Buses line, it's hard to figure it out

[kissof]

*EDIT* Transport, it's hard to figure it out

hi,
lets take the bus type of transport as an example.

First of all as stated in this thread by a fellow cims:

I tried Nague's savegame and it really seems residents don't need access to industrial buildings for things to run smooth. But there's another issue that I think no one has come up with yet: as it is now, bus system is nothing but an exploit.

When you establish a bus line and spread your stops around, if it is has a useful path, some of those stops, due to some weird behavior, will be swarmed by hundreds of citizens (guess a lot of you already got it in their own cities or at least saw some pictures about that). If there was no buses, those citizens would be riding a car, increasing traffic intensity, but this way they will just stay in the stop until they despawn or get teleported.

So, bus system really takes people from roads, but in a completely wrong way.

Co needs to tells us something about this.

the bus system needs a look from CO as it has several issue (citizens swarming bus stops, overlaying lines etc...)

check this thread for further info (workers not getting to work has no consequences)
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...rkers-not-getting-to-work-has-no-consequences!


Secondly, it is very easy to add a bus line in the game, and it is nicely done.
However there is some lack of information once you add several of them.

1 - you cannot actually see how many lines you have in simple information, you have to see by the colors.
2 - You can see how many buses deserve a line by clicking on it (with the transport layer info on), it would be better that you can see it from the information layer directly.
4 - you cannot have separate budget for different lines, you have a global budget, but a line with more bus stops have more buses (trying to figure why is that with a global budget
5 - it is difficult to see overlaying lines
6 - Several bus stops gets swarmed, they never find a different route and stays there forever until they got picked up. However if buses are high, the bus stops actually gets empty, it is just a question about finding a different route if they stays too long.
7 - it would be great to set up bus lanes in crowded area (business disctrict etc..) to reduce the waiting time.

Remember, it is not cities in motion 3 or whatsoever, but transportation is the key to any citybuilder, it cannot be dissociated. For this it cannot be put aside and therefore it is a vital component in a city builder and information about it is fundamental.


That is why i made a draft of what could be possible to enhance the information layer. To be able from one spot to actually manage your buses lines simply, without any complexity.
It would be great that when you click on your bus depot, it actually pop up the window with all the information related to it. Like this you can change specifically the lines in this case, which i find it easier.
The draft i made is not sized to whatsoever particular rule, the typo is not fitted but it is just to show off how it could be to have the information we need.
also it could be applied to all type of transport by clicking on their HQ (metro doesn't have any sort of structure which is a bit sad) but by clicking on the HQ you could have all the information of the transport type related to it.
It would simplify a lot of things.

I love this game and i didn't had any pretention making a draft, it was just a visual idea of what could be informative.
I just want to help with my opinion within all the fans opinions here, to make it the best, that is all.

thanks for reading this.

 

[carcinomatum]

1 - I didn't play the game yet, so i don't know
2 - I dont know
3 - correct
4 - I don't know

This is a citybuilding game with more aspects rather than public transport. CO wanted to keep it simple. Maybe there will be a 'public transport' DLC sometime which will bring more advanced options.

 

[Amiths]

I agree on that, i find a bit difficult to manage lines and delete them or see information about them. :/ I hope they add a bit of tweak on that. Its really hard to delete lines right now because you need to delete one stop at a time (at least this was the only way that i saw).

But on the other hand its AWESOME to see people getting out from one line to get the bus (or metro or train) on the other line.

 

[kissof]

I agree on that, i find a bit difficult to manage lines and delete them or see information about them. :/ I hope they add a bit of tweak on that. Its really hard to delete lines right now because you need to delete one stop at a time (at least this was the only way that i saw).

But on the other hand its AWESOME to see people getting out from one line to get the bus (or metro or train) on the other line.

Yea i agree it is awesome to see people getting in and out! the simulation is great!

but yeah it is a little bit clumsy about the transport aspect

i cannot see as well the number of metro deserving my stops, in facts there is no such info about it :/
it is kinda difficult to manage, see, overview your lines :/

 

[kissof]

i up the thread as i edited it to not create a new one.

 

[Fintilgin]

Yeah, I don't want the bus sim increased in complexity (although I'd kinda like to be able to set the number of buses per line) but better tools to manage it would be VERY nice.

 

[Patrikwa]

+1.
I found myself basically removing all bus lines and starting from scratch every time i made adjustments to my road network since I couldnt find a good way to edit them after they were created. Throw in some metro lines in the mix and it gets even messier

 

[dakdak99]

+1, I'd love to see some more CiM-like stats and options added to public transport to make it easier to use.

 

[Dnote]

Public transports is a huge mystery. When setting the free policy I can get maybe 10% of my population using buses and 5% using the metro, but it has not real impact on the traffic. Number of routes/lines/stations etc seems to have no impact on how many use it either.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Tbh I think I'd rather it were *less* micro-intensive, not more.

Provisioning bus stops is fine; I don't mind doing that.
However working out the (optimal) lines to service these bus stops seems like an incredibly complex problem that you could dedicate an entire thesis to.

I'd much rather the calculation of bus lines was automatic; dynamically calculated over time by passenger destination desire, leaving me with the far simpler task of deciding which areas I want the network to service.

I think this abstraction would be more in-keeping with the general philosophy of the game too;

Cities: Skylines -> "This is what I want it to do."
Cities in Motion -> "This is how I want it to do it."

 

[Dnote]

Tbh I think I'd rather it were *less* micro-intensive, not more.

Provisioning bus stops is fine; I don't mind doing that.
However working out the (optimal) lines to service these bus stops seems like an incredibly complex problem that you could dedicate an entire thesis to.

