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Robhol posted:Is that why I've never been able to turn a profit in OTTD? Every now and then I try to play that game and I always go bankrupt within a year or two because the short lines I make always lose money. If you're actually supposed to start with lines that are as long as possible rather than as short as possible then that seems like really poor game design for how unintuitive it is. It is possible to make a line too short. Plus trucks can be fickle to start with if that's what you're relying on. If you're travelling more than a screen or so though, it should be fine.
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Nov 3, 2015 19:36
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This has very little to do with the LP at hand, but: Was this the railroad/business/transport tycoon type game where one of the scenarios was set in the near future and required you to transport a bunch of concrete to a geothermal power plant that blew up because it was spewing greenhouse gases and which had gradually-rising water levels as it went on? Because I played that from some gaming magazine demo disc years ago and seeing this thread suddenly reminded me of it and now it's driving me nuts.
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Nov 4, 2015 02:57
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President Ark posted:This has very little to do with the LP at hand, but: Was this the railroad/business/transport tycoon type game where one of the scenarios was set in the near future and required you to transport a bunch of concrete to a geothermal power plant that blew up because it was spewing greenhouse gases and which had gradually-rising water levels as it went on? Because I played that from some gaming magazine demo disc years ago and seeing this thread suddenly reminded me of it and now it's driving me nuts. Sounds like it might have been Railroad Tycoon 2, the Second Century. There's some info on it here: http://theterminal.dune2k.com/?p=rrt2-version-century
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Nov 4, 2015 03:07
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thedaian posted:Sounds like it might have been Railroad Tycoon 2, the Second Century. There's some info on it here: http://theterminal.dune2k.com/?p=rrt2-version-century drat, looks like it. When I first thought of it I was certain it wasn't Railroad Tycoon so I guess I had only remembered (and subsequently forgotten) the "the second century" part of the title.
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Nov 4, 2015 03:51
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Robhol posted:Is that why I've never been able to turn a profit in OTTD? Every now and then I try to play that game and I always go bankrupt within a year or two because the short lines I make always lose money. If you're actually supposed to start with lines that are as long as possible rather than as short as possible then that seems like really poor game design for how unintuitive it is. The pro open strat in OTTD is to create passenger tram service in the busiest town (streetcars have higher startup cost than buses but are more cost-effective in my experience). That will create a profit stream while you take out enough loans to connect a productive coal mine to a faraway power plant. Preferably there's several other coal mines in the vicinity that can later be branched to. Once you've got that stuff going for you, it won't be long before you pay off your debt, and once that happens, you're basically printing money. Then you can get into the real meat of the game, building elaborate rail networks to transport passengers and goods at maximum revenue without everyone dying in a fireball or getting stuck.
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Nov 4, 2015 08:43
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Locomotion Soundtrack - Chrysanthenum Locomotion has an option to play only contemporary tracks, hence you're getting a lot of ragtime at the moment.  1903-1905: Things come unstuck  When we left McDuck Enterprises last time, Passenger train The Chowick Express had slipped the confines of it's itinerary and was heading south.  Train control immediately stops the train and it is brought back to the Howick subdivision. Stopped vehicles can be lifted from the line and dropped elsewhere. Doing this removes all cargo, so you don't want to do it on normal operations.  For some reason, Spotted Train opts to head for the Auckland station. No big deal, but on it's way out again, it decides to go back to the line it just came from.    The Express is restarted, and immediately heads towards the southern sector again!   The Trunk-Howick junction is modified. Now trains from Howick must choose to go directly left or right, instead of veer right/straight ahead.   This time, Spotted Train is able to negotiate the junctions correctly.  Another Industry shuts down.    We try again with Chowick Express. It successfully negotiates the junctions.  This is good. We'll be able to set up a station to collect coal from both of them and never be short of something to haul.   This bloody machine has no sense of direction!   So this junction, we adjust to make more rectilinear.  The lines are open!   Despite all this, the Bronze Horse has been steadily delivering payload to the mill at Pokeno, and Mcduck can begin to pay off his debts.     