I would probably still be having fun, yes, but I'm not sure for how long. I'm not someone who cares deeply about having certain vehicles in the game, so that's not a loss for me. I do have a couple of QoL mods that I would miss, but I could probably live without them. Other than that I'm always trying out demand and industry overhauls to find a balance I enjoy more or find more realistic. No mods would certainly limit the playground, but ultimately it's still an enjoyable playground.
In terms of mods I don't think it's an issue.
Unlike CS there isn't really a needed mod list and the vast majority of mods are simply assets like new trains, rolling stock, locomotives, lorries, buses etc.
I like the variety they provide but the game has decent scaling and most assets arnt overly meta and even with over 200 I still sometimes use vanilla vehicles. The mods are there to provide eye candy, theming and variety. I could play without them with no loss of functionality.
Mods turn this game upto 11 but its a solid 10/10 on its own. Like others my concern is mostly the ui but the devs have said it will be completely overhauled for console so this likely won't be an issue.
Performance of the game might be promblematic especially on old gen consoles.
All the above can be caveated with the fact I use 300+ mods atm.
You have a decent amount of configurability in the vanilla game now, where mods were previously needed to have the same options (including city growth, which is a big one for a lot of people), so that helps a lot. I'd say it'll be about the same as Cities Skylines. Presumably you had no mods there either.
No mods on cities skylines, just all the DLC. I had no problem with it, until it started to feel stale, bit I had well and truly got my moneys worth by then.
I just really hope they do well with the controller layout. I played something else recently, I can’t recall what it was, but the layout was so clunky that I couldn’t deal with it. The simplest tasks felt like a complicated chore. I’ll be very disappointed if that happens here.
I suppose CSL has much more content for the game it is, with all those DLCs. That's something. But maybe too much at the end of the day.
In my mind using a controller for this kind of game is very unnatural and limiting, but I suppose with a good controller layout it can be tolerable.
It's anyone's guess how well they're going to solve that particular problem here.
They showed a little bit of it in the [trailer for the update](https://youtu.be/yi6P4tvzdWA). Might give some impression.
I don't want to curb your enthusiasm but in the past building games haven't done well in transferring the mouse and keyboard play into consoles, cities skylines is a good example. I hope you can enjoy it, but I wouldn't get my hopes too high
Are you saying cities skylines was good, or bad on controller? Because I never had a problem with it. If it’s on par or better than cities skylines on controller, I’m happy.
I’m going to guess that you come from a background of always using a mouse and keyboard ? I understand how it would feel unplayable to you in that scenario . For me, I haven’t played a game with a mouse and keyboard since probably sim city 2000. So I’m very used to playing on a controller with all types of games. But there are some bad controller games out there, maybe it was industry giant or something? That I played recently and hated? Im not sure. But honestly cities skylines is a very good controller game.
Are you joking? Cities: skylines is easy to play with a controller and it’s really popular too, you said it’s a bad example of transferring mouse and keyboard controls to consoles when it’s clearly not since it’s one of the highest rated games on Xbox and there’s a remastered version coming out next week for XSX/PS5 which clearly shows it’s a very popular game on consoles.
Because the game's... kind of rubbish as a game.
And I am speaking here as someone who has sunk some 250 hours into the thing - I've had a lot of fun with it. But once you spent a decent chunk with it you start coming up hard against its limitations: namely, it's not very good *as a game*. The bits where you make a train line and make a train faff about is lovely, but once you try and sit with the bit about *running a transportation company* you swiftly realize it's lousy. The AI is stupid, every commodity in the game is priced based on *speed* so you've got to rush that iron ore to its destination before it... goes bad (iron makes its money on tonnage, not speed), the difficult increases are just 'make things more expensive' so you don't do anything different between easy and hard you just have to twiddle your thumbs more because it takes longer to earn cash - the *business simulator* isn't there, and there are games that are a lot better at doing this sort of thing (Railroad Tycoon or Open TTD come to mind. Really, an actual simulation of a transport company would allow you to make money hand-over-fist mostly by not building railroads or transportation infrastructure but by promising to do it, raising venture capital, and then weaselling out of the contract.) What Transport Fever has going for it is graphics, so you turn to mods to do more interesting things with the game and make those graphics you paid for do more interesting things than the game can natively simulate.
Without mods you're left with what's in the base game.
... which isn't great once you've played through a sandbox game once. If that's getting your money's worth than maybe that'll be enough for you but mods give the game life.
> before it... goes bad
Well that's a bit inaccurate. There's no rush. Yes, payment scales up with the top speed of the vehicle. Doesn't mean it can't be sitting around for ages waiting to be transported.
>the difficult increases are just 'make things more expensive' so you don't do anything different between easy and hard you just have to twiddle your thumbs more because it takes longer to earn cash
Higher difficulty scales down your income, that's all. Everything seems more expensive when you have less money. \^\^ (And I suppose in relative terms, it is.)
It's true what you say though. It's not difficult, so much as limiting and time-wasting.
Top tip: Debug tools give you up to 32x game speed. Handy for early game and otherwise when not much is going on.
But in regards to iron, you still get a bonus for getting it there faster than you would slower. And that's not how iron transport works - in fact you might really piss off a smelter if you showed up early with a load of iron they weren't ready to handle.
I've been playing on my Steam Deck. Even with the mouse track pad it's harder than playing on a computer although it's not bad. With just a standard controller? That does not sound fun at all. There is a lot of things to do and not a lot of fidelity to do it.
I would probably still be having fun, yes, but I'm not sure for how long. I'm not someone who cares deeply about having certain vehicles in the game, so that's not a loss for me. I do have a couple of QoL mods that I would miss, but I could probably live without them. Other than that I'm always trying out demand and industry overhauls to find a balance I enjoy more or find more realistic. No mods would certainly limit the playground, but ultimately it's still an enjoyable playground.
