In-game video

[giladteller]

Gamespot.com have some in-game video with explanations by Mariina from CO:
http://www.gamespot.com/events/gamescom-2012/video.html?sid=6392237&category=highlights

 

[douglasrac]

Great video. The graphics seems good already.

But please add also the CiM 1 camera, with 8 directions option and auto tilt in zooming. Great that the camera can move freely now, but please add a fixed camera option too. That is extremely important. Free camera is good when you want to look around, when you just want to manage things and move around we need a practical and simple way.

 

[Mikebloke]

Nice! So glad I caught this before I went to bed. Its good to see that the dynamic city building is also based on roads built by the player.

Will the economic status of the city effect what buildings is built though (ie, if you build a million roads, will it only build buildings that's sustainable for the city at that time?).

 

[unmerged(276373)]

Thanks for posting this video.

I wonder if you need to have one depot per line and if it's need to be a part of the circle? If that makes any sense? What I mean is that the depot shouldn't be a part of the line, but rather a place to keep your vehicles at night or other times when they aren't needed. I'm really exited to see more of the underground metro.
Great video btw,

 

[unmerged(235471)]

look's great video what I have seen of the vehicles there is a new type of bus, the depos are in the game

can any one make what type of bus that is in the game from buses in the real world

 

[TH1]

nice video and nice gfx. especially road-building seems to be completely flexible now.
the depot being added to the busline was worrying for me too, i don't get that part...

 

[Co_Karoliina]

Thanks for all the comments! The depots work so that you can have as many lines as you want using the same depot. The vehicles return to it after driving the route and receive maintenance. The depot sends out a vehicle whenever a timetable on a line attached to it demands an vehicle, as long as there are some available. The only limitation is a depot's maintenance capacity, the workers only have time to cater to a certain number of vehicles and their condition will deteriorate if there are too many, causing more breakdowns.

You could easily have one depot which services one line at day and the same vehicles are used on a different line by night.

 

[TH1]

so the depot will have to be a stop in the busline or not? sorry, but i still don't get it.

 

[Co_Karoliina]

The depot will be the starting and the ending point, because the vehicles start from there and return once they have gone through the stops. It's only to mark which lines are associated with what depot.

 

[TH1]

The depot will be the starting and the ending point, because the vehicles start from there and return once they have gone through the stops. It's only to mark which lines are associated with what depot.

So the bus will go to the depot after each round made? sorry, i'm slow on understanding today.

 

[slornie]

The depot will be the starting and the ending point, because the vehicles start from there and return once they have gone through the stops. It's only to mark which lines are associated with what depot.

Awesome, so no more "I can't collect passengers from this stop because I spawned here" business?

EDIT:

The depots work so that you can have as many lines as you want using the same depot. The vehicles return to it after driving the route and receive maintenance. The depot sends out a vehicle whenever a timetable on a line attached to it demands an vehicle, as long as there are some available.

Does this mean that we can't specify which buses operate on specific lines? E.g. busy lines might need larger buses than the quiet ones. Or do we have an option to specify minimum/maximum vehicle capacities when we set up the route/timetable?

 

[wyqtor]

The gameplay video shows the game to be even more promising than I expected, very well done CO! I really like the curvy roads and the option to build roads of various lane numbers!

 

[Co_Karoliina]

TH1, yes the buses will go back to the depot after each round

slornie, the idea is that you should group the lines that need bigger buses to use one depot, and have the smaller buses in another. But minimum/maximum capacities in the timetables is a good idea, I'll look into it! Since we are at an early stage, we can still make changes.

 

[unmerged(169164)]

The concepts look very close to the Japanese transportation series: A-Train: expansion of the city, dynamic growth of the city through housing, work places, leisure places, shopping places, schedules to make the most of rush/slow hours etc...
Remains to be seen the economic underlying system as A train is based on Japanese concerns which are different from many other places.

 

[Co_Karoliina]

I just added a chapter to the design document concerning the minimum-maximum capacity menu

 

[slornie]

TH1, yes the buses will go back to the depot after each round

Hang on. So lines don't make complete loops like in CiM1? Say you have a line going A>B>C>D>E>A and a passenger wants to go from stop D to stop A, they can't because the bus goes into the depot after it reaches stop E?

Also, I noticed in the video that, although the day/night cycle operates every 24 minutes, the vehicles and pedestrians move at a completely different rate. How does this affect the use of timetabling? I mean, what's the point in starting a bus line at 7AM with a bus every 10 minutes if it takes a pedestrian three minutes to cross the road and its going to take each bus almost an hour to reach the first stop?

EDIT:

I just added a chapter to the design document concerning the minimum-maximum capacity menu

 

[Co_Karoliina]

slornie, just like with real bus lines, the passengers are dropped off before the vehicle enters the depot. But they can and will switch to another stop the line uses, if you have the last and the first stop close to each other, so they can then take the next bus and continue with that.

The pace of the pedestrians and driving is mainly a balance issue, and we will be working a lot on it It's such a early phase that no balancing had yet been done.

 

[Emperor_krk]

Don't know much about this aspect of transport in other places, but where I live all trams/buses (except night lines) go to the depot for maintenance only once per day, during the night. IMO it would be more sensible to have the vehicles return to the depot in this manner instead of after making every single round...

 

[Victor Cortez]

Don't know much about this aspect of transport in other places, but where I live all trams/buses (except night lines) go to the depot for maintenance only once per day, during the night. IMO it would be more sensible to have the vehicles return to the depot in this manner instead of after making every single round...

Here too. And I agree with you.
It’d be good if you create a line, and decide the timetable (like, I want a bus every ten minutes at peak hours and every hour at night, or maybe nothing at all at night, or only at night), then the game should tell you how many buses you need to have in order to have a bus every ten minutes (the moment of the day with the most frequent buses according to the timetable you made). At that point the line is open and buses leave the depo and go to the line, when the frequency is reduced, a few of them go back to the depo (and they’re available for other lines).

I know it is complicated, but the fact that every line has to go through the depo every time might be a bit weird.


Anyway, keep up the good work! I really like the day/night transition and the different number of pedestrians!

 

[slornie]

slornie, just like with real bus lines, the passengers are dropped off before the vehicle enters the depot. But they can and will switch to another stop the line uses, if you have the last and the first stop close to each other, so they can then take the next bus and continue with that.

Thanks for explaining. Could it be possible to add an option for the bus to stop again at the first stop of the line (thus closing the loop) before returning to the depot?

Also, when timetabling wouldn't it be better to use departure from stop 1 (or maybe another specified stop) as the basis for the schedule instead of the depot? As seen in the video the game knows how long it should take to get from A to B (e.g. depot to stop 1), so why not have it launch the bus x minutes before so that it arrives at the start of passenger service at the scheduled time. This way a bus line starting at 9AM picks up its first passengers at that time, instead of 30-50mins later when the bus reaches the first stop.