Railroader: An unbiased, and biased review, from a real Railroader.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- 3.6. Not great, not terrible.
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0:00 intro
01:03 Unbiased Review
05:43 Early Access concerns
07:36 Bugs & Dev concerns
11:22 Biased Review
17:44 The riveting gameplay of running on the main
22:47 What did they want this game to be?
32:19 Model Railroader: Should you buy it?
34:30 Outro
![[SFS] This is a boxcar that ruined our week.](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/F-Jb1L8ShrY/mqdefault.jpg)
![[SFS] This is a boxcar that ruined our week.](/img/tr.png)
![[SFS] The time I told someone to BREAK a train, instead of FIX it... | Stories from the Shop](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XUa0GHqHgyU/mqdefault.jpg)
I really appreciate this review, you've played it for what? At least 15 hours at this point? Not a lot of games get that kind of play time put in to them, let alone that time before a review is made. I think you pointed out some things that weren't quite what the community was expecting; personally I had no idea that the game would play much more like a management simulator.
I like management sims and trains so I know I'll still enjoy it for that, but it's not quite the experience closer to DV in first person simulation that I personally was expecting. I have high hopes for this game getting better over time, and I am taking notes and lessons learned from this game, just like many other indie games, it's important to learn and adapt.
I wish the Railroader Team the best, and I'll be picking this game up to enjoy with friends soon :)
fr, the way everyone hyped it up sounded like it was gonna be the best parts of derail valley, railroads online and run8 combined into a transition era dream. idk if its the devs doing or just the communities but yea, i could see myself still enjoying it especially once i get the ctc panel cause i do like management games and switching yea its def not what alot of people were seemingly expecting. still seems to have alot of potential tho
Having two try-cocks in line with each other is like in an FPS game where your rifle's fire selector has positions for safe, semi and burst, but it's set to safe and your rifle actually shoots full-auto...
Lmao
On another note, I've numerous, up to 12 hours operating trains at 5-10 MPH, ground is soft where we operate. It is the most boring and mentally taxing thing I've done at work. 4,000+ HP locomotives do not want to stay at 10 MPH. Even with slow speed control or "energy management" (cruise control) it is still taxing. I do actually appreciate the long runs.
Just curious, why would you need to operate a train at such low speeds for so long?
@@MegaFPVFlyer we operate over soft grade and sub-grade. It moves, sometimes daily.
I take this review at face value and hope it's indicative of what S346 has to offer. I trust that as critical as he is of this and other sims, he also sets the bar high for his own team to push the envelope.
When Century of Steam comes out, you better hold yourself to the standards you’ve set forth in these reviews. If it works half as good in early access and comes out in a reasonable amount of time, I’ll tip my hat to you.
We are trying our hardest. I'd hope someone would rip me apart if we released CoS and it does as many bizarre things.
@@Hyce777I gotcha bro
@@Hyce777ill be honest as usual
Hey Mark, thanks for offering legitimate feedback. I feel like too many indi games these days that are trying to overcome development hell and properly get full release get improper thoughts. Either you get the yes men who won't ever say anything bad about the game ever (most likely because they put money behind it) and you will get the critics that just review bomb it due to not being at AAA quality and feature level. You took a nice and balanced approach, both trying to remain unbiased and then giving your biased thoughts while of course making your own game. I plan on giving my thoughts as well tomorrow from a neutral standpoint (though I know very little about trains in real life, so pinch of salt right?).
That being said, I will give credit to Adam and his team. They are making this project part time while still working their day jobs trying to, well, eat. Adam and Connor especially have been very responsive and do seem like they care about their community and their game. I posted my thoughts after watching the massive amount of pre-release footage and had several concerns, most of which you shared in the video. Things like poor train driving simulation (I grew up on Trainz and such so I am used to the model railroad feel, but derail valley has completely changed my perspective), bad chuff sfx, and some detail stuff. After posting my message, a bunch of the community responded with their own thoughts to my comment, of course, but Adam actually responded to me personally about 5-10 minutes after. He took my feedback and said that he either is currently working on fixing the items in the list I gave or has some plans down the line for it. The chuff sfx, for example, said is currently undergoing revisions but has taken a backseat to trying to get the game out into early access atm. Not many devs are this responsive in my experience so props to him.
Will see for myself tomorrow how the game is.
I genuinely appreciate the dev team. I know these things, all too well. Props to Adam and Co for sure. I hope they fix the things they can. I felt I needed to honestly review the game for the way it is right now; but that is not a reflection of the people making it.
Come to think of it, development hell is the ONLY thing to be worried about CoS. But then again, Mark and the team over there are surly very aware of that lol. I know there can be a fine line between perfection and production, and its not always easy to juggle
As long as the dev team listens to the community (not necessarily angry bird sounds lol) and uses criticisms to make legitimate improvement to QoL and gameplay, it'll be a fantastic game. While i get theres a market for hardcore train nerds who want things like animated valve gear and heartbeat in the sightglass this just isnt going to be the game for that, theres games like DV and eventually CoS that are going to give the "i want to run the choochoo like a real choochoo" feeling but I'm fine with "let me run and expand this railroad and play with the choochoos some"
If anything i heard this game is compared more to run8 and railroad tycoon so theirs that
It feels like they need "kerbal alarm clock" so you can set a train running with ai to a station and have a status list of where all your ai trains are while you do switching, loading and short runs.
Or in other words, what Microprose managed 33 years ago on PCs with specs similar to a half decent modern graphing calculator, in the form of RT's train orders which included a "wait" option you could set at one of the station stops, and the train wouldn't go further until you manually cleared it. (And signals that could be turned to a "hold", or "proceed with caution" setting instead of the usual auto, affecting all trains heading that direction or just the next one to arrive respectively)
And it had to do that whilst dynamically pathing trains along player laid track to player-built stations that could be anywhere on the network compared to each other. The station positions are already set in the game because you have to spot the cars there, so the AI could totally be told to just go there, halt such that the relevant car(s) were spotted (with maybe a little bit of sanity checking of maximum separation in the consist vs the station length), and await further orders.
In fact it also dealt with the reporting of positions and stops thing as well, and somewhat the "when will the cars be ready" thing (though you couldn't just uncouple them from a loco and come back later, if they didn't have an engine then they flat out vanished). There was a little tickertape thing in an upper corner that would report trains reaching stations and the revenue earned etc, as well as priority delivery bonus countdowns and pickups/deliveries, with a little bell notification sound. So if you were waiting for a particular train to arrive somewhere you'd know about it... well, so long as the ADHD hyperfocus hadn't kicked in and the dings and tickers became like an alarm clock to be tuned out... oops.
tl;dr there's a lot of similarities at the middle level between Railroader and that much much older game and they could maybe benefit from going back and playing some of the genre classics to see what ideas they're missing and just how long some of them have been around and how little computation and memory it would take to track and take care of them (which should also reduce the coding burden). Like even if MP had a patent on some of the mechanics, it'd have expired by now.
