"I AM AN OFFICER IN THE MERCHANT NAVY"

This is a review on release day and is subject to change as updates appear!

I was and am still a big fan of the first game!

For those of you that want a short read, just buy the cheaper first game there are little to no differences, apart from multiplayer, even the graphics look much the same in my opinion.

Pros:

Muiltplayer - Of no interst to me what so ever But its there!
Graphics - More attractive world map. Port graphics have changed but not for the better in my oppinion!


Cons:

Muiltiplayer - could it not have just been an update for the first game?
Graphics - dont appear to have really changed at all apart from world map and port screen.
Game Play - Exactly the same as the first game no real changes inculding with the two new ship types managment of them all is exactly the same whats the point?
Manual Berthing (subject to change) - appears to be gone even though the controls are in the options menu!
Dry Dock - In reality ships go into dry dock aproximetly once every two years not every month as they degrad so quickly!


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However to be honest there doesnt seem to be a noticable difference bettween the first and new games apart form the introduction of two different types of vessels, which on a management stand point to start with appears very, very basic! There is litterly no difference to the management of tankers/container/bulk ships what was the point in adding them???

Graphics no real change that I can see and I am running on Ultra. The only change I have noticed for the benifit of the player is the world map appears more visually attractive! And although the port screen has had work on it, I personaly feel it looks worse!

Also I am hoping I simply cant find the option or figure out how to manualy command the vessel in and out of port like in the first game, it appears to haven been removed?!?

What the hell is sabotage doing in the game? What is this Airline Tycoon now??? Thats all I have to say on that matter!

Brokerage of second hand vessels can occur anywhere in the world why have you limited them to certain ports. I can understand ship yards and dry docks in kimited places but the rate of degregation of vessels needs to be radically decreased and ship yards need to be confind to new builds.

All in all I have to say im severly dissapointed! As someone who works in the industry I was looking forward to a new, more indepth approch to the first game. With a more hands on contract stage(managment), and a more realistic set of physics for the manual handeling of the ships when berthing, as the first was awful (arcadey, nothing close to realistic).

In my honest oppinion it feels like they are trying to flog you the idea of a new game when infact all they have done is add two new catogories to the ship market, neither of which really bring anything new to the game, as the contracts work exactly the same as in the containers/first game (litterly no readily apparent change). And multiplayer which should have, and could have been an update for the original.

Feels like they've removed more than added!?!

These are my opinions and I hope they help you decied if TransOcean 2: Rivals is for you or not!

Triggerwarning: (this will be a ranting first impression review)
TL:DR version at the bottom. (playtime is not reflective of actual playtime. I left the game running with computer on for nearly 400hours)

My oh my. Deck13 along with publisher Astragon Entertainment, what is this and did you listen at all to your fanbase?
I don't even know where to begin, I clearly remember a dialogue about what the fans wanted for the follow-up and did you collectively decide to do the opposite of what they wanted in about every way imagineable?
2 hours in Im hating everything about this game! Even the good aspects like its music and graphic design which is completely irrelevant in an economic simulator! Why would you focus on that...why?

Here's a list of the top of my head:
-The impossibility of micromanaging a fleet of ships when one day at normal speed lasts like 7 seconds. Even with pause this game feels like a chore since there's not enough tactical considerations to be made when in port. An AI-captain system would have been nice. Thou, that would automate the only gaming aspect of this release... so yeah... :-(

-The attempt at a story...why, its an economic simulation game?!

-The non-pause catastrophe. Which ironically is currently somewhat saved by what looks to be a bug (you can pause the game by double-clicking spacebar.)

-Developers haven't done anyhing to add in fun gaming elements to break up the monotony. Sending the exact same 3 versions of every ship type around in ports picking up the same-sized identical cargo with little to no variation until the end of time. Or some arbitrary deadline if you play campaign. There's just no decisions to be made in this game of consequence.

-Whats with the horrendously random repair costs automatically accepted every time a ship comes in? (ships that currently also detoriate way too fast. Don't think a ship goes from 100% to 33% condition in like 2 months time...)

-Are there any pop-up events or gameplay or anything happening ever in this game? Nearly 8 hours in I've not come across anything that wasn't better in the first version in the game. (which was just the "docking and undocking"-minigame when tugboats were on strike)

-Why is the AI driving back and forth between just two docks in the first tutorial like tug of war OCD-victim?

