Wear & Tear balancing suggestion

[Jamseven]

Here's what I personally think would be one of the best ways to balance wear and tear, having played on both numbers, and talking with other people playing the game.

My suggestion is to have rolling stock and locomotives on two different set of numbers. I'd probably keep rolling stock on the current numbers, steam locomotives on the original, harder numbers, and if possible have diesels be some kind of middle ground. So it would look a little something like:

Steam - 5% per 100 miles, recommended overhaul every 1000 miles. (3-4% may be a little better if 5% is deemed too much, however I think the 1000 miles per overhaul number should stay no matter what. Currently I feel like I'll never need to overhaul my locomotives at any time with how long it takes, basically removing that element altogether)

Diesel - 2-3% per 100 miles, recommended overhaul every 2500 miles.

Rolling Stock - 1% per 100 miles, recommended overhaul every 5000 miles.

I feel like distributed numbers like these would allow for fun and challenging game play, while also just making a bit more sense. Steam locomotives are complex machines, of course they're going to need a lot of work done on them. Diesels on the other hand are a lot easier to maintain than steam locomotives. Rolling stock are the simplest of them all, not needing a whole lot of work to keep going.

I personally enjoyed the 5% numbers we had originally, I feel like I had to constantly maintain my locomotives, and pay attention to when overhauls were needed. It added another layer of game play that I enjoyed. I felt like I was justified having a larger locomotive fleet, to allow for rotating in and out of repairs. However I'm sure that people with very large passenger fleets were worried about having to constantly repair their trains, in a map without a car shop, or suitably long RIP tracks for some of the stuff I've seen people running. The distributed numbers would allow for the continued challenge of locomotive maintenance, while also not making it a nuisance for those with large rolling stock fleets.

I'd also recommend playing around with how long equipment takes to repair, how many parts they use, and how much parts cost. I was never really worried about how worn out my locomotives were getting, but I did get worried about how much it would cost.

[Jamseven]

I understand that the numbers were lowered because some people thought it was too hard, but the current numbers are so small that they might as well not be a thing at all for any normal game play. There was a toggle button right there to turn the feature off for people who thought it was too difficult in the first place.

[Kerry]

Ehh, I can't say for sure and I won't speak for others, but I strongly believe that you're in the minority enjoying what we had.

I do agree with you about having three different rates and overhaul time. Perhaps keep steam locomotives at the current rate, diesels even less, and rolling stock maintenance should be eliminated until we have an actual car shop on the map or at least a proper RIP track.

Compared to that, the numbers we have now are considerably more "game-ified" already.

Remember that in real life and in the modern era, steam locomotives don't need to be overhauled until one thousand four hundred and ninety-two days of first fire-up.
That's over four continuous years of service! In the 50s when this game is set, it was probably a lot less or even not mandated by the Interstate Commerce Commission at all.

And no working railroad - except maybe tourist lines - keep their locomotives or cars in the shop 24/7/365, which is what many people thought they had to do, panicking about the reduction of payments from things like logs (which are an important source of income in the early game, as you get more from that than you do from any other source) and passengers (important for reputation) from their constantly-deteriorating cars and locomotives.


And yes, the cost to repair them was what worried me most. In fact on my small map - just between Ela and East Whittier - I point-blank refused to spend any funds on repair parts cars because I just didn't have three thousand dollars to spare. I was far more worried about building up a reserve of cash after obtaining newer and more modern power that could haul more cargo, and make me more money.

If I'd bought a repair car right away I'd have been in very deep debt. Instantaneous GAME OVER.

[jkjcksn]

I definitely am in favor to the change within this last update (i.e. version 2024.4.0, maintenance and overhauls), but i'm incline to agree strongly with 'Kerry'--that y'all may be in the minority with the older, more aggressive rate(s). I contend that having three differing rates of wear and servicing would make a lot of sense, as explained by 'Jamseven', for sure, but with so much to do already within the game, I'd prefer to not have to tend to my locomotives for servicing so frequently just to maintain ratings, and whatnot. The devs are tweaking to numbers, so there's hope they'll find a happy medium. I don't want to disable the feature, either--I love the challenge, and do feel that wear and tear fits within the game and is needed here, but the original rates of wear and servicing were a bit too much, especially for single-player game play, in my opinion.

