I stumbled upon an article with some interesting declarations of “Urban Games” (the developers) about the coming features they are working on. I just sum up in short version what can be found in the original article (see below):

The first priorities are

• get the game playable on as much as different hardware possible. A few patches have been released already.
• get the LINUX and MAC version ready (done last week)
• get the majority of bugs out of the game and speed it up (eg with better parallellization)
• a better “getting started” guide

Further they summed up a coupled of features which are high on their todo list:

• waypoints
• better landscape textures
• cars stop at rail cossings
• being able to lay road over rail
• more and harder achievements
• more surrounding sounds to live up the world
• traffic lights
• longer industry chains

For (a little) further information I refere to the article (see link below). It’ a little sad that such interesting information is not mentioned on this official website/forum, but one has to stumble by chance upon it somewhere on the very vast internet. But I’m a very happy anticipator! 😉

source:

http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/train-fever/artikel/train_fever,51449,3078239.html

If you have cities A B C  and

trains from A -> B uses the track that C should have used and

trains from C -> B have to use the track that A should have used.

Since the game picks shortest path first and then pick them in order, what you did was created line A-B first and it ended up wrong and then you did C-B. Since the game pick the track in order you delete the lines and create C-B first and then A-B. So you have a small degree of control.

It is irritating as hell though.

You have to run the game and complete building everything. THen you send everything to the depot and clear a who region from all train traffic. And then you delete all lines.

THen you drink coffee for sharpness and pour in a little vodka for mental stability and calmness. Then when you feel right you put on the thinking cap, hold the toung right in your mouth and carefully start creating the routes again checking these yellow and blue and green and cyan lines carefully. And after you done tho whole region you hopfully have tricked the game into picking the right station track.

Having paths like this is not bad since this is how it works IRL. There is a time table, and a chosen path for the train, the passengers expect train 1010 going from A to B to be ontime and always arrive at platform 10 same time every day around the year. It is out on the line though the signalling system is mostly used to separate trains but also if necessary can lead them onto some spare track if there is a traffic jam, or if the first train is a slow low priority train and a fast high speed train is coming from behind, then there is a need to get off the main line and let the other train pass.

There is so much that is missing.

But I a feeling they will have a long way to go to implement signals properly. I saw some evidence how the game works 2 days ago. I had a new double track with switches but hadn’t put out all signals yet. There were two trains on the line on collision course. Even if there were no signal the other train understood it courd not proceed. And then I though Aha!

Signals, are used to affect which tracks are to be used. The path that the line takes. BUT, no train ever watch these signals.

What the game does while you are creating the line is looking at the path only after the path has been or as it is being created. And then it detects the switches and after it has found those the game places it’s own …. well you can not call them signals …. it is just “collition avoidance code”.

This is why people one the forum have said that on the exit of stations there are invisible signals. But there NO signals in the game. The game do not look at signals while the trains run, cause the game don’t need them, it has its own collition avoidance code.

Cause if it were not like this then the trains should just contine through the switch if there is no signal RIGHT? There is no red signal that means go ahead and drive….. but no the train has a sixth sense another train is coming.

So basically it seems the trains a re running the same path following code as trams and lorries etc.

A: A create the exact route

B: now just follow this path and stop for other veicles and stop at stations and other passenger / cargo stops.

So I have a feeling this design is very deep down in the game. A line can only have one route and can not use alternative routes.

I think I am sarting to geth a feeever……

I want my money back if they don’t implement proper signalling. How can train games evolve backwards?

signalling in train fever is actually evolved from previous games in such a way, that in train fever signals work prototypically. but they are just signals, they don’t have an influence on the train’s pathfinding because thats not something that signals do. pathfinding will be much improved very soon with the introduction of waypoints.

maybe they will improve pathfinding one day so that you can also specify alternative waypoints in order to allow trains to switch to a clear track.

Also I would be happy if the numbers of factories compared to mines are better balanced.

I’m sorry about my awful english 😉

it is really needing