Compare Transport Giant with Railroad Tycoon 3

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 06 Oct 2003 02:44

Maybe we will have an RT3 forum here, but until then here goes...
Neither TG or RT3 are out yet but I've looked at both sites. I loved the original RT game; the RT2 game was weak in several significant ways (tunnels, no signalling/passing, bad graphic details) and was much less fun. Supposedly in RT3 they have fixed some of this, it almost looks like Simutrans.
But from looking at the site there seems to be one horrendous problem - all the graphics are out of scale, badly. The ballast thickness under the rails is literally as tall as the trains are, which makes everything look badly skewed. Except on trestles, where there isn't any ballast - so at each end of the trestle is a steep ramp to "get back up onto" the ballast! Bizarre.
Also, it looks like the trains are not to the same scale. Some of the bigger steam locos are twice as tall as the boxcars they are pulling, which looks ridiculous.
Last, it doesn't seem like they have matching traincars to locos. TG and patched TTD have this, so surely the designers know about it; but with the rest of the graphics so much improved, it really looks strange to have the A4 Gresley pulling 1840s vestibule cars.
We can hope they fix it, but right now TG looks like a much better game. The only thing that might be a little strange is, it looks like some of the locos don't have tenders, and they ought to. RT doesn't have this problem, and patched TTD doesn't anymore either.

spaceman-spiff · Post by **spaceman-spiff** » 06 Oct 2003 07:06

It seems to me that patched TTD will still be better

Look a this: http://www.railroadtycoon3.com/rt3/uk/s ... een015.jpg
That building is over the tracks, the last waggons are tilted, not vertical.
Yikes
No signals , how do they manage to avoid collisions: http://www.railroadtycoon3.com/rt3/uk/s ... een020.jpg

I would only buy it for the great wheather effects: clouds, rain, sun, moon (night), storms

TG on the other hands looks like TTD, but we have only seen straight trains, tracks, stations, very simple
I want to see the menus to work with, what options we have to maintain our vehicles
Also no inner city transport, only 90 degrees turns, no real heights
But graphically a masterpiece (this far)

I think I will buy TG because of it's TTD looks

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 06 Oct 2003 15:16

I read somewhere that TG has the same curve options TTD does - in increments of 45 degrees. That was the way the original RT worked and it was just fine. I don't see any signals there though either - it's the signals that made RT work, and that seems to have been forgotten. As long as TTD is the only game that allows signalling, it will remain the best.

I thought I saw some really tall mountains in TG, but maybe you aren't allowed to build on them. If Jo Wood has a lot of Austrian and German stuff in there you'd think she'd support building in the Alps for sure.

Arathorn · Post by **Arathorn** » 06 Oct 2003 15:37

TG will prolly have 90 degree curves (although the devs claim it's still being discussed). That's the one thing I really don't like about TG.
TG looks much better then RRT3. IMO RRT3 is crap, ugly graphics and no signals.

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 06 Oct 2003 15:54

1. Only 90 degree curves in TG? That's bizarre. How hard can it be to do 45s? RT original had them.

2. Are there signals in TG? If so I haven't seen them.

Arathorn · Post by **Arathorn** » 06 Oct 2003 16:15

Yes there are signals, check the screenshots page.

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 06 Oct 2003 16:21

I've looked at all the screenshots but didn't see any signals. They must be small. I did see they mentioned them in the forums.

I don't mind the existence of 90 degree curves, but if that's the only kind of curve you can do then the game is somewhat worthless. It's ridiculous. How hard can it be to have diagonal track, they already have all the 3D graphics of the trains that they need.

DominionSpy · Post by **DominionSpy** » 06 Oct 2003 18:35

krtaylor wrote:I've looked at all the screenshots but didn't see any signals. They must be small. I did see they mentioned them in the forums.

There is a screenshot with the title 'Signals'.
Below is a bigger version of the signals.

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 06 Oct 2003 19:41

So I see. They certainly don't stand out, do they.
I woder why they have two right in front of each other that way. Seems a little odd.

DominionSpy · Post by **DominionSpy** » 06 Oct 2003 22:55

That IS strange.

Maybe one is for outgoing trains and one is for incoming.
But it would be fairly silly to have trains going opposite ways on the same track (especially as there are two platforms).
Uh - I don't know.

