A New Way to Crash the Game

[jeffryfisher]

I've just stumbled upon a variation on a crash-bug I discovered and wrote about years ago. I've known for a while that if you pause the game while an engine is in a station, about to put on a bunch of cars, then deleting the track it rode in on will see those new cars placed on dirt. As soon as time rolls, the cars won't, and the game crashes.

My variation is to pause the game, replace a bunch of engines, and then adjust the path of some track. When a train's engine is replaced, the train becomes a ghost with the cars in limbo. The game will allow a player to delete the track right under some of those cars, as long as they're far enough from the engine. If there's no track there when time restarts, kaboom.

This "feature" does however present a small opportunity for emergency track repairs such as fixing a warp where some building has sprung up next to a track in hilly terrain. If there's a train in the way but its engine isn't, then you can ghost the train by replacing the engine. You should then be able to delete the warped track, smooth the grade, and build new track under the cars in limbo.