I am looking into Simutrans and I would like to know if cooperative play is used on some servers. Next is it a good way to learn how to play the game with a group of like minded people? Thank you. Sorry if I posted this in the wrong area. I looked for the most recent post because many of them are old. I thought this would be a good place to ask.... Have a super day. cxd
It is supported but no one ever does it. Unlike OpenTTD it seems people are much more conservative and selfish in Simutrans multiplayer. They will even start new companies instead of using ones which have expired passwords and a ton of cash they are just that selfish.
In OpenTTD I often used to share companies with one or more other players. In Simutrans I have never shared a single company.
This is an interesting observation. I wonder why this is? There is much to be said for starting companies with no money but the ability to borrow to deal with the "ton of cash" issue (as well as to make balancing more realistic generally), but it seems unlikely that this will entirely solve the original problem.
It all comes down to the people. Personally I would not mind as long as I know the person is not a troll going to destroy my company. People like Fifty say that they do not want to work together because they want to keep their company to their own personal style.
I wonder whether a server explicitly for co-operative play would help?
"their own personal style"
I think that's the answer. There are so many different ways to create a network, rail layout, scheduling, signal configurations, integration with other forms of transport... it's a bit of a creative/aesthetic process and everyone has their own style. If several people cooperated, you may see each person still working in a separate area rather than all combining together to tackle the same transportation sections. Be interesting to experiment with this, however. I wonder if discussions could easily turn to arguments on how best to tackle high volume areas.
The people would have to agree rules between them and trust one another to obey them, I think. One could have many possible configurations: different people might be in charge of different geographical regions; different people might be in charge of different modes of transport; different people might simply be on at different times; one player may take a junior role and do maintenance work whilst the other oversees the overall strategy. There is some advantage to co-operative play in online games, since this can mitigate the effect of people having limited time when coupled with the fact that game time is constantly advancing. One might, for example, have an arrangement in which one person is in charge of water transport and another in charge of rail transport, but they each have authority to make urgent changes or carry out minor maintenance in the other's area when the other is not online.
I've long wanted to run a server where I was public service and set up highways, as well as perhaps some mainline multiple tracks, but definitely highways... heh. But I can't devote the time for it, really, and I play in spurts rather than consistently....
But that for me goes back to really it more about me wanting Simutrans to be more like SimCity. :)
Isn't one solution to not having time to play co-operatively with somebody else who also doesn't have time?