With things back to normal, McDuck Enterprises goes in search of new revenue. I have no idea what this name references, but I have no doubt that within a year or two the locals will be calling it the 'Transit Tram' In the first shot, you can see a blue overlay showing the proposed station's catchment area. Unfortunately the passenger stop signs are very hard to see. In the game, they are much easier to see.   Unfortunately, the new normal is all fouled up. the situation is dire!  This time, we simply rip a movement out of the junction!   Thankfully, Bronze Horse not only pulls us through, but is growing the company      It seems the parsimonious McDuck has built a railway that works fine if the trains don't interact with each other and all the signals are operated manually.   Bronze Horse Again!  Our tram is contributing as well. Here you can see why trams are a great starter vehicle.  As 1904 arrives, the ghost of christmasses present help Scrooge review what people think of him.  Bah! We only bowled one cottage! We're sure the evicted family is happy nobly toiling in the workhouse.      Most other places have better opinions of us. Wait - Top marks for mail!? A house near the Pokeno sawmill must have just posted the station's first ever piece of mail, ratings start at 100% and drop over time if the cargo isn't delivered.  The jams are beginning to have an effect.    Scrooge takes his mind off his train problems by picking up a cheap boat from a man in a pub. A ferry service crossing the Waitemata harbour is set up between Auckland and Devonport. The Auckland dock is cunningly set up to connect to the Auckland rail station. On the second try    Unfortunately the nameplate is to short for the new bote's grandiose name.   Revenue is coming in steadily.   The harbour ferry is operational   Meanwhile...    Ah yes, still normal.  The Chowick Express has taken an unscheduled day excursion to the Port Waikato Station. Commuters remained calm and polite, but on some newspapers knuckles could be seen turning white and a single case of a ripped paper was reported.   Of course, with the lower line occupied, the flatbeds returning from Henderson paper mill are forced into the very line that the express was supposed to be heading for, blocking it.   The new ferry is helping keep our heads above water.  And the tram has been a success.  But as the year 1904 draws to a close, drastic action is planned on the shared sector of the Auckland line.  Everywhere has grown a lot in five years. Virtually every town is big enough to support a passenger line now.  Scrooge celebrates harder than ever this Hogmanay. The next day he moves out of his mother's parlour and strikes the earth in a newly purchased allotment near the bustling town of Pukekohe.  We're up to date! I have all challenges and routes listed so far saved. The railway causing the problem is already going to get a big rework next time, so I don't need suggestions to fix that. You can still suggest new destinations coming off that line and they will be incorporated. Other than that, business as usual! Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 4, 2015 11:26
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January, 1905: Five years in review        Inflation has driven prices up. Rates do not change relative to each other.       Next time I'll arrange this in population order  Only one industry on this list above 0%  Our network  Updated industries map. Prices have inflated a bit. Special 2-4-2: $2,686 US 2-6-2: $2,726 SLM 3/3: $2,686 Wagons: $250 - $334 Carriages: $502sml/$586lge WMC Bus: $1,048 Trucks: $1,048 Ce2/2 Tram: $880 Clipper: $1,090 Rails: $28 Road (Unpaved/Paved): $28/$56 Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Nov 4, 2015 11:41
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I see they never really did fix train pathfinding between Tycoon and this game. At least in OTTD they modded in nice features like better signals, and waypoints to help prevent trains from getting so lost. I suppose you could make a waypoint of your own, if it's possible to make a 1 tile station on the correct track for each train, and then create "non-stop via" orders. As long as no train actually stops at the station, it should never generate cargo. I don't know if that's possible in Locomotion but that was what you used to do in Tycoon before waypoints were invented.
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Nov 4, 2015 17:06
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Jaguars! posted:
If you are curious about the name that's Swedish and it pretty much just means "Silly stuff":
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Nov 4, 2015 17:10
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So creating a dual-track layout will fix some of that pathfinding, right?
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Nov 4, 2015 18:14
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Galaga Galaxian posted:So creating a dual-track layout will fix some of that pathfinding, right? Yes, and be a wonderful opportunity to gently caress up in many new places. 
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Nov 4, 2015 19:47
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Galaga Galaxian posted:So creating a dual-track layout will fix some of that pathfinding, right? You would think, but in my experience that can just compound the pathfinding issues. If a train is getting lost on a single rail, it's probably still going to get lost on a dual rail, unless you get creative and design the junctions such that there's no possible way it can stray down the wrong track. edit: sorry, I should add the disclaimer that "my experience" refers to Transport Tycoon and not Locomotion. However, the two games do seem to have equally bad train AI.