-The simplicity of the economy simulator. Let me re-iterate: The simplicity of the whole point of a game like this. A sequel should ADD to the complexity, not SUBTRACT from it.


Dear Deck13. Did you even playtest this? How about listening to your fanbase the next time around instead of wasting everyones time with this possibly meme-creating epic disaster of a game? I keep seeing you guys mention that people wanted multiplayer in this game. Were you listening to the players actually playing your first game, or the few not in your targetgroup which has no idea how next to impossible it is, making a game like this play in real-time?

Your target audience are NOT people who like to frantically click their fingers stiff in some headache-inducing RTS-mode to beat the map before anyone else. They are methodical empire-builders happily spending minutes in port with each ship weighing their alternatives if enough options are given them. Often grinding for hours on end in a relentless "just one more turn"-mode until the early morning birds are chirping away... And thats just finishing the first three months of play.

TL:DR
To anyone considering this game:
Do not buy at this point. It's the plague incarnate. (aka modern gaming developers focusing on nothing of relevant importance in their genre games catering to none in their actual audience)

Pro:
-the UI is functional, mostly because there's no complexity

Con:
-everything else.

edited 11th of may.(completed 2 campaign chapters with silver and gold. I couldn't bring myself to start chapter 3.)
P.S: Music is no longer good. I tried it turned on for 4 hours. My ears are now asleep from the monotony of it all.

Having everything in very fast real time pace is not what I want from this type of game, I want time to think about the best possible route and then sign the contract.

The gameplay is worse than in part I, and the release of the game has still half of the text translated in German instead of English. Disappointing!

After "Ports of Call" and "TransOcean", "TransOcean2" is the successor of 2 pretty entertaining games. The UI is far better than in TO and the new features (regional upgrades, rivalry with up to 7 AI opponents or real MP) are very nice additions.

I´ve played through the campaign in about 100 hrs to achieve everything. Not a lot of games keep me interested for so many hrs.

Most negative reviewers were writing at release date (they wanted a pause button). Most of those reviewers didn´t change their review even though the devs made a pause button the next day. That´s how a good game gets "mixed reviews" - fyi.

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edit: erased some typos

I preorder this game, offering my trust in this developer and I'm disappointed.

I loved the first game, a management game that was very relaxing and quiet, and very entertaining. Here I found my haven of peace among so many explosives games.

I expected this game more than any AAA this year.

Now with this second part I find a competitive and exhausting game.

The disappearance of the pause, the limitation of time in multiplayer, the short campaign and removal of dockage, have ruined my experience.

It is true that I did not play too much, because I'm thinking of applying for the return if developers do not listen to its fanbase and announce changes.

I do not understand why these decisions against his own followers.


Astragon I'm sorry, but I must give my negative vote.

This game should have been an improvement to ther very fun part 1: Trans Ocean the shippingcompany. Unfortunaltely, it is not.

(UPDATE)
though the game certainly has some improvements over the first game, it has overall not become a better game.

Some of the flaws:
- no longer can you chose to dock manual/automatic, this is now determend at random with as reason tug boat company strikes. therefor you cant save money by docking manualy in a finachaly poor situation (or whenever you feel like it).
- manuvering of ships feels very "un ship like" this makes manualy sailing in and out of port a lot less fun then in Transocean 1. the ships feel like they dont have a rudder to steer but just turn at a preset speed based on rudder input and speed (feels strange and works best in reverse)
- when sailing in and out off port, the AI ship traffic is TERRIBLE. all the ships are moving at top speed and have no intentions to stay in the waterways. they will sail onto and through land at speed without any trying of avoiding collisions (the will stop and blow the horn a lot when you get in there way).

what did improve:
- now there is not only container cargo but also bulk and tanker cargo. this however does not add anything new since the jobmarkets for container bulk and tanker in on way related to eachother. however, teh new ship models and cargotype bonuses a a nice feature..
- when leaving port manualy (or entering) there is now a much bigger enviorment.
- there is a minimap and a fullscreen map when sailing in to or out of a port.

if you liked trans ocean 1 this still is probably not the game for you, however you might want to give it a try if you can pick it up cheap.

overall 3/10

I really wanted to like the game, and there is actually a lot of small things to like in terms of regional strategy, ship types, economics, strategy.
But the overshadowing all-encompassing problem is that there seems to me at least to be literally NO quality of life or automation options, at least not in the campaign. This leads you to play games where you literally every 8 seconds need to handle a new ship transfer or transit. You cannot enable autofueling, you cannot enable autorepairs when in a repair port, you cannot setup automated routes. This means that the game becomes extremely tedious with repetitive micro-management tasks, that feel kinda trivial when you are managing a fleet of 30, and OH GOD the amount of work you have with 30 ships.......
Really good elements, nice concept, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

Ok, I did not play much, but the only single player game I tried did get me a bit angry
at some of the game mechanic.