[Kerry]

Originally posted by jkjcksn:

I definitely am in favor to the change within this last update (i.e. version 2024.4.0, maintenance and overhauls), but i'm incline to agree strongly with 'Kerry'--that y'all may be in the minority with the older, more aggressive rate(s). I contend that having three differing rates of wear and servicing would make a lot of sense, as explained by 'Jamseven', for sure, but with so much to do already within the game, I'd prefer to not have to tend to my locomotives for servicing so frequently just to maintain ratings, and whatnot. The devs are tweaking to numbers, so there's hope they'll find a happy medium. I don't want to disable the feature, either--I love the challenge, and do feel that wear and tear fits within the game and is needed here, but the original rates of wear and servicing were a bit too much, especially for single-player game play, in my opinion.

This, this to the letter.

And thank you for the backup.

[Jamseven]

Originally posted by Kerry:

Ehh, I can't say for sure and I won't speak for others, but I strongly believe that you're in the minority enjoying what we had.

I do agree with you about having three different rates and overhaul time. Perhaps keep steam locomotives at the current rate, diesels even less, and rolling stock maintenance should be eliminated until we have an actual car shop on the map or at least a proper RIP track.

Compared to that, the numbers we have now are considerably more "game-ified" already.

Remember that in real life and in the modern era, steam locomotives don't need to be overhauled until one thousand four hundred and ninety-two days of first fire-up.
That's over four continuous years of service! In the 50s when this game is set, it was probably a lot less or even not mandated by the Interstate Commerce Commission at all.

And no working railroad - except maybe tourist lines - keep their locomotives or cars in the shop 24/7/365, which is what many people thought they had to do, panicking about the reduction of payments from things like logs (which are an important source of income in the early game, as you get more from that than you do from any other source) and passengers (important for reputation) from their constantly-deteriorating cars and locomotives.


And yes, the cost to repair them was what worried me most. In fact on my small map - just between Ela and East Whittier - I point-blank refused to spend any funds on repair parts cars because I just didn't have three thousand dollars to spare. I was far more worried about building up a reserve of cash after obtaining newer and more modern power that could haul more cargo, and make me more money.

If I'd bought a repair car right away I'd have been in very deep debt. Instantaneous GAME OVER.

I just feel that 1% is way too low. I can definitely see why people would dislike 5%, as it can add a lot of maintenance on longer railroads, but where it's at now, it genuinely just feels like there might as well not be anything at all. And if there's hardly anything to do with it, then why even have it enabled?

I definitely understand your reasoning with the real life comparisons on maintenance, that was my first thought as well when the update dropped, but now lately I've been thinking, if you have features that happen on such monumentally long scales in a game, how often will that ever actually occur? Yeah it probably makes sense to need to spend months or even years before an overhaul, but I'm not prepared to spend months or years on a game to use just one feature. It'd just make more sense to buy a new locomotive at that point.

You bring up the 1472 inspection (while adding 20 days of your own), but that is a modern rule. A lot of locomotives don't get 1472 operating days out of their boiler ticket, or don't nearly operate as much, or as hard as in the steam era. Back in the day locomotives received different classes of overhauls, some being less work, but more often, while others are a monumental undertaking, but happen less often. Here's the USRA standard classifications from 1918 for steam locomotive overhauls

CLASS 1
New boiler or new back end. Flues new or reset.
Tires turned, or new.
General repairs to machinery and tender.
CLASS 2
New firebox, or one or more shell courses, or roof sheet.
Flues new or reset.
Tires turned or new.
General repairs to machinery and tender.
CLASS 3
Flues all new or reset (superheater flues may be excepted).
Necessary repairs to firebox and boiler.
Tires turned or new.
General repairs to machinery and tender.
CLASS 4
Flues part or full set.
Light repairs to boiler or firebox.
Tires turned or new.
Necessary repairs to machinery and tender.
CLASS 5
Tires turned or new.
Necessary repairs to boiler, machinery, and tender, including one or more pairs of driving-wheel bearings refitted.
General repairs to machinery will include driving wheels removed, tires turned or changed, journals turned, if necessary, and all driving boxes and rods overhauled for a full term of service.