Edit: oh and of course, you can't do any track building, so that should make it easier (dunno if i already said that), but, switching yards and switchback track aside, i think I've made RRT networks more complex than the fully expanded Railroader one, built from nothing, and a system with about as much power and memory as a VTech toy laptop was still able to keep track of it and automagically route and drive trains to their set station stops (ie automatically set switches as well as driving the loco and handwave the coupling) including at least one occasion where i made a loop arrangement about a hundred miles wide around a mountain, set signals, deal with single vs double track, train priority down to cargo level within the same service class, so on and so forth... (yes, i did have it installed on a 640kb 286 at one point, though i usually used something with at least a little more computrons... Not necessary however and i know it and a lot of old MP games would be happy on a 68000 with half a meg and no hard drive at all)
Of course it's probably still a complex matter when it comes to writing the actual code, but... It's demonstrated as a hill that's by no means impossible to climb, and certainly doesn't need advanced AI models and the associated hardware requirements. It's very programmatic, and if there's an irresolvable conflict at any point the CPU can just bring the affected trains to a halt and page the player(s), as it already does for much more basic stuff. Or perhaps there can be a setting for the likelihood of an "accidental" Kenosha as a result, similar to the "AI" ignoring a fusee and crashing into a siding off-camera during Hyce's current career run...
Oh and those RRT trains did sometimes take a looooooong time to reach their destinations, and certainly if you over extended yourself in the early game and couldn't accelerate time enough (which it looks like you can't do *at all* here, not in the real sense rather than just skipping the clock forward to make things load or unload faster?!) those one or two early, slow as heck trains would get quite boring to watch as they crawled their way between stations. But once you got a significant number of routes going with a couple of dedicated trains each, a mix of freight and passenger, plus the various little locals picking up all kinds of mixed consists and the random fast but weak engines scattered around to take on short deadline special deliveries when they couldn't be lumped on the end of an existing service... It got pretty hectic even at minimum speed and you might have to pause a lot just to keep track of things. Even if that meant some trains might take half an hour or more IRL to get from one end of their run to the other. Of course that minimum speed still scaled the actual running speed and passage of time up quite a bit even so, thus 1:1 realtime in railroader wouldn't be as challenging, but then again the distances were a lot greater for any serious network in RRT, the months flew by quicker than individual days here, and each visible, controllable train was kind of taken to represent several real ones, and each run representing several cycles of the same, so it probably evens out about the same. Plus of course there's all the manual switching to be done...
(one thing i think that would help with THAT also is having an option for AI yard ops that moves the loco or train up to the next obstruction and stops - be that a buffer, opposing switch/signal, or another vehicle on the track - and optionally couples to it (with/without air) and releases the handbrakes, or uncouples from/sets brakes on all or some of the train and pulls a minimal distance free from it before stopping. That would seem to make a lot more sense and be more useful for largely unsupervised shunting and train building ops than just having a rather limited number of car lengths it can be told to move rather blindly. Really even with that you have to baby it quite a lot, and may as well be running manually. At least if you could set a line of switches then tell an AI engineer "back up as far as you can, then couple into whatever's in the way / drop off this many cars and wait for further instruction", that'd adaptively carry out two or three steps of a process without drama and it wouldn't matter if you issued that order from right next to the stopping point, or right up the other end of the line (or at least the other end of a yard, perhaps it would still more sensibly be bound by yard limits, and ok to enter a zone from the road outside but not leave it, and never exceed 10-15mph... Still be useful for a short run from one station into a siding at the next however, whilst you dealt with ops elsewhere)
i think also what makes Derail valley so good is the map is designed to be a challenge, pulling out of harbour, knowing the track and grade changes makes a big difference to success......if railroader had a map that was made of some of legendary tough and crazy railroad sections you mention at some point Hyce, when playing steam and steel with Khan, it would more interesting if town, line or region names held some significance and if they improve the train simulator and handling side of the game too.
The map is historically significant. The Murphy branch of the former southern railway is where Railroader’s map is built from. Personally, I find that to be a positive thing. Though it may lack operating challenges you were hoping for, yes.
Appalachia is a interesting region to run trains in. I know they could pick a different set of tracks to have picked a different area to use, but the winding valleys and hollers of an easy area can be interesting.
For me the map in DV ist the worst part of the game, kinda hate it^^
I appreciate the bias + non bias review, I feel like that kind of stuff really needs to be done more
Can’t wait to play this game tomorrow! It’s the beginning of the end for the one that shall not be named…
In all seriousness I can’t wait to see the playthrough of this and all the shenanigans and Kenoshas that come with it!
*RO*
Update why am I being swatted
Hm... which other one? It didn't happen to be an online experience of railroads, did it?
Soon. Sooner than you'd think.
Eh even if Railroader even after just a few updates gets to be better quality (and more consistent roadmap wise) I think I honestly prefer Railroads Online gameplay wise, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
For other people Railroader is a fun management puzzle, for me it's a complex amount of stuff I have to remember, when all I want is to drive trains with some progression.
Century of Steam I think will be the ultimate in what I want, but by then, RO will have had ample time in the sun, and I'm uncertain the devs there will care too much. Even then there will still be people who like a more casual experience, without realistic running or operations.
@@OfficialDenverRioGrandeWestern Is there a story behind the swatting comment? That would be alarming
On the one hand, it sounds like rro if rro had a progression system, but on the other, I had hoped for more. I can live with the sounds and the scenery, but im not feeling the lack of sim. I feel like you could mod derail valley to emulate what this game is offering, and have more fun
Me: Wants to hit the hay, it's already 6 **bleeping** am after all!
Hyce:
XD
There were a large amount of people convinced this was going to be the RRO killer. They're not even trying to be the same type of game, and really aren't comparable. I'm not surprised that Railroader is what it is, I'm more surprised at what it's not. I'll stick to RRO and Derail Valley. I thoroughly enjoy having to design my own track systems and build up my economy via RRO (which will hopefully become more complex and involved at some point,) but you can't beat DV's simulation. If only those two could just have a baby.
I'm tired of railroad games where I have to build everything. RRO isn't it for me.
Honestly, this looks like it'll destroy RRO already simply because the netcode looks stable. RRO's netcode is utter garbage, it's just too risky to run trains with more than 8 wagons in multiplayer because the netcode will cause it to derail on a perfectly straight piece of track and launch stuff into space...
