Destruction of worn out vehicles

[Commander Hubris]

it would be really cool if there were consequences other than high upkeep for old vehicles. for instance, what if a worn out steam engine's boiler exploded causing the train to derail costing you tons of money in repairs and compensation to the passengers or crew? or if you never replaced your ancient Douglas DC-3 and it just fell out of the sky one day, or what if your rusted out ship sank and you lost all the cargo? (Maybe even an oil spill, but that's another story.)

I think it would really add something to the game and give a reason to fix up or replace old vehicles.

[Czar Salad]

I hope this is able to happen, it would add quite a bit of realism.

[CalocoDoesGames]

Originally posted by Joe Barbaro:

what if a worn out steam engine's boiler exploded causing the train to derail costing you tons of money in repairs and compensation to the passengers or crew?

Yes... When a steam locomotives boiler explodes it doesn't derail per say. It explodes the entire locomotive. maybe even some coaches/wagons. It would also obliterate the track it was on. Also.. Compensation to the passengers/crew? if passengers survive great... but the crew most often than not will die in the explosion. Boiler explosions are quite powerfull.

Originally posted by Joe Barbaro:

or if you never replaced your ancient Douglas DC-3 and it just fell out of the sky one day

In real life before a plane is due off the ground it is checked. especialy in the DC-3 era. One realy wouldn't just let a rusted out/bairly functioning DC-3 in the air.

Originally posted by Joe Barbaro:

or what if your rusted out ship sank and you lost all the cargo? (Maybe even an oil spill, but that's another story.)

Um.. okey that seems more likely. depending of the conditions of the water it travels.


All in all nice thoughts but maybe just have planes grounded. Locomotives just stopped in the middle of the line. And boats not leaving port. Seems a bit more, lower rated than explosions, explosions everywhere.

[Commander Hubris]

I understand what you are saying about not "Michael Baying" the game, but aircraft running on older technology would occasionally have mechanical failures that no one saw coming, for instance a common failure of the Boeing C-97 was engine fires that were fatal to the wing's structual integrity. I suppose it all depends on the aircraft in question but random mechanical failures even of not fatal would add something to the game.

As for the boilers, I think you are correct on the locomotive being blasted back to the stone age, but if the track was destroyed by the blast would the rest of the cars behind not derail and pileup with the momentum they had built while being pulled?

On the subject of the compensation, it was my thinking that money would be payed to the injured, or it would go to the families of the deceased, but maybe I'm getting a bit too serious here.

Most likely the devs wouldn't add something like this, but it is fun to discuss and debate.

[Czar Salad]

You could also have rusted vehicles be less appealing to potential passengers, maybe cargo doesn't care as much as long as it gets the job done.

Going back to the airplanes being grounded, yeah, I agree that usually a plane would not be allowed to fly in such a condition. However, it would be interesting to still have accidents due to random mechanical failures, or pilot error and whatnot. Same could go for the other vehicles, although boat mechanical failures would likely not be fatal, since the hull would unlikely be compromised.

[Max Cherry]

I remember back in the Transport Tycoon era, the locomotives would break down on the tracks if they didn't recieve regular service and get replaced before they were worn out. On a poorly constructed track system, it could cause enormous delays, even grinding your entire transport system to a halt.

It would be nice to see some viable consequences return to the genre for not taking care of your vehicles.

[Knub]

Originally posted by BlckPhnx:

I remember back in the Transport Tycoon era, the locomotives would break down on the tracks if they didn't recieve regular service and get replaced before they were worn out. On a poorly constructed track system, it could cause enormous delays, even grinding your entire transport system to a halt.

It would be nice to see some viable consequences return to the genre for not taking care of your vehicles.

It is still an option in OTTD to turn this behaviour on/off. I am really glad that Train Fever didn't have such things. After all it is a game. Many realistic things sound great in theory but they can make a game a nightmare. For many people planning their network is important, so random breakdowns are just one thing: Annoying. (No matter how beautiful they look). Yes it would look nice but after 100h you don't care how it looks.

The same is true for maintenance. What does it really offer? You have to put down a depot and trains will go there. In other games you have to control a slider and give more money to maintenance. In Train Fever you had to replace old vehicles because they cost more money to run. All of this sounds ok but in the end you just do Task A over and over again. It is not like building a new track where you can get creative and where more tracks = more complexity, maintenance in games usually demands the same action from the player throughout the whole game. Players would replace vehicles anyway because you get new ones every X years. Why am I forced to do it inbetween because some number changed and it looks a bit rusty now? In Train Fever the cost of running older vehicles was really annoying in the early game. And the player had no way to influence it. It influenced you, because it made you pick the cheapest to run stuff. So if Transport Fever has the same mechanic, please balance it better.

