Two New Train Games

[Cliff]

Looks like there's a couple new train games coming down the pike. Railway Empire and Mashinky.
Quill18 did a review of them at YouTube.

Railway Empire - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMOaBn_gMBA

Mashinky - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj3zWhABrM8

I bought Mashinky when it first came out; screwed up and played with it for an hour too long to be able to get a refund. This game is mostly about keeping your trains from crashing; the rail system is clunky & the trains really don't obey the signals. By the time you get all your industries connected then your layout is pretty much a mess.

I bought the Beta of Railway Empire, and have played it for 30 hours or so. Reminds me very much of Sid's "Railroads!" Anyway, while working through the RE campaign (in which the scoring is flawed, last time I looked), I got nostalgic for Railroad Tycoon. So I installed RT3 on my new Windows 10 rig, dusted it off, got it working, and have completed the main campaign plus 6 or 7 of the built-in scenarios.

Don't know when I'll ever go back to try RE again.

[Gumboots]

Well that seems like a pretty good summary.

[Cash on Wheels]

Mashinky must play a lot like like Transport Fever trains do. My biggest issue with Transport Fever was the industries are scattered all over the map, instead of in cities like IRL, RRT & RE. So your end up with a spaghetti rail system. And don't get me started on how the industry up/downgrade system worked.
So let's get started how industry works in TF. All factories/mies/farms start with the ability to produce 100 units of lets say, Logs, and ship it to a lumber mill that make planks.(100) . If you feed the lumber mill well it will grow from 100 units a year to 200 then 400 & finally 800 is the Max. The same feeding logging camp will follow it step by step 100-200-400-800. Boring that you only need one mine for one factory. (unless it requires 2 inputs like steel). The real problem is, just like IRL there will be delays delivering your products. Trains may get tied up some where in your spaghetti RR, or get into a staring contest. Your ships are slow and don't carry enough to justify their speed. Trucks are most reliable but the can get stuck in traffic jams sometimes. So if there is any delay the factory and/or mine will start downgrade ASAP. And it takes forever to ramp up productions levels back to where they were. Plus the industries will not take much for storage. So setting a proper train length is pain because they are so $$$. If your train is set to wait for a Full load the factory might downgrade.Heck the mine your loading at might downgrade if your train is to long! Set to anyload & the 35 car(waggon) coal train could leave with 31 empty hoppers!

Now there is a mod that fixes this to more reasonable levels. Downgrades take longer and factories will store more, way more product. Plus the max units per year is 1600. But it does not fix the (1:1) ratio for mines to factory. (They will never Shutdown either!!!!!!) In RRT its always a different (3:1) or (1:2) etc. & any redundant building will die if it is starved to death!

I've gotten better of course. I now double track often, use long loop arounds for freight stations, don't put a FS on a though rail line! ever! I use the wait for full load with a time limit option. My passenger trains use multiple stops or a curricular path. Not one or two trains going back & forth between two stations!!!!!!! Plus I mastered the spur connection!

TF in a nutshell pros-

-beautiful models with many mods, maps to choose from!
-Perfect, realistic passenger system
-Run trains of any length & configuration.
-stable, not one CtD other than faultly mods.
-Trains are still workhorse & main focus of the game. Buses & trucks can be helpful. Planes & ships are just eye candy
-Trams!
-You can focus on just passenger movement. Some users maps have 'no industry option.'

Cons-
-Boring, messy industry system with limited cargos, No Paper! (~20, Mod bring it to 35 but it still wonky).
-Campaign is mostly point & click, in most scenarios you just runs trucks to win.
-Trains climb mountain grades with way too much ease.
-Trains Can't drop off cargo to picked up by another train. They can pick up cargo.

-You must move everything, other than people in their own cars.
Basicly u can't focus on just Coal & Iron for a while the steel mills. After the C&I gets there YOU need to ship the steel to the Tool & die, which could be in the middle of nowwhere. Then move the tools to towns. If anything in the chain fails, all steel/tool/coal/iron/slag chain will stop. (C above)

-All random generated maps are the same. One river though the map witch is ALWAYS at the height of 0. Mountains will rarely be in the way of anything relevant.