Not every overhaul is going to be a class 1 where you replace half of the locomotive. At the current 5000 miles per overhaul, it'd take around 50 round trips of the entire map to even get to that point. If you go say, an average of 35 mph the entire way, that would take somewhere close to 150 hours of game play, just for that one feature.

I've always thought of this game as more of a model railroad operations game rather than a true to life simulator, and just like a lot of railroad layouts, sometimes you have to scale things down, or add certain challenges, just for fun. Needing to overhaul a locomotive occasionally is one of those challenges that sounds fun to me, and I would much rather have it be more game-like, than have it be true to life and never even use the feature.

Perhaps a much more reasonable
steam - 3%
diesel - 2%
rolling stock - 1%
would be better. Maybe the devs add the distributed wear and tear, and then have three different levels you can choose from; easy, medium, and hard. With numbers ranging from my high to your very small numbers.

[davejplatt]

Originally posted by Jamseven:

I understand that the numbers were lowered because some people thought it was too hard, but the current numbers are so small that they might as well not be a thing at all for any normal game play. There was a toggle button right there to turn the feature off for people who thought it was too difficult in the first place.

I agree. It seems that some people didn't want it and didn't want others to have it either. I just don't get some folks.

[Jamseven]

Originally posted by davejplatt:

Originally posted by Jamseven:

I understand that the numbers were lowered because some people thought it was too hard, but the current numbers are so small that they might as well not be a thing at all for any normal game play. There was a toggle button right there to turn the feature off for people who thought it was too difficult in the first place.

I agree. It seems that some people didn't want it and didn't want others to have it either. I just don't get some folks.

I definitely see where people come from though, and understand that people may want it easier. I think distributing wear and tear so locos are more maintenance heavy than rolling stock is the best way to go for keeping game play while also not making passenger and log cars a hindrance (there's not really a good car shop or long RIP track on the railroad to easily repair them once you get massive fleets), and then I think there should be easy or hard options for players to choose what they want.

[DorniNerd]

Thanks for your thoughts!

[Kerry]

Originally posted by Jamseven:

Originally posted by Kerry:

Ehh, I can't say for sure and I won't speak for others, but I strongly believe that you're in the minority enjoying what we had.

I do agree with you about having three different rates and overhaul time. Perhaps keep steam locomotives at the current rate, diesels even less, and rolling stock maintenance should be eliminated until we have an actual car shop on the map or at least a proper RIP track.

Compared to that, the numbers we have now are considerably more "game-ified" already.

Remember that in real life and in the modern era, steam locomotives don't need to be overhauled until one thousand four hundred and ninety-two days of first fire-up.
That's over four continuous years of service! In the 50s when this game is set, it was probably a lot less or even not mandated by the Interstate Commerce Commission at all.

And no working railroad - except maybe tourist lines - keep their locomotives or cars in the shop 24/7/365, which is what many people thought they had to do, panicking about the reduction of payments from things like logs (which are an important source of income in the early game, as you get more from that than you do from any other source) and passengers (important for reputation) from their constantly-deteriorating cars and locomotives.


And yes, the cost to repair them was what worried me most. In fact on my small map - just between Ela and East Whittier - I point-blank refused to spend any funds on repair parts cars because I just didn't have three thousand dollars to spare. I was far more worried about building up a reserve of cash after obtaining newer and more modern power that could haul more cargo, and make me more money.

If I'd bought a repair car right away I'd have been in very deep debt. Instantaneous GAME OVER.

I just feel that 1% is way too low. I can definitely see why people would dislike 5%, as it can add a lot of maintenance on longer railroads, but where it's at now, it genuinely just feels like there might as well not be anything at all. And if there's hardly anything to do with it, then why even have it enabled?