I played a game of RRO last night with 2 friends, the connections were fast but the wagons on our trains were just dancing around everywhere, even on small trains of 3-4 wagons.
No sign of that at all in the Railroader videos...
RRO is fun when it works but most of the time it's been really stressful to just keep my damn train on the tracks now that railroader is out i can finally dump RRO
@@GarrusN7then get pprepade maps on rro. The devs encourage it as an option and pinned alot of.missinformation abojt the game going around
@@killakanzgamingi just ran a 20 car train with a pusher and puller configuration
Sounds fun, not enough games let you play dispatcher and manage the logistics side of railroading. Seems more like something more in the vein of Trainz than a real simulator. Personally I really loved doing waybills and switch lists when I was a kid and had a 4X8 partly finished HO layout. Will have to keep an eye on this game hoping they get more advanced AI engineers.
Edit: Railroad game devs could learn a thing or two from American Truck Simulator and the way it manages to compress long distances and keep things interesting.
It's kinda like what I had in my mind back playing the original Railroad Tycoon years ago. All the stuff that actually happened at the stations was obscured and really rather annoying in how you could never be sure how to best set up your consists and change them out at the various stops to minimise both the dwell time and how much it would cost to do so, other than dumping loads of money into buying various station upgrades. If had even shown things happening such as they do here, let alone letting you take control of the process (simply on a TrainTown level, even), it would have been easier to understand a bit more satisfying to deal with.
But then that was running on much, MUCH lower spec machinery (my entry level fitbit has more processing power, possibly even more pixels), and part of the challenge was keeping your wider-FOV logistics working efficiently once you had a dozen or more trains all fighting for space, as well as choosing where to build track to the industries (...of which there were still many more than in, say, RR!O, both in number and variety) and the route it would take. I guess Railroader sacrifices the latter part in favour of concentrating on the other two components.
And indeed as mentioned on the multiplayer video with kAn, it would be very interesting to see how things play out here once you also get up to that level of operational complexity, especially with a mix of AI and several human players, and having to fit it into trackage that's essentially as if you've run out of liquid cash in RT, so you can't build any extra doubletrack or bypass track etc...
Thank you for your review(s)... good work. I also noticed the lighting is really quite flat and "muddy". The lightest white, even in mid-day, is just a light shade of grey (32:40 for example). I think increasing the contrast levels, increasing the mid tones, and making the whites "whiter", would help the "look" for me.
I must be honest, as a Train Driver, sometimes in real life, there isn't much to see/do - especially in tunnels lol. There are sections that need intense concentration and others that still need concentration but not to as high a degree.
I would like to see in sims that the physics improve (example it is more challenging to drive in wet weather as opposed to dry - and I don't just mean wheel slip, I mean bringing the train under control for the stop), a train of tank cars is also more challenging compared to containers, etc. Heck, even the simulator we had at work did not get everything right, much better to drive the real deal as you can feel what's happening.
It looks like a good game to me and I think I will get it. I hope the devs take what you say into account because your points are valid and I understand where you are coming from in terms of placement of parts/parts mission and settings etc.
I think it shows promise as long as development stays on track. It’s not in a position where it seems like it would never finish, but at the same time, there are some things that definitely need work, mainly the chuffs, it goes from sounding really poor, to the train suddenly doing 35mph when it’s doing 10.
I don't even really get what's so complicated about it... you already have the chuff sample, you have code for animating the wheels as they go around, just trigger the former off the latter as it reaches the correct point of each quarter-turn, even at high speed. If it's a matter of too many simultaneous sounds or whatever, switch to a shorter sample or just cut the playback off progressively earlier once you have maybe eight of them overlapping at once and nobody will be any the wiser. (And if a modern PC has difficulty playing 8x monoaural CD quality waves at once, something's gone badly wrong)
And in fact the CoS demo showed you can do it just fine. And the latest versions of Railroader are partway there... At low speeds. Then transition to rather odd loops of trains running faster with a fair degree of cutoff with no variation in speed other than to switch to a new sample of a higher speed train a couple times?! (like i think at 11, 22 and 44mph or so?)
Bit weird, why not just do the same thing at high speed as low, and use that additional memory and work to merge between samples for chuffs at different levels of cutoff? Surely someone out there can agree to run a loco slowly back and forwards half a dozen times with the bar in different positions with an X4 audio recorder sitting on the buffer beam, cocks closed and compressor/dynamo turned off, to get clean versions of those sounds?
Then again, that same CoS demo made me wonder if what Hyce... sorry, what Mark has done ;) is just cut a fully-open sample short with a hard attenuation filter. Some of the sounds seem pretty... Clipped? Cropped? I'm not sure of the right word. Kinda like they're from an old SNES or Amiga game. Trimmed real short to save memory and hide the noise and aliasing from being 8-bit (or sampled from tape) and very low frequency... But that also means basically no attack period, short sustain (as its not a loop-sustain "instrument") and a very truncated decay/release, which itself isn't being compensated for by hardware reverb like on the SNES or PlayStation. Very very "dry" sound, which may be intentional, but it's not being filled back out by environmental reflection effects.
Whereas i might have thought the cutoff would alter the sound in other ways due to the lower pressure when the exhaust valve opens. Not just shorter but quieter and softer, less of a sudden plosive shockwave and more of a gentle, hissing puff, eliding into something like a constant low hiss when running at speed...
Love you, buddy. I always appreciate your passion - your passion for people, railroading, portraying that in a game, and for life in general. It was great to see you give an unbiased side where you talk about the actual scope of the game, what was done well, QOL, and what the Devs have done. Doing that before your biased portion was awesome because it addresses flavor for the general public. Then when you actually get to an old-head's perspective (I'm calling you an old-head because of your experience in the industry and your bountiful knowledge), it ALL makes sense. Aaaand you have put in a huge amount of time to the game.
You have provided a perspective not addressed by other gamers/youtubers. You are opinionated, and deserve to be, while also remaining kind. I think the Devs will appreciate it. I hope you continue to put in more time as patches, fixes, and additional releases come out.
You are an amazing human. Never stop being your authentic self.
Billy R.
So, i can, perhaps understand the weird car unloading thing brought up with it taking days. But this may be something brough over from modern railroad operations. The plastic plant i work at sends and receives goods by rail all the time. But, it usually ends up as, CSX drops off our full cars. We pull from them slowly, or load into them with on site shunters and such. Then they get hauled off by CSX again after like, a week or more. So, yeah, it's pretty realistic, but in this day and age, perhaps not for what time period they may be trying to represent here, and it's as you say, not the best in terms of gameplay for um... short term gratification i suppose.
