I actually played the original A-Train on a monochrome 286 and then a VGA 486 (which made my head explode)..
It was and has been pretty much unique.. I didn't even know that it had sequels though! I'll have to check out A-Train II and III..
Hasn't there been a Windows A-Train game as well lately? Like, last year or something?
EDIT: Shit, I just checked out the A-Train wikipedia page ant the A-Train game I played on DOS was actually A-Train III! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-Train
I actually played the original A-Train on a monochrome 286 and then a VGA 486 (which made my head explode)..
It was and has been pretty much unique.. I didn't even know that it had sequels though! I'll have to check out A-Train II and III..
Hasn't there been a Windows A-Train game as well lately? Like, last year or something?
EDIT: Shit, I just checked out the A-Train wikipedia page ant the A-Train game I played on DOS was actually A-Train III! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-Train
Yep, A-Train 8 and A-Train 9 are both on Steam. There's even two versions of the latter, one of which is twice the price of the other (I think because of train licensing or something?).
As for the game, itself, I'm really enjoying it so far, it feels like the developers poured a lot of love into it, right through to the sound effects in the interface (I love configuring my trains with the slider). I need some help though, as I'm stuck on the first scenario, 3/4 hours in. It's the bit of the tutorial where you have to start using the freight system, and I can never get my island locomotive train to turn a profit. It tends to hold up my two passenger trains in the same looped/turnback track, but I can't figure out how to deal with the unload/load schedule for all the different depots by the stations. No matter what I try and do it's still losing money, even when I set it up so my train takes freight from a station close to a material factory, then drops it off at a depot which doesn't have one.
If anyone could help me that would be hugely appreciated.
I just checked the EU eShop for the StreetPass games and there's no front page rack to proudly display this game, which is a shame. I thought NoE's eShop team would at least recognise the heritage and importance of this release, but nope.
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As for the game, I really need some help. I'm stuck on the first scenario, 3/4 hours in. It's the bit of the tutorial where you have to start using the freight system, and I can never get my island locomotive train to turn a profit.
It tends to hold up my two passenger trains in the same looped/turnback track, but I can't figure out how to deal with the unload/load schedule for all the different depots by the stations.
No matter what I try and do it's still losing money, even when I set it up so my train takes freight from a station close to a material factory, then drops it off at a depot which doesn't have one.
If anyone could help me that would be hugely appreciated.
Guess I need to speed up time to get to the good stuff!
YES. The only reason to not have fast forward set all the time, as far as I can tell, is a) to debug train or route-related issues, or b) because watching your train system run is fun and relaxing. If you want to actually get stuff done in the tutorial, there's no reason to wait between secretary visits any longer than you have to. I've spent 2.5 hours in the game so far and have gotten to freight--and that's AFTER restarting a bunch of times when I had my corrupted SD card issues.
Artdink has priced A-Train 9 V3.0 high mainly to keep prices across both Steam and their online store (set-up and operated by Degica, importantly). This I presume is to prevent Japanese customers from getting second thoughts about buying on Steam for less; Artdink's user base for the PC A-Train games is more focused compared to the handheld games, so they must feel there's less opportunity to expand the demographic and that money can be made in keeping prices evergreen.Yep, A-Train 8 and A-Train 9 are both on Steam. There's even two versions of the latter, one of which is twice the price of the other (I think because of train licensing or something?).
Much as I dislike the company's lack of correspondence with A-Train 9's community and for posturing about their ability to deliver on all promises, Degica's not the only group facing insurmountable licensing issues. JR Group simply won't license their rolling stock for a trifle: the developers of Train Simulator have been trying for years to get Japanese trains and have been stopped repeatedly, and I bet they've tried harder! I'd rather Degica admit it's out of their expertise to deal with it and make generic trains to replace the licensed ones instead. Players just want trains able to fulfill the specifications/roles those JR Group trains can.I wish some better publisher had the license instead of Degica, then we might actually get a version with licensed trains.
Does eshop even do regular sales? I dont know if I can wait a year to play this.
Much as I dislike the company's lack of correspondence with A-Train 9's community and for posturing about their ability to deliver on all promises, Degica's not the only group facing insurmountable licensing issues. JR Group simply won't license their rolling stock for a trifle: the developers of Train Simulator have been trying for years to get Japanese trains and have been stopped repeatedly, and I bet they've tried harder! I'd rather Degica admit it's out of their expertise to deal with it and make generic trains to replace the licensed ones instead. Players just want trains able to fulfill the specifications/roles those JR Group trains can.
