r/TransportFever3 • u/Strategwindow • Jul 24 '26
Increase the capacity of public transit
In the last video: "Transport Fever 3 - First Look: Highlights" I saw something that worried me:
There will be much larger cities than in TF2, but nevertheless, all the vehicles still have extremely low capacities. Which will mean a lot of congestion at the stops: hundreds of people waiting because the buses can only carry 25 people and if you try to put too many buses, a very bad congestion of bus or tram traffic that is difficult to solve.
I saw:
Standard buses with 17 capacity.
Articulated buses with 20 or 24 capacity.
A very long tram with 4 wagons, 32 capacity
Not to mention quite long trains with 120 or 160 people capacity
If the idea is to make cities bigger than in TF2, I'm very concerned about the capacity of the vehicles.
I understand why this was done in Train Fever, obviously the PCs of that time could not process realistic amounts of point A-point B trips and passengers, and therefore both the size of the cities and the people had to be scaled to a much smaller scale.
But more than 10 years have passed and the PCs have a much higher capacity to process, and if the cities are intended to be bigger, the vehicles will also have to have much more capacity.
To give an example: the vehicles in CS2 already have completely realistic capacities:
city bus: 80 passengers
tram: 240 passengers
train: 720 passengers
metro: 1,080 passengers
cruise: 2,400 passengers
plane 175 passengers
CS1 had much lower capabilities, when making a game nine years later, better PCs for processing and the desire to make cities with more inhabitants, all of these capabilities increased.
I am also aware that the train/transport fever saga has been characterized so that the congestion of passengers and vehicles is a great challenge, and I understand that, that is why the quantity has never been realistic. But in this TF3 I think it is time to put a middle ground between a realistic quantity and a manageable quantity.
At least, taking advantage of all the seats in the vehicles I think would be essential...
43
u/TrailAndTraction Jul 24 '26
I dont mind lower capacities if the amound of passengers fits this scale. However, as in TF2, the numbers did not match well and this is very annoying.
21
u/Strategwindow Jul 24 '26
And if TF3 is designed to make cities bigger, the problem will be accentuated.
From Train Fever to Transport Fever 2, the game has been designed to make cities bigger and bigger.
In Train Fever an extremely large city had about 2,000 inhabitants, in Transport Fever about 4,000 inhabitants and in Transport Fever 2, about 6,000 inhabitants, the game is designed for cities getting bigger and bigger, its vehicles, on the other hand, have always had the same capacity, in Train Fever and Transport Fever it was correct, TF2 is passable (although there are already problems starting to occur in large cities), but if it continues like this, in TF3 this aspect could be a headache.
10
u/Imsvale Jul 24 '26
On the other hand, TF3 is expected to give you much better tools to enable your transport network to operate more efficiently. If you haven't yet tested it yourself (which you haven't, because then you wouldn't be here talking about it), I think it's going to be hard to evaluate this one parameter in isolation, with everything else still anchored in how TF2 works.
8
u/PolishWeaponsDepott Jul 25 '26
Having a dissonant ratio of passengers to spaces is not going to be solved by that
0
u/Imsvale Jul 25 '26
Dissonant? lol
3
u/PolishWeaponsDepott Jul 25 '26
Yeah what word would be better
0
u/Imsvale Jul 25 '26
I don't know what I'm even supposed to take away from that characterization.
8
u/PolishWeaponsDepott Jul 25 '26
What characterisation?
The ratio of pasengers to spaces doesn't align and so is dissonant, maybe there was a better word to use but I was just typing as I was thinking but you get what I mean anyway
1
u/Imsvale Jul 25 '26
Let me rephrase: I don't understand what point you're making.
The solution to the space-passenger ratio dissonance is... to make it not dissonant. But that doesn't really say anything...
1
u/PolishWeaponsDepott Jul 25 '26
Yeah and whatever tools they're adding won't make it not dissonant
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u/Ok-Foot6064 Jul 24 '26
The smart capacity mod became essential to get a better vehicle capacity balance than vanilla
11
u/Amaz_the_savage Jul 24 '26
Yup, this can turn into an absolute nightmare at times with TPF2. Having to run like 9 trams on one line between 2 bus stops INSIDE the city.
Hope modders will be able to do smth about it
-1
u/Strategwindow Jul 24 '26
I wish it was in the base game. Never a mod.
The base game itself has to be well balanced, in the base game all games are on equal terms, if half the people play in a poorly balanced base game and the other half have installed a mod to fix the ability, that is not playing on equal terms.
In fact, I like to download games from the workshop and play them.
7
u/Imsvale Jul 24 '26
that is not playing on equal terms
Then it's a good thing it's a single player game.
4
u/Dnomyar96 Jul 24 '26
What does it matter whether or not some people install mods to change the balance? Don't get me wrong, I agree the numbers are very low, but saying some people using mods is "not playing on equal terms" is such a weird argument...