As for being a scenery simulator. I can certainly agree. They did a good job in making it realistic of the area, using real life heightmap data to model and simulate the distance and geography. it's just that the distance and geography while acurate, is probably just as boring in game as it is in real life.
When CSX drops off the full cars I assume they take the cars from last time with them? That would require a second rail at each industry, which Railroader doesn't have
@@bene5431 No, usually they drop off some cars at our siding, we do stuff with them, then they come pick them up, and then a few more days pass and they drop off more. I don't know all the specifics, I'm just a security guard there. But, i see the 5 or 6 cars sitting there and moved around a for about a week, then it's empty for a few days, then new cars show up.
The problem I have with the "It's a model railroad!" take is that ALL train sims are more or less model railroad "lets look at digital scenery" sims to some extent. There is really no way around that. Are there ways to mitigate it? Yeah, but if you aren't ok sitting there watching some amount of pixels roll by, then you need to find a different genre of game, unless all you want are switching puzzles.
I do agree about the models, the whistles, and the single-player career progression though. $60 for a carload of widgets is pretty insulting, considering the prices of anything more exciting than the starter locomotives.
And absolutely, they have to do something with the brakes. I went to turn off "simple mode" only to realize "oh...this...this is it...this is supposed to be the 'real' mode...huh..."
That said, I can certainly excuse it in early access. It IS fun right out of the box. It scratches a particular itch, and reminds me of a lot of spots near my home town. Considering what you get with the likes of TrainSim world, I think this is MILES ahead of that in terms of gameplay, especially for the price.
Finally, worth noting, it is nowhere NEAR as frustrating, as buggy, or as grindy as another online railroads game that will remain nameless here!
Railroader is mpre grind
@@quarreneverett4767 Yeah, but it's not "lets sit here as we load each car in a 50 car train INDIVIDUALLY for 45 minutes" grindy. Railroader is just not nearly as frustrating to play as a certain other game. For moments that are grindy, you have the console, and you can fudge your way around the bits that you find less fun. Railroader is really well thought out in terms of actual gameplay.
A very good review, I like how you did it you two sections to show both sides. Definitely still will be buying the game, Look forward to helping the dev team Improve the game and expand it forth with.
I normally find Hyce a bit super-dooper foamerish, however, in this specific review, Hyce is spot on. I have been in the industry for over 20 years and have performed just about every craft. There are things in train games/simulations that just make my OCD attach my ADHD.
The sound of many train simulators drives me nuts, hopefully they get the whistles fixed in railroads online. I also noticed there is not much of the period markings on the cars, such as weight and size info. I also don't get how the controls are set up in game.
Thank you for your review Hyce, well done.
To be honest I was having the thought at the end of "if you DON'T have an A(u?)DHD person with a railway SpIn reviewing / QCing your train game, with them granted license to absolutely rip it to shreds over any inaccuracy, UI difficulty or parts that seem boring *even to them*, then what are you even doing?". I suppose OCD maybe should have been in there as well, though the latest research seems to suggest it's actually a particular autistic profile (...which I'd say, eheh, tracks).
Ergo they basically got a bunch of that selfsame playtester work out of Hyce for free by giving him the early access key ;-)
(I'm not meaning to diagnose anyone with anything beyond what they have already said themselves, but let's just say I wouldn't be surprised, and there's been enough jokes about such in the 3/4 show and the livestreams where they and other hycefriends have joined in ... that and "very detail-oriented person" is a sarcastic appropriation of some well-meaning neurotypical's over-earnest and yet somehow also incredibly stereotypical euphemism if ever I heard one)
@@tahrey I feel like you are saying something without saying something, bud.
My take on sounds are, they don’t have to be perfect as long as they’re not so jarring as to completely rip my attention away from whatever I’m doing and go “wtf was that”, which unfortunately is the state Railroader finds itself in at present.
@@trailingrails9953 I cut my teeth running SD7/9's and an Alco C420, the sounds they made told you a lot about what you were doing, what the train was doing and what was about to happen.
Simulators/games don't do that justice.
As to railroader, I enjoy watching Hyce and several other channels play. Then I can just watch what is going on and not be frustrated.
@@DL541 thank you, it's nice to have an attempt at deliberate subtext actually work for once.
Hyce sets off my scope in various ways, but good and positive ones, and has all but admitted what brain profile he is already, but going any further than my musing is for him to do, or not to do.
In any case, for something like this, very definitely being a hyperfocusing, special interest driven, hyper/impulsive detail oriented person with copious personal experience in many of the directly relevant areas is a huge playtesting superpower (and i don't use the s-word lightly as it's more often used to try and dismiss people's difficulties) and i wonder if they might have tried to get him on the payroll for that if he wasn't technically part of a competing team.
The game sometimes feels like a group project that everyone was assigned 2 parts, and there was somebody watching to make sure everyone did their own. This lead to parts being perfect, while others got passing grade.
This type of feedback is crucial when it comes to making a product that's worthwhile. I completely share your "Overly nit-picky steam train issues", and do so severely wish that there was at least a BIT more thought put into the sim aspect of this. Even though this isn't the aim for this type of experience. Something I did want to harp on, the whole "Why did you put this in if it doesn't do anything" bit, this has bugged me for YEARS with train games. Especially DTG's releases. So many times am I poking around in the cab of a steam- or hell even a diesel locomotive trying handles and valves just to find out that they don't do anything whatsoever. I'm completely fine with taking accuracy away from the final model if you don't have the care to simulate certain aspects of simulating a locomotive, because then that shows that SOME thought was put into it. Speaking of, I really hope this philosophy of "Why put it in the game if It doesn't do anything" Is carried over to Century of Steam. The simulation in that game already is really good, (even when a ton of it hasn't been implemented yet). *Especially* for it being just the foundation. Most games don't even bother to have features in the final build that COS has even before pre alpha. However I do hope that the curse of "What the hell does this valve do?" gets remedied in that game, *for the most part*. But to reiterate, feedback like this for games like these is substantially important to game devs. I hope in the future you continue to give unbiased and unfiltered commentary on these things, that's a big aspect that's lost in today's discussion.
Excellent review, I would certainly agree with your point of view. However, as you very well know, train games on PC are a niche. I will purchase railroader because they are breaking into a new side of train games that hasn’t quite been seen yet. I love derail valley and do still love railroads online if I’m being honest. I’ll happily play railroader for hundreds of hours. And I will buy century of steam. With those 4 games, the train sim world will change forever.
