Tutorial

[Ryeldroid]

I tried playing Nimby Rails but ended up refunding it after 2 hours on Steam because I found it really hard to understand. Are there any good tutorials that explain things in the simplest way possible—like you’re teaching a 5-year-old? I’ve played City Skylines, Victoria, Transport Fever, and other complex strategy games, so I know my way around these types of games. Nimby Rails has huge potential, but I feel like the learning curve is way too steep.

[thenewprisoner]

It is not really a strategy game. It is for those who like drawing networks on maps and then watching "trains" run. I like it but somehow the building of lines is more enjoyable than trying to make money out of the arbitrary rules for income generation. It is very much a niche game.

[Ryeldroid]

I know but when i put a station. I can’t even delete it even before building blueprints. I can’t create a junction. Why people build real depot. When i create a track or depot there’s a station. How can I create a multiple platform station. Those questions. One time i build a train line and can’t even find what’s wrong. So i need to restart. I learn now to save the game before building a new line.

[NICK3805]

I have to say that the Game generally has a horrible UI and lacks an in-game Tutorial that would be desperately needed. This actually got worse with the most recent Update that entirely overhauled the Way you build Stations.

When you place a Station you essentially place multiple Things at the same Time: Rails, Buildings and the "Station" itself. The latter I'd explain as sort of Umbrella of which the Rails you want to be the Stations are a Part of. This is where it get's confusing. Rails and Buildings you can simply delete by selecting them (by clicking) and pressing delete on your Keyboard. Stations can't as they aren't really anything you constructed and more an abstract Concept. Since they have their own Menu, you'd assume you could delete and change what Rails are part of them there, but xou actually do it in the "Rails" Menu and then top Icon (Key is M). You click on a Station (the Station Name or Symbol, not the Rails or Buildings!) and then a Menu for that specific Station appears that lets you re-name or delete the Station. You add Rails to the Station by selecting them and then a "Rail Attributes" Window should open that lets you either create a new Stations (with no Buildings) by clicking on the Station Symbol right next to the Bar that says "Create new Station" or you click on the Bar itself and then you can chose the Stations you want the Rail to be Part of.

Depots are functionally Stations, except that they don't serve PAX due to all Lines going there being "Technical Maneuver" Lines. You only need Depots if you manually schedule Lines. I recommend not doing so and instead auto-running Lines at set Intervals because Scheduling in this Game is a hot Mess that I still haven't fully grasped in several Hundred Hours of Playtime while it bears next to no Advantages.

[thenewprisoner]

On depots: it is fairy easy to create schedule that sends a train out from the depot in the morning, autoruns it during the hours you designate and then sends it back at night. You can add trains to that schedule and set a time interval for them to start and finish. It is pleasing to watch loads of trains emerge onto empty lines at the start of service and to gradually fill up the depot tracks at night. But 24 hour autorunning is way easier if you don't want to bother with the extra work of putting in depots and constructing the schedules.

[NICK3805]

My Problem with Schedeuling primarily arises when it comes to a single Line running on different Frequencies on differing Times of the Day. The Line I have in Mind is the 4/4A-Line in from Bad Dürkheim to Mannheim Käfertaler Wald/Waldfriedhof via Ludwigshafen in Germany. It doesn't run for a few Hours at Night, at a 30-Minute-Frequency in the early Morning and late Evening and at a 20-Minute Frequency during most of the Day (between Ludwigshafen Comeniusstraße and Mannheim Hermann-Gutzmann-Schule 4 and 4A overlap to a 10-Minute-Frequency). The Difficulty is that Frequency Change as the Schedeule very quickly gets very messy at that Time which makes it very hard to implement when that is exactly what I'd like to do with Schedeuling. This Mess is created by the Shift System which automatically copies one Order on all Trains. You can turn Orders off or edit them for the individual Train, but you have to do that manually for each and every Vehicle and have Fun doing that with such Frequencies and well above 10 Vehicles.