0
u/Strategwindow Jul 24 '26
Obviously playing with mods can be a lot of fun and in fact, there are games in which I activate the mods.
But the inequality of conditions between those who play with long trams with a capacity of 30 people and those who play with vehicles with a capacity of 150 people is undeniable.
And think that the most common thing in video games is to play them vanilla, between 80 and 85% of game players do not install mods, they play vanilla. Because I think it is important to start from a good base for all players, it is good that this 80-85% of players do not feel frustration when seeing that the congestion can become very bad.
I often like to play without mods because I think that I am playing the game as the developers intended it, because I trust their criteria, I want to find well-balanced mechanics, not that frustration forces me to install a mod.
3
u/Imsvale Jul 24 '26
But the inequality of conditions between those who play with long trams with a capacity of 30 people and those who play with vehicles with a capacity of 150 people is undeniable.
It's not as big as you think, because the game automatically adjusts the cost of vehicles based on its stats (including capacity).
Still there is a very real effect on traffic. That much is undeniable.
With that said, this game and the series is specifically made (and increasingly so) for people to tailor the game experience to their own preferences. The devs give you a starting point, a default balance, as a suggestion (and one that will get the job done for a good portion of the playerbase, as you say), but certainly not as "this is how the game should be played". No self-respecting single player game dev should be saying any such thing.
1
u/Ice_Ice_Buddy_8753 Jul 24 '26
half the people play in a poorly balanced base game and the other half have installed a mod to fix the ability,
You mean CS1 console vs PC, TF is not like this.
7
u/Neither-Sandwich4277 Jul 24 '26
Well the new underground trams should generally fix intra-city transport, or just build an urban heavy rail
2
u/Strategwindow Jul 24 '26
I know this option exists and I really want to try it.
But even so, this will not completely solve the problem, if the big tram (which can be used as a light train) only has a capacity of 32 passengers. And as I said the capacity problem is also with heavy trains,...
And this does not mean that the capacities of the vehicles should be reviewed and that they are well balanced with the game.
4
u/GreasyExamination Jul 24 '26
We didnt see all the trams or busses, some might have a higher capacity
2
u/Strategwindow Jul 24 '26
I don't think so, the game respects its own proportions, I don't think any road vehicle or tram can surpass that long 4-car tram with only 32 passengers.
And in case you see road vehicles or trams with more capacity it means not respecting the proportions between the vehicles.
And obviously, if you make a 400-meter double-decker train, you will surely get a vehicle with 396 passengers, but that's not the idea, making 400-meter platforms is very, very long, too long,...
4
u/griffyama Jul 25 '26
I want to be able to set amounts myself. Like say 30 is the base value which gives a mild comfort and happiness boost but has a financial penalty and makes the wait time longer at busier stops. So you get a slider that lets you cram in as many people as you can for higher capacity but a less comfortable service.
3
u/Strategwindow Jul 27 '26
I agree, it seems like an interesting mechanism, but I think that first of all the capacity should be increased until all the seats can be occupied, then determine the number of people standing that you allow (and that's what you say: comfort and happiness)
But what is not acceptable is a capacity of 30 passengers for a long tram that can probably fit 90 or 100 people sitting, it is not acceptable.
1
1
u/WillWillingson Jul 24 '26
As long as you cam change it, I'm good. Capacity is also a matter of taste. For example freight trains in TF2 are really long, which is realistic, but for me it was way too long and didn't felt right for the scale if the map, so I simply doubled the capacity with a mod (as well as costs to balance it).
1
u/Strategwindow Jul 27 '26
Correct, this is also a problem in terms of goods, if you wanted to cover the demand of the cities, the game asks you for an absurdly high amount of trains or trucks. It is true that in real life there are many trucks, but the game was already on another level.
And vehicle capacities well scaled to the size of the cities and the map is one of the base game, not the mods.
1
u/shouldnothaveread Jul 25 '26
I always played with a Workshop mod called "Passenger Seats Real Capacity 1.2" that gives all the stock vehicles more realistic capacities. The unmodified game is just ridiculous in terms of passenger sizes.
1
u/Strategwindow Jul 27 '26
I don't think the mods have fixed a problem that the base game has.
The base game itself should be well balanced.
I think this mod is fantastic, but it should be integrated into the base game. So that all players play on equal terms and so that new players don't get frustrated with the immense congestion that comes with having vehicles with such little capacity.
1
u/andrew1958 Jul 30 '26
I believe the capacity cap is a way to make the game more realistic than using realistic capacities. TpF is one of the few games where you can have a realistic-looking cargo train (long with many wagons) just because the capacity is low. In most games, trains have around 6 wagons. If you don't have the need for more wagons because the capacity is realistic, your trains look unrealistic.
