What's the learning curve of this simulator?

[Purno]

I've been considering OMSI 2 for quite a while, but due to the high price I'm cautious. I've looked up some youtube videos of people playing OMSI 2, and pretty much all of them spend the first 5 to 15 minutes setting up the bus, pressing specific buttons in specific orders. I want to avoid making the same mistake as I did with X-Plane, where setting up the flight is considerably more challenging than actually flying a plane. Never really used it since I can't get past a proper setting up.

So, what's the learning curve on OMSI 2? Is it new-player friendly?

[gcookscotland]

The learning curve is steep, in the base game it’s not to difficult as there are not too many different buses to learn. With the bus company simulator career Add-On it’s slightly easier as in most cases it gives you the info for setting ibis/ticket machine. Either way you need to select your route and enter that into you ibis and set the bus sign up so passengers will get on the bus but there are several videos on YouTube to help with this and after time it does get easier, I watched squirrel’s first OMSI 2!video and he explains the setup pretty well. I struggled to start with and took a while to learn how to do it but now I have 300hrs in the game and I I play it more than any other game.

[Zachzul]

Here's the thing: IMHO OMSI is not at all new-player-friendly, especially if German is not your native language. But at the same time, it's very, very rewarding if you make it through the first hours. When I started playing this game/simulator, I was about to give it a very bad rating after the first three hours or so (although German is my native tongue). Today I have many, many hours of playing time, so I would *definitely* strongly recommend it if you have at least some kind of ... "perseverance", if you know what I mean ... but don't expect an easy or smooth start.

[Futuristic Hexagon]

I wouldn't worry too much about the learning curve. The hardest part is knowing certain small things, like the IBIS system. But I would say most of those Youtubers seem to also spending a lot of time talking on and on about god knows what, which might also contribute to their long start up times (but is very common in Youtube sadly with most everyone except Life of Boris for some reason.)

With that said, it isn't very new-player friendly as far as the Tutorial goes. It isn't so much that it's too technical or anything, I mean, it's more technical than something like ETS, but doesn't exactly hit X-Plane levels of realism. It just seems that when translating the Tutorial, they forgot to also change the keyboard reference from the German to an English layout, thus having situations where Y and Z are swapped and something like POS1 instead of Home. It usually ends up sending users into a loop far quicker than they need to.

The real headache of the Sim comes from installing Freeware routes, as many have a tendecy to be dependent on a large litany of other add-ons (thankfully most are also Freeware). Sometimes it doesn't work and causes the sim to freak out and not load anything, thus requiring fresh reinstall (as I learned while trying to install the Spandau Real 136-236 route.) This is coupled with the fact that most of those Freeware addons are also hosted on those shady servers that throw a billion ads and fake download buttons at you. I mean, there is software to help on that, but that doesn't fix it all the time.

[Purno]

Originally posted by gcookscotland:

With the bus company simulator career Add-On it’s slightly easier as in most cases it gives you the info for setting ibis/ticket machine.

What is this Add-On? Is it official or third-party? Free or paid?

I watched squirrel’s first OMSI 2!video and he explains the setup pretty well.

Do you have a link to that specific video by chance?

Originally posted by Zachzul:

Here's the thing: IMHO OMSI is not at all new-player-friendly, especially if German is not your native language.

Does that mean the game only has German interface and tutorials?

Originally posted by Leonov:

The real headache of the Sim comes from installing Freeware routes, as many have a tendecy to be dependent on a large litany of other add-ons (thankfully most are also Freeware). Sometimes it doesn't work and causes the sim to freak out and not load anything, thus requiring fresh reinstall (as I learned while trying to install the Spandau Real 136-236 route.) This is coupled with the fact that most of those Freeware addons are also hosted on those shady servers that throw a billion ads and fake download buttons at you. I mean, there is software to help on that, but that doesn't fix it all the time.

I don't intend to install Add-Ons that quickly. For now, I'm mainly asking about the base game. Once I'm past that point, I could slowly investigate Add-Ons. But thanks for the info! :)

[gcookscotland]

Originally posted by Purno:

Originally posted by gcookscotland:

With the bus company simulator career Add-On it’s slightly easier as in most cases it gives you the info for setting ibis/ticket machine.

What is this Add-On? Is it official or third-party? Free or paid?

Its a paid add-on called "Busbetrieb-Simulator" its available on steam

[gcookscotland]

I watched squirrel’s first OMSI 2!video and he explains the setup pretty well.

Do you have a link to that specific video by chance?

https://youtu.be/OrF4ivUG_gk