Hope it's okay to post this, as although transport not directly in competition with TS or TSW. Anyway I keep thinking about rebuying this, but get put off by the very dated looking graphics and the still quite steep price tag. ISTR last time I tried it, having problems getting the joypad to work and a not particularly mnemonic keyboard layout. I see there is a huge selection of maps and buses for it now including an extensive Yorkshire based map. So the $64k question then, is it worth buying particularly if it gets a decent discount in the seasonal sales? In the longer term, we need a better bus sim alongside our train sim(s) using up to date graphics etc. There's an idea for DTG R&D department!
This is a complicated one. Technically, OMSI 2 is a disaster. It is ugly, dated, stuttery unstable mess. My 5800x paired with 1080 runs it worse than TSW 2 (ultra + with increased visibility in engine.ini). The vehicle "AI" is terrible, brake checking you constantly when changing lanes, not repsecting traffic rules.. the only saving grace is that you can disable collisions in settings. The device mapping is also terrible (as you experienced), I have to run my Fanatec CSL Elite in CSW 2 compatiblity mode, because it wouldn't work otherwise, as omsi cannot handle 2 USB devices with the same name. And this is how it will stay forever, as is it no longer being updated (outside of DLCs of course). So, why do people keep playing it, creating free content for it, or buying DLCs? Because the only thing the OMSI 2 does well are the buses, and it does so better than any other title available now. It's the only game where I feel the weight and sluggishness of a city bus. This paired with great sounds, so as the bus struggles to accelerate it is squeaking and rattling, like an cheaply mantained box would. Going above 60kmh and you feel like the whole contraption is about to fall apart. Torque converter in these busses feel like a torque converter, the retarder feels and sounds like a bus retarder... Ofc, the modern busses in some of the DLCs aren't so "raw", but they still aren't the rockets you experience in titles lik Bus Simulator. Then there is the timetable, which is another thing OMSI 2 does superbly. You have full shifts with work order. That is bus starts in a depo, and then runs its shift. It can be a simple shift, on a single line, going back and forth. Or the line can have different routes, or the bus might even change lines, like a real bus driver work order would. This is paired with a working IBIS system, where you enter your line and route. It is also very open platform, and there are high quality buses and routes available (i.e. the previous version of Yorkshire is freeware - https://fellowsfilm.com/downloads/yorkshire-counties.1620/). So, is it worth? I honestly don't know. The historical low is 15€, which I feel is still too high to be askig for the base game, which is no longer developed, considering the technical disaster it is. But on the other hand...there is nothing better right now.... and it looks like there wont be for a while. My suggestion would be, watch some lets play (Squirrel played quite a bit in the past: ), and see if you can live with all the junk it comes with, and if you're willing to risk wasting 15-20€ on something the you will not enjoy in the end.
That’s a great summary Winzarten, thanks. I will see if it drops below £15 (for the UK) in any of the seasonal sales and give it one more go I think.
I've just been watching a couple of video clips of the Yorkshire 3.0 map. Looks great! So long as I can master the controls, definitely in for a look at that one.
It's a bit of a strange one OMSI 2. You need to look online how to use it, it's not user friendly of pretty, but once you are into it you have a great time. I wonder if The Bus will ever get to this level
TheBus will probably have some sort of 'helper mode' where ut will tell you step by step on how to set up the Bus
Well I am slowly getting the hang of it. Yorkshire map is very good and better to learn the game on as nearly everything is in English. However Stjin is right, without YouTube, getting started would have been a much longer process. Strangely I have found driving with the mouse easiest, controller support is pitiful as you can’t change any sensitivity settings on a gamepad or stick. KB is a bit clunky for my slightly neuropathic fingers.
I haven't played The Bus yet, but it looks interesting. The thing is, because it is based on unreal engine, I doubt it will be an open platform. Which is always shame in this kind of sim.
I just bought The Bus as well, so will report later. Obviously early access and TML, but you never know!
I've seen a lot of people say OMSI is incredibly unstable - if you're one of those people, can I ask if you have Bus Company Simulator? OMSI has ran beautifully for me pretty much forever - literally I've only had one or two CTDs in the past 5 years or so. I know a few people who own BCS and have no end of trouble with OMSI, one of them cannot now launch OMSI without BCS, even when it isn't installed.
I haven't bought BCS, yet. The only two add-ons I've purchased are the Yorkshire and London maps, with associated buses - both very good. I have only had one crash which was more everything just went white and I had to Ctrl-Alt-Del to kill the game. A couple of evenings ago, coming out of London with a 400 double decker on the No.3, it went bananas around Trafalgar Square, the bus just charged away out of control. I suspect the root cause of the problem is like most older games even if you have good hardware it just cannot take advantage of extra processing power or video capability and RAM. In fact, one of the first settings I changed was to enable single core only.
Ok, someone has piqued my interest in this because it has Yorkshire routes in it? Where is simulated and are there appropriate bus companies?
Yeah, don't is my advice Yeah OMSI is a 32-bit game, so can only use 2GB of RAM and VRAM, everything going white is simply it running out of memory. If you haven't already I recommend installing the 4GB patch onto it - most new maps really need it. Maps in general have been becoming much more detailed in recent years. While it does improve stability, I generally recommend against it because it absolutely murders the frame rate. However, if it works for you and still runs at an acceptible FPS then gg I guess If you have the RAM for it and OMSI isn't on an SSD, I recommend ticking the load whole map at start option, it drastically increases load times but makes the game run much smoother when loading new tiles.
It's not actually Yorkshire, but a fictional map inspired by Yorkshire. Version 3 is on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1599050/OMSI_2_Addon_Yorkshire_Counties/ Earlier versions (that don't include buses in the pack) are available for free: https://fellowsfilm.com/downloads/yorkshire-counties.1620/ The company/ies are Yorkshire Terrier (not the one that's now Stagecoach) and First.
Thanks for the tips, Cam. I had previously discovered the 4Gb patch and it has helped. Without single core ticked I was getting hex dump messages during the tutorials and I think it's the game itself that recommended it. Loading the whole map sounds like a good idea, will try next time I fire up London.
It does recommend it any time it closes unexpectedly (even through task manager). Like I say if it works for you then great, but I didn't find the tradeoff to be worth it.