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Nov 4, 2015 20:12
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The Casualty posted:I see they never really did fix train pathfinding between Tycoon and this game. At least in OTTD they modded in nice features like better signals, and waypoints to help prevent trains from getting so lost. Galaga Galaxian posted:So creating a dual-track layout will fix some of that pathfinding, right? Pierzak posted:Yes, and be a wonderful opportunity to gently caress up in many new places. Yes, things should get better with some dual tracking. Things will start geting claustrophobic in the isthmus though. As you may have noticed, I like to avoid knocking down houses, but I think there might be some "For the greater good" going on soon. There are waypoints, you can see the 'Go to 3' lines on the orders manifest in a few places in the first update. The problem is sometimes the trains choose to go up a different line for reasons unknown. And if the trains get out of sync, (if the train passes the waypoint, gets lost and then comes back the same way, for example.) then all bets are off. Cooked Auto posted:If you are curious about the name that's Swedish and it pretty much just means "Silly stuff": Neat! I thought it was just the name of a tram system in Europe or something. Goons, your first choice for a stealth pun 
Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Nov 4, 2015 |
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Nov 4, 2015 20:19
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I've never really had much problems with train pathfinding in OpenTT though. 
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Nov 4, 2015 20:59
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Poil posted:I've never really had much problems with train pathfinding in OpenTT though. I'm not totally sure, but I think in OTTD the pathfinding was recoded to be a little better. The addition of improved signals helps a great deal, too. I definitely remember pathfinding being terrible in the original game, although my cognitive abilities as a 10 year old being weaker than they are now, I probably wasn't building optimal railroads
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Nov 4, 2015 21:40
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Basically, while the shared line is in use, if a train reaches the junction, it realises it can't continue on, and starts down the only available track instead of waiting at the signals. Which then means when the OTHER train arrives at the signals, it finds it cannot go on the line to the station, so hits up an alternate track. Fixes include: having ABSOLUTELY 0 signals on the shared line And the solo lines besides the intersection. Or have a holding area and use one-way signals to 'trap' trains on the shared line.
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Nov 4, 2015 22:20
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Could you put spaces where you've got one screenshot directly after another? Having them rammed up to each other just makes it slightly harder to read.
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Nov 4, 2015 23:03
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quote:Pathfinding Veloxyll's model describes my railroad to a T, although I've never thought of the one-way holding chute idea. There is a total of eight signals throughout all three lines at the moment. I made a simple railroad to avoid an early update being about network minutae, but I ended up doing the second post on a two year long traffic jam I have a feeling that by the end of the game, I'll know a lot more about the maths of transport tycoon. Much good may it do me. I'll keep an eye out to try and formulate some rules for how it operates as we go. MooCowlian posted:Could you put spaces where you've got one screenshot directly after another? Having them rammed up to each other just makes it slightly harder to read. The person responsible for calling the station that is NZ's lifeline to the Pacific "Auckland Lakeside" has been sacked. What should we call the central Auckland station? Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 00:10
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New Ould Auckland Station
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Nov 5, 2015 00:30
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Moose Bite has a nice ring to it.
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Nov 5, 2015 00:54
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Aeiouckland station
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Nov 5, 2015 03:23
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Kinda tempted to pick this up and play along, even if it is arguably inferior to Open TTD. I suppose at worst it'll just drive me back into OTTD, and maybe Chris Sawyer will see a few pennies off my purchase (but probably not). Setting up OTTD and finding/picking out grfs feels awfully  though.Yuckland Station [edit] Just noticed we don't have a OTTD thread anymore.
