Train World: Research, Reputation, Biscuits!: Lets Play 2.17

[@knightwish1623]

Watching you fiddle around the Bridges and Tunnels I think it's one of the things the Dev's need to work on. Auto bridging or the choice to bridge or tunnel. As in a lot of other train games. At the moment I'm playing the new Railroad Corperation 2 which came out a few days ago.

[@AjaxpostPlays]

Yeah, bridges and tunnels are the one aspect of the game that really frustrates me at the moment. 😕 Ooh, I actually bought the first one, but then never found the time to play it properly! 🙄

[@colmortimer1066]

I dip into this series every so often to kind of check out the updates and see how the game is going, but I am not ready to buy it just yet, may wait until release. What does the game currently offer above what Transport Fever offers? And if you know, what is planed that would put it above. From what I have seen so far the map unlocks and expands as you play, that is a rather unique feature. You also don't have to build a good bus or tram route to really get passengers onto your rail service, which can be a plus or minus depending on my mood in Transport Fever 2. Sometimes I don't want to bother, other times it's nice to create a good bus and tram system that works well with getting your passenger to the station. And it looked like the train signals here might be more detailed, letting you make sure the next path is clear. Letting me have more control is always better, even if that means more time I can mess up and have to fix it, because I got to trains stopping head to head as you did. :)

[@AjaxpostPlays]

Hi, actually this game never went into Early Access, going straight to 'full release' immediately. Though, it did feel like an EA title for the first few months! As for a roadmap, I don't think the dev has ever officially published one but has given early warning of significant changes - like the total reworking of the economy after release; the changes to region industry mechanics - but we have seen continuous refinement and improvement to many of the game systems. It is obviously quite different to TpF2, while there's no real map development the supply and demand for passengers and freight does grow over time in response to your services. Using only trains means you focus much more on the design of your lines and the ability to move increasing amounts of passengers and freight so it's more of a logistical puzzle. Though the fact that the required routes are fixed - as far as I can see there is no way of creating a demand for travel so if there is no call for a route from CityA to CityB when you unlock a region, you will gain from a line between the two, unless (I think) one is used as a transit link. Signalling is certainly more sophisticated but there is (at the moment!) no means of alternate platforming and it can be quite unforgiving of bad design. But, I think, that is where it wins out, in that it rewards planning and good design and the economy is challenging in the early game. But once you get a good network running the gradual unlocking of regions, industries, and spiralling demand should keep you playing. I see it more as a logistics puzzle than the creative builder that is Transport Fever.

[@knightwish1623]

The reason your reputation is so low is because you are not transporting the Pax out of the stations. In the list of trains marked in red with -5 are all the stations which are not 100% served. This is the reason I said to run only town to town lines instead of multi stops lines. If you have a town wanting Pax to go to 4 towns and only 1 line stopping at each town. Each terminal in that town has around 200 Pax and a line which can only pick up around 190 Pax at each stop. You will be only picking up about a quarter of the Pax waiting in each station. To use an example of Charlotte. You need to build a direct track to San Fran (the station there is on the wrong side of town) and run a track up to Jacksonville. Then using 3 trains to run to the 3 destinations with no inbetween stops. That is the only way to achive 100% usage in Charlotte. The trains also need to have enough capacity to take all Pax at once. This applies to all stations. Thats the reason I said in the previous do not us multi stop lines. You have 21 mil in the bank so money is no problem. I have adapted a new tactic when opening a new region. At first plan a circular route passing near every town, then at the towns run a line from the ring to the station and back out to rejoin on the other side. This way you have access to and from all towns plus having a bypass route especial helpful for freight trains. The same goes for the freight stations. On the map I'm playing at the moment I have no negative reputation.

[@AjaxpostPlays]

I do recall you saying it way back when, that direct one stop to one stop was the way to go. For me that's an aesthetically unattractive design, but my reputation figures do show how difficult it is to run multi-stop and connecting services while maintaining a good reputation. 😥 That said, I do like the sound of your regional loop, I might well try that in the next region I open. 👍