As someone already headlined a post: "The game grows on you". At first, I was really disappointed. But then (after "calming down" with CIM1") I gave it another try - and became hooked on this "unpolished" (well, at least in some of the many aspects in the game) gem.
This is why I decided to drop some lines (well, some more...) - to thank the developers.
By now you will have noticed that english is not my maternal language...
Here are some comments - and some questions. Some of the questions only need to be answered by "Yes" or "No", and some of the suggested improvements you will undoubtedly have already written down for future patches and/or DLCs...
• the game feels unpolished - and great - add the same time. I shudder at the thought of the money and the time I will spend on DLC… - even though I understand the economic reason for releasing an "unpolished game" with few vehicles, some glitches, many possibilities for improvement - for a budget-price and ramping up the price later with DLCs
• like civilization, the game "gobbles up" time - please make a real-time clock or - alternatively - a clock showing the time spent in the mission - available, so that us who have to work do not stare at the clock (after a mission) and saying to themselves: "Damn, again 2:00 in the morning!"
• graphics layer: level of depots, stops…for upgrade
• graphics layer: level of vehicles. Right now, it is too difficult to notice the type of the vehicle. It is, I think, only
• graphics layer: income of different stops, lines and vehicles for comparison
• graphics layer: happiness and average "completion time" of a line
• graphics layer: average waiting period of a stop - so that you can see whether a "releave-line" reduced the waiting-period and/ or the number of passengers waiting to get into a vehicle
• love the statistics and the resulting "graph-porn", which allows you to "control and or measure" all - well, make that some - aspects of the company
• graphs: not only multiple bars which add up to 100%, but also as graph
• do not "hide" the fun-statistics in the main menu
• slightly different colours for different windows - depot vs. Line vs. vehicles
• notification if a vehicle didn´t move "a certain distance" in some time, so that you get notified about heavy traffic hindering your vehicles, too many vehicles trying to get into one depot…
• other possible/ necessary improvements (transparent roads in underground-mode, automatic price-table-adjustment-button/range-options, tutorial incl. metro and waterbus, tutorial should include "how to add a stop at a line"…) have already been mentioned several times
• please add notification showing - e.g. quest-icon flashing - if a newly generated stop you are about to set will bring you closer to the completion of a quest - not only afterwards (e.g. "line between X and Y: complete). Quite often a new line (sometimes for reasons that are mysterious to me...) did not complete a quest
• I am angry and wonder about the UI - the number of clicks it takes to access some information/ do some action. So, for crying out loud, please give us the option to hotkey more functions - new line, new vehicle, open menu X...
• windows-type drag & drop vehicles between depots - not only transfer them via "dropdown-menus"
• UI - do not only mention the ability to close all windows with escape, the ability to make a line run "more or less continuously" by adding stop 1 again before closing - in the patch-update, but also in the tutorial. Note: I think the closing the line/ A-B-Depot vs. A-B-A-Depot is mentioned in the tutorial. Still, I - like many others - did not take notice of it at first. Downside: the time spent of a vehicle on line without maintenance. Could you make a "recall to depot" button or a "vehicle returns to depot if maintenance falls beneath X%"?
• please show the "average usage" of a vehicle in the vehicle list of a depot, so that you can transfer mostly unused vehicles to another depot - thus not only notifying us about "more vehicles needed" but also giving us the ability to "reduce number of vehicles in a depot by transferring at the proper time". The usage could drastically change due to more lines reduce traffic, changes in schedules. It would also make possible the transfer due to "enough time for maintenance of a vehicle in-between going out to serve a line"
• dial down on the number of road-types you can build - yes, it gives you great ability to micro-manage, but I - and I assume, many others - only build 3-5 different road-types
• yes, you explained why there are no roads, train stations or airports - which would connect the region to other regions - but still: I - and many others - would like them! As "eye-candy" as well as a source for tourists which would make (more) sense than "tourists springing up". Of course, landmarks are also a great money-maker for DLCs...
• please include (with a DLC) a "Hollywood-Sign" landmark which would spell out the name of your city
• a victory-screen (and maybe fireworks) after completing each mission - and the ability to play on (even though the status after finishing a scenario would not be automatically saved for future missions to play on). But dumping us just back on the main menu feels really rude!
• on my computer the game runs "incredibly" steady (aside from cardboard-trees when Alt-tabbing - which you already promised to correct - so I do not even know at the moment: is there an auto-save feature every X minute?
• comment and question about reputation: is it "only" waiting time, maintenance-status of a vehicle, waiting-time, having vehicles overcrowded, prices, - or do the number of zones influence your reputation? Right now it´s a "money-generator" - just paint different zones in an area a line covers
• is it a bug? If not, you should mention that buildings change (i.e., not only "spring up") as libraries, operas, gymnasiums, theaters only after beginning a new game. At first, I was shocked because when I began the campaign the map only consisted of "bland" types of buildings without cultural buildings
• I did not notice universities - did I miss them?
• are feeder-lines always supposed to make money? During my first games I noticed after a while that some lines did not make a plus - but due to laziness and self-rationalising (it increases coverage, it´s a feeder line...) I did not delete it - even after tweaking did not fundamentally change the situation
• a question to others: what are your most profitable lines? I do not use metros (due to the problems with laying the tracks due to intransparent roads at the moment), even though I know that they can be great money-makers. So for me, the highest incomes lines are like this: bus: 4.000, tram: 10.000. How about the community?
