Steam Engine Simulator DLC Beginner Tutorial

Congrats on the release!
I stumbled a bit early on and almost failed, but "you don't win the very first time you play" is not a universally bad trait for a video game. I did win the game on my first try, on normal difficulty, and I was already up to 4000 population before you made the three lower difficulties easier.
I think this is excellent for your first paid game release, and good even not considering it's your first. Well done. :)

I love the minimalistic view of it. It's three buttons. they'll find it...

Not fun

Already finished it, great game Ange. Loved it

I'd say that yes, the mailbox should have a red circle around it in the tutorial.

You have a game here that borrows some design language from existing games, but it's also very much it's own thing with it's own design.

In most other games with a mailbox or equivalent it's usually an actual mailbox, or like a "phone app", or something in the inventory menu. A simple red box that disappears the first time you click on the mailbox tab and never shows up again would be the kind of thing I would absolutely expect from a game with a new design language.

Congrats on the release!
I was thinking though is there any plans for bringing it to arm systems? That is all have a good day!

Thank you for the tutorial, I really needed an explanation of the reverser and the release valve
Also the Linux version of the base game is acting weird? It installs but doesn't launch from Steam, and yet running the .exe works perfectly, even on my potato laptop... I'll look for the bug report submission link later

I think my main problem was I don't know that much about engines lol, the testers were probably a more dedicated bunch. That being said I'm having lot's of fun with it, particularly fond of the cryptic letters you receive once in a while since it reminds me of papers please.

Great work! Definitely worth the wait. But I did search for the mailbox for an embarrassing amount of time lol.

Just curious, What does D, S1, S2 and S3 stand for?

I love the DLC. The systems interlock very nicely and it keeps me motivated to improve.

The reverser was very difficult to grasp for me. Now I understand how to handle it better!

Hope the game was a financial success and it helps you fuel your next endeavour.

Congratulations for the release. Keep up the great work.

I have a minor suggestion -

When you 'switch-up' the splitter-gear configuration from S3 - 1 to D-2, you should first put the gear lever to 2 followed by the splitter lever to D. Doing it the other way around would momentarily put the engine in a high stress situation.

Hi, comment about the transmission. I think it would make more sense to arrange the gears more like a semi truck or tractor transmission, where you’d have a low and high range, ie: low range 1-6, then shift into high range 1-6. I think it would be more intuitive than 1 low/med/high 2 low/med/high ect.

One thing I would like to see is how much water is being turned into steam and how much water is being put into the boiler and seing the difference in a digital format.
Currently we have the water inlet flow rate gauge and the water level gauge. I would like to be able to click on the small water level gauge and see a digital number on the side like the other gauges.

Overall nice game already enjoying it

The sandbox could be helpful for new players if only they will use it correctly to test and compare different settings.

I played and finished the game in easy. I struggled in a couple of very basic stuff, like finding the clock or where the mailbox was. The red circle idea is not bad.

put a bright red ! bubble on the flashing mailbox

I wanted it but its paid and i can't spend money right now. is there any way i can get this free?

please give me an answer

My suggestion is to dim the whole screen and only highlight the mailbox. It is a bit of information overload at first. Though I found it I have experience reading cad drawings and know how to look at a page full of information. But to some its just overwhelming. Being able to force someone to focus on certain portions of the page and help them learn to look at this page could be good.

also I think the issue is with testing you have people way more likely to understand this stuff. Its impossible to predict what most people will do or think. Glad you made this video. The more you can help people understand the more people who will not leave the game and enjoy it more.

Some things I figured out that may help people who are struggling;

More water= Less efficient fuel use. The game recommends 10CC of water, I recommend about 5-6. The more water you have, the more fuel you have to spend to heat it and that means making less money.

I already finished the game haha. was great.

interesting that you do not use the rangebox for shifting through the gears. very important later on if you have a heavy flywheel.

the transmission was definitely a point of confusion for me. now i completely understand it.

I know what I'm doing for the next couple days. Edit I restarted and it's so much easier now thank you.
Love the dlc btw

How do I wake Isambard?

Absolutely love the dlc, its so much fun. Thank you for all your hard work!

very well put together DLC. already finished the game, not sure what to do next since I have about 300K in the bank in the game. More content after the main story is complete would be nice.

Don't be at all disappointed by this DLC release, it is an excellent addition to a refreshingly 'true feeling' miniature steam experience, you have people of all capabilities, and you have done an excellent job catering to all, worth every penny, well done!

