The Train Stations... Travel between the wastes

[CxR2262]

After giving TTW a fair amount (~60 hours) of play time I had a few thoughts relating to travel between the wastelands that I thought I would share. Before I go any further, let me say that TTW is without a doubt the single greatest mod to any game I've ever used. To say that TTW is mind-blowingly good is an understatement and I appreciate the teams time and effort placed in not only making TTW but converting and supporting so many other mods and improvements on the side.

With that said, I have some serious issues with how the Train Station at Columbus Circle is presented to the player. Starting from the Capital Wasteland, it is already complex enough to find Columbus Circle and navigate to the Train Station there-in. You have to go out of your way to even know that there is a new zone and travel through several other train tunnels to get to the Mall then Columbus Circle. The fact that Columbus Circle is a wholly new area is awesome, but exploring this new area only to find that there is still a fetch quest and a group of super mutants awaiting you inside the Train Station was a huge dissapointment. If you find Columbus Circle and you make your way into the Train Station, which is beautiful by the way, you should immediately be able to go directly down to the train tracks. You have to pay caps to ride, you have to find Columbus Circle, you have to get into the Train Station, isn't that enough? Any player who goes through the effort of finding Columbus Circle is unlikely doing it randomly, they are ready to travel to the other wasteland, but currently it feels like you are penalized with an arbitrary wall preventing you from your goal for a few extra minutes.

Inside the train station, I think it would be nice to cut out some of the extra fat as well and lead directly down to the train tracks rather than those extra empty spaces between. I also noticed there were duplicated contents in a lot of the suitcases there, which all seemed to have 20 pre war money. Traveling back from Freeside is a wholly different experience, and is presented in a much more favorable way. I'm also not a fan of the respawning enemies inside the Train Station at Columbus Circle.

If the TTW is attached to the current presentation, would it be possible to at least present it as an option when installing? Provide an optional esp or version that eliminates this extra fetch quest at the Columbus Circle Train Station.

Thanks for the time to read this.

[TAWM]

Okay I've heard this argument before by some YouTube gaming channels about this mod.  Look Columbus Circle the train station there is suppose to feel like an actual train station.  TTW pulls that off extremely well in my view so it being quite large for you having to navigate around doesn't really bother me since it makes sense. 

 

As far as the quest goes...look if it was super easy to hop on a train and head out to New Vegas over half the DC population would've left for New Vegas before the lone wanderer even leaves vault 101.  If anything the train station should feel abandoned lost to time with no one or only a handful of people even knowing about it.  If everyone knew about the train station most people of the capital wasteland would've fled the war torn hell hole of DC for the much safer New Vegas a long time ago.  So honestly I think the quest to get the train station up and running makes logical sense.

 

As far as the New Vegas side goes I think that should actually have a similar quest as well.  The way it is now you would think you would run into NCR and/or Legion scouts  in the train station in DC or their corpses.  If anything I would say Vegas needs a quest to get their train station up and running for the return journey back to DC. 

 

Also if you get tired of using the trains to go back and forth between the wastes you can always use this mod

http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/57318/?

I personally use The Falcon TTW mod myself and it makes traveling between not just the wastes but between the DLCs very convient.  Want to kill some mutant hillbillies in point lookout and then go gambling at the Sierra Madre afterward?  You can do so with the Falcon without having to go through the capital wasteland or the mojave. 

 

[jlf65]

The funny thing? Most players think the station is TOO EASY, so there's a couple mods out that make it EVEN TOUGHER. I think this is the first post I've read asking for an easier station.

[CxR2262]

To be fair, I think its an issue of not being hard enough or easy enough. Currently, the quest and interior enemies are just kind of there as an arbitrary deterrence. I'd be a fan of a fully fleshed out quest chain to get across the wastelands but I think its kind of unnecessary for the team to invest time in that so I'd prefer a simpler presentation once you get inside the Train Station for travel.

I also may've noticed this more than an average player because I intended to go to the Mojave sans-equipment and have a new build up of gear until I got to Freeside to get back to DC. So I cleared Columbus Circle, dropped off my gear in Megaton and returned to Columbus Circle only to find a Super Mutant gang with rocket launchers and what seemed a pointless fetch quest inside. It was probably this specific situation that made it stick out like a sore thumb, but I can't be the only person who leaves their gear behind for the journey; I've seen posts about similar things here in the forums that gave me the idea in the first place.

