Station Upgrades

[Empty1958]

We are only allowed 2 upgrades to a station. Maybe you could allow us to double the same upgrade. Two warehouses could be handy.

[Dray Prescot]

Having 2 Warehouses in the same Station would cause too many problems in programming it and in the UI. What you really WANT and NEED is a Warehouse that stores more than 6 types of Resources and Goods at the same time.

So allow additional Expansions of capacity of the Warehouse that cost more. After all, all you are really doing is leaving some already loaded RR Cars sitting on a side track near the Station, waiting to be attached to another Train when it comes by.

But You also need to allow more than 2 Station Extension Buildings at a Station. Just make them cost more for each additional Extension, because space is limited near the Station, and therefore land to build it on costs more.

I really dislike having to Demolish the Station in order to get rid of one or both of it's Extensions.

If you like, you can make both of these Changes, as options to chosen at the start of a particular game, or to be set as part of the conditions for a Chapter or a Scenario.

[Empty1958]

These would be better options. At this point I'm just hoping for something better.

[Yeol]

Just two upgrade for a station is too limiting, and renders the station game (the choices) non-existing.

At a typical mainline station you need a depot to service the local trains, and a warehouse to spread the local products over the line. All mainline station have the same two buildings. No choices to be made, because you need these two buildings. And that is very sad.

So, I propose:

* with growing town, the number extensions to a station increases, first 2, then 3 to maybe 4 max. So we can finally consider to to add passenger services, postal services, or turn-around services. For the moment they are never used.

* have the warehouse upgradable: first 4 products, later 8, 12 upto 16 in large cities.

Both would add a lot of fun to the game, because it would give us more freedom and choices how to develop stations.

[Joney-F]

Originally posted by Yeol:

Just two upgrade for a station is too limiting, and renders the station game (the choices) non-existing.

At a typical mainline station you need a depot to service the local trains, and a warehouse to spread the local products over the line. All mainline station have the same two buildings. No choices to be made, because you need these two buildings. And that is very sad.

So, I propose:

* with growing town, the number extensions to a station increases, first 2, then 3 to maybe 4 max. So we can finally consider to to add passenger services, postal services, or turn-around services. For the moment they are never used.

* have the warehouse upgradable: first 4 products, later 8, 12 upto 16 in large cities.

Both would add a lot of fun to the game, because it would give us more freedom and choices how to develop stations.

There are no independent maintenance stations or warehouses in this work, but you can now build stations outside of local businesses and cities. Therefore, it is possible to create a pseudo-maintenance station by building a station in an empty place in the middle of the route and attaching a warehouse and maintenance facilities there. Moreover, since you can upgrade up to 2, you can use both maintenance facilities and small warehouses by adding maintenance facilities and warehouses and using up to track 8 to the full. In this case, it will be almost the same as placing a maintenance station and a small warehouse in the previous work, although it is pseudo. Also, since there is no limit to the number of stations that can be placed in areas that are neither cities nor regional businesses, there is no need to worry about increasing the number of similar stations. These stations have no cities and no resources, so they don't need dispatch facilities or restaurants.

Therefore, it is not necessary to have maintenance facilities and warehouses at main stations. Place post offices and restaurants at stations with many passengers, and build a pseudo-maintenance station and a pseudo-warehouse dual-purpose station somewhere in the middle of the route in a quiet forest.

[Yeol]

Good points, food for thought! ;)

[Empty1958]

Originally posted by Joney-F:

Therefore, it is not necessary to have maintenance facilities and warehouses at main stations. Place post offices and restaurants at stations with many passengers, and build a pseudo-maintenance station and a pseudo-warehouse dual-purpose station somewhere in the middle of the route in a quiet forest.

I have done this, and it works. It helps to place it so there are 2 resource sites attached to it giving a couple more items to be able to ship out. Doing this seems to be bringing me back to the "Spaghetti" track that many have complained about in RE1. I have found if you use this method to move products to a group of cities, 8 items quickly is not enough. Now you need to add another WH station with 6-8 items to accommodate the differing items needed when the 1st WH is below 50% train capacity. You would not want these in the same circuit as pass/mail trains. That still has to be dealt with.

It seems if the game mechanic is unchanged my thought process needs to change. I'm not hopeful I can maintain efficiency with the present setup.

