DECKELEVEN'S BLOG

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Waiting loops, waiting bays and traffic balancing

With update 2.4, you can now add Track Sets to your railroads:

Track Sets

Track sets are useful when you want to balance traffic between multiple tracks.

For instance, imagine that your trains have to cross a river. The bridge is a bottleneck because only one train can use it at a time.

To improve the throughput, you can create a second bridge. Add a track set to balance the traffic between the two bridges:

Balancing traffic between two bridges

Track sets can also be used to create waiting structures in your railroads networks.

For instance, you can create a Waiting Bay where your trains can wait in good order before a bottleneck.

Waiting Bay

Waiting structures are important. Without them, trains would pile up and queue on the tracks, causing traffic jams and disruptions.

Another useful waiting structure is the Waiting Loop. This design is particularly efficient to manage temporary queues forming at busy stations:

Waiting Loop

In this example, trains will enter platforms 1 or 2 if they are available. If the station is busy, trains will enter the waiting loop instead.

Track sets can also be used to create alternate dynamic paths, multi-tracks waypoints or many other usages.

Check the Railropedia for more details!

Update 2.4 also:
– Fixes various issues with bridges and double tracks
– Adds Auto save every minute
– Adds a Fps limiter to save battery
– Adds Rail end bumpers
– And many other under-the-hood improvements

29 thoughts on “Waiting loops, waiting bays and traffic balancing

  1. hi

    great game as always. question when is update 2.4 coming out.

    cheers
    carry on the great work

    1. It’s already out. As usual, it may be a day or two for Google to accept it and to reach your device.

  2. Briliant game, really love it! Sad that it will be 4-6 months for the electric trains but liking the possibilities of the new track sets. Currently replaying through the coal levels using exclusively diesel, adds an extra layer of difficulty 🙂

  3. Is there a difference between Track-Sets and Parallel-Tracks apart from being able to create stopless multirail waypoints?

    1. Being able to create multirail waypoints is the point of track sets. Apart from that, they behave just like regular parallel tracks.
      In a track set, tracks are also ordered from 1 to 4. Trains will always choose available tracks in this order.

  4. Great game! I would only like to see a greater variety of landscapes – with coasts, rivers, etc. – in the sandbox, as well as a greater number of sandbox slots. Why not make all the landscapes of all the missions available in the sandbox? The missions themselves are not necessary for the gameplay…

    1. We plan to improve the sandboxes with all that, but first we must finish all the “coming soon” campaigns.

  5. I love your game and need your help with Track sets – I just can’t get them to work! Trains just go for a single track, the rout planner tool also doesn’t show any other route.

    Any chance of a trouble shooting guide? I saw one for switching that was good.

    1. If your train goes only to the first track, it’s probably a switching issue.
      You can think of track sets as just another station. All the rules for switching to a station apply:
      – Make sure your signals are placed correctly. Place one signal before the switching block, one before and one after each track in the set (Use the signal tool and the colors to debug your signal blocks)
      – Make sure you extend enough the tracks in a set to accommodate long trains
      – Add a waypoint on the track set itself (not on the tracks after)

      The post on switching can help you debug switching issues with track sets:
      http://www.deckeleven.com/post-how-switching-works

      1. Thank you! It was the last point that fixed it.

        (Add a waypoint on the Track Set, not the tracks.)

      2. I had the same issue with track sets, was driving me crazy why they wouldn’t work, finally stumbled upon it by accident.

        I would suggest to add a note in the Railopedia about having to select the track set as a waypoint, I’m sure others struggle with this functionality.

    1. We plan to add translations after the development on the electric campaign and improve sandboxes are done.
      The list of languages is not defined yet.
      Good day to you too.

  6. Love the update and the game!! It’s great how quickly you respond to feedback and adjust things in game when you can. Keep up the awesome work!!

  7. Good day DechEleven. Just a matter for thought. I created a sandbox with a huge map, and have all the stations/industries upgraded to 4 lanes. The traffic is still a nightmare due to the fact that a waiting loop is not possible with a 4 lane station/industry. The thought matter is for a 5 lane trackset that will make a waiting loop possible for 4 lane stations/industries. Great game !!!

    1. Thanks for the feedback. We are currently busy working on the electric campaign, so there is no immediate plan to add new buildings right now.
      You can make a waiting loop for a 4 platforms station though. There is many possible creative solutions. Here are two:
      – Use a 4 tracks trackset to build a waiting loop for 3 platforms reserved for slow traffic. Reserve the fourth platform for high speed/high profitability traffic.
      – Use a 2 two tracks tracksets

  8. I can’t get the traffic balancing to work. Whatever I do, I can’t get the direction-signal to appear.

  9. I know you’re busy, but could I suggest adding a Railopaedia (excuse the ‘British’ spelling, I don’t mean anything by it, just one of my quirks 🙂) entry for track sets? It would be handy to have a reference in game. I’ve noticed that a few people seem to be handy problems getting used to how they work, so I think it would be appreciated.
    One further request: it’s possible you’ve been asked before, but it would be great if you could save your progress. I know the game auto saves, but I’ve frequently gotten to the final objective in a campaign only to make a total mess of things and having to start over again. Often it’s a matter of not having enough currency to bulldoze everything and try again. I would suggest that, should you implement such a feature, that taking a snapshot of your current state disables auto-saving with a warning to that effect.
    Anyway, let me thank you once again for such a brilliant game with so much depth and also fort the fact that you actually take the time to read through the comments and suggestions. Should you need a German translator for the game, I’d be very happy to help – German was actually my first language, so I’m a native speaker.
    With thanks
    Nick

    1. There are already entries for track sets in the railropaedia. Have a look at traffic balancing for instance.
      Custom save games are tricky, but it may be an update for the future. I’ll have to think about it.

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