Overcrowd: A Commute ‘Em Up – Useful Tips & Tricks

by Falagar / Articles, Misc. Guides / 22 Jun 2019

Maintenance

Machines like turnstiles, ticket machines have a condition value; they could be seen by hovering your mouse on them. With a staff equipped with a tool kit, you can maintain these machines before they potentially break. This is good for your station and your staff, as repairing a machine takes very long, causes noxious fumes, and reduces your station’s reputation. Regular maintenance of machines would grant your staff experience, reduce the time to fix a machine, prevent the generation of noxious fumes, and keep your commuters happy.

Invest in lights and carriages early

As mentioned earlier, commuters do not like gloomy stations; lighting is a must-have when you start your station. Investing in more carriages and newer stocks would increase the throughput, and hence reducing the overcrowding problem. When you have a big train, you would like to send off the first train after passengers alighted as passengers would not board the train anytime soon. Once they are ready to board the train, another train will be arriving.

Invest in Level 2 trash bin early

Though Level 2 trash bin only increases the capacity by 5, it is 50%, and doing so actually makes your commuters left prone to littering (not sure if it is true simply because the bin is less prone to full). Micromanage your staff to clean the bin when they are 50% full because full bins would generate noxious fumes, harmful to both your staff and commuters.

Save bonds and money for new procurements.

Some players might tend to use up the bonds whenever they have something unlocked. This is unnecessary because not all of them are of immediate use. Sometimes this could kill you off (you might not lose the station, but it could cause serious trouble). It is a common mistake to spend all the bonds, and suddenly a commuter with cardiac arrest pops up (oops). A good practice is to check the to-do list on the top right-hand corner; if it asks you to build a rat rod, your station will probably be infested with rats very frequently; that way, you can prepare for it.

Do NOT over-expand your station.

Overexpanding is something that players are prone to do but do not realize is harmful to their station; if your station is flooded with commuters, you are advised to close one of the entrances or set them to exit only (yes, you can do that), otherwise overcrowding. The spread of disease could make you lose reputation quickly. Set up alarms to evacuate commuters if a pandemic outbreak is out of control. Please do not attempt to hold the alarm and move them around after building one because that does not work and would trigger the alarm. Sell it instead and build a new one.

Plan ahead

If you are an accomplisher and want to have all of your stations reach five stars, you might spend 5-10 minutes planning where to put your platforms as you cannot overlap platforms and concourses in this game. Once you open the station, there is no going back unless you abort the challenge.

DIY some pillars

Items like ads and vents could only be built on concourse walls, but walls are scarce. If you have a huge concourse, you can consider removing 1×1 floors in the middle of the concourse to build some pillars; that way; you can hang four ads or put some vents on the pillar. Note that these pillars would block light sources.

Falagar

He is the founder and editor of Magic Game World. He loved gaming from the moment he got a PlayStation 1 with Gran Turismo on his 7th birthday.
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