Depots: One step forward, another step back.

[C40LFR]

I like that depots were added. However, the depots are almost just as unrealistic as the buses popping into thin air from CiM1.

I'm a transportation(I mean ALL forms. I like highways, buses, trains, aircraft, you name it) geek, fanatic, nut, whatever. As an engineering student, I've also done a few tours of actual bus depots here in the US.

First, I don't understand why the end points have be at the depot. IRL, The terminus on both ends of a line could be miles from the actual depot. It's called deadheading, and this gives you much more flexibility for depots.

I would rather have one big depot of like 50-100 buses(like IRL), setup my routes, and have buses deadheading to and from the depot. This means that it won't be a chore to change a route. This would give the game new flavor and as I also said, flexibility. Having 20 yards with 10 buses is extremely unrealistic.

In fact, I live 10 minutes from a bus depot. From 4-7am, Out of Service buses are flying down foothill Bl from the depot to their routes. In the evening, you see tons of OOS buses returning.

 

[Smaen]

Agreed to this!
I want to start lines IN the city sometimes, but there's no room for depot!

 

[unmerged(609936)]

First, I don't understand why the end points have be at the depot. IRL, The terminus on both ends of a line could be miles from the actual depot. It's called deadheading, and this gives you much more flexibility for depots.

You can have deadhading in game. If you have line with stops 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and depot anywhere, set up line in following way: depot, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, depot. The vehicles will go to depot only when there is need for maintenance or they are going off service, otherwise they will circulate on route.

Of course, deadheading adds to the total operating time of vehicle, so its best not to have depot on the other edge of map.

 

[Mvek]

As Tarhim says - you have both options, so it is exactly as in real life.

 

[dogfoodhh]

Looking at the scale of time in CiM2 deadheading leads to too much overhead/useless traveltime for buses

 

[unmerged(267252)]

You can have deadhading in game. If you have line with stops 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and depot anywhere, set up line in following way: depot, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, depot. The vehicles will go to depot only when there is need for maintenance or they are going off service, otherwise they will circulate on route.

Of course, deadheading adds to the total operating time of vehicle, so its best not to have depot on the other edge of map.

Indeed. Setting up the depots and the lines had me a bit confused at first, and my early experiments didn't go well. I assumed that it would work best with the depots in town, at the centre of the stops on various lines and circular routes. But it quickly became chaotic and congested with buses, trolleys, etc.. So I tried putting the depot nearer the outskirts, and set the route so that it has to travel across town to get to the first stop, rather than having the first stop in the vicinity of the depot. It works.

What's more, I then realised that in the timetable, the despatch times are not the times the vehicles are despatched from the depot. They're the times the vehicle will pick up at the first stop on the line. If a departure is scheduled for 7am, and the depot is half an hour away, the vehicle leaves the depot at 6:30am.

It's a different way of thinking, that's all. CiM1 took some learning too, until you "understood" the logic behind the design of the game, and now CiM2 has some new logic that requires a new style of play.

My only concern is that the devs stated the trick of going Depot, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, Depot should make the vehicle run the route continuously if the next departure is soon. In my experience the vehicle goes and waits at stop 1 regardless of when the next departure is due - sometimes up to nearly two hours of game time, and thus blocking the stop and road. :-/

 

[Moshi]

Yeah, but there's no way to make it: Depot ----ride to the first station---- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ----ride back to the depot----Depot

Because at the end, at 5, you have to have a depot.

 

[unmerged(721172)]

Depots are good but for the metros and trams to need to do a loop or reach a depot to change track is highly unrealistic. And I can see the developers don't seem to want to change that, probably because is in the core of the game... But this must be changed! We can't have CiM 1 be better at this!

 

[Stefano1990]

Yeah, but there's no way to make it: Depot ----ride to the first station---- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ----ride back to the depot----Depot

Because at the end, at 5, you have to have a depot.

Since every stop is directional how is that even possible? Do you make a little loop around every station?

 

[slornie]

Depots are good but for the metros and trams to need to do a loop or reach a depot to change track is highly unrealistic. And I can see the developers don't seem to want to change that, probably because is in the core of the game... But this must be changed! We can't have CiM 1 be better at this!

I have a feeling it was rejected quite early on, but some sort of terminal station that could be built separately would do quite nicely. So instead of building a fully fledged depot at both ends, one end could have a standalone station element (something similar to the metro stations of CiM1 - a single structure with integrated tracks) which can be connected to the end of a route and be used to reverse the line.

 

[jq371]

You can have deadhading in game. If you have line with stops 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and depot anywhere, set up line in following way: depot, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, depot. The vehicles will go to depot only when there is need for maintenance or they are going off service, otherwise they will circulate on route.

Of course, deadheading adds to the total operating time of vehicle, so its best not to have depot on the other edge of map.

i think you can do this, but then i think the bus ignores the timetable, so then all the buses bunch up.... its kind of a situation of one or the other......

 

[pyndec]

I have a feeling it was rejected quite early on, but some sort of terminal station that could be built separately would do quite nicely. So instead of building a fully fledged depot at both ends, one end could have a standalone station element (something similar to the metro stations of CiM1 - a single structure with integrated tracks) which can be connected to the end of a route and be used to reverse the line.

Yeah, that was what I was thinking.
I also wonder if it would be possible to make sort of a "dummy depot", which can be placed underground but can't maintain or hold any metros; All it does is give the metros a place to disappear into and come back out.

 

[unmerged(609936)]

i think you can do this, but then i think the bus ignores the timetable, so then all the buses bunch up.... its kind of a situation of one or the other......

No, it waits at the first stop for departure then.

 

[vonhaubitz]

I was sceptical about how to use the depot as well in the beginning. But now with trams and busses I am using the loop solution:
Depot - 1 - 2 - 3......- 9 - 1 again - Depot. In that case the vehicle will only go back to the depot for maintainance reasons or when its schedule is finished. This works very well. I even built the depots offside the route of the line and there are special tracks leading to and from the depot. And yes after the first stop you should build a loop to let the vehicle turn around and go to the depot if it needs to. But that is quite realistic, at least from the tram and bus systems that I know. Only loops for undergrounds I find a bit annoying.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=136847374
The depots are in the centre feeding 3 lines at the moment. On the right hand side you can see a special service track for some of the lines to go to and from the depot. Those tracks are without regular tram traffic.

Here is the save game, for those who want to study how I solve it.