I definitely understand your reasoning with the real life comparisons on maintenance, that was my first thought as well when the update dropped, but now lately I've been thinking, if you have features that happen on such monumentally long scales in a game, how often will that ever actually occur? Yeah it probably makes sense to need to spend months or even years before an overhaul, but I'm not prepared to spend months or years on a game to use just one feature. It'd just make more sense to buy a new locomotive at that point.

You bring up the 1472 inspection (while adding 20 days of your own), but that is a modern rule. A lot of locomotives don't get 1472 operating days out of their boiler ticket, or don't nearly operate as much, or as hard as in the steam era. Back in the day locomotives received different classes of overhauls, some being less work, but more often, while others are a monumental undertaking, but happen less often. Here's the USRA standard classifications from 1918 for steam locomotive overhauls

CLASS 1
New boiler or new back end. Flues new or reset.
Tires turned, or new.
General repairs to machinery and tender.
CLASS 2
New firebox, or one or more shell courses, or roof sheet.
Flues new or reset.
Tires turned or new.
General repairs to machinery and tender.
CLASS 3
Flues all new or reset (superheater flues may be excepted).
Necessary repairs to firebox and boiler.
Tires turned or new.
General repairs to machinery and tender.
CLASS 4
Flues part or full set.
Light repairs to boiler or firebox.
Tires turned or new.
Necessary repairs to machinery and tender.
CLASS 5
Tires turned or new.
Necessary repairs to boiler, machinery, and tender, including one or more pairs of driving-wheel bearings refitted.
General repairs to machinery will include driving wheels removed, tires turned or changed, journals turned, if necessary, and all driving boxes and rods overhauled for a full term of service.

Not every overhaul is going to be a class 1 where you replace half of the locomotive. At the current 5000 miles per overhaul, it'd take around 50 round trips of the entire map to even get to that point. If you go say, an average of 35 mph the entire way, that would take somewhere close to 150 hours of game play, just for that one feature.

I've always thought of this game as more of a model railroad operations game rather than a true to life simulator, and just like a lot of railroad layouts, sometimes you have to scale things down, or add certain challenges, just for fun. Needing to overhaul a locomotive occasionally is one of those challenges that sounds fun to me, and I would much rather have it be more game-like, than have it be true to life and never even use the feature.

Perhaps a much more reasonable
steam - 3%
diesel - 2%
rolling stock - 1%
would be better. Maybe the devs add the distributed wear and tear, and then have three different levels you can choose from; easy, medium, and hard. With numbers ranging from my high to your very small numbers.

That is an extremely excellent point. As someone who also does model railroading, it's rare that my trains need maintenance. Parts will break, parts will bend, but even toys don't break unless you're treating them roughly,

Pardon my typo earlier, I meant 1472, not 1492. Oops.
Still over four years though.

You list the 1918 operating rules for overhauls and that's an interesting historical tidbit but those are bit out of date for this game, which takes place in the 1950s. Got any rules for that time period?

150 round trips between shop stays is just fine for a shortline like this one.

Originally posted by Jamseven:

Originally posted by davejplatt:

I agree. It seems that some people didn't want it and didn't want others to have it either. I just don't get some folks.

I definitely see where people come from though, and understand that people may want it easier. I think distributing wear and tear so locos are more maintenance heavy than rolling stock is the best way to go for keeping game play while also not making passenger and log cars a hindrance (there's not really a good car shop or long RIP track on the railroad to easily repair them once you get massive fleets), and then I think there should be easy or hard options for players to choose what they want.

Thank you for seeing all points.

Originally posted by davejplatt:

Originally posted by Jamseven:

I understand that the numbers were lowered because some people thought it was too hard, but the current numbers are so small that they might as well not be a thing at all for any normal game play. There was a toggle button right there to turn the feature off for people who thought it was too difficult in the first place.

I agree. It seems that some people didn't want it and didn't want others to have it either. I just don't get some folks.

While I can't and won't speak for other people, I will say that while I did like it, it was rather extreme and excessive. I'm not against allowing others to have it, but it did need to be reduced significantly.

