Better simulation, better usability, better Train Fever

[Javis]

What i’d be looking out for mostly is having control over time elapse ourselves,i.e. much more than we have now. Even at normal time elapse mode i feel that it goes much and much too fast. Personally i’d like to stick around in a certain era as much as i like. F.i. i love steam locomotives and early electric locs. Before i know it i’ll have to replace them with much more modern stuff which i just don’t care for that much. I wouldn’t mind at all if the game got stuck in the 1950’s/60’s… 😉

On top of that i think it’s pretty silly to end up somewhere in the far future without a good sense of science fiction… Stop at 2015 but make progress much slower would be my suggestion to the devs.

Nontheless kudos to the devs, it’s a marvelous game !

[Javis]

I just don’t get it why setting up these first 3 cities went so well ( i *did* have 70 hours of ‘trial and error’ to get the hang of the game ) and i can’t get anything going in this second setup of additional cities.

Yes, sofar i have used bus and tram services only for local transport. Trams are always a success, buses not so much, usually just a few pax while trams are full most of the time.

Didn’t think about travel time yet because the 3 cities are pretty close together and because i run 4 trains on that line the travel time is only about 3 or 4 minutes. Now i looked at the travel of this new line ( i.e. the travel time from the last of the 3 cities to the first ‘new’ city ) it showed as 12 minutes…

What i did was remove the ‘new’ line and set up a new one where  the train only runs from the first of the new cities to the second. This resulted in 6 minutes travel time. Still the train remained empty… I then cut the travel time in half by adding another train. Didn’t make any difference… Nobody gets on the trains, nobody gets on the buses nore the trams.  In the 100 plus hours i played the game i’ve never seen anything like this…

It’s about 2040 now, got 120 million in the bank and counting (despite the fact that this ‘new’ line only costs money ), pretty satisfied with that. Together with this ‘no passengers’ problem of the second line and the fact that i don’t care much for modern transportation ( give me a steam locomotive any time ! 😉 i decided to quit my job here and let these stubbern citizens of these new cities sort it out themselves.

Actually i found it quite a relief to start again with a fresh map.  😉  Thought i’d try medium difficulty level now ( easy before ) and a hilly map. In no time ( say half an hour) i had two towns connected, 2 trains running with full amount of passengers, various horse and wagons running between industries and the cities, all figures in the green. I.e. no probs at all.

Thanks for the suggestion, Reblet, to first setup 2 separate networks and only then see if they can be connected. Will try that now.

Cheers,

Jan

[Javis]

Thanks, gents.

Sure i have a bus and tram line connecting the train station with the city ( see my OP ) but the strange thing is that nobody wants to get on it… Nore on the bus, nore on the tram… Let alone the train….

I have 3 booming cities with often more than 100 pax waiting on the train station platforms. City trams are very popular, buses, for some strange reason, are not. Industries and cargo lines all top notch.

Tought i’d expand with 2 more cities. They are just about on the other side of the map compared to my 3 booming cities. So i setup a seperate line that runs from the last of the 3 cities ( so people at this last city can travel either to the 2 ‘booming’ cities or to the 2 ‘new’ cities, atleast that sounded sensible to me… ) to the 2 ‘new’ cities. Made that a single electrified line.

The ‘last’ city had a single track station, i demolished that and put back a double track station. The second track serves the platform for the 2 ‘new’ cities. The train to the 2 new cities runs perfectly well. I created passing sidings just in case the line would be as succesfull as the first one so i could enter a second or third train.  The 2 new cities’ industries run well, have seperate lines for iron ore and oil trains running too. Cities are slowy growing but still nobody wants to get on the d*mn train! *&^%$!%!!

I have setup a perfectly running 3 cities passenger train connection. Now i have setup a second line just like the first one and it just won’t work !???… Already for 40 years now…

Btw, thanks for the info Azrael, that’s good to know, atleast one thing to rule out…  😉

@ doc0c :  you might have a good point there,  about the distance….  The 3 ‘booming towns’ are relatively quite close to one another where this 2 new cities are not…

Forget about connecting the ‘last’ city to the 2 new cities and just connect these 2 new cities to eachother ?  (possibly with another more or less nearby city to connect too )

So, in a way, it’s not exactly the meaning to, in the end, connect each city of the entire map with eachother ?

Thanks much for the feedback !

 

 

 

[Javis]

AFAIK it’s the cars from other towns that cause these enormous traffic jams. Cut them off and that’s that. Can’t do that if you connect towns via tram or bus lines… Therefore i always use railway to connect towns. Once i see a traffic jam i bulldoze just a piece of road at the town that the cars are coming from and the whole mess is cleared in a second. I do make sure that my industrie cargo lines are not affected by cutting off a piece of road.

I find that bus lines don’t work too well in cities, tram lines work much better. 3 cities are connected via double track railway running 4 trains. Has always been extremely profitable. Often trains have to leave a few pax behind because the’re fully booked.

