Now I hope someone will agree with me when I say I really hate seeing more than two lanes of tracks (e.g. one route heading north, one heading south) in an area. It seems to be common in OTTD for people to cram insane amounts of trackage and roads into areas. Someone people have like.. Eight or more platforms at a factory or similar industry, whereas I get annoyed when I move beyond two. Now, I know having a large amount of lines is necessary to keep up with the production of goods, but does anyone know how to make their networks look authentic and not just a giant cluster f***?
Sure, it's easy. Forcus on the aesthetics of your network, and ignore the demand imposed by the over-producing industries. And to prevent one factory from producing too much, don't connect all farms on one map to one food processing plant (for example) - spread the cargo to more processing plants available on the map. Focus more on building short distance transports - that will alleviate the need to build huge complex jucnctions.
I usually try to limit it to 4 tracks (2 in both directions), and most of the times it is just 2 tracks, but with some dedicated tracks for cargo going outside of the cities. Only my stations blow up, as I have usually different lines stop at large cities, so I need those big stations to be able to process all trains coming in and out.
Union Station in LA has 16 tracks split on 8 platforms.
Grand Central Terminal in New York City is the world's largest station by number of platforms, having 67 tracks on two levels.
Stockholm Central Station has 17 tracks.
It's not unrealistic to build large stations, even though they can sometimes end up being far larger than towns.
Buragan wrote:Ah, I guess part of my problem is that the scale of OpenTTD is a little off (I.e. the size of a city is basically a town IRL).
A "little off" is an understatement imho, the program is foremost designed as a game for trains, where elements have a "size that works". There is however no consistency in sizes between different elements (other than consistently being hopelessly wrong ).
Being a retired OpenTTD developer does not mean I know what I am doing.
Actually it would be fixed, if you would play the game in real time. If one train gets loaded at a factory per day, it would, in most cases be sufficient. But a day really is nothing in OpenTTD.
In case you've missed it there is a Screenshots subforum, where the majority are of attempts to create somewhat realistic worlds.
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I've been in that deep dark area of the forum before and sometimes feel overwhelmed but I'll give it a shot. I've gotten over my scale problem by simply using a 1k by 2k map with only 80 towns with multiple industries and a low (or maybe it was very low) density. Makes things tricky since I'm using FIRS and sometimes it costs about 300k to build a dual railway to get one industry set up properly, but I think I've got the hang of it finally.
I'd agree with your outlook, Buragan, were ruling out the terrain of a given board possible. Hilly and flat boards are rewarding ... e.g., hilliness, when you become super pleased at how you'll have accomplished squeezing builds into a landscape thatcha needn't batter away at.
For weeks now, I've errrr sometimes daydreamed about this very thread.
I downloaded a scenario with comparatively few towns and a vast, empty flat landscape. Presented with such a board, I chose to build 4-tracking right from the outset, and I'm still very pleased with my choice. Augmenting network capacity can become tiresome, what with relaying many rights of way: now barely necessary this board around!
Extra tracking (especially at, e.g., station/platform exits, overly-long signal blocks, ROW merges, etc.) can be SUCH a saviour. Fussing over timetabling would be my foremost reason why..any day.
Maybe unsightliness of massive webs of catenary be what put you off.. ..
Still the same board..cannot remember whether I bore a reason to hiding/revealing catenary..last 1 here just another sample of a junction elsewhere around my board.
I generally stick to no more than 4 tracks, usually in the order of FAST SOUTH - SLOW SOUTH - SLOW NORTH - FAST NORTH, or WEST/EAST as appropriate
Basically four lines, the outer two are used mainly by passengers, the inner two used by slower things or any other cargo.
For maps where I am transporting only passengers, for long distances I again use four tracks. The outer two being for slow traffic (stops at all stations) and the inner two act as through tracks at stations.
Generally speaking, I only have more than 4 tracks together at larger stations, which have extra platforms acting as terminus/starting for some trains and the tracks will align with the old ones for a while until they go their seperate ways.
I have tried to make really big lines and really big stations, but the signalling goes boobs up when i try it, so I stick to what a I know 2 or 4 tracks.
Last edited by Redirect Left on 10 Sep 2015 18:04, edited 1 time in total.
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Mhm, "realistic" track density in OpenTTD is difficult, but some things to consider:
- daylength patches, one that doesn't adjust production. Trains can make more trips per month then
- some town sets come with lower densities than others
- buses, trams, ships, planes can help reduce what needs to be transported on tracks
I usually get away with two tracks this way, some extra at station perhaps. Not in the sense that it's the most efficient network ever, but one where trains can get everywhere without huge delays and goods don't stockpile too badly.
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