I mean it took me several days to even get the engine running before the DLC. It shouldn't be hand fed to players. My only thing is that either I'm blind or I cant seem to find exactly how much energy Im producing. The only thing I have to go on is the image of steam town and the sound of the generator turning on.

was there a link to this within the game that I missed? because if not this should definitely be linked in the game

edit: after watching, I realize that I didn't need 90% of it. I'm struggling to manage the load at like 3,000 population. One thing I noticed is that you were fine with the engine running really slow - like 25 rpm. I've been trying and struggling to keep my engine at 60rpm this whole time. Didn't the tutorial say that was where it needed to be? Also what can you do if you already have the reverser wide open and your pressure maxed, but you're still losing speed after dropping a couple gears? It feels wrong to be going to fourth or third when I haven't even unlocked more than level 2 upgrades.

>derivative gauge type thing

Variometer.

First off, this is a brilliant piece of work. Good tips here, I was running too high a pressure, made it annoying to get water in.
I felt like a dofus when I was playing for a while, generating away, but not at the right rpm range. A visual boolean indicator of if it's an acceptable frequency would be nice. I looked at the power output and was like "yeap I'm making power". I believe real generators will disconnect from the gird if the frequency is off too much, so I was kind of expecting that.

First off the DLC is amazing.

I would ask for one small clarification.

The water inlet valve appears to actually be a regulator.

It seems to let no water pass until the valve passes a certain threshold where the water can overcome the boiler pressure. This behavior would suggest that behind the curtain it is actually controlling the water pressure outside the boiler and is not a true valve.

I think some players may crash the boiler often because they might not grasp the difference between operating a regulator vs a valve.

Currently there is a strong inverse relationship between the boiler pressure and the water flow.

A true valve would have an Uper limit on flow even if the boiler was a vacuum.

This is my only nit Pick and otherwise the simulation feels very very good. Well worth the price.

PS. I think the engine's peak power is around 280 rpm in the sand box.
At this point the flow restrictions in the valve assembly appear to cross the rising power curve of the "constant" tourqe engine. Would love to know what others have found.

One thing thats really needed my dude, is keybinding. Thank you very much

Now that you have the steam engine part done, when will you be making the DLC where the burner gets replaced with nuclear fuel rods? Maybe we can replace the exhaust with some kind of turbine? Might we more efficient. Also we're gonna need a cooling tower and lots of safety measures. We don't want a meltdown! - Sincerely, the people of Steamtown

I'd love to be able to just hover a control and use the scroll wheel to adjust it. I know there are keybindigs for that but they were a bit unintuitive to me. I didn't know I had to hold the key and use the scroll wheel at first. Also having to remember which key corresponds to which control is a bit annoying - just being able to hover and scroll would be much easier.

i am -$30,000 in debt rn and the number keeps getting bigger 💀

I was really struggling at first. I had the steam pressure set much higher than necessary, which caused my running costs to escalate and eventually led to a lot of debt. I just couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. Your video really helped clarify things and gave me a much better understanding of how everything works. Thanks so much for the insight!

You didn't have the problem from testing? Did you use people who already know how to use a steam engine? Because that could be it. I'm pretty sure you mentioned that in a video if i am remembering correctly. If they didn't know anything about steam engines, then idk...

as a stupid person, all i can say theres levels of stupity and that its impossible to make things both accessible and hard enough at the same time for everyone to enjoy it. ~ A dude who doesnt know how to get to good efficiency, even on easy

The transmission gives me flashbacks to Clarkson in his semi truck.
'change gear, change gear, change gear, change gear, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, change gear, murder…'

I think you may have vastly overestimated how much more skilled you are than most of us... There's also a positive feedback loop with the water that bit me several times: if you drop the heat too quickly (or ingest a bolus of cold water), the pressure will drop and then the inflow of water will increase which then drops the temperature which then drops the pressure and it very quickly quenches the whole engine. Not that this is bad (it's a natural consequence of the physics), just that it might be something for beginners to look out for.

i had a problem in tutorial, i wanted upgrade the boiler but icant becaus i cant shut down the heater becaus i didnt get the control for it becaus the tutorial.

Noob

Can you put some markers in sandbox mode on sliders to show the upgrade values from urban generation mode? Just so I can set sandbox engine to some "level", not just values. I know the visuals change depending on "level" of parts (flywheel gets thicker with weight)

That little gauge you pointed to, is called a delta gauge, in this case Delta-P as it's showing you the change in pressure over a period of time

Love the new dlc. I got nervous that it would be too hard, but overall it’s not very hard to run. Very well done

I've gotten the engine to 4000 rpm, is that viable to run the city?