This or RAILROADS Online?

[iki_balam]

Dumb question, difference between this and RAILROADS Online?

[JblackTRUCK]

Railroads online is a big sandbox, build your own railroad, do janky stuff, be silly.
This game is a bit more prototypical, operations based. Also totally different eras and types, rrox is 1910s narrow gauge, this is 1940s/50s rural American branch line railroading

[TheLostPenguin]

RRO is as much about building your route as it is running trains over it, and you don't (or at least didn't last time I stopped in there) have anything you're actually committed to doing.

Here you just unlock chunks of pre-laid track in stages so no building like RRO, but each day you have to meet the requirements of whatever contracts you've entered into with the various industries and towns along the route. This can provide pressure that RRO never has to find efficient ways to work since there's only so many hours per day to get everything done, and although there are AI drivers here they're only good for bulk hauls over distance or slowly running passenger services.

[Rudolf Jan]

I prefer this game a lot above RRO. You also may like Spirit of Steam, still in development it promises a far better experience.

You may like RRO for the track building challenges, but I think it is not so interesting if you want to play single palyer. You either need money cheats or a lot of gringg like driving. Also the default locations of industries look weird. Finally, there have been a lot of rows in the RRO team and in that process the dev banned about half of the community. I am a victim of this policy as well, so be warned. Not nice people, a good game idea but not very well designed.

[Twelvefield]

There's also Derail Valley. Suddenly, we get lots of train sims, and not all of them are DoveTail.

[coenvijge]

For me the most important difference (apart from the others mentioned above) is the mechanism(s) that is (are) used to simulate the demand for transport.

For short: In RRO you have to build up and transport chains by connecting industries, load/unload your cars and run trains to theire destination.

In RailRoader the industries are doing (more or less) their own things and are producing/demanding carloads that are delivered to one or more interchanges with the 'rest of the world. There is also the the need to buy and transport you coal, diesel and repairparts. And there is the option/need to deliver some goods from local sources to some industries.

Railroads Online is more focused on running trains with one type of load from one industry to another. In railroader you have to manage the transport of single cars, doing a lot of shunting an maybe using more trains to get cars to their destination.

Also in Railroader you have to visit on a regular basis a repair shop. And in Railroader there is the possibility to transport passengers right from the start.

Finally in Railroader you also have to make sometimes special deliveries to unlock new parts of the network or build extra tracks

[coenvijge]

Originally posted by Rudolf Jan:

I........ Spirit of Steam, .........

Century of Steam ??

[SquawkVFR1200]

There are features I like about Railroads Online - like creating your own track plan - but overall I like Railroader much better.

[G59]

The online aspect of Railroads Online is just not good at the moment. Its in a very poor state unless you're hosting the game. There isn't even a text chat. Trains will bounce on the rails because of desync. Railroaders is pretty much the opposite.

[Phoneend]

this, railroad online is boreding imo

[TheLostPenguin]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

There's also Derail Valley. Suddenly, we get lots of train sims, and not all of them are DoveTail.

Oof I read that as DoveFail.
Although they probably are also a fair part of the reason so many other train games come along, they went from being the 9000lb gorilla in the room with Railworks/Train Simulator to showing that there was a sizeable part of the 'interested in trains' niche that wanted something not TSW.

[Twelvefield]

Exactly. How DT managed to corner their nice market is remarkable, every game publisher should study their methods. How they managed to squander the same market and twist it into an abomination, every gamer should study that.

[[spacebar]]

this game has multiple devs, and devs that care.

[DorniNerd]

Originally posted by #000fff spacebar:

this game has multiple devs, and devs that care.

Actually we only have 1 game dev (adam, the owner of the game and sole game dev), me (producer, manager, researcher) and a small team of part time modelers :).

[CommandDork]

I'm a new convert to Railroader since the sale and am loving it so far. 24hrs and counting.

Came here from TSW3.

[jkjcksn]

Originally posted by DorniNerd:

Originally posted by #000fff spacebar:

this game has multiple devs, and devs that care.

Actually we only have 1 game dev (adam, the owner of the game and sole game dev), me (producer, manager, researcher) and a small team of part time modelers :).

You all are killing it (doing great) with what you’ve done and with what you have to
work with—especially for an Early Access game! I’m excited to see what’s coming next in any of your future updates. Really enjoy playing Railroader. It’s becoming more like a job at times, but you’ve got the sandbox option available, which allows a player to just chill and do whatever, which is very nice. It appears Century of Steam will be a lot like Railroader, and it will be quite interesting to see just what that game gets developed into. It must be quite the challenge with such a small team—keep up the hard work!