Newbie to Railroad

[Dan]

Thought I would step out of my comfort zone and try the Railroad games for a bit.
WOW, do I need help.
I bought the Online Railroad/American Pines bundle.
This is right at the very first screen
1) I seem to be missing the key steps here to lay a track....I lay the track (no sleepers), I cut the logs, and have a path BUT when I click the mouse everything disappears (?).
-I can move the loco to the first flat car BUT the couplings do not line up for me to attach them. Flat car coupling seems higher than the loco coupling (?)

2) Tried the American Pines game and read the tutorial, but it does not allow me to get to the main screen. It was like it maybe did not load properly. Again, maybe missing a key button to hit or whatever.

Any Help to just get the basics going, would be appreciated.

[Soup]

if you send me your discord i can help show you the ropes or we can talk via steam :)

[Skorj]

Choose the track with fill - the first thing in the menu. When you click the first time it starts showing you where track will go. When you click a second time it actually lays the track - or fails if you need deeper fill, but that shouldn't be an issue in starting areas. You need to extend the track at least a little between the clicks to get it to do anything.

It's not like laying model railroad track, you have to sort of draw the track along the ground.

[Dan]

I don't have a discord so Steam it is

[Dan]

Originally posted by Skorj:

Choose the track with fill - the first thing in the menu. When you click the first time it starts showing you where track will go. When you click a second time it actually lays the track - or fails if you need deeper fill, but that shouldn't be an issue in starting areas. You need to extend the track at least a little between the clicks to get it to do anything.

It's not like laying model railroad track, you have to sort of draw the track along the ground.

Hahahaah Ok, so I got some track laid....got the loco pushing the flat car and then WATCHED the loco take off and could not get my cursor into the loco hahaha .... it derailed.

[Skorj]

Originally posted by Dan:

Hahahaah Ok, so I got some track laid....got the loco pushing the flat car and then WATCHED the loco take off and could not get my cursor into the loco hahaha .... it derailed.

In order to get the loco UI to pop up you have to be on the loco, and looking the right way. Generally people look at the floor, which seem to work, though it takes a bit of practice with each loco. The locos are pretty easy to run once you have the UI up. I wouldn't try using the controls directly. At least I never managed to get any fine control that way.

This first place you want to run track is to connect the lumber camp, sawmill, and the freight depot you start next to. That will teach you all the basics of track laying, and give you a place to run trains and a way to make money. The current spline tool is pretty good, though it can surprise you with dangerously sharp curves sometimes. You can run track relatively quickly by stringing segments together just using the spline mode (as opposed to fixed-radius circle mode).

Try to keep your grade at 2% or less going up hills at the start. And it's much easier to build track down from a hill than up, and make that come out OK.
You'll be surprised just how much track it takes to drop even 20 feet at a 2% grade.

Don't worry about making pretty track until you learn enough to connect those first 3 places at all.

[Dan]

Thanks for the help. Going to give it a try.
Yes, I am connecting to the freight depot.
No, not going for pretty lay out just yet. Still trying to couple the flat car to the loco haha
Is there a way to move faster other than the WASD keys? Hot keys to get to certain areas quicker?

[Dan]

No, not making it pretty.
managed to lay track to the freight yard, connect the loco to the flat car, and yes, rode the loco to the freight yard.
Is there a way to get an airial view of the map to lay out the proper route....or am I stuck using the AWDS keys? Looking to move a bit faster when walking etc......

[bluegrasslumberjack]

I believe that the default key for sprint is the “shift” key. An excellent tool for being able to see an overview of the map and the topography is Railroads Online Extended. Placing a telegraph house at industries and yards allows you to teleport by pressing “m” or whatever button you have selected to open the map and then clicking on the box with a T in it. Also “p” opens you player info, money, and xp. “H” opens the help/ tutorial which I believe was just updated.

[Skorj]

The Railroads Online Extended mod (ROX), as bluegrass mentioned, gives you an overhead view and lets you set a fast sprint speed.

I prefer the Railroads.Studio website for visualization (it loads your save file, and is save file editor, but use the editor part with caution after a patch like we just had).

You can also get a third person camera view, I think 'v' is the default key, which can help a lot to see the landscape, but you can't lay track in 3rd person for some reason.

[Dan]

OK thanks Bluegrass & Skorj..... yes, I got the 'V' view down and yes, doing the sprint now. Yes, found the "P" key too, though not ready to buy anything just yet.
I did not know about the telegraph house to help me move there more quickly....will definitely have to do that.

These extended mod (ROX) .... do you have to buy that too?

[Skorj]

ROX is a free mod. All the mods/tools I've heard of are free.

[Akela]

Originally posted by Skorj:

Choose the track with fill - the first thing

It's not like laying model railroad track, you have to sort of draw the track along the ground.

this won't work for me...i see the intital track l clk, try to draw it, it dispears like im ending const.

ive looked at options keys, am aware of the "2" sets...(dumb)

ive played for a year prior, thought id come back to see if its fixed yet. its worse./

[Skorj]

Just to be sure: did you try both directions of laying the track? Track will extend in only one direction from where you put down the first bit. Sometimes it might be pointed directly at you, so trying to extend the track will do nothing, but if you move to the side a bit you'll see it goes the other way.

That won't normally be a problem since you're usually connecting to existing track, so it will continue in that direction. But when there's no existing track it can be confusing.

[Dan]

OK, got a track laid all the way from Freight depot to sawmill. Took a bit of trial and error hahaha (read more error).
Where does one take the wood from the sawmill to make the Money?
I still have to build an trestle.... or buy anything. Slow but steady.

[Skorj]

You can sell anything at the freight depot. That's a bit wasteful though, as you get paid the same for delivering stuff to an industry the needs it. For logs, this is the sawmill, which will give you the next tier of goods.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2635351591

The early-game cash grind is lumber yard -> sawmill -> freight depot. But you don't need to do that for all that long. I recommend a Class 48 as the first loco to buy. It's easy to use, reasonably fast, and can pull a decent load uphill.

Fair warning: laying track to the iron mine is where you leave flat ground and the real challenge of the game begins. I found it a lot of fun, but it did take a while.