For that matter, I think Degica's greenness in localizing and supporting their games (evidenced by hiring "community managers" who apparently have other things to do that conflict with schedule) is a problem.
What's odd is that the European Miiverse community does allow screenshots, while the NA one does not.
What gets me is that Blackbird, the community manager for Crimson Clover, is doing a much better job of interacting with fans and customers, not easy to do when the Shmups forum is even more critical and knowledgeable than most A-Train players. Maybe it's an easier game to update and support, but what goes for CC should go for A-Train 9 V3.0 if possible. And I find it weird that JR Group will make a deal with Artdink but refuse to extend it to non-Japanese territories for the same game; maybe the companies are working a deal right now and we just don't know it, lol.I just wish the community managers of Degica could just come out and say that they couldn't get the licensing done. I didn't know JR Group was being difficult about the licensing, I was assuming just that Degica couldn't justify the costs of licensing their trains for the international release.
Yeah, I don't know what's going on, but this could really hurt the NA Miiverse channel for A-Train. Hopefully it gets fixed and the game develops a following over time and/or through sales.What's odd is that the European Miiverse community does allow screenshots, while the NA one does not.
What's odd is that the European Miiverse community does allow screenshots, while the NA one does not.
Checking Twitter, it looks like Natsume don't know why that's the case, so it seems it's a glitch on the NA side.
Also, the EU Miiverse consists of about one guys posts right now, haha. I hope this game gets some more attention because it looks cool and going off impressions here, is a pretty solid game. Natsume haven't even released an official trailer for it yet (as far as I can see).
Maybe I'll pick this up sooner than I planned...I do want to support simulation games on the 3DS, and it sounds quite unique.
IIRC Fantasy Zone 2 was the only release this week to get on the rack. The other 2 new release spots were DLC. The game currently is top spot on the calender so there is that I suppose.I just checked the EU eShop for the StreetPass games and there's no front page rack to proudly display this game, which is a shame. I thought NoE's eShop team would at least recognise the heritage and importance of this release, but nope.
Fuck it. Just bought it.
Downloading right now, hope its aa good as it seems.
I've played longer than that and they haven't even introduced the freight system yet. I got a couple of freight trains moving back and forth along my map just for fun; one turns a profit and one doesn't, and I don't know why, but I assume once I get to that tutorial I will be able to figure out what I've done wrong.
Do you just crank up the speed of time until the next tutorial lesson? What is your in-game date right now? I just got to May 2001 (scenario 1) and I've played more than 6 hours.
I'm enjoying the game, but the tutorial seems to take forever. Maybe I should just speed up time between secretary visits. Sometimes she goes 3-4 days before popping up with a new lesson. and sometimes those lessons are dumb crap like changing train/station names or changing the departing chime! Stuff like that should be integrated into other lessons!
It is a little frustrating. I can only build stations within range of building materials. I can't move those materials to locations where I want to build a station (yet). I also can't merge tracks with switches(?) so two lines of track can intersect without the damn trains crashing. So every line has to use its own tracks, and my island is getting crowded. I know these options will unlock eventually, but it is taking a long time.
I am also anxiously anticipating the 3D camera mode so I can get down into my little world and actually ride the trains. When the hell does that option unlock?!?!?!
I am enjoying the game, though. It is a relaxing break from Monster Hunter 4U, and seems just as deep and content-packed. I love watching my little trains zoom around my map, watching the P&L numbers (slowly) tick upwards, and there is still a little thrill when I get the message that an apartment complex or petting farm(?!) has sprung up next to one of my stations.
Guess I need to speed up time to get to the good stuff!
I've only just started myself, but I didn't find it too difficult to get the freight train to turn a (very small) profit. First, is your train actually running into other trains or is it just delaying them? I found it really difficult at first to keep trains from running into each other but you unlock tools that can help with that in theory, I think (Departure Conditions and switch boxes?). I just solved it by making sure ALL my trains had the same operation schedule--I was finding my freight train would constantly run into my passenger trains when they were out of service and chilling at a station.
Second, are your trains actually picking up and dropping off materials? Watch your freight train at a slow speed and see if it's picking up and dropping off white boxes. If it's not transferring freight at all, or only at a few stations, that's your problem. Looks like you've already figured out unload/load, but there's a few more gotchas the tutorial eventually tells you about:
1) Are your stations big enough? Freight trains will only load/unload at stations with platforms big enough to take the entire train. If the platform isn't big enough, I believe the train will stop but won't do anything.