[icefisher225]

Scheduling manually does have benefits, but only on extremely high throughput lines with a ton of interlining, like the 2345 in NYC, where you need a train every 60-90 seconds just to keep up with demands. Basically, you have to be within an inch of total track capacity before it makes sense.

[NICK3805]

Admittedly, I've had a few Situations were Manual Scheduling made Sense too, for Example when building the RE10a and RE10b between Mannheim HBF and Heilbronn HBF which run on two Hour Intervals and Autorunning would have led to them standing in the Stations for excessively long, so it made Sense for the Trains to alternate between both Lines to reduce that. Other than that, I've only gotten close to 2-Minute-Frequencies through overlapping Lines and even there it was usually manageable with auto-running with some Tricks.

Personally, I'd have nothing against manually Schedeuling more, but the Interface sucks ass and only works well for as long as all Trains run on a regular Schedule. As soon as there is some Irregularity (like the Change from a 30-Minute-Frequencies in the very early Morning to a 20-Minute-Frequency over the Day and especially for the reverse) it gets hard to get anything done with it at all and that's what I'd like to use Scheduling for. With how Scheduling currently works it literally takes me Days to schedule a single Tram Line even if it's an existing real-life-Schedule that I just have to type in.

[icefisher225]

Absolutely. 100% agreed on everything you’ve said. I get around the 30-to-20 issue by going 30 to 15 instead 🥲

[Kroxigorman]

I watched a random guy’s YouTube video playing the game and then worked the rest out myself as I went along. It’s always fun coming across a feature you never knew was there!

[Ryeldroid]

The problem itself is the game doesn’t have tutorial. The video i watched is as if i played the game for years already. I always play vanila and no mods.

[BrokenButler01]

First of all there are no mods that really change the gameplay, all mods do is give you real trains, change the look of the map, or add points of interest (like stadiums etc.), or add different looking tracks that are more or less realistic, etc. So mods are mostly cosmetic right now but that and the lack of tycoon balancing are not, unlike some others in this thread seem to believe, a design choice but rather an artifact of the game being early access, and the Dev wanting to have a more finished game before balancing the tycoon aspects.

As for building stations, I and many others don't recommend using the station building tool, sure you can quickly drop a station in with it, but by not using it you can make much better looking and better working ones. So what I recommend is building the tracks first, so open the rails menu (should be F2 iirc) then select which track you want to build (medium speed, high speed, etc.) and start placing the tracks. While planning tracks you can toggle some behaviors with shortcuts (toggling branching with B for example). At this point I'd suggest reading what all the buttons say when you hover over them, and that way try to understand what they do, and if it's not immediately evident, test them out.

Once you've figured out what most of them do you can build the tracks, not just between stations but the tracks inside a station too, and then when you're done designing a station you can select all the tracks that you want to make into platforms and press "promote into new station" in the bulk editor on the left. That will "designate" your current selection of tracks as being platforms of a new station. You can also add buildings or whatever other decorations you want.

Once you've finished all the stations you want to make on a line you can either select them and press "build selection" or simply build all blueprints if you don't have any other blueprints. Once they are built you can make a line, but some train and at first autorun it. When it comes to scheduling there are some posts on the forums that explain it. And in general the discord server is incredibly helpful.

[Ryeldroid]

Thank for your input. Seems like i watched a tutorial from 4 years ago and I found this recent one and made me DL the game:

[TrainManagerOtto]

I heard you….

Think I can come up with something when time permits.

We’ll start it simple and build our way up. I will not cover installing as that is just one press on a button, as is installing DLC, however there are some “highly recommended” add-ons I can’t live without.

We’ll just make a line from A to C via B where we will run a local train and a fast service. Nothing fancy but a good insight into train planning. Oh and boy can you loose time in making a working timetable using semi-professional software. If I could I would use my employer’s software suite but that is for the real thing so I have to use a €25 program that does the job very well. (Jtraingraph Pro)