Wondering what happens when SCS finishes all the roads of Europe and the America. Do they expand their "20:1 scale" map philosophy to a railway game? To be fair, they already have simplified rail assets and all the buildings and maps built to host a "train sim." They've worked out all the gameplay, physics and have a customer base that is very closely tied to railroad rimmers (The majority of gamers who play rail sims also play truck sims) It would just be a matter of linking up the rails on the existing maps and making the trains drivable. I say "just" it wouldn't be a small undertaking, but it wouldn't be from "scratch" either. It'd be a matter of using existing assets to "fill in" some bits of the map between the crossings/stations/etc in game. No need to work on the graphics engine, or the physics, or the gameplay, or the building assets. Just making some terrain pieces. Even industries exist on the map to go to and from, with an economic system they could port over with minor tweaks to load trains instead of trucks. Now it wouldn't appeal to the hard core simmers, but that's not what ATS/ETS aim for. Their audience are the "casuals" who don't want to 1:1 drive across the country in "real time." They don't need amazingly detailed physics or an "avatar" to walk around. They want to hop in the cab, start it up and go... then be in another city in a few minutes. It's more "sim lite." Which.... I think there's a market for. While not 1:1, it offers seamless transitions between map pieces in one complete "world" with a huge map (on scale) that lets you do those "coast to coast" moves in hours now days. The people with just an hour to play can put some real virtual miles between them, see new sights, and make actual deliveries (unlike say TSW) The simplified cabs of the trucks aren't overly simple and are scalable with physics (you can already change how much "sway" or the "suspension" of your truck for example) so players could customize the brakes, etc for their play style. I think the engine and interface behind the ATS/ETS games are very good, and if that same casual, customizable approach was made to trains they could hit a really nice niche to get more "casuals" into the rail sim genre. As such, that'd mean a huge audience which means lower costs. Instead of the usual $30-40 for a DLC map in TSW or TSC or Run 8 or Sim Rail, you could pick them up for CHEAP in "ARS/ERS" since they're already barely over $10 for a whole state NEW... and this new content would be majorly reused. Every train crossing on existing maps you can drive over can just be retained for the new game. All the trains. All the industries. Even the AI people and traffic and trains are already there. You don't have to make that stuff new. So if anything the state DLC would be even cheaper than existing ATS/ETS content. Plus, if used as part of the existing game (which already has multiplayer) you could have them run together. You could drive trains AND drive trucks on the same server. Maybe call it "American Transport Simulator" instead? You'd be able to see the "other side" of that railroad crossing you drove a truck across. You'd be able to drive the train that picked up your truck cargo and take it across the map. Just a thought.
It would be one way to satisfy the clamour we frequently see for long distance Amtrak routes or in the UK going all the way from London to Glasgow. Stations and yards at 1:1 ratio, town and city 5:1 and the bits in between ar 15:1.