[Jamseven]

Originally posted by Kerry:

That is an extremely excellent point. As someone who also does model railroading, it's rare that my trains need maintenance. Parts will break, parts will bend, but even toys don't break unless you're treating them roughly,

Pardon my typo earlier, I meant 1472, not 1492. Oops.
Still over four years though.

You list the 1918 operating rules for overhauls and that's an interesting historical tidbit but those are bit out of date for this game, which takes place in the 1950s. Got any rules for that time period?

150 round trips between shop stays is just fine for a shortline like this one.

When I mention the model railroad example, I don't mean it as actually repairing them. At the layout I regular, we have a railcar repair industry we send cars to on a local job. We're not actually fixing them, but we have it there to add fun. Likewise I personally feel like needing to keep on top of things for maintenance in this game sounds fun.

I don't have a specific list of the overhaul classes for later dates, but the terms "Class 3 overhaul" and such existed right to the end of steam, so presumably it remained roughly the same, with maybe some changes over the years. The main point is that not every overhaul was the same. Some were a lot smaller or bigger

Having spent a lot of the day talking about this subject and reading others opinions, I definitely think that we're onto something with having locos be more maintenance heavy than rolling stock, but I don't think we'll ever truly agree on one set of numbers being the best. So having different levels of difficulties we can pick from would probably be the best. Personally I feel like the numbers I put in on the main post would work well for a hard difficulty for wear and tear, while some of the numbers you suggested might be good for an easier mode.

At the end of the day though, I think we both agree that the repair parts are a little too much right now. I don't have any specific numbers, but I've played around with the thought of reducing the price to acquire them, reducing the amount needed to repair equipment (I probably don't need nearly 1 ton of parts to repair a combined 4 or 5% from a handful of equipment), but then increasing the time needed to repair stuff.

This would reduce the overall cost involved with the parts, but then allow us to repair stuff with small crews cheaply and slowly, or let us put large crews together to repair stuff faster, but at a higher expense. This would put a lot more emphasis on the actual crews, while bringing it a little more in line with what repairing was before wear and tear, but keeps the need to bring repair parts to shops.

[Walta Gaming]

I think having the engines needing repairs is fun but not too happy about the rolling stock. There is no good place to repair them especially if you have large fleets of pulp and log cars. It would be good to have an option for just engine repairs in the meantime until the devs have time to add larger facilities for cars.

[Kerry]

Originally posted by Walta Gaming:

I think having the engines needing repairs is fun but not too happy about the rolling stock. There is no good place to repair them especially if you have large fleets of pulp and log cars. It would be good to have an option for just engine repairs in the meantime until the devs have time to add larger facilities for cars.

Full agreement.

[Jamseven]

Originally posted by Walta Gaming:

I think having the engines needing repairs is fun but not too happy about the rolling stock. There is no good place to repair them especially if you have large fleets of pulp and log cars. It would be good to have an option for just engine repairs in the meantime until the devs have time to add larger facilities for cars.

Having an option to just have locomotives wear out is a good idea. As much as I'd love to have different numbers for locomotives vs rolling stock like in the main post, just turning off wear on rolling stock would also be acceptable, just as long as I have a harder difficulty to be able to overhaul locomotives some time this year lmao.

[Comrade Dyatlov]

Yes! Car shop please! I'm still hoping for an area like the mines where I can drop off damaged cars and later pick up refurbished cars at another track. If that isn't feasible, I think many of us are at least gonna need more tracks. The two behind Bryson hold one of my passenger trains and I haven't even added the baggage car yet lol.

[AshHill07]

Repair shop space is definitely an issue late game. It was a lot worse before when my passenger trains were taking 15%+ damage a day in wear and tear, but there really isn’t space to repair the 23 locomotives and 125 pieces of rolling stock I have. Bryson is just looking like this every right with the passenger trains having to take priority. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like when I have to start overhauling stuff…
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3253256274

My suggestion would either be to make the Dillsboro a repair and service centre (either by default or as an extra late game milestone):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3253258068
Or make these extra two tracks at Bryson repair and service tracks and extend them to 800 feet or so to fit longer trains (could also be a late game milestone):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3253258808