I appreciate both your unbiased and biased reviews. Looks like a fun game that I would enjoy. As a yardman myself, I like the idea of the switching operations and local/industry jobs you can work. I can see where running the main would be boring. As it can be irl lol. Would like to see them work on train handling physics where you would deal with buff and draft forces. Run in and run out. Trying to prevent your train from string lining, turning into an accordian or breaking in two. Of course with it being early access, I imagine that'll be one of the mechanics they work on as well as other game play mechanics and scenery updates. Looking forward to playing game and seeing the progression of the game as adam and his development team update it.
Yup, can confirm that I am still very excited for this game!
I agree, I am in the market for a replacement for TrainZ's Coop multiplayer.
I want industries that work, gets product to make Y and then take Y to a new destination.
TrainZ had a partially working one, but their love of 56k modem speeds (Download station) to get a fixed version of their default map, sort of kills the coop enjoyment.
So I am fine with trainset controls, but with the Ai assist so you can actually focus on management and planning, which it did provide.
That is what I think Railroader should target rather than real running like "Railroads Online" where you are locked to one train in the vanilla game.
I could use Derail Valley as an example, but it lacks multiplayer, and that is a downside to it.
this will be one of the best Train Game for a long time!
I have now put 45+ hours into this game since buying it about 5 days ago, and it's been a LONG time since I've lost myself in a train game like this. This game made me realize what I've wanted in a train game for a so long, which is a game based more on operations and running a railroad instead of trying to make the game as realistic of a driving experience as possible. I do really like the fact that it's like running a model railroad, and I've had so much fun doing it! On top of all of this, I had JUST moved away from Sylva NC this summer, as I had just finished my undergrad there at WCU nearby. I am intimately familiar with both the area this railway takes place in, and the history of the Murphy Branch itself. I *cannot* wait to see all the towns get built up and have their models added, seeing the real places I'd lived in and visited for the last five years. It honestly does feel like a game tailor made for me, and it's made it all the better.
With it being early access, I've taken a lot of the bugs and things with a grain of salt because I know they will be worked out in the end (at least, I hope they will). Even though I've been a huge railfan my entire life, I've never been too caught up in the nitty-gritty details that were wrong such as the ones mentioned in this review. While it would be really cool to see the trains work exactly like they do in real life and provide that extra level of detail, it's not something that has really been a huge bother for me (though the chuffing and whistles do need some upgrades, can't argue with that at all).
I do wish the progression was a little faster in single player, as I'm now getting 22-30 cars in the interchange each morning with only two locos still. It can take HOURS just to take care of everything in one day, and you're still a few in-game days away from having enough money to buy a new passenger car, or a new loco, or to add signals to the line (which do need a huge overhaul, they're kinda meh at the moment). Yeah you can take out loans, but the constant interest hanging over your head can deter you from taking out any, adding more time spent before you can move along. I don't need to say anything about the bore that is mainline running, but again this game has mostly been about the operations, management, and switching operations for me anyway so it isn't a *huge* deal (but it would be nice to just drive the train and enjoy the scenery every once in awhile).
Overall, I do really love this game and can't wait to see how it gets better with time. After falling out of love with Railroads Online even after 160+ hours in it, it's nice to have another game that fills this niche I've been craving without it being (in my opinion) TOO into the details Like RO felt like to me. Railroader in its current state feels like a great game for people who like the operations side of things and stuff like switching, while being able to sacrifice the small details. Either way, great video and review, can't wait to see both where this game goes :3
Thank you @wflinner. I was wondering if the game was worth playing. And worth 30 bucks for EA? Love Hyce, and value his opinions but whistle sounds to me eh, I don't care. (I love all trains stuff) What I was looking for, and this doesn't have it either, was laying track. But that said, it looks like a fairly decent sim if you omit the picky stuff. I hope they listen to Hyce and fix some stuff. Is it maybe worth waiting for a more complete game? Or does the operations warrant the purchase?
Derail Valley I truly love but it's really, really, slow going, and I wish it had more switching and AI.
@@GaryParkin I'd say it's worth it if you really like the operations side of things! Now that we're a few weeks into the game being out (and I'm now at 110 hours), there's already been small bug-fixes and changes made based on community feedback. It feels like the developers are actually listening to their community, especially when it comes to the operations side of things. They also actively ask for feedback so that they can make these changes. That being said, it might be a loooooong time before the finished game comes out, so if you're still wary, I'd maybe wait a month or two to see if there's any changes made that you like and buy it then. But if you feel like you can really get into just operating and mostly switching, then I'd say it's worth it. Like Hyce mentioned, it feels like a puzzle game at times because of all the switching and making sure you get the cars to the right destination, and if that's your thing then I think it'd be worth an EA purchase!
@@wflinner That's enough for me. I'm going to go get it.
Kinda surprised that the UX didn't come up in the unbiased review here. Many of the very common controls require pressing Ctrl or Shift plus the key/click. Things as simple as selecting a train requires this. Jumping to another location requires this. The only way to buy new locomotives is with an obscure shift key combination. These controls are well documented in the in-game manual, but they're awkward. Why not just use a click or key to change these common operations directly, like you can with the horn?
Then there's the awkward train selection steps, which becomes super common in singleplayer when you have more than 2 trains. Say you have train 1 actively selected for control. You jump across the map, click a new train to get the box open, then start clicking to manage it. If you click "Manual" control mode... Train 2 will be in manual mode but you still have train 1 active in the UI. You may end up manipulating train 1 for a while, wondering why train 2 doesn't work... Then you notice you're controlling the wrong train. To switch the active train, you need to click multiple clicks through the UI to make train 2 the active one you're controlling.
Personal thing, I also wish Dutch drops were a little easier to do. The 3rd person camera controls focus on the loco or car directly, and not the link between the car. Especially at speed, with the 20m distance to click the linkage, it can be hard to position the camera just right to click the right controls at the right time. I guess it'd be easier in first person, especially multiplayer. Maybe I just gotta try that.
All that said though, I already have 20+ hours on this since release and I'm having a lot of fun. I agree the spotting puzzles are a compelling mechanic, and the AI trains let you shuffle a few cars around, send some trains going, then focus on the next switching puzzle to try to solve it before the next train shows up to pull one of the consists.
Ok some of this came up in the biased review 👍
RRo miserably failed with their physics and I know a bunch of people including me wanted this to be like a North American Derail Valley Looking forward to when this can compete with DV and of course looking forward to COS
Mark, you'd be surprised how long some industries take to unload/load cars...it was interesting to deal with when I was in logistics and we had carload customers.
I'm guessing they didn't unload, more consumed the contents as needed so they don't have to have their own materials storage?
@@tnexus13 No, some customers would literally just leave the cars sitting for a week before even opening the doors...and then expect us to get the demurrage(storage) charges waived for them(it was always stated in the rate quote how much free time they had to unload), which was usually possible but extra work to do. Storage in transit is a whole different ball game and something that is usually built into contract rates, used quite often by the chemical/plastics/petroleum industries.
