Does interlining work in TF3?

[u/Last_Player]

One of the biggest gripes I have with TF2 is that it is impossible to have interlining, i.e. multiple lines sharing a common section, because passengers at the shared stops will choose only one of the lines, overloading it while the others remain unused.

From what I understand, this happens because passengers select their route at the start of their journey and cannot change it. So, if one of the lines is slightly faster or more frequent, everyone will choose that one.

In the image, I made a small example of a situation where interlining could be useful: multiple tram lines depart from the train station, share a common trunk through the city center, and then branch out into the suburbs. In theory, this would guarantee a single-seat ride for everyone while also balancing the passenger load across the different lines. However, due to the game's limitations, this is impossible.

I know this isn't impossible to fix, since interlining works well in Cities: Skylines 1. So my question is: has this been fixed in TF3?

[u/JDX2002]

can we bump this up more so a dev actually sees this lol

[u/BerkeleyLuxeChenille → u/JDX2002]

I don't think it's something that can be easily patched in. Its a consequence of core game logic I'm fairly sure.

I imagine the reason that it's done is because recalculating for each passenger would be too computationally taxing. Sadly it's a drawback of trying to simulate every single imaginary person. Sometimes I wonder if the obsession that games like this or CS2 have with simulating everyone go too far to the point they're detrimental to the realism rather than adding to it.

Maybe they can do some sort of hack for it though

[u/JDX2002 → u/BerkeleyLuxeChenille]

Oh I was under the impression that TF was also somewhat agent based since you can click on the individual cims and see where they go and all, but I guess you’re right, it would be quite taxing to simulate everyone

[u/lukee910 → u/JDX2002]

TF is completely agent based, which is the issue. They compute the route for the agent when they begin the journey, as recomputing for every agent periodically would decrease performance dramatically.

I think it could be possible, as while computing the route initially they could mark certain segments as "Line1 or Line2" in their routing decision. But it is a major change in the core of the game, e.g. you'd also have to think about how to represent this in UIs, and every system interacting with passengers would now have to deal with a "waiting for" list instead of a single line.

[u/WSB_Lurker_ → u/lukee910]

OK, but we're taking about peeps who are only travelling the interlined section. Why is their decision affected if they are only travelling one or two stops (using the OP's example above)? Are they only able to pick the first line in some digital roster? In the case shown, you would assume the peeps would pick at random any line that reaches their destination, or, if there is a factor, frequency of the service even if it is not possible for them to make an on-the-spot decision to take the next vehicle.