Canadian Trains Set [v1.0 now available] ...

[Toni Babelony]

...at some point around 1980-1990 all types of cargo have wagons that are able to run 120+ km/h except for liverstock which is limited to 96 km/h (there is only one liverstock type wagon?). (...) I think this is a balance issue and a suitable higher speed wagon will help to solve it.

That's called realism. I don't think you'd be happy to be transported in a virtually open wagon at 120km/h... 96km/h is really fast as well for livestock transport IMO.

[Ar4i]

A refrigerated wagon refitable to livestock would solve the problem with transporting in open wagons. After all transportation of liverstock is mostly in refrigerated wagons/trailers, nobody transports live animals nowadays except when you actually need them to stay alive after they arrive to their destination (e.g. when you bring the TO the farm).

[XeryusTC]

They are usually also transported alive when they're brought to the slaughterhouse

[Ar4i]

Sure but this kind of transportation i a lot more expensive and as such it is minimized e.g. often those services are provided at the farms or near by and after that the meat is being transported to factories or shops.

[DanMacK]

Re: Running costs. I think that they and the purchase costs need to be adjusted somewhat, and andy's suggestions make A LOT of sense.

re: livestock. There is only one stock car in the Canset because after 1980 or so, livestock is solely transported in trucks. This does create an issue, but not a balance one IMO. Livestock is more responsive to high speeds, and therefore the slower speeds are all that you can transport it at. The new North American Industry Set is going to add Meat as a cargo, so stock transfer to a slaughterhouse will be available.

[OzTrans]

... purchase / running costs rebalancing ...

Thank you for your research and comments; we will look into it. I'm sure DanMacK can come up with new figures.

[Ar4i]

I've noticed that in OpenTTD disabling the "wagon speed limit" doesn't have effect on Canadian Set - is this an intended behavior or some issue with OpenTTD?

[XeryusTC]

That depends on whether you did it while you were in the menu or changed it while playing. If the latter is the case then you'll need to replace all engines to reflect the change.

[peter1138]

Probably because it uses CB36 extensively, so it is actually the engine limiting the speed based on what is attached, and not a wagon limit.

[OzTrans]

I've noticed that in OpenTTD disabling the "wagon speed limit" doesn't have effect on Canadian Set - ...

You have observed correctly. Patch Configuration settings of wagon speeds is ignored in the CanSet. For every train the speed is set to the one of the slowest vehicle (engines and wagons) in the train and for freight trains until 1985 further reduced by 20 % if you have no van in the train. Some wagons are not speed limited, i.e. lightweight passenger/mail cars, the van and steam generator unit (i.e. trains travel at the speed of the engine).

[Lakie]

I understand you want to keep it as realistic as possible however, there was a reason those switches were added, so that people could have it as unrealistic or as realistic as they like, not having someone forcing their preferred settings (level of realism) on them.

~ Lakie

[OzTrans]

... wagon speed limits ...

The CanSet has its own speed limiting feature, because due to extensive use of wagon livery overrides, any wagon speeds and patch settings would be ignored anyway and trains would travel at the speed of the engine.

Preferring a degree of realism is one thing, but we also add a bit of a challenge to a game by limiting train speeds.

[Ar4i]

... wagon speed limits ...

The CanSet has its own speed limiting feature, because due to extensive use of wagon livery overrides, any wagon speeds and patch settings would be ignored anyway and trains would travel at the speed of the engine.

Preferring a degree of realism is one thing, but we also add a bit of a challenge to a game by limiting train speeds.

when building vast and complex RR networks it turns out that your set does KILL lots of the challenge instead of adding any, because of the slow trains. It is just easier to make your network to work with all those slow boring trains that run all the same speed for a whole game. It is 2010 and I still have many lines at 96km/h because of the slow liverstock trains, so this basically 80 years after the start of the game and train still run at 96 km/h as they did from the very beginning.
Other that that this is one really nice trainset, although I cannot not use it anymore because of the slow speeds which would basically make the idea of having 10s of models of engines useless except the part with having some eye candy.