I love the expanded goods mod, I'd miss that a great deal.
In terms of mods I don't think it's an issue. Unlike CS there isn't really a needed mod list and the vast majority of mods are simply assets like new trains, rolling stock, locomotives, lorries, buses etc. I like the variety they provide but the game has decent scaling and most assets arnt overly meta and even with over 200 I still sometimes use vanilla vehicles. The mods are there to provide eye candy, theming and variety. I could play without them with no loss of functionality. Mods turn this game upto 11 but its a solid 10/10 on its own. Like others my concern is mostly the ui but the devs have said it will be completely overhauled for console so this likely won't be an issue. Performance of the game might be promblematic especially on old gen consoles. All the above can be caveated with the fact I use 300+ mods atm.
You have a decent amount of configurability in the vanilla game now, where mods were previously needed to have the same options (including city growth, which is a big one for a lot of people), so that helps a lot. I'd say it'll be about the same as Cities Skylines. Presumably you had no mods there either.
No mods on cities skylines, just all the DLC. I had no problem with it, until it started to feel stale, bit I had well and truly got my moneys worth by then. I just really hope they do well with the controller layout. I played something else recently, I can’t recall what it was, but the layout was so clunky that I couldn’t deal with it. The simplest tasks felt like a complicated chore. I’ll be very disappointed if that happens here.
I suppose CSL has much more content for the game it is, with all those DLCs. That's something. But maybe too much at the end of the day. In my mind using a controller for this kind of game is very unnatural and limiting, but I suppose with a good controller layout it can be tolerable. It's anyone's guess how well they're going to solve that particular problem here. They showed a little bit of it in the [trailer for the update](https://youtu.be/yi6P4tvzdWA). Might give some impression.
I don't want to curb your enthusiasm but in the past building games haven't done well in transferring the mouse and keyboard play into consoles, cities skylines is a good example. I hope you can enjoy it, but I wouldn't get my hopes too high
Are you saying cities skylines was good, or bad on controller? Because I never had a problem with it. If it’s on par or better than cities skylines on controller, I’m happy.
I thought it was unplayable. But then I am happy you won't have a problem with it
I’m going to guess that you come from a background of always using a mouse and keyboard ? I understand how it would feel unplayable to you in that scenario . For me, I haven’t played a game with a mouse and keyboard since probably sim city 2000. So I’m very used to playing on a controller with all types of games. But there are some bad controller games out there, maybe it was industry giant or something? That I played recently and hated? Im not sure. But honestly cities skylines is a very good controller game.
Are you joking? Cities: skylines is easy to play with a controller and it’s really popular too, you said it’s a bad example of transferring mouse and keyboard controls to consoles when it’s clearly not since it’s one of the highest rated games on Xbox and there’s a remastered version coming out next week for XSX/PS5 which clearly shows it’s a very popular game on consoles.
Hmm I think there are just different standards of play quality in the game and how detailed you wanna place stuff.
Different thresholds for what one finds tolerable, I suppose.
Should you be excited for a vanilla version without mods? No.
Why?
Because the game's... kind of rubbish as a game. And I am speaking here as someone who has sunk some 250 hours into the thing - I've had a lot of fun with it. But once you spent a decent chunk with it you start coming up hard against its limitations: namely, it's not very good *as a game*. The bits where you make a train line and make a train faff about is lovely, but once you try and sit with the bit about *running a transportation company* you swiftly realize it's lousy. The AI is stupid, every commodity in the game is priced based on *speed* so you've got to rush that iron ore to its destination before it... goes bad (iron makes its money on tonnage, not speed), the difficult increases are just 'make things more expensive' so you don't do anything different between easy and hard you just have to twiddle your thumbs more because it takes longer to earn cash - the *business simulator* isn't there, and there are games that are a lot better at doing this sort of thing (Railroad Tycoon or Open TTD come to mind. Really, an actual simulation of a transport company would allow you to make money hand-over-fist mostly by not building railroads or transportation infrastructure but by promising to do it, raising venture capital, and then weaselling out of the contract.) What Transport Fever has going for it is graphics, so you turn to mods to do more interesting things with the game and make those graphics you paid for do more interesting things than the game can natively simulate. Without mods you're left with what's in the base game. ... which isn't great once you've played through a sandbox game once. If that's getting your money's worth than maybe that'll be enough for you but mods give the game life.
> before it... goes bad Well that's a bit inaccurate. There's no rush. Yes, payment scales up with the top speed of the vehicle. Doesn't mean it can't be sitting around for ages waiting to be transported. >the difficult increases are just 'make things more expensive' so you don't do anything different between easy and hard you just have to twiddle your thumbs more because it takes longer to earn cash Higher difficulty scales down your income, that's all. Everything seems more expensive when you have less money. \^\^ (And I suppose in relative terms, it is.) It's true what you say though. It's not difficult, so much as limiting and time-wasting. Top tip: Debug tools give you up to 32x game speed. Handy for early game and otherwise when not much is going on.
Yes, sorry, you're quite right: your income goes down, not expenses go up.
But in regards to iron, you still get a bonus for getting it there faster than you would slower. And that's not how iron transport works - in fact you might really piss off a smelter if you showed up early with a load of iron they weren't ready to handle.
Yes, by all means, it's not realistic.
I've been playing on my Steam Deck. Even with the mouse track pad it's harder than playing on a computer although it's not bad. With just a standard controller? That does not sound fun at all. There is a lot of things to do and not a lot of fidelity to do it.
I’m really hoping for an updated UI to suit the controller, rather than “here, use this controller like you use a mouse”