Outside Trains getting jammed up at game preset up 3 way interchange. BIG TIME BUG!

[pablo222]

I ran into a problem where the outside trains bringing in tourists, visitors and so forth got jammed up at the map preset up 3 way interchange. My city is at just over 60k with 1.4 million a year income with all industries at level 5.

The outside trains eventually backed up into outside connected station which has caused major problems. The cargo stations are open but are literally about 1 train length from also being jammed up and shut down. As it is, not all of the cargo trains that I need are arriving at the open station do to jam up. Does anyone have any suggestions short of trying to remove the 3 way interchange and relaying them?

This is an issue outside of my control and not something I could prevent as AI outside train spawning is not something game allows you to control. I had developed great game and city that has been ruined. Any suggestions would be helpful as I would hate to have to trash this city and start a new one because of a game perimeter bug that controls outside trains that come and go to the city.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

can you show us a pic of the problem i.e.. where the trains are getting jammed up?

 

[pablo222]

can you show us a pic of the problem i.e.. where the trains are getting jammed up?

Here is a wide view. The outside trains are shown Jammed up well off the map in 2 directions. The 3rd direction where it is not fully jammed is where my outside connection is located. My tourist station is jammed. The cargo access close by is where 1 track is open the other jammed. Frustrating when this is 100% a game setting issue or Spawn/ Despawn issue.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

You see the two triangles you've made? And the track between them? Each of those lengths of ttrack need to be long enough to hold an entire train (or more) such that waiting trains don't cross junctions and cause gridlock..

 

[pablo222]

Your assumption is incorrect! I did not create the tracks in the picture! NONE OF THOSE TRACKS was my doing. That is the preset outside track location and layout at start of game. The area where this is located had been outside my city limits until I purchased the area with the track junction after I crossed 60k population. Which is why you only see my future main roads. I also moved the sewage outflow location to the extreme end of the map far away from residential areas. It was when I was doing that when I noticed the jam up taking place. It took about 7 months in game time for the jam up to reach my outside connected station.

But no, I did not create those triangles. They were like that at start of game! I could not get to this area until I crossed the 60K population mark. Given that I immediately began moving the sewage location as soon as I purchased that area for my city, the jam up had already begun before I could do anything to prevent or stop it from happening. The ratio of tourist to cargo trains getting stuck appears to be 10% Tourist trains to 90% Cargo trains.

My outside connection is well far away from this junction. My stations also have more than enough track to hold 6 trains which is impossible because the station would be jammed . The point is I can hold waiting trains keeping the main track clear! Although this is the first train jam I have experienced, I knew about people having issues when I was searching traffic jams. So, I took that info to insure I would not have that issue with my city.

The After Dark photo below is the 180° view from the first 2 photos and shows the open Cargo station with very long access track. So, my own connected cargo station to the outside network which by the way is required by game or you get the warning track not connected to outside network and cargo station will not function at all or only partially working. My early games, it was would not function at all. Running cargo with Tourist track 100% will cause a jam up. I have avoided this issue.

As you can see, this is a major problem that was created by original developer laid out tracks where the jam up began long before the player (me) could have any effect or control over the layout given.

Since I have a ridiculous amount of money in game, I tried removing my outside connected stations to see if it would despawn trains to clear the track. It did despawn about 8 trains but did not effect the original jam up area. This is solid proof that my stations and train demands is 100% not responsible for this problem!

IT IS A BUG! Paradox debug team needs to create a protocol for despawning outside trains when outside tracks are jammed and stations are open and not the cause of jam up! No player has that control. It is a designed original in game AI control setting!

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Oh yeah, I remembered that after I posted.

That doesn't change my answer. Some maps have inbuilt challenges. You'll have to rebuild this.

 

[pablo222]

Oh yeah, I remembered that after I posted.

That doesn't change my answer. Some maps have inbuilt challenges. You'll have to rebuild this.