This is why I decided to drop some lines (well, some more...) - to thank the developers.
By now you will have noticed that english is not my maternal language...
Here are some comments - and some questions. Some of the questions only need to be answered by "Yes" or "No", and some of the suggested improvements you will undoubtedly have already written down for future patches and/or DLCs...
• the game feels unpolished - and great - add the same time. I shudder at the thought of the money and the time I will spend on DLC… - even though I understand the economic reason for releasing an "unpolished game" with few vehicles, some glitches, many possibilities for improvement - for a budget-price and ramping up the price later with DLCs
• like civilization, the game "gobbles up" time - please make a real-time clock or - alternatively - a clock showing the time spent in the mission - available, so that us who have to work do not stare at the clock (after a mission) and saying to themselves: "Damn, again 2:00 in the morning!"
• graphics layer: level of depots, stops…for upgrade
• graphics layer: level of vehicles. Right now, it is too difficult to notice the type of the vehicle. It is, I think, only
• graphics layer: income of different stops, lines and vehicles for comparison
• graphics layer: happiness and average "completion time" of a line
• graphics layer: average waiting period of a stop - so that you can see whether a "releave-line" reduced the waiting-period and/ or the number of passengers waiting to get into a vehicle
• love the statistics and the resulting "graph-porn", which allows you to "control and or measure" all - well, make that some - aspects of the company
• graphs: not only multiple bars which add up to 100%, but also as graph
• do not "hide" the fun-statistics in the main menu
• slightly different colours for different windows - depot vs. Line vs. vehicles
• notification if a vehicle didn´t move "a certain distance" in some time, so that you get notified about heavy traffic hindering your vehicles, too many vehicles trying to get into one depot…
• other possible/ necessary improvements (transparent roads in underground-mode, automatic price-table-adjustment-button/range-options, tutorial incl. metro and waterbus, tutorial should include "how to add a stop at a line"…) have already been mentioned several times
• please add notification showing - e.g. quest-icon flashing - if a newly generated stop you are about to set will bring you closer to the completion of a quest - not only afterwards (e.g. "line between X and Y: complete). Quite often a new line (sometimes for reasons that are mysterious to me...) did not complete a quest
• I am angry and wonder about the UI - the number of clicks it takes to access some information/ do some action. So, for crying out loud, please give us the option to hotkey more functions - new line, new vehicle, open menu X...
• windows-type drag & drop vehicles between depots - not only transfer them via "dropdown-menus"
• UI - do not only mention the ability to close all windows with escape, the ability to make a line run "more or less continuously" by adding stop 1 again before closing - in the patch-update, but also in the tutorial. Note: I think the closing the line/ A-B-Depot vs. A-B-A-Depot is mentioned in the tutorial. Still, I - like many others - did not take notice of it at first. Downside: the time spent of a vehicle on line without maintenance. Could you make a "recall to depot" button or a "vehicle returns to depot if maintenance falls beneath X%"?
• please show the "average usage" of a vehicle in the vehicle list of a depot, so that you can transfer mostly unused vehicles to another depot - thus not only notifying us about "more vehicles needed" but also giving us the ability to "reduce number of vehicles in a depot by transferring at the proper time". The usage could drastically change due to more lines reduce traffic, changes in schedules. It would also make possible the transfer due to "enough time for maintenance of a vehicle in-between going out to serve a line"
• dial down on the number of road-types you can build - yes, it gives you great ability to micro-manage, but I - and I assume, many others - only build 3-5 different road-types
• yes, you explained why there are no roads, train stations or airports - which would connect the region to other regions - but still: I - and many others - would like them! As "eye-candy" as well as a source for tourists which would make (more) sense than "tourists springing up". Of course, landmarks are also a great money-maker for DLCs...
• please include (with a DLC) a "Hollywood-Sign" landmark which would spell out the name of your city
• a victory-screen (and maybe fireworks) after completing each mission - and the ability to play on (even though the status after finishing a scenario would not be automatically saved for future missions to play on). But dumping us just back on the main menu feels really rude!
• on my computer the game runs "incredibly" steady (aside from cardboard-trees when Alt-tabbing - which you already promised to correct - so I do not even know at the moment: is there an auto-save feature every X minute?
• comment and question about reputation: is it "only" waiting time, maintenance-status of a vehicle, waiting-time, having vehicles overcrowded, prices, - or do the number of zones influence your reputation? Right now it´s a "money-generator" - just paint different zones in an area a line covers
• is it a bug? If not, you should mention that buildings change (i.e., not only "spring up") as libraries, operas, gymnasiums, theaters only after beginning a new game. At first, I was shocked because when I began the campaign the map only consisted of "bland" types of buildings without cultural buildings
• I did not notice universities - did I miss them?
• are feeder-lines always supposed to make money? During my first games I noticed after a while that some lines did not make a plus - but due to laziness and self-rationalising (it increases coverage, it´s a feeder line...) I did not delete it - even after tweaking did not fundamentally change the situation
• a question to others: what are your most profitable lines? I do not use metros (due to the problems with laying the tracks due to intransparent roads at the moment), even though I know that they can be great money-makers. So for me, the highest incomes lines are like this: bus: 4.000, tram: 10.000. How about the community?