First I was lucky to have waited and not have to fight with the lack of pause
when the game was launched. But right now I am fighting with another game mechanic
that seem flawed like hell.

I tried to play a game against the maximum amount of AI competitor. Starting to build my
own company I saw one of the AI company starting to soar, while working in
an area that should not produce that much money (legally).

Wondering if anything was 'amiss', I decided to put a Contraband detector
on my ship, and there it was. ALL the AI ships were constantly running
with Contraband ONLY, to the point I was just swarmed under by
the message of contraband detected messages.

The worse was that those ships were looking like they never get controlled
by the custom (where my own was controlled almost every 3-4 Port Entrance).

The AI was even more looking bad by letting their ship sink, and still get
a good "bargain" of letting their ship sink.

What company could afford to lose 3-4 ships a year, and still being
"afloat" ?

The worse was that even by losing ships, and running contraband only
run, they even managed to perma attack me with the Customs check.

Not running any contraband on that ship of mine, it was a real annoyance
as those "check" were done on tight schedule run, and making me lose
money.

At a time I decided to try to send the customs on one of the
biggest company with contraband, and to my surprise,
the very cost of my attack almost killed my company (in monetary term),
but being caught red handed did almost nothing to
the AI company that was caught by the customs.


Running contraband should really impact a player, be it
AI or human. Like losing lot of points with the area of working,
or even to the point of losing invested money in project
(like losing the ownership of a port installation)
and not being a way for the AI to cheat it's way
up the scoreboard.

But what finally got me stopping that run was the fact
that the UI really need a way to have messages being less invasive.
Or get a way to have those Contrabands detection warning
being visible at another place, as I was so much flooded
by the warnings that I had barely any ways to see
the real importants messages about my single ship.

I guess that until those issues are corrected,
I will play a singleplayer, single company run
and just enjoy the building of my company.

I just bought this game during the 2017 Steam summer sale. If you're a fan of the transportation and/or tycoon games, TO2 is right up your alley. The 2nd iteration is a great improvement over the original game.

TO2 adds new mechanics that give you interesting strategic choices. They greatly enhance the game experience overall, while keeping the core gameplay of managing a shipping company and profitable route planning intact.

- Competition again AI or human players applies some extra pressure on you to play better
- You can buy subsidiary businesses in different regions which provide services to the players, like refueling or tugboat services. You gain a weekly stipend amd also a cut of the profits any time a player uses that service in your region. This incentivizes you to strategize on which geographical areas you'll specialize in, rather than sailing the world aimlessly.
- The 3 classes of ship specialize in gaining region points, making money, or a balance of the two. Region points are the primary currency used to buy subsidiaries. You need to choose wisely which types of ships you buy and when, so that you're optimizing between short-term profit vs long-term subsidiary investments
- The sandbox mode has customizable rules and difficulty modifiers, so the game has a lot of replayability (not to mention online multiplayer)
- The story mode is kinda cheesy, but it does a good job of introducing you to all the new game features. It's also quite difficult to acheive all the objectives in each chapter, so it's challenging too.

- Some annoyances have been removed from the game, like steering boats out of port. This still exists as an occasional mini-game if it's a feature you enjoyed.
- A lot of the criticisms mentioned in other reviews have since been fixed by the developers. For example, when you start a new single player game, you can choose whether pause should be enabled. The main reason you'd want it be disabled is to train you for multiplayer.

Game play loop:
10 - unclick pause
20 - wait until delivery event
30 - select nearest best paying shipping
40 - dispatch ship
50 - goto 10

After few hours you will realize NPC opponents have no problem running the above loop for 10+ ships as they do not have click and wait load screens for ports loading into memory :/

Simpleton and no fun game, avoid it at all cost.