[dandan]

Ar4i, how would the game be more challenging if you could transport all cargo at maximum speed? Then you just build your network, sit back and buy faster trains every now and again. With speed limits in place on the other hand, there are still several things you can do to speed up your network:
1) keep livestock and other slow freight off the main lines or move it to the road
2) create possibilities for faster trains to pass slower ones
3) completely separate freight and passenger service
All these things are not only realistic (at least to a certain extent) they are also a lot of fun. (At least for me...)

Still, if the CanSet people wanted to support your style of playing, they could check for the wagonspeedlimits switch before reducing engine speeds. But that is for them to decide, of course.

[andythenorth]

Re: Running costs. I think that they and the purchase costs need to be adjusted somewhat, and andy's suggestions make A LOT of sense.

Sounds great, thanks. While we're on the subject, I'll put in a plea for the poor old Yukon & White Pass. It's kind of fun that NG is very hard to make money on (at least, it is with freight weight >6), but the two Y&WP locomotives have high running costs compared to the NFR locomotives at roughly the same HP.

Also having just looked at the Y&WP website, how about keeping the NG steamers available for tourist trains

http://www.wpyr.com/multimedia/allphotos.html

(I'm only half-serious with that, take the suggestion too far and we could end up with every steam loco in the set available for tourist trains!)

[DanMacK]

My personal belief for steam locos for tourist trains is keep them around on your roster. When you replace a steamer with a diesel, put it on a siding, leave it in the depot or put it on display in the middle of town, just to keep it around.

That's what I do, and if you accidentally scrap all of your F1 class 4-4-4's, ooopsie...

[Ar4i]

Ar4i, how would the game be more challenging if you could transport all cargo at maximum speed? Then you just build your network, sit back and buy faster trains every now and again. With speed limits in place on the other hand, there are still several things you can do to speed up your network:
1) keep livestock and other slow freight off the main lines or move it to the road
2) create possibilities for faster trains to pass slower ones
3) completely separate freight and passenger service
All these things are not only realistic (at least to a certain extent) they are also a lot of fun. (At least for me...)

Still, if the CanSet people wanted to support your style of playing, they could check for the wagonspeedlimits switch before reducing engine speeds. But that is for them to decide, of course.

With canset I managed to obtain millions faster than with lets say the original tainset because of the pretty good early steam trains, so it definitely doesn't add to the difficulty. Also when your network is running at the same speed for the whole game you don't really need to improve it much, slow trains are much less affected by tight spots, sharp turns and so on.

1. When you play on a map with lots of farms and you separate them form the rest of the cargo you make several parallel networks which kills the idea to make an efficient heavily loaded network
2. no so useful
3. I always do that anyway

No problem, I'm just surprized to see that when creating a MOD you actually discard available game options and this way you make the set forcing certain gameplay.

[OzTrans]

... train speeds ...

I know there are players and players; some want to have a trillion dollar bank balance at the end of the game, others want to see their trains travelling at 65,000 km/h. Well, you just cannot have everything. For us it is the CanSet with all its limits and challenges, for them there are still TTD 'original' maglevs, distant joined stations (aka underground pipelines) and maybe teleporters.

[wallyweb]

...

The train speeds in the CanSet are very realistic as they are based upon real life implementations. The challenge is in managing your costs so as to maximize your returns. If you want super fast trains, I recommend TGV or Shinkasen. Unfortunately, they are not used in Canada.

[Ar4i]

...

The train speeds in the CanSet are very realistic as they are based upon real life implementations. The challenge is in managing your costs so as to maximize your returns. If you want super fast trains, I recommend TGV or Shinkasen. Unfortunately, they are not used in Canada.

I only wanted to be ANY improvement of train speed ... but in would seem that between 1930 and 2030 some trains just have all the same speed.
Not to mention that my question about speed was only related to the fact that livestock has only one type of wagon and is limited in speed to 96 km/h and then I tried to remove wagon speed limits and it turned out that is not supported, thats all.
I don't know where is the challenge in management as this is probably the easiest trainset I've ever seen, I was able to reach million on the second year with those very good steam engines.