I see. I did a delete the tracks. However, it did not solve the problem. Trains did not despawn as I let the game run for a while. I then returned back to the save point. Basically, you are telling me I am screwed because developers are too lazy to fix this or will not fix this.

Sigh, such a promising game trashed! Since there is no solution as you put it, I will have to start a new one! Such a pain! My criticism of Paradox not fixing bugs or creating proper in game tools or critical items stands! The experience I have had across several games is worse than going to a bad dentist in my dealings with Paradox concerning in game problems.

 

[Sharkoman]

One of the mods I gave you should make you able to force despawn any vehicle you.

The game is virtually unplayable without this mod because how buggy the game is. In extreme cases I use TMPE to clear all traffic. Because both my trains and vehicle traffic stopped working or glitched out.

The game was never intended to build realistic cities even though it's ironically called city skylines.

The game was originally designed to build small towns like this

Not cities like this

the game never was able to produce a working railroad system and most people cut off the outside connection to the railroad because it just does not work half the time and must constantly check to see if a train is frozen somewhere. After CSII launch everyone just lost all hopes for the City Skylines franchise and are just waiting for another game developer to make a proper city simulation game who won't cut corners and rip people off. I could see Rockstar possibly taking on that task but if they do that means it will take them 10 years to produce the game... but at least we will know the game will be state of the art top quality and not half completed

 

[pablo222]

I agree that a different company could do much better.

One of the mods I gave you should make you able to force despawn any vehicle you. View attachment 1075712The game is virtually unplayable without this mod because how buggy the game is. In extreme cases I use TMPE to clear all traffic. Because both my trains and vehicle traffic stopped working or glitched out.View attachment 1075713The game was never intended to build realistic cities even though it's ironically called city skylines.

The game was originally designed to build small towns like this View attachment 1075714Not cities like thisView attachment 1075715the game never was able to produce a working railroad system and most people cut off the outside connection to the railroad because it just does not work half the time and must constantly check to see if a train is frozen somewhere. After CSII launch everyone just lost all hopes for the City Skylines franchise and are just waiting for another game developer to make a proper city simulation game who won't cut corners and rip people off. I could see Rockstar possibly taking on that task but if they do that means it will take them 10 years to produce the game... but at least we will know the game will be state of the art top quality and not half completed

 

[pablo222]

I agree another company can do much better than Paradox. Paradox cut way too many corners for all the games they produce. Very frustrating. Which is why I will not purchase a lot of their expansion packs. Just not worth the hassle and frustration that I know will be waiting. I have Crusader Kings II. However, I have never played a single minute of it. Why? Can not get the damn game to launch. Paradox suggestion was " Do not know why the launcher is not workings. Try and reinstall it" Did the reinstall several times to no avail. Friends were begging me to play with them so I got CKIII. It sucks pretty much like all Paradox games. Great concept piss poor execution of the developed game. Sad truth is that I really like CS concept like building a city. Wish there were more control options. Will I get CSII. HELL NO! Seen it and its more crappy with bad graphics than CS is now.

As for the Train issue and until this situation, I had never had any issues. I found you just have to give more track than you think and then added double that. That way of thinking has prevented jam ups. As for traffic, yeah, Paradox does not give a rip nor do even try to make simple upgrades that a programmer can spend literally 2-3 hours in a patch to solve 80% of the player issues. Paradox just is a LOW LEVEL company acting purely on greed right now. They do not care that their reputation is total crap.

 

[RenengadeDragon]

Is the map a standard in-game map, DLC or a mod map? I do not recall having seen those junctions.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Is the map a standard in-game map, DLC or a mod map? I do not recall having seen those junctions.

It's a DLC map, I think.

 

[RenengadeDragon]

I actually like messing with the trains to get them to work for my city. I would completely rebuild them with long leads or sidings(3 or4) train length holding spaces. I would separate the passenger line from the cargo just inside the tile border. I bring in the outside passenger line to just 1 passenger Station set to accept intercity trains. Cims have to change to the local Mass Transit lines continue their trip.
Onejasonbrady has some videos on buildings a Cargo Rail Yard that are similar to a solution that I've used successfully. Might be worth a watch.
The major problem I experience is when trains do not despawn at maps edge properly. As a console player I have no way to access that area and to correct the spawn point. Biffa shows how he lengthens the node spacing to give the trains enough space to park in while despawning. He used a mod to get access but I do not remember which one.

