upgrading rail to monorail and monorail to maglev

[goldnugget]

Hello all,

I am new to this game and i like it!
but i have some troubles with the trains.

To go from regular rails to electric rails there is a button in the railsbuildingbar

But when i want to go from electric rail to monorail
or from monorail to maglev i have to destroy everything and rebuild it in the new type.
This is a hell of a job and very time consuming.

Is there any other way to do this?

thanks in advance.

[Phreeze]

hm..just go to the monorail menu and chose the convert tool ?

problem is: you cant just convert the trains like that, i guess you have to sell them all in the depot then convert then rebuy trains....

[planetmaker]

The "convert rail" button is available for every railtype: http://wiki.openttd.org/Convert_rail
But it doesn't mean that the vehicles will be able to run on the different railtype.

[goldnugget]

i feel so dumb now.... i completely missed the convert button.

Thank you all for such speedy response.

The trains have to be changed at the depots indeed.

[Alberth]

Don't destroy and rebuild exactly what you already have, that's no fun.

Instead, expand the network (faster train, you can build longer routes) with new tracks. At some point in time, the new tracks make the existing (old) tracks obsolete. At that point, you can remove the old tracks.

Note: Playing with a train newgrf set that doesn't force you into switching railtype helps a lot here.

[goldnugget]

Thanks for your reply Alberth, but as i mentioned, i am totally new to this game what is a newgrf?

[Alberth]

Oh boy, you have a world to explore!!!

A NewGRF is a game extension that you can load before starting a game. It can change almost everything. One of the simplest is having different town names, but there are also loads of newgrfs that give you different trains, ships, roadvehicles (RVs), or planes.

They can also change the industries, and last but not least, add eye-candy graphics.

General introduction how to use/install them http://wiki.openttd.org/NewGRF
Big collection of newgrfs, although many of them are available with in-game download as well http://grfcrawler.tt-forums.net/

[goldnugget]

i see! there is indeed a world to explore!
nice! i am quite fond of this game, but now even more!

is there a term for OpenTTD addicts?

[Yajna]

As others have already noted, converting rail type is a snap with the convert/upgrade rail button. Converting your trains to the new track type however, is a much more involved process. Depending on your play style you may find that part of the conversion rather more or less enjoyable than you'd hoped. If you find after time, as I did, that the conversion of tracks/trains induces appreciably less joy than you'd like, I recommend "Beul's Mono&Maglev conversion" which you can easily obtain via in game download.

[Baldy's Boss]

There is autoreplacement for trains within existing track type,and group depot orders.Would it be too hard to arrange a combined command?
A simple way to say "Send all these grouped Eurostars to depots,sell the whole trains as they arrive,when they are all off the tracks convert the line to maglev,and buy new Leviathans with the same train numbers,lengths,cargos,and orders"?
It would have to apply globally to all connected tracks,so someone with a thoroughly integrated network couldn't use it,but it would serve a purpose for some.

[Eddi]

that is very simple to do, just include the "universal railtype" GRF, then you can use the normal autoreplace feature.

[GooseToe]

My build style usually turns out to be one huge network of trains.

I had a version (not openttd) of TTD that had a feature that would convert all of a given network to a newer railtype and billed me for all of it at once. (Shift click would show the cost). The existing trains were converted to modified versions. So you could have Ginsu Steam engines running on monorail, but you couldn't buy new ones. When it came time to replace the engines, you bought what was supposed to be on the track.

It seems most of the solutions in this thread involve making it possible to use whatever train you want on any rail you want. Then it relies on the button that converts rail types. From what I can tell, the existing converter can only convert track that is on the screen. I can't fit all my track on the screen, not even close.

My current map is 64 x4096 and I have a single train network running about halfway across. I'd like to upgrade without using what feels like a cheat. But I don't want to blow it all up and rebuild it. Sections of it are 6 tracks wide to allow for passing trains.

I'm really hoping I just missed a button somewhere and it's already in here. I say that because SO many other things that were missing from the previous versions I played were in here. Things I didn't even think of, but now I need.

Great Job!

[Transportman]

It seems most of the solutions in this thread involve making it possible to use whatever train you want on any rail you want. Then it relies on the button that converts rail types. From what I can tell, the existing converter can only convert track that is on the screen. I can't fit all my track on the screen, not even close.

You can just drag it and move the screen around to select an even bigger area.

My current map is 64 x4096 and I have a single train network running about halfway across. I'd like to upgrade without using what feels like a cheat. But I don't want to blow it all up and rebuild it. Sections of it are 6 tracks wide to allow for passing trains.

The only way to upgrade (apart from NewGRFs with universal railtypes or modified vehicle properties to allow running on different tracks), is converting route by route, and sometimes doubling tracks because of incompatible types on the same route. Then slowly you will get there.

[Eddi]

From what I can tell, the existing converter can only convert track that is on the screen. I can't fit all my track on the screen, not even close.

you can open a second viewport with the [V] key, then you can drag from one end of the map to the other, no matter how small your screen is.