Economy model

[GrenoZee]

Hi all and developers especially!
First off, to clarify where I stand: this Fever series is what I've been waiting for since getting to know Railroad Tycoon and Transport Tycoon. I'm on board with whatever TF2 brings.

But I'd like to touch a topic that doesn't seem to get much attention here. I'm sure this has been a topic before, just never noticed the conversations.

While the current ecenomy model is very solid, I do miss the ability to service only a part of a chain. With chains consisting of multiple levels and branches, playing on hard makes it very difficult to create a profitable service when the basic resources are positioned in such a way that the trains travel loaded only in one direction. Sure, one can create hub but even then...

The obvious answer would be the Railroad Tycoon 3 model, which I really liked a lot, where cargo travels on its own. Train Fever had this in part but clearly the removal of this feature from TpF indicates that was not the way to go.

So while I don't have a worked out model, I would like to have the possibility to profitably service only parts of the production chains.

[CreatorOfWorlds]

I suggest that, like in RT1+2+3, you can have engines dynamicly change wagons at stations (unrealistic as i my may be)

[Dan]

Yeah, I think they were on the right track with the system they used back in Train Fever. I think they abandoned it because people found it confusing...
I would say they should bring it back and work on presenting it more clearly and intuitively, rather than just leaving it out all together.

[ajax_post]

I like the TpF demand model, it makes for a challenging freight system. Adding in an independent city demand for final products could make it even more interesting but they would need to provide good feedback on why cities are not using your service. E.g. there is no available route or you're too expensive.

It could, perhaps, also be a way of implementing a type of AI competition.

Being able to change consist along a route would be nice, though it might make being profitable too easy?

[Dan]

Originally posted by ajax_post:

Being able to change consist along a route would be nice, though it might make being profitable too easy?

Presumably if they added this in, they'd re-balance the game to take account of it.

I think it'd be a vast improvement... as it's currently too much of a binary issue at the higher difficulty level - you work out how to run trains full both ways using the same consist, or you're making significantly less money than you could. It encourages avoiding certain routes and favouring others specifically because you can use the same consist in both directions.

It seems a pointless limitation to enforce, and all it achieves is gating off half the game's industry chains when playing at higher difficulty.

Make consists be changeable, scale back the profits overall, and the difficulty remains the same, but you end up with all chains being viable options.



As a secondary idea, and probably one that's not likely given the potential complexity and logistical nightmare if it wasn't exhaustively playtested:
Consist could be a purchasable resource, which you need to shunt around to stations where they are needed using smaller shunting locos. Those locos are much cheaper to buy/run, but don't have the power to pull fully-laden consists around, only the empty trucks.
- Then you could have additional requirements - like having to place shunting yards as a sort of "storage", so there's a limit to how many trucks can be stored at each station dependant on how large a shunting yard is placed nearby. That'd have the added benefit that the "stored" trucks could be represented visually - you'd see them parked up, so you'd be able to tell at a glance what stock levels are, and whether you're hitting capacity.

[Sunshine]

In my opinion the system of transport fever was better than the system of Train fever. I hated the 20 minute rule. It is quite unrealistic too have an absolute time limit.

[Dan]

Originally posted by gorter127:

In my opinion the system of transport fever was better than the system of Train fever. I hated the 20 minute rule. It is quite unrealistic too have an absolute time limit.

Who said anything about the 20 minute rule? I don't think anyone would claim *that* was a better system.
We were talking about self-delivering cargo.

There was still a cap on travel distance in Transport Fever, just not a hard 20-minute rule. Clearly that's a limitation that needs to be at least relaxed, and ideally removed entirely. I assume it's not quite that simple though - I doubt the devs put such limits in just for kicks - presumably they need those limits in place to stop the simulation getting bogged down and slow.
Hopefully they've managed to tune those particular systems further this time.

[ajax_post]

Originally posted by Grimdanfango:

There was still a cap on travel distance in Transport Fever, just not a hard 20-minute rule. Clearly that's a limitation that needs to be at least relaxed, and ideally removed entirely. I assume it's not quite that simple though - I doubt the devs put such limits in just for kicks - presumably they need those limits in place to stop the simulation getting bogged down and slow.

I've certainly noticed that when I use 'universal' wagons cargo can get taken on the most adventurous, and circuitous, routes to the most unexpected places!

If it were possible to add in more dynamic pricing for cargo it would make the tycoon challenge a good deal more, umm, challenging/interesting. Or possibly not if you could see what each town demanded and how much they were prepared to pay, or how long they might wait for deliveries. And that could change according to events - historical reality based or wholly games driven such as responding to how satisfied a city is with your service?