail station is realistic because in real life it would take “months” to upgrade a station. Sorry, but if I run electrical on a completely unused track it would not cause me to shut down all the other tracks in the station for months. That is no realistic. If the city is upgrading a piece of road, buses and cars don’t start teleporting around the city. Passengers at a bus stop half a block around the corner wouldn’t suddenly all abandon the bus stop. If things were “realistic” I’d be able to upgrade a road over a train track. Stop excusing poor products by trying to claim realism when there is absolutely zero evidence this game is trying to be remotely realistic intentionally.
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