Transport Tycoon Could be the Ultimate Simulation Game

[BENBOBBY]

I love Transport Tycoon and have been playing for nearly 20 years. Throughout that time I always thought how awesome it would be if you could take control of your vehicles! It would fuse together many different simulation games and genres, for example:

Truck Driving:


Bus Driving:


Train Driving:


Shipping:


Flying:



It could even simulate working at some of the industries such as:

Farming:


Forestry:


For the mining ones it could maybe have something like Minecraft where you have to dig underground and find blocks of coal, copper, iron etc.

Obviously each would have to be somewhat simplified, but it could become like the Grand Theft Auto of simulation games! To tie it seamlessly into the core Transport Tycoon experience, for driving vehicles players would get say x10 the amount that it normally would. For example if a train full of passengers normally made $5,000 from Town A to Town B, if you drove it yourself you wouldnt have to pay a driver so you would make $50,000 profit. This would give players the motivation (aside from the fun) to drive their own vehicles occasionally, particularly early in games where money for construction is tight. Also be handy for spotting bottlenecks and working out alternative routes etc.

I imagine Im probably not the first person to think of this concept, but it would be amazing! Id gladly pay $200 for a game like this and support a KickStarter campaign. Simulation games do seem pretty popular nowadays along with a big TT fanbase so I imagine it would sell really well. Probably just a pipe dream, it would be epic though. Please Chris!

Thoughts?

[Redirect Left]

It's certainly possible to make a game that fuses them all into one massive Tycoon game, however depending on the level of graphics you're wanting (TTD simple or the more modern Forestry/Train Simulator) it'd take a loooong time and a lot of money. You'd also need a very dedicated developer or team of devs, and they'd need to be enough money involved for them to quit day jobs to develop it full time, else it could take a few year to complete.

It's a nice idea, but realistically, I doubt it'll happen

[BENBOBBY]

Oh yeh, Im sure it would take a long time and lots of talented people! The whole Transport Tycoon engine would have to be remade too of course!

I think the market would definitely be there though and people do get behind large ambitious projects as proved with Star Citizen. I know its unlikely, but could happen one day!

[BENBOBBY]

Also, back in 1996 there was this game called SimCopter - a flight simulator by Maxis that let you import SimCity2000 maps into the game and fly around your own city!!




It was an awesome concept. 20 years later and games are much prettier, but the innovation seems to have gone downhill!

[kamnet]

And there was also Streets of SimCity, which let you drive around in the SC2K games you created.

[Chrill]

In theory, a converter could be built to take a Transport Tycoon game, interpret the way you have built and translate that into the other games. For example, EuroTruck Simulator 2. You would probably have to give the converter a fair bit of freedom in order to avoid lots of 90 degree corners and many straight straights. Also, I imagine it would be extremely difficult to make it run stable.

[YNM]

Some other people have dreamed this you know that... One way to interpret is much like what Chrill said. But things being propietary, it'll take a loong time. Not to mention a few things like how in OpenTTD you don't have motorways, how in OpenTTD the pilots will get sick of the layout, how the signaling should work and whatnot.

[Pyoro]

Basically what Star Citizen attempts for Space Sims.

Just takes too much money for a modern game - look at GTA5, the cost involved, and all the things you can do - and even that still has lots of limitations. Sure, people attempted this kind of thing in the 90s and earlier, but expectations for gamers were completely different.

A game like this isn't going to happen any time soon. One day maybe.

[nicfer]

I've had a similar idea for a city simulation game, where for example, you build an hospital and you are given the option (or force to) play a Theme Hospital-like "mini" game, and maybe later on you can access other smaller games (the actual minigames), like managing your employees and patients, drive an ambulance to search for people needing medic attention, etc. Or, as pointed above, just make the hospital game import the city, choose a place where's an hospital built, and build it.
For a second generation, allow other players to build the hospital, on places where the guy using the citybuilder designs.
Apply this to any branches you like, in fact the citybuilder can be one element of a TTD-style game, all up to a God simulation game (you don't actually do that ).

But this seems to be more developed than I thought, so I just share my version of the history, which I did not share until now because I knew that it was going to be a very large project.

[pelya]

The best reasonable thing I can think of is the ability to export OpenTTD maps into FreeCiv.

[Redirect Left]

The best reasonable thing I can think of is the ability to export OpenTTD maps into FreeCiv.

Things like that are possible, but as mentioned before, you need to give the converter a lot of artist licence to allow for things that, whilst normal in OpenTTD would be either impossible due to code limits in FreeCiv, or simply look absolutely silly. 90' train turns for example.

[Awesometrains]

but do you want OpenTTD vehicles in the simulators or the simulators own vehicles in OpenTTD , or just make equivalents (ex. AsiaStar = Eurostar)

PS. forums need better servers

we could actually use those simulators , but the player needs to own them (if not owned the "drive"/"work at industry" buttons would be disabled)