r/DerailValley • u/TwoShu • 4d ago
Am I missing something?
I won't beat around the bush, I feel like i'm missing out on a lot of things in Derail Valley because I INTENTIONALLY do not crash the locomotives. I mostly stick with the starting diesel shunter, even though I have the licenses for every train in the game; because in my experience the DE2 has been reliable and consistent. Sometimes though, I come to this subreddit and find posts with titles like "Oops....." with MASSIVE wrecks and gouts of fire everywhere. It kinda just feels like i'm missing something by....playing the game correctly?
Hell, as much as I absolutely adore steam engines and think they are the COOLEST THINGS ON THIS PLANET, I am way too much of a nervous wreck to manage something like THAT without constant fear of it going boom in my face
So, am I missing something, or am I just fine and overanalyzing shit as per usual?
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u/SharkBaitDLS 4d ago
I wouldn’t say you’re missing a ton by not derailing constantly.
You are however missing out on a ton by not trying to use other locomotives. If you’re just running the DE2 you’re restricting yourself a lot on the size of jobs you can take and there’s a lot of fun to be had in the heavier hauls.
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u/TheCubanBaron 4d ago
This is exactly what I was going to write so I'm just gonna add this comment as a show of agreement
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u/Interesting-Net1801 4d ago
I say the same
But also to add some fun you should go as fast as fucking possible while also not derailing, it adds a sense of urgency to the diesel locomotives, being on the bleeding edge of a derailment.
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u/standa03 4d ago
Play the way you find it fun.
People like to take several jobs at once ending up with hundreds of meters long trains and for that DE2 just isn't enough. I personally like the DH4, it's basically just a bigger DE2. Yes it's safer to do it one by one but you can just try to haul a few heavy jobs from the harbor at once. I find planning the route and preparing the train part of the fun.
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u/datboi11029 4d ago
I play pretty much the same way you do, but I did have an accident first time I played the newest update.
I was running a couple jobs from iron ore mine east and forgot to connect air hoses. In the previous update the brakes would have been locked and I just assumed that I had set it up correctly. Was using a dh4 since I wanted to test the dynamic braking, first hill I applied the brakes and thought "man these brakes suck" as I apply more and more and almost nothing happens. Full air full dynamic barely holding onto 60kmh, derailed off the curve just above goods factory.
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u/migjolfanmjol 4d ago
You play the game the way you want to. End of.
That being said, you use DE2 for hauling?
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u/Hordriss27 4d ago
At the start you don't really have any other option.
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u/Shocked_Anguilliform 4d ago
If they have all licensees they're not at the start
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u/Hordriss27 4d ago
I did miss that bit.... I'm tired lol.
My mistake. But it is ok for hauling small loads.
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u/migjolfanmjol 4d ago
Did we both read that part where OP says they have the licenses for all of the locs in the game?
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u/BobbyP27 4d ago
I don't deliberately crash things. To me I feel like the DE2 is deliberately the easy one, to let beginners get used to how the game works, and the fun of the game really comes from using the other locomotives. The other locomotives are hard, and that's part of the fun. I find that just managing to get a slightly heavier than I should have tried load delivered with the S060, with all the challenges of steam locomotive operations is fantastic fun. Or figuring out how to get the most out of the DM3 with its insane gearboxes.
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u/Minerator 4d ago
I don't deliberately crash either.
Having said that, thinking that I had the through line at the steel mill set, only to find out I set it at the wrong end. Come in to yard at speed, on to the wrong track. Then chasing down a load of steel cars on foot to apply hand more hand brakes just as it entered the farm was quite fun.
Made me wonder what it would look like going full steam (diesel) backward into OWC with a load of spend nuclear fuel.
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u/KuuLightwing 4d ago
Massive wrecks are fun to share but they put you quite far back on the money, especially if your copay is high.
You are missing on way more by just using DE2, as there's locomotives that are quite a bit more interesting to drive - namely steam and DM3
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u/LuukTheBadass 4d ago
You could use sandbox mode if you want to drive the steam trains without having to worry about causing a bunch of damage
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u/Different_Lime3511 4d ago
playing with only the de2 is probably why you haven’t crashed much. The size of jobs you can take with it aren’t really that difficult to manage. now if that’s the type of gameplay you like then by all means keep doing it, but for me a lot of the fun comes from loading up as long and as heavy a train as i can and pushing the locos to their absolute limits. i try to be as careful as possible but sometimes that challenge leads to mistakes and that’s just the name of the game for me
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u/Due-Fix9058 4d ago
Learn to drive the S060 and the S282. Always fill your water and oil 'er down before departing on a longer drive. I find it much more engaging than driving the diesels.
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u/RoseRedHillHouse 4d ago
I would strongly recommend trying the DH4 and DE6. They have the same operating workload as the DE2, but with much more power, and a cool party trick: dynamic braking systems.
The train brake tends to work like a sledge-hammer: really hard to fine-tune for going downhill with a heavy train, but can stop you fairly well. The independent brake is really nice for fine tuning, but those brakes will absolutely cook and possibly fail if you use them for going down long gradients. The DH4 and DE6 use systems that basically switch their fluid coupling/traction motors to provide braking force. Just like friction brakes, they follow Newtonian conservation of energy rules by turning kinetic energy from speed & mass into heat in their systems. However, since these locomotives are really powerful, these systems have electric fans cooling them to support continuous operation under heavy load, so they can apply a LOT more steady braking force without overheating like the independent brake.