 

[pablo222]

Is the map a standard in-game map, DLC or a mod map? I do not recall having seen those junctions.

Basic standard map from original release. . 2 Rivers. Not DLC.

 

[pablo222]

I actually like messing with the trains to get them to work for my city. I would completely rebuild them with long leads or sidings(3 or4) train length holding spaces. I would separate the passenger line from the cargo just inside the tile border. I bring in the outside passenger line to just 1 passenger Station set to accept intercity trains. Cims have to change to the local Mass Transit lines continue their trip.
Onejasonbrady has some videos on buildings a Cargo Rail Yard that are similar to a solution that I've used successfully. Might be worth a watch.
The major problem I experience is when trains do not despawn at maps edge properly. As a console player I have no way to access that area and to correct the spawn point. Biffa shows how he lengthens the node spacing to give the trains enough space to park in while despawning. He used a mod to get access but I do not remember which one.

I have had 3 stations each in a couple maps. The Key is opposite ends of the map. Never have passenger and cargo connected as that is disaster waiting to happen. Never go more than 1 passenger train for each station. Make sure you have enough room for 2-3 trains plus the one in station. That has been my success with CS. Never had a jam from my setup.

The jam I started this thread for was created by developer of the game. There is no fix for this jam according to official Paradox Mod. I already started a new city on a different map. It is progressing ok. as I am at the 11k size and generating 2k a month right now.

 

[RenengadeDragon]

Thanks for answering. Best of luck with your new city.

 

[pablo222]

Sharkoman, The mod to delete any vehicle does not work in areas outside the control part of the map. Since you can not select or highlight vehicles outside the map you are controlling. Try and select say a car outside the city limit and you will find you can not do anything with it. Once in the city, you can do all sorts of things with it. The trains are same way. The jam occurred outside the city limits and beyond what you can select or control.

 

[MarkJohnson]

Here is a wide view. The outside trains are shown Jammed up well off the map in 2 directions. The 3rd direction where it is not fully jammed is where my outside connection is located. My tourist station is jammed. The cargo access close by is where 1 track is open the other jammed. Frustrating when this is 100% a game setting issue or Spawn/ Despawn issue.

Yes, those base game maps are 8-years old and 17 major patches later, a lot of the game has advanced and caused more minor issues to arise. The devs likely left it that way, so you will get an early notification that something is wrong in the city. Then you will need to manage the traffic early on. This game is mainly about fixing traffic, so there are many game mechanics that look like bugs, but are just game mechanics warnings telling you traffic is starting to jam up.

There is a single lane backup on roads when the game notices overloaded roads too. It is telling you traffic needs fixing ASAP. It is sometimes tough to diagnose with little info, but the game is limited on AI.

I think the devs did it this way, because SimCity failed from small cities, so the devs made CS1 to handle at least 9-tiles, and added game mechanics to trigger issues artificially. This is why there is so many mods for this game. To turn off some mechanics, and work around others.

Train backups at the outside connection is another mechanic. The outside connection is actually a normal train station. So if you look at your local train stations, you will notice they spawn fairly slowly, but if you have like 4-5 train stations, then that will overload the outside connection. So you will need to divert train stations in your city to a different outside connection. ot reduce trains. Cargo trains are the easiest to reduce as they have no benefit. They just create freight traffic, so make sure you use freight locally, and not export it out so much.

This goes for all transportation options. Keep them low and don't spam them everywhere.

I live in a 36sq. mile city, and it has only one passenger train station and two shipping docks. And about 5-6 bus lines. This is roughly 9 city tiles worth of city. 35k population according to the census bureau, IIRC.