I got it and I'm playing with TTT for 3 weeks now.
Some comments :
* Display
- Some textures are beautifull, some others are horrible. Well it's a beta, may be the final version *will* have better ones.
- Vehicule design is irregular too. Some trains are nice some others are not. Just a particular mention about the TGV design (VGT in the game). The wagons movement is very reaslist : the shared boggie system is very well designed (when a TGV is in a curve, the wagons remain "sticked" together, while a normal train have an offset between the wagons. For the first and last wagon, where a normal boggie system is used, we can see thist offset. Very nice, good work
(I like details like that, it's a proof about the motivation of the game designer
)
- Speed is catastrophic when a lot of vehicules are on the screen. The 3D engine still need a lot of work to improve it. With my configuration (P4 2.8 + 1 GB DDR + ATI Radeon 9800 Pro) I should have better performance!
- But - 3D is very cool to design routes, look for industries and see our own network. So display is not perfect, but 3D is a big improvement face to TTDX or others clones.
* Building system
- Designing a project before building definitive route is a pleasure : we can try different ways to cross a mountains without loosing money, it's very very usefull.
- Designing routes is quite easy, but there is some lacks. When designing a bridge, I didn't found how to do nice bridges like AI, so I need to raise some land, and put my tracks on it. It's not nice at all and very hard to do (puting tracks on a small bump is a nightmare with the building engine)
- Altitude marks and guidlines would be very usefull, because when crossing a mountain, it is not easy to build flat tracks. Most of the time my tracks go up and down in each curve as I built curves to avoid having bumps on my tracks... Very hard to get another thing than a russian mountain (I don't if it's the same word in english... roller caster tycoon...)
- Water and bridges... Sometimes I can build a bridge, sometimes not. Why ? I don't know. I raise the land on each sides of the river and I can build a bridge. But if I raise a complete path across the river, I can't build a track on it nor a bridge... Strange.
* Tracks
- Very very very cool to be able to build tracks as we want : nices curves, free direction, free elevation... Great.
- But for railcross, it's another thing... First, we can't design X railcross (only Y). Very bad : we need to build a bridge or a tunel when two railways cross theimselves. Futhermore, when a train run on a railcross, it's speed slow down dramaticaly. OK, it's realistic for old age, but nowdays, trains don't slow down when passing throught a railcross... High speed railcross is not possible and it's a big lack.
- Can't build complexe railcross. It would be cool if we should be able to build "double Y" (1 way split into 3 ways) and railcrosses near to each other.
* Roads
- I didn't used road a lot. Because there are several big lacks... First trucks slow down each time there is a crossway. Then, we can't use opponent roads. And then, we can connect to cities roads only if a connection track exists. After or years in the game, opponents use every cities connection roads, and we can't build anything.
- Railways can't cross roads. We must design a bridge...
* Economy system
- Far better then the one we can find in other games. Goods are sold by one industry to another one, and contract are renegociated while playing. So connecting an industry to another is not enought to earn monney.
- By the same way, passengers have a destination. Great !
- Just a little problem : many industries have not any contracts. When the compagny is growing, it become very hard to find a new lucrative route...
* AI
- Better then TTDX... But dummy althought. AI seems to come directly from Roller Caster Tycoon : why build a flat and strait way when we can build 180 curves (on bridges or tnnuels it's better) and bumps on bridges ? After a while I was expectig seeing loopings on oppenents tracks...
- But AI like designing cooperative networks, it's a good thing.
- Trains are dummy. While I have 6 tracks on a station, they all goes in one strack only... So I have enormous traffic jam. Train AI seem to be designed to have one train between 2 stations, and one train = one track. Trying to design complex system is very hard (but quite possible)
* Other
- The map is definitely too small. Cities and instrustries amount is ok, but they are too much near each other. When trying to reduce the amount of cities and industries to get a little more space, the game decides industries are to far each to other, and there is no contracts between theim... Too bad
- Train schedule is a nice feature, but we need to use exactly the same train each time to reuse a schedule. It would be better if we could reuse *any* valid schedule for all trains (reachable destination and at least one transportable good). For trucks, we have the same problem plus another one : we can use any schedule used by the same type of truck even if the truck can't reach destination !
- We can't see the stations list. Too bad. We need to check manualy each station accross the map to verify service is fitting needs.
- No catchement area. When building a station, it would be nice to know wich area it deserves.
- Contracts should be viewable on the map : when clicking on a industry, arround indistries should be hightlighted to see wich one have contracts with it.
- Map window... Hum... It is impossible to maximize the little stamp at the bottom left of the screen ? How to see anything on that microsocopic map ?
- Train/Route list window. OK, nice... But very poor in information... Which train goes where, transport what ? Revenue is a nice feature, but transported goods should be nice two...
* Bugs
- OK. I build a train with a trailer. I decide to resell the train. Engine, ok, trailer, crash. Cool.
- OK, I play for 2 hours and I just finished to design a very long track accross the whole map, I build a train, design a route for it... First station, ok, second, ok, third, crash...
- Well. And there is no autosave, very interesting...
Summary:
This game is the best I ever saw of this type of game. Very nice features, a lot of positives points... But... Many lacks (some make me evil) and too much bugs. I will never buy Trains And Truck Tycon. It's a beta, and the released version is a shame. I saw a patch has been released fixing some of the worst lacks/bugs. My game copy is not a cracked one, so I can't install this patch. But even with this patch, a lot of lack remains, so the game remains incomplete.
I'm waiting for a real release version (and will buy it)
Well, this is not exactly true. If you keep focusing a city suburbs, you will probably catch buildings appearing in those street sides where place is available.