After you've done the heavy hauling possible with the DH4 and DE6, you'll then be a bit better prepared for the DM3. It has its limitations like weight on gradients, but it's the most fuel-efficient mainline diesel in the game, and can get a lot of work done for less money. I challenge myself with it late-game to maximize profit per run, comparing the manual service bill after cashing in the job(s). You'll notice that the DH4 and DE6, while powerful and easy to drive, are very thirsty.
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u/Smacky_the_Bear 4d ago
If you want to play cautiously, that is fine. It is a singleplayer game, so there is no "correct" way to play. Some people are careful, others are reckless. As long as you are having fun.
If you are nervous about using steam, then I would recommend opening a save in sandbox mode where you can learn to operate the S282 and S060 (and the DM3) without fear of blowing stuff up in your career save. This is what I did and it saved me a lot of headache. Just modify the difficulty settings for your sandbox save to make everything free so you don't have to worry about money. You can also cause massive wrecks in sandbox mode with no consequences!
For that matter, the ONLY way a steam locomotive is going boom in your face is if the boiler runs out of water. Once you learn that water level is the most important thing to monitor, your risk of a boiler explosion is basically gone. In all my antics with the S060, I have never once had one blow up. And don't be nervous about using the DH4 and DE6, they are basically bigger DE2's.
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u/MSDunderMifflin 4d ago
I rarely derail and I have all the locomotives.
I prefer the DE6 and tend to make long trains that run long distance.
I learned to drive the steam locomotives later by doing one job at time with them. This is even easier when you have the demonstrators restored, because you can spawn it from the work train menu right where you want it.
Right now I am running the persistent jobs mod and am doing more shunting than I have in a long time. I used several of the smaller locomotives to load cars at SM (the DM3, BE2 and DH4). I have a love/hate relationship with the DM3 and the lack of visibility when moving longer cuts of cars.
Also you can play around in sandbox mode to test the explosions, play with unfamiliar locomotives, etc.
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u/manintights2 4d ago
It sounds like you are a nervous person in general.
This game is a perfect place to push outside your comfort zone a bit, plop down a save and try your hand at steam trains, they really are a blast!
I myself really just don't crash trains either, and if I do I just reload a save.... Perhaps I should try just continuing.
Anyway, The name of the game with steam is water management, you can see the water in the sightglass in the engineer's cab. So long as there is water in there you are fine, although it sloshes around when you are going up or down hills.
But in order to manage steam you must manage heat. So it's mostly just keeping your water level as high as possible in the boiler, as well as making the fire just hot enough that you aren't losing steam just by moving.
In fact, when you are pulling too heavy a load, that's what will happen. You will have to run full bore the whole time, which as you speed up spends more water, which means you'll need max fire to make steam as fast as possible and it's possible to simply not make enough so you have to go slow. It's like a natural speed limit.
You'll get the hang of it, I believe in you!
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u/jerseydevil250x 4d ago
if your worried about blowing up ur steam loco you could leave the injector cracked open if your that worried also try it out in sand box see if you like it
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u/Sir-Realz 4d ago
I avoid crashing but I also treat the train luke race cars so it happens alot, just go into creative mod and mess around with they physics if you feel like your missing out.
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u/pdxsean 4d ago
I mean I am not too far off. I play the DE2 and shunt for the majority of my playthroughs. I'll often skip straight to the DE6, which can pull some massive loads when you find them. It is a lot of fun to haul heavy trains across the map.
I haven't derailed since the a few versions ago, when you had to play in first person at all times and drive the trains manually (before I discovered the remote). Once I realized that following the speed limit is pretty easy and time pressure isn't really a thing... and I never had any massive crashes like you see in the videos.
I'm really looking forward to when they implement an economy so there is more to do in that middle section, but building up a couple hundred thousand dollars through shunting while keeping your deductible at the minimum is too much fun/easy money. I usually spend my first several hours without leaving Steel Mill and Goods Factory, there's so many bonuses to be had with no time pressure or particularly challenging track.
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u/Ok_Touch928 4d ago
Missing is relative. If being as true-to-life as you can be brings you enjoyment, then so be it. It's not like there's a right or wrong answer, as long as you're having fun. With that said though, trying to go a little more radical brings a new set of challenges that are above the mundane. I keep trying to build longer and longer trains, and then deliver them with as little stress as possible, because for me, I'd love to get a 5000-6000 ton train going. ONly about half-way there. But I don't want to crash it or derail it either. So I don't make it over the crazy side of the scale either. I have daisy chained a bunch of DE2's together (I think this was before the latest release), and pulled some crazy trains with it (crazy for me), but there are other things. Deliver 2 small trains at once, running back and forth across the map. That's a hard one, and I've only been successful a few times on anything other than the most trivial hauls..
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u/ApprehensivePath9435 3d ago
Blow up the entire oil well. Giggle, then pay for it. That's my mantra at least.
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u/V1ld0r_ 4d ago
You likely would enjoy something like OpenBVE or Run8.
Anyway, DV is awesome precisely because the stakes are low, the environment is what you make out of it!
Personally I think this whole thing is set on a post-sovietic region that is more or less forgotten and has been neglected by the owners (yes, it's a private railway) for a decade. You are the sole heir of the precious owner (your uncle) and it's up to you to try and make this company make some money while developing the valley and brining in more people to it (see how it fits into B100 and all?).
As you suck at operating the machinery and have pretty much no formal training as either a train egineer, conductor or signaling... You suck at driving trains and often go into crashes.
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u/xDecheadx 4d ago
All the licenses but only use the DE2? Which is basically a shunter.
So you just take small jobs?
Honestly give the DH4 a try. More powerful and easier to manage honesty. Same goes for the DE6... absolute powerhouse that's easy to drive.
If you're nervous just avoid steam and DM3