 

 

 

[Javis]

Every now and then i put the game in 4x speed ( i wouldn’t mind if a possible future patch would include an option for us to control time flow ourselves. F.i. i’d like to stay in a specific era much longer than is possible now) and watch my trains from above. If i think there’s too short a time between one another i just put one or two on hold until i’m satisfied with the seperation.

Often i see a train arrive at the station unloading lots of people of which a bunch walk to the tram station. The tram has just arrived there too, but it’s not like the driver waits from them, he closes the doors right in front of their noses and off he goes leaving 10 people standing there until he arrives back from his route… I feel for them, glad it doesn’t rain in this world…

[Javis]

I *do* have something good going now, up to 60M and counting, but before, while train lines were profitable, i’d still see company finance going downhill all the time, slowly but steadily. AFAIK this was mostly caused by all these bus line figures in the red. Have to say i didn’t do much about cargo just yet. Got seriously into that now and i suppose that’s the main reason i’m at 60M now. Still learning..  😉

[Javis]

Thanks, guys!

Tried your suggestion, Fuji, but no luck so far. Not a very dignified solution and if it will work wouldn’t that be a flaw in the program… When i first met with this tremendous traffic jam i noticed that the main culprits came from another town. I *did* demolise just a short piece of road and that took care of it.

Yes, two towns have grown considerably and i have LOTS of bus stops already… Remarkable thing is that the tram lines do work perfectly. Always full. But these lines are much shorter than the bus lines. Could that have anything to do with it ?

I have just cleared all of the bus lines in the biggest city and put 2 shorter ones back, one from the train station(sometimes more than 100 pax on the platform) to homes/leisure and one to the industrial area. The first one picks up only a few pax back and forth, the second one is much better but not exactly full neither. This city didn’t have a tram line yet. Set it up from the station along the main street with 5 stops to the outskirts. Just about immidiately pax fill up the stops so i let a second tram run too. Big success!

The bus lines finance still in the red after a year or so although they keep picking up a few people. That’s more than before…

Didn’t know there are bus lanes inplemented in the sim. Great ! ( wàs thinking about that when seeing buses/trams stuck in traffic jams) I haven’t build any of the super roads yet, just medium roads. Tried to upgrade roads in the cities but there’s a lot in the way, i suppose you have to demolish first but than you’d be left with only half of the city…

Didn’t try buses/trams from one city to another neither just yet… When you have a couple of trains running would that really be profitable ??…..  Or is it like you have either a railway OR a bus/tram line running between cities ?..

Thanks very much for your views/tips/suggestions, gents. Highly appreciated !

[Javis]

Really hope your improvement list will get materialised, DK115. I got very addicted as well, almost instantly. Haven’t touched my beloved TS2014 for days !  😉

I’d like to see a particularly easy improvement to see realised : get rid of all the smoke (apart from the steamlocs, naturally… ), it’s way too aggerated, from certain pov’s it looks like the whole city is on fire…

Kudos to the devs !!

 

 

[Javis]

Like Killkenny…. I do name buses, trams and freight trucks. It’s great that you can sort everything to your liking so you can keep up with how the various transports are doing. I start all names with the the name of the town. Very helpfull.

[Javis]

Naturally! (slaps hand on forehead) Thanks mucho, Quox ! 🙂

[Javis]

(remarkable that you cannot quote a post here… )

Ok, bedankt Nique, gezellig. 🙂 Grouping seems to work nice indeed. Thanks for the tip! Do you think the game goes as far as that once ‘personal cars’ start to appear the bus and tram lines are affected by it ?….  I had all finance of my bus lines in the green but now i’m a bit further ahead with my current setup and i see lots of cars moving about i see more and more red figures turning up…

The finance of my pax train lines doesn’t go as well as before neither…  Seems to me that the further you advance in the game, with more cities connected and more trains and bus lines running, the more difficult it gets to keep a profit going…

 

 

[Javis]

Thanks a lot, Nique, clear as a klontje !   ( considering your piccie of the Ceintuurbaan and Ferdinand Bol, are you dutch ? … )

Do i understand correctly that, in order to establish a ‘Group’, i click the Group button and then every stop i click gets part of the Group until i click the Group buttton again ?…

Thanks again, much appreciated !

 

[Javis]

Ok, i’ll go stand in the corner with my dunce hat on. Thanks, mate ! 🙂

[Javis]

Thanks Nique and Leew, that looks beautiful and inspiring (and very overwhelming for a dillitant like me.. 😉

Nique, can you elaborate on your bus lines a bit, please ? F.i. why do you have 3 bus lines running instead of just one ?…

Thanks!

 

[Javis]

How does one actaully get a tram going ?….

I get a pop-up saying a first tram is available. I put up a tram track, add a tram station, go into the road vehicle depot to buy a tram, no tram available……

Thanks very much for any hints/tips/trams..

 

 

[Author]

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