Transport Fever?

[Taleric]

Has anyone tried transport fever yet? It looks like a great management game! Just worried about the price and system stability.

[jstu9]

Yeah, I will probably get it but I think I will wait a few months for fixes to be made and the price to come down. It does look good though.

[Taleric]

I broke down and got it ;)

Pro
-Beautiful building and vehicle models & effects
-Good stability even in late game
-The logistic system is very immersive with cars/wagons, ships, planes, trains
-Tons of micro adjust options to min/max your logistics line
-Challenging on med and hard

Con
-Beyond the budget balance going the towns don't really appear to "need" you
-You can just get by on trucks/wagons and maybe a boat. Trains and planes are not a must

I am going to bring these few cons up to the devs because if they can touch on them it will be an 8/10

[Gilberreke]

I really want it (I spent like hundreds of hours on TTD), but the Steam reviews are pretty negative, ranging from it having very limited features to bad performance to a ton of bugs (translation issues, sound issues, config issues, etc).

I don't like getting games to just try em out before refunding, so I'm a bit wary. I guess I'll go look at some review videos.

[Taleric]

Performance has been great so far. I will say there are some bugs but it is often trying to interface the logistics correctly (I skipped tutorial so mostly my fault).

I would say yeah wait but first sale grab it!

[Gilberreke]

I saw some Let's Plays, it does look like it's tons of fun. I'll have to give it a go.

[Taleric]

Another 8 hours of play, oh so very good!

The developers knew that if players could just max out resource pickup there would be piles of resources laying around, very boring.

Instead your part in the game is the middle man in the market. The resource nodes know if they are connected and will not distribute if they are not. Also their output is throttled to gradually grow if tapped out. The nodes essentially function like actual producers would focused on market forces and supply/demand.

This throttled node element (the same applies to passanger travel) creates a dynamic where you are constantly feeling out your network. Every adjustment to vehicle type, route, layout, performance, can have a huge impact on what the production nodes do. If your network seizes you could crush a node's output and have a huge setback to get it flowing again.

The towns grow organically fueled by your middle man supply! Late game your early network element are probably submerged in an urban jungle.

Still running very stable, I did however find on mac it crashes often (my other PC).

[Gilberreke]

So I got to play it for a few hours, it's good, it's really, REALLY good. The design of the game impresses me a lot. So far, it's the most promising game I've played in years.

[Taleric]

Sweet! Glad you were able to grab it :)

The vehicle and town models are just gorgeous beyond the great mechanics.

I run on normal speed frequently just to enjoy the details.

On my current run I just hit 1915 and have two towns connected by the latest passenger car upgrades and engine. Getting about $300k net off that. My real joy though is to have both towns supplied with food, construction materials and fuel up to "good" status. Needed a very robust layout just for those three resources with five different engines running around.

I can't wait to work on the remaining goods but they are the more complex factories :P

[jstu9]

Yeah I decided to grab it this weekend as well.

Started maybe 3-4 times and pretty much was going bankrupt each time. So I restarted. This latest time, I've started off pretty well. Now I know to start with passengers!

But I've been really enjoying it. My first world was laggy so I had to tone down the graphics but its been running fine for me since.

[Gilberreke]

Now I know to start with passengers!

I always start freight first. Truck spam is real.

Just make a line that goes: Oil Well <-> Town <-> Refinery, muchos dollars. Always make sure that you put the town as close as possible to the first resource, because you don't want to run empty trains, so the distance from final stop to first stop is really important.

[jstu9]

I always start freight first. Truck spam is real.

Just make a line that goes: Oil Well <-> Town <-> Refinery, muchos dollars. Always make sure that you put the town as close as possible to the first resource, because you don't want to run empty trains, so the distance from final stop to first stop is really important.

I've read comments from people that doing freight works well. When I did it, I went bankrupt but I'm sure I did it poorly. But passengers for me is the gold mine. Get 2 cities close to each other, plop a rail line down and have a train go back and forth. And make lots of money. Then I connected 2 other cities. Then added a a 3rd city to the original 2. Then I think I tried an oil-refinery combo and it makes money but it's not the cash cow passengers have been.

Now, I have all my cities connected with passengers. I'm now in the process of getting all the freight lines hooked up. I've had that fuel running for awhile and a stone quarry going for awhile and a food one. And just recently I've tried a ring road freighting food. Not sure the best way to carry goods. Not sure if it is best to have a ring where I end where I start. Or more like spokes, with lines radiating from the source.

[Gilberreke]

Oh you're doing rails? I don't even bother with rails the first 50 years, it's just too hard not to go bankrupt.

[jstu9]

Oh you're doing rails? I don't even bother with rails the first 50 years, it's just too hard not to go bankrupt.

Yeah, bankruptcy is easy in this game. When I built my first rail line, I found 2 cities that were close, flat terrain. Cheap train. (Also I'm playing on Medium which probably helps). Also, I put the stations near the residential area (which I have no idea if that helps or not but it seems like it would). Then tried to be careful when adding more passenger cars.

I pretty much only use trucks/buses to support the rail lines. They make some money but trains are where the money comes.

[Gilberreke]

Yeah, I think the profitable lines in the early game are passenger trains and truck lines. You want to support the stations with some buses, but not a lot, since they are hard to support. 3 carts bus line to support passenger train line and some truck lines doing the oil -> fuel -> town or grain/livestock -> food -> town.