Rail Ops: Subdivisions - Update
Things are moving along on the rails. I now have Locomotives and several types of railcars in game. Material is beginning to move through waybill systems, and industries are buying and selling product.
The game will allow players to operate up to three separate subdivisions under their company. There will be progress locks however. You won't be able to start a second or third subdivision until all interchange tracks, and industries, are connected, an HQ, Fuel Stand, and Locomotive repair facility is purchased on each subdivision. Such will also be an achievement.
If you already own one subdivision, you may still play a directly connecting subdivision, even if someone else has claimed it. You will just be competing with them for first delivery bonuses. Otherwise you can select any other available subdivision to play. Initial selection will be limited to unclaimed subdivisions, and claimed but inactive subdivisions. Unless one purchases a subdivision unlock pass for $4.99 which will let you pick any subdivision. The idea is, it would be fun if as many legs of a railcar's journey are actually handled by players as possible.
Players will have to construct their layout using a simple point and click track spline method. You can adjust the height of the track nodes, and add switches and build yards, company HQ building, fuel stands, railcar and locomotive repair shops. You will also have to build a MOW shop to maintain your track over time. You will be rewarded with yoru first locomotive, a SW1500 after building a HQ and specifying its home and material tracks. And a second SW1500 locomotive when you build a fueling track. Actual materials are used to build your track also, so you need to order those materials. You will be provided with enough initial materials to make 20 miles of track. But most subdivisions are 50 to 100 miles long.
Yards will be coming next in development. The player will be able to define yard tracks that they build, and yard limits. Then assign a locomotive consist (yes consisting is a thing), to handle sorting tasks - sorting cars on receiving tracks to their assigned destination ready tracks. There will be a special window to manage that and the ability to turn it on or off so you can handle the yard with receiving or departing trains.
Landscape should also be interesting. Of course the land is determined by DEM and Land Use. Local edits and leveling is saved locally. But the trees will adjust based on geographic region and height above sea level. Mountains will get more conifers, as will northern latitudes. Speaking of mountains, bridges and tunnels will likely be developed in the coming weeks.
I have been working on getting a Steam store page set up for the game, so yes it will be on Steam, and planning on the PC windows platform currently. Linux may also be supported.
I am for sure interested in any volunteers to assist with defining subdivisions, and industries. It is a fun activity if you enjoy researching and studying railroads and rail served industry. I am doing that part of it all through a web portal. It is a fairly fun process of plotting out the subdivision routes. I am trying to make them interesting to play, keeping in mind the need for some industry to work, interchange points, and locations for yard facilities for each subdivision. If there isn't enough playable features on a subdivision it will be plotted for railcar routing, but only exist server side as a railcar pass through.
Industries are mostly being modeled as real world industries. Some more recently closed industries will likely remain in game. Some fictional industries also exist to add a wider variety of resource flow. Industries are plotted, assigned to a subdivision, and their inputs and outputs are defined. Tracks are also defined, but as of yet, there are no specific track requirements, besides some tracks may be mixed (input and output) while others are input or output only. I am of course using AI to help with production assumptions and to help determine what products might be received and shipped for each industry. Each transportable material is also defined, with a simple Kg./L volume and density value, and a $/Kg value. Materials can be transported in bulk, or in packaged allotments. Some railcars are set up to handled packaged material, while others can only handle bulk material.
This all is based off of RailOps 1 - a web experiment I worked on a few years back. It's public map can be found here: https://dev.railops.us/public/publicmap.php
So far good progress. I'll be happy to hear about any interest in the game. So for sure, shoot me a message. SirRoadwolf on discord. or on Steam also. I'll likely make a public forum on steam and discord soon enough with also a website based community page.