To me the essence of this game is designing a route network and then testing how it works by driving the trams yourself. As long as you don't encounter too many of the known bug issues I've found the experience quite satisfying having got to Level 33 in Career Mode. As you progress there is some interesting trial and error as although the map can show you where there is high passenger volume you don't know the capacity of different terminus stations and where other pinch points are until you drive around. For example I had the idea of building a 'campus network' around Universitat with the idea of having a line that connected the university with Hautbahnhof and then two other lines that terminated at Universitat for staff and students to take the tram (assuming they lived at stops around the North West of Tramau. Once I started driving this network this proved disastrous once you increase the service frequency as it was clear that Universitat is quite a small potential terminus that can only fit two trams at a time even if you reduce the pause time in the timetable. Eventually I settled on not having Universitat as a terminus at all and instead consolidating and extending what I'd built into just two lines that stop regularly at Universitat on the way to other destinations. For other termini just tweaking the pause times can make all the difference into building a quite impressive rapid transit system. In future it might be better if the passenger happiness score reflected where trams are getting delayed. On the other hand, as it's also a driving game you want to leave some things that are discovered by driving round yourself. Kind of like being an undercover boss on your network. In Career mode you start with quite limited resources so although it would ideally be more efficient to have a few lines that run similar to bus routes connecting up lots of places on one line with rapid service frequency, the cost of the line is so high you have nothing left to actually get trams to run on it. So you have to compromise and build things up and then adapt over time. I'm tempted to see what kind of mega network I could build up in sandbox mode. Has anyone found what they think is the ideal route design for keeping passengers happy while being a pleasure to drive?
All you really need to is monitor the heat spots then link them all together with as many trams as possible. Also, because the entire map never really seems to get overwhelmed with demand there's never any need to build a sprawling network because doing so doesn't seem to increase levels of popularity between various destinations. Maybe the system is broken, but I was kind of expecting a Transport Fever 2 style of growth (the more tram lines you put down, the more it will grow) but after reaching L29 I'm more of the impression that the city has a preset population that just randomly moves around the map, with your task being nothing more than deleting & redoing routes in order to compensate for those demand changes.
It's definitely no where near as sophisticated as Transport Fever! I think the game is going for a niche of trying to mix both types of simulation - design and driving - which is a niche that I don't think has been done much before. The trouble is trying to be do the two it risks satisfying neither type of gamer. I would agree that once you get between level 29-35 you hit a kind of plateau where it doesn't feel like there's much more to do. I've gone back to TSW this weekend. But will keep the game installed to see what they do in future. I am still curious though what the optimum number and length of routes is to connect up where the high passenger volume is.
It doesn't seem to matter. Passenger happiness just seems to be a combination of how modern your tram is, how many are running on a particular route and how efficiently you operate your chosen vehicle....two of which being linked to a very easy and pretty rapid XP level up system and the third involving basic driving skills. Personally, I think career mode gives things away far too cheaply because allowing the ability able to upgrade your tram and fully populate 2-3 hot spot routes with an instant 4-5 happiness rating in next to no time removes all elements of progression. Furthermore, the game even tells you the projected rating of a route once you've created it so it's simplicity in itself fine tuning it in order to fully optimize happiness levels without the need to experiment. I quite like the idea of a career mode because just driving a tram around a teeny tiny city is as boring as hell....but to have something as hopelessly over-simplified (almost to the point where it feels like it's been designed with ultra-casual gamers in mind) as what we currently have just makes it, well, as boring as hell.
I think it is the middle of everything. I'm currently at level 39. Each level progress is rewarded with achievement points, which can be planned for new routes. I have 10 lines with 60 Trains running every 5 minutes on all lines. At the end points I reduced the break times to the minimum, otherwise there would be long blockages. My network coverage is 100% after the 2nd planning attempt. You have to drive with great concentration in order to collect as many experience points as possible on each of your lines. From level 40 there is a new train type. There will probably be a route expansion up to level 50. There are still a lot of bugs hidden in the process. AI-trains, -cars and -pedestrians stops and do not move any further. Collisions that cannot be detected. Every now and then a system crash. I come from TSW. But this Game makes a lot of fun and looks very good. It's a shame that you can't go anywhere as a passenger.
