Dear railway fans,

A short while ago, we started a brief survey where you were able to provide us with your thoughts about the passenger transports in Rail Nation. We are very happy with the result and would like to thank you all for participating!

In the following, we will present the most common suggestions and share our views on them with you:

• The 10 minute suspension after reactivating engines from the museum detracts from the game experience and should be removed.
  Reply: There is a good reason why we can’t remove that suspension. If engines could be moved between the museum and cities without a short suspension, it would be possible to teleport trains. This would have a major impact on balancing and fairness in the game. Players could for example jump across the map to a different city in order to take part in a competition there. Afterwards they could just move their engine elsewhere again and transport goods there. Without the suspension, it would be possible to skip empty runs or routes that aren’t very lucrative.
  Explanation: An engine travels between A and B, is parked in the museum and is then put back on the map at A. This would result in a shortened travel time.
• Players delivering to cities don’t get enough revenue from transporting passengers (picking them up in the next city). In contrast, players receive too much money for serving routes with greater distances.
  Reply: We’ve already made some adjustments here. This difference, however, is not entirely unintentional. If many players serve the same route, they will earn less money. If, in contrast, a player is serving a route only by themselves, income is high. Players are supposed to be rewarded for taking tactical approaches with their engines (including the supply of city goods). Just like the great effort of building an extensive railway network, it’s all about strategy here.
• Passenger engines should be available for purchase in addition to the cargo engines and they shouldn’t use up the same slots in the engine house. So overall there should be more room for more engines.
  Reply: A change like this would also have a great impact on balancing. While a player now has to decide for one of these engine types, thereby following a certain way of playing the game, separating these slots would mean that all players could permanently use both types of engines. So the decision between cargo and passengers would become obsolete. Players would just do both, since the engines are readily available. This would mean that all players would have more money available and hence influence other aspects of the game as well. Increasing the amount of engines a player can own would also impact the game’s performance.
• There should be more passenger engines in each era – two at least.
  Reply: That’s one wish we are happy to grant! The idea of having more passenger engines first came up when we developed this feature. Please give us some more time.
• Research has become too difficult with the introduction of the passenger transports – it’s impossible to research the passenger engine, the best cargo engine and the coupling.
  Reply: Early laboratory upgrades can be really useful here. The money gained from passenger transports also helps to further upgrade this building, meaning the new engines will help you get a return on that investment.
• The waiting times for passenger transports are too high. They also can’t be influenced.
  Reply: There will be one small change regarding this issue in the summer. Stay tuned! 😉

We wish you lots of fun and travel safely!

Your Rail Nation Team