 

--ASIDE

As for add-ons I currently use the Mobile Truck Base to deal with the annoyance of the Train Travel, but should the average player really have to install several mods just to improve the travel between the wastes? I had to install sort-o-matic, the truck, and the fast-loading time hotfix just to use for traveling between the wastes.

Thanks for the Falcon recommendation though, I hadn't seen it before.

[jlf65]

I don't know, if you're role playing this, you don't know the station is there. You're going to go with your full load-out because you DON'T KNOW what is there... could be super mutants with rocket launchers! After you clear them out, learn what this place is, get it working, and realize you can go someplace else, THEN you go home, dump the unneeded stuff, wrap up the loose ends, say goodbye, and come back to a cleared out and working station to leave forever. But that's just me.

[CxR2262]

Is the average player, who, mind you, has to look up a detailed walkthrough of how to find the station to even get there, going to play their game as a completely role-playing experience? That being said, I play heavier on the side of actual roleplaying which is why I left my gear behind; its unlikely I'm going to be buried with gear. There are sacrifices between roleplaying and playing a game during any single player game. If there is a quest leading you to the station in the next release, explaining that it seems to be overrun with supermutants it would play more into what you said.

I guess as a fan of the mod its instinctive to defend it, but it seems kind of contradictory to me for the first response to say "I've seen several similar responses from youtubers" to the next post saying "most people want it harder"; pardon, but I'm assuming neither of you are part of the mod team but just fans.

While I do personally love the TTW mod, and I'm grateful for the people who work on it for taking the time to do so, I think its important to voice my opinion in what I view a constructive manner. Your responses may be indicative of the larger player base, or the forum goers, but they may also discourage others to voice their own opinions in the future.

[RoyBatty]

Like we usually tell folks that want this or that, pick up of the GECK and change it how you want it. ;)

[jlf65]

Yeah, it would be super-easy to remove the baddies you don't like... maybe make the fetch quest easier by moving the doo-dad to an obvious location. Removing and/or moving things in an existing mod is far easier than making the mod in the first place. It's a great way to get started in modding for games like Fallout - make the simplest changes to existing mods. Then make less simples changes. Then make difficult changes. Then make your own mod completely.

[ChickenPasta]

As an average player I can tell you that, after starting this and learning THIS is how to get to the train station - completely kills the mod for me! it's TOO MUCH. It should be optional entirely. Getting to vegas SHOULD BE EASY. To hide the way to the next part of the game is laughable, and goes to show why none of the people involved in this mod make professional video games - you DO NOT KNOW HOW TO MAKE SOMETHING FUN AND FAIR. IF you wanted it to be this way MAKE IT OPTIONAL, again because YOUR OWN WORDS are that you are considering the "average" - well, that's me, and I HATE THIS and am basically DONE.

INb4 you say "gEt MoDs" I have A TON already and really dont' want MORE just to do what should be EASILY DONE. AT the least have a DIFFERENT OPTION built in to the mod so I can easily go from DC to vegas. Why do YOU CARE how I PLAY? DO NOT FORCE the player to do BORING FETCH QUESTS. Or go ahead and do it, and PROVE WHY you are AWFUL at whatever you do!

[Bullfrog]

DC is crowded with Super Mutants, so having Columbus Circle without them would make no sense. Having a Super Mutant Overlord with a missile launcher guarding the station is a tad overkill in my opinion, but that could be changed easily.

Having a "different option" as you describe it, basically leads to a mod. You could do this yourself, for example make the Super Mutants a bit weaker or have the subway tunnel lead directly to the inner area with the New Vegas train. It's up to you.

TTW was designed with certain decisions. You don't like all of them, I don't like all of them, so it's up to us to change what we don't like (which is what I do) or just accept TTW the way it is. Certainly we don't have the right to try and force the TTW team to do things the way we want. Show a little respect for the hard work that was put into this mod, instead of sounding like an entitled brat.