I'd much rather the calculation of bus lines was automatic; dynamically calculated over time by passenger destination desire, leaving me with the far simpler task of deciding which areas I want the network to service.

I think this abstraction would be more in-keeping with the general philosophy of the game too;

Cities: Skylines -> "This is what I want it to do."
Cities in Motion -> "This is how I want it to do it."

Would be great if once you built the bus depot, you could then use something like the district tool to paint out coverage areas and then let the game figure out the routes/frequency between them.

 

[kissof]

Tbh I think I'd rather it were *less* micro-intensive, not more.

Provisioning bus stops is fine; I don't mind doing that.
However working out the (optimal) lines to service these bus stops seems like an incredibly complex problem that you could dedicate an entire thesis to.

I'd much rather the calculation of bus lines was automatic; dynamically calculated over time by passenger destination desire, leaving me with the far simpler task of deciding which areas I want the network to service.

I think this abstraction would be more in-keeping with the general philosophy of the game too;

Cities: Skylines -> "This is what I want it to do."
Cities in Motion -> "This is how I want it to do it."

to be honest, the draft i made simplify the interface a lot.
if you read the post you can see that you actually don't know if you have too much buses or not much at all.
it is blurry in information, and when you want to delete a line it is quite difficult.

you could access all of that information from your bus depot more easily and more intuitively.
that's why i made this draft.

 

[nullzwo11]

Would be great if once you built the bus depot, you could then use something like the district tool to paint out coverage areas and then let the game figure out the routes/frequency between them.

THAT would be a good idea.

Or simply draw a route (like you do now with placing the bus stops) and the game will automatically add the stops where needeed and finishes the line (opposite direction route). The different colors are nice. But more INFORMATION (not options) about the public transport system and the singe lines would be useful because you could see the impact and if line x is even needed.

 

[lordbob5]

That picture by OP is fantastic. It's EXACTLY what the game is missing. I'd love to see a mod correct this or even a development patch.

2nd post mentions a fix like this being in DLC - u wot m8. This should be standard information from the get-go.

(Btw, absolutely love this game)

 

[kissof]

That picture by OP is fantastic. It's EXACTLY what the game is missing. I'd love to see a mod correct this or even a development patch.

2nd post mentions a fix like this being in DLC - u wot m8. This should be standard information from the get-go.

(Btw, absolutely love this game)

Hey!
thank you very much for that compliment, it is much appreciated!

yeah indeed, it is blurry in information, you have to actually click in 3 different spots to know how the line is doing, bus depot click, buses click, and trejectory click.
All of which could be simplify by clicking on the depot.

 

[TopperHarley]

+1

It would be great if we could edit the lines with an addition

 

[Miwi]

Tbh I think I'd rather it were *less* micro-intensive, not more.

Provisioning bus stops is fine; I don't mind doing that.
However working out the (optimal) lines to service these bus stops seems like an incredibly complex problem that you could dedicate an entire thesis to.

I'd much rather the calculation of bus lines was automatic; dynamically calculated over time by passenger destination desire, leaving me with the far simpler task of deciding which areas I want the network to service.

I think this abstraction would be more in-keeping with the general philosophy of the game too;

Cities: Skylines -> "This is what I want it to do."
Cities in Motion -> "This is how I want it to do it."

And then - what is left for you to do in the game ? Painting zones and laying roads ? And the rest of the time leaning back and see how the game manages all for you ?
And I am sure there will come the next lazy player and tells us "oh all this road planning is too complex for my tiny brain, pls make a patch where I click 'perfect road network' and then this complex task will be done by the simulation".
Sorry but if these tasks are already too complicated for you then this kind of game is not yours.

Maybe Simcity for Android or IOS would be yours ? Or games on "Angry-birds-level" ?

 

[karolans]

+1, the bus management is just awful at this point .

 

[KyleJ]

The whole UI and feedback functions need looking into, I love your concept OP. I do hope that CO add the ability to modify the UI as (no offence CO) the concepts and ideas people come up with for GUI in both looks and functions are so much better...

I could list 20 things that needs to be added to the UI to help with feedback and design.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

And then - what is left for you to do in the game ? Painting zones and laying roads ? And the rest of the time leaning back and see how the game manages all for you ?
And I am sure there will come the next lazy player and tells us "oh all this road planning is too complex for my tiny brain, pls make a patch where I click 'perfect road network' and then this complex task will be done by the simulation".
Sorry but if these tasks are already too complicated for you then this kind of game is not yours.

Maybe Simcity for Android or IOS would be yours ? Or games on "Angry-birds-level" ?

It's not a matter of laziness; it's an matter of scope.

At present I don't think planning bus lines should be within the scope of Skylines because:

1) It doesn't give the player enough information about the flow of people, to plan your layout in an informed manner.
2) It doesn't give the player enough information about the efficiency of your current network, to be able to improve it via trial & error
3) The interface for actually constructing the lines is really quite clunky & uninformative.
4) The interface for controlling the performance of a given line is lacking crucial features such as bus provisioning & timetabling.

As-is, bus lines are similar to sewer construction; busy work that the computer could do just as efficiently (probably more so) than the player.

Adding all the additional information to make bus lines a fully featured system would essentially turn Skylines into Cities in Motion, so is not the way to go.
Instead I think it'd be better to take one further step towards simplification, and automate bus line construction (or as suggested by bobfish, semi-automate it via the districts painting system).

The saved micromanagement burden could then be refocused on a different aspect of the game.
To reiterate; this isn't about dumbing the game down, this is about refocusing the complexity on more engaging mechanics.