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Nov 5, 2015 04:18
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Jaguars! posted:The person responsible for calling the station that is NZ's lifeline to the Pacific "Auckland Lakeside" has been sacked. What should we call the central Auckland station? JAFA Central
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Nov 5, 2015 04:23
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Now that I'm not concentrating on getting the first updates out, I'd like to answer a couple of questions that I wasn't able to at the time.xelada posted:... As you've now seen, I went with the small ones for the starting passenger train. Part of this is because I fly by the seat of my pants rather than by calculation. The main advantage here is that I don't have to tack on an extra 15t mail car which would never be full. In the early part of the game, the hard part is not transporting enough passengers, it's finding places which supply enough passengers to be worthwhile. To be honest, I didn't realise that it would be so marginal to take two small ones over a big one, but I think that now we almost have a mail service operating, I'm going to stick with it. If we do more lines to small towns, especially if they go up hills, I'll buy small because for the same running cost and with excess capacity, the train will be lighter and therefore faster. Top speed doesn't matter right now because we don't have anything faster than 72km/h. However, it won't be long before the towns have grown enough that the big ones will be a no brainer. Passengers are definitely better than Mail. Passengers are one of the best cargoes to carry, mail is usually a source of poor ratings and a pain in the arse to find a place to deliver to. Mail is usually a sideline at best. The small carriage is the standard one for the UK tileset, while the large one is for the US one, so they aren't usually directly compared. One problem with your calculations is we don't know how much passengers weigh, so I investigated, and the results were... ...odd. The small carriage weighs 16t empty, and total full weight (20 passengers+2 sacks of mail) is 17t. The large one (48 passengers) weighs 34t fully laden. Both seem to get one person free, and then weight goes up 1t every 10 passengers. Mail weighs 1t per 16 bags. xelada posted:... Glazius posted:Start off our rail network by building some passenger tram lines to Pukehohe, up Papakura way. HQ in Pukehohe for preference. You are somewhat forced to do this by the game. At the start most of the towns were only good to produce a dribble of passengers and about 5 mail per year, and were not large enough to be a destination for passengers. Everywhere has grown somewhat, but only Auckland and Mt Eden are large enough to consistently accept goods at the moment. Some other towns such as Remuera, Pukekohe and Mt Roskill have just enough office buildings to start accepting goods, but the towns naturally fluctuate and may stop accepting goods at any time. Another problem with goods hauling is that you need to get a station into the center of a developed city, so you may have to bust some houses. As above, we need to produce goods/food as well. Right now the sawmill at Pokeno gets a delivery of lumber about once a month, which means that a train waiting for goods will probably only run about every month and a half, because not all of an industries production is given to you (What you get given depends on you and your competitors' rating). President Ark posted:This has very little to do with the LP at hand, but: Was this the railroad/business/transport tycoon type game where one of the scenarios was set in the near future and required you to transport a bunch of concrete to a geothermal power plant that blew up because it was spewing greenhouse gases and which had gradually-rising water levels as it went on? Because I played that from some gaming magazine demo disc years ago and seeing this thread suddenly reminded me of it and now it's driving me nuts. This sounds incredible. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 11:31
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I'd given up totally on trainfever, and there's no longer a thread on SA even I think, but I happened to look at it on steam today and they've added  diamond crossovers You might actually be able to make sensible track layouts now!
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Nov 5, 2015 12:56
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There's just something about Trainfever that makes it not particularly fun, I was a bit disappointed with it.
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Nov 5, 2015 17:13
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I know it has had well over a decade of work put into it and has an extensive modding community, but you'd think something by now would give OpenTTD a run for its money.
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Nov 5, 2015 18:21
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So I got bored and bought Locomotion on GoG and wow, does this thing not have a "generic random map" scenario besides that Sandbox Settler one? 
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Nov 6, 2015 21:24
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Hop in the scenario editor and set one up. There's an option at the landscape generation phase to always set up randomly, or you can generate a one off. If you want to set it up quickly, any of the generic vehicle sets work fine.
Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Nov 6, 2015 21:35
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OK, here's how you get the scenario. Let me know if there are still files missing. 1. Get the items in https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z7v9mymjatvb2f0/AADGNxwmDT3H2j-k86jVcQJla?dl=0 The scenario file goes in Locomotion/scenarios. The DAT files go in the Objdata folder. I't's good practice to back up your objdata folder before fiddling round with mods. 2. Get this North American Mega-pack(136mB) which will install about a million billion SD-70 variants. Follow the install instructions, for my scenario, you should only need the cargo vehicles pack. The mod vehicles don't show up in the vanilla scenarios, if you want to use them, you go into the scenario editor and enable them. You should be able to load up mine and play straight away If I've included all the right mods. I also ask that you please don't talk in the thread about vehicles that will come up later in the scenario. About 3/4 of the way thruough the 3rd update at the moment.
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Nov 7, 2015 22:16
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I'll have to give that a go, the scenario editor generates really ugly maps, and my inner  can't stand it, it has to be pretty. Suppose I should look up other real world maps too.
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Nov 8, 2015 05:30
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Poil posted:There's just something about Trainfever that makes it not particularly fun, I was a bit disappointed with it. Another problem is that primary industries don't really produce unless they have someone to send stuff to. Which makes sense I suppose, but it makes it really hard to set up a route. I do like how people and goods can be transferred by walking around though - not only for the competition aspect, but also because it's pretty much the only way to prime the pump at said industries. The towns are nice, with their different residential/commercial/industrial/leisure zones, and the bus and tram routes are neat. Some of the music is great, too. It has its moments but yeah, the trains are prohibitively expensive to run. Fun LP by the way. If any British steam locos get invented I might pop in and say a bit about them, they're sort of my speciality (though I'll keep quiet until they appear). Paul.Power fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Nov 8, 2015 |
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Nov 8, 2015 08:48
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Yeah, the general word of mouth and the fact you couldn't even do an double crossover or diamond crossover at launch made me leery of Train Fever.
