Train implementations in Sandbox, Infinite and Open World videogames

[The Pelican]

Freedom is one of the greatest advantages of videogames- you could potentially buy a small shunter and a stock of 2ft gauge portable track panels, hire a field and a forest for a week and lay out your own railway system, and you could also model such a system at various gauges, but the lowest effort option is to simulate it on a computer.

Ever since Minecraft introduced minecarts- it looks like it was in 2010- sandbox games have offered interesting environments for building railways. The minecraft implementation is reasonably simple and effective, but Satisfactory offers a more advanced train system, with the ability to choose exactly how a rail route fits into the landscape. The disadvantage is that minecraft's world is infinite, while Satisfactory's is limited in area.

Derail Valley offers a sandbox mostly focused on trains, with a map containing various railway freight yards you have to take trains between. The difficulties are to do with getting your locomotive to accelerate the much heavier cargo wagons, and to round corners at an acceptably low speed. It's one of the most impressive games in this genre, but takes a long time to update.

The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom also offers functioning minecarts, although there are only a limited number of tracks, and it's hard to add your own.

What are your favourite implementations of trains in Sandbox/Open World games?

 

[sprunt]

Many of the Grand Theft Auto type open world games have metro systems implemented in them - nothing you can change or plan yourself but fun to ride around on.

My favourite game for designing systems myself is Cities Skylines (I'm still playing the first as my computer can't handle CS2 yet), I find the early stages of a new city a bit of a chore just working towards the point when all the public transport options are unlocked.

 

[The Pelican]

Yes, City Skylines is great for urban transit- trams, cable cars and metros as well as trains- and has the particular advantage of no complex signalling.

Outside of built-up areas, Transport Fever (and probably Transport Fever 2) seems to have the best implementation- large landscapes you can easily build tracks on, simple multi-tracking along an existing single track line, easy grade seperation, it's very impressive. It operates a bit like Transport Tycoon and it's successors (Open TTD is the main one I've played) but with much more accurate and varied track geometry. Really worth playing! I haven't played the multiplayer modes, although I hear Open TTD can do payments between players for using sections of each other's track, a bit like joint railways.

Both Open TTD and Transport Fever suffer from confusing signalling implementations, something Derail valley and Cities Skylines avoid.

 

[signed]

Nimby Rails it is by far the most complete railway simulator, 2D only (you place on a OpenStreetMap base) but with so much possibilites, while beeing seemingly very realistic, that I find it to be an incredible game.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

I've been playing a lot of OpenTTD recently.
I have also put a lot of time into Cities Skylines (both 1 and 2) in the past

 

[The Pelican]

I tried Nimby Rails, but found the placement of the existing transport network in my city- London- too labour intensive.

That reminds me of Cities In Motion, a game made by the same people as Cities Skylines, which had metro and tram construction. One of the starting maps was London, which I used to put down a network of light rail lines in South London, roughly in an H shape with the two top routes feeding into the West End and the City. Like many maps of London in videogames (see also Watchdogs: Leigon) it was fun to work out where various corners were, and which real world streets had made the cut.

 

[nlogax]

What are your favourite implementations of trains in Sandbox/Open World games?

GTA V's freight train implementation has its flaws but I still have a soft spot for it. It certainly looks the part and there's the evergreen charm of Nathan horns blaring in the far distance while I'm sat in my car by a level crossing in the desert dusk.

I'm fully expecting the GTV VI experience to be mind-blowing and for rail to be a major transport element of what is rumoured to be a much larger map than V's. Hopefully there'll be some passenger traffic alongside freight this time around.

 

[Strathclyder]

GTA V's freight train implementation has its flaws but I still have a soft spot for it. It certainly looks the part and there's the evergreen charm of Nathan horns blaring in the far distance while I'm sat in my car by a level crossing in the desert dusk.

I'm fully expecting the GTV VI experience to be mind-blowing and for rail to be a major transport element of what is rumoured to be a much larger map than V's. Hopefully there'll be some passenger traffic alongside freight this time around.

Even now, I still think the subway in GTA IV's version of Liberty City is one of the best, most fleshed out/detailed and true-to-life metro systems in any open-world game, even if you can only ride in it. Hard to imagine that game will be 18 years old next April.

Ever since Minecraft introduced minecarts- it looks like it was in 2010- sandbox games have offered interesting environments for building railways. The minecraft implementation is reasonably simple and effective, but Satisfactory offers a more advanced train system, with the ability to choose exactly how a rail route fits into the landscape. The disadvantage is that minecraft's world is infinite, while Satisfactory's is limited in area.

Minecarts were indeed first added to Minecraft, specifically in June 2010 when the game was in it's Infdev stage (so over a year before it's official release in November 2011). The player couldn't ride in them initially and they were used for storage; the ability to ride in them was added very soon afterwards. The ability to use minecarts for storage remains to this day in the form of minecarts with chests however.

While the implementation for networks of minecart rails within the in-game world is fairly straightforward (just alter the terrain as you see fit), the material cost of building such networks, at least in Survival Mode, complicates matters somewhat, as you need a lot of wood/sticks, iron, gold and redstone dust, to say nothing of the dangers involved, as the raw materials you'd need can only or mostly be found deep underground in dark, often-times sprawling, monster-infested caves.