So I am against breakdowns and/or disasters (at least let me turn it off). I am even against the whole maintenance idea but they will never exclude that from such a game. Hopefully some game will find a good mechanic to implement it, that is not:
- adjust maintenance budget slider
- go to depot every X days
- replace old vehicles (and give me annoying warnings about their age...)

If we have consequences like in Train Fever (higher running cost), we need a meaningful way to deal with it. I don't have a good idea and think it is really difficult to implement something that is interesting and stays that way even after 100h of playing the game.

[BOCHENSKI]

Originally posted by NP | Knub23:

Originally posted by BlckPhnx:

I remember back in the Transport Tycoon era, the locomotives would break down on the tracks if they didn't recieve regular service and get replaced before they were worn out. On a poorly constructed track system, it could cause enormous delays, even grinding your entire transport system to a halt.

It would be nice to see some viable consequences return to the genre for not taking care of your vehicles.

It is still an option in OTTD to turn this behaviour on/off. I am really glad that Train Fever didn't have such things. After all it is a game. Many realistic things sound great in theory but they can make a game a nightmare. For many people planning their network is important, so random breakdowns are just one thing: Annoying. (No matter how beautiful they look). Yes it would look nice but after 100h you don't care how it looks.

The same is true for maintenance. What does it really offer? You have to put down a depot and trains will go there. In other games you have to control a slider and give more money to maintenance. In Train Fever you had to replace old vehicles because they cost more money to run. All of this sounds ok but in the end you just do Task A over and over again. It is not like building a new track where you can get creative and where more tracks = more complexity, maintenance in games usually demands the same action from the player throughout the whole game. Players would replace vehicles anyway because you get new ones every X years. Why am I forced to do it inbetween because some number changed and it looks a bit rusty now? In Train Fever the cost of running older vehicles was really annoying in the early game. And the player had no way to influence it. It influenced you, because it made you pick the cheapest to run stuff. So if Transport Fever has the same mechanic, please balance it better.

So I am against breakdowns and/or disasters (at least let me turn it off). I am even against the whole maintenance idea but they will never exclude that from such a game. Hopefully some game will find a good mechanic to implement it, that is not:
- adjust maintenance budget slider
- go to depot every X days
- replace old vehicles (and give me annoying warnings about their age...)

If we have consequences like in Train Fever (higher running cost), we need a meaningful way to deal with it. I don't have a good idea and think it is really difficult to implement something that is interesting and stays that way even after 100h of playing the game.

I couldn't be more agree whit you. Train fever is a game much more complicated than OTTD, Locomotion, RT3... To make a line even a very little profitable, you have to perfectly coordinate your trains. If not... bankruptcy.

Also, those random breakdown systems are beautifull the first time, because, specialy in Chris Sawyer's games the frecuency of problems were too high, I remember trains that wasn't so old, breaking down every sigle square of terrain. For example, in OTTD, trains breakdown probability increases by time. A serius problem whit cargo trains that take a long time to load, even if they were stopped.

And I also defend the criticized metod of replacing trains in stations, for the same reason as above, replacing in depots brings discoordination thah destoy the stability of your "timetables", and just force you to make annoying manual repetitive work.

[Robbedem]

I always liked the idea of assigning a depot to a line in the line order list.
Vehicles usually just skip the depot, but if you set to replace the vehicles on the line, they will pass the depot as listed in the line order so they would go to the depot you assigned between the stops you assigned. The train would go to the depot empty.
This would allow a more realisitc vehicle updating/upgrading system, which would require the player to place depots strategically. This would also fit well with depots having a bigger size and higher maintenance and demolishing cost.
It would be even better if you could assign more than one depot to a line to upgrade vehicles more quickly.

[Ranau]

Actually... OpenTTD does that to some extent. Would also like to see an X-COM reference, haha.

Definetely supporting that thing. Planes crashing because you commanded a jumbo jet to land on a small field.

[Stormmaster]

In real life train and plane crashes happen very rarely (very little %). There is enourmous number of such vehicles, but in-game it's represented by only a few (well, maybe a few dozens, hundreds). So having plane or train crashes every so often would be very unrealistic. And developing a feature for 1 accident in maybe the whole playtime is quite a waste.

Decrease in productivity (like occasional speed drops for very old vehicles) is another thing, this could be good if implemented well.

And the Robbedem's idea of vehicles going to depot for replacement after unloading at a station is great! I would very much like that!