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Nov 8, 2015 09:25
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I'd never heard of Train fever before. Given no one else has successfully done a TTD like in 3D before, I'm not surprised that there are severe quirks. I might investigate further, because if it's had good post release support and the price is right, I'd give it a go. I have to smile, I searched it and one of the first trains I see is one of Kiwirail's brand new locomotives. I wonder if that's mod content. Interesting the way it was funded - It was crowdsourced on a different site from kickstarter and the backers all got a cut of the sales for 5 years! Paul.Power posted:...  Have I mentioned yet how pathetically grateful I am that people actually replied to my first SA OP? I was so worried that after all the effort in the lead-up, it was going to just disappear into the ether. Thanks for replying, everyone  I did up until the end of 1908 last night, all screenshotted and written up, and I've run out of specific routes. (I haven't addressed all of the broader goals yet). We have lots of truck names on the board, so time for a trucking line, I think. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Nov 8, 2015 |
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Nov 8, 2015 21:31
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It's just missing something to make it properly good. Heavens knows what. I think my first run may have been a no trains challenge, so I missed the trains not being profitable glitch. It did only have 3 industries or something when I played. So no convoluted Iron/Coal -> Steel -> Goods routes. And no new industries show up IIRC. I think part of the problem is that TTD scratches most of the itches fans of the genre HAVE so it's hard to build on that without just making TTD again.
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Nov 8, 2015 23:30
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Veloxyll posted:I think part of the problem is that TTD scratches most of the itches fans of the genre HAVE so it's hard to build on that without just making TTD again. That said, Train Fever is still a game I enjoyed a lot when it came out and the devs did spend time fixing things up to make it even better. It still has some flaws, and most of them are related to how the game was built and will likely never be corrected, but the game is still perfectly playable and fun. I would strongly recommend it, even more so if you could find it on sale. The devs are apparently cooking up their next game but have been quiet lately and released few details other than it being another game about transporting things. As for Locomotion, it's a fun sandbox game but I'd still find myself going back to OpenTTD instead of this. Towards the end of the game many problems arise from cities growing to cover the entire map and if you're playing with the AI you'll find it building mile high railroads and freeways through the sky, or completely paving over lakes and rivers. It's just a bloody mess. I am surprised Jaguars! has managed to keep the company afloat with so much track building but only 3 trains. I usually start with a number of shorter truck routes and/or local bus and streetcar lines to provide a steady trickle of income while I construct larger railway networks and aircraft. Psychotic Weasel fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Nov 9, 2015 |
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Nov 8, 2015 23:58
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Running costs really are quite cheap in this game. Port Waikato Forest to Pokeno was a good choice of first line, going across flat land, and in a sweet spot for distance where one train can do it's run and by the time it gets back, there's about 100t of logs waiting for it. Bronze Horse has been the powerhouse so far, delivering 100t of logs every 2 months without fail. You can see here that the two log trains we had running regularly in 1901 paid for the construction of the Henderson papermill line and running costs of the trains barely figure. Then the great jam in 1903 puts a big dent in our Income, and Bronze Horse keeps us afloat by itself for a while. Single track halves the cost to get a line running, but as you've seen, you can't really share a decent length of line. You can then double track while your trains are running, and avoid borrowing money. Single track with frequent passing bays is viable, and the computer sometimes uses it. Ours is taking some of that character at the moment because I'm prioritising hooking up destinations over network efficiency. One thing I have checked the mathematics of in the past is the cost of engineering. There are a couple of screenshots in the first update showing the price of a medium radius curve. If any part of it is elevated, then it costs $470. If it's all on the ground, then it only costs $86. Therefore it's usually worth terraforming to save cost. This goes even for a straight railway, it's cheaper to build a 1 level high embankment than a 1 level high brick viaduct. For tunnels vs cuttings, I think the tunnels become cost effective at about 4 levels deep.
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Nov 9, 2015 01:34
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Note to Self: When completely rebuilding a section of your network, maybe take the trains involved in that area offline... 
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Nov 9, 2015 07:17
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This applies when re-signalling an area too...
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Nov 9, 2015 07:30
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For some reason I'm just treating the beginner scenario as a little HO train model trable.   Wait, what do you mean its 3am?! 
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Nov 9, 2015 11:56
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