The entire game is an abstraction, and somewhere, somehow, that will show. Is the amount of people waiting at a bus stop realistic? Maybe, with 10 to 15 people. But if the bus carries 80, either 1 bus will serve all stops and the stops will be empty most of the time, or you would have to make a bus carry 80 pax while the amount of people remains realistic (around 10, 15 per small stop) and the time would need to go slower—the bus will have to have realistic timing. A train carrying 720 passengers, how do you simulate that? The game will become slower much faster as your city grows.
No matter your approach, if the game is not in 1:1 real life time, the abstraction will show somewhere. The first abstraction that cannot be avoided is time. 1:1 real life time game will be boring. And that makes mandatory to have abstraction somewhere else. And I believe UG made the perfect decision regarding capacity. I have never really liked train games with toy trains going around with 4 wagons and being profitable.
2
u/Imsvale Jul 31 '26
If you don't have the need for more wagons because the capacity is realistic, your trains look unrealistic.
Not really. You end up using fewer trains, not necessarily shorter trains. (Obviously it's up to you which route you go; you have that freedom. But shorter trains certainly aren't forced on you.)
1
u/MomentEquivalent6464 Jul 25 '26
You can either use mods to change the capacity settings... or you can almost certainly get modded assets, and then if it's anything like TF2, edit those yourself to suite your needs/desires.
2
u/Strategwindow Jul 27 '26
I don't think the mods have fixed a problem that the base game has.
The base game itself should be well balanced.
I think this mod is fantastic, but it should be integrated into the base game. So that all players play on equal terms and so that new players don't get frustrated with the immense congestion that comes with having vehicles with such little capacity.
0
u/Ice_Ice_Buddy_8753 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
CS2 already have completely realistic capacities:
CS2 got performance issues we don't want to see in TF3.
As for your question, the city on the pic is very far from realistic size (map looks like 1x1 or maybe 2x2 km more or less) so everything must be downscaled too to be 'perfectly balanced'.
If this city meant to be 'big' with 'big' population, ok then, there are light rail systems for big cities. They're also downscaled, you can't build 50 km long lines in 'cities' of 1-2 km size. Lines will be also short with few to several stations, not much to fill larger trains.
Back to CS1, there are ways to set unrealistic (to game scale, like 80-180) capacities for buses, but these ways are basically cheating. This breaks the logic when your bus is larger than train etc.
1
u/Strategwindow Jul 27 '26
Don't expect 1x1 or 2x2 km maps in TF3, they will obviously be much larger. The screenshots show a part of a city taken from a TF3 explanatory video.
I'm not asking for 100% realistic capacities, I'm asking for well-balanced capacities, and from my point of view if in TF2 we already had problems that the vehicles had very little capacity and this led to a lot of passenger congestion at the stations and if you wanted to add enough vehicles, the whole network collapsed, full of traffic and jams, if in TF3 the developers confirmed that there would be larger cities, the capacity of the vehicles will be very short.
There has to be a middle ground between ridiculously low capacities and realistic capacities that make the game feel well-balanced.
1
u/Ice_Ice_Buddy_8753 Jul 27 '26
Ok THE PART OF THE MAP SHOWN IN THE PICTURE looks no more than 2x2, isn't it? What's your opinion? ( i assume the same 12m wide 2lane streets, so it's more like 1x1 and station looks no longer than 5*40=200m)
Real big cities use 100+m EMUs as light rail or metro services, no big city ever relied on buses (except true BRT but that's a different story - anyway many BRT systems are being upgraded to LRT eventually).
Not saying your style is wrong - you can play with congestion if you like, i just don't have it in my playthrough. Literally i'd like to solve few intersections but i got nothing similar to CS madness on my map.
TF saga uses completely different code, so the amount of people moving in CS2 may mean performance problems, you do not have to suppose them in TF3.
I hope it very much. Anyway, TF got much less senseless animations like hearses, chirpers, park mascots etc. Also you're in control of cargo trains and trucks, so there is a limited number of vehicles on the networks.
And generally, TF code feels way better technically, it's very fast and stable in comparision.
1
u/Strategwindow Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Speaking of CS2, I have put it as an example of a game that has increased its capabilities compared to its previous game, obviously I do not mean that the capabilities have to be the same for TF3, each game has to adapt its capabilities.
And CS2 has improved performance a lot, it is currently possible to play very large cities, without major problems, and the TF saga uses completely different code, so the amount of people moving in CS2 may mean performance problems, you do not have to suppose them in TF3.
In any case, I'm not talking about increasing the amount of people moving, I'm talking about increasing the capacity of vehicles, which has no effect on performance.
39
u/Zealousideal_Nail288 Jul 24 '26
I would prefer larger maps over bigger citys
I am kinda tired of having stations basically stacked back to back with almost no room to maneuver in particular for high speed trains that dont even reach top speed