Thanks so much for your review Hyce! Still cant wait to play this, or at least purchase it to support the devs. This game seems like when you realize your nephew or niece loves steam trains, and you want to watch their passion grow and also help their passion grow. i want to show my support to the this game even though it has its issues.
Also congrats on your youtube award!!!
This looks like it has a lot of potential. It looks like someone is trying to fix a trainz game and make it a little more open world. I am sure the features will expand but it would be a good thing if arrows and boxes popped up when stuff needs to happen. Side note I was definitely doing a double take every time the 4-4-2 was on screen. Unusual to see a game feature one of those.
Very fair review Hyce! I've also enjoyed your streams and look forward to your product down the road. This to me is a Railroad Simulator not a Train Simulator and that's ok. I played over 10 years off and on of Run8 wich to me is the best train simulator. I honestly can't remember being so excited for a Railroad Simulator than I am righ t now. But I certainly can see where some things may become redundant etc. I'll get my 30 bucks out of this one for sure.
Yes, exactly. Railroad operations simulator. Train driving is lackluster. I will also buy and play the bejeesus out of this. Logistics is something that I am specifically looking forward to.
This has a similar feel to a Splattercat review (which is a good thing). Watching the streams, I will say that the whistles mostly sound quite digital and compressed. It think the UI could be cleaned up by having a togglable icon based hotbar system. I see what you were saying where the audio doesn't really match up with what the wheels/valvetrain are doing. I totally agree that any time ANYONE tries to make something that fits multiple bills, it almost never fits any of them very well at all. Jeep Wranglers are good examples, they are neither good road vehicles, nor good off road, but they *can do* "both". This feels exactly the same, where they want the software to fit into to many boxes, and check even more boxes, but the devs are split far too thin to make any of it work WELL.
I suggest the devs hit up AngeTheGreat for his air simulator engine, to simulate the whistle sounds. While it wouldn't be perfect, it would be infinitely better, and could provide more ability for that dev to continue working on a fantastic project.
I'm interested to see what the gameplay for the career looks like in the future, and whether its going to go more Derail Valley, or more Transport Fever
Gonna be honest, when I watched your first live stream and you were sampling the whistles, I stopped watching, I thought your expectations don't align with mine and I'm not going to enjoy watching you play. However, I think this video, especially your unbiased chapter and the ending, was very fair and nuanced, and I enjoyed listening to your point of view.
Very fair; my expectations and desires out of games is likely different than most. I don't enjoy most train sims that are more hardcore sims so I'm an oddball in the market to some degree. I appreciate the dialogue though.
I have no hope, that the any game will make a steam locomotive of the same level, as in !
I think the main issue with the map is that it's one continuous linr with stations on it, with maybe a few spurs.
This game only has one way to run on the mainline. Compare it to DV, where you can take at least a few different routes from most stations. You can pick if you want to take the short but steep route or the shallow but long route. Here, this aspect of running on the main line is lost, and you're left with straight line* simulator
(*even if it's curvy)
Also, in my opinion, it's both easier for the player and developer if instead of pressure, you indicate the breaks in %application. Instead of 70 PSI or whatever else they pick, they could just say the brakes are applied 90% or something
The reason it’s like that is because that is how the prototype is that this branch is modeled after.
Decided to edit this comment instead so deleted my other reply. I forgot to add the location. The IRL location is in western North Carolina and is called Murphy Branch.
I see some early decisions that need to be corrected and/or expanded upon, but huge potential from where it sits now. Would love to purchase, but I do not use the steam game store. Great review!
All of your points made total sense, this is a seriously good review, especially since it came from an actual railroader. Honest reviews go a far, far way in the development of games, and what you have given us here is only the most honest of reviews! I have hope that the devs will fix the issues that were highlighted (especially that UI), but in the current state, I'm still probably going to pick it up and foam over the various choo choos. If anyone were to ask me if Railroader is worth getting, I am without a doubt sending them here!
Love see you review it later on after they added more polish later on see if it would change your opinion. Since its a lot place holder stuff.
I can see what you mean with the long runs being quite boring. I wish they could have at least put in a few roads and houses and maybe some grade crossings to blow the whistle for. Hopefully these are things that they do in the future
Thanks for the review, Hyce. I'm pretty excited about this new game but I think I'll wait till the devs make some upgrades and corrections.
I'm an old boomer musician who's always been crazy about steam trains. I like how unelaborated this game is at this early point. If it were more challenging, I don't think I would put in the time to learn it. I'm loving it. ( Also I understand that it's essentially a beta. I'm figuring that it will get fleshed out on a good pace with my acquiring some gameplay skills. Picture all those old model railroad guys who would love a game like this if it weren't too much work to learn how to manipulate the cameras and the characters.)
thanks for the review.. will wait a bit and see how it turns out..
i know it is not topic of a video but... as a welder and a hobby machinist (with minimal experience) i was repairing that thing that is used to move a pallets (a hand forklift sort of), and there is this hydraulic piston and only then i realized how precise pistons are. And i dont know how or why i started wondering how do you maintain these tolerances in steam locomotives? because steam is corrosive(i think it is since it is water in gas form, but not sure?) the pistons would rust over time which would case them to cease. if steam locomotives would be build today probably stainless steel would be used but back in the day it was not, so how did they prevent it? or did the moving piston just grind any new speck of rust that appear and eventually the piston would be replaced?
There's this magic material called Oil. Steam engines used a shit load of it in lots of places. On a serious note, I get you're probably not a steam guy, but think about cars, their engines aren't stainless, how do they survive? Oil.
Steam engines use a VERY heavy weight oil, like 600W that once it warms up it flows well, and it actually injected into the steam path after the throttle so it can lubricate the pistons and valves on the drive end. All the accessories have lubricators on them to put just a touch of oil in them for the same reason. Only things that don't get oiled are the whistle, the turbo generator, and the steam heat that runs back to the passenger cars.
Then all the rods have bearings, the slides, the axle bearings, the journal boxes that house the bearings are also oiled so they can move with in the frame so the engine can articulate over track imperfections. Steam engines have oil or grease in almost every moving orifice they have, hence why people think they're dirty smelly beasts aside from the smoke and soot... and to some degree they are, but they are wonderful beasts once you get to know them!
Lots and lots of Oil, as Klettus said.
@@kleetus92 no i am not a steam guy in a way that i accually know how things work (well you burn coal that makes heat which boil water that build pressure, which move pistons but thats it)but i do like all fully mechanical machinery whether it is steam engines or fully mechanical oldschool internal combustion engines
@@kleetus92No oil for the generator turbine? How are those bearings lubed then?