[Akarin]

The fact that Transport Fever cargo is so bad despite fixing the most glaring issue with Train Fever (that all industries produced a single cargo type) speaks volumes to how absolutely terrible cargo is in Train Fever. I really didn't want to upgrade to Transport Fever, but I didn't realize it was still so train focused. Maybe I'll give it a try in the future and get rid of Train Fever once and for all. The fact that the devs are still working on it and that the workshop is still active is promising.

[Cash on Wheels]

Get transport fever and put Train fever to the pasture. Now that I've changed the recipes for all of TpF's industry buildings that game is way more playable. So playable it is the only game I played last week! I remember in 2016 we had virtually no good train games to play other than RRT3! Now fast forward to today and the market is saturated!


Time to roast Railway Empire- No mod support + train game= short life. END

I wonder how much code was taken from Transport fever to develop Railway empire. The way the train behave, and in both games all water level is Zero. You can't have the Pacific ocean and the Great Salt Lake on same map.

[RulerofRails]

Now that I've changed the recipes for all of TpF's industry buildings that game is way more playable. So playable it is the only game I played last week!

If I see proof of strategic economic challenge I could be tempted to try it out. I concluded that the default setup didn't make the grade. Actually, comparing the default RT3 maps with the quality player created ones is IMO night and day. Although the economic complexity inherit in RT3's main design will, I believe, be hard to match through player efforts.

[Cash on Wheels]

Now that I've changed the recipes for all of TpF's industry buildings that game is way more playable. So playable it is the only game I played last week!

If I see proof of strategic economic challenge I could be tempted to try it out. I concluded that the default setup didn't make the grade. Actually, comparing the default RT3 maps with the quality player created ones is IMO night and day. Although the economic complexity inherit in RT3's main design will, I believe, be hard to match through player efforts.

I do not see a stock price mod, or economy crash mod on the horizon for TpF. TpF is all about tight bookkeeping. I love how RE tried to brand it self as a RRT3 spiritual successor . Yes some of RE is tycoonish, But to sum that game up I was playing RE with mute on (before the patch that allows you to mute just the AI) and I just bought 51% of the AI shares. I'm thinking "Okay time to send you home, so I turn my volume back up! wait! what? Oh you need 100% of their shares to buy them out!

Has anyone given Mashinky a chance? It is boring to watch on youtube but is it funner to play?

[Akarin]

I finally sat down to put Transport Fever to the test. I have to say I was very impressed with the new cargo system. I was leery about trying to start up industries whose suppliers were far away, but that wasn't an issue. And as I interconnected my network, I was taken aback when I started seeing cargo piling up in supposedly single use stations to be delivered to different cities. I am now scrambling to to turn single-cargo lines into mixed consists. I'm happy that demand is so powerful that it can bring cargo across multiple stations/lines/trains to reach it's destination. I could never do long distant cargo in Train Fever. This game is definitely a lot more enjoyable than Train Fever, but it still has its flaws and needed improvements.

-Like was said earlier, there is limited cargo, so you end up with many repeat and unused industries. The ratio of secondary to primary industries is way too great. Also said earlier, it should take more than one source to fuel a factory or plant. There's also industries placement, which I'll cover in the next point. The supply line still buggy though as a simply sending a train to the depot can crash production.

-Maps: the maps imo are really bad. There are some options when randomly generating maps (like European vs American, 3 hill levels, etc), but they don't do anything to make maps unique or fun. The terrain and environment looks nice, but with only two options to choose from it's very boring. There are no options to generate/change the generation of rivers or lakes, no options to configure city or industries count, no unique features like canyons or creeks, and every city and industry has a road connection. The placement of industries is just plain dumb too. Coal mines in the plains, farms right next to cities (where product has to be transported AWAY from cities to a food processing plant only to be shipped back), factories in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention they only generate at the start of the game and stay there forever. The scale is also really off, though you can offset this by enabling larger map sizes in the config file. Of course though at the cost of more random rivers and lakes, and an insane amount of cities and industries, most of which will got to waste. A big map with less cities would be welcomed. I havn't looked hard into mods or mapmaking, but I've only seen a limited number of American maps. The devs should either include maps or make map making a feature of the game.