More often than not, I end up using other methods of transport - namely a mix of boats and regular walking as you often need to cross large bodies of water and you don't get hungry as you row as opposed to swimming - for longer exploration/mining trips away from my base as there's far less risk and effort involved to craft boats and more versatile overall.

Of course, this is merely my preferred method of playing the game and there's nothing at all wrong with wanting to go all out on a minecart system in your survival world. That is the beauty of Minecraft after all.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

More often than not, I end up just using other methods of transport - namely a mix of boats and regular walking as often you need to cross large bodies of water - for longer exploration/mining trips away from my base as there's far less risk and effort involved to craft them and are far more versatile overall.

And in the late-game, Elytra with firework rockets is very fast.
And then Boats on Blue Ice hit a higher speed than Elytra flight, but (unless the angle is very precice) has to go in straight lines.
On Java edition the Nether roof provides a perfect place to build.

There is an experiment you can enable to adjust minecarts' max speed, but that doesn't solve the infrastructure cost compared to an ice/boat highway.

 

[The Pelican]

I've always thought Minecraft suits large road networks, with two wide cobblestone tracks, occasional rest huts/post huts, impressive bridges or tunnels where appropriate, and moderate sized towns every now and then. I tend to mostly build railways in creative mode, but there they work well as a second layer on top of the road network, allowing fast and automatic travel for reasonable distances.

Mountain railways are particularly appealing, much like in real life.

 

[Strathclyder]

And in the late-game, Elytra with firework rockets is very fast.
And then Boats on Blue Ice hit a higher speed than Elytra flight, but (unless the angle is very precice) has to go in straight lines.
On Java edition the Nether roof provides a perfect place to build.

There is an experiment you can enable to adjust minecarts' max speed, but that doesn't solve the infrastructure cost compared to an ice/boat highway.

Indeed. Building on that, Elytra with a Riptide-enchanted Trident is faster still, though it needs to be raining or you need to launch yourself from a body of water for it to work and the Trident is a rare, uncraftable weapon enchanted or not, so it's not nearly as flexible as just using firework rockets.

 

[Cerchione90]

About Sandbox Mode..I’m so excited for Century of Steam to come out... it’s like Railroad Tycoon in Unreal Engine 5 where you can build your railway exactly the way you want!

 

[GatwickDepress]

GTA V's freight train implementation has its flaws but I still have a soft spot for it. It certainly looks the part and there's the evergreen charm of Nathan horns blaring in the far distance while I'm sat in my car by a level crossing in the desert dusk.

I'm fully expecting the GTV VI experience to be mind-blowing and for rail to be a major transport element of what is rumoured to be a much larger map than V's. Hopefully there'll be some passenger traffic alongside freight this time around.

One of the postcards on the GTAVI website shows a Genesis locomotive hauling what appears to be Viewliner passenger cars, so it looks like there will be some mainline passenger rail in addition to the Metromover and Metrorail trains we saw in the trailers. I missed the Brown Streak from SA in V, so it's good to see some more passenger trains once again.

 

[tadzio]

Transport Fever 2, Cities Skylines (especialy 2) is worth mentioning - the freedom to build your own rail network from scratch and watch it grow over decades is really satisfying. The train physics aren't perfect (or there is none at all) but the scale and progression feel great.

 

[Malkemy]

I regularly play on Trailmakers, a sandbox game more technical than Minecraft and not focused on factories like Satisfactory. With an in-map decoration the Jersey Barrier acting as a track, you can create trains that use hover pads to ride on top of a single rail of barriers, and there’s even a third-party software called Trailmappers that allows you to make and upload maps to the Steam Workshop, which lets you create maps that revolve around rail transit! I have built upwards of 10 trains in the game, and drive them around on four different maps made by SamJR01. You can create basically anything in Trailmakers, and that extends to trains!

Trailmakers Steam Page:

Save 70% on Trailmakers on Steam

Build the ultimate vehicle and explore a vast open world filled with challenges and adventure. Play solo or team up with friends in multiplayer to conquer the toughest obstacles. With a thrilling campaign mode and endless creative possibilities, Trailmakers is the ultimate sandbox for adventurers.

store.steampowered.com

SamJR01’s Steam Workshop:

Steam Community :: SamJR01 :: Workshop Items

steamcommunity.com

 

[CarrotPie]

Overcrowd: A Commute 'Em Up is a pretty decent game where you build and manage an Underground station, with various levels and modes and opportunities to progress. It's also on sale for the next few days for ludicrously low price of just a few quid, apparently.

 

[The Pelican]

I really want a game which lets you build a realistic modern underground system underneath a large city, including cross platform interchanges, terminal loops like at Kennington, through running onto surface railways and that sort of thing. Cities in motion, cities Skylines and minecraft using minecarts can all do parts of that, but not all at the same time.

 

[CarrotPie]

I really want a game which lets you build a realistic modern underground system underneath a large city, including cross platform interchanges, terminal loops like at Kennington, through running onto surface railways and that sort of thing. Cities in motion, cities Skylines and minecraft using minecarts can all do parts of that, but not all at the same time.

Hmm...Subway Builder is the closest you can get to that at the moment, I believe. In terms of British cities, you can build in Birmingham, London, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle.