The dreaded spiral of endless debt.

[Yeol]

Hello all,

I’m playing hard mode, with no extra loans, and I’m still struggling to survive and to avoid the dreaded spiral of debt. Playing about 20-30 years is easy, but then it becomes a real challenge. Vehicles become very expensive in running costs and because of lack of profit at that moment, replacing all vehicles with new ones is also too expensive. Losses accummulte and the spiral of debt is unavoidable at that moment. I’m at my tenth game now, and still never passed the year 1885. I’ve tried all kinds of tactics, but failed up to now. (…I’ll beat the system, I do not dispair… 😉 )

I would like to see the running costs of vehicles a tad tempered, and not raise that fast, and suggest to offset it by raising the purchase price of the vehicles. That would really make the game more enjoyable; more focused upon building an efficient railway network, end less preoccupied about continuously replacing the endless number debt-threatening vehicles.

Some other points I like to see solved:

• Navigation with WASD keys for foreign keyboards, PLEASE! (keyboard re-mapping would be appreciated)
• Navigation by screen-border should move diagonally when cursor is in the corners!
• Navigation by screen-border does not work were there are menus sticked at the border.

And less important:

• having left side signals (Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland,UK… 50% of the trains drive left)
• clickable minimap (static content with cities and geo is fine)
• able to also lay road on track, and not only track on road
• slower game pace (possibility to change time scale), because just setting up the basics takes 30 years, and then I have to upgrade all my busses again… much too soon!
• the double slip!
• being able to delete save-games.
• Mouse wheel zooming is too coarse, and a sensitivity setting would be appreciated
• A planning phase when laying down track would be awsome. Plan the traject, correct, adjust, modify the entire length of a track  (eg village to village) and when happy, confirm and all is commited, the planned track is being build (instant, or maybe optional (depending difficulty setting) with a construction period by workers and bulldozers). A planning phase would be a great aid at snaking through hilly terrain.

I do enjoy the game A LOT! Best game I’ve played in a long time.

[gax]

This page will help you with your problems. For a quick fix, use the half cost script, for everything else the Cost Mod.

http://www.train-fever.net/filebase/index.php/Filebase/15-Script-Mods/

• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by gax.

[Person012345]

Try playing on an easier difficulty.

[Yeol]

Thanks Gax! I didn’t know about this fix. I’ll try it.

[Yeol]

@Person01234: no challenge, too easy to get too much money and having to rush-build to spend it all. Hard mode is fine, just the running-costs of busses en trains need to be tweaked a little. That’s all. Thanks for the suggestion, but I already tried it on medium difficulty. 😉

[Traian Trante]

Same here. I make so much money on medium difficulty the game is no fun. However on hard difficulty, the only lines that make proftit are truck lines. Everything else ranges from barely surviving to epic fail.

[Yeol]

The first 10-20 years trains and stage coaches can make money, but you need to use them combined. A train (with first locomotive available) will be lucrative with about 40+ passengers (I use a 10 cars train with 60 places). To get 40+ passengers per run from the small villages (250 residence), you need to set up end-to-end stage coach lines from stategic points inside the villages to the railway station. I use often 2 lines with about 3-4 coaches per line. The train may have a frequency of about 8-12 minutes, but no more. Try to use just 1 train between 2 villages. After 3-5 years you will get about 30-50 passengers willing to take the train to the nearby village, which give you a nice profit from the train AND stage coaches.

At least, that is what I found out while trying and re-playing. I don’t see how to get yet more profit to be able to both invest in expansion AND save up for replacement later. That is my challenge for the moment.

[Vaulter]

Do you use trams between cities?

 

[Yeol]

No, not yet, but I like to try it. Buses give a very nice profit. I suspect trams will also. Maybe I’ll try it this evening (if I have the time).

[Yeol]

I restarted for the eleventh time, en now I’m getting the grasp on it. I’m playing hard mode, hilly and large terrain, 1851 and only use the 1.2M, no extra loans.

It’s now 1885 and I’m still hanging in there, keeping a marginal profit, just enough to replace all outdated vehicles, and to slowly invest in expansion. KEY to keep having that profit (although very small) is to always and with priority replace outdated vehicles. If you don’t, you’re doomed.

I enjoy this game a alot, even with all the particularities, but I would really like to see the vehicle replacement issue taken care of by the developers (eg a semi-automated replacement system, running costs rebalanced,…). That would make this game even more enjoyable!

[Yeol]

For anyone who’s interested in the quest how to get started in hard+hilly mode with just the 1.2M given, no extra loan…

I started a twelfth game with a totally different approach: the intra-village stage coach lines. Just plop 1 bus stop in the centre of two neighbouring villages, connect them with a line, buy a road depot in each village, buy 10 stage coaches in both depots and sent them off. It costs about 220K to set up, and it will return you after the second year about 150K per year. Best investment untill now! And, much easier to maintain than the finicky cargo routes.

I agree, no trains, but with this methods one can easily build a large network of stage coach lines (the precessors of train lines), that will be a very sound base to build upon, and introduce trains when the villages have grown enough.

This just to say that making money in hard mode seem to be possible. Probably I’m the last to discover this, but hey! I’m learning every day… 😉

[strawberrymilk]

Yeah i’ve noticed that bus income is completely based on long hauls. So short transportation is rather useless.

[Vanryu]

First of all, sorry for my english, its not my mother tongue. 🙂

Yeah, hard mode with no extra-loans is a pretty big challenge.
I tried it very often, most of all with an early train-line, but the train sometimes suck all the money out of my pocket.

So I tried another aspect so as Yeol do.
First of all I searched one cargo-line that have a good position. Source is not too far away and two cities in middle-range.
I was supplying two cities with an busroute in there town. Giving these two cities the cargo-supply and wait.
Until I made up some money with it (the cargo-line was giving me a bunch of money) I started bus-lines between the cities. And this was the breakpoint. These busline was creating so much money, I could extremely spread out my business.
With the time, I replaced the busses with tram and don’t regret this decision.

Conclusion:
I think the running-costs for trains stand in no relation to the running-costs for bus/tram.
My example: Year 1920:
A train-line between two nearby cities. The running-costs for a “BR 75.4 Badische VI c” is up to 500k/y and maybe 3-4 trailer with 150k-200k/y. Together 650k-700k/y and I only get a frequency of 5 minutes.
A tram-line between the same cities, where i run 5 “Typ 1 Gothaer” with a running-cost of 27k/y or total cost of 135k/y I can make a frequency of around 80 secounds.

The same example can I make with Busses and early steamtrains in the beginningphase.
So, that pictures call more than thousand words, here a screenshot of my example with tram-lines. Note, the lines with “RT” (stands for regional tram :-D) at the beginning are the lines between the cities and have only two stops.
URL: http://img5.fotos-hochladen.net/uploads/notraini5f9sj4wao.jpg

So long …Vanryu

• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by Vanryu.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by Vanryu.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by Vanryu.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by Vanryu.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by Vanryu.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by Vanryu.

[Yeol]

Playing “Train Fever” without trains? Seems a little odd, no? I’m convinced that the running costs, and the increase of it by time, need to be rebalanced, so the game really can deliver after it’s intention: a game about running TRAINS. 😉

P.S. @Vanyu, how do you edit your entry, after having it posted? … Never mind. found it! 🙂

• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by Yeol.

[killkenny1]

Try one of these mods, OP:

http://www.train-fever.net/filebase/index.php/Entry/10-Cost-mod/

http://www.train-fever.net/filebase/index.php/Entry/29-Halbierte-Betriebskosten-für-Lokomotiven-Trams-Waggons-und-Busse-Lowered-running/

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