@@bene5431 Either sealed bearings or plain bearings with and oil supply. The steam doesn't (shouldn't) enter the bearing area. No different than any other turbine accessory, or even a water pump, there's a seal in there that separates the sections.
This is why i can’t wait for century of steam. Because I know everything is gonna be perfect
It won't be, but we'll do our best and make the concessions we have to.
Seems like a pretty fun game where some realistic control features and model details have yet to be implemented; hopefully they will be. It doesn't really sound like they are currently advertising a simulator experience, so I feel like you were a little bit harsh with them even though what you pointed out is accurate.
30:10...
They did NOT just put an MU checkbox ON A STEAM ENGINE.
Eh. For gameplay it's understandable.
@@Hyce777 Great review other than that... but MU on a steam engine... yeah... this should be model railroader.
With all said, railroader will definitely be something to pickup. The community of the devs seems to be actually willing to constnatly work with this game. And watching everyones pre-releases it looks amazing between the logistics and processes and the customization.
The only things about this game that I’m not a fan of are the awful sounds and the lack of flying trains if you bin it, but this game looks promising even if it’s a little rough around the edges right now.
I appreciate the points hyce brought up in this review, but railroader just came out in early access for the general public yesterday. This review is over a week old, so I'd like an update on if any of the more basic fixes like UI have been implemented.
Is it perfect? No, but bearing in mind it's an early access title what's there is quite commendable, it's got a good foundation to build on. No bugs, doesn't tax the hardware, enjoyable to play.
Out of all the train sims I've played, this has about the best "feel" of running a real railroad I've ever had. You start early in the morning, have a gander at the waybills and make up a switch list as you prep the power for the day's work.
As the day wears on you deliver the freight where it needs to go and get the passengers where they need to go, at the end of the day you tie the power down for the night, all the while getting up the money to buy up and repair trackage with work/M.O.W. trains to rebuild the route and buy additional power to get the job done.
Easily up in my top 3 along with Derail Valley and Rolling Line.
When Century of Steam releases in due course, I look forward to trying it out as well. As a steam guy right now is an amazing time in the digital realm!
Appreciate the no bs review, it looks good but definitely best to wait till it gets bit more refined I see.
17:44 - I don't know how fleshed out the movement is in Railroader, but I feel like Railroads Online actually does this well for me.
If I'm running a good distance, I can set the locomotive at a certain point on the throttle, and kind of jump around on my train for a bit.
It's a simple thing, but it can be nice to go to the back of the train, and press the crouch key to pretend I'm sitting, watching the scenery go by.
And from my perspective looking at the gameplay of Railroader, I think that there's actually more to see in Railroads Online, surprisingly enough. The landscape may be faaaar from realistic, but it does look dramatic, and even pretty sometimes, even on the old map. (this may just be some of my western US love for mountains bias though).
All this being said, Railroader is just at its beginning, and I hope it'll look a lot better a year from now. Heck, even Railroads Online looks significantly better than it's release version, so I'm sure that'll be drastically improved for Railroader as well.
In the end, we've got some awesome train games we can look forward to, and I'm happy for the success of all of them.
I was so excited when I heard about this game since it’s set in my favorite era of railroading and in my favorite location, but I was really disappointed when they said what it actually was. I’d much rather have a detailed simulation of steam than whatever this is.
Here's a Joke for ya Mark since you asked for ya lmaoo
What did the horse say after it tripped?
Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t giddyup!
Ok, OK here's another
Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl going to the bathroom?
Because the “P” is silent!
Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all week!
Admit it, you got that from Ferdinand(i will say it might just be a common joke, but come on)
@@Railman1225no actually, I just remembered these two from my friends dad. I do agree though, they are the common type of dad joke
I've played Trainsim, TSW, DV, and my favourite Run8. Unfortunately, this game's steam physics seem to lean towards TS. Your comments about mainline running made me understand why Run8 never got featured on this channel (think 60 miles of main through a pretty valley is boring? Try east of Barstow, 330 miles of desert). But I think you have a point that the relatively boring mainline running and unrealistic physics/sounds cause a bit of a problem. The economy players and trainsim "casual" players could get turned off by the mainline segments and what looks to be a somewhat steep learning curve (better than Run8 tbh, this has a tutorial), while "hardcore" players like you and I could be driven away by the unrealistic physics/sounds. I really like the way the economy and railcar movement was done, it looks like Run 8 but with more purpose. I think the long unloading times would be somewhat reasonable, as railroads still suffer this problem today, and it was likely much worse in the era this game is set in, with more smaller shippers and a regulatory scale tipped heavily in their favour.
What looks good imo:
-Pretty good railroad simulation
-Good amount of content for the price point
-devs look really good to me
-Multiplayer stability looks like the second best out there (It's really hard to beat Run8)
What looks bad imo:
-Low quality sounds, hopefully they'll be improved later
-The train & locomotive simulation should really be much more in depth, we should have a more realistic reverser and actual #6 stands.
23:20 16mph?! I thought that engine could get up to 90! (only if you had the fire hotter than the blazes of hell and damnation itself, of course)
Railroader will probably be alright with enough work. I probably won’t play myself because I am far more interested in operating a locomotive than managing multiple trains (which seems to be more of railroader’s strong suit).
Just got the game after watching this video. I think it's great so far. Looking forward to seeing the developers add some polish through the early access period though but the core gameplay loop is good.
Glad to finally see someone give an honest opinion and actually criticize a game
Yup, people giving an honest opinion and feed back instead of just kissing ass...more helpful then groups of yes men.
Do you think this game will expand to include large RR Companies like UP?
I would like to have this type of gameplay on the Cheyenne WY yard…. Maybe build up from the early days of the UP to early 1960s.
Yeah the model railroad angle would've made more sense. Especially if the simplified the engine controls to be like a model train. The AI almost feels like controlling using DCC.
60 miles is perhaps a little much for singleplayer. I'm interested in what the promised 13 mile shortened map has to offer for SP.
That's all I've played on, really. It's a lot to manage still but it's doable. Makes a day worth of gameplay take around 3 hours.
I hope the Devs knew they were giving their key to one of most critical steam railroaders on yt who doesn't hold any punches lmao😂
Funny thing I noticed: I've only watched ER videos from a couple of folks, Hyce being one of them. It seemed that the scenery was a bit sparse. I then watched Schnauzahpowahz' to notice the tree were more populated. Apparently they removed scenery in the 1.50 version?
I've heard there is a scenery detail slider that can bump the tree numbers up. Not 100% sure, but just a rumor down the grapevine.