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 06 Oct 2003 23:04

Well, I thought maybe there was one for each direction, TTD-style. But in that case, you'd have them on opposite sides of the track, wouldn't you? Must be confusing for the poor engineers. Well, maybe it's a graphics glitch that they'll fix later. It's really not all that bad compared to the GLARING, NAUSEATING, REPREHENSIBLE and RIDICULOUS 20-foot-tall ballast of RT3. Grrr, they must have no self-respect at all to even post screenshots of such a travesty.

DominionSpy · Post by **DominionSpy** » 06 Oct 2003 23:26

I've found an answer spread over a couple of forum threads on the official site.

Both these quotes are from Hans Schilcher of JoWood Ebensee.
Taken together I think they answer the question (why 2 signals?)

Hans Schilcher wrote:If you have any suggestions how to use those semaphore signals, let us know.
At this shot you see our try to keep it easy-to-understand even for newbies with absolutely no knowledge about signals. One signal is for one direction, the other one for the opposite direction.

Hans Schilcher wrote:If you want to use signals (and I would say that's much more interesting, of course), then you have to build them by yourself - except of stations, they always will have signals for every track.

I think he meant 'except for stations'.

So this means that they are for both ways, but the stations automatically have them - even if there is more than one track.

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 06 Oct 2003 23:59

Well then, my suggestions would be:

1. Choose a side of the track relative to an oncoming train that the signals ought to be on, then put them there. That's how TTD does it and it works well. If you have a signal that works in both directions, there ought to be semaphores (or lights) on both sides of the track, one each. Having two on the same side is just confusing.

2. I'm hoping that the signals can be bi-directional and also uni-directional. Compare TTO with TTD to see why this should be so.

3. Pay close attention to the way the TTD Patch pre-signals work and consider including something like that.

4. Have a more sophisticated "interchange routing" ability so that two trains can be in the same block of a major interchange, such as one leading into a station, as long as their routes don't collide as they go across the points. This follows standard practice, and solves bottleneck problems that are visible in large TTD terminal stations.

One thing I would be very curious to know, is if the developers have played Patched TTD and if so, what they think of it.

DominionSpy · Post by **DominionSpy** » 07 Oct 2003 09:23

krtaylor wrote:One thing I would be very curious to know, is if the developers have played Patched TTD and if so, what they think of it.

SHADOW-XIII has just posted onto one of those threads asking the team that very question.
Finally - someone who takes the initiative!
See the post

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 07 Oct 2003 14:44

Aha.

I have another question. If TG only supports 90 degree turns, which is bizarre, then how on earth do they do switches connecting paralell tracks. I mean, if you have a really wide station like they show in their screenshots, how do you connect the platform-tracks to the main line? They aren't far enough apart to fit two complete 90 degree turns in between. I have looked at all their screenshots and as far as I can tell I haven't seen any switches at all of this nature (or curves either, really) - everything is just dead-straight tracks.

Born Acorn · Post by **Born Acorn** » 01 Nov 2003 13:25

imagine the letter I

the two horizontal ines would be the two main lines

the vertical line would be the track switch.

Its crap, I know but hey, can't expect too much

Hans Schilcher · Post by **Hans Schilcher** » 01 Nov 2003 14:22

One suggestion: Let us continue the discussion about curves and switches when the first screenshot will show how they look like.

And now comes the bad part ... you'll need a good portion of patience 'til that screens will come

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 01 Nov 2003 14:45

That's a shame, I think it will be the key determinant whether TG becomes THE transport game, the worthy successor to TTD; or whether it is just crap. Everything else is so good but the switching and curves are a major element.

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 01 Nov 2003 14:47

I tried already the support (hotline),
(they aren't very informative

), will there any open interfaces for modding?

Ohh, and by the way TTD(Patch) supports really huge stations now too

Hans Schilcher · Post by **Hans Schilcher** » 01 Nov 2003 20:31

@krtaylor
Maybe it's a shame, but mainly it's marketing.
Just keep in mind, everybody is busy now with and talking about RT3 and Railroad Pioneer. So we can't get all the attention we want this time. To promote main features now would mean to weaken our marketing strength. That wouldn't be good for us, because we don't build on a big name like RT3.

And I didn't say "stop the discussion", I just meant "give a break"

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