2) Are you sure the material depots are within range of the stations? This shouldn't be a problem for any of the stations the tutorial has already built or the one station it has you build on pre-owned land, but any subsequent stations you build on that map might not be in range. This happened to one of my stations, and later in the tutorial you unlock the ability to change (or move!) the freight range to fix minor placement issues. You also get the ability to build new depots, though obviously this doesn't help for creating actual material since you need factories/plants for that.
3) Is a depot you set to unload material from full, or a depot you set to load material from empty? If there's no plant nearby, it's easy for full depots to become empty, and if there's no construction demand in the area of an empty depot it's easy for that depot to become full. I don't yet know how to fix either underlying problem, but in the meantime you should at least change the loading mode for stations if depot conditions change.
Ah yes, I'm currently in June at the moment on my game. Do let me know what you make of the freight system when you get to it, though based on your experiences I should probably just experiment with it all rather than try and pull off precise perfection.
I was thinking the same thing about the 3D camera mode, so I sneakily started a new game under scenario 4 just to check it out. It's pretty nifty!
Ah, my problem tends to be both. Whenever I configure the slightest change to my rail track (especially with the turnback style ends) I end up getting a combination of the both, where the trains end up almost colliding and facing an emergency stop. With the delays, my passenger trains seem to run faster than the locomotive speed-wise, so they end up getting held up by my locomotive.
Maybe we shouldn't be worrying about this at this stage now given you mentioned unlockable tools to fix this, but it's hard to do what my secretary is telling me as is (optimise the freight train)
Thanks so much for this -- going to play around with those options (especially the depots). Point 3 is particularly something I had been struggling with.
Just one more note -- what actually determines whether you make money from freight? Is it whenever you unload? I'm just a bit confused, as sometimes it feels like I'm unloading to stations which don't *need* the freight. I feel dumb
Unless you want to build a separate track just for freight trains you can have them running only at night when there should be no passenger trains on the tracks anyway.
I'm still just 2-3 hours in, but I absolutely love this game already.
A pretty dumb question: Is it normal for your trains to loose money in the 100.000s ?
My secretary told me to drop the number of wagons to get the costs down (and the demand isn't that high), but my two trains still loose like 200-300k every quarter.
Like...I don't know if it's supposed to be that way ( my company is profitable overall though)
I'm still just 2-3 hours in, but I absolutely love this game already.
A pretty dumb question: Is it normal for your trains to loose money in the 100.000s ?
My secretary told me to drop the number of wagons to get the costs down (and the demand isn't that high), but my two trains still loose like 200-300k every quarter.
Like...I don't know if it's supposed to be that way ( my company is profitable overall though)
Nope, you should get them to be profitable. Have you made your trains stop at night? Like let the passenger trains just run from 5AM to 1 AM.
Well then.
Edit:
Thank you so much, I'll try your approach later today...when I have more time !Holy shit this game is godly, beat yesterday night the first scenario, something like 5 hours.
Its really deep and challenging at the beggining, but when you get hang of it and start makin a profit with the train, its marvelous.
Had some trains doing the same at first, that bleeds money as hell.
With 4 or 5 stations what you need to do is have 3 trains with 2 wagons each on the same circle circuit, put them to rest from 1am to 5am. Look at one of the trains and put the faster speed, if you see that train during the week (try 3 days) starting to win money (look the red number going down) stedealy, that train is going to go into black in some weeks. Repeat this with every train. If you get the stations are still full icon dont worry just yet.
After that expand your circular railway onto the west island area leaving the center untouched. Add a freight train to the line, and make 3 freight stations just near the material depots in the factories of south, west and northwest. The trick here is using the same passenger line for freight, but doing a separate track for the freight stations just next to the passenger ones, for then to enter again the normal line when it exists the station. Make the freight train have 3 transport vehicles, and make it so ONE vehicle gets loaded each time it passes one of the west part freight stations, and unload ONE vehicle each time it passes through one of the passenger east stations. This will make the west factories to have always product to send to the east neighbourhoods.
After that reapeat a second passenger line doing a similar circular curcuit but with 3 trains in reverse from the other line. Same as the other start with two vehicles for each and remeber to add stop times to the trains.
When in the end game scenario (when lots of people are moving in) you start getting full stations nearly with every stop, add a 3 wagon to each passenger train you have.
This will make you a massive profit.