[Joney-F]

Originally posted by Empty1958:

I have done this, and it works. It helps to place it so there are 2 resource sites attached to it giving a couple more items to be able to ship out. Doing this seems to be bringing me back to the "Spaghetti" track that many have complained about in RE1. I have found if you use this method to move products to a group of cities, 8 items quickly is not enough. Now you need to add another WH station with 6-8 items to accommodate the differing items needed when the 1st WH is below 50% train capacity. You would not want these in the same circuit as pass/mail trains. That still has to be dealt with.

It seems if the game mechanic is unchanged my thought process needs to change. I'm not hopeful I can maintain efficiency with the present setup.

If placing a new station in the forest is inefficient, how about using a station in a resource area? This game does not generate demand for passengers and mail in resource areas. Therefore, there is no need for a post office or restaurant at the station of the resource production area. Still, you can use the same 2 slots as the city, and you can use up to the 8th platform. One slot for a dispatch facility or warehouse and one slot for a maintenance facility should suffice. If you specify the cargo and load the mail from the previous city station and passengers, and set the minimum and maximum to 8 cars, the train will not depart until the 8 cars are connected. And if you connect 8 cars, you can't load anymore, so even if you stop at a resource area, you'll leave without loading anything. Also, since there is no demand for passengers or mail, trains do not unload cargo at resource areas.

So when connecting cities, you can add resource stations on the route, create maintenance facilities and adjust the cargo, and there will be no problem. I don't think you'll use all of track 8 just for transporting resources unless you're a pretty picky eater. That's why stations in resource areas have surplus platforms. On top of that, you don't need a restaurant or a post office there. We eat corn, but corn doesn't get packages at the post office or eat at restaurants.

Of course, this is not necessarily the correct answer, and there is no guarantee that this is always correct. But if you think about it a little, there are many ways to do it. And finding it is also part of the fun of this game.

[Empty1958]

Changing my thought process from RE1 started from the beginning. Some things seem to be more difficult to put logic to. This particular subject is the one that stumps me a bit. Sometimes I think never having played RE1 would have made this easier.

[Joney-F]

Originally posted by Empty1958:

Changing my thought process from RE1 started from the beginning. Some things seem to be more difficult to put logic to. This particular subject is the one that stumps me a bit. Sometimes I think never having played RE1 would have made this easier.

No, actually the base of the way of thinking has not changed from 1. Since the basic game system is the same for both 1 and 2, there is no need to think about it strangely.
Think about it. A maintenance station is just a station, and while there are maintenance stations in 1, we were able to create maintenance facilities in cities and resource stations. In other words, it was possible to create a "pseudo maintenance station" even with 1, so it was enough without using the maintenance station. And 2 is no different. The only things that have changed are whether or not they are from the beginning, how they are made, and where they are made. You don't have to think hard, and you don't have to change your thinking circuit greatly. For example, in this game you can change the locomotive's skin, but the fact that it's a locomotive doesn't change whether it's blue or red. If you understand that, you can run the locomotive with 2 without changing your thinking circuit greatly. Because you should have been able to run the locomotive with 1.
Even if it looks difficult at first glance, it is easy once you understand it.

The reason why you are confused is probably that you don't use maintenance stations as much as in 1, and it's become commonplace to build maintenance facilities at stations, and the stereotype that "maintenance facilities can only be built at urban stations". It seems that it is in the fact that it has created Let's calm down first.

[Yeol]

I've done the test, and placing warehouse (+maintenance depot) stations in rural regions decreases efficiency considerably. Towns are shrinking, cargo is transported more chaotic over the map. So not the system I would recommend. It's better to keep warehouses in the towns.

But I'm working on another idea. Maybe it will work better... anyway, it's fun to look for solutions to this problem.

[Fargel_Linellar]

Increasing the amount of slots would remove the need to make a choice on how you want to build your network.

With a max of 3 stations per city, this leave a total of 6 slots.
There are only 8 building you can build.
Maintenance depot is the only one that we can think of being required as train between cities will still need to do maintenance (although you don't need 1 in every city, you could alternate to have 1 every 2 city or even build a station between 2 city with the only purpose of maintenance).


Having a limited amount of slots also open the door to experimentation, finding a solution that can use the boost from the new building while still having to build the "required" one.

My current best solution is to build every city with 3 stations
1 dedicated to passenger (with Restaurant+Market hall)
1 dedicated to Mail and maintenance of Express train (with Post office + maintenance)
1 dedicated to freight (with maintenance and dispatch tower)

All the rural station simply have a maintenance and eventually a dispatch tower if they see a lot of traffic.