- The "replace now" feature is probably the biggest improvement in the game. However, it would be nice to be able to replace or add specific parts of the consist instead of the whole train. Another improvement would be a depot that has multiple tracks.

-I'm still not impressed with the locomotive list. Even with mods, the American steam era feels lacking. Rolling stock and diesel-electrics are a different story, especially for us PRR fans. At least we have the K4s. The American side of the Workship is just lacking in general. The European side is almost 3 times as big.

- Another improvement would be an easy display for giving me the stats of a train as you make it. Like the average speed at that consist or if I'll need to doublehead. Also would be nice if the early steam engine models supported doubleheading.

-Multi-purpose stations. Even at some kind of cost or setting it to specific cargoes (like goods or produce) would got a long way to improving the game. This would make small stops and sidings feasible (instead of having to make two stations). I like the idea of general purpose depots where you can designate tracks/platforms as passenger or freight only that produce visual differences. Platform size should also have a purpose, specifically in regards to loading time. A train longer than the platform should have a loading/unloading penalty at least.

-I'm still not that found of track building. Automatically created connections are terrible (massive bridges and tunnels) and I'm terrible at keeping track perfectly straight when building in small actions. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a hot key for this though. But still, overpass construction building in the city is a nightmare. Also I really hate the modern bridges. I know there's a mod for that.

[Hawk]

-Like was said earlier, there is limited cargo, so you end up with many repeat and unused industries. The ratio of secondary to primary industries is way too great.

Why not create your own industrial complex with the 'Save game town and industry coordinate exporter/custom map creation assistant' mod?
With it, you can edit the details of a saved game, such as deleting and adding industries, and towns. I have a map that only has 6 industries on the whole map, and they're all resource industries. With the help of the 'Transport Fever Config Editor', you can turn on the ability to build your own industries, so on this map I have I just build the production industries I need and where I need them.
You can also create your own maps using any grayscale heightmaps you can find or create. The using the online map creator, you can add your own towns and industries wherever you want.

Also said earlier, it should take more than one source to fuel a factory or plant.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
-You have logs at the forest that go to a sawmill to be made into planks that then have to go to either a Goods factory, and along with either plastic or steel will be made into goods, or a Machine factory, and along with steel can be made into tools or machines.
-You have crude oil at the oil wells that has to go to an oil refinery that then makes fuel (which does go directly to a town) or oil, which then goes to a Chemical plant to be made into plastics.
-You have farms that produce cattle and grain that goes to a Food factory to produce food. Also, the grain can go to a Chemical plant to produce plastics (I still haven't figured that one out).
-There's a stone quarry that supplies stone for the Construction materials plant to make construction material products.
-You have to supply the steel mill with coal and iron ore to make steel, which can then be used at Machine factory or the Goods factory. The steel mill also produces slag that goes to a Construction materials plant to make Construction material products.

If that's not enough for you, there's some mods at the German and Russian TPF sites that can add more industrial products to the game.
Of course if you're a Steam user some or all of those might be available in the Workshop, but from what I understand you have to be careful using mods from the Steam Workshop because some modders pull the stuff from there which makes saved games no longer function.

There's also industries placement, which I'll cover in the next point. The supply line still buggy though as a simply sending a train to the depot can crash production.

The guy that did this video may help explain how that stuff actually works.

- The "replace now" feature is probably the biggest improvement in the game. However, it would be nice to be able to replace or add specific parts of the consist instead of the whole train.

You can, sort of. Above each engine and car is 3 symbols. One is an X which deletes that piece of rollingstock. You can then add back in what you want.

Another improvement would be a depot that has multiple tracks.

Mods!!! Check out the mods.

