Something else as good as RT2?

[TheDS]

RT3 - flop

Locomotion - flop

SM's Railroads - big flop

Transport Tycoon - nope

A-Train - flop

So is there anything out there which delivers the game play of RT2, but has a less idiotic player/editor interface? Or something that delivers on the promise of Transport Tycoon, but is actually playable?

[TheDS]

Dang; two years and no one has any suggestions.

[akuenzi]

In terms of sheer hours of playing, I've certainly spent more time with Transport Tycoon than any other.  My kids have liked it, too.  That being said, I thought I'd add a couple other railroad games that weren't on TheDS's list, as I was curious as to what folks thought of those.  As for whether they are a flop or not, I don't know!

• Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe - definitely an improvement on the original
  
• Rails Across America
  
• Railroad Pioneer
  

I have all three of the above games, but I haven't spent a lot of time with the bottom two, so I don't know much about them.  In addition, I was curious as to what you (TheDS) meant by "something that delivers on the promise of Transport Tycoon, but is actually playable?"  What 'promise' are you referring to?  I found Transport Tycoon quite playable, personally, though it is more of a 'toy train' as compared to Railroad Tycoon II.

[letsdance]

Railroad Pioneer

i liked it alot. had some bugs though and i think it's not easy to get, and it was also hard to find patches.

[TheDS]

Rails Across America is pretty good, except for its game-breaking flaws. If they'd correct the routing algorithms, I'd probably be playing that all the time. You can do a little bit of tweaking. I found out it's not a matter of capacity... well, I suppose I could have made the lines near-infinite capacity and that would have taken care of it, but then there would've been no point to buying extra rails and signals. The game works reasonably well until you create a loop or shortcut, and then everything gets hosed. Hard NOT to. People suggest building ONLY single track, but those people clearly have no idea how the game was intended to be played. And it's well out of development, so no patches since pretty much the day it was released.

I gave OTTD a try, and it's even worse than TT. Lots of promise, none of it delivered on. I'm not looking to be overwhelmed and confused, I'm looking to be entertained. TT promises to be RT but with additional types of transport available than just trains. It fails.

I gave that railroad pioneer a try. Can't remember why I rejected it, don't have the time to find out again.

RT and RT2 were "good games" in that they are easy to learn and understand, but you can still do complex things with them. RT2 does get a bit complex in certain situations, especially if you've grown to over 100 engines, but it's still possible to hit pause and take a few minutes to figure out what's going on. RAA was good like that too, except for that critical flaw in the route-finder. TT, I couldn't even get into. I couldn't make heads or tails of what I was supposedly doing.

[douglascaixeta]

Hard to find something as good as RRT2. If this game was easier to mod I'm sure it would be very alive.

I don't like OpenTTD, but I do enjoy Locomotion. Its not as dynamic as RRT2, but its possible to have a few hours of fun. Specially if you install the mods. You can have very complex chains and the sounds are very enjoyable. Give it another try, with the Automobile industry mod, you can create such a complex chain that it will give you at least 2 hours of planning.

Other games that are focuses in transportation can be Industry Giant 2. It doesn't work in Windows 7, I'm hopping to appear someday in GoG. The game is interesting and it will keep you busy. So busy that if you grow too much its unplayable. Its impossible to automatize things, so you have to take care of all details. But its interesting at least.

Another option is Cities in Motion. Its public transportation not cargo, but the game have amazing graphics and a nice gameplay. Requires a lot of planning.

Besides that there is not much to go on. Colossal Order, developer of Cities in Motion, is producing Cities in Motion 2. So I hope that the "tycoon" games will come back. After years of nothing we will probably see more of those games coming in (SimCity is on the way). But for transportation there is only Cities in Motion, the rest is old. Or A-Train that I don't get it. Or some projects as Train Fever (but this game is in development for years, probably won't come out any time soon).