20.11.2014:
Released!
Balance Mod
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First of all, I hope it is not a problem for anyone that I'll write in english, my german is kind of sketchy 
I can read with some difficulty, but writing is a problem.
Anyhow.
It is quite obvious that the vanilla Train Fever is problematic. While the game might be made playable without the cutthroat running costs, there are more troubling problems with the game, some of which can be remedied with some script coding.
So, I decided to do so.
I have been involved in Transport Tycoon modding scene for some time ( like, 5 years ) and I am an author of two well recived vehicle sets ( Tropic Set and Tropic Refurbishment Set ), I also co-authored American Transition Set. I also have been the driving force behind Transport Empire, a ( failed 
) effort of TTD community of making a TTD sequel.
Anyhow. If you have followed forums on train-fever.com, you might have noticed that I have started this project some time ago, and I am nearing completion. So I think you guys might be interested in this as well.
Major Mod Features:
Total rebalance of purchase and running costs of trains, trucks, buses and trams. The goal is to make a clear distinction between contemporary vehicles and provide enough incentive to play, but not as overwhelming as they are now currently.
There are no situations where a locomotive cannot reach its maximum speed because there are no wagons that can run at that speed ( thing BR 103 or A4 ).
There are no obvious speed differences between trucks and buses ( Opel Blitz @ 95kmh, but aboag at 25kmh )
Trains are balanced on the principle freight slow, passanger fast.
All cargo carrying vehicles have their capacities rebalanced ( generally, lowered ) to ensure that you are running frequent services, yet run long trains and have them full. Expect your freights to be 10-30 wagons long.
Infractructural cost of railroads, especially bridges, tunnels, high speed track, depots, etc, were increased. General thought is that railroads are expensive to build, but cheap to operate.
General notes:
Universal Locomotives – I have removed the requirement of placing the catenary to run electric locomotives. I know this is problematic, but there are good reasons to do so:
- after 1920 there are hardly any non-electric locomotives available, thus forcing electrification. At some point the only availible non-electric loco is the A4.
- at the same time electrification interface is clumsy and too often leads to the dreaded "there is 1meter of non electrified track on this route, we will not tell you where it is".
- There are very few vehicles to choose from, so further dividing it into electric and non-electric variety makes no sense.
- You can always build catenary for free for the eye candy anyways
- To work around the issue of lack of catenary cost, electric locomotives are much more expensive to purchase
Early locomotives – there are not enough early locomotives and buses/trucks. While the latter is historically accurate, the former is not. So to remedy the situation I have introduced 4 new locomotives
- Aussig Teplitzer Eisenbahn class IIIa – 0-C-0 bronze repaint of Prussian G3
- Borsig II – a blue repaint of the Borsig ( btw, can anyone point me to the source engine, Borsig made, like, over 9000 locomotives )
- Prussian Class G4 – a black/red repaint of G3
- Bavarian Class C V – a tael repaint of class A 3/5
Overall, there was a reshuffling of the early 50 years of the game vehicle wise. Introduction dates, stats and whatnot were adjusted to make a sensible vehicle selection possible.
Three Game Stages: the game hints at it, thus I decided to make it apparent. There are three distinct stages in the game:
- Early – 1850 to 1899
- Middle – 1900 to 1949
- Late – 1950 and beyond
To make them more apparent I decided that:
- in the early game trains will dominate, trucks/trams/buses are not viable for bulk of transport
- in the middle game trains are still supreme, but trucks are starting to be an option
- in the late game all transport modes are equal(ish)
Freight car generations:
For each stage in the game, a new set of freight cars are introduced:
- a set of small freight cars in 1850, a set of improved ones in 1875
- a set of normal cars in 1900, a set of improved ones in 1925
- a set of large cars in 1950, a set of improved ones in 1975
Obviously, when you start the game in 1900, you get the appropiate freight cars from the get go. Improved cars are faster and have larger capacity then earlier ones. They are marked with a yellow arrow on the purchase list. Freight cars are now also much slower then passanger cars. Last generation of freight runs at speeds of 115 to 140km/h. Earlier generations are obviously slower.
Fast passanger, slow freight:
Unfortunetly cargo is TF is weightless. Which I think is a major oversight of the developers, as it removes an important aspect of railroad dynamics. Freight trains are usually very slow, and heavy, thus they require different locomotives then passanger trains. But weightless cargo makes it impossible to achieve.
Nonetheless, I tried to emulate this by assigning different weights to freight and passanger wagons. The rule is:
- 1 unit of freight capacity is 5 tons of wagon weight
- 1 passanger seat is 0.5 tons of wagon weight
This works out to late freight cars weighing about 45 tonnes, while passanger cars are about 10 tonnes each. Thanks to that most passanger trains run at their rated speeds, hills are now actually difficult for freight and mixing both types of traffic requires some major thinking in an integrated system.
Other:
HSR track is very expensive now, use sparingly
Some locomotives and wagons are now available to purchase ( think – elements of RE450 )
TGV got a major overhaul. It can not almost reach its max speed
Current status:
The mod is about 95% complete. I am now testing it before a public release. I still have one repaint to do, and some scripting regarding vehicle stats.
Plans:
I want to hunt for more vehicles to include into the mod. Mostly non-electrified ones, such as bigger steam engines, especially XIX century ones. Other plans are "as I go". For example I want to fix the Heusinger valve gear animation on some locomotives.
I would also like to know your suggestions or opinions.
