Transport Tycoon Forums

Here is another thread in which to post ideas. The old list is locked, since all ideas have been plucked from it for some people to write up some design docs. You can see the old list here.

Same old rules apply - every little helps, but do keep the ideas reasonable.

I apologise if I repeat anything said before - I'm buggered if I'm reading through 35 pages of suggestions.
Here's my two cents worth.
There should be many options which constitute a difficulty setting, including things like:
-Map size
-Number of cities/industries etc
-Hills/rivers/ocean/etc
-Nations - this would make things trickier. Selecting this option would split the map into several to lots of small nations (Set limits for nations, bigger maps would have quite a few, but smaller maps would only have some). Different nations would have different attitudes towards your company, some could be communist/empirical/etc. Each one would have varying preferences for the type of company they want building on their land. The system would be a bit like that in Railroad Tycoon 2, but more complex.
You could even go as far as having periods of war, where you would get contracts for the transport of arms, governments could take over your rail network and such like.
Little details like different architecture in different nations would make things pretty!
Oh, and different nations may produce different types of engines and the like, accepting supply contracts from one would prevent purchasing vehicles made by some others.
Keep in mind that this all would make for a HARD difficulty setting!
Aside from that, I think industries should have limits to ho much they can produce, and how much raw materials they can accept per month.
Cheers,
Indraunt

Let's pump some oil into this dried-up topic. I think I came across a solution for servicing vehicles in quite a realistic way. I think this would be very doable for all type of vehicles.

introduce 'service shack' that is added to the station. If a train needs to be serviced then loading stops - service ensues. Simple, no 'magic depots' etc.

That's what I mean, no magic depots anymore. Just servic the vehicle when it needs to be serviced at the first station it reaches.

uzurpator wrote:introduce 'service shack' that is added to the station. If a train needs to be serviced then loading stops - service ensues. Simple, no 'magic depots' etc.

Will the train stay some extra time at the platform for service? And block that platform.

I was not sure what you meant.

I have some doubts against not having "magic depots." I think they are necessary to keep the game playable.

Imagine having a deadlock in your rail network. Usually, they can be resolved by letting some train ignore the signals. But sometimes, depots are necessary to "store" all exces trains before the conflict is resolved.

Of course, this implies that you have a really bad network, and could be the result of Chris Sawyer's "Great" network search algorithm, but still.

If we implement waypoints, you can make temporary pieces of track an store trains there.

Actually, we're planning to have a routing algorithm that will never make trains lost, which makes waypoints unnecessary.

Hellfire wrote:Actually, we're planning to have a routing algorithm that will never make trains lost, which makes waypoints unnecessary.

but it would of course stille be possible to create a temporary station to send all the trains to...

Waypoints are also required to guide traffic on trackage player wants.

Anyway - I want to get rid of magic depots. And if there is a deadlock - maybe train 'ghost' mode for the player to turn on and ease traffic. Other trains would travel at - let us say - 20 km/h over ghosted trains.

I sugest that there shuld be checkpoints that you can place in the terain, and IMPORTANT move a checkpoint, and all trains will go to the new location.

maby this can be done lik this: You tell Train A to go via 44,67. A mark will apear at that tile. You now what that Train B shuld share that waipoint. Just tell it to go via 44,67 (which is marked in terain now).

Here we have two options either that they both have one checkpoint each at same location, or they use a single common checkpoint. Either we might use Ctrl + click / Click or popup a menu, so that the user can choose if he want to place a new waypoint or merge with an existing.

Maybe smart to impose a grid with coordinates?!

Internly it will likely have cordinates, but whether we shall display them or not in the final version is open.

This is not true for all datarepresentations avilable, but many.

I suggest a grid you can toggle on/off.

If we are going to use a system where every thing that the user or AI can do is actions, It would be nice to store these actions in a sorted list. A list that contain a string with the name, and a pointer/int or whatever type used to identify the actions.

Then there shuld be a console window where you can write these actions. The console can be useful to test new actions before making the user interface for that feature. Also it can be used for micro management scripts. There might also be users that like to use the keybord more than the mouse, eaven thoght these is probably in minority.

I suggest that we shuld not use lua or simular, instead creating an own system since existing scriplanguages is far to complex, (slow) for our task.

Ok... ideas :

1) adding and releasing vagons - a locomotive should have the ability to leave the vagons in the station... that would make the stations more real.... No "magic" turning of trains - the locomotive will have to release the vagons and get through the other track on the other side... The track should be awailable for the vagons to be placed by the locomotive, or a "magic" bigger depot can be made, where a max. number of vagons/locomotives can be stored. There should be some more buildings in the depot for example a water tower for adding water for steam locomotives... etc

2) Public transport - making trams, trolleybuses awailable, within the cities

3) easy form of adding and creating new vehicles so that users themselves can contribute

1. Intresting idea that I have thoght a bit about my self. But I think it will make the game to complicated. It will move the focus from bigger scale to smaler scale I think.

2 and 3 is allready sugested.

You know what would be interesting? If you could, say, shift from general management of your whole network to micromanagement of a line or two. Probably be ridiculously hard, but still cool>

If you use a real 3D engine, implement a "ride" option so you can take a seat in a passenger car or in the locomotive's driving cab. I think it won't be much of a deal - simply put the camera to another place and let it move with the train/car.