Welcome to Cities: Skylines The Dev Diaries
These videos are based on the official Dev Diaries that can be found at the
Paradox Interactive forum and I'll include a link to them in
the video description
In this episode we'll be looking at Public Transport
The developers at Collosal Order have been quick to remind us that Cities: Skylines
is a city builder rather than a transport simulator.
But these are the same developers that gave us Cities in Motion so my expectations
for the transport in Cities: Skylines are through the roof
Let's take a look
There are 5 transport options in Cities: Skylines
Buses Metro
Trains Ships
and Planes
And I'm giving Paradox and Collosal order a big thumbs up straight away for
giving us all the basic options on day 1 and not succumbing to the temptation
to hold back on say, the Metro for a 'quick buck' DLC
a month or two after release
Having said that, if the game turns out to be as good as it looks
I'm gonna be the first in the queue for a Monorail DLC
well, unless the modders beat them to it
ok enough of that let's look at the 5 transport options in detail
starting with the buses
Buses will probably be your first option for public transport due to the
relatively low cost
You need two things to make your buses work
a Bus Depot and bus stops
As you place bus stops you'll see the route that the
buses will follow
Now in the real world buses need two main things to make them
function sensibly
Routes, ok check
and timetables which determine the frequency of the buses
In Cities: Skylines
You can adjust the budget to either increase or decrease the number of
buses on your bus routes thereby increasing or decreasing
the frequency
Now a quick word to my good friends at SimCity developer Maxis
See?
How freakin' hard was that?
ok, moving on
You can run your entire bus network from a single depot or you can
distribute your depots and create local services for individual
neighborhoods
Buses do pretty much everything you'd want buses to do in a city
simulation although I should point out that buses only operate
within your city limits and don't have connections
to the outside world
Either way, I'm going to be spending a lot of time playing with these
If you want to move a lot of people fast and efficient
you're going to want a Metro system
But make sure you can afford it because they're not cheap to build
Metros also require two structures in order to function
The metro station and I'm desperately trying to ignore
the fact that it's almost the same size as a farm
and tracks which are built in a special view mode where the tracks
and stations are highlighted
This mode also highlights any other transport buildings, tracks and routes
which makes planning your super-duper integrated transport
network a total breeze
Once again though, Metros don't have connections to the outside world
so let's take a look at the transport options that do
Starting with everyone's favorite Trains
Trains are divided into passenger and cargo trains
and both have unique terminals that you can build
Now this is where is gets interesting
You can use the train network in two different ways:
First, if they only build terminals and connect the train tracks to the
outside connecting train tracks which you'll find on the map
the terminals will only service intercity traffic
importing and exporting cargo and passengers which, by the way,
includes tourists
Second, you can create train routes to service local needs
just within the city limits
Trains are cheaper to build than underground metros but, of course,
they take up space and have to co-exist with your road network
no doubt leading to lots of complex road and rail bridge work
Love it!
Now Cities: Skylines does feature elevated train tracks but I haven't seen
any L Train stations as yet and I've certainly love to have
that option
Your second intercity option is Harbors
Harbors also have separate buildings for passengers and cargo
and both have access to outside world connections
Ships have got huge capacity in this game and harbors
can play a major role in an integrated transport network transporting
very large amounts of people and goods
One little comment to the developers though, can you please tone down
the ship animation?
These are big ships they should bob up and down like a cork in a
washing machine
Oh and leave in the ability for ships to climb over dams
cos that's just too funny!
Finally, Airports
Airports service mostly passengers and it's the most expensive of the public
transport options
If you want to bring in large numbers of tourists Airports are the way to go
and can really boost your economy
But while the airport increases your tourism it also increases your noise pollution
so you want to keep it well away from any residential zones
Looking at the Airport though does make me want to give the developers
one piece of advice
Guys, you need to sit down right now and have a talk about the relative
scale of buildings
It's the one consistent issue that I have and that I've seen
on the forums
It may be too late to do anything about it before launch
but please be sure you've exhausted all the options
because even if farms can't be made bigger because of the limitations
on zoning
there's really no excuse for not having a really huge impressive airport
with multiple buildings big parking lots and definitely
two intersecting runways
Listen to the fans we want our airports BIG!
You have an awesome game here
Be all you can be
Overall, I love what I've seen of the transport so far.
It looks nice and simple to use but with enough depth to
adequately simulate a real world transport system
Ok that's it for Public Transport
Once again I'd like to thank Henkka for putting together
the original Dev Diary
I'd like to thank you for watching
and you enjoyed this vid hit the like button or better still, leave me a comment
I'll see you for episode 5 where we'll be looking closer at
Outside Connections