-I'm still not impressed with the locomotive list. Even with mods, the American steam era feels lacking. Rolling stock and diesel-electrics are a different story, especially for us PRR fans. At least we have the K4s. The American side of the Workshop is just lacking in general. The European side is almost 3 times as big.

This I can definitely agree with. Urban Games is a Swiss developer and it seems it has a strong European following. Not so much with an American following though.

- Another improvement would be an easy display for giving me the stats of a train as you make it. Like the average speed at that consist or if I'll need to doublehead.

You can get some basic info if you open the train window and click on the details tab as you're buying cars. The weight, length, value, running costs, power rating and loading speed changes as you add more cars, but I agree, a little more info would be nice but with what they give you can get a decent idea.

Also would be nice if the early steam engine models supported doubleheading.

You can.

Clipboard01.jpg

This shot also shows the X I mentioned earlier in this post.

Clipboard02.jpg

Just add the desired rollingstock on after you move the second engine up.

Clipboard03.jpg

Note that the game does recognize the additional engine and adjusts the power accordingly. Also, if you add the second engine after you add rollngstock, the engine will go at the end of the train. Unfortunately I can't say if the game will recognize it as additional power if it's at the end of the train. I haven't tried that.

-Multi-purpose stations. Even at some kind of cost or setting it to specific cargoes (like goods or produce) would got a long way to improving the game. This would make small stops and sidings feasible (instead of having to make two stations). I like the idea of general purpose depots where you can designate tracks/platforms as passenger or freight only that produce visual differences. Platform size should also have a purpose, specifically in regards to loading time. A train longer than the platform should have a loading/unloading penalty at least.

I agree here. I haven't seen any multi purpose stations in the mods, but it would be nice.
There is one mod that is a freight station for trains and trucks though. https://www.transportfever.net/filebase ... ersection/

-I'm still not that found of track building. Automatically created connections are terrible (massive bridges and tunnels) and I'm terrible at keeping track perfectly straight when building in small actions. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a hot key for this though. But still, overpass construction building in the city is a nightmare. Also I really hate the modern bridges. I know there's a mod for that.

Track laying can be a bit finicky (well, a pain in the butt really) but the more you do it, the more you learn how to better control it.

[Akarin]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

I'm referring to

Boring that you only need one mine for one factory.

What ends up happening is more secondary factories and mills than sources of raw material.

(I still haven't figured that one out).

Probably corn-based/biodegradable plastics. Why that supply chain (and plastic factories in general) are around in the 1800's are the issue though.

You can, sort of. Above each engine and car is 3 symbols. One is an X which deletes that piece of rollingstock. You can then add back in what you want.

I don't quite understand. That doesn't solve the issue of adding cars or upgrading rolling stock without replacing the entire train.

Mods!!! Check out the mods.

This is something I'd rather see in the base game. You can customize station size, I don't see why they never added depot options. I've yet to see any depot mods that have multiple tracks going in different directions either. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if the scale was bigger which can be solved by custom map making and editing, where you could make train yards with multiple depots without covering half the distance to the next city in the process.

You can.

You can, but the models still don't support it. Notice the gap between the two engines.

Of course if you're a Steam user some or all of those might be available in the Workshop, but from what I understand you have to be careful using mods from the Steam Workshop because some modders pull the stuff from there which makes saved games no longer function.

The Workshop is a really crappy modding system for any game that uses long term saves as opposed to games like MoW: AS2. This is the only real reason I haven't been using any game mechanic-changing mods so far. You can transfer the mods from the workshop to the game folder, but you have to change the folder names and know that they can't be updated automatically. I plan on doing this with my models once I finish my current game. Unfortunately the Transport Fever website isn't that great of a mod depository either imo and the lack of English-mods is a real bummer. You're more likely to find more English language mods in the workshop too. I'll have to give online map creator and Config Editor a try though.

Has anyone given the Flexible Train Stations mod a try? I'm always leery about using mods under continual development. It's good that they're being updated, but I'm worried about saved games breaking.