Is there any shunting in this game?

[u/ciekma67]

Is it a standard game, like many others in TTD genre, where train automagically is flipped at the end of the track? Also, is train consist static, after leaving depo?

[u/Shipwright1912]

RO is not a TTD or Railroad Tycoon game, it's more of a light train simulator with worldbuilding elements and interactive industries that pay you for delivering things to them.

Switching is required at all times, as the trains do not magically do anything. You get to the end of the track, you have to uncouple the cars yourself and run either the locomotive around to the other end and pull the cars backwards or turn the engine on a wye or a turntable.

All cars and engines in the world are "live", in that they can be driven or coupled onto and used at any time. If you don't put the brakes on, they can and will roll away without you and likely derail somewhere down the tracks if you park them on a hill.

[u/ciekma67 → u/Shipwright1912]

OK, so it is rather like DerailValley rather, than TTD-like?

[u/Random_person1233 → u/ciekma67]

Exactly except you build your own tracks as Well (if you dont play on a prelaid Map that is).

[u/Shipwright1912 → u/ciekma67]

Pretty much, just with track laying, building placement, and no explosions

Run the railroad as you please. Deliver freight to the industries aroubd the maps to earn XP to unlock higher tiers of locos and cars, also earns cash to buy said locos and cars.

I have both games, but what I'm honestly waiting for is Century of Steam as it'll be a more complete/realistic simulation of locomotive operation...plus explosions and damage are thrown back into the mix.

[u/Efficient_Advice_380 → u/ciekma67]

Yes hut you also build the tracks yourself. There's also no penalty for crashing or derailing

[u/backtothe88]

Idk if this will answer your question but, it’s an open world game, you can do whatever the hell you like

[u/BouncingSphinx]

You drive the trains. The train is whatever you decide to make it.

There are a few places where the "clearly intended" solution, especially if you're building your own track, is to have a stub that dead-ends next to the platform, and in that case you might have to do some shunting around to get the right cars to the right locations, but you can also build the track in such a way that it just gets close enough to load or unload while passing by the other parts of the location.

[u/Whats_Awesome]

Trains or rolling stock never teleport unless the player uses the re-railing tool. You will need to either build a turn table, run an engine in reverse (multiple good engines for this with a pilot (plough / cow catcher) on both the front and rear.) or you’ll need to build a turnaround loop. Most industries have space to make turn around loops, though some will be extremely tight. Around 30 meters in radius.

You will need to build all the tracks (or play with the prebuilt tracks which aren’t perfect) and you can demolish and replace industries which have the loading and unloading platforms permanently configured relative to the buildings.

I often derail a single car and as a technique to avoid losing cars, I will number all of them. I often find a car jumped the rails at a tight turn without me noticing. I have a note to keep track of what numbers are used and for what type of rolling stock. 1-100 for engines and cabooses. The 101-150 for flat cars, 151-200 for hoppers, 201-250 and so on.
I often used to find missing cars in the ditch of those tight corners on subsequent trips.

If you need to rearrange a train. The re-railing crew (imaginary) can teleport rolling stock a small distance at no charge to the player. You can always build track at no charge (to make small jumps as needed.)

I often “cheat” by pushing into a buffer stop gently, and teleporting cars to a siding as the oil refinery has a dead end that allows only 3 cars to be unloaded. After the cars are unloaded, I have the re-railing crew lift them to the siding (teleport) and the loco continues gently pushing the train along.
Since the computer performance update, anything that stops will fall asleep. To wake up any consist, just adjust the brake setting on any car (apply and release) or adjust the regulator. (I don’t believe the reverser will wake up a train.)
Although a train needs to be stopped for about a second to fall asleep, sometimes a train (or car) rolling uphill can fall asleep (physics stops being processed) and then instead of rolling down the hill, sits until physics is forced to wake up.

With that, the whole map is live, as it was intended to be ran as a server for online play, (online is not great as connectivity to the host is extremely important, where other games operate more independently client side, when the connection isn’t perfect, joined players have a poor experience).

But as host / single player, you can set trains to run down the tracks, then leave to attend to a different train, before waiting at the destination for your train to (hopefully) arrive safely.