@@jacoblyman9441there is. I saw some of the guys livestreaming it last night and saw them adjust the detail on the fly. Said it has some work needed because sometimes trees will appear where theyre not supposed to.
Hyce if you had to pick between. Railroader or Railroads online what will you pick?
They are so different, basically it s choice between do you want to build vs just run trains.
I don't even need to BE mark to tell you how he'd answer that and it is NOT RO. lmao.
The correct answer is you pick Century of steam
vomit
I've seen a lot of comments on Hyce disliking RO, but I've not been able to find what the actual issues he has with it are. Is there a summary anywhere?
Hyce, I recall your sayin' 4 chuffs per revolution. I don't play these games but enjoy your presentations. I am at 19:18 in this presentation. The sound seems to match the speed but not the wheel revolutions. Am I wrong. If not would this be hard to correct? I won't say I am old but, the only computer languages I speak are Fortran and Cobol. Back to the game.
The sound is a set of looped files that are one speed each; there's not anything syncing it with the wheels, yeah.
Thank you. @@Hyce777
really late but a video on the cab models sounds hilarious.
i'm sure it'll tickle some peoples fancy, but not really what i expected it to be
i've found that i'm more of a 'build track' engineer than a 'run train' engineer
sure hope CoS has a track building system so i can create track (or shenanigans) similar to [redacted game] 😉
shenanigans like making a Shay go 136mph then do a series of jumps landing back on the rails🤪
CoS will have track building, yes, as well as allowing you to make cuts, fills, and tunnels.
Hyce.
don't forget to restart your Career Mode and get all available rolling stock to play with.
an Item I'd like to see are different Railroads like the D&RGW
Thanks for this review. I just bought the game last night and have much of the same feelings and i think that for now i'll get a refund and come back at a later point. It is interesting as i also have been eyeballing Railroads Online and that actually seems to have a little more detail in running the engine, with shoveling coal or putting in wood. Century of Steam looks nice but is not available yet i think. May just go to Derail Valley as that seems to have pretty nice controls for trains and some managing to do. Just a bit of a "gamey" map.
wow you scared me when you where running the train i wasnt exspecting your voice till next chapter lol
Thanks for the great review.
I think I'll give this one a pass. The exhaust ("chuffs") isn't synchronized to the train speed or throttle position? And the scenery would still be terrible for a procedurally generated map. Look at a game like Valheim or Satisfactory- the scenery in those are incredible.
The train controls in Trainz many years ago were better. I remember running the Big Boy on the Pibara AU iron line, and I was close to running out of steam on a grade. I finally closed the injectors for a bit. That kept the temperature up enough to get me over the hill.
BTW are there any significant grades on the line?
Railroads Online is more to my taste, with the exception of not being able to alter the terrain.
And if the industries are taking their own sweet time unloading the cars, shouldn't they be paying you demurrage?
There is a huge grade far on the end of the map I don't have unlocked yet. 5% for a good bit.
Iv ask the question about auxiliary tenders, they said possible in the future.
I too hope to one day run the Eat Shit and Die Trying railroad! Starting to watch now. Doesn’t look like a great sim, but how is it as a management/tycoon game? That’s more what I’d be looking into this for. Valve gear animation looks like trash haha. I shall keep watching
Man i was hoping this game was going to be great. Hopefully they'll continue to develop the game and give it the depth it deserves. Great vid mark!
After Run8 it is never understandable when a game lags because of a huge amount of cars. Even considering a difference in graphics engines between two.
the nathan 6 is literally off of an old video of an Erie Berkshire lol
I both look forward and dread the day Highball can be subjected to you.
One thing that’s been clear from your streams and this review, This isn’t the sandbox sort of game I was looking for.
Nothing wrong with that, but I won’t be getting it.
Hyce, I’ve been a huge fan of your work for a long time. And I understand your passion for this. I just think that anyone focusing of the locomotive mechanics at this stage is missing the point of this game. This game is designed to be what you want it to be, but once a save gets going, my perspective is you shouldn’t have time to worry about if the reverser works right or not. That’s not what this game is trying to be. I appreciate your honest review and hope this game finds its audience because I want it to thrive and find its place alongside derail valley and century of steam in the future. Each game has its own niche within this niche. Each is trying to do something different. My brain loves logistics and planning and management, so this game does something for me that derail valley and most likely CoS never could.
A note about the tutorial: The only p c game I'd evereplayed was Civilization. Also being a girl I never had a model railroad to run. This tutorial might have been aimed at people like. People so in love with trains that they'll bother to learn how to play these keyboard games.
Appreciate your input on this!
Is it tomorrow yet?
soon!
So still a little plywood pacific would you say?
very much so.
Can you not like create your own trains, tracks, landscapes and buildings? I can’t seem to find like a real life model railway game that’s any good
Hard to find stuff to do when running the main line. It sounds like it's a hard thing to get right
Well looks like im buying this tonight
I'm considering this game vs Railroads online... which one do you like better?
Nice one
Hyce, I share your sentiment on the sounds of the game. Not where they need to be but I like other games in the genre that don’t cut it as well. Yes it could be better but it’s a game. Call of Duty is a fun game too but in no way is it real life. It’s a game. A simulation is just that, a simulation.
Thank you so much forthis review because now i wont be as frustrated trying to start off from square one. One of the things i hink they should do is what Microsoft train simulator did with their steam engines where you you had to operate the controls of the engine obviously but they gave you and automatic fireman to manage the engines fire and water. To me this would mkae for a good balance of actually needing to run the train like you have to in Derail Valley, but also make it potentially easy as kf it were Railroads Online. Now thats just my opinion but it could help. And obviously a cleaned up menu be nice but again thanks for this review ive already shared it with my friends.
The train sim stuff being so oversimplified is a real disappointment. The devs have said in updates and Q&As that they don't see train simulation as a real focus... but why add train driving at all? It's like it's a holdover from before they introduced the ai driver. I really liked the idea of the unique railroad management aspects of this game but i also really wanted a train sim too. Even if they didn't go as far as Derail Valley... i dunno. that roblox game has a better steam simulation... come on.
And it's a multiplayer game... the option to have a substantial firing simulation alongside a substantial train driving simulation could make running trains on the mainline so much fun! both crew would have something to actually do the whole time.
i'm on the fence about buying it. i dunno. i was really excited but seeing how they've got the details wrong in so many respects... maybe i've been spoiled on derail valley's simulation, but i just can't get behind a steam engine game where the reverser doesn't work right.
For the record I did buy it. Impulsively. But i have had fun so far. Still too early to know if it was worth it. The tutorial *claims* the reverser works in a realistic manner, but I haven't tested if it's been changed since the review version. All